PRESENTATION ON AMERICAN CATHOLIC HISTORY
In the colonial era, French and Spanish settlers established missions in their territories, while Catholics in the English colonies were based largely in Maryland and later Pennsylvania,
Spain established the earliest missions in what is now American. However, their presence was not as extensive as it was further south.
The Dominican Fr. Luis de Cancer led the first Spanish effort at missionary work in what is now America with a mission near Tampa Bay. However, he was killed by natives, and the effort faltered.
The first permanent Spanish mission, and the first Catholic Church, in what is now the United States, was built in 1565 in St. Augustine, Florida. There were briefly nine other missions nearby, but due to native hostility only the one at St. Augustine lasted.
As part of the War of Spanish Succession in the early 18th century, there were raids from the English colonies in the Carolinas on Florida, which irreparably damaged Spanish settlements, leading to the decline of the Spanish missions there.
Spanish settlers established other settlements in New Mexico, Arizona, Texas and California over the course of the next two centuries. Most of them were small settlements, with similarly small missions. However, at Sante Fe (in what is now New Mexico) the monastery of the Holy Faith (Santa Fe in Spanish) was successful until 1840, when hostility from the Spanish government brought it to an end. Likewise, Franciscan missions around San Antonio were established in the early eighteenth century forming the basis for that city as well as the mission church that would become known as the Alamo and four other churches that are still operational.
Particularly with the efforts of Saint Junipero Serra (1713 – 1784), the Franciscans established 21 missions in California between 1769 and 1833, creating the basis for such cities as Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose and San Diego. The discipline could be strict, but they gave the Indians protection agaist oppression by Spanish overlords. The Spanish government took them over with the Spanish secularization act of 1833, but their influence continues.
The French colonized Canada and the area around the Mississippi River, largely for trading purposes. With the French influence, missionaries (particularly Jesuits) were also able to establish a Catholic presence and bring conversions among the natives.
The French Empire gained control of what is now Canada and much of what is now the eastern Midwest of the United States. Their interest was more in trade with the natives than in large scale settlements. However, French missionaries, and particularly the Jesuits, brought the faith to the Indian population, as well as maintain the faith among the mostly Catholic settlers.
Under Jacques Cartier, the French colonization began in the New World in 1541. However, the wars with Spain prevented many settlements from being established until about 1600.
About the year 1600, French Jesuits established missions in Nova Scotia, but the British destroyed the effort. In 1608, Samuel de Champlain established the first permanent French colony in Quebec.
By 1615, Franciscan friars were promoting missions among the Indian people in Quebec. But it was the Jesuits, with their more flexible style, who would spearhead the missionary work.
A Jesuit priest Jacques Marquette (1636-75) began establishing missions around the Great Lakes in 1668. He travelled with the great French explorer Louis Jolliet down the Mississippi River in 1673; and upon his return, Fr. Marquette continued bringing missions into what is now called Illinois.
Jesuits also brought missions to what is now called Ontario and upstate New York. Led by St. John de Brebeuf, Jesuits came to the area in 1625 and were initially rather successful. There was a setback in 1629 as the English gained control of the region. But the Jesuits came back in 1632 with more assistants, including the priest St. Isaac Jogues. However, in 1639, diseases and warfare again began devastating the local Huron tribes, and they turned against the Jesuits. Between 1642 and 1648, most of the Jesuits were martyred for the faith. However, their great courage impressed many natives and set the stage for future conversions. Saint Kateri Tekakwitha (1656 – 1680), who was a Mohawk Indian and a convert to the faith, became a particularly strong inspiration.
England gained control of Canada after the Seven Years’ War of 1756 – 1763, known in America as the French and Indian War. The British government, although not particularly favorable to Catholics, realized that most of Canada was Catholic; and so to keep the peace, it allowed freedom of religion in Canada through the Quebec Act, which some American colonists oddly believed was a threat to the Protestant presence in the American colonies to the south.
In the British colonies south of Canada, there were few Catholics, except in Maryland and Pennsylvania.
The earliest mission in what is now the United States was established by Jesuit missionaries along the James River, where English colonists would later build Jamestown.
In 1570, eight Jesuits, along with a Spanish boy and a Catholic Indian guide, began a mission along the James River. Their leader was Fr. Juan Baptiste Segura and the guide was the Indian Don Louis, who had been rescued by a Spanish ship and had received Christian instruction in Spain.
Unfortunately, shortly after arrival in Virginia, Don Louis abandoned Christianity and took up pagan practices again, including having several wives. Nevertheless the mission built a school and began evangelization.
However, angry at their opposition to is pagan ways, Don Louis arranged for the murder of all of the Jesuits. The boy Alonso de Olmos was kept by the Indians, but later rescued by a Spanish team, who also executed several Indians for the killing.
At first, Maryland was the colony that Catholics could most easily live in. However, the situation changed after the so-called Glorious Revolution of 1688, in which Parliament gave the throne of England to William and Mary.
In 1624, a prominent Englishman named George Calvert became Catholic and resigned his post in government, as well as his seat in Parliament. However, King James I favored him and granted him a new colony named Maryland after the future Charles I’s wife Maria Henrietta.
His son Cecil, now called Lord Baltimore, brought Catholic colonists to Maryland with the two ships named the Ark and the Dove. He established a colony that would respect religious liberty.
When Oliver Cromwell took power in England in 1642, the Catholics were briefly forced into Virginia. But Lord Baltimore fought his way back into Maryland and a fight for control began. The struggle ended when Oliver Cromwell died in 1658 and Catholics again achieved freedom in Maryland.
Unfortunately, in the wake of the so-called Glorious Revolution of 1688, the situation changed in Maryland, and Catholics were again under legal disabilities.
Pennsylvania then became the best place for Catholics in the English colonies,
In 1681, King Charles II granted William Penn, a charter for the land that would become known as Pennsylvania in part to pay off a debt.
William Penn was a Quaker, which was a tradition that descended from the Baptists. Being under civil disabilities in England, the Quakers believed very strongly in religious liberties. And so William Penn established religious liberty in Pennsylvania. As a result, it became the best homeland in the British colonies for Catholics. Rhode Island also respected religious liberty, but few Catholics lived there.
Catholics generally supported the American Revolution, on the understanding that the new republic would respect their rights, which turned out to be mostly correct.
The American Revolution was based heavily upon new Enlightenment era philosophies, but also had a strong Christian influence. Religious liberty was not initially a central theme, but the Revolution had the effect of promoting this right as its implications played themselves out.
