American Catholics and the Church of Tomorrow

In the mid-twentieth century, American Catholic churches began to shed the ubiquitous spires, stained glass, and gargoyles of their European forebears, turning instead toward startling and more angular structures of steel, plate glass, and concrete.  But how did an institution like the Catholic Church, so often seen as steeped in inflexible traditions, come to welcome this modernist trend?  
 
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