Michael Brooks
Catholicism was introduced to the English colonies with the founding of the Province of Maryland, one of the Thirteen Colonies of British America, in the 17th century. At the time, Maryland was one of the few regions among the English colonies in North America with a sizable Catholic population. The territorial evolution of the United States since 1776 has meant that more areas that are now part of the United States were Catholic in colonial times before they were Protestant. The number of Catholics arriving in the United States declined during the Civil War but increased afterward, with immigrants during the late 19th and early 20th centuries primarily from southern and Eastern Europe. By the beginning of the 20th century, approximately one-sixth of the US population was Catholic.
| Characteristics | Values |
|---|---|
| Early history of Catholicism in America | Catholic clergy participated in the founding of settlements at Port Royal in 1604 and Quebec in 1608 |
| Maryland, founded in 1634, was one of the few English colonies with a sizable Catholic population | |
| The Province of Maryland was founded with an explicitly English Catholic identity in the 17th century | |
| The Spanish named many settlements in the colonial period after Catholic saints or symbols | |
| Anti-Catholic sentiment | A common hatred of Catholics could unite Anglican clerics and Puritan ministers |
| Catholics were often unwelcome in many colonies and were excluded from public office and worship | |
| In the 1800s, there was violence against Catholic churches and institutions | |
| Catholics were seen as a threat to civil society due to the Pope's claim of temporal power | |
| Colonial charters and laws contained specific proscriptions against Catholics | |
| Catholicism and slavery | The Catholic Church accepted the existence of slavery and many Catholics were slave owners |
| Catholic workers opposed emancipation, fearing increased competition for jobs | |
| Recent history | By 1850, Roman Catholicism was the largest denomination in the US |
| In the 19th and 20th centuries, the number of Catholics grew rapidly through high fertility and immigration | |
| In the 21st century, the church in the US dealt with a sexual abuse crisis involving priests | |
| In the late 20th century, the church expanded its network of parishes, schools, and hospitals to meet the needs of new immigrants |
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What You'll Learn
The Province of Maryland
The colony was passed down to his son, Cecil Calvert, the 2nd Baron Baltimore, upon George's death in 1632. The 2nd Baron Baltimore was responsible for the early pioneering of religious tolerance in the English colonies, though strife among Anglicans, Puritans, Catholics, and Quakers was common in the early years.
In 1644, Richard Ingle descended upon the province, forcing Governor Calvert and some of the principal persons of the colony, including two Jesuit Fathers, to flee to Virginia. St. Mary's was burned, valuable records were destroyed, and the residences of many inhabitants were plundered, especially the houses and chapels of the missionaries. The avowed object of this raid was the destruction of the Catholic colony of Maryland.
In 1645, the population of the province was estimated to be between four and five thousand, three-fourths of whom were Catholics. They held most of the offices under the appointment of the proprietary and constituted a majority of the legislative body until the Puritan Rebellion.
In 1650, a body of Puritans driven out of Virginia into Maryland started a rebellion, seizing control of the colony. They convened a General Assembly to which Catholics were declared ineligible as members or electors. This illegal and revolutionary body repealed the Act of Toleration of 1649 and enacted another law that expressly prohibited Catholics in the province.
In 1658, the government of the province was restored to Lord Baltimore, and the Toleration Act of 1649 was reenacted. This Act remained on the statute book until the Protestant Revolution of 1689. In 1689, a rebellion led by John Coode removed Lord Baltimore, a Catholic, from power in Maryland.
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Anti-Catholic sentiment
This anti-Catholic bias was present in Jamestown as early as 1607 and was cultivated in all the Thirteen Colonies. Most of the original 13 colonies passed laws limiting the rights of Catholics. Maryland, founded as a haven for Catholics, eventually persecuted them as Protestants gained control over the government and passed laws forbidding Catholics from voting, holding public office, or worshipping publicly. Five colonies specifically excluded Catholics from the franchise: Virginia, New York, Maryland, Rhode Island, and South Carolina.