The Revolution had backing from such Enlightenment era figures as Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson. But it also had a strong evangelical religious strain
as well, for it came on the heels of the First Great Awakening in the 1740s. The two sides joined forces for the time. The Declaration of Independence, and most of the Founding Fathers, premised the Revolution on the law of God and believed in His providential guidance. The Revolution was not specifically Christian, but most of its adherents were.
Some of the Founding Fathers, such as George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, strongly promoted religious pluralism, in part based on principle and in part to unite the different sections of the country. In addition, with the colonists seeking French help, it was essential to be at least somewhat friendly to Catholics.
Charles Carrol of Carrolton, a prominent and wealthy Maryland citizen and a devout Catholic, promoted and help finance the Revolution.
Charles was the grandson of another Charles Carrol (the Charles the Settler), who had established the basis for a family that gained wealth and prestige through trade and financing.
Born in 1737, Charles Carrol of Carrolton was largely educated in Flanders and France because Catholic schooling was not allowed in Maryland. As a Catholic, he was at first not allowed to hold public office in that colony. However, he defended the rights of the colonists and was the first to coin the phrase “no taxation without representation.” His intelligent arguments gave him great prestige and eventually the Maryland legislature allowed him to take his place at the Second Continental Congress.
During the Revolution, he helped secure Catholic France’s support and gave his own financial assistance. He was also involved in the drafting of Maryland’s new constitution, which removed religious disabilities.
In 1790. Charles Carrol asked for and received George Washington’s assurance that the new republic would secure religious liberties,
He retired from politics in 1800, but remained active in business and as a living connection to the revolution. He died in 1832, the last living signer of the Declaration of Independence.
During and after the Revolution, the principle of religious liberty took more hold.
During the Revolutionary War, the Virginia House of Burgesses passed the Statue of Religious Liberties giving all citizens equal religious freedom. It was an accomplishment Jefferson was especially proud of. Maryland also guaranteed religious liberty in its new constitution.
As part of the deal to join the new Constitution drafted in 1787, several states insisted that it would soon be amended to contain a Bill of Rights. That demand resulted in the first 10 amendments to the national Constitution. The First Amendment began by stating that the federal government must stay out of religion. Only later, with the 14th Amendment in 1866, and later Supreme Court
decisions, was that provision applied to states as well. However, even before that time, the states one by one removed religious disabilities.
There was still much discrimination against Catholics in many parts of this country, which at times flared up as with the Know Nothing party in the mid-19th century. But it gradually diminished over the long course of time.
This religious liberty could be based upon a positive foundation or upon a negative one. The positive idea was that, as expressed in the Virginia Statute on Religious Liberty, religion is both more sincere and stronger when it is free. The negative idea is that religious truths are either unimportant or unknowable, and thus that religious differences are irrelevant. Christianity in general, and Catholicism in particular, would try to take advantage of the positive side, while combatting the negative.
As a practical matter, as Alexis de Touqueville observed in his 1832 book Democracy in America, Christianity did well in this nation. He wrote, “America is still the place where the Christian religion has kept the greatest real power over men’s souls; and nothing better demonstrates how useful and natural it is to man, since the country where it now has the widest sway is both the most enlightened and the freest.”
The American Catholic Church gradually expanded in the new republic, with the first dioceses and first schools taking shape.
In 1789, Pope Pius VI appointed John Carrol (a cousin of Charles Carrol of Carrolton) as the Bishop of Baltimore, and the first American bishop. Thinking that he needed government approval, he wrote to President George Washington explaining the appointment and how it was good for America.
In 1784, Pope Pius VI had already appointed John Carrol as the Prefect Apostolic of the American Church. Gradually, it became clear that the new nation needed its own bishop, and the few priests who were here overwhelmingly shoed their support for John Carrol.
In his sermons, a report from 1785, a synod in 1791, and a follow up pastoral letter, Bishop John Carrol emphasized the need for a renewal of faithful practice and education among Catholics, expressing concern that they were lapsing from the faith in the New World.
In 1808, Pope Pius VII established new dioceses in Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Bardstown, Kentucky, with Baltimore now as an archdiocese.
There was also the need for new Catholic educational centers. By 1815, there were three Catholic colleges, three seminaries, and several Catholic schools in the United States.
Particularly central to the promotion of Catholic education in America was Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, who established the first Catholic school and the first
Catholic order in America, and would later be the first native born American to be canonized.
Born in 1774 to a wealthy New York family, Elizabeth Bayley married William Seton, a rising New York merchant; and they soon had five children. However the wars between the French and British, and piracy surrounding North Africa, caused his business to decline; in the midst of these setbacks, he contracted tuberculosis and died on a trip to Italy that was meant to restore his health.
After William’s death, Elizabeth joined the Catholic Church, at which point her family disowned her. To support herself and her children, she turned to teaching; and, after a couple of unsuccessful attempts, established a school in Baltimore, which would then move to Emmitsburg.
The effort also led to the establishment of the American Sisters of Charity in 1808, based upon the rule of the Daughters of Charity in France. The order and the schools it ran flourished, with 20 communities by the time of Elizabeth’s death in 1821.
Both natural growth, and flight from the French revolution and the slave revolt in Santo Domingo, led to an increased presence of the Catholic Church in America.
In 1785, there were 24 Catholic priests in the United States. By 1830, there were 232. From 1785 to 1830, the Catholic population went from
25.000 to 300,000, although even that was only 3% of the country’s population.
Likewise, religious orders established new houses in America. On the men’s side, the Augustinians established a house in Philadelphia in 1796; the Dominicans a priory in Kentucky in 1806, and the Jesuits a house in 1804. On the women’s side, the Carmelites and the Poor Clares established houses in the 1790s and the Visitation Sisters in 1808, the Sisters of Loretto in 1812, and the Dominicans in 1822. At the time of the American Revolution, there were no religious sisters in America. By 1850, there were 1344.
A classic example of one promoting religious life in America was St. Rose Philippene Duchesne (1769 – 1852), who led the effort to bring the Religious Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to America.
She first joined a Visitation convent against her family’s wishes, but the French Revolution destroyed the convent. When Napoleon allowed Catholic practices to revive, she tried to reestablish the convent, but the effort faltered. However, when she joined the Sacred Heart sisters, the situation improved.
In 1818, she and four other sisters came to the newly acquired territories of Missouri, Louisiana, and later Kansas to establish
missions and schools. The order throve, establishing six communities by 1828.
During the years leading up to the Civil War, the Catholic Church in America expanded substantially, but also faced hostility from nativist influences. The Church in America also debated how to incorporate the Romantic movement and national identity into her religious practices.
With immigration from Ireland and Germany and national increase, the Catholic Church in American continued her rapid expansion in the mid-19th century.
