Integrity, Volume 2 (1947)

From the Editor's Note: This is the second volume of a multi-volume project to republish all of the Integrity issues published from 1946 to 1956. The original editors were Carol Jackson Robinson (1911-2002) and Edward Willock (1916-1960). Dorothy Dohen (1924-1984) succeeded them as editor in 1952. This volume features the first six issues for 1947. We have included a number of footnotes in order to provide more context into what was written at that time – events or people which may not be as readily known in 2020. We wish to acknowledge the work of The Angelus Press for first re-introducing Integrity to the general public. Our work differs insofar as we wish to re-introduce the entire corpus to the general public since these issues are relatively difficult to find and could be of lasting importance to future generations who wish to read about the intellectual climate of the Catholic Church in the United States after World War II. The Integrity writers become more focused in their analysis of issues such as: the family, education, the socio-economic order, fatherhood, Protestantism, and the relationship between the Faith’s practice and its involvement in the governance of society. Such issues were perhaps overlooked at that time by the more mainstream Catholic periodicals, but if the feedback we have received from the first volume is any indication, Integrity has not lost any of its relevance. Our goal is to initiate a discussion among informed Catholics about the issue of the integration of daily life and Faith in the modern world. We are certainly aware that some of the conclusions made by these authors will be hotly debated, but for us the important point is that a serious effort was made to look at these issues from a Catholic view. Can we fault them for wishing to critique modern society as Catholics? How precisely are we to view contemporary problems affecting the life of the believer? Is the Faith merely a set of devotional principles with no bearing on society at large? Let the reader decide if their attempt at tackling such a wide-range of problems was successful or not. We would be remiss not to acknowledge the contributions of those who helped with the transcription of these issues. Their generosity and time given to help with this volume will not be forgotten.