Will Herberg, Paul Blanshard and Cold War Nativism

Stirring the Melting Pot: Will Herberg, Paul Blanshard, and America's Cold War Nativism
Author(s): Justin Nordstrom

Source: U.S. Catholic Historian, Vol. 23, No. 1, The Fiftieth Anniversary of "Catholic,
Protestant, Jew": Will Herberg's Book, Then and Now (Winter, 2005), pp. 65-77
Published by: Catholic University of America Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25154946
Accessed: 09-08-2016 23:26 UTC
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted
digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about
JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Catholic University of America Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access
to U.S. Catholic Historian
This content downloaded from 132.174.254.47 on Tue, 09 Aug 2016 23:26:06 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Stirring the Melting Pot:
Will Herberg, Paul Blanshard,
and America's Cold War Nativism
Justin Nordstrom
Virtually everyone who has grown up in the United States is familiar with the
term "melting pot" as a way of describing the American nation and its immi
grant populations. This image suggests that diverse groups of travelers came
to the United States, where their ethnic, linguistic, cultural, and religious differences
were boiled down and combined. The result, so the story goes, is a homogeneous and
uniform America?individual ethnic groups might have contributed the ingredients for
the stew, but the resulting concoction has a look and taste that is unrecognizable from
its predecessors and distinctly American. Ironically, but perhaps fittingly, the term
"melting pot" itself is not of American origin, but is taken from the 1908 play of the
same name, which was written by Israel Zangwill?a Jewish immigrant in London
who pined for the stories of opportunity and prosperity that had enticed many of his
counterparts to make the voyage across the Atlantic.
Like Zangwill, many Americans, in his time and for generations ever since, cling to
this myth of the American melting pot, which showcases a nation that tolerates a high
degree of social difference and pluralism, a nation that is both changed by its immi
grant populations and which, in turn, changes immigrants themselves?transforming
them from foreigners to bona fide Americans. I say "myth" because successive genera
tions of historians have worked diligently to challenge, transform, and, in some cases,
outright contradict the familiar conception of the melting pot motif. Some historians
have questioned the extent to which immigrants and their families surrender their
ethnic and linguistic traditions in favor of a homogeneous national culture?suggesting
instead that immigrant cultures were transplanted to and persisted in the American
landscape. Likewise, scholars, myself included, have challenged the notion that immi
grants were routinely welcomed to contribute to and draw from the nation's melting
pot, showing, in contrast, that full equity and citizenship were kept at arm's length from
certain groups of American newcomers through xenophobic fears, racial undertones,
and eugenic mindsets. Successive "waves" of immigration, historians, public policy
65
66 U. S. Catholic Historian
analysts, and sociologists have argued, have given rise to more division, just as they
have produced new opportunities for liberal inclusion.
But perhaps the most concerted and well-argued critique of the melting pot mythol
ogy comes from the sociologist Will Herberg, who attempted to explain and transform
Americans' understanding of immigrant ethnicity. This year we have the occasion to
celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Herberg's monumental study, Protestant, Catholic,
Jew: An Essay in American Religious Sociology, which argued that America's immi
grant and/or ethnic character had become largely supplanted by identification with one
of three dominant religious traditions mentioned in his title. First published in 1955,
Herberg's text began by addressing the rapid increase in Americans' church attendance
during the early Cold War era. How could we explain this new bout of religious de
votion, Herberg wondered. Ultimately, his study concluded that Americans in the mid
1950s were no "holier" than prior decades, nor did recent surveys demonstrate any
abnormal degree of piety. Instead, Herberg asserted, Americans had simply come to
assume religious identities in the place of older, ethnic ones. Americans were going to
church more often, Herberg contended, because religious labels were carrying greater
weight in the post-World War II period, while distinctly ethnic labels?like Scottish,
Swedish, Armenian, or Polish?were less appealing and losing their individual na
tional traditions.
In effect, Herberg asserted that postwar America had set aside the conventional
melting pot ideology. America did not have one melting pot, Herberg said?it had
three. Protestantism, Catholicism, and Judaism stood as three archetypal religions that
worked to break down individual differences and assist immigrants in making the tran
sition from newcomers to Americans. Much could be said about Herberg's analysis;
hopefully this issue will form the beginning of a thoughtful retrospective on his crucial
thesis. But, for my purposes, what is important to consider about Herberg's text is what
he says about the melting pot concept on one hand and his timing on the other.
In fact, one of the most ironic aspects of Protestant, Catholic, Jew is that it coin
cided with the extreme popularity of another outspoken author and commentator on
American religion?the controversial anti-Catholic writer Paul Blanshard. Blanshard
is best known for his book Catholicism and American Freedom, first published in 1949
and reprinted extensively in the following years, which articulated a scathing indict
ment of the Catholic hierarchy and its supporters. Ironically, Blanshard shared with
Herberg an understanding that the monolithic melting pot ideology was incomplete and
in need of adjustment. But whereas Herberg looked to Catholicism as one of America's
"great" religions, capable of transforming Catholic immigrants into genuine Ameri
cans, Blanshard argued precisely the opposite. In his work Blanshard taps into a long
tradition of anti-Catholic popular writing to insist that Catholicism did not facilitate
enculturation and Americanization, as Herberg would later contend, but instead forced
naive, superstitious, and intellectually stunted Catholics away from the virtues of com
plete citizenship and national respectability.
Stirring the Melting Pot 67
In what follows, I hope to flesh out this pivotal contradiction in American religious
writing during the mid-twentieth century, juxtaposing Blanshard and Herberg's writ
ings on American Catholic congregants. Their paradoxical arguments, I argue, shed
light onto the contentious nature of American religious pluralism in general, and Amer
ica's Catholic communities in particular, providing a valuable means of studying
America's religious diversity, past and present.
Will Herberg and the "Triple Melting Pot"
Herberg began Protestant, Catholic, Jew by attempting to explain Cold War Amer
ica's "pervasive secularism amid mounting religiosity" (3), that is, the tendency to
participate in organized religious institutions despite a secular mindset. Instead of
seeing religion and secularism as competing phenomena, Herberg argued that the three
dominant American religions continued to serve important roles of social and indi
vidual orientation despite a pervasive secular climate. Moreover, Herberg documented
a shift in the way Cold War Americans organized, practiced, and conceived of religion
itself (at least practitioners of the dominant religions mentioned in his title). Whereas
churches had traditionally served to maintain ethnic languages and traditions (particu
larly in multiethnic environments like the United States of the early twentieth century),
by the mid-twentieth century, religion in America carried out a homogenizing effect.
But Herberg attempted to complicate the conventional melting pot story. Instead of
pure synthesis, Herberg illustrated a see-saw process by which first-generation im
migrants tightened their hold on Old World traditions and religious practices, only to
see their children?second-generation immigrants born in America, discount or aban
don these conventions. These second-generation immigrants distanced themselves
from their immigrant roots, favoring "escape" from ethnic conventions, Herberg told
readers. But among the third generation an even more striking pattern emerged, as the
descendants of immigrant ancestors, according to Herberg, "are beginning to think in
terms of Catholic, Protestant, Jew, subsuming many of the older ethnic distinctions
under this new tripartite pattern" (34).
Herberg insisted that, following World War II, religion had replaced ethnicity, ge
ography, and immigrant status as the mechanism by which nearly all Americans
"identified" and "located" themselves. The triumvirate of Protestantism, Catholicism,
and Judaism stood not simply as vehicles for self-description. For Herberg, these re
ligions shared a crucial similarity that transcended any petty doctrinal or theological
differences between them?they demonstrated nothing less than "the 'spiritual values'
American democracy is supposed to stand for" (38), and, Herberg continued, "more
and more one belongs in America by belonging to a religious community, which tells
one what he is" (40, Herberg's emphasis).
In a statement that would profoundly shock and infuriate generations of anti

