The work of Father Mathew in promoting temperance across the U.S. led to the establishment of numerous separate and independent Catholic temperance groups. The Catholic temperance societies of Connecticut created a state union in 1871, from which a national union was formed the following year at a convention in Baltimore, Maryland. One hundred seventy-seven such societies from ten states and the District of Columbia and representing a total of 26,481 members created the Catholic Total Abstinence Union of America.
The Union included women's and juvenile societies as well as the Priest's Total Abstinence League. Its monthly publication was The C.T.A.U. Advocate.