Religious Themes Catholics in America

Religious Themes

CATHOLICS IN AMERICA

According to Robert F. Trisco, Catholics "make up approximately one-fourth of the population of the United States, making this group the largest single community of faith in the nation" (78). Obviously, the history of Catholicism in America is very complex and engaging, yet as a religious theme, Catholics in America, dating back many centuries, have greatly influenced how America thinks and operates, especially when considering the core beliefs and practices that continue to be so pervasive in contemporary American culture.

Ellis, writing in Catholics in Colonial America, points out that "All religions, except those linked to Native American Indians, are immigrant faiths, due to the fact that the only indigenous religions were those of the American Indian who lived in North America long before the arrival of the first European explorers" (178). And because the huge area which became the United States included most of the Spanish territories, the oldest non-native religion in today's America is Catholicism. Thus, it is "especially true of Catholics that their history has been, and in many ways continues to be, influenced by an immigrant church," namely, the Roman Catholic Church of the Vatican in Rome (Ellis, 181). This indicates that Catholics have been in what is now the United States since at least the early 16th century when Spanish missionaries arrived from Europe with the intention to civilize what they saw as heathens living in sin and corruption.

It is very likely that the first Catholic mass, an act central to Catholic worship, was brought about by an early Spanish missionary priest in the middle years of the 16th century. Later on, French missionaries traveled through much of the northeastern and northern regions of America and even progressed as far as the Mississippi delta in what is now Louisiana. These missionaries, along with many explorers, "came to the New World with two goals -- territorial conquest for their respective kings and queens and to convert Native American indigenous populations to Catholicism" (Trisco, 185). Following the French, the English Catholics arrived, yet their reason for coming to America was to settle and create new homes for their families, not to mention to escape from persecution in England, first begun by King Henry VIII who forced Catholics to flee for their very lives. Unfortunately, these English Catholics also brought along with them some major hostilities related to the French and the Spanish which only complicated the lives of all involved in the New World.

During the Colonial Era, the number of Catholics in America remained relatively small; most were of English or Irish descent, yet this was to change radically when land was acquired in the South and Southwest which increased the number of Spanish Catholics. By the 1840's, a huge influx of immigrants from famine-plagued Ireland arrived in America and later became an important contributor to American Catholicism.

In 1924, the American Congress greatly reduced immigration with the Immigration Act, but this system was removed in 1965 which allowed for a huge wave of immigration from parts of Asia, such as the Philippine Islands, Japan and China; also, immigrants from Haiti and Mexico flooded in and greatly increased the population of American Catholics. With the arrival of the 1960's, five events are of high importance. First, John F. Kennedy became the first Catholic President of the United States in 1960 which "due to his popularity, charisma and personal integrity reassured non-Catholic Americans that Catholicism was legitimate and that Catholics could be trusted" (Emerson, 256).

Second, Pope John XXIII who had been elected as Pope in 1958 became one of the most popular and beloved Catholic Pope in modern history, due to his attempts to bring Catholics and non-Catholics together in friendship and appreciation. Third, John XXIII also convened the Second Vatican Council or Vatican II between 1962 and 1965 which "brought about substantial and long-lasting changes and innovations in the Catholic church." Accordingly, this council "solved some of the lingering problems of being a Catholic in America and made it possible for Catholics to feel less different in the eyes of their contemporaries and non-Catholic neighbors" (Marino, 256). And fourth, Pope Paul VI, the successor to John XXIII, issued "Humanae Vitae" which contained a strong reaffirmation on the ban on artificial contraception, a subject which continues to create much controversy and debate in today's America.