Catholic Church in the United States: Difference between revisions

| caption = [[Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception]] in [[Washington, D.C.]], the largest Catholic cathedral in [[North America]]

| headquarters = [[Washington, D.C.]], U.S.

The '''Catholic Church in the United States''' is part of the worldwide [[Catholic Church]] in [[full communion|communion]] with the Pope[[pope]]. With 23 percent of the [[United States]]' population {{as of|2018|lc=y}}, the [[Catholic Church]] is the country's second-largest religious grouping after [[Protestantism in the United States|Protestantism]], and the country's largest single church or [[Christian denomination]] whereif Protestantism is divided intoin the separate [[Christian denomination|denominations]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2122.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070613003300/https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2122.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=June 13, 2007 |title=The World Factbook — Central Intelligence Agency |website=www.cia.gov |language=en|access-date=September 27, 2018}}</ref> In a 2020 [[Gallup, Inc.|Gallup]] poll, 25% of Americans said they were Catholic.<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Brenan |first1=Megan |date=March 29, 2021 |title=Religiosity Largely Unaffected by Events of 2020 in U.S. |url=https://news.gallup.com/poll/341957/religiosity-largely-unaffected-events-2020.aspx |access-date=June 8, 2022 |website=Gallup.com |language=en |archive-date=June 5, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220605025754/https://news.gallup.com/poll/341957/religiosity-largely-unaffected-events-2020.aspx |url-status=live}}</ref> The United States has the fourth-largest [[Catholic Church by country|Catholic population in the world]], after [[Catholic Church in Brazil|Brazil]], [[Catholic Church in Mexico|Mexico]], and the [[Catholic Church in the Philippines|Philippines]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://cara.georgetown.edu/CARAServices/requestedchurchstats.html |title=Catholic Data, Catholic Statistics, Catholic Research |website=cara.georgetown.edu|access-date=August 20, 2013|archive-date=January 20, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160120072339/http://cara.georgetown.edu/caraservices/requestedchurchstats.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>

{{Main|History of the Catholic Church in the United States}}
Catholicism has had a significant cultural, social, and political impact on the United States.<ref name="Kinder2012">{{Cite book |last1=Kinder |first1=Donald |title=The End of Race? Obama, 2008, and Racial Politics in America |last2=Dale-Riddle |first2=Allison |date=2012 |publisher=[[Yale University Press]] |isbn=9780300183597 |chapter=Religion as a short-term force in 1960}}</ref>

One of the colonies[[Thirteen Colonies]] of [[British America]], the [[Province of Maryland]], "a Catholic Proprietary,"<ref>Richard Midddleton, ''Colonial America'', 94–103</ref> was founded with an explicitly [[English Catholic]] identity in the 17th century, contrasting itself with theneighboring neighbouringthe Protestant-dominated [[Massachusetts Bay Colony]] and [[Colony of Virginia]].<ref name="maryland">{{Cite web |title=Roman Catholics, Not Papists: Catholic Identity in Maryland, 1689–1776 |date=July 7, 2016 |url=https://epicpew.com/american-cities-named-saints/ |publisher=Beatrix Betancourt Hardy |access-date=October 15, 2020 |archive-date=February 11, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180211131731/https://epicpew.com/american-cities-named-saints/ |url-status=dead}} Retrieved on October&nbsp;15, 2020.</ref> It was named after the Catholic Queen [[Henrietta Maria]], the wife of [[Charles I of England]]. Politically, it was under the influence of Catholic [[colonial families of Maryland]] such as the Calvert [[Baron Baltimore]] and the [[O'Carroll|Carroll]] family, the latter of Irish origin.<ref name="calcarr">{{Cite web |title=The United States' Catholic Beginnings in Colonial Maryland |url=http://napa-institute.org/2018/09/25/the-united-states-catholic-beginnings-in-colonial-maryland/ |publisher=NAPA Institute |access-date=October 15, 2020 |archive-date=January 26, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210126030615/http://napa-institute.org/2018/09/25/the-united-states-catholic-beginnings-in-colonial-maryland/ |url-status=dead}} Retrieved on October&nbsp;15, 2020.</ref> Much of the religious situation in the Thirteen Colonies reflected the sectarian divisions of the [[English Civil War]] and in a larger sense the aftermath of the [[English Reformation]].<ref name="newengland">{{Cite web |title=New England's God: Anti-Catholicism and Colonial New England |url=https://collected.jcu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1016&context=mastersessays |publisher=John Carroll University |access-date=October 16, 2020 |archive-date=January 15, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210115205634/https://collected.jcu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1016&context=mastersessays |url-status=live}} Retrieved on October&nbsp;15, 2020.</ref> Radical [[Puritans]], who were viewed as outsiders in England for their opposition to the establishment [[Laudian]]-leaning [[Anglican Church]], saw settlement in the American Colonies, particularly with the [[Plymouth Colony]], as a way to escape religious restrictions against them in "the motherland" and were often theologically even more hostile to Catholics than the situation in England itself.<ref name="newengland"/>

