The Catholic Church in the United States is part of the worldwide Catholic Church, the Christian Church in full communion with the Pope. With more than 68.5 registered million members, it is the largest single religious denomination in the United States, comprising about 22 percent of the population.[1] According to a new 2011 study by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University, "The US Catholic population is currently 77.7 million."[2] The United States has the fourth largest Catholic population in the world, after Brazil, Mexico, and the Philippines.
Catholicism arrived in what is now the United States during the earliest days of the European colonization of the Americas. The first Catholic missionaries were Spanish, having come with Christopher Columbus to the New World on his second voyage in 1493.[3] They established missions in what are now Florida, Georgia, Texas, New Mexico, California, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.[4] French colonization came later, in the early 18th century, with the French establishing missions in the Louisiana Territory districts: St. Louis, New Orleans, Biloxi, Mobile, the Alabamas, Natchez, Yazoo, Natchitoches, Arkansas, Illinois,[5] and Michigan.[6]
The number of Catholics has grown during the country's history, at first slowly in the early 19th century through some immigration and through the acquisition of territories (formerly possessions of France, Spain, and Mexico) with predominately Catholic populations. In the mid-19th century, a rapid influx of Irish and German immigrants made Catholicism the largest religion in the United States. This increase of Catholics was met by widespread prejudice and hostility, often resulting in riots and the burning of churches. Many Protestants believed that the United States was a Protestant nation and the influx of Catholics threatened its purity and mission, even its very existence. The nativist Know Nothing party was first founded in the early 19th century in an attempt to restrict Catholic immigration.
Since the 1960's, the percentage of Americans who are Catholic has stayed roughly the same, at around 25%[7], due in large part to increases in the Latino population over the same period.
The Catholic Church has the third highest total number of individual parishes in the US, behind Southern Baptists and United Methodists. However, because the average Catholic parish is significantly larger than the average church from those denominations, there are more than four times as many Catholics as Southern Baptists and more than eight times as many as United Methodists.[8] In the United States, there are 195 archdioceses/dioceses and one 1 apostolic exarchate:
Currently, 9 dioceses are vacant (sede vacante):
There are several dioceses in the nation's other four overseas territories. In Puerto Rico, the bishops in the six dioceses (one metropolitan archdiocese and five suffragan dioceses) form their own episcopal conference, the Conferencia Episcopal Puertorriqueña. The bishops in US insular areas in the Pacific Ocean—the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the Territory of American Samoa, and the Territory of Guam—are members of the Episcopal Conference of the Pacific.
As of 2008[update], five dioceses out of 195 are vacant (sede vacante). Another 14 bishops, including two cardinals, are past the retirement age of 75.
The central leadership body of the Catholic Church in the United States is the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, made up of the hierarchy of bishops (including archbishops) of the United States and the U.S. Virgin Islands, although each bishop is independent in his own diocese, answerable only to the Holy See. The USCCB elects a president to serve as their administrative head, but he is in no way the 'head' of the Church or of Catholics in the United States (few Catholics could even name the USCCB president). In addition to the 195 dioceses and one exarchate[9] represented in the USCCB, there are several dioceses in the nation's other four overseas dependencies. In the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the bishops in the six dioceses (one metropolitan archdiocese and five suffragan dioceses) form their own episcopal conference, the Conferencia Episcopal Puertorriqueña.[10] The bishops in US insular areas in the Pacific Ocean—the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the Territory of American Samoa, and the Territory of Guam—are members of the Episcopal Conference of the Pacific.
No primate exists for Catholics in the United States. In the 1850s, the Archdiocese of Baltimore was acknowledged a Prerogative of Place, which confers to its archbishop some of the leadership responsibilities granted to primates in other countries. The Archdiocese of Baltimore was the first diocese established in the United States, in 1789, with John Carroll (1735–1815) as its first bishop. It was, for many years, the most influential diocese in the fledgling nation. Now, however, the United States has several large archdioceses and a number of cardinal-archbishops.