Due to the Irish potato famine (1845 -49) and other economic and political crises, about 1.5 to 2 million Irish left that nation in the 1840s and 1850s. Many, and perhaps most, of them came to America, leading to a dramatic increase in the Catholic population here. By 1860, about 63 percent of the approximately 3.5 million Catholics in America (12% of the total population) were of Irish origin. By that time the Irish were dominant in the clergy and seminaries as well.
German immigration also continued at large levels to America, especially with regard to the Midwest, where plentiful land appealed to the people who looked for new opportunities. By 1860, another 15 percent of American Catholics were of German background.
The acquisition of Texas and the southwest through the Mexican War also brought some Mexicans and others of Spanish origin into the American Catholic Church.
From 1830 to 1866, the number of clergy in America grew from 232 to 2770 and the number of parishes and missions from 230 to 5067. The number of women religious grew from 1344 in 1850 to about 2000 in 1870.
Perhaps the greatest leader among the new Catholic immigrants was St. John Neumann.
Born to a rural business family in Bohemia in 1811, John Neumann entered seminary and was a bright student, but had trouble becoming a priest because of the abundance of clergy in his home diocese.
And so he wrote letters to American bishops asking for ordination in their diocese. Bishop John DuBois of New York (himself an exile from the French revolution who then founded Mount Saint Mary Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland) accepted his request and ordained him a priest of New York.
After a successful ministry in western New York, he joined the Redemptorists in 1840 and became leader of the American province in 1848. In that role, he increased the discipline of the rapidly increasing Redemptorist presence in America. However, his moves caused some unpopularity, and so he happily resigned that role in 1850.
But Pope Pius IX approved of his policies and appointed him Bishop of Philadelphia in 1852. In that role, he presided over the rapid expansion of the Catholic presence in that city and the state of Pennsylvania, which became a center of immigration. He established 73 parishes in 8 years, and increased the number of Catholic schools from 1 school with 500 students to 100 schools with 9000 students.
He also wrote two catechisms and invited the Sisters of Notre Dame and the Christian Brothers to help with the education; and also brought in the Oblate Sister of Providence from Haiti which increased racial diversity within the Church.
By his death in 1860, Bishop John Neumann had overcome much prejudice and established Philadelphia as a Catholic center in this nation.
Sadly, in response to the increasing Catholic presence, there was a nativist reaction against the Church.
Many American nativists argued that Catholics were allied with a foreign power (the Pope), although the Pope never tried to influence American politics, and in fact was trying to defend his own Papal States. They also claimed that Catholic ideas of dogma contradicted American democracy, although the idea of fixed truths also guided the founding fathers. There were also stereotypes that Catholics were superstitious and poorly education, although the Church was rapidly developing a free school system for all people.
Samuel Morse, the inventor of the Morse Code, was vehemently anti- Catholic and in fact ran for Mayor of New York on the Nativist Party ticket in 1836. He was also very much pro-slavery on the grounds that God created different classes of race.
There were books about how to convert Catholic girls (who often had roles as servants), generally under the generic name Bridget.
John Foxe’s 1583 Book of Martyrs, describing (sometimes factually, sometimes fictionally) Protestant martyrs under Catholic governments was particularly popular reading in schools.
Maria Monk’s 1836 book Awful Disclosures, which was a completely falsified account of a scandalous convent in Quebec, caused a sensation in Canada and America, although there was no evidence to back it up.
There were anti-Catholic riots in Philadelphia in 1844 and Louisville in 1855. After false allegations of imprisoning girls, an Ursuline convent in Boston was burned in 1834.
Overall, the school system was heavily Protestant in its focus, which sometimes caused problems with Catholic students.
The Know Nothing movement and party that developed in America in the 1840s and 1850s opposed immigration in general and the Catholic Church in particular. This group, which called itself the American party, were referred to as Know Nothings because members were supposed to say, when asked about the group that they knew nothing.
The Church also grew from, but also dealt with issues from, the Romantic movement and the question of how to incorporate both American and immigrant identities into the Church.
In the United States, the philosophical system called Romanticism (which stressed the importance of nature, of intuition, and of simple living) largely to the form of the Transcendentalist movement, whose most prominent members included Ralph Waldo Emmerson and Henry David Thoreau, and Louisa May Alcott, authors of essays such as “Nature”, the book Walden Pond, and the novel Little Women respectively. The movement, which started with came from diverse philosophies from the likes of Immanuel Kant, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and Edmund Burke, would have a great deal of influence on such authors as Samuel Coleridge, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mary Shelly, Edgar Allen Poe, and Walt Whitman.
Although Romanticism and Transcendentalism were not particularly Christian in their background, there were several prominent Catholic converts from this tradition, including Orestes Bronson and Isaac Heckler.
Orestes Bronson (1803 – 1876) was a Universalist minister, but joined the Catholic Church in 1844, convinced that she was the best hope for civilization. He launched a quarterly journal called the Bronston Quarterly Review to encourage Catholic scholarship. Through articles there and elsewhere, he argued that Catholicism both defended the rightful American spirit and guarded against excessive opulence and dependence on government or industry.
Isaac Heckler (1819 – 1888) was the son of German immigrants and a friend of Orestes Bronson. With Bronson, he joined the Catholic Church in 1844 and then became a Redemptorist priest. In that capacity, he conducted revival missions along the East Coast in the 1850s. In 1858, he formed the Missionary Priests of St. Paul the Apostle (the Paulist fathers) to bring Catholicism into American culture.
Both the immigration and the Romantic movement led to the increasing question of how “American” Catholic parishes and schools should be. On the one hand, the immigrant communities wanted to run parishes that appealed to their group. On the other hand, the Church is universal and wanted to join different communities together. One the one hand, American Catholics emphasized their patriotism; on the other hand they wanted to develop their unique culture. One the one hand, America is known for public participation in governance; on the other hand the Church is hierarchical. Balancing these interests led to continual debates within the Church, with the likes of the Isaac
Heckler and Orestes Bronson favoring a more specifically American Church and the likes of New York bishop John Hughes favoring a more centralized Church.
During the Civil War and the late 19th century, the Church continued to expand her presence in the United States, but both nativist influences and questions about “Americanism” created challenges to her growth.
Catholics were on both sides of the slavery question and the Civil War, but the issues did not divide the Church. Once the Civil War broke out, it became an opportunity to make her presence felt more.
On the issue of slavery, Catholics in America were divided, along with the members of the Protestant Churches. However, unlike the Protestant Churches, which often divided over these and other questions (e.g., between Presbyterian Church USA and Presbyterian Church of America, Southern and other Baptists), the Catholic Church was united in her doctrine and sacraments.
