The Catholic Experience is a lively and controversial commentary on the history of the American Catholic Church from colonial times to the present, told in terms of the men who shaped her destiny. Through the words and actions of the giants of the Church from John Carroll to John F. Kennedy, Fr. Greeley reviews the unique problems facing the Catholic Church evolving in a country dedicated to church-state separation and democratic structure. He brings to life the events surrounding these exciting personages as he treats at length the basic controversy running throughout the history of the Church in this country-the furious conflict between those who fought for Americanization of the Church and those who clung vigorously to a protective wall between Catholicism and American culture. He also considers those other issues, many still with us, which plagued the growing Church: the conflicts between clergy and laity, the problems of independent school systems, the tensions facing an American hierarchi unfailingly loyal both to Rome and to the American tradition, to name just a few.