Roman Catholicism in the United States

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Roman Catholicism in the United States has grown dramatically over the country's history, from being a tiny minority faith during the time of the Thirteen Colonies to being the country's largest Christian denomination today. With 76.9 million residents professing the faith in 2003, the United States has the the third-largest Catholic population in the world after Brazil and Mexico. Approximately 26% of the American population is Catholic; it is four times the size of the next largest denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention.

The chuch's leadership body in the United States is the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, made up of the hierarchy of bishops and archbishops of the United States and the U.S. Virgin Islands, although each bishop is independent in his own diocese, answerable only to the Pope.

No primate for Catholics exists in the United States. The Archdiocese of Baltimore, the first diocese established in the country, received Prerogative of Place in the 1850s, which confers to its archbishop a subset of the leadership responsibilities granted to primates in other countries.

Contents 1 Statistics 2 Roman Catholicism by State 3 History 4 Dioceses 5 See also 6 Additional reading 7 External links

[edit] Statistics

Over 19,000 parishes exist in 195 dioceses or archdioceses:

• 146 Latin Catholic Dioceses
• 2 Eastern Catholic Archdioceses or Archeparchies
• 15 Eastern Catholic Dioceses or Eparchies

This gives the Catholic Church the third highest total number of churches in the U.S., behind Southern Baptists and Methodists. However, because the average parish is significantly larger than the average church from those denominations, there are about 2.5 times as many Catholics as Southern Baptists and almost 5 times as many as Methodists.

The Church has over 30,000 diocesan priests, and over 15,000 priests vowed to a specific order; also over 30,000 lay ministers, 13,000 deacons, 75,000 sisters, and 5,600 brothers.

150,000 Catholic school teachers operate in the United States, teaching 2.7 million students.

There are about 60-70 million people in the United States who were baptized as Catholics, or roughly 26% of the U.S. population.[1] Today the Catholic Church in America has 69,135,254 members by the Official Catholic Directory 2006. As of 2002, a Pew Research poll found that roughly 24% of the adult U.S. population self-identifies as Catholic.[2]. Other estimates from recent years generally range around 20% to 28%. Catholics in the U.S. are about 6% of the church's total worldwide membership.

A poll by The Barna Group in 2004 found Catholic ethnicity to be 60% non-Hispanic white (commonly called Caucasian), 31% Hispanic of any race, 4% Black, and 5% other ethnicity.[3]

As of 2006 of 195 dioceses, seven are vacant, two for more than 18 months. Another 14 bishops, including two cardinals, are past the retirement age of 75.

[edit] Roman Catholicism by State

Rank	State	Percentage of Catholics	Largest Denomination
1	Rhode Island	63	Roman Catholicism
2	Massachusetts	47
3	New Mexico	41
4=	New Jersey	39
	Vermont	39
6	New York	38
7	New Hampshire	35
8=	California	34
	Connecticut	34
10	Arizona	31
11=	Illinois	30
	Louisiana	30	Baptist
	North Dakota	30	Lutheran
14=	Texas	29	Roman Catholicism
	Wisconsin	29
16	Nebraska	28
17	Pennsylvania	27
18	Florida	26
19=	Maine	25
	Minnesota	25
	South Dakota	25	Lutheran
22=	Colorado	24	Roman Catholicism
	Hawaii	24
	Montana	24
	Nevada	24
26=	Iowa	23
	Maryland	23
	Michigan	23
29	Washington	22	Roman Catholicism
30=	Indiana	20
	Kansas	20
	Missouri	20
33	Ohio	19
34	Wyoming	18
35=	Idaho	15
	Kentucky	15	Baptist
	Oregon	15	Roman Catholicism
38	Virginia	14	Baptist
39	Alabama	13
40=	Delaware	10	Methodist
	North Carolina	10	Baptist
42	Georgia	8
43=	Alaska	7
	Arkansas	7
	Oklahoma	7
	South Carolina	7
	Tennessee	7
	Utah	7	Latter-day Saint
49=	Mississippi	N/A	Baptist
	West Virginia

^[1]

1. ^ See each state's Religious Demographic section

[edit] History

Catholicism first came to the territories now forming the United States before the Protestant Reformation with the Spanish explorers and settlers in present-day Florida (1513) and the southwest. The first Christian worship service held in the current United States was a Catholic Mass celebrated in St. Augustine, Florida. The influence of the Alta California missions (1769 and onwards) forms a lasting memorial to part of this heritage.

In the English colonies, Catholicism was introduced with the settling of Maryland in 1634; this colony offered a rare example of religious toleration in a fairly intolerant age, particularly amongst other English colonies which frequently exhibited a quite militant Protestantism. (See the Maryland Toleration Act, and note the pre-eminence of the Archdiocese of Baltimore in Catholic circles.) However, at the time of the American Revolution, Catholics formed less than 1% of the population of the thirteen colonies.

The main source of Roman Catholics in the United States was the huge numbers of European immigrants of the 19th and early 20th centuries. These huge numbers of immigrant Catholics came from Ireland, Southern Germany, Italy, Poland and Eastern Europe. Substantial numbers of Catholics also came from French Canada during the mid-19th century and settled in New England. Since then, there has been cross-fertilization of the Catholic population as members of historically Catholic groups converted to various Protestant faiths, and vice-versa, with Catholics of (usually partial) English, Scottish, north German, Norwegian, or Swedish descent not uncommon.

Modern Catholic immigrants come to the United States from the Philippines 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 the faithful in both the English language and the Spanish language. Also, when many parishes were set up in the United States, separate churches were built for parishioners from Ireland, Germany, Italy, e.t.c. The development of the Archdiocese of Dubuque, the work of Bishop Loras and the building of St. Raphael's Cathedral illustrate this point.

Some anti-immigrant and nativism movements, like the Know Nothings and the Ku Klux Klan, have also been anti-Catholic. Indeed for most of the history of the United States, Catholics have been persecuted. It was not until the Presidency of John F Kennedy that Catholics lived in the US free of scrutiny. The Klu Klux Klan ridden South discriminated against Catholics for their commonly Irish, Italian, Polish, or Spanish ethnicity, and the "righteous", Protestant North and Midwest labeled all Catholics as anti-American "Papists", incapable of free thought without the approval of their heir to St. Peter. This was done to keep "mongrel Catholic peoples" from having further success in their rapid assimilation into American society. It is during these times that Protestants gave Catholics some of their more disturbing nicknames like "paddy", "mick", and "donkey" for the Irish, or "guinea", "wop", and "dago" for Italians.

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.

[edit] Dioceses

• US Catholic Bishops
• US Catholic Cathedrals
• US Catholic Dioceses

[edit] See also

• Catholicism and American politics
• Roman Catholic sex abuse cases

[edit] Additional reading

• Fogarty, Gerald P. Commonwealth Catholicism: A History of the Catholic Church in Virginia, ISBN 978-0268022648.

[edit] External links

• Global Catholic Statistics: 1905 and Today by Albert J. Fritsch, SJ, PhD
• Largest Religious Groups in the United States of America