Catholic writers, Blanshard included (as well as anti-Semitic agitators), Herberg boldly
maintained that twentieth-century America was really a unified conglomeration of
three "big sub-communities religiously defined, all equally American in their iden
tification with the 'American way of life'" (38). Based on this claim, two critical di
mensions of the "Herbergian order" thus come into focus. First, the American "way of
life" was a fundamentally religious and Judeo-Christian one, and, second, the essential
similarities among these three religions were so overwhelming, in Herberg's view, as to
make them almost interchangeable. Antireligious hostility among the three groups out
lined in Herberg's thesis was unthinkable because, he believed, they shared equally in
the American "way of life" and were regarded as part of the same national, moral, and
social order.
Although the extent to which Herberg's thesis accurately portrayed American re
ligious identity is a contentious one, Protestant, Catholic, Jew is important for its ar
ticulation of the overlapping features of religion and national belonging. Also notable
are the religions that Herberg selected to highlight as typically American (as are, one
might argue, those he chose to leave out). Since both Judaism and Catholicism experi
enced intense hostility and persecution on American soil, Herberg's analysis would
suggest that these once persecuted religions had risen to a position of prestige, or, at the
very least, respectability and security, by the mid-twentieth century. Several historians,
however, have pointed out that the transition from the "margins" to the "mainstream"
was one of considerable unease, inconsistency, and uncertainty. Nevertheless, Her
berg's study serves as a potent reminder of the ways in which Americanism and
religion are self-reinforcing concepts, each informing and shaping the other.
Paul Blanshard and New Nativism
While Herberg's Protestant, Catholic, Jew emphasized the commonality between

