CATHOLICISM

CATHOLICISM. Spanish and French explorers brought Roman Catholicism to what is now the United States in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Spanish explorers founded St. Augustine, Florida, in 1565, and it became the site of the oldest Christian community in the United States. Missionary priests established mission towns that stretched from St. Augustine north to Georgia. Their goal was to Christianize and civilize the native population. The golden age of the missions was in the mid-seventeenth century, when seventy missionaries were working in thirty-eight missions. The missions then began to decline, and by the early eighteenth century St. Augustine was the only Catholic mission left in Florida. The mission era ended when the British gained control of Florida in 1763.

The French established a permanent settlement at Québec in 1608 that became the center of New France. Missionary priests traveled from Québec down the St. Lawrence River through the Great Lakes region seeking to evangelize the native population. This mission era endured through the first half of the eighteenth century, coming to an end when the British took over Canada in 1763. Throughout the Midwest, French missionaries and explorers left their mark in places like St. Ignace and Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, and St. Louis, Missouri.

The Catholic presence in the Southwest was quite widespread. Spanish explorers settled Santa Fe in 1610 and then branched into what is now Arizona and Texas. In the eighteenth century Spanish missionaries, led by the Franciscan friar Junipero Serra, traveled the Pacific coast and founded a chain of twenty-one mission towns stretching from San Diego to San Francisco. The Mexican government took over the missions in 1833 in what marked the end of the Spanish mission era. The dissolution of the missions, however, did not mean the end of frontier Catholicism. The church survived, ministering to the needs of Hispanic Americans and Catholic Indians. When northern Mexico became part of the United States in 1848 as a result of the Mexican-American War, the Catholic Church there entered a new chapter in its history.

In 1634 Cecil Calvert, an English Catholic nobleman, and a small group of English colonists founded Maryland. That colony became the center of the Catholic colonial presence in the English colonies. St. Mary's City

in southern Maryland became the capital of the colony, where Jesuit missionaries from England and Europe established farms. Worship services took place at these farms, which also became the home base for traveling missionaries who ministered to the needs of a rural population scattered about southern Maryland. Catholics were always a minority in Maryland, but they were in a position of prestige and power so long as the Calvert family was in control. That all changed in 1689 when William and Mary ascended to power in England and the Catholic Calverts lost ownership of the colony. Since Maryland was now a royal colony, England's penal laws became law in Maryland. These statutes discriminated against Catholics by denying them such rights and privileges as voting and public worship. Nonetheless, the Catholic population continued to grow, mainly because of the large numbers of Irish immigrants. By 1765, twenty-five thousand Catholics lived in Maryland; while another six thousand lived in Pennsylvania.

One of the most prominent families in colonial Maryland was the Carroll family. Irish and Catholic, Charles Carroll of Carrollton became a distinguished figure in the American Revolution. A delegate to the Continental Congress, he fixed his signature to the Declaration

of Independence. He also helped to write the new Maryland state constitution. Like Carroll, the vast majority of Catholics supported the Revolution of 1776.

The Early National Era and the Democratic Spirit

In 1790 John Carroll, an American-born and European-educated priest, was ordained as the first bishop of Baltimore. Only about 35,000 Catholics lived in the United States at that time. Carroll articulated a vision of Catholicism that was unique at this time. Together with many other Catholics he envisioned a national, American church that would be independent of all foreign jurisdiction and would endorse pluralism and toleration in religion; a church in which religion was grounded in the Enlightenment principle of intelligibility and where a vernacular liturgy was normative; and finally, a church in which the spirit of democracy, through an elected board of trustees, defined the government of parish communities.

The vital element in the development of American Catholicism was the parish. Between 1780 and 1820 many parish communities were organized across Catholic America. Perhaps as many as 124 Catholic churches, each one representing a community of Catholics, dotted the landscape in 1820. In the vast majority of these communities, laymen were very involved in the government of the parish as members of a board of trustees. The principal reason for such a trustee system was the new spirit of democracy rising across the land.

