“Highly recommended. . .This lively and engrossing book is more intellectual history and historical theology than architectural analysis.”

Choice

"Anyone already aware of the history of the liturgical art and architecture movements in the United States will appreciate Osborne's skillful research, her case studies, interviews, and citations. Those who may have forgotten the work of the pioneers will be reminded that those visions are not yet fully realized and that more contemporary chapters on places of worship need to be written. Anyone totally unfamiliar with this important piece of unprecedented history must read this book before uttering another word about church art and architecture."

Worship

“This book provides both a dazzling synthesis and a powerful new vision of modern church architecture. Osborne situates American modernist churches within the broad and deep context of Catholic progressive thought, governed by the biological paradigm of evolutionary change and organic development. She shows how concepts of church design were linked to understandings of the Church itself, beginning well before the Second Vatican Council. This should be required reading for architects and architectural historians, but also for students of Catholic thought and culture generally.”

Richard Kieckhefer, Northwestern University

“American Catholics and the Church of Tomorrow shows how by the mid-twentieth century, certain aspects of modernity began to affect the tradition-bound Catholic Church. The impact was seen in the Church’s changing outlook on church design and furnishing, on social issues such as psychedelic drug experimentation and civil rights activism, and on the sacred liturgy itself. Osborne’s book is accomplished, well-written, and thoroughly researched.”

Paula M. Kane, University of Pittsburgh