By far, most Catholics in the United States belong to the Latin Church and the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church. Rite generally refers to the form of worship ("liturgical rite") in a church community owing to cultural and historical differences as well as differences in practice. However, the Vatican II document, Orientalium Ecclesiarum ("Of the Eastern Churches"), acknowledges that these Eastern Catholic communities are "true Churches" and not just rites within the Catholic Church.[11] There are 14 other Churches in the United States (23 within the global Catholic Church) which are in communion with Rome, fully recognized and valid in the eyes of the Catholic Church. They have their own bishops and eparchies. The largest of these communities in the U.S. is the Chaldean Catholic Church.[12] Most of these Churches are of Eastern European and Middle Eastern origin. Eastern Catholic Churches are distinguished from Eastern Orthodox, identifiable by their usage of the term Catholic.[13]
The Church has over 41,406 diocesan and religious-order priests in the United States; over 30,000 lay ministers (80 percent of them women); 17,000 men who are ordained as permanent deacons in the United States (a permanent deacon is a man, either married or single, who is ordained to the order of deacons, the first of three ranks in ordained ministry;[14] they assist priests in administrative and pastoral roles); 63,032 sisters; 5,040 brothers; 16 US cardinals; 424 active and retired US bishops; and 5,029 seminarians enrolled in the United States. Overall, it employs more than one million employees with an operating budget of nearly $100 billion to run parishes, diocesan primary and secondary schools, nursing homes, retreat centers, diocesan hospitals, and other charitable institutions.[15] Catholic schools educate 2.7 million students in the United States, employing 150,000 teachers.
Leadership in the Church in the United States falls to its bishops. They are the shepherds of particular cities and their surrounding areas, called dioceses or sees. There is one non-territorial diocese in the United States for Catholics in the armed forces. There are approximately 430 bishops and archbishops who shepherd the nation's 195 dioceses and archdioceses. Each diocese is led by one bishop, known as its ordinary. Some dioceses (usually those that are larger) also have auxiliary bishops who help the ordinary. Some also have a retired bishop still in residence. It is possible for a diocese to be temporarily without a bishop (called a "vacant see") if the ordinary is transferred to a new diocese or dies without a named successor. Dioceses are grouped together geographically into provinces, usually within a state, part of a state, or multiple states together (see map below). A province comprises several dioceses which look to one ordinary bishop (usually of the most populous or historically influential diocese/city) for guidance and leadership. This lead bishop is their archbishop and his diocese is the archdiocese. The archbishop is called the 'metropolitan' bishop who oversees his brother 'suffragan' bishops. The subordinate dioceses are likewise called suffragan dioceses. There are currently 33 metropolitan archbishops in the United States. According to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops's website, there are 270 active Catholic bishops in the United States (5 Cardinal Archbishops, 1 Coadjutor Archbishop, 154 Diocesan Bishops, 73 Auxiliary Bishops, and 9 Apostolic or Diocesan Administrators) and there are 180 retired Catholic bishops in the United States (10 retired Cardinal Archbishops, 24 retired Archbishops, 94 retired Diocesan Bishops, 52 retired Auxiliary Bishops). Also according to the USCCB's website, there are 18 U.S. cardinals (four cardinals currently lead U.S. archdioceses, three cardinals are not currently diocesan bishops, and eleven cardinals are retired).
Some bishops are created Cardinals by the pope. These are usually conferred upon bishops of influential or significant dioceses - or upon bishops who have distinguished themselves in a particular area of service. As of August 2011[update], there are 19 American cardinals. Not all reside in the United States or are diocesan ordinaries. Four are sitting archbishops: of Boston, Chicago, Galveston-Houston, and Washington, DC. Eleven are retired archbishops ("emeritus"): of Baltimore, Denver, Detroit (two), Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia (two), San Juan, and Washington, DC (two). Three work in Rome with the Roman Curia, and one is retired from service in Rome without serving as a diocesan ordinary in the US.
According to the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities, there are approximately 230 Roman Catholic universities and colleges in the United States with nearly 1 million students and some 65,000 professors.[16] The national university of the Church, founded by the nation's bishops in 1887, is The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC.
