Holy Cross Presents Lecture on Catholicism in American Society

WORCESTER, Mass. – On Wednesday, April 30 at 4 p.m. in the Rehm Library at Holy Cross, Notre Dame historian John McGreevy will present a lecture titled "The Eliot School Rebellion, Boston 1859: Education, Slavery and the Nineteenth Century Catholic Revival." The lecture is free and open to the public.

McGreevy's lecture will focus on the little known story of Catholic schoolchildren rebelling against their Protestant teachers in Boston's Eliot School, and how the incident shed light on the simultaneous debate over slavery. The talk is taken from McGreevy's new study, Catholicism and American Freedom: A History, which traces the relationship between Catholicism and American liberalism from the mid-19th century to the present.

McGreevy is the John A. O'Brien Associate Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame. His previous book, Parish Boundaries, won the John Gilmary Shea Prize of the American Catholic Historical Association. His next book, Catholicism and American Freedom: A History, is due out in May.

This event is sponsored by the Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture and the history department.