The Catholic Directory For The Year Of Our Lord 1950

This book describes the adaptation of American women to cross-cultural situations in Hong Kong from 1921 to 1969. The Maryknoll Sisters were first American Catholic community of women founded for overseas missionary work, and were the first American sisters in Hong Kong. Maryknollers were independent, outgoing, and joyful women who were highly educated, and acted in professional capacities as teachers, social workers and medical personnel. The assertion of this book is that the mission provided Maryknollers what they had long desired - equal emplyment opportunities - which were only later emphasized in the women's liberation movement of the 1960s.

This book examines how Catholic educators grappled with public educational policies and reforms like standardization and accreditation, educational measurement and testing, and federal funding for schools during the early to mid-twentieth century. These issues elicited an array of reactions including resistance, cooperation, and co-optation. American Catholics had established one of the largest private educational organizations in the United States by the twentieth century. It rivaled only that of the public school system. At mid-century Catholic schools enrolled some 12 percent of the American school-age population and their enrollments grew in number through the 1960s. The Catholic Church’s lobbying arm, the National Catholic Welfare Conference (NCWC), used its well-earned stature to push for federal funds for students attending their schools. The NCWC succeeded in securing funds with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 for students needing special education services and students living in poverty attending Catholic schools. This signified a major shift in American education policy. Despite this radical change, Catholic schools lost significant enrollment over the next several decades to public, private, and newly minted public charter schools. Catholic schools faced an increasingly competitive landscape in an ever-expanding school-choice environment that they helped create.

Giving status of the Catholic Church as of January 1, 2009.