A Crisis of Faith: New York Catholics Confronting the Urban Crisis

When civic faith in the urban project faltered in the 1970s during the era of disinvestment and planned shrinkage, Catholic parishes and other institutions took on a new role arguing for the worth of urban neighborhoods and the value of people living in them. This work dovetailed with priorities that emerged from the Second Vatican Council, especially an emphasis on lay leadership and a church more robustly engaged in matters of the modern world. This paper focuses on the civic roles played by Catholic entities in the Bronx in the years surrounding the New York City fiscal crisis. These groups, focused on community organizing and rehabilitating abandoned housing, created an alternate vision for the future of the city, in contrast to the downtown banking and political establishment that saw the Bronx (other economically marginalized primarily Black and Latino communities) as beyond redemption.

A lived Catholicism, physically rooted in neighborhoods took the city seriously as a place worth fighting for and pioneered the mechanisms of its rebirth. These Catholic urban advocates were focused intensely local, but also operated in national coalitions, typified in the Catholic Conference on Urban Ministry. Participants addressed U.S. Housing and Urban Development conferences, advised the Ford and Carter White Houses and lobbied local and federal agencies to reinvest in urban communities. Tensions and negotiation between and among clergy, lay people and church hierarchy in this work were common, reflecting disparate interpretations of and enthusiasm for the changes of Vatican II. Over time the work of this neighborhood-rooted urban Catholicism was a crucial component of New York City's recovery.