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Sharon Erickson Nepstad, Catholic Social Activism: Progressive Movements in the United States, Social Forces, Volume 99, Issue 1, September 2020, Page e15, https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/soaa017
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Sharon Erickson Nepstad’s book, Catholic Social Activism, is an extremely well-written and accessible book that explores US Catholics’ engagement with social issues. Rooted in her own social movement research on US Catholics engaged in social justice activism, Nepstad’s book explains Catholic Social Teachings, highlights historical development within Catholic Social Thought, and importantly, elucidates this all from a sociological perspective.
As the book’s subtitle indicates, this is not a comprehensive exploration, but rather focuses on progressive movements in the United States. While Nepstad usefully notes two conservative US Catholic thinkers in her introduction and the recent development of conservative Catholic organizations utilizing competing interpretations of Catholic Social Thought (e.g., the Acton Institute), I want to point out that these thinkers and organizations have, thus far, played a marginal role in US Catholics’ lived religion. This is not to diminish their ideas or impugn their efforts, but simply to note, empirically, that the religious lives of US Catholics have been much more powerfully shaped by the progressive movements explored in this book.