Popes had condemned slavery in such works as Pope Paul III’s 1537 decree Sublimus Deus and Pope Benedict XIII’s 1839 constitution In Sublime. However, here as elsewhere, many people argued for a distinction between the teaching in principle and the practical application in a given situation and to civil law.
To avoid interference in their pastoral work, bishops generally avoided political issues that did not directly impact the Church.
During the Civil War, Catholics fought on both sides of the conflict, often with great distinction.
Perhaps the most celebrated Catholic member of the northern Army was the chaplain to the Irish brigade Fr. William Corby of the Holy Cross fathers. He famously gave general absolution to the brigade just before its critical charge at Gettysburg and then told them that the Church denies burial to anyone killed while fleeing the battle. He later became president of Notre Dame University and, with such things as the establishment of its law school and the building of its current chapel, helped make it a central presence in American Catholic education.
Religious sisters likewise gained great fame by their ministry to the wounded and ill during the war. About 640 of the 3200 official nurses during the war were religious sisters.
The loyalty of Catholics (to both sides) and the suffering with other Americans helped make the Church a part of American society.
In the late 19th century, the Church continued to expand, both through native growth and immigration.
Immigration continued from Ireland and Germany, but an increasing number of people were also immigrating from Southern and Eastern Europe, leading to an increasing Italian and Slavic presence in America.
By 1880, there were about 6 million Catholics in America, which was approximately 12% of the country. At first, the immigration from Ireland and Germany continued apace, with about 70% of the 1.3 million Catholic immigrants from those countries. But immigration was increasing from the rest of Europe as well. (There was also increasing immigration from China, but the missions had not yet established a large Catholic presence there.) Between 1880 and 1920, about 64 percent of the Catholic immigrants came from Italy, Poland and the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. By 1920, there were about 18 million American Catholics, about 18% of the total population.
The increasing Catholic population let to the creation of 24 new dioceses between 1867 and 1884 and large building projected, both for the new pastoral needs (e.g., parish churches, schools and hospitals) and also to establish a clear presence in the cities. Many dioceses built large mansions for the bishops to show loyalty to them and confidence about their place in America.
The new immigrant populations and the growth and confidence of the Church also led to the establishment of many new institutions and groups.
Perhaps the most successful group was the Knights of Columbus founded by Fr. Michael McGivney in 1882.
Fr. McGivney was the oldest son of a large Irish immigrant family. His father died when he was 16, giving him a first-hand understanding of the struggles that occur in working class families.
He wanted to combine the increasing emphasis on social groups with the need for social insurance (especially life insurance), an industry that was beginning to gain traction. He also wished to emphasize that Catholics could be patriotic and charitable members of society.
Fr. McGivney launched the Knights of Columbus in Connecticut, thinking that it would be a diocesan group, but it quickly spread throughout the country becoming the largest lay group in America.
Likewise, the dioceses began establishing more and more Catholic schools to help with education and to promote the faith.
There was some disagreement about whether to cooperate with public schools or whether to keep aloof from what was mostly a Protestant system. Particularly with the third plenary synod of Baltimore in 1884, bishops told parents that they should send their children to Catholic schools, and the tuitions were very affordable. At its height in the mid-20th century the Catholic school system education about half of Catholic students.
Bishop John Hughes of New York spearheaded an effort to push for public funding for schools. The effort was mostly unsuccessful. And in fact, in many states, the Blaine amendments (named after Maine congressman and 1884 Republican presidential nominee James Blaine) in all but 10 states limited or prohibited the use of public money for religious institutions.
The Catholic Church also established numerous hospitals and programs for the immigrants and the poor. Two great leaders in this effort in the mainland were St. Katherine Drexel and St. Francis Xavier Cabrini. In Hawaii and New York, St. Damian de Veuster and St. Marian Cope spearheaded health care and especially concern for lepers.
St. Katherine Drexel (1858 – 1955) established the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament to provide education and service to African and Indians in the United States.
She was the heiress to the wealthy Philadelphia banker Francis Drexel, whose first wife Hannah died shortly after Katherine’s birth and who then married Emma Bovioir.
Devout from a young age, Katherine sensed a desire for religious life after her parents died. At first she joined the Sisters of Mercy to learn about religious life. But it was understood that she would form a new order for service of the American Indians.
And so, in 1891, with 14 other sisters, she established the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She guided the sisters and used her fortune and donations well to build missions, mostly for African and Indian Americans. Over the next 40 years, the order founded 23 rural schools, 50 missions for Indians and 40 other mission centers. And in 1913, it received final approval from Pope St. Pius X.
After a heart attack, St. Katherine Drexel spent most of her last 18 years in contemplative life, which was her desire when she first started considering being a nun.
St. Francis Xavier Cabrini (1850 – 1918) established the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart to minister to immigrants.
She was born to a large small town Italian family and sought religious life from an early age.
When several orders would not take her due to her ill health, she took charge of an orphanage and formed a community of women around it. This group would become the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart in northern Italy and Rome.
Responding to a call from Bishop Michael Corrigan of New York, and upon the advice of Pope Leo XIII, she and six sisters came to New York in 1889.
The order spread and established schools, orphanages and hospitals throughout the United States and Latin America. By the time of St. Cabrini’s death in 1918, the Sisters of the Sacred Heart had 67 establishments with 1500 members in eight countries.
Although never an American (for Hawaii was not yet part of the United States) St. Damian de Veuster (1840-1889) gave a great impression to Americans through his courageous and energetic leadership of the leper colony on Molokai in the Hawaiian islands. A Belgian priest, he agreed to go first to a mission to Hawaii and then to be one of four priests to serve the leper colony. It turned out to be unfeasible to keep changing priests, and so he stayed on the island and transformed the neglected community to be one that was civilized. Refusing to keep a distance from the lepers, he contracted the disease in 1884 and gradually died of it. Despite some opposition and criticism, even from his own order, his fame spread as an heroic example of Christianity.
St. Marianne Cope (1838 – 1918) pioneered better care for the sick and then continued St. Damian’s efforts in Molokai.
The oldest child of German immigrants to New York, she helped support the family by the age of 13, but was then able to join the Sisters of Saint Francis of Syracuse at the age of 24.
Her compassion and talent for administration became clear. She helped establish St. Elizabeth Hospital in Utica and St. Joseph Hospital in Syracuse in 1866 and 1869 respectively. These hospitals admitted all patients, regardless of race or religion, which was considered progressive for the era. She took over as administrator of St. Joseph Hospital in 1870 and advocated patient’s rights, including the need for cleanliness and treating alcoholism as a disease.
