Catholic Americanisms and Antisemitism: From Kristallnacht to Nostra aetate [web version]
Item
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Title
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Catholic Americanisms and Antisemitism: From Kristallnacht to Nostra aetate [web version]
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Description
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Slide deck from a talk on American Catholic attitudes toward Jews and Judaism between 1938 and 1975, tracing two competing strains of Catholic Americanism. The defensive strain is represented by Charles Coughlin, his weekly Social Justice, and the Christian Front; the pluralist strain by John A. Ryan, Maurice Sheehy, and George Higgins, and by the NCWC Social Action Department. The deck moves from the dueling broadcasts of November 1938 through Coughlin’s claim that Nazism arose as a defense against Communism, the Christian Front’s two afterlives after 1942, the Higgins–Tanenbaum–Shuster correspondence around the drafting of Nostra aetate, the U.S. Bishops’ Guidelines of 1967, and the NCCB statement of November 1975.
This is a modified version of the talk as delivered at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum on 20 July 2026. A New York Times front page obtained through ProQuest Historical Newspapers has been replaced by a transcription of its headline. An uncredited photograph of Charles Coughlin has been removed pending identification of its source.
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Item number
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612-0010
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Date
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2026-08-7
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Format type
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pdf
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Creator
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Mazzenga, Maria
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Subject
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Catholic Church — United States — History — 20th century
Antisemitism — United States
Judaism — Relations — Catholic Church
Higgins, George Gilmary, 1916-2002
Tanenbaum, Marc H., 1925-1992
Shuster, Zachariah, 1903-1986
Sheehy, Maurice S.
Vatican Council (2nd : 1962-1965 : Basilica di San Pietro in Vaticano)
Catholic Church. Nostra aetate
Christian Front (Organization)
Catholic Church — Relations — Judaism
Coughlin, Charles E., 1891-1979
Ryan, John A. (John Augustine), 1869-1945
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Place
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United States, Vatican City
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Date note
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1919-1975
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Source collection
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United States Holocaust Memorial Museum presentation to a faculty seminar on American Religious Responses to the Holocaust, July 20, 2026
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Extent
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14 slides
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Medium
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Digital images
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Language
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eng
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Rights
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© 2026 Maria Mazzenga.
Text, arrangement, and the chart on slide 3 are the author's. Images reproduced here retain their own rights status and are credited on the slides; see the individual item records for each. The photograph on slide 8 is by Lothar Wolleh, licensed CC BY-SA 3.0. Materials from the American Catholic History Research Center and University Archives are reproduced with the repository's permission, which covers use of the repository's copies and is not a copyright license. Three photographs credited to the American Jewish Committee and the correspondence of Marc Tanenbaum and Zachariah Shuster are used with permission from the American Jewish Committee.
