The Oxford History of British and Irish Catholicism, Volume V Recapturing the Apostolate of the Laity, 1914-2021

The fifth volume of The Oxford History of British & Irish Catholicism—covering the period from the Great War, through the Second World War and the Second Vatican Council—surveys the transformed ecclesial landscape between the papacies of Benedict XV and Pope Francis. It explores the efforts of bishops, priests and people in Ireland and Scotland, Wales and England to respond to modern challenges and reintegrate the experiences and expertise of the laity into the ministry of the Church.

Alongside the twentieth century's designation as an era of technological innovation, war, peace, globalization, decolonization and liberation, this period has also been designated 'the People's Century'. Viewed through the lens of the Catholic church in Britain and Ireland, these same dynamics are explored within thematic, synoptic chapters by leading scholars.

As a century characterized by the rise, or better renewal of the apostolate of the laity, this edited collection traces the struggles to reconcile tradition, re-evaluate hierarchical authority, adapt to social and educational mobility, as well as to adjudicate serious challenges from outside and within—including inflammatory biopolitics and clerical sexual abuse—to religious belief and the legitimacy of the Church as an institution.

Alana Harris

Alana Harris is Director of the Liberal Arts programme and a Reader in Modern British Social, Cultural and Gender History at King's College London, having previously taught at Lincoln College, University of Oxford. Her books include Faith in the Family: A Lived Religious History of English Catholicism 1945-1982 (Manchester, 2013), Love and Romance in Britain, 1918-1970 (London 2014, edited with Timothy W. Jones), and The Schism of '68: Catholics, Contraception and Humanae Vitae in Europe, 1945-75 (London, 2018). Her research specialisms, explored in numerous journal articles, encompass the histories of gender and sexuality; ethnicity, race and migration; devotional cultures and material religion.

Series Introduction, James E. Kelly and John McCafferty
Volume Introduction, Alana Harris
1. Ireland Before and After the Second Vatican Council, Mary E. Daly
2. The Church in England and Wales: An Historical Overview, Stephen Bullivant
3. Twentieth-Century Scottish Catholicism: Poverty, Affluence, Freedom, Paul Gilfillan
4. Catholics, War and Britain's Armed Forces, Michael Snape
5. Marriage, the Family, and Sexual Ethics, David Geiringer and Laura Kelly
6. Catholic Education in Britain and Ireland, Stephen G. Parker
7. Saints and Devotional Cultures, Mary Heimann and Cara Delay
8. The Architecture and Art of British Catholicism, Robert Proctor
9. Liturgy and Music, Christopher McElroy
10. British and Irish Novels and the Catholic Imagination, Bonnie Lander Johnson and Julia Mezaros
11. Ecumenism and Inter-Faith Relations, Maria Power
12. Ireland's Missions and Missionaries in the Twentieth Century, Fiona Bateman
13. Women Religious, Charitable Ministries and the Welfare State, Carmen M. Mangion
14. Migration, Migrant Chaplaincy, and Multi-ethnic Britain, Breda Gray and Louise Ryan
15. Clerical Abuse, Mary E. Daly and Marcus Pound
16. The Travails of Contemporary Irish Catholicism from John Paul II to Pope Francis, Daithí Ó Corráin
Statistical Appendices, Timothy Kinnear