It is well known that the Vietnam War divided Americans against each other. American Catholics were no exception.
Despite common perceptions to the contrary, there was no single American Catholic response to the war. Many Catholics initially supported U.S. military intervention in Indochina as a means of stopping the spread of communism, but American Catholics were not unanimous even on this point. The debate was no simple binary; it quickly became a three-cornered dispute in which each side claimed that the Church’s moral teaching supported—indeed, mandated—their position. The question of morality was raised particularly poignantly when the contentious issue of abortion became unexpectedly enmeshed in the debate over the war.
Steven J. Brady, associate professor of history at the George Washington University and author of Less Than Victory: American Catholics and the Vietnam War (Cambridge University Press, 2025), will discuss the impact the Vietnam War had on American Catholics and the influence of the nation’s largest religious group on its most controversial war.
Free and open to all, this lecture is presented by the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism and cosponsored by the Department of American Studies.
Directions and Parking
Remick Commons is inside Carole Sandner and Visitation Halls, which are located behind and between the Basilica of the Sacred Heart and the Main Building (as marked on this campus map).
Visitors driving to campus should check in with the attendant at the Main Gate or the East Gate for directions. Guests may park in the A parking lots along Holy Cross Drive as space permits. Access and elevators are available from the entrance to Carole Sandner Hall off of the Grotto parking lot. Remick Commons is on level 2 in the south end of the building (where it becomes Visitation Hall).
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