"mainstream" Judeo-Christian religions in Cold War America, his was not the only
voice in the intellectual arena. In fact, though his work is relegated to obscurity today,
Paul Blanshard achieved intense popularity and created a publishing frenzy during the
Cold War, principally by demonizing one of the religions mentioned in Herberg's
title?Catholicism. In lambasting "Romanism," Blanshard joined with dozens of other
nativist writers in American literary history, stretching back to the 1830s and, some
historians would maintain, even earlier. Like his predecessors, Blanshard gained noto
riety by demonizing Catholicism as an un-American, even anti-American, force that
was quietly undermining the nation's legal, social, and moral foundations. Blanshard
focused on documenting the Catholic Church's destructive influence, its dangerous hi
erarchical power structure, and its manipulative influence in political affairs and social
policy.
In his prolific career, beginning in the late 1940s and continuing well into the 1970s,
Blanshard penned nearly a dozen monographs on anti-Catholic themes, emphasizing
Catholicism's danger to American institutions and its growing power on the world
stage. His first such book, American Freedom and Catholic Power, was released in
1949 and, in keeping with America's long tradition of popular anti-Catholic diatribes,
met overwhelming and instant acclaim. Blanshard's book quickly became a national
bestseller, earning rave reviews from public figures such as Albert Einstein and John
Dewey (who praised Blanshard's work as "a necessary piece of work with exemplary
scholarship, good judgment, and tact," an endorsement that appeared on the book's
front cover).
These endorsements by prominent American intellectuals demonstrated that Blan
shard's writing resonated with an audience of powerful and well-connected American
thinkers. Though long understudied, there has been a recent increase in the scholarly
attention paid to Cold War anti-Catholicism in general and Blanshard's writing in
particular, especially John McGreevy's exceptional article "Thinking on One's Own:
Catholicism in the American Intellectual Imagination, 1928-1960," which appeared in
the June 1997 issue of the Journal of American History. McGreevy demonstrates that
American Catholics were regarded as distinct from the "culture" of nonhierarchical
democracy, which scholars were working to codify and make normative in the mid
twentieth century. (McGreevy elaborates on these themes in his subsequent 2003 book,
Catholicism and American Freedom: A History.) Furthermore, McGreevy argued that
these intellectual currents of anti-Catholicism proved more tenacious and long-lasting
than the more well-known "traditional" opponents of popery such as the Ku Klux Klan
and evangelical Protestants.
For the anti-Catholic literati, troubling episodes of pro-fascist Catholic movements
abroad and the zealous diatribes of outspoken Catholics, such as Charles Coughlin,
at home demonstrated nothing short of a full-fledged attack on American culture.
Standing outside of a Jeffersonian religious vision and opposing the Enlightenment's
emphasis on dissention and individualism, Catholic authoritarianism was acutely out of
sync with America's mainstream ideals?a dangerous, foreign influence in the minds
of intellectuals, particularly those steeped in the Weberian mindset, which, according
to McGreevy, proliferated in the 1930s and thereafter.
Whether criticizing Catholic colleges for being intellectually backwards, denounc
ing Catholic opposition to scientific research, or lambasting the hierarchical structure
of Catholic family and educational structures, McGreevy concluded that "liberals,"
whether in the halls of academia or the pages of prominent journals, warned that
Catholicism was antithetical to American ideals and traditions. Unlike Herberg, who
saw Catholicism as a quintessentially American religion, most public intellectuals in
the mid-twentieth century said exactly the opposite. Catholicism, they argued, was
characteristic of "stagnation," "alienation," and isolation from America's mainstream.
While the most vocal denunciations of Catholicism melted away by the late 1950s,
McGreevy accurately asserted that intellectual contours of American anti-Catholicism