In emphasizing the influence of the democratic spirit on the Catholic parish, however, it is well to remember that tradition played a very important role in this development. When they sought to fashion a democratic design for parish government, American Catholics were attempting to blend the old with the new, the past with the present. The establishment of a trustee system was not a break with the past, as they understood it, but a continuation of past practices, adapted to a new environment. Lay participation in church government was an accepted practice in France and Germany, and English and Irish lay Catholics were also becoming more involved in parish government. Thus, when they were forced to defend their actions against opponents of the lay trustee system, Catholic trustees appealed to tradition and long-standing precedents for such involvement. This blending of the old with the new enabled the people to adapt an ancient tradition to the circumstances of an emerging, new society.

Mass Immigration and the Church

Once large-scale immigration began in the 1820s and 1830s, America's Catholic population increased dramatically. Many thousands of Irish and German Catholics arrived in the United States prior to the Civil War, marking the beginning of a new era in the history of American Catholicism. It was the age of the immigrant church. The republican model of Catholicism that defined the era of John Carroll went into decline as a more traditional, European model became normative as a result of the influx of foreign-born clergy who brought with them a monarchical vision of the church. Henceforth, the clergy would govern the parish.

In the closing decades of the century, Catholic immigrants from southern and eastern Europe settled in the United States. As a result, the Catholic population soared, numbering as many as seventeen million by 1920. It was a very ethnically diverse population, including as many as twenty-eight ethnic groups. The largest of these were the Irish, Germans, Italians, Polish, French Canadians, and Mexicans. Together they accounted for at least 75 percent of the American Catholic population. Each of these groups had their own national parishes. Based on nationality as well as language, these parishes became the hallmark of the urban church. A city neighborhood could have several different national parishes within its boundaries. Like separate galaxies, each parish community stayed within its own orbit. The Irish did not mix with the Poles. The Germans never mingled with the Italians. Some of these parishes were so large that their buildings (church, school, convent, and rectory) occupied an entire city block.

Because the public school culture was highly Protestant in the middle decades of the nineteenth century, Catholics began to establish their own elementary schools. John Hughes, the Irish-born archbishop of New York City, and John Purcell, the Irish-born archbishop of Cincinnati, were the two most prominent leaders championing parochial schools. The women religious were the key to the success of the schools. Like the clergy, most of these women were immigrants who worked within their own national or ethnic communities. In 1850 only about 1,344 sisters were at work in the United States. By 1900 their number had soared to 40,340, vastly outnumbering the 11,636 priests. This phenomenal increase in the number of women religious made the growth of schools possible, since they were the people who staffed the schools. Their willingness to work for low wages reduced the cost of schooling and made feasible an otherwise financially impossible undertaking.

In addition to the school, parishes sponsored numerous organizations, both religious and social. These organizations strengthened the bond between church and people. Hospitals and orphanages were also part of the urban church and women religious operated many of these institutions.

The Ghetto Mentality versus Americanization

In the antebellum period a Protestant crusade against Catholics swept across the nation. Anti-Catholic riots took place and convents as well as churches were destroyed. The crusade reached its height in the early 1850s when a new political party, the Know-Nothings, gained power in several states. Their ideology was anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic. During this period Archbishop John Hughes became a forceful apologist on behalf of Catholics. Because of the discrimination they encountered, Catholics developed their own subculture, thus acquiring an outsider mentality. Often described as a ghetto mentality, it shaped the thinking of Catholics well into the twentieth century.

Some Catholics wanted the church to abandon this outsider mentality and become more American, less foreign.

Isaac Hecker, a convert to Catholicism and a founder of the religious community of priests known as the Paulists, was the most prominent advocate of this vision in the 1850s and 1860s. Archbishop John Ireland of St. Paul, Minnesota, with support from James Gibbons, the cardinal archbishop of Baltimore, promoted this idea in the 1880s and 1890s. Advocating what their opponents labeled as an "American Catholicity," these Americanists endorsed the separation of church and state, political democracy, religious toleration, and some type of merger of Catholic and public education at the elementary school level. They were in the minority, however. Authorities in Rome were hostile to the idea of separation between church and state. They also opposed religious toleration, another hallmark of American culture, and were cool to the idea that democracy was the ideal form of government. As a result, in 1899 Pope Leo XIII issued an encyclical letter, Testem Benevolentiae, which condemned what he called "Americanism." The papal intervention not only ended the campaign of John Ireland, but also solidified the Romanization of Catholicism in the United States.