[[File:John Carroll Gilbert Stuart.jpg|thumb|[[John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore)|John Carroll]], [[Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore|Archbishop of Baltimore]], the first Catholic bishop in the United States. His cousin, [[Charles Carroll of Carrollton|Charles Carroll]], was aone of the 56 [[Founding Father of the United States|Founding Father]] and one of 56 founders to sign the [[United States Declaration of Independence|Declaration of Independence]].]]

Anti-Catholicism was the policy for the English who first settled the New England colonies, and it persisted in the face of warfare with the French in [[New France]], (now part of Canada).<ref>{{Cite book |first1=Ray Allen |last1=Billington |author1-link=Ray Allen Billington |title=The Protestant Crusade: 1800–1860; a study of the origins of American nativism |url=https://archive.org/embed/protestantcrusad0000unse |location=New York |publisher=[[The Macmillan Company]] |date=1938 |pages=1–15 |via=[[Internet Archive]]}}</ref> Maryland was founded by a Catholic, [[Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore|Lord Baltimore]], as the first 'non-denominational' colony and was the first to accommodate Catholics. A charter was issued to him in 1632.<ref>{{Cite book |first1=Richard |last1=Middleton |title=Colonial America 1565–1776 |url=https://archive.org/embed/colonialamericah0000midd |location=Oxford |publisher=[[Blackwell Publishing]] |date=2002 |edition=Third |isbn=978-0-631-22141-8 |via=[[Internet Archive]] |page=95}}</ref>

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 Act of Toleration was reinstated and Maryland became the center of Catholicism into the mid-19th century. In 1689, Puritans rebelled and again repealed the [[Maryland Toleration Act]]. These rebels cooperated with the colonial assembly "dominated by Anglicans to endow the Church of England with tax support and to bar Catholics (and Quakers) from holding public office."<ref>{{Cite book |first1=Alan |last1=Taylor |author1-link=Alan Taylor (historian) |title=[[American Colonies]] |location=New York |publisher=[[Viking Press|Viking]] |date=2001 |page=283}}</ref> New York, interestingly enough, proved more tolerant with its Catholic governor, Thomas Dongan, and other Catholic officials.{{sfn|Middleton|2002|p=158}} Freedom of religion returned with the American Revolution.

In 1756, a Maryland Catholic official estimated seven thousand practicing Catholics in Maryland and three thousand in Pennsylvania.<ref>{{Cite book |first1=Dale |last1=Taylor |title=The Writers' Guide to Everyday Life in Colonial America, 1607–1783 |location=Cincinnati, Ohio |publisher=[[Writer's Digest Books]] |date=1997 |page=273 |url=https://archive.org/embed/writersguidetoev0000tayl |via=[[Internet Archive]]}}</ref> The Williamsburg Foundation estimates in 1765 Maryland Catholics at 20,000 and 6,000 in Pennsylvania. The population of these colonies at the time was approximately 180,000 and 200,000, respectively. By the time the American War for Independence started in 1776, Catholics formed 1.6%, or 40,000 persons of the 2.5&nbsp;million population of the 13 colonies.{{sfn|Middleton|2002|p=95–100, 145, 158, 159, 349n}}{{sfn|Maynard|1941|p=126}} Another estimate is 35,000 in 1789, 60% in Maryland with not many more than 30 priests.<ref>{{Cite book |first1=Mark A. |last1=Noll |title=A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada |date=1992 |location=London |publisher=[[Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge]] |isbn=0-281-04693-X |url=https://archive.org/embed/historyofchristi0000noll |via=[[Internet Archive]] |page=205}}</ref> John Carroll, first Catholic Bishop, in 1785, two years after the [[Treaty of Paris (1783)]], reported 24,000 registered communicants in the new country, of whom 90% were in Maryland and Pennsylvania.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Faragher |first1=John Mack |author1-link=John Mack Faragher |title=The Encyclopedia of Colonial and Revolutionary America |url=https://archive.org/embed/encyclopediaofco00fara |location=New York |publisher=[[Da Capo Press]] |date=1996 |page=376 |isbn=0-306-80687-8 |via=[[Internet Archive]]}}</ref>