The Catholic parochial school system developed in the early-to-mid-19th century. Most states passed constitutional amendments, called Blaine Amendments, forbidding the use of tax money to fund parochial schools.[17] In 2002, the Supreme Court partially vitiated these amendments, in theory, when they ruled that vouchers were constitutional if tax dollars followed a child to a school, even if it was religious. However, as of 2009, no state's school system has changed its laws to allow this.[18]
In 2002, Catholic health care systems, overseeing 625 hospitals with a combined revenue of 30 billion dollars, comprised the nation's largest group of nonprofit systems.[19] In 2008, the cost of running these hospitals had risen to $84.6 billion, including the $5.7 billion they donate.[20] According to the Catholic Health Association of the United States, 60 health care systems, on average, admit one in six patients nationwide each year.[21]
Catholic Charities is active as one of the largest voluntary social service networks in the United States. In 2009, it welcomed in New Jersey the 50,000th refugee to come to the United States from Burma, officially the Union of Myanmar. Likewise, the US Bishops' Migration and Refugee Services has resettled 14,846 refugees from Burma since 2006.[22] In 2010 Catholic Charities USA was one of only four charities among the top 400 charitable organizations to witness an increase in donations in 2009, according to a survey conducted by The Chronicle of Philanthropy.[23]
The church had a role in shaping the U.S. labor movement, due to the involvement of priests like Charles Owen Rice and John P. Boland. The activism of Msgr. Geno Baroni was instramental in creating The Catholic Campaign for Human Development.
There are 68,503,456 registered Catholics in the United States (22% of the US population) according to the American Bishops' count in their Official Catholic Directory 2010. This count primarily rests on the parish assessment tax which pastors evaluate yearly according to the number of registered members and contributors. Estimates of the overall American Catholic population from recent years generally range around 20% to 28%. According to Albert J. Menedez, research director of "Americans for Religious Liberty," many Americans continue to call themselves Catholic but "do not register at local parishes for a variety of reasons."[24] Based on Pew Research Center surveys conducted from January 2006 to September 2006, 25.2% of the American population claim to be followers of the Catholic Church (of a national population of 300 million residents). According to a new survey of 35,556 American residents (released in 2008 by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life), 23.9% of Americans identify themselves as Catholic (approximately 72 million of a national population of 306 million residents).[25] The study notes that 10% of those people who identify themselves as Protestant in the interview are former Catholics and 8% of those who identity themselves as Catholic are former Protestants.[26] Nationally, more parishes have opened than closed.
The northeastern quadrant of the US (i.e., New England, Mid-Atlantic, East North Central, and West North Central) has seen a decline in the number of parishes since 1970, but parish numbers are up in the other five regions (i.e., South Atlantic, East South Central, West South Central, Pacific, and Mountain regions).[27] Catholics in the US are about 6% of the church's total worldwide 1.1 billion membership.
A poll by The Barna Group in 2004 found Catholic ethnicity to be 60% non-Hispanic white (mostly Irish, Italian, German, Polish), 31% Hispanic of any race, 4% Black, and 5% other ethnicity (mostly Filipinos and other Asian Americans, and American Indians).[28]
Between 1990 and 2008, there were 11 million additional Catholics. The growth in the Latino population accounted for 9 million of these. They comprised 32% of all American Catholics in 2008 as opposed to 20% in 1990.[29]
| Rank | State | %[30] | Largest denomination |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rhode Island | 63 | Catholic |
| 2 | Pennsylvania | 53 | |
| 3 | Massachusetts | 44 | |
| 4 | New Jersey | 39 | |
| 5 | California | 37 | |
| 6 | New York | 36 | |
| 7 | New Hampshire | 35 | |
| 8 | Connecticut | 34 | |
| 9 | Texas | 32 | |
| 10 | Arizona | 31 | |
| 11 | Illinois | 30 | |
| Louisiana | |||
| North Dakota | Lutheran | ||
| 14 | Wisconsin | 29 | Catholic |
| 15 | Nebraska | 28 | |
| 16 | Florida | 26 | |
| New Mexico | |||
| Vermont | |||
| 19 | Maine | 25 | |
| Minnesota | |||
| South Dakota | Lutheran | ||
| 22 | Colorado | 24 | Catholic |
| Hawaii | |||
| Montana | |||
| Nevada | |||
| Ohio | |||
| 27 | Iowa | 23 | |
| Maryland | |||
| Michigan | |||
| 30 | Washington | 22 | |
| 31 | Indiana | 20 | |
| Kansas | |||
| Missouri | |||
| 34 | Wyoming | 18 | |
| 35 | Idaho | 15 | LDS |
| Oregon | Catholic | ||
| Kentucky | Baptist | ||
| 38 | Virginia | 14 | |
| 39 | Georgia | 13 | |
| Oklahoma | |||
| 41 | Delaware | 10 | Methodist |
| North Carolina | Baptist | ||
| 43 | Alaska | 9 | |
| Arkansas | |||
| South Carolina | |||
| Tennessee | |||
| Utah | LDS | ||
| 48 | West Virginia | 8 | Baptist |
| 49 | Mississippi | 7 | |
| 50 | Alabama | 6 |
There has never been a Catholic religious party in the United States, either local, state or national, similar to Christian Democratic parties in Europe and Latin America. Since the election of the Catholic John F. Kennedy as President in 1960, Catholics have split about 50-50 between the two major parties. On social issues the Catholic Church takes strong positions against abortion, which was partly legalized in 1973 by the Supreme Court, and same-sex marriage, which is currently legal in six states. The Church has allied with Protestant evangelicals on these issues.
