This project investigates how American Catholics confronted the nuclear revolution between 1945 and 1990, producing a scholarly monograph titled Catholics and the Nuclear Age. Integrating religious history, Cold War politics, labor history, and moral theology, it explores Catholic responses to atomic weapons, nuclear energy, and technological progress. From papal and episcopal pronouncements, to prominent Catholics shaping U.S. nuclear policy, to engineers and workers at Pittsburgh’s Bettis Atomic Lab, to Catholic reflections after the Three Mile Island accident, the study illuminates how faith communities wrestled with existential technological threats.
By bridging Catholic theology and social history with Cold War nuclear studies, the project highlights how Catholic moral thought contributed to public discourse on peace, justice, and stewardship of creation. It also underscores how Catholic laity—engineers, parishioners, activists—embodied tensions between professional life and religious identity. The book’s conclusions will resonate with North American churches as they navigate new technological and ethical dilemmas today. The grant will fund one semester of salary replacement (Fall 2026), enabling full-time archival research, writing, and engagement with Catholic and Cold War sources.