Later elected as a provincial, she responded to the call of the church in Hawaii and even its king to help St. Damian with his leper’s colony. In 1885, she and 34 other Franciscan sisters came to Hawaii and took over the care of the lepers, making the colony astonishingly progressive.
Not one of the sisters caught leprosy, and their example helped establish the reputation of American religious sisters.
The issue of how best to incorporate the Church into American culture led to the controversy over what came to be known as Americanism.
There was a debate about a number of issues, such as: (1) how much control the laity should have over parishes and the assignment of clergy; (2) how much parishes should be defined by ethnic group; (3) whether the American system of separation of Church and state is the ideal; (4) how much to be involved in ecumenical dialogues and cooperation; and (5) how much to support secular organizations such as labor unions.
Such factors as the rise of labor unions and the ecumenical movement in America (including the gathering of religious leaders at the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago) brought these issues to the forefront.
Different ethnic groups tended to want to run their own parishes. Bishops were often willing to allow ethnic parishioners, sometimes leading to several Catholic churches very near to each other. However they insisted that they retained final control over the parishes, including title to parish properties.
- For the most part the bishops succeeded in retaining control, although the disputes did lead to some splinter groups such as the Polish Catholic Church.
Some bishops such as Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore and John Ireland of St. Paul, Minnesota, along with the Paulist and Sulpicians, favored more accommodation and lay control. Other bishops such as Michael Corrigan of New York, and most of the Jesuits, favored more of a centralized approach.
In 1893, Pope Leo XIII sent Archbishop Francesco Sartoli to the United States as his apostolic delegate. Pope Leo and Archbishop Sartoli at the same time both admired the growth and creativity of the Church in the United States, but were also concerned with what they perceived as a willingness to make excessive compromises and accommodations.
In 1895, Pope Leo XIII published the encyclical Longinqua Oceani, in which he praised the practical effects of the American system and the increasing activity of the American church, but warned that the American system of separation Church and state was not to be considered the ideal around the world. He still favored official government support of the Church and a more Catholic society.
In 1899, Pope Leo XIII sent a letter to Cardinal Gibbons, and effectively to the entire Church in the United States, entitled Testem Benevolentiae, in which he commended the efforts of the American Church, but condemned what he called Americanism.
The propositions condemned involved views that the Church should play no role in politics, that the government should not support the Church at all, that the nation defines a different faith, and that it is not of central importance whether a country is Catholic or not.
Those in favor of more accommodation with America argued that the propositions that the Pope condemned were held by very few American Catholics, and that his advisors were misinforming him about the real situation here.
Nevertheless, the letter slowed dramatically the willingness of the Church in America to accommodate trends in society and be involved in ecumenical efforts.
8 There were increasing efforts to establish a unified Church in America, including the idea of national synods, the third of which in 1884 led to the publication of the Baltimore Catechism
In the early 20the century, the Church in America continued growing with immigration and greater structures. In the midst of this success, the nativist reaction of the 1920s and the Great Depression made for challenging situations.
A combination of immigration, natural growth, a series of powerful American bishops, and thriving religious orders made the American Church grow steadily in the early decades of the 20th century.
The popes appointed bishops of extraordinary administrative skill such as John Farley of New York, James Quigley of Chicago, John Glennon of St. Louis, Edward Hanna of San Francisco and Dennis Dogherty of Philadelphia. They emphasized building and fundraising projects, such as large cathedrals and schools; and those efforts were assisted by an eagerness of Catholics to show their pride and confidence. In 1887, the United States bishops established Catholic University of America to emphasize the centrality of the Church in education; after a difficult start, it became well founded and organized by the 1910s.
Religious orders continued advancing and establishing educational institutions. Missionary efforts also increased, reflecting the change from America being mission country to a launching point of missions. Thus, for example, in 1896, the Paulist fathers established the Catholic Missionary Union. In 1911, the bishops of Boston and Raleigh founded the Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America (generally known today as Maryknoll.)
Immigration from southern and eastern Europe continued at a fast clip, especially during World War I, adding further to the number of Catholics (as well as Jews and Orthodox Christians) in America until strict immigration limits were passed in 1920.
There were debates among Catholics about disputed political issues, such as unions, women’s suffrage and Prohibition. Until World War I, the bishops tended
to avoid commenting much on these issues. But, with the participation in public life of the war the situation started to change. Overall the bishops did tend to favor progressive legislation, such as minimum wages, social insurance, worker rights, and regulation of monopolies. And in 1919 they established the National Catholic Welfare Council to promote Catholic interests in public life, including education and immigration.
During World War I, the Catholic Church at all levels was supportive of the war, and in fact in some cases, rather uncharitable to Germans and Austrians.
The United States bishops established the National Catholic War Council in 1917 to organize patriotic and relief efforts.
The bishops were also very willing to send priests as chaplains during the brief time America was in the war.
Overall, there was a strong desire to show that Catholics were as patriotic as others.
The support of the war effort is somewhat ironic, given that Pope Benedict XV warned both sides against engaging in the war with the accurate prediction that it would be much worse than they expected.
Both before and even more after World War I, there was a nativist backlash to the connection between the United States and the world. This backlash led to prejudice against immigrants in general and Catholics in particular.
In 1920, the United States established the first numerical limits on immigration, and the laws favored countries whose nationalities were already here. The effect was to limit sharply immigration from southern and eastern Europe, as well as Asia and Latin America. Except for the limits on Asian immigration, the effect was to blunt the increase in the Catholic Church in America. From 1920 to 1945, the Catholic population in America increased from about 18 million to about 24 million. Because America’s population increased slightly faster, there was a small decrease in the portion of Americans who are Catholic, from 18 to 17%.
Other legislation tried to reduce or eliminate Catholic and other private education. Thus, for example, Oregon forbade all private education and required all children to attend public schools. In its 1925 decision Sisters of the Holy Name v. Pierce, the Supreme Court held that such legislation was unconstitutional.
The Ku Klux Klan, which had gone away after 1877, came back in 1915; and its membership increased dramatically during the 1920s to the point of having 4 to 5 million members in the mid-1920s. They added prejudice against immigrants and non-Anglo-Saxons, and well and anti-Catholicism to their agenda. Despite many requests to do so (particularly by the Catholic statesman Al Smith), neither major political party condemned them at the 1924 conventions.
The United States Catholics responded to this nativism with an increased fervor, as well as increased involvement in public life.
The number of clergy increased by 82% between 1920 and 1945, while the number of religious sisters increased by 83%.