Catholicism first came to the territories now forming the Continental United States before the Protestant Reformation and Catholic Reformation with the Spanish explorers and settlers in present-day Florida (1513) and the southwest United States. The first Christian worship service held in the current United States in 1559 was a Catholic Mass celebrated in Pensacola, Florida. (St. Michael records) Not long after that, the first permanent European colony was established at St. Augustine, Florida, in 1565. The influence of the Spanish missions in California (1769 and onwards), in Texas (1718) and New Mexico (1590) form a lasting memorial to part of this heritage.[31] In the French territories, Catholicism was ushered in with the establishment of colonies, forts and missions in Sault Ste. Marie (1668), Biloxi, Baton Rouge (1699), Detroit (1701), Mobile, Alabama (1702), New Orleans (1718),[32][33] and St. Louis (1763). As early as 1604, the French established a site in Maine on Saint Croix Island, but it was short-lived. Catholicism in the Spanish (East and West Florida) and French (eastern Louisiana/Quebec) colonies was undisturbed under later administration by Britain.
Anti-Catholicism was official government policy for the English who settled the colonies along the Atlantic seaboard.[34][35]
Most English colonies had official established churches; none of which were Catholic. In fact, some English colonies had anti-Catholic laws and anti-Catholicism was rampant. Maryland was founded by Lord Baltimore as the first 'non-denominational' colony and was the first to tolerate Catholics. In 1650, the Puritans in the colony rebelled and repealed the Act of Toleration. Catholicism was outlawed and Catholic priests were hunted and exiled. By 1658, the rebellion had been suppressed and the Act of Toleration was reinstated.
English Catholics reintroduced Catholicism with the settling of Maryland (1634). This was a rare example of religious toleration in a fairly intolerant age. In 1649 the Maryland Toleration Act was enacted; it was repealed five years after passage, in 1654. There were no persecutions or executions of Catholics in the 13 colonies. In Maryland in 1690 Cecilius Calvert, the second Lord Baltimore came under attack for sponsoring Catholics and his failure to declare for William III and Mary II. Later, Baltimore was stripped of his political power (but not his property rights). The Calvinist and Anglican majority in Maryland assured Protestant control.[36] By 1785, Catholics in the U.S. numbered 35,000 , less than two percent of the white population.
As noted above, the first permanent European Catholic settlement in what is now continental United States was St. Augustine, Florida. Spain established it in 1565 to thwart the attempt by French Huguenots, under Jean Ribaut, to establish a colony near the mouth of the St. Johns River. It also established it to support Spain's Treasure Fleets as they made their way through the Straits of Florida, a favorite place for French, Dutch, and English corsairs to lie in wait. Finally, the Spanish felt a moral imperative to convert the native Peoples to Christianity. After founding St. Augustine and destroying the fledgling Huguenot colony, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, prominent mariner, entrepreneur and head to the Spanish colony, proceeded to establish various forts around the coast of Florida, including one at Tampa Bay, another at Charlotte Harbor, three on the St. John's River and one, Santa Elena, on Port Royal Sound. Missions were established in all these areas.[37]
The period 1635–1675 proved to be the most successful mission period. During these years Franciscans operated between forty and seventy mission stations, catering for perhaps 26,000 Hispanicized natives, who were organized into four provinces: Timucua in central Florida, Guale along the Georgia coast, Apalachee on the northeastern edge of the gulf, and Apalachicola to the west.[38]
Beginning in 1768, the Franciscan order, under the leadership of Fray Junipero Serra, founded 21 California missions along the coast, notably San Diego, Sonoma, Santa Clara, Carmel, Mission Hills, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.