Devotional Catholicism

A distinguishing feature of the immigrant church was its rich devotional life. The heart of this devotional life was the exercise of piety, or what was called a devotion. Since the Mass and the sacraments have never been sufficient to meet the spiritual needs of the people, popular devotions have arisen throughout the history of Catholicism. In the nineteenth century some of the more popular of them were devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, devotion to Jesus in the Eucharist through public exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, devotion to the passion of Jesus, devotion to Mary as the Immaculate Conception, recitation of the rosary, and of course, devotion to particular saints such as St. Joseph, St. Patrick, and St. Anthony. Prayer books, devotional confraternities, parish missions, Newspapers, magazines, and the celebration of religious festivals shaped the cosmos of Catholics, educating them into a specific style of religion that can be described as devotional Catholicism. This interior transformation of Catholics in the United States was part of a worldwide spiritual revival taking place within Catholicism. The papacy promoted the revival by issuing encyclical letters promoting specific devotions and by organizing worldwide Eucharistic congresses to promote devotion to Christ.

Devotional Catholicism shaped the mental landscape of Catholics in a very distinctive manner. The central features of this worldview were authority, sin, ritual, and the miraculous. The emphasis on authority enhanced the prestige and power of the papacy at a time when it was under siege from Italian nationalists. Bishops and clergy also benefited from the importance attached to authority. Being Catholic meant to submit to the authority of God as mediated through the church—its pope, bishops, and clergy. Such a culture deemphasized the rights of the individual conscience as each person learned to submit to the external authority of the church. Catholic culture was also steeped in the consciousness of sin in this era. Devotional guides stressed human sinfulness and a multitude of laws and regulations sought to strengthen Catholics in their struggle with sin. Confession of sins became an important ritual for Catholics and priests spent long hours in the confessional. The Mass was another major ritual along with other sacraments such as baptism and marriage. Various devotions were associated with public rituals in church or with processions that marched through the streets of the neighborhood. In addition to such public rituals, people practiced their own private rituals of devotion. Fascination with the miraculous was another trait of devotional Catholicism. Catholics believed in the supernatural and the power of their heavenly patrons. Religious periodicals regularly reported cures and other miraculous events. Shrines such as Lourdes in France attracted much attention. In the United States many local shrines were associated with the healing powers of certain statues, relics, or pictures.

Consolidation

From the 1920s through the 1950s the church underwent a period of consolidation. Many new churches were built, the number of colleges grew, and record numbers of men and women entered Catholic seminaries and convents. In these years Catholicism still retained many features of the immigrant era. At the parish level Catholicism remained very ethnic and clannish into the 1940s. Devotional Catholicism remained the dominant ethos. Within the educated middle class, which was growing, there was a strong desire for Catholics to become more involved in the public life of the nation. What contemporaries called a Catholic renaissance took place in these years as Catholics began to feel more confident about their place in the United States. Catholics supported the New Deal and many worked in President Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration. Catholics also held influential positions in the growing labor movement. John Ryan, a priest and professor at the Catholic University of America, gained a national reputation as an advocate of social action and the right of workers to a just wage. Dorothy Day, a convert to Catholicism, founded the Catholic Worker movement in 1933 and her commitment to the poor and underprivileged inspired many young Catholics to work for social justice. In the 1950s Catholicism was riding a wave of unprecedented popularity and confidence. Each week new churches and schools opened their doors, record numbers of converts joined the church, and more than 70 percent of Catholics regularly attended Sunday Mass. The Catholic college population increased significantly. Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, an accomplished preacher, had his own prime time, Emmy Award–winning television show that attracted millions of viewers. In 1958 a new pope, John XXIII, charmed the world and filled Catholics with pride. The 1960 election of an Irish Catholic, John F. Kennedy, to the presidency of the United States reinforced the optimism and confidence of Catholics.

