"The 1960s in America were a time of revolt against the stifling conformism embodied in the sprawling, uniform suburbs. Typically, the Catholic Church's Vatican II reforms, which aimed to make the church more modern and accessible, are seen as fruits of that broader cultural liberalization. But Stephen Koeth demonstrates that the liberalization of the church was a product of mass suburbanization, beginning some twenty years before Vatican II. He shows the demographic decline of urban parishes to be the basis of a major cultural shift. He links spiritual belief to where it was practiced, showing that changes in the latter sparked changes in the former-not the other way around"--