OfHistorian Jay Dolan, writing on the colonial era, historianin Jay Dolan2011, sayssaid:

===19th century (1800–1900)===

Historian [[John McGreevy]] identifies a major Catholic revival that swept across Europe, North America, and South America in the early 19th century. It was nurtured in the world of Catholic urban neighborhoods, parishes, schools, and associations, whose members understood themselves as arrayed against, and morally superior to the wider American society. The Catholic Revival is called "Ultramontanism." It included a new emphasis on Thomistic theology for intellectuals. For parishioners it meant a much deeper piety that emphasized miracles, saints, and new devotions such as, compulsory Sunday attendance, regular confession and communion, praying the rosary, a devotion to the Blessed Virgin, and meatless Fridays. There was a deeper respect for bishops, and especially the Pope, with more direct control by the Vatican over selecting bishops and less autonomy for local parishes. There was a sharp increase in Mass attendance, religious vocations soared, especially among women. Catholics set up a parochial school system using the newly available nuns, and funding from the more religious parents. Intermarriage with Protestants was strongly discouraged. It was tolerated only if the children were brought up Catholics. The parochial schools effectively promoted marriage inside the faith. By the late 19th century dioceses were building foreign language elementary schools in parishes that catered to Germans and other non-English speaking groups. They raised large sums to build English-only diocesan high schools, which had the effect of increasing ethnic intermarriage and diluting ethnic nationalism.<ref>{{Cite journal |first1=Richard D. |last1=Alba |title=The Twilight of Ethnicity Among American Catholics of European Ancestry |journal=[[Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science]] |volume=454 |number=1 |date=1981 |pages=86–97 |url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/000271628145400108 |url-access=subscription |doi=10.1177/000271628145400108 |via=[[Sage Journals]]}}</ref> Leadership was increasingly in the hands of the Irish. The Irish bishops worked closely with the Vatican and promoted Vatican supremacy that culminated in Papal infallibility proclaimed in 1870.<ref>John T. McGreevy, ''Catholicism and American Freedom: A History'' (2003) pp 12–28, 129.</ref>

The bishops began standardizing discipline in the American Church with the convocation of the [[Plenary Councils of Baltimore]] in 1852, 1866 and 1884. These councils resulted in the promulgation of the [[Baltimore Catechism]] and the establishment of Thethe [[Catholic University of America]].

Jesuit priests who had been expelled from Europe found a new base in the U.S. They founded numerous secondary schools and 28 colleges and universities, such asincluding [[Georgetown University]] (1789), [[St. Louis University|St. Louis University (1818)]], [[Boston College]], the [[College of Holy Cross]], the [[University of Santa Clara]], and several Loyola Colleges.<ref>Peter McDonough, ''Men astutely trained: A history of the Jesuits in the American Century'' (2008).</ref> Many other religious communities like the [[Dominican Order|Dominicans]], [[Congregation of Holy Cross]], and [[Franciscans]] followed suit.

[[File:GibbonsPhotoStanding.jpg|thumb|[[James Gibbons]] (1834–1921), cardinal [[Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore|archbishop of Baltimore]], a widely respected American Catholics leader]]

[[File:Bishop Fulton J. Sheen 1956.JPG|thumb|Bishop [[Fulton J. Sheen]] became a media personality withlaunched his own television show ,''[[Life Is Worth Living]]'', which aired during the 1950, as the church attempted to convey its message to a wider audience with the emergence of [[mass media]] and made him a media star]]

{{FurtherMain|Catholic Charities USA}}

[[File:Plurality Religious Denomination by U.S. State.svg|thumb|A map showing plurality religious denominations by state as of 2014, according to the [[Pew Research Center]]. [[Catholic Church|Catholics]] made up a plurality of the population in four of the nation's 50 states: [[Massachusetts]], [[New Jersey]], [[New York (state)|New York]], and [[Rhode Island]].