ABSTRACT
This chapter tackles the Catholic Church’s preoccupation with sexuality and abortion. Instead of highlighting the usual, taken-for-granted explanation of reactionary conservative forces in the Church as the reason for such a preoccupation, the work posits that the victory of an American Liberalism in the Church during the 1960s and Vatican II (often taken as progressive) actually signals the beginning of a new articulation of homophobia and anti-feminism. I draw on the scholarship around Modern Catholic Social Thought and World Systems Analysis to argue for the interplay of American models of economic development and the rise of contemporary homophobia and anti-feminism in the Church.
