num_pages: 214
description: Images on television and in the popular media have made the Christian right a household concept - but what that usually means is the Protestant Christian right. Cuneo's study highlights the equally vigorous though less well-known Catholic counterparts, ranging from the Marianists, such as the followers of "Blessed Veronica" of Bayside, to picketers at abortion clinics across the United States and Canada (militant lay Catholics who believe that "public witness" is a vocational enterprise of the highest order, one which the vast majority of bishops, priests, and nuns are too lacking in faith and nerve to perform themselves); from separatists who believe that even Rome itself has fallen and that true Catholics should withdraw and form alternate communities, to Latin Mass advocates who believe the reforms of Vatican II are the work of Satan himself. These American Catholics are united by a common in the space of just three decades, the mainstream Catholic church in the United States and elsewhere has fallen into alarming decline, and the task of preserving authentic Catholism (and thus Christianity itself) from outright extinction has fallen to small bands of the truly faithful. As Cuneo draws striking portraits of these faithful few, he also provides some fascinating asides on contemporary issues, including an innovative analysis of the ideological relationship of right wing Catholic groups with the militia movement and a provocative assessment of militant Catholic prolife activism.
language: English
title: Smoke of Satan: Conservative And Traditionalist Dissent in Contemporary American Catholicism
titlecomplete: Smoke of Satan: Conservative And Traditionalist Dissent in Contemporary American Catholicism
genres: History, Religion
ratings_count: 31
publisher: Diane Pub Co