Like Florida, the colonizing of New Mexico began as a result of the "twin impulses" of conquistador greed and missionary zeal. The area was extensively explored by Francisco Vásquez de Coronado in 1540–1542, in an attempt to find the seven cities of Cibola, a fabled Indian kingdom. In his search, Coronado marched through present day Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. In he early 1590s, Juan de Onate approached King Philip II of Spain for a commission to colonize the area of New Mexico and convert the Native Peoples. Within a ten year period, the original expedition of 500 people, including 130 soldiers, ten Franciscans, and the remaining Spanish colonists—men, women and children—founded Santa Fe.[39]
Because the Spanish feared that the French crown might establish an overland route from the Mississippi to New Mexico to siphon off its trade, they established missions in the area that came to be known as Texas (especially East Texas), using the Franciscans to win over the Native Peoples. The Spanish had already founded El Paso in 1657, but needed to expand east. Eventually they founded a new town called San Antonio in 1718 and other settlements.[40]
From 1682 onwards, the French had tried to establish themselves in the Gulf of Mexico and the Mississippi Valley. By 1673, Fr. Jacques Marquette, the Jesuit in charge of the mission at Michilimackinac, and Louis Joliet, a trader and explorer, had explored much of the upper and middle Mississippi Valley, encouraging further exploration. It took another nine years before the entire course of the Mississippi River was explored by Rene Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle. Not until 1718, however, did the French establish permanent towns in Louisiana, which encompassed much of the Mississippi Valley and beyond, dividing the region into nine districts with New Orleans the designated the capitol.[41]
Compared to the Spanish, the French were more practical in their attitudes toward the Native Peoples. While they attempted to convert the natives, they did not have the same need to impose absolute obedience and conformity. The priests, mainly Jesuits, were content to introduce them to Christianity in stages, allowing them to keep their traditional customs to emphasize the similarities between their Native beliefs and Christianity. In work or labor, there was no attempt to extract forced labor, encouraging Natives to bring their furs for French goods. There was intermarriage between the French and Native Peoples. This symbiotic relationship helped align most of the Natives west of the Allegheny mountains to the French.[42]
In Louisiana, black slaves managed to develop their own culture, consisting of a mixture of European and African backgrounds. Many blacks became Catholic, adopting the religion of their masters.[43]
When the English colonies declared independence in 1776 — the 13 English-speaking colonies on the eastern seaboard — only a small fraction of the population was Catholic (largely in Maryland) Legislated anti-Catholicism was eventually voided by the First Amendment when the Bill of Rights was held to apply to the states as well as the federal government, in 1890. In the meantime virulent anti-Catholic sentiment continued.
At the time of the American Revolution, Catholics formed 1.6% of the population of the thirteen colonies.[44][45][46]
Irish Catholics (unlike Lord Baltimore and the Earl of Ulster/Duke of York, their English Catholic landlords) were initially barred from settling in some of the colonies (before 1688, for example, Catholics had not arrived in New England), though "New York had an Irish Catholic governor, Thomas Dongan, and other Catholic officials."[47] Middleton also notes: at one time or another, five colonies "specifically excluded Catholics from the franchise: Virginia, New York, Maryland, Rhode Island, and South Carolina."[48] Throughout the Revolution American Catholic priests remained under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of the London District. But even during the colonial period the successive bishops had accepted the charge reluctantly, and were too far away to exercise much control. During the war, however, when the jurisdiction was in the hands of Bishop James Talbot, the brother of the Earl of Shrewsbury and coadjutor to Bishop Richard Challoner, he refused to have any communication with those who were his American ecclesiastical subjects. This was because neither he nor Challoner had any sympathy with the American rebel Catholics. They did not realize that American Catholics (though rebels) were rendering, as John Carroll said later, a service to their English Catholic brethren. This lack of communication, technically at least, proved a blessing in disguise, and removed all possibility of the accusation that American Catholics were receiving orders from an English Catholic bishop. At the close of the war, however, Bishop Talbot went so far as to refuse to give faculties to two Maryland priests who asked to return home. This eventually enabled Rome to make entirely new arrangements for the creation of an American diocese under American bishops.[49][50][51]
The question often arises as to what proportion of Catholics served in the American armies. John Carroll's says this about Catholic participation: "Their blood flowed as freely, in proportion to their numbers, to cement the fabric of independence as that of their fellow citizens. They concurred with perhaps greater unanimity than any other body of men in recommending and promoting from whose influence America anticipates all the blessings of justice, peace, plenty, good orders, and civil and religious liberty." Some Catholics were more prominent than others. Thomas Fitzsimmons was Washington's secretary and aide-de-camp. General Moylan was quartermaster general and afterwards in command of a cavalry regiment. John Barry is regarded as the father of the American navy. Another notable was Thomas Lloyd.[52]
