Beneath the surface of Catholic history in America lies a story too often ignored: the deep entanglement of white Catholic identity with racism. In this episode, Maureen O’Connell, author and scholar of Catholic social ethics, helps us uncover that history through her groundbreaking book Undoing the Knots, which traces five generations of her own family in Philadelphia to reveal how Catholic belonging was built alongside systems of exclusion and anti-Blackness.

Together, we explore how assimilation became both a survival strategy and a weapon of control, how these dynamics still echo in today’s Catholic nationalism and high-control movements, and what it takes to face this history without turning away. This is a conversation about reckoning—not for the sake of shame, but for the sake of solidarity, clarity, and the possibility of a more honest Catholic future.

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