Often the ethnic communities increased religious devotion and loyalty to their parishes in order to emphasize their identity.
In 1919, the United States bishops formed the National Catholic Welfare Council as a successor to the National Catholic War Council. The idea was to promote Catholic interests, and also to advocate a path between socialism and social Darwinism in the economic and social sphere. The lay theologian John A. Ryan (author of The Living Wage in 1906) and the Paulist priest John Burke (editor of Catholic World magazine) had a great deal of influence in promoting practical legislation to promote Catholic social teaching.
There were also efforts an increasing the American presence in theology and in liturgy. For example, in 1926, St. Louis University bean publishing The New Schoolman. The Dominican order launched the publications Modern Scholasticism, which is now the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, and the Thomist in 1926 and 1937 respectively. There was also a promotion of liturgical reforms, such as more participation at the Mass and increased beauty of church music and architecture centered on such places as St. Paul Seminary, St. Louis University, and St. John Abbey in Collegeville. The Jesuit order began the scholarly journal Theological Studies in 1940, with the famous theologian Fr. John Courtney Murray becoming its editor until his death in 1967.
The Great Depression challenged all of American society during the 1930s and was both a struggle and an opportunity for the Church in America.
When the country plunged into the Great Depression, the Catholic bishops’ calls for economic reforms, but not socialism (as for example outlined in the 1919 Bishops’ Program of Social Reconstruction) began to look more favorable. They incorporated Pope Leo’s 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum, and gained further guidance from Pope Pius XI’s 1931 encyclical Quadragesimo Anno. For the most part Catholic participation in public life was welcomed. However, radio personality Fr. Charles Couglin, who began as a social reformer, became an embarrassment when he turned to anti-Semitism and revolutionary sentiments in placing blame for the Great Depression.
Catholic parishes, religious orders and lay efforts were also instrumental in uniting the people in charitable efforts, which enhanced the prestige of the Church.
The economic chastisement also led to an increased religious fervor. That increased religiosity enabled the United States bishops and the Legion of Decency to push Hollywood to adopt standards of decorum run by the Hays Office and effective until the 1970s.
Two of the central figures in Catholic social reform were the statesman Al Smith and the social activist Dorothy Day.
Al Smith became the quintessential Catholic statesman, rising to become governor of New York and the Democratic party’s 1928 Presidential nominee.
Born in Brooklyn in 1873 to a working class family, Al Smith had little formal education but a keen intellect and a strong work ethic, which was needed when his father died in 1886.
He joined the New York civil service as a clerk at the age of 22 and rose up quickly. By his mid-20s he was in the state Assembly and was known for reading through legislation carefully and being able to comment on it with in depth insights. By the age of 40, he was speaker of the New York state Assembly. In the Assembly, he worked on bipartisan efforts to protect workers and revise the state constitution.
He was elected Sherriff of New York County and then Governor of New York in 1918, an office he kept, except for 2 years, until 1928. In that role, he supported women’s suffrage and opposed Prohibition. He also called for higher salaries for teachers, more care for the mentally infirm, child protection laws, labor laws that improved factory conditions and extended protections for women. Al Smith also sponsored the first state park system and civil service reforms. In his campaigns he became known as “the happy warrior.” He was ever an optimist, known for such sayings as, “The solution for the problems of democracy is more democracy.”
Al Smith ran for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 1924. However, neither he nor the other major candidate could get the needed two-thirds support; and so a compromise candidate received the nomination. Al Smith unsuccessfully called for both parties to condemn the KKK.
Al Smith gained the Democratic nomination in 1928. In response to claims that he could not be a faithful Catholic and a patriotic American, he wrote a long letter, which Atlantic Monthly published, in which he argued that the values that he brought to the public sphere are common values of Americans, and that the Church upholds liberty and human rights.
Although he did not prevail in 1928, Al Smith became known as the model of a hard-working, honest, and cheerful politician.
Dorothy Day was a convert to the Catholic Church who established the Catholic Worker movement and promoted an authentic prolife and pro-charity approach to society.
Born in 1897 to a middle class family, her father being a journalist, Dorothy Day was raised as an Episcopalian and was active in the faith
early on. However, when she moved to New York after college, she turned away from the faith and became involved in socialist activism.
In New York, she had several affairs, one of which resulted in a pregnancy. Her boyfriend persuaded her to have an abortion, but then abandoned her.
She did have Catholic friends, and decided to give the Catholic faith a chance. However, even as she was attending some Catholic liturgies, she had another affair, which resulted in another pregnancy; but this time she resisted the pressure to have an abortion.
She turned again to the Church, received instruction from the Sisters of Charity, and then was baptized with her daughter in 1927.
As a Catholic she became a journalist for Commonweal, a Catholic social magazine. In that context, she met the Catholic activist Paul Maurin, and together they founded the magazine Catholic Worker, which was an immediate success increasing to a circulation of 150,000 within a couple of years. The magazine tried to raise awareness of social needs, but avoided the rhetoric of class warfare.
She also founded Catholic Worker houses, in which Catholics would live with the people for whom they were providing housing. This project was an important source of assistance during the Great Depression.
Her pacifism diminished her popularity, and that of the Catholic Worker magazine, during World War II. However, after the war, she resumed social commentary. She maintained an active prayer life, with daily Mass and the rosary, and defied the usual conservative/liberal divide with her advocacy both traditional family morals and economic justice for the poor until her death in 1980.
World War II and the early Cold War were times of growth for the Catholic Church in America, although the seeds of later difficulties were being sown.
In the lead-up to World War II, most Catholic leaders (with the sad exception of Fr. Charles Couglin and the magazine The Tablet) condemned Hitler and religious persecution generally.
In 1937, Pope Pius XI published Mit Brennender Sorge, condemning the Nazi regime and no doubt regretting his willingness to try to deal with them. Although many world leaders continued to ignore the threat from Hitler, there were increasing protests, including many from American Catholics. For example, in 1938, the Knights of Columbus wrote to Franklin Roosevelt asking him to help the Jews. Bishop Robert Lucy of Texas was also forceful in his denunciation of the Nazi. However, while most Americans were
sympathetic to the British, the French and the Poles, most wanted to stay out of the war until the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Once the war started, the vast majority of American Catholics were supportive and joined the ranks in large numbers
After the war ended, Catholics in America were eager to support the Church. And as a result, cultural, building and political projects increased.
