Having been outsiders and suffered discrimination in a largely Protestant nation since its foundation, Catholics in the United States have bought gradual acceptance into the American mainstream for the price of assimilation.
Some, like Clyde Wilson, have claimed that the South was a more tolerant place for Catholics. Was this true after the war and Reconstruction?
Instead of assimilating and becoming good Yankees, migth the Church not have been better off strengthening the bonds of community? Granted, this might be difficult since the Catholics themselves were of different national origins, and ethnic parishes were common. A little guidance for Catholic immigrants on where to settle might have helped? (e.g. German Catholic agrarian settlements, for example) What could have been done for those who sought work in cities caught up in industrialization? Was there enough surplus wealth to create alternative economic structures to preserve some measure of economic freedom for members of the Church?
The past is past, and nothing can be done about what has happened since then. Given the choices that Catholic immigrants made, the outcome, however unintended, seems like a necessary consequence. So what can be done know? Can Catholics pool their resources together and start living with one another? Or is there such little economic freedom for many that they cannot change their way of life?
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