The Catholic Writings of Orestes Brownson. ( Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2019. Pp. ix, 440.)

Federici's well-edited volume here collects a number of Brownson's writings from this last period, offering an excerpt of his autobiography (The Convert) and other writings in which Brownson works to relate his Catholic faith to American constitutionalism, the Civil War, and much else between the years 1856 and 1874. Brownson accused them of offering up “a purely subjective faith” (355) that denied, if only sometimes implicitly, claims central to Christianity, including the Trinity, the Incarnation, regeneration, atonement, and much more. Rather, Brownson is convinced that the American order is defined by a separation of church and state and an elevation of duties to God over the state.