Christendom College history professor Dr. Christopher Shannon joined EWTN News this past weekend for a discussion on the role of Catholics in shaping American history. Shannon, a nationally recognized scholar of American religious and cultural history, reflected on Catholics’ evolving place in American society and how that relationship has changed over the nation’s 250-year history.
Appearing alongside University of Notre Dame historian Dr. Kathleen Sprows Cummings, Shannon spoke with EWTN’s Catherine Hadro about the history of Catholicism in the United States, the challenges Catholics have faced throughout the nation’s history, and the opportunities ahead as America celebrates 250 years since its founding.
During the discussion, Shannon reflected on the dramatic transformation of Catholics’ place in American society. Once viewed with deep suspicion and prejudice, Catholics gradually demonstrated their patriotism through military service, civic leadership, and faithful participation in American life.
“Catholics seem just so darn American now,” Shannon observed during the interview, noting that Catholics ultimately proved themselves to be deeply patriotic, though often “on their own terms.”
The conversation also explored the witness of American saints such as St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, and St. John Neumann, the relationship between Catholicism and American public life, and the significance of Pope Leo XIV becoming the first American-born pope. Shannon also reflected on how Catholics have navigated the tension between love of country and fidelity to the universal Church throughout the nation’s history.
Shannon, who earned his Ph.D. from Yale, has been teaching and writing about American Catholic History for over two decades, including his acclaimed work, American Pilgrimage: A Historical Journey Through Catholic Life in a New World.
At Christendom College, Shannon teaches courses ranging from American Catholic History to Irish American History and the Medieval World. His books include Conspicuous Criticism: Tradition, the Individual, and Culture in Modern American Social Thought (Johns Hopkins, 1996), Bowery to Broadway: The American Irish in Classic Hollywood Cinema (University of Scranton Press, 2010), and with Christopher O. Blum, The Past as Pilgrimage: Narrative, Tradition and the Renewal of Catholic History (Christendom Press, 2014).
Watch the full discussion below or on EWTN’s YouTube channel.
