Historian Michael Warner traces the development of the social teachings of America's Catholic bishops from World War I to the present and shows how papal teaching, the reception of the Second Vatican Council, the upheavals in American morals, mores, and politics, and the bureaucratic evolution of the bishops' conference all contribute to a "changing witness" in the volatile years between 1917 and 1994.

How successfully have the American bishops translated Scripture and the Church's social doctrine into the American context? Have the bishops articulated a coherent, persuasive public philosophy as a foundation for their social activism? Is the Church today speaking to public life as a Church, or as another partisan player in the political game?

Probing for answers to these vital questions, Warner detects a profound paradigm shift at work, as the bishops gradually abandoned their traditional analytic framework in favor of a generally liberal reading of the "signs of the times."