ABSTRACT
This chapter starts by examining the national parties' attempts to deal with anti-Catholic sentiment from around 1890 to 1960, showing stalemate on the issue up until the 1930s and then mixed progress afterwards. It demonstrates the importance of reconstructive coalitions in ideologically binding Catholics and Protestants under a broader class identity by an in-depth look at liberal Protestants in the social gospel movement and in the New Deal coalition working with Catholics on class issues. Concern for the working class prompted some Protestants to reconsider religious toleration, join interfaith efforts to combat social problems, and institutionalize a public culture of antidiscrimination and pluralism. The ability of class issues to reconstruct Protestant–Catholic relations and merge the two religions into a common identity was evident at the beginning of the social gospel movement. The United States experienced much more diverse regional development because of prior Southern commitments to states' rights and protection of racial order.
