“Ambition has historically been looked down on in Catholic cultures “
NOT the Irish, Polish and Italian ones!
I grew up Catholic - ambition was encouraged, even demanded, but never looked down upon!
Even in the first two generations of residency in the states, many Catholic-Americans embraced the humble concept of Church/Neighborhood/Work and not "rising above" the way that Jews and protestants did. It took assimilation into the larger American culture and out of the Catholic Ghetto/urban peasant mentality for upward mobility to take place.
As far as the Catholic world outside the US is concerned, places like Ireland did a cultural about face starting in the 1970s/80s, to say nothing of France earlier under the Orleanists (mid 19th century) and Italy (outside of the south, where the urban peasant attitude continues in places like Naples and Palermo, encouraged by the welfare state) under De Gasperi's reforms of the 1950s.
Cultures (and religions of course) are NOT static, which is why even places like Brazil are seeing a scrapping of the old "ambition as Pride" mentality in both the populace AND the Church (thank you Josemaria Escriva and Opus Dei!). Nevertheless, to deny that such an attitude existed among the Irish, Polish, Italians, Portuguese, and French Canadians, both at home and in the diaspora, would be ahistorical.
--- Clemenza, Descendant of the ambitious ones. :)