Maureen K. DAY. Catholic Activism Today: Individual Transformation and the Struggle for Social Justice. New York: New York University Press, 2020. pp. 320. $39.00 hb. ISBN 978-1479851331. Reviewed by Gladys GANIEL, Queen’s University Belfast, BT7 1NN, UK

The pursuit of social justice has a long and complex history within the Catholic Church in the United States. Maureen K. Day’s Catholic Activism Today furthers our understanding of contemporary Catholic activism through a close analysis of the remarkable JustFaith Ministries (JFM). Day evaluates JFM’s efforts to mobilize Catholics to work for the common good, concluding that while it has prompted profound individual transformations in the lives of its mostly middle-class participants, it has not effectively addressed the structural causes of injustice.

In the first part of the book, Day recounts the unlikely creation and expansion of JFM through the efforts of Jack Jezreel, who served as a lay minister for social responsibility in a Louisville parish. She situates JFM with the wider story of the Catholic Church in the United States, drawing on historian David O’Brien’s framework for explaining historical ‘styles of public Catholicism’: republican (1750-1820), immigrant (1820-1920) and evangelical (1920-1960) to argue that a fourth ‘style’ has now emerged. It is the ‘discipleship style’, of which JFM is an example.

For Day, the defining characteristic of the discipleship style is its ‘personalist character’, which resonates with increased individualization within American civic and religious life. She locates the roots of discipleship style organizations like JFM in three ‘social shifts’ – geographic mobility, individual moral authority, and increased socioeconomic status among American Catholics (p. 37). The discipleship style’s location of moral authority within the individual produces individual-level solutions for social justice issues, such as lifestyle changes. Crucially, this prevents participants from engaging in the type of activism that would address macro-level, structural causes of injustice. At the same time, the discipleship style encourages Catholics to integrate their faith with all aspects of their everyday lives, which gives them a sense of purpose that could be ripe for opportunities for mobilization.

The heart of the book is chapters organized around the ‘core values’ of Catholic civic engagement, as exemplified by JFM. Separate chapters explore the transformation of individual Catholics; Christ-centredness; the transformation of Catholic communities into ones that ‘send’ people out to serve; justice; and compassion. Here, Day draws on three years’ worth of field work, which included participant observation, 61 interviews with JFM program graduates and staff, and surveys of JFM participants in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Louisville. Quotes from interviewees add richness and texture to the analysis, allowing readers to gain a deeper appreciation of how people experienced change through JFM programs. These chapters also reveal the demanding nature of JFM: participants commit to an intense programme of reading, reflection, and relationship-building with each other over many weeks, which requires high levels of education and resources, including time.
JFM participants are primarily Catholic, but Day also spoke with Protestant participants. She found that Protestants tended to experience greater changes than Catholics during the programme. In contrast to Protestants, JFM attracted Catholics who were already very strongly committed to Catholicism and its social justice aspects, so there was less scope for change (p. 91). This points towards a further limitation of JFM: a certain inability to reach out beyond Catholics who are already interested.

Despite these limitations, Day ultimately argues that discipleship Catholics could be a great asset to the American Catholic Church: no longer controlled by the hierarchy but guided by the hierarchy and their own consciences, they have the potential to push the American Church in new, life-giving directions, orientating it towards social justice.

Day’s analysis of Catholic activism is valuable in and of itself. But she also points us beyond her case study, asking to what extent the characteristics she has identified in discipleship style Catholicism reflect wider trends in the American religious landscape. Readers familiar with scholarship in the sociology of religion will recognize the traits of discipleship Catholics in other contemporary groups, from liberal Protestants to the Emerging Church Movement and beyond. As such, Day reminds us that discipleship Catholics are by no means unique actors within American religion. But they shed light on how religious actors can have unique impacts on their own local contexts.