Jack Lee Downey
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780823265435
- eISBN:
- 9780823266906
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823265435.003.0008
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter examines John Hugo's role in the spiritual regeneration of Lacouturisme in the United States. By the winter of 1949, the debate over Lacouturisme had become firmly rooted in America. ...
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This chapter examines John Hugo's role in the spiritual regeneration of Lacouturisme in the United States. By the winter of 1949, the debate over Lacouturisme had become firmly rooted in America. Hugo, a diocesan priest from Pittsburgh, was the figurehead of the retreat movement. He translated the retreat into American idioms and almost single-handedly reconstituted what had been a primarily clerical, socially withdrawn, insular francophone movement within Québecois Catholicism into a powerful stimulant for Lacouturite spiritual revival in the United States. Under Hugo's stewardship, the retreat gained a more public, populist slant and also became more organized in its confrontational posture than it ever was in Québec. This chapter considers how Hugo's retreat inspired a form of “public Catholicism” that marked an evolutionary mutation in the American model. It discusses his manifesto entitled Applied Christianity, Joseph Clifford Fenton's response to it, and the anti-intellectualism and “the paranoid style” among the “Lacoutermites”.Less
This chapter examines John Hugo's role in the spiritual regeneration of Lacouturisme in the United States. By the winter of 1949, the debate over Lacouturisme had become firmly rooted in America. Hugo, a diocesan priest from Pittsburgh, was the figurehead of the retreat movement. He translated the retreat into American idioms and almost single-handedly reconstituted what had been a primarily clerical, socially withdrawn, insular francophone movement within Québecois Catholicism into a powerful stimulant for Lacouturite spiritual revival in the United States. Under Hugo's stewardship, the retreat gained a more public, populist slant and also became more organized in its confrontational posture than it ever was in Québec. This chapter considers how Hugo's retreat inspired a form of “public Catholicism” that marked an evolutionary mutation in the American model. It discusses his manifesto entitled Applied Christianity, Joseph Clifford Fenton's response to it, and the anti-intellectualism and “the paranoid style” among the “Lacoutermites”.
Jack Downey
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780823265435
- eISBN:
- 9780823266906
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823265435.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This study investigates the origins, development, and influence of a controversial retreat movement which emerged as a self-consciously countercultural response to the socio-religious revival in ...
More
This study investigates the origins, development, and influence of a controversial retreat movement which emerged as a self-consciously countercultural response to the socio-religious revival in early twentieth-century Québec. The movement's founder and namesake, Onésime Lacouture, S.J., developed a redaction of the Ignatian Exercises that was heavily informed by his mystical experiences and ascetic theology. The retreat was wildly attractive to some, while others saw it as overly severe, possibly heretical. The retreat endured Lacouture's personal suppression, and migrated southward to the United States, nesting among sympathetic clergy constellated around Pittsburgh. Its most prolific advocate and apologist was a diocesan priest named John Hugo, who traded blows with antagonistic critics and was himself “exiled” to a series of suburban Pennsylvanian parishes. Hugo would proselytize the retreat tirelessly, and found an enthusiastic vessel in Dorothy Day—cofounder of the Catholic Worker movement, candidate for sainthood, and an icon of contemporary radical Catholic activism. From a socially withdrawn contemplative movement—deeply opposed to mainstream Canadien assimilation into Anglo Canadian culture and the then-ascendant “social Catholicism”—the Lacouture retreat would morph into spiritual fodder for arguably the most radically socially engaged iteration of Roman Catholicism in North America. This book discusses the evolution of “Lacouturisme” and its impact on Catholic Worker theology within the contexts of the Christian ascetic tradition, Catholic engagements with “Modernism,” and spiritual transnationalism.Less
This study investigates the origins, development, and influence of a controversial retreat movement which emerged as a self-consciously countercultural response to the socio-religious revival in early twentieth-century Québec. The movement's founder and namesake, Onésime Lacouture, S.J., developed a redaction of the Ignatian Exercises that was heavily informed by his mystical experiences and ascetic theology. The retreat was wildly attractive to some, while others saw it as overly severe, possibly heretical. The retreat endured Lacouture's personal suppression, and migrated southward to the United States, nesting among sympathetic clergy constellated around Pittsburgh. Its most prolific advocate and apologist was a diocesan priest named John Hugo, who traded blows with antagonistic critics and was himself “exiled” to a series of suburban Pennsylvanian parishes. Hugo would proselytize the retreat tirelessly, and found an enthusiastic vessel in Dorothy Day—cofounder of the Catholic Worker movement, candidate for sainthood, and an icon of contemporary radical Catholic activism. From a socially withdrawn contemplative movement—deeply opposed to mainstream Canadien assimilation into Anglo Canadian culture and the then-ascendant “social Catholicism”—the Lacouture retreat would morph into spiritual fodder for arguably the most radically socially engaged iteration of Roman Catholicism in North America. This book discusses the evolution of “Lacouturisme” and its impact on Catholic Worker theology within the contexts of the Christian ascetic tradition, Catholic engagements with “Modernism,” and spiritual transnationalism.
