Catholic history for surfing

By Tony Staley
Compass Editor

The Catholic University of America has launched a new Website full of historically significant Catholic documents.

The American Catholic History Classroom was started to help Catholic high school and university teachers incorporate Catholic history into secular American history classes. But it also contains a trove of information for the historically curious.

The site gives access to library's archives on primary documents dealing with Catholic thought and reaction to significant movements in U.S. history. There also are links for Catholic thought on race, a living wage, industrialization and education.

For example, Catholic News Service reports, the archives include materials from the 1920s when Oregon voters passed a Ku Klux Klan-sponsored referendum requiring children to attend public schools, forcing Catholic schools to close.

Abp. Alexander Christie of Oregon City (now Portland) responded with a letter urging U.S. bishops to unanimously appeal the law to the Supreme Court. "Surely the bishops of this country will not stand by inactive while the faith is being strangled in our innocent children," he wrote to Abp. Edward Hanna of San Francisco, head of the National Catholic Welfare Conference, the forerunner to today's U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Abp. Christie's letter and other related documents are on the Website. The case arose when Catholic patriotism was being challenged (the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the law).

The Website is at http://libraries.cua.edu/achrcua/packets.html.