proved far more pervasive than inclusivists like Herberg would be willing to admit
or accept.
As the most zealous crusader of Cold War anti-Catholicism, Blanshard's work
stood apart from Herberg's pluralistic tendencies. Central to American Freedom and
Catholic Power, as one might guess from reading Blanshard's title, was the familiar
claim that Catholicism "is not only a church but a state within a state" and that, con
sequently, Catholics "were not citizens but subjects" (4). As historian Mark Massa
has pointed out, Blanshard's volume, touting what Catholic opponents branded "new
nativism," hit bookshelves at the time that American Catholics won entry to the
nation's middle class, overcoming generations of economic and social marginalization.
Despite (or, perhaps, because of) Catholics' transition to greater national acceptance,
Blanshard's book found a captive audience of American readers. Like his nativistic
predecessors in the antebellum decades, Gilded Age, and Progressive Era, Blanshard
reasoned that the Catholic hierarchy dominated the minds and, more importantly, votes
of its millions of congregants. Hence, Catholic priests, working for this conspirator
ial Vatican cabal, were equipped with an almost hypnotic influence over millions of
Catholic voters, Blanshard insisted, making the priestly establishment dangerous and
foreign-minded resisters to American ways of life. Whereas eugenic anti-Catholics like
the Ku Klux Klan had stressed racial divides, Blanshard, like other anti-Catholic in
tellectuals, claimed to preach tolerance, "charity toward men of all races and creed,"
and "complete open-mindedness toward all ideas" (36)?values, he asserted, that were
lacking in the nation's Catholic population.
Blanshard further insisted that the Catholic Church manipulated the press, sup
pressing criticism and preventing open dialogue. Throughout its pages, American
Freedom and Catholic Power insisted Catholic leaders likewise limited the free will,
academic freedoms, and independence of their own members by promoting intel
lectually stunting parochial schools, an ethos of separation from Protestants and
non-Catholics, and restrictive, dogmatic policy that prevented avenues of scientific re
search and medical practice. Romanism, in Blanshard's view, "has given many hos
tages to superstition," "exploits the superstition of the ignorant," and "has not adjusted
its teachings to modern knowledge" (211-12). Blanshard frequently postulated that if
the current ignorance toward Catholicism's dire threat to America persisted, Romanists
would certainly wield their power to upend the Constitution, make the Catholic Church
the state religion, exempt priests from civil law, ban non-Catholics from teaching in
public schools, repeal the First Amendment, and restrict marriage and divorce laws to
adhere strictly to Catholic doctrine.
Ironically, given their disparate viewpoints, Blanshard and Herberg actually shared
several biographical traits. Broadly speaking, both writers were trying to make sense
of the Cold War religious climate. But surveying their personal histories reveals other
similarities as well. Herberg began his career as the editor of Communist Party news
papers but, growing dissatisfied with Stalinism, rejected the party's message and
worked for a New York City labor union. He then worked as a full-time lecturer and
writer before securing an academic post at Drew University the same year as Protes
tant, Catholic, Jew was published. According to his aptly titled autobiography, Per
sonal and Controversial, Blanshard's career was also wide-ranging. Though ordained
at a Congregationalist seminary, the young Blanshard soon abandoned the ministry
to pursue a career in law and politics. He worked as a labor organizer, participating in
municipal reform efforts in 1930s New York City and working in a law firm. During
World War II Blanshard worked for the U.S. State Department in the Caribbean, but
eventually he returned to the States at the age of fifty-three, living in rural New En
gland where he pursued writing full-time.
Thus, both men came to their most recognizable work in their fifties, after following
a rather circuitous route and abandoning earlier ideologies. Although Herberg held a
professorship, both men could best be described as public intellectuals. One charac
teristic that biographer Harry Ausmus (the only scholar to attempt a full chronicle of
Herberg's life or writings) has noted of Herberg, but which would apply equally to
Blanshard, is that he wrote primarily as a synthesizer. In their work both men cast
themselves primarily as cultural observers and critics, concerned with synthesizing
American religious history into a coherent argument for the literate public (and not
solely for academics). There are other similarities as well. Though both Herberg and
