Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to American Catholicism
- Cambridge Companions to Religion
- The Cambridge Companion to American Catholicism
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Part I Historical Overview
- Part II Catholic Life and Culture
- 4 Catholic Worship
- 5 Catholic Intellectual Life
- 6 Catholic Education
- 7 Social Welfare and Social Reform
- 8 Women Religious
- 9 Catholics and Politics
- 10 Arts and Culture
- 11 Anti-Catholicism in the United States
- 12 Gender and Sexuality
- 13 American Catholics in a Global Context
- Part III The Many Faces of Catholicism
- Part IV Conclusion
- Index
- Series page
- References
12 - Gender and Sexuality
from Part II - Catholic Life and Culture
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 May 2021
- The Cambridge Companion to American Catholicism
- Cambridge Companions to Religion
- The Cambridge Companion to American Catholicism
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Part I Historical Overview
- Part II Catholic Life and Culture
- 4 Catholic Worship
- 5 Catholic Intellectual Life
- 6 Catholic Education
- 7 Social Welfare and Social Reform
- 8 Women Religious
- 9 Catholics and Politics
- 10 Arts and Culture
- 11 Anti-Catholicism in the United States
- 12 Gender and Sexuality
- 13 American Catholics in a Global Context
- Part III The Many Faces of Catholicism
- Part IV Conclusion
- Index
- Series page
- References
Summary
It was the culmination of a months-long legislative fight, not to mention some eighty years of swirling allegations about Catholic sexual deviance, when the local sheriff and health commissioner arrived at St. Joseph Academy in remote Mena, Arkansas, where Catholics represented a tiny minority of the population. The county officials entered the school under authority bestowed by the state’s new Convent Inspection Act of 1915, designed to end the rumored practice of Catholic institutions harboring girls for the sexual gratification, as one enraged Arkansan put it, of a “lecherous bunch” of priests.1 Discovering no evidence of crime or malfeasance among the several Sisters of Mercy and the small number of female students at the school, the sheriff, evidently impressed by his hosts, apologized to them and promised to return for a social visit with his wife. Meanwhile, elected officials in Georgia successfully installed a similar law aimed at routing out Catholic perversion, and legislators in seven other states – from Iowa to Oregon to Minnesota – debated their own versions of a convent inspection bill. Together, these largely forgotten efforts at policing sexual activity in Catholic institutions hint at how significant and controversial Catholicism has been in the history of gender and sexuality in the United States.
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- The Cambridge Companion to American Catholicism , pp. 216 - 230Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021