The Church’s teachings on family life, including prohibitions on artificial contraception, led to an increase in the Catholic portion of the population. And the ranks of clergy and religious continued increasing to the point that some dioceses were turning away seminarians because they did not have enough space for them. In particular, the Catholic population in America increased from 24 million to 45.6 million from 1945 to 1965, with the Catholic portion of the country increasing from 17% to 23.5% of the population. The number of clergy increased 52% to 59,000 and the number of religious sisters increased 30% to 180,000. According to one survey, 71% of Catholics attended daily Mass by the early 1960s.
The Church also built 3005 new elementary and high schools and 94 new colleges, along with 123 new hospitals from 1945 - 1965. Enrollment in Catholic elementary and high schools increased 120% to 5.1 million. And attendance at Catholic colleges and universities tripled to 385,000 during this time. There was some increased financial support from the government for private schooling (although the Supreme Court would later strike down direct payments to elementary and high schools) In particular, the government’s subsidies for higher education, including the GI bill, helped many universities increase enrollment, although this would later cause concern about the government’s increasing control over these institution through the threat of withholding funding.
There was a flourishing of Catholic culture. For example, Monsignor (later Archbishop) Fulton Sheen gained a very large audience with his radio and the television shows entitled Life is Worth Living and books such as The Life of Christ. Movies such as Going My Way, The Bells of St. Mary, and I Confess, and books such as The Seven Story Mountain, The Cardinal, Brideshead Revisited and Canticle of Leibnitz, as well as the popularity of British Catholic writers such as G.K. Chesterton and J.R.R. Tolkien, also promoted Catholic culture.
Catholic groups such as the Knights of Columbus, Catholic Action and the Legion of Mary saw rapidly increasing membership. Missionary groups, such as Society for the Propagation of the Faith (led by Fulton Sheen from 1950 – 1966) prospered in America.
There was a vibrant debate about how much Catholics should be involved in the ecumenical movement and how much Catholics should embrace the American experiment in religious liberty and separation of Church and state.
Fr. John Courtney Murray became prominent in promoting ecumenical dialogue and religious liberty. For a time, the Vatican Holy Office told him to stop publishing new articles on religious liberty until they had time to research his views, but he was never told to retract his views. In 1960, he published a series of older essays he had written in the widely acclaimed book We Hold These Truths, which argued that the Catholic Church was in the best position to defend the American vision of politics and society.
When John Kennedy ran for the Presidency in 1960, some people, such as the Protestant preacher Norman Vincent Peale, again questioned whether he could be a faithful Catholic and a loyal American President. In a 1959 interview with Look magazine, and then in a 1960 speech to the Houston Ministerial Association, Kennedy said that he was a Democrat who happened to be Catholic, and that he would not let religious views dictate policy. The speeches satisfied most secular skeptics, but left many Catholics wondering how loyal he was to the Church. Most Catholics in politics tended to be Democrats, but there were some notable exceptions, including William Buckley, the editor of the new conservative journal National Review.
With reference to racial integration, the bishops and Catholic institutions were generally progressive, although it sometimes took time. For example, after 1945 Cardinal Samuel Stritch of Chicago began integrating schools in that archdiocese one at a time. In 1947 and 1948 the archdioceses of St. Louis and Washington desegregated their schools. In 1955, Archbishop Joseph Rummel of New Orleans ordered the schools of that archdiocese to integrate; there was resistance to the point that in 1962 he threatened to excommunicate to those who refused. In 1957, the United States bishops issued a pastoral letter condemning racial discrimination. The support for integration was strong, although a bit later that people would have wished.
In the midst of the successes, there was concern that worldly prosperity and a concern for getting along with society were weakening the faith.
The question arose of how much Catholic politicians should allow their faith to guide their policies.
It appears now that clergy were often did not know the distinction between what can be changed in such things as liturgy and theology and the principles that are unchangeable. When, after the Vatican II Council, many matters such as theological methods, governing structures and liturgical practices were changed, some clergy left the priesthood and others made changes that were not authorized.
It does appear that there were often issues small and large that were being neglected. Thus, there were reports of alcoholism among the clergy and religious, and even abusive behavior, that were swept under the rug.
Some commentators, from Msgr. Fulton Sheen to the liberal author Fr. Andrew Greeley, were concerned that Catholics were taking their faith for
granted and engaging in external practices because it was popular, not as a matter of conversion.
Overall, as the Vatican II Council opened, the situation for the Church in America was largely positive, and there was a great deal of optimism, albeit in the context of the Cold War, with its threat of nuclear destruction. However, challenges were waiting in the background.
The 1960s, 1970s and 1980s saw an era of dramatic change in the Church throughout the world and in the United States in particular. Laity could be more involved in the Church, but there was much laxity and dissent. Even in the midst of challenges, however, the seeds of a new springtime were being sown.
Throughout the Church, the Vatican II Council (1962 – 1965) made numerous changes to Catholic practices and governing structures, although the documents repeat continuously that the changes were reforms building upon what had gone before, not a revocation of tradition. The documents on religious liberty (Dignitatis Humanae) and on ecumenism and interreligious dialogue (Unitatis Redintegratio and Nostra Aetate) were considered victories for the Church in America, which had been promoting these issues. Dignitatis Humanae is sometimes called the “American document” of the Council due to the fact that American bishops and theologians, such as Cardinal Francis Spellman of New York and Fr. John Courtney Murray had very large roles in drafting it.
After the Council, the Church in America, as with most of the world, implemented changes based upon the Council documents, but often struggled in how to do so.
Churches generally made the liturgical changes that were called for such as more homilies, simplicity in the liturgy and public participation. However, many unauthorized changes, such as altering the words of the Mass and using secular music, also came in. It should be noted that such changes as the priest facing the people and receiving Communion on the hands were not actually called for by the Council, but were allowed later.
There was some progress in the establishment of such things as youth groups, Bible studies and pastoral councils. However, some important Catholic practices such as Confession and praying the rosary or Stations of the Cross oddly declined despite the fact that there was nothing in the Council calling for that absence. For example, according to one survey monthly confession declined from 38 % in 1963 to 17% just eight years later. In addition, many Churches took the Council’s call for focusing on the altar and common prayer too far by getting rid of all or most of the sacred images in churches, and took the authorization for greater vernacular in the liturgies a greater variety in music too far by getting rid of Latin and organ music altogether.
Catholic education was also rent by crisis after the Council.
In its decree on Christian education Gravissimum Educationis, the Council had called for an increase in emphasis on education and training in the faith,
virtues and prayer, although certainly incorporating modern insights and knowledge.
However, there seemed to be a decrease in emphasis on Catholic education after the Council. Thus, for example, from 1965 to 1988, the number of Catholic elementary and primary schools in America declined from 13,396 to 9050 and enrollment declined from 5.1 million to 2.6 million.