Reform

In the 1960s the Catholic Church throughout the world underwent a period of reform. The catalyst was the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965). Coupled with the social changes that were taking place in the United States at this time, the reforms initiated by the Council ushered in a new age for American Catholicism. Change and dissent are the two words that best describe this era. The most dramatic change took place in the Catholic Mass. A new liturgy celebrated in English replaced an ancient Latin ritual. Accompanying changes in the Mass was a transformation in the devotional life of the people. People began to question the Catholic emphasis on authority and sin. The popular support for devotional rituals and a fascination with the miraculous waned. An ecumenical spirit inspired Catholics to break down the fences that separated them from people of other religious traditions. Catholics emerged from the cultural ghetto of the immigrant era and adopted a more public presence in society. They joined the 1960s war against poverty and discrimination, and were in the forefront of the peace movement during the Vietnam War. Also, the Catholic hierarchy wrote important pastoral letters that discussed war and peace in the nuclear age along with economic justice. An educated laity became more inclined to dissent, challenging the church's teaching on birth control, clerical celibacy, an exclusively male clergy, and the teaching authority of the pope. Other Catholics have opposed such dissent and have strongly defended the authority of the pope and the hierarchy. Such ideological diversity has become a distinguishing trademark of contemporary Catholicism.

Changes in the Ministry and the New Immigration

The decline in the number of priests and nuns in the late twentieth century also changed the culture of Catholicism. In 1965 there were 35,000 priests; by 2005 their numbers will have declined to about 21,000, a 40 percent decline in forty years. Along with this came a decline in the number of seminarians by about 90 percent from 1965 to the end of the century. In 1965 there were 180,000 sisters in the United States; in 2000 they numbered less than 100,000. This demographic revolution has transformed the state of ministry in the church. Along with this has come the emergence of a new understanding of ministry.

This new thinking about ministry emerged from the Second Vatican Council. The council emphasized the egalitarian nature of the Catholic Church, all of whose members received a call to the fullness of the Christian life by virtue of their baptism. This undermined the elitist tradition that put priests and nuns on a pedestal above the laity. This new thinking has transformed the church. By 2000 an astounding number of laypeople, 29,146, were actively involved as paid ministers in parishes; about 85 percent of them were women. Because of the shortage of priests many parishes, about three thousand, did not have a resident priest. A large number of these, about six hundred, had a person in charge who was not a priest. Many of these pastors were women, both lay women and women religious. They did everything a priest does except say Mass and administer the sacraments. They hired the staff, managed the finances, provided counseling, oversaw the liturgy, and supervised the educational, social, and religious programs of the parish. They were in charge of everything. The priest came in as a special guest star, a visitor who celebrated the Eucharist and left.

In addition to the changes in ministry, Catholicism is experiencing the impact of a new wave of immigration ushered in by the revised immigration laws starting in 1965. The church became more ethnically diverse than ever before. In 2000 Sunday Mass was celebrated in Los Angeles in forty-seven languages; in New York City thirty languages were needed to communicate with Sunday churchgoers. The largest ethnic group was the Spanish-speaking Latino population. Comprising people from many different nations, they numbered about 30 million in 2000, of whom approximately 75 percent were Catholic. It is estimated that by 2014 they will constitute 51 percent of the Catholic population in the United States. The new immigration transformed Catholicism in much the same way that the old immigration of the nineteenth century did.

At the beginning of the twenty-first century Catholicism in the United States is entering a new period in its history. No longer religious outsiders, Catholics are better integrated into American life. Intellectually and politically they represent many different points of view. The hierarchy has become more theologically conservative while the laity has become more independent in its thinking. An emerging lay ministry together with a decline in the number of priests and nuns has reshaped the culture of Catholicism. The presence of so many new immigrants from Latin America and Asia has also had a substantial impact on the shape of the church. Continuity with the past, with the Catholic tradition, will be the guiding force as the church moves into the twenty-first century.

In 2002 a major scandal shocked the American Catholic community, when it was revealed that some priests in Boston's Catholic community had sexually abused children over the course of several years. The crisis deepened with the revelation that church leaders had often reassigned accused priests to other parishes without restricting their access to children. The same pattern of secretly reassigning priests known to be sexual predators was discovered in other dioceses across the country. This unprecedented scandal of abuse and cover-up severely damaged the sacred trust between the clergy and the laity.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Carey, Peter W. People, Priests, and Prelates: Ecclesiastical Democracy and the Tensions of Trusteeism. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1987.