During the First World War, anti-Catholic sentiment was further fueled by the discrepancy between Pope Benedict XV's urging of peace and the National Catholic War Council's support for U.S. intervention. In the 1920s and 1930s, political smears against Catholic presidential candidate Al Smith contributed to his defeat in the 1928 election. Smith faced accusations of being a puppet of the pope and was hampered by his opposition to prohibition, a stance that was unpopular with Protestant groups.
Violence against Catholics and Catholic institutions also marked the history of anti-Catholic sentiment in the United States. In 1834, a mob burned down a convent in Charlestown, Massachusetts, due to a false rumor about a nun being imprisoned there. In 1844, a three-day riot broke out in Philadelphia due to fears that Catholics wanted to prevent Bible reading in public schools, resulting in two Catholic churches being burned and 20 people killed.
While anti-Catholic sentiment has declined in recent decades, there have been more recent instances of anti-Catholic acts, such as the vandalization of churches and the decapitation of statues in 2020, with some of these acts linked to far-right groups and conspiracy theories.
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Catholic immigration
The history of Catholic immigration to the United States is a long and complex one, characterised by religious persecution and anti-Catholic bias. Catholics were present in the Thirteen Colonies from the beginning, particularly in Maryland—a colony founded by Catholics—and Rhode Island, a colony founded for religious tolerance. However, they faced extensive religious persecution from Protestant sects, which only allowed limited religious tolerance to Catholics. This anti-Catholic sentiment was also present in the laws of several colonies, which excluded Catholics from the franchise.
The first English settlement in what became the United States was established in 1607 in Jamestown, Virginia, by Protestants discontented with the Church of England. This settlement was characterised by a strong anti-Catholic bias, which spread to all the Thirteen Colonies. Catholics were not permitted in some colonies, such as Massachusetts, and near the end of Charles I's reign, the forced emigration of the Irish brought many to Massachusetts, although their number is hard to estimate due to the obligation to take English surnames. In 1688, the Stuart Revolution in England led to the legal persecution of Catholics in the province of New York, and in 1697, Trinity Church was founded in New York City, receiving many civil privileges.
Catholic clergy participated in the founding of settlements at Port Royal in 1604 and Quebec in 1608, introducing church institutions and preaching to the Indigenous population. Despite some setbacks, including the martyrdom of some missionaries, the work of evangelisation continued, and Catholic missionaries were involved in the further exploration and colonisation of Canada and the Louisiana Territory.
During the colonial period, the Catholic Church in the Thirteen Colonies was under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of the London District. However, the successive bishops had little sympathy with their American ecclesiastical subjects and refused to communicate with them. During the Revolution, the jurisdiction passed to Bishop James Talbot, who also had no sympathy with the American rebel Catholics.
In the 19th century, the Civil War contributed to the growing acceptance of Catholicism in the United States. While the issue of slavery was not particularly problematic for the Church, many northern Catholics came to oppose the institution. The number of Catholics arriving in the US declined during the Civil War but increased afterward, with immigrants coming primarily from southern and Eastern Europe. These new immigrants were not always welcomed by the Catholic Church in America, which was dominated by Irish and Irish American leaders.
In modern times, Catholic immigrants to the United States come from the Philippines, Poland, and Latin America. Some immigrants are offered sanctuary by churches and other houses of worship to protect them from deportation.
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Catholic missions
The earliest Catholic missions in what is now the United States were established by French Catholics in the 17th century. These missionaries actively preached among the Indigenous populations, achieving early success among the Huron and later among members of the Iroquois and Mohawk nations. The French possessions were under the authority of the diocese of Quebec, and the Church sent Jesuits and other missionaries to convert Native Americans, introducing them to Catholicism in stages.
In the 18th century, the United States incorporated territories with a pre-existing Catholic history, previously governed by New France and New Spain. The Province of Maryland, founded in the 17th century, was one of the few English colonies with a significant Catholic population and an explicitly Catholic identity. However, anti-Catholic sentiment was prevalent in early America, and most colonists were Protestant, bringing with them a long history of animosity toward Catholics. This resulted in stringent laws against Catholic education and the exclusion of Catholics from public office and franchise in some colonies.