Blanshard were prolific (by Ausmus's count, Herberg wrote over six hundred articles),
each is best known for one seminal book?Herberg's Protestant, Catholic, Jew and
Blanshard's American Freedom and Catholic Power.
And both Herberg and Blanshard had enemies, although the opponents they singled
out in their respective works were almost diametrically opposed. Blanshard's venom,
of course, was directed at the Catholic Church or, to be more specific, at the Church's
heavy-handed and hierarchical leadership. By contrast, Herberg's book challenged not
a religious group but secularism itself, arguing that anti-Catholicism, or any other hos
tility toward religion, could deprive the United States of a central cultural identity.
As Herberg demonstrated in the conclusion of Protestant, Catholic, Jew, the three
religions mentioned in his title made up the bedrock of mid-twentieth-century Ameri
can culture because they shared a Judeo-Christian understanding that "All being finds
its beginning and end in God" (254). Herberg went on to note: "Man is homo religious,
by 'nature' religious: as much as he needs food to eat or air to breathe, he needs a faith
for living" (254). And, although Blanshard repeatedly insisted that he had no qualms
with individual piety (denouncing only the Church's unjust meddling in politics, medi
cine, law, and science), his skepticism toward one of Herberg's archetypal religions
and his insistence that rationalism trump religiosity clearly put the two writers at
odds. While Herberg maintained that Judeo-Christian religion stood as a "basic form
of American belonging" (259) and practically cheered that "The old-time village athe
ist is a thing of the past" (259-60), Blanshard castigated the nation's largest denomi
nation, implicitly arguing that the United States would be better off stripped of outward
expressions of religious belief.
Given these divergent portrayals of religion in American life, it is not surprising that
Herberg voiced criticism of Blanshard's work. In the August 1949 issue of Com
mentary, Herberg wrote a review of American Freedom and Catholic Power, arguing,
"Mr. Blanshard's work... is permeated with anti-Catholic bias and is vitiated by a sec
ularist-statist philosophy that, in this reviewer's opinion at least, is far more dangerous
than anything in American Catholicism to which the book calls attention." Although
Herberg's review conceded "The claims and pretensions of the Church to legal
primacy, if not monopoly, in religion, education, and family relations, are felt to be
definitely incompatible with the liberal, pluralistic foundations of American democ
racy," he hastened to add, "These [Catholic] claims have not been and are not being
pushed in this country."
Calling Blanshard's work "vulgar anti-Catholicism," Herberg cited Blanshard for
weak logic, disingenuous arguments, and conspiracy mongering. But his major criti
cism had to do with Blanshard's use of scientific rationalism as a foil for attacking
Catholic spirituality and as a stand-in for America's core values. Blanshard "displays
a rather naive faith in what he takes to be the deliverances of science," Herberg pointed
out, especially in his tendency to "identify it with democracy or to condemn any
thing that runs counter to it as a menace to American freedom." For Herberg, anti
Catholicism was bad enough. But Blanshard's "scientism," as Herberg's review put it,
jeopardized the three-part melting pot upon which, Herberg contended, the nation's
past and present depended.
Despite Herberg's vocal objections, the extreme popularity of American Freedom
and Catholic Power spoke to a thriving Cold War market for anti-Catholic expose and
investigation. The Catholic Church's opposition to modern American thought, Blan
shard concluded, deserved criticism and scorn, not applause and admiration of the sort
Herberg would grant. For Blanshard, moreover, Catholicism's danger to the United
States itself was simply the tip of the iceberg. Although his earliest works addressed the
threats of Romanism to American shores, several of his writings present Catholicism as
a worldwide danger and international menace. For instance, Blanshard's works include
the provocatively titled Freedom and Catholic Power in Spain and Portugal, The Irish
and Catholic Power, and Democracy and Empire in the Caribbean. Blanshard's trea
tises on Catholic corruption, power mongering, and deception likewise addressed the
Church's encroachment into all corners of the world and were translated into foreign
languages. Yet, regardless of his geographic emphasis, Blanshard's point is largely the
same?the Church was out to subvert lawful government for its own ends and threat
ened intellectual inquiry and scientific discourse wherever it went.
Conflicting Viewpoints on American Pluralism
Thus, for Blanshard (along with generations of anti-Catholic pseudo-intellectuals),