Dolan, Jay P. The American Catholic Experience: A History from Colonial Times to the Present. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1985.

———. In Search of an American Catholicism: A History of Religion and Culture in Tension. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Dolan, Jay P., and Allen Figueroa Deck, eds. Hispanic Catholic Culture in the U.S.: Issues and Concerns. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994.

Ellis, John Tracy. The Life of James Cardinal Gibbons: Archbishop of Baltimore, 1834–1921. 2 vols. Milwaukee, Wis.: Bruce Publishing, 1952.

Gleason, Philip. Keeping the Faith: American Catholicism, Past and Present. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1987.

Greeley, Andrew M. The American Catholic: A Social Portrait. New York: Basic Books, 1977.

Hennesey, James, S.J. American Catholics: A History of the Roman Catholic Community in the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981.

McGreevy, John T. Parish Boundaries: The Catholic Encounter with Race in the Twentieth-Century Urban North. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.

Morris, Charles R. American Catholic: The Saints and Sinners Who Built America's Most Powerful Church. New York: Times Books, 1997.

O'Toole, James M. Militant and Triumphant: William Henry O'Connell and the Catholic Church in Boston, 1859–1944. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992.

Jay P.Dolan

See alsoDiscrimination: Religion ; Education: Denominational Colleges ; Immigration ; Religion and Religious Affiliation ; Religious Liberty ; Religious Thought and Writings ; Vatican II .

Catholicism

The Catholic Church traces its origins directly to the person and life of Jesus Christ. Therefore, any historical presentation of family life as it relates to the Catholic Church must go back two thousand years to the very dawn of Christianity. Scholars of this early period point to a major role played by the family in the life and expansion of Christianity.

During the first three centuries of its existence, Christianity not only lacked public approval, but its followers also experienced regular persecution by secular powers. The early Christian church was an assemblage of families who met together for prayer and worship in homes, rather than in public church buildings. Such gatherings contributed to the spirit of church life by having an important family dimension. Roman society failed to value the importance of women and children. The early church took a strong position on the dignity and value of all people. Some historians claim that the church's valuing of everyone, its openness to all regardless of gender, age, or social class, was partly the reason Christianity was persecuted by the state. Its openness to all people was deeply at odds with the hierarchical values and social structures supported by the reigning authorities.

Christian families were sometimes referred to as households of faith in the writings of the early church. Both the celebration of the Eucharist, sometimes called the agape or love feast, along with the celebration of baptism, were events directly involving the family. Occasionally, whole families were baptized into the church. Further, local church leaders, both bishops and presbyters, were chosen in part because of their proven leadership of a Christian household.

Two influential church theologians and leaders, St. Augustine (354–430) and St. John Chrysostom (347–407), both referred to the family as a domestic church in their writings. Although this language was not taken up by the church in subsequent centuries until the Second Vatican Council (1961–1965), the apparent high regard for the family was nevertheless an essential dimension of church life. That their language seemed all but forgotten indicates that soon after this early period, the family seems to recede into the background as a major setting for the Christian life. Family life was no longer a central interest of the church.

Its place as the primary small community of the church was replaced by the creation of monasticism, especially through the efforts of St. Benedict (480–550) and his sister St. Scholastica (480–543). In the rule written for monastic life, they borrowed language inherent to family life. The head of the monastery was to be called the abbot (a derivation of the word for father) while abbesses headed the convents for religious women. The members of the monastic community were to be called brothers and sisters. Entrance into the monastic community was akin to being brought into a new family. Often one's name was changed to underscore a new identity and a new set of familial relationships.

From the inception of the monastic movement, the quest for spiritual perfection within the Catholic Church was largely considered a matter for vowed monks and nuns. Those who lived in ordinary families were implicitly considered second-class members of the church. As the Christian Church became more of a public institution after Emperor Constantine's Edict of Milan (313), Christian families blended in with all the other families of the west. For the next 1,400 years, there is a loud silence in the writings and teaching of the Catholic Church about the role of family life. There is no mention of the importance of family life as significant either for salvation or sanctification.