The French alliance had a considerable effect upon the fortunes of the American Catholic Church. Washington, for example, issued strict orders in 1775 that "Pope's Day," the colonial equivalent of Guy Fawkes Night, was not to be celebrated, lest the sensibilities of the French should be offended. Massachusetts sent a chaplain to the French fleet when it arrived. And when the French fleet appeared at Newport, Rhode Island, that colony repealed its act of 1664 that refused citizenship to Catholics. Foreign officers who served, either as soldiers of fortune in the American army or with the French allies, put the Revolution in debt to Catholics, especially owing to Count Marquis de Lafayette, Casimir Pulaski, De Grasse, Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau, and Charles Hector, comte d'Estaing. Likewise, Bernardo de Galvez, the Governor of Louisiana, who prevented Louisiana's seizure by the British. His efforts prevented the British from gaining a position on the west bank of the Mississippi, crucial for keeping the British out of that area at the end of the war. Galveston, Texas is named after him.[53]
In 1787 two Catholics, Daniel Carroll and Thomas Fitzsimmons, were members of the Continental Congress that met in Philadelphia to help frame the new United States Constitution.[54] Four years later, in 1791, the First Amendment to the American Constitution was ratified. This amendment included the wording, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." This amendment officially granted freedom of religion to all American citizens, and began the eventual repeal of all anti-Catholic laws from the statute books of all of the new American states.
Following the Revolutionary War the Jesuit Fathers under the leadership of John Carroll, S.J. called several meetings of the clergy for the purpose of organizing the Catholic Church in America. The meetings, called the General Chapters, took place in 1783 and were held at White Marsh Plantation (now Sacred Heart Church in Bowie, MD). Deliberations of the General Chapters led to the appointment of John Carroll by the Vatican as Prefect Apostolic, making him superior of the missionary church in the thirteen states, and to the first plans for Georgetown University. Also at White Marsh, the priests of the new nation elected John Carroll as the first American bishop on May 18,1789.[55]
The number of Catholics in the Continental United States increased almost overnight with the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the Adams–Onís Treaty (purchasing Florida) in 1819, and in 1847 with the incorporation of the northern territories of Mexico into the United States (Mexican Cession) at the end of the Mexican–American War.[56][57] Catholics formed the majority in these continental areas and had been there for centuries.[58] Most Catholics were descendants of the original settlers, dating back to the 16th and 17th centuries, benefiting in the Southwest, for example, from the livestock industry introduced by Jesuit priest Eusebio Kino in 1687.[59][60][61] However, US Catholics increased most dramatically and significantly in the latter half of the 19th century and the early 20th century due to a massive influx of European immigrants from Ireland, Italy, Germany (especially the south and west), Austria–Hungary, and the Russian Empire (largely Poles). Substantial numbers of Catholics came from French Canada during the mid-19th century and settled in New England. Although these ethnic groups tended to live and worship apart initially, over time they intermarried so that, in modern times, many Catholics are descended from more than one ethnicity.
By 1850, Catholics had become the country’s largest single denomination. Between 1860 and 1890, their population in the United States tripled through immigration; by the end of the decade it would reach seven million. This influx would eventually bring increased political power for the Catholic Church and a greater cultural presence, which led simultaneously to a growing fear of the Catholic "menace" among America's Protestants.
Some anti-Catholic political movements like the Know Nothings, and organizations like the Orange Institution, American Protective Association, and the Ku Klux Klan, were active in the United States. Indeed, for most of the history of the United States, Catholics have been victims of discrimination and persecution. It was not until the time of the Presidency of John F. Kennedy in the following century that Catholics lived in the US largely free of suspicion. The Philadelphia Nativist Riot, Bloody Monday, the Orange Riots in New York City in 1871 and 1872,[62] and The Ku Klux Klan-ridden South discriminated against Catholics (as they did the Jews and African Americans) for their commonly Irish, Italian, Polish, German, or Spanish ethnicity.[63] Many Protestants in the Midwest and the North labeled Catholics as "anti-American Papists", "incapable of free thought without the approval of the Pope." During the Mexican-American War, Mexicans were portrayed as "backward" because of their "Papist superstition". In reaction to this attitude, some hundred American Catholics, mostly recent Irish immigrants, fought on the Mexican side in the Saint Patrick's Battalion.[64] However, the majority of Catholic soldiers (primarily Irish born), along with their chaplains like John McElroy (Jesuit), who later founded Boston College, proved loyal to the American side as General Winfield Scott noted in a private letter to William Robinson after the war.[65]
In 1850, Franklin Pierce, as the US Attorney for the District of New Hampshire, presented resolutions for the removal of restrictions on Catholics from holding office in that state, as well as the removal of property qualifications for voting; however, these pro-Catholic measures were submitted to the electorate and were unsurprisingly defeated.[66] As the 19th century progressed, animosity between Protestants and Catholics waned. Many Protestant Americans came to understand that, despite anti-Catholic rhetoric, Catholics were not trying to seize control of the government. Another reason was that many Irish-Catholic immigrants fought alongside their Protestant compatriots in the American Civil War on both sides. Nonetheless, concerns continued into the 20th century that there was too much "Catholic influence" on the government.