Catholicism was nothing short of an international conspiracy, intent on deception and
subverting political sovereignty. The Catholic Church's global mission, Blanshard re

peatedly insisted, was to manipulate world leaders into accepting actions and val
ues consistent with Vatican objectives and interests. Juxtaposing Blanshard and Her
berg, then, we find two twentieth-century writers with diametrically opposed visions
of Catholic nationalism and its place in society. For Herberg, Catholicism (along with
Judaism and Protestantism) facilitated Americanization?it encouraged immigrant
families to cast off old ways of thought and helped them develop distinctly American
identities. For Blanshard, Catholicism was a fundamentally corrupt religion that did
just the opposite?it kept immigrants and their descendants mentally and ideologically
enslaved, unable to become genuine Americans because of their attachment to a de
praved clerical system. In effect, the question posed by these two authors comes down
to this: Is an attachment to a religious worldview, particularly Catholicism, a vehicle
for acculturation and integration into a broader, national culture (Herberg's view), or is
it a way of preserving foreignness?an obstacle to full inclusion and homogenization
(Blanshard's perspective)?
On the broadest and most global level, the answer, of course, is both. At differ
ent times and places, religion in general and Catholicism in particular can either bring
congregants more in line with national norms and political institutions or instruct mem
bers to keep away. Sometimes, the same religious body can contain competing trends.
Even on the microscopic level of an individual parish or neighborhood, scholars (no
tably Robert Orsi, John Bodnar, and Jay Dolan) have eloquently demonstrated that
individual parishioners have used religious traditions as a means of preserving and
safeguarding local languages, ideologies, and traditions, while their coreligionists in
the next pew use expressions of religious belief to demonstrate affinity and suitability
for "one hundred percent Americanism."
Exploring anti-Catholicism and antireligious hostility writ large could thus become
important not simply in its own right but also because it provides ways of studying
and teaching about more pervasive issues, such as colonization, international and do
mestic social policy, political and ideological revolutions, and so forth. Antireligious
writers and their critics could provide ways of studying complex historical problems
on a macroscopic and microscopic level. In effect, the cultural fissures generated by
nativistic disputes could serve as windows through which we can observe historical
tensions within the United States and abroad. But I want to conclude by returning to
our example of the melting pot and the American context of anti-Catholicism, repre
sented by the anti-Catholic views of Blanshard and the optimistic outlook toward
Catholicism embraced by Herberg. How do we gauge which of these polar opposites?
contrasting views of Catholicism and American citizenship?holds sway in the mid
twentieth century?
For most Americans (and I am inclined to agree) the issue of Catholic loyalty to
America was settled in 1960?with the election of John F. Kennedy to the presidency.
Largely as a result of Kennedy's electoral victory, and his subsequent tragic death,
Catholics had found an avenue of acceptance into mainstream American culture that
had proven elusive in prior decades. For the vast majority of Americans, by the late
twentieth century, as historian Charles Morris states in his study American Catholic:
The Saints and Sinners Who Built America's Most Powerful Church, "the loyalty of
American Catholics was as unquestioned as it was unquestioning." Of course, as histo
rians have frequently pointed out, Kennedy's election served as a signpost to other,
more long-standing, social transformations facing Catholics in the post-World War II
era that facilitated middle-class accessibility and acceptance. For one thing, data sug
gests that, by the time Herberg's essay was printed, American Catholics had expe
rienced economic and educational parity with their Protestant counterparts, due in large
part to the G.I. Bill provisions that made home ownership, education, business loans,
and other lucrative benefits available to Catholics and the population at large. The post
war economic and suburban boom further catapulted Catholics into the middle-class
ranks, a transformation that, though often welcomed, nevertheless presented chal
lenges to the parish-based and devotional forms of Catholicism that had dominated
prior generations.
On a more fundamental level, however, Herberg's assessment of changing social at
titudes toward Catholicism proved prophetic. Catholicism had, by the midpoint of the
Cold War, transformed, in the minds of most non-Catholic observers, from a morally,
politically, and culturally suspect agency to one that embodied and safeguarded the
nation's deepest and most essential values. More scholarship is certainly needed in this
area of recent Catholic history, to be sure, to fully explain and contextualize this com
plex sociological and cultural flip-flop. But part of the explanation certainly rests with