The Beginnings of a Social Concern for Families

In 1891 Pope Leo XIII initiated a new interest in the church about family life with his pioneering social encyclical called Rerum Novarum (On New Things). The primary focus of this letter concerned the state of labor particularly as it was being influenced by the socialist revolution of the times. As the pope considered the condition of the typical worker, he also took the opportunity to comment on the state of the worker's family. Here he noted the right of families, especially poor families, to adequate food, clothing, shelter, and protection. His interest was primarily on the material or social needs of the family.

The issuance of that encyclical began a pattern of church support for the social welfare of the family. Especially in the United States there developed a group of major church agencies whose primary purpose was assistance to families, especially economic assistance. The St. Vincent de Paul Society, along with many diocesan programs under what was usually called Catholic Charities, sought to meet the needs of families and children. Catholic hospitals and schools, while attending primarily to the sick and to children, often included an interest in the families of those they served. Starting with a huge influx of Irish immigrants in the mid-nineteenth century, the number of needy Catholic families has remained high.

Toward the end of the twentieth century, many Catholic families came to the United States from Latin America and Asia. Helping these families remains a high priority for the Catholic Church. A similar effort toward helping needy families occurs around the world though a variety of international Catholic agencies like Catholic Relief Services and various international organizations sponsored by such religious communities as the Jesuits, Franciscans, and Maryknoll.

Catholic Teachings on Marriage and Family Life

Catholic teaching about marriage was minimal until the Catholic Church formally taught that Christian marriage or matrimony was one of the seven sacraments of the church. This was officially declared at the Council of Trent (1545–1563). This teaching was partly to counteract Martin Luther's claim that there were only two sacraments: baptism and eucharist. Theologians from the thirteenth century on had made mention of the sacramental nature of Christian marriage, but it was not made part of official church teaching until the abovementioned council.

Naming Christian marriage as one of the seven sacraments of the church meant that the act of marrying another, with the intent that the marriage be faithful, exclusive, and open to the creation of new life, creates a sacramental relationship between the wife and husband that participates through the working of grace. Marriage was not only a human or secular relationship. It was part of the dynamic life of being a Christian. It was drawn into the energizing presence of God's spirit that continuously breathes life into the church. Marriage is a sanctified state of life. It renders the wife and husband holy through all those acts that constitute the marriage. This graced dynamic begins with the exchange of marriage vows and through the consummation of the marriage in sexual intercourse. The process of sanctification continues though their life together.

After Christian marriage was officially incorporated as part of church life, there followed a whole series of changes in church practice. These changes happened slowly. In fact, some four hundred years later, there still remain further opportunities on the part of the church to enrich the graced state of marriage and the spiritual lives of families. First of all, the Catholic Church established rather detailed laws concerning who could marry, what dispositions or attitudes were required for marriage, how the sacramental ritual of marriage should be enacted (before a priest and two witnesses), and when and where marriages should take place when celebrated in the church.

Because of these church requirements, the church involved itself in the period before marriage to insure that all its requirements for Christian marriage were satisfied. From the sixteenth until the middle of the twentieth century, this requirement was usually met by a meeting with a priest right before the wedding.

In the middle of the twentieth century, the Catholic Church, especially in the United States and Canada, developed a variety of educational programs for engaged couples. They were designed to help couples enter Christian marriage more knowingly and more personally. These marriage preparation programs were usually given by a priest with the assistance of qualified laity.

As the Catholic Church found itself in situations where the population was religiously diverse, it also faced the issue of marriages between Catholics and non-Catholics. These were commonly referred to as mixed marriages. Up until the Second Vatican Council, these marriages were clearly thought of as second class. Usually they were not celebrated in the church building, and the non-Catholic party had to promise that any children from their marriage would be baptized and raised Catholic.

After the Second Vatican Council, the church took a more pastoral approach to these marriages, sometimes creating special programs for marriage preparation and enrichment. Also, the non-Catholic partners are no longer required to promise that children of the marriage become Catholic. Nevertheless, the Catholic partners are asked to promise to do all within their power to ensure this result. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, just under one half of the marriages that are celebrated in the church are mixed. Sometimes leaders of each one's respective religious community jointly celebrate the weddings of these people.