William T. Sherman, George Meade[67], and Philip Sheridan were prominent generals during the American Civil War. In 1864, Mrs. Sherman, wife of the general, took up residence in South Bend for the sole purpose of having her young family educated at the University of Notre Dame and St. Mary's College.[68] After the war, however, the Sherman children were educated elsewhere. Thomas Ewing Sherman, the eldest child, studied at Georgetown University and later became a Jesuit priest. The children of two other notable Americans—General Winfield Scott and Nathaniel Hawthorne -- also became members of Catholic religious orders: Virginia Scott (who became a member of the Visitation Sisters at Georgetown)[69] and Rose Hawthorne Lathrop (who founded her own religious community to care for the incurably ill, mostly cancer patients).[70]
400 Italian Jesuit priests left Italy for the American West between 1848-1919. Most of these Jesuits left their homeland involuntarily, expelled by Italian nationalists in the successive waves of Italian unification that dominated Italy. When they came to the West, they ministered to Indians in the Northwest, Irish-Americans in San Francisco and Mexican Americans in the South West; they also ran the nation's most influential Catholic seminary, in Woodstock, Md. In addition to their pastoral work, they founded numerous high schools and colleges, including Regis University, Santa Clara University, the University of San Francisco, Gonzaga University and Seattle University.[71]
In the latter half of the 19th century, the first attempt at standardizing discipline in the American Church occurred with the convocation of the Plenary Councils of Baltimore. These councils resulted in the promulgation of the Baltimore Catechism and the establishment of The Catholic University of America.
By the beginning of the 20th century, approximately one-sixth of the population of the United States was Catholic. Modern Catholic immigrants come to the United States from the Philippines, Poland and Latin America, especially from Mexico. This multiculturalism and diversity has greatly impacted the flavor of Catholicism in the United States. For example, many dioceses serve in both English and Spanish. When many parishes were set up in the United States, separate churches were built for parishioners from Ireland, Germany, Italy, etc. In Iowa, the development of the Archdiocese of Dubuque, the work of Bishop Loras and the building of St. Raphael's Cathedral illustrate this point.
In the later 20th century "[...] the Catholic Church in the United States became the subject of controversy due to allegations of clerical child abuse of children and adolescents, of episcopal negligence in arresting these crimes, and of numerous civil suits that cost Catholic dioceses hundreds of millions of dollars in damages."[72] Because of this, higher scrutiny and governance, as well as protective policies and diocesan investigation into seminaries have been enacted to correct these former abuses of power, and safeguard parishioners and the Church from further abuses and scandals. Many see in these reforms (along with Vatican II) signs of a new era of lay initiative and collaboration.[73]
One initiative is the "National Leadership Roundtable on Church Management" (NLRCM), a lay-led group born in the wake of the sexual abuse scandal and dedicated to bringing better administrative practices to 194 dioceses that include 19,000 parishes nationwide with some 35,000 lay ecclesial ministers who log 20 hours or more a week in these parishes.[74]
Recently John Micklethwait, editor of The Economist and co-author of God Is Back: How the Global Revival of Faith Is Changing the World, said that American Catholicism, which he describes in his book as "arguably the most striking Evangelical success story of the second half of the nineteenth century," has competed quite happily "without losing any of its basic characteristics." It has thrived in America's "pluralism."[75]
For a full list of Servants of God and other open causes, see List of American saints and beatified people.
The following are some notable American Servants of God, Venerables, Beatified, and Saints of the US:
According to The Official Catholic Directory, the following are the top eight Catholic pilgrimage sites in the United States:[76]
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