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The Catholic Church in the United States is part of the worldwide Catholic Church, the Christian Church in full communion with the Pope. It is the largest single religious denomination in the United States with 24% of the population baptized as Catholics. With about 70 million Americans professing the faith in 2010, the United States has the fourth largest Catholic population in the world after Brazil, Mexico and the Philippines. Thus in this very narrow sense, US Catholicism could still be considered as a 'minority religion' within the US. Catholicism arrived in what is now the United States during the earliest days of the European colonization of the Americas. The first Catholic missionaries were Spanish, and came to what is now the United States following the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the New World. They established missions in what are now Florida, Georgia, Texas, New Mexico, California, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. French colonization came later, in the early 1700s, with the French establishing missions in the nine districts of Louisiana Territory: New Orleans, Biloxi, Mobile, the Alabamas, Natchez, Yazoo, Natchitoches, Arkansas, Illinois, and Michigan At the time the United States was founded in 1776 on the English-speaking colonies of the eastern seaboard, only a small fraction of the population was Catholic. The number of Catholics has grown over the country's history, at first slowly in the early 1800s through some immigration and also through the acquisition of territories (once possessions of France, Spain, and Mexico) with predominately Catholic populations. In the mid 1800s, a rapid influx of Irish immigrants during the Irish potato famine made Catholicism the single largest Christian denomination in the United States. Beginning in the late 1900s, the large numbers of newly arrived Hispanic immigrants served to further increase the US Catholic Church's margin of numerical superiority in size above all other US denominations. The central leadership body of the Catholic Church 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. In addition to the 195 dioceses represented in the USCCB, there are several dioceses in the nation's other four overseas dependencies. In the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the bishops in the six dioceses (one metropolitan archdiocese and five suffragan dioceses) form their own episcopal conference, the Conferencia Episcopal Puertorriqueña. The bishops in US insular areas in the Pacific Ocean—the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the Territory of American Samoa, and the Territory of Guam—are members of the Episcopal Conference of the Pacific. No primate exists for Catholics in the United States. In the 1850s, the Archdiocese of Baltimore was acknowledged a Prerogative of Place, which confers to its archbishop some of the leadership responsibilities granted to primates in other countries. The Archdiocese of Baltimore was the first diocese established in the country in 1789 with John Carroll (1735–1815) its first bishop. It was, for many years, the most influential diocese in the fledgling nation. Now, however, the United States has several large archdioceses and a number of cardinal archbishops. From Wikipedia under the
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 news.google.com New York Times What effect will the new policy will have in Mexico and, possibly, in the United States ? Will it draw so-called drug tourists from across the border? ... and more » news.google.com Washington Post Rather, in the new America, liberty is supreme: the United States has "given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of ... and more » news.google.com Kansas City Star Thus, President Obama's federal health care plan actually goes against Catholic teaching. Unfortunately, a majority of bishops in the United States ... Midlands Voices: Universal care not a commodity Omaha World-Herald ALL: Bishops Must Choose Between Christ-Centered Care and Obamacare Reuters Bishops urge united Catholic voice on key elements of health reform The Pilot Catholic Online - American Spectator all 38 news articles » From Google News Search: "Roman Catholicism in the United States"  firstthings.com David P. Goldman ue, 09 Mar 2010 20:44:26 GM What has been done in the . United States. , for example, it was forced to do by the pressure of public opinion after records, files and correspondence was forced into the public venue by a very brave, principled and grounded . Catholic. woman judge in ... The . Roman Catholic. Church should be held to the highest standard as a signatory to the . United. Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, a Convention that by any objective standard it has grossly violated for decades. ...  the-american-catholic.com Eric Brown ue, 09 Mar 2010 06:08:16 GM Protestant Christians share with . Roman Catholics. a great deal, but certain Protestant tendencies, for the lack of a better term, such as an emphasis on freedom, individual conscience, self-determination (versus self-discovery), etc, ... This, of course, inevitably affects . Catholics. living within the . United States. . It is hard to argue that our socio-political environment as well as our history did not make it possible for the first . Catholic. president could claim that his ...  calcatholic.com unknown ue, 09 Mar 2010 08:00:00 GM 27 ceremony in San Jose during which Olivia Doko, regional program coordinator for the western and central regions of . Roman Catholic. Womenpriests-. USA. , was ordained a bishop. According to a biography of Doko on the Womenpriests website ... From Google Blog Search: "Roman Catholicism in the United States" |