There are various programs and movements within the Catholic Church to enrich marriages. Many Catholic parishes and dioceses sponsor educational programs for the married. Deserving special mention are the various marriage encounter retreats or experiences that have helped thousands of Catholics gain skills in communication and insights into the sacramental and holy or sacred dimension of Christian marriage.

At the other end of the spectrum, laws and procedures were created to deal with ways the church could accept that a marriage had ended. Up until the Second Vatican Council, there were few justifying causes for a marriage to be declared ended. In brief, this could be accomplished only when the marriage partners had not consummated their union or if one of the parties decided to enter religious life. Courts were established both at the Vatican and in Catholic dioceses to deal with these cases.

Around the time of the Second Vatican Council, a new set of criteria for dissolving marriages was established by the marriage court of the Vatican, which is called the Rota. It allowed the church to declare that a given marriage lacked certain essential qualities that the church held as necessary for the existence of a Christian marriage. If the marriage lacked certain essential qualities, then the parties were given an annulment, which indicates that a Christian marriage was not canonically valid. Essential qualities may be absent in the intention of one or both parties at the time of the wedding, for example, an unwillingness to have children. Or one or both parties may have a personal psychological predisposition that makes them incapable of establishing a lifelong union of life and love.

Catholic Teachings on Human Sexuality

For most of its history, the Catholic Church taught that the primary purpose of God's gift of sexuality was the procreation and education of children. Occasionally other purposes of sexuality were noted, such as deepening the friendship of the married couple and helping to control excessive sexual desire. During the twentieth century biological science and technology made it possible to more effectively control the process of fertilization and the question arose whether Catholics might use these new methods of fertility control.

After extensive discussion involving bishops, theologians, and lay people, Pope Paul VI issued the encyclical letter, Humanae Vitae (On Human Life) in 1968. Before the issuance of that letter, many Catholics expected that the Catholic Church would change its rule of fertility control, which up to that time included only the use of natural methods. In brief, these methods allowed a couple to engage in sexual intercourse during infertile or safe times of the woman's cycle. Various methods of determining the precise time of infertility were developed to assist the couple in their quest for being responsible in the use of their procreative powers. New methods of fertility control developed in the years immediately preceding Humanae Vitae, the most well known being a pill that prevented ovulation. One of its developers was D. John Rock, who was a Catholic doctor.

The pope responded to this by saying that each and every act of sexual intercourse must be open to the creation of new life. In practice, that meant that the couple could not actively prevent possible fertilization from taking place. This teaching has been controversial for many Catholics. Nevertheless Pope John Paul II has strongly maintained the teaching of Pope Paul VI.

The Second Vatican Council reformulated and updated many teachings and practices of the church. In its document called Gaudium et Spes (The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World) it devoted a lengthy section on what it labeled The Dignity of Marriage and the Family. Here it expanded on the meaning of human sexuality in marriage by saying that it is both an expression of marital love, and it is an act that potentially could generate new human life. The church left behind any language of primary or secondary meaning to marital sex. It took a "bothand" approach in affirming two essential purposes of human sexuality. Many pastors, theologians, and married couples welcomed this broader understanding, which clearly valued human sexuality as essentially expressive of marital love.

The 1980 Vatican Synod on Family and Familiaris Consortio

As the Second Vatican Council adjourned, many church leaders felt that the ancient practice of holding regular church meetings or synods would be useful in implementing the reforms of Vatican II and for dealing with pressing issues facing the church. The Vatican has convened synods in roughly three-year intervals since 1965. In 1980, the first synod was held in the pontificate of Pope John Paul II. Its topic was the role of the Christian family in the modern word.

More than 200 bishops representing the Catholic Church from around the world met for five weeks of discussion. In general, the concerns of the bishops were divided into two sets of issues.

For bishops from developing countries, there were many issues raised dealing with such matters as family survival under difficult political and economic circumstances, the role of the state in determining family size, and the survival of the Christian family where Christians were a minority of the population.