The enrollment at Catholic colleges and universities did increase from 385,000 to 564,000 during that time, although the number of such institutions declined from 304 to 233. However, many Catholic institutions were willing to compromise their identity to fit in more with the idea of being an American university.
In July 1967, 24 representatives from 10 Catholic universities, including Notre Dame, Georgetown and Boston College met in Land O’ Lakes, Wisconsin and issued a statement that has come to be known as the Land O’ Lakes statement. It basically called for allowing professors at Catholic universities to teach and publish what they think best without regard to consistency with Catholic teaching or practice.
Although the statement was made by a small number of representatives, such organizations as the National Catholic Educational Association quickly took it up and it became a guiding principle at many Catholic universities.
There were many others who objected to it, including Msgr. John Kelly at St. John College and Cardinal John Krol of Philadelphia. In addition, some universities such as Christendom College in Virginia expressly rejected the statement.
In 1990, St. John Paul II issued his instruction Ex Corde Ecclesiae, which called for Catholic Universities to emphasize their Catholic identity, and for all theology professors to affirm allegiance to Church teachings.
Dissent was already in the air in the mid-1960s. But it broke out in full force when Pope Paul VI published Humanae Vitae in 1968, upholding the Church’s traditional views on artificial contraception and affirming that they apply to chemical methods in addition to barrier methods.
Pope St. John XXIII had appointed a commission to study the issue of whether the Church’s historic teaching against artificial contraception applied to chemical methods. Blessed Pope Paul VI continued authorization for the commission, which had only an advisory role. Some members of the commission leaked out that the majority wanted to approve of chemical methods, and possibly any method, of artificial contraception in at least some cases. However, partially with the consultations from Archbishop Karol
Wotlya of Krakow, Pope Paul VI forbade any artificial contraception, for the reasoning against barrier methods applied just as much to other methods.
There was immediate dissent on the part of many, and perhaps most, theologians in America. One prominent dissenter was Fr. Charles Curran of Catholic University, who increasingly opposed Church teaching on this and then on almost every area of sexual ethics. Although the University president, Msgr. James Hickey (later Archbishop of Washington) wanted to remove him, he was unsuccessful at the time. In 1986, after a lengthy correspondence, the Vatican forbade him from teaching theology.
In the archdiocese of Washington, 40 priests immediately issued a letter dissenting from the teaching. Cardinal William Boyle at first suspended them. However, when they appealed to the Vatican, the Congregation on Clergy said that they could return to ministry if they made a private retraction. Even though the Vatican said that they must uphold Church teaching, the removal of the suspension was taken by many as permission for dissent.
With increased immigration, particularly from Latin America, the Catholic population increased in proportion to the general American public. However, the number of priests declined, and the number of religious sisters declined dramatically.
According to the official Catholic Register, the number of Catholics in America increased to about 53 million by 1988, which was about 22% of the population, similar to the figure in 1965. (Other surveys have put the number as high as 67 million, which would be about 27% of the population; the difference may be due to people who were raised Catholic, no longer practice the faith, but still in some way identify with it.) There were at the same time both large losses from the Catholic ranks and increases from immigration, particularly from Latin America.
On the one hand, many Catholics were leaving the faith. According to a recent Pew survey, 31.7 % of adult Americans were raised Catholic, but 12.9% of adult Americans are former Catholics, indicating that four in ten Catholics leave the faith. By contrast, 2% of Americans joined the Church as adults. It should be noted that Protestant groups and even the unaffiliated experience similar portions leaving, but they usually make up for most of the losses by gaining converts.
The loss of Catholics from the Church has been countered by immigration, particularly from Latin America. The number of Hispanic Catholics in the United States increased from about 4.9 million in 1960 to about 13.3 million in 1987, or from about 10 percent of the Catholic population to about 20 percent. According to a recent survey, 34 % of American Catholics are now Hispanic. In addition, among American Catholics, 27 % are immigrants and another 15% are children of at least one immigrant. With the general public, 15% of the population is Hispanic, 15% are immigrants, and another 10% are children of at least one immigrant.
The number of priests in America also declined from its height of about 59,000 in 1965-1970 to 54,000 in 1988 and about 38,000 today. One reason was that about 10,000 priests left orders in the 1960s through the 1980s. In addition, seminaries were often torn by dissent and doctrinal disputes. With the Vatican II Council authorizing married permanent deacons in the Latin rite, the number of married Latin permanent deacons has gone from none in 1965 to about 15,000 today.
The decline in religious sisters was even more dramatic. In 1965, there were about 180,000 religious sisters. By 1988, there were 107,000 and there are about 50,000 now.
There was a crisis in religious life in America and throughout the West as many orders got rid of such things as community prayers, the habit, and adherence to a regular rule and also experienced a great deal of dissent for Church doctrine and authority.
In 1992, approximately 120 communities more traditional orders, including some new ones such as the Sisters of Life, the Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist, and the Dominican Sisters of Mary, the Mother of the Eucharist, broke off from the Leadership Conference of Women Religious to form the Council of Major Superiors of Women religious. They have about 6000 sisters now, with about 1000 of them in formation.
Amid the struggles, there have been signs of renewal in the Catholic Church in America.
The struggles against decadence and the culture of death have brought about a greater unity with Protestant denominations and Orthodox churches. The opposition to the Catholic Church is now primarily secular, not Protestant. The magazine First Things, established by then the Lutheran minister John Richard Neuhaus (who became a Catholic priest in 1991) is an example of ecumenical scholarly endeavors, as the Right to Life March and movement generally has brought together Christians from across the board.
There has been a revival in Catholic publishing and culture generally with publishing houses as Ignatius Press and the efforts of orders such as the Daughters of St. Paul and the Franciscans of the Eternal Word, who under Mother Angelica launched Eternal Word Television Network and now run the National Catholic Register and other news outlets. With many larger and smaller Catholic stores and internet sites, including now FORMED, Catholic culture is more available that ever before.
There have been several new faithful Catholic institutions, such as Christendom College, Ave Maria University and more recently Wyoming Catholic College. In addition, some institutions that once had troubles, such
as Franciscan University at Stubenville, Belmont Abbey College and Catholic University of America have dramatically increased their Catholic identity.
The number of newly ordained priests started increasing in the early 2000s from about 450 a year to about 550 a year now. It is not nearly enough, but it is an improvement. And the doctrinal controversies in seminaries have declined dramatically.
The “liturgy wars” that created great controversy over the translation of liturgical texts seems to have died down.
College campus ministries seem to have improved, and groups such as the Fellowship of Catholic University Students, and the National Evangelization teams, have increase Catholic presence in universities and for students afterward.