During the 19th century, the number of Catholics in the United States surged with the arrival of immigrants from countries such as Germany, Ireland, Italy, and Poland. By 1850, Roman Catholicism had become the largest denomination in the country. Catholic immigrants during this period faced discrimination and violence from those who believed that one could not be a good Catholic and a good American simultaneously.
In the 20th century, the Catholic Church in the United States continued to grow, with approximately one-sixth of the population identifying as Catholic by 1900. The Church expanded its network of parishes, schools, and hospitals to meet the needs of new immigrants, and dealt with internal issues such as the sexual abuse crisis. Today, the Catholic Church in the United States reflects the diversity of its members, with Mass offered in multiple languages, including Latin.
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The Civil War
The American Civil War was a conflict that divided the nation, with the Southern states fighting for independence and the Northern and Border states fighting to preserve the Union. The war also impacted the Catholic Church in America, which had been established in the colonial era. By the mid-1800s, most of the Spanish, French, and Mexican influences on the Church had faded, with Protestant Americans moving into formerly Catholic regions. Only small Catholic pockets remained in some states, including Maryland, Alabama, Florida, and Louisiana.
However, the mid-1800s also saw a significant increase in the Catholic population in America due to immigration from Europe, particularly from Ireland, Germany, Italy, Poland, Mexico, and Lithuania. This influx of Catholics caused anxiety among Americans about their influence on the republic. By 1850, Catholic ranks had swelled to more than a million, and by 1860, there were an estimated 4.5 million Catholics in the United States, making up nearly one-sixth of the population.
During the Civil War, American bishops continued to allow slave-owners to take communion, and some bishops misinterpreted papal decrees as condemning only the slave trade and not slavery itself. Archbishop John Baptist Purcell of Cincinnati, Ohio, was an outspoken critic of slavery, writing in an 1863 editorial that "religion flourishes in a slave state only in proportion to its intimacy with a free state, or as it is adjacent to it."
Catholics fought on both sides of the Civil War, with nearly 150,000 Irish Catholics, approximately 40,000 German Catholics, and 5,000 Polish Catholic immigrants fighting for the Union. Catholics also held prominent positions in the officer corps, with over fifty generals and several admirals. Hundreds of priests ministered to the troops, and Catholic religious sisters assisted as nurses and sanitary workers.
After the war, in October 1866, President Andrew Johnson and Washington's mayor attended the closing session of a plenary council in Baltimore, paying tribute to the role Catholics played in the war and the growth of the Church in America.
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Frequently asked questions
Catholicism was introduced to the English colonies with the founding of the Province of Maryland in the 17th century. Maryland was one of the few regions among the English colonies in North America that had a sizable Catholic population. The Spanish and the French also played a role in the spread of Catholicism in America by naming many settlements in the colonial period after Catholic saints or in reference to Catholic religious symbolism.
Catholic missionaries were involved in the exploration and colonization of Canada and the Louisiana Territory. They introduced church institutions and actively preached among the Indigenous population, achieving early success among the Huron. In the late 17th century, members of the Iroquois and Mohawk nations converted, including Kateri Tekakwitha, who was the first Native American to be canonized as a saint in 2012.
Catholics often faced discrimination and violence in early America. Most Americans in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were Protestant, and they treated Protestantism as the unofficial religion of the republic. Some were hostile towards the growing number of Catholic immigrants, leading to incidents such as the burning of a convent in Charlestown, Massachusetts, in 1834, and the Philadelphia riots in 1844, which resulted in the destruction of two Catholic churches.
The Civil War contributed to the growing acceptance of Catholicism in the United States. The issue of slavery, one of the main causes of the war, was not as divisive for the Catholic Church as it was for many Protestant churches. Many Catholics were slave owners, and Catholic moral teaching accepted the existence of slavery.
Immigration has significantly influenced the growth and diversity of Catholicism in the United States. Waves of Catholic immigrants from countries such as Ireland, Germany, Italy, Poland, and Latin America have contributed to the expansion of the Catholic population. By the beginning of the 20th century, approximately one-sixth of the U.S. population was Catholic.