Jack Lee Downey
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780823265435
- eISBN:
- 9780823266906
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823265435.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This book explores the history and evolution of the Lacouture retreat movement, from its roots in Québec to its southward migration to the United States, where it emerged as spiritual fodder for what ...
More
This book explores the history and evolution of the Lacouture retreat movement, from its roots in Québec to its southward migration to the United States, where it emerged as spiritual fodder for what seems to be American Catholicism's most profound expression of the radical praxis of liberation. Founded by Onésime Lacouture, an iconoclastic Jesuit evangelist from Québec, the movement as a type of Catholic revivalism would find support from John Hugo, a diocesan priest from Pittsburgh, and Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement. This book examines the sequence of events that furnished the causes and conditions whereby Lacouturisme was born and matured into a provocative phenomenon. It also investigates the impact of the Lacouturisme movement on Catholic Worker theology within the contexts of Christian asceticism, Catholic engagements with “Modernism,” and spiritual transnationalism.Less
This book explores the history and evolution of the Lacouture retreat movement, from its roots in Québec to its southward migration to the United States, where it emerged as spiritual fodder for what seems to be American Catholicism's most profound expression of the radical praxis of liberation. Founded by Onésime Lacouture, an iconoclastic Jesuit evangelist from Québec, the movement as a type of Catholic revivalism would find support from John Hugo, a diocesan priest from Pittsburgh, and Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement. This book examines the sequence of events that furnished the causes and conditions whereby Lacouturisme was born and matured into a provocative phenomenon. It also investigates the impact of the Lacouturisme movement on Catholic Worker theology within the contexts of Christian asceticism, Catholic engagements with “Modernism,” and spiritual transnationalism.
Jack Lee Downey
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780823265435
- eISBN:
- 9780823266906
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823265435.003.0007
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This epilogue examines Dorothy Day's absolute pacifism as part of her maximalist practical theology. It considers the pacifist form-of-life that Day defended in the face of World War II and how it ...
More
This epilogue examines Dorothy Day's absolute pacifism as part of her maximalist practical theology. It considers the pacifist form-of-life that Day defended in the face of World War II and how it corresponded to her evangelical poverty as both a form of witness and technique for forming Christian conscience. From its inception in 1933, the Catholic Worker movement hit the streets with a distinctive amalgamation of radical politics and maximalist Christian spirituality, maintaining a dogged opposition to all forms of militarism as an evangelical sign of contradiction against the prevailing “just war” traditions that dominated Catholic moral theology and international policy. This chapter discusses the influence of Lacouturisme—largely under the stewardship of John Hugo—along with Peter Maurin and other critical interventions in Day's spiritual development on Christian maximalism that became the hallmark of the Catholic Worker personalism.Less
This epilogue examines Dorothy Day's absolute pacifism as part of her maximalist practical theology. It considers the pacifist form-of-life that Day defended in the face of World War II and how it corresponded to her evangelical poverty as both a form of witness and technique for forming Christian conscience. From its inception in 1933, the Catholic Worker movement hit the streets with a distinctive amalgamation of radical politics and maximalist Christian spirituality, maintaining a dogged opposition to all forms of militarism as an evangelical sign of contradiction against the prevailing “just war” traditions that dominated Catholic moral theology and international policy. This chapter discusses the influence of Lacouturisme—largely under the stewardship of John Hugo—along with Peter Maurin and other critical interventions in Day's spiritual development on Christian maximalism that became the hallmark of the Catholic Worker personalism.
