Ministry and Meaning A Religious History of Catholic Health Care In The United States

This is the first comprehensive study to explore the religious self-understanding of caregivers particularly women religious whose ministry was manifested in public and private facilities in times of epidemics and war in cities and on the frontier in railroad and mining-camp hospitals. With an emphasis upon their contexts Christopher J. Kauffman scrutinizes such historical spheres as the history of medicine religious pluralism ethnicity the Catholic Health Association and the modernization processes affecting church and health care. With a sensitivity to the significance of racism sexism anti-Catholicism and nativism as well as the influence of popular Catholicity Kauffman locates the meanings of the ministry at the dynamic intersections of religion and culture.