the anticommunist movement, which galvanized many of the nation's religious com
munities into a body ready to defend American values against "godless" communism.
The fact that Joseph McCarthy led the congressional witch hunts against alleged com
munist spies only provided more evidence of Catholics' vocal defense of American
morals and values.
Catholics' veteran status is another piece of this equation. Not only did service
in World War II put middle-class hallmarks like higher education and home owner
ship within reach, it also provided a ready foil to countermand any incipient nativist at
tacks. Wartime service and sacrifice highlighted the Herbergian emphasis on common
ality and "American values" embraced by Judeo-Christian religions. One classic story
might serve as a case in point. On February 3, 1943, an American transport ship, the
USS Dorchester, was crossing the Atlantic Ocean when it was struck by a German
torpedo and began to sink. On board were four chaplains?two Protestants (a Metho
dist and a Dutch Reform minister), a Catholic priest, and a rabbi. After assisting in the
evacuation the four men, realizing that there were not enough life jackets to save all
crew members, performed an extreme act of generosity. They each removed their own
life jacket and gave them to other sailors, drowning in the frigid Atlantic in order to
save others. Subsequent memorials, buildings, medals, and even a U.S. postage stamp
commemorated the "four chaplains" during the post-World War II era. This sort of
heroism, along with countless other examples of battlefield bravery and sacrifice, gave
postwar American Catholics the opportunity to demonstrate their appreciation for, and
contributions toward, the nation's traditions and values. And a more fitting illustration
of the influence of a Herbergian "triple melting pot" would be harder to find. Subse
quent memorials, eulogies, and recognition of the chaplains' courage and heroism only
served to solidify this message of religious commonality in later generations.
There were, and are, to be sure, critics of American Catholicism in the late twen
tieth and early twenty-first centuries. Remarking on the enduring influence and pro
foundly significant legacy of anti-Catholicism, for instance, the noted Catholic sociolo
gist Andrew Greeley has termed it "America's ugly little secret" and suggested that
academia has perpetuated America's anti-Catholic tradition. Whether in academic re
search, contemporary journalism, or even crude jokes, Greeley has argued that anti
Catholicism continues to be present in everyday life. Echoing this sentiment, two
recent books by Phillip Jenkins and Mark Massa share the same subtitle, indicating that
anti-Catholicism remains the nation's "Last Acceptable Prejudice."
Other writers, however, have been less convinced. In March of 2000, Michael Mc
Gough, of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, published an article in Slate, an online
newsmagazine, entitled "The Myth of Anti-Catholicism: Or, How the Establishment
Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Pope." Though he stopped short of labeling
present-day anti-Catholicism a mere "hoax," McGough did condemn Catholic anti
defamation efforts for hopping on the "victimology bandwagon." In truth, McGough
insisted, anti-Catholicism was far from a "burning civil rights issue" by the twenty-first
century because, while shreds of its theological antecedents might remain, the political
and social dimensions of "no popery" that erupted into political clashes and street riots
in prior generations are virtually extinct. Two years later, Richard Jensen's article "No
Irish Need Apply: A Myth of Victimization" (from the winter 2002 issue of the Journal
of Social History) repeated a similar theme, amidst intense criticism. Jensen called the
belief in Irish discrimination (particularly NINA, or "No Irish Need Apply" signs) a
"curious historical puzzle" and an "urban legend" since, he argues, they were virtually
nonexistent in the United States (he attributes the NINA legend to a popular English
song that morphed into a longstanding American fallacy). Endorsements by Irish
American politicians and fake NINA reproductions auctioned on eBay only fueled the
Irish "myth of victimization."
At issue in the Jensen and McGough articles is the belief that the curious category
of victimhood should be denied to American Catholics, or a subsection thereof. While
resolving this debate goes beyond the scope of this essay, I would point out that efforts
to "debunk" allegations of Catholic victimization point researchers in the wrong di
rection. Dismissing anti-Catholicism as a "myth" questions the viability of what is
becoming a productive and rich field of historical inquiry. We need more, not fewer,
studies examining the underexplored environment of American anti-Catholicism.
Rather than encouraging careful scholarly scrutiny, "myth" allegations throw a bucket
of water on a burning historical question?how did a once marginalized religion attain
such a high level of acceptance that a renowned scholar like Herberg could call it a fun
damental, even essential, component of American society? Calling anti-Catholicism

