"The new bull-in-the-china-shop of U.S. Catholic history, Russell Shaw upends pedestals, reimagines story-lines, and invites all of us to think again about the roots of the severe challenges -- and great opportunities -- facing the Church in the United States in the first decades of the third millennium."
- George Weigel, author of Evangelical Catholicism: Deep Reform in the 21st-Century Church
"Russell Shaw marshals a good deal of evidence on behalf of his provocative thesis about the problems of American Catholicism. Even those who do not fully subscribe to that thesis will find the book informative and suggestive."
- James Hitchcock, Professor of History, St. Louis University, author of History of The Catholic Church
"Russell Shaw's American Church is a piercing and essential meditation on the past, present, and future of Catholicism in these United States. It should be required reading for all -- secular, devout, and otherwise -- and is beautifully narrated to boot."
- Mary Eberstadt, author, Adam and Eve After the Pill
"Russell Shaw is one of the best informed and most articulate observers of the American Catholic experience; a writer of elegant clarity, fairness and impeccable research. If you want to understand the Church in the United States and the challenges she now faces, American Church should be on the short list of books you need to read."
+Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap., Archbishop of Philadelphia