a "myth" does not account for the tremendous battle fought between Herberg, Blan
shard, and their supporters less than fifty years ago. Nor does it explain how debates
over anti-Catholicism continue to flood into newspapers. In fact, popular controversy
over the religious leanings and provocations of Mel Gibson, writer/director of the
provocative recent film The Passion of the Christ, coupled with intense criticism of the
Church hierarchy's handling of the priest pedophilia scandal, suggest that condemna
tion of Catholicism is anything but a dead issue. The recent controversy over John
Kerry and other Catholic political leaders who drew criticism for supporting legislation
deemed inconsistent with Church teachings again put the American hierarchy and its
critics in the headlines. In short, friction between the Catholic Church and its out
spoken opponents, and the longstanding tendency for this debate to spill into the pages
of the popular press, is not likely to end soon.
This brings us back to the 1950s and the conflict between Herberg and Blanshard.
Ultimately, I think Herberg wins the battle?his vision of Catholicism as a repository
of American patriotism triumphs over Blanshard's xenophobic outlook, and the voices
that condemn Catholicism become fainter as the twentieth century wears on. This is
not to say that anti-Catholicism should be relegated to a "myth" simply because Blan
shard's nightmarish scenarios of Catholic domination proved less salient than Her
berg's positive assessment as America's Catholics moved comfortably into the middle
class. Nor would Herberg's valorization of Catholicism exempt its adherents from sub
sequent attack, as pointed out by the Catholic League for Religious and Civil rights and
other antidefamation agencies. But America has yet to witness an example of anti
Catholicism generating the commercial and literary success, or warm embrace by the
intellectual community, witnessed by American Freedom and Catholic Power or Blan
shard's other works.
Moreover, settling the debate between Herberg and Blanshard or their contempo
rary manifestations, in some ways, is beside the point. More important than whether
Blanshard's or Herberg's mindset "wins," I think, is what themes we can learn from
their conflicting portrayals of Catholicism. In particular, the conflict between Herberg
and Blanshard suggests three themes that deserve further reflection and research.
First, as already mentioned, the conflict over American anti-Catholicism naturally
begs the question of how this plays out in an international context and what similarities
and differences we can see by exploring interreligious hostility on the world stage.
Second, Herberg's triple melting pot theory raises the thorny issue of why certain re
ligious ideologies can be considered typically American. Contemporary Americans
might well ask if Herberg's reference to "Protestant, Catholic, and Jew" reveals an
unwarranted Judeo-Christian bias. Herberg's interpretation, inclusive if compared to
Blanshard's nativism, might well prove elitist and exclusivist by our current standards.
If Herberg were to compile his study in twenty-first-century America, one wonders,
would his findings have been similar? How many "melting pots" do we have now?
Might we have four?Protestant, Catholic, Jew, Muslim? Perhaps five? Maybe none.
The contentious issue of which religions Herberg showcases and which he leaves out
provides a fruitful context to begin research in contemporary American religion and so
ciety and also suggests some intriguing angles for undergraduate teaching.
Finally, the debate between Herberg and Blanshard raises one of the most pivotal
and salient questions that can be asked in our society: What does it mean to be an
American? Are there certain populations, ideas, religions, or people that can be char
acterized as un-American or anti-American (a diagnosis Blanshard was ready to make
of most of the nation's Roman Catholics)? How does this way of thinking impact our
understanding of American citizenship in general and our imagined melting pot in par
ticular? In our contemporary cultural climate, these issues, raised in the 1950s, become
all the more important and germane.

Will Herberg, Paul Blanshard and Cold War Nativism

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Will Herberg, Paul Blanshard and Cold War Nativism

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Stirring the Melting Pot: Will Herberg, Paul Blanshard, and America's Cold War Nativism

Author(s): Justin Nordstrom

Will Herberg and the "Triple Melting Pot"

In a statement that would profoundly shock and infuriate generations of anti

Paul Blanshard and New Nativism

While Herberg's Protestant, Catholic, Jew emphasized the commonality between

McGreevy accurately asserted that intellectual contours of American anti-Catholicism

Conflicting Viewpoints on American Pluralism

Thus, for Blanshard (along with generations of anti-Catholic pseudo-intellectuals),

subverting political sovereignty. The Catholic Church's global mission, Blanshard re

damental, even essential, component of American society? Calling anti-Catholicism

You might also like