For industrialized countries, the concerns were more concerned with internal family issues. Bishops focused the challenges of maintaining intimacy in marriage, the church's response to divorce, the need for family spirituality, and the roles of women and men in the family. The results of all these deliberations were handed over to Pope John Paul II, who then responded in a major teaching document. A year after the synod on the family adjourned, he issued Familiaris Consortio (On the Family). It was easily the lengthiest treatise on marriage and family ever created in the Catholic Church.

The papal document was divided into four sections. The first section of this apostolic exhortation (its official church designation as a document) deals with the realities of family life today. Based on the testimony of bishops from around the world, the pope notes that there are both positive and negative forces that influence family life. Like other parts of human life, the family is a mixture of the light and darkness.

The second section notes that the family must affirm and respect the full personhood of every family member. No other community can value the individual person more than can the family. The depersonalizing forces of society can be countered by an acceptance and love that is a primary part of the God-given role of the family.

Section three presents the heart of the document when it describes the comprehensive role of the Christian family. It divides the family's role into four parts. First, it is to form a community of people, bound together for life while enriching each other, especially through acts of care, kindness, compassion, forgiveness, and love. Its second role is to serve life from its beginning in the mother's womb until death. The family is to be a community of life, protecting life from all that diminishes it, supporting life in all circumstances. Third, the role of the family in society is developed by comparing families to cells that contributes directly to the life and health of the whole body. A strong message of interconnectedness and interdependency comes forth in this part of the pope's exhortation. The last aspect mentioned is the family's role in the life of the church. Here new theological ground is created by showing that the family is not just served by the church or contributes to the church, but rather that the life of the family itself is a significant part of the church's life. This teaching reaches back to the notion of the family as the domestic church, language first expressed in the early church and recaptured in the documents of the Second Vatican Council.

Section four of Familiaris Consortio calls for a comprehensive plan of support for family life from all the other sectors of church life. It calls for a pastoral outreach to all the types of family structures. It requests that local churches serve the needs of single parents, the widowed, the divorced, and the separated. In other words, there is an acknowledgement and respect given to people in a variety of family structures, which is clearly the trend that has developed in contemporary times.

The basic message of this extensive document on the family is that the church must respect and assist Christian families in whatever way it can. Clearly, the family stands at the crossroads of change in modern life. The Catholic Church is called to see that the future of the family is its own future. This perspective comes from both a sense of crisis and an awareness of a pastoral opportunity for church renewal. A family-sensitive approach to church life has roots going back to the beginning of the Christian era. In brief, the Catholic Church now affirms that the family is an essential life-giving part of the church and that it is a source of on-going vitality for entire church.

See also:Annulment; Family Ministry; Godparents; Interfaith Marriage; Marriage Preparation; Protestantism; Religion

Bibliography

barton, s. c., ed. (1996). the family in theological perspective. edinburgh: t and t clark.

cahill, l. s. (2000). family: a christian social perspective.minneapolis, mn: fortress press.

foley, g. (1995). family-centered church: a new parishmodel. kansas city, mo: sheed and ward.

john paul ii. (1981). familiaris consortio—on the family.washington, dc: office of publishing services, united states catholic conference.

kasper, w. (1980). theology of christian marriage. newyork: crossroad.

lawler, m. g. (1998). family: american and christian,chicago: loyola press.

lawler, m. g., and roberts, w. p., eds. (1996). christianmarriage and family: contemporary theological and pastoral perspectives, collegeville, mn: the liturgical press.

mackin, t. (1982). what is marriage? ramsey, nj: paulistpress.

mackin, t. (1989). the marital sacrament. mahwah, nj:paulist press.

ruether, r. r. (2000). christianity and the making of themodern family. boston: beacon press.

schillebeecky, e. (1986). marriage, human reality, andsaving mystery. london: sheed and ward.

david michael thomas

Catholicism. The history of Irish Catholicism enters a new phase in the 17th century. The attachment to traditional forms, and the dislike of externally imposed innovation, so characteristic of recusancy give way to a more positive commitment to the doctrines and practices of the Counter‐Reformation. Already before 1660 the abandonment of the Cromwellian regime's initial schemes for transplantation and the forcible suppression of popery had confirmed that Catholicism was to remain the religion of the great majority. Yet warfare and repression had partially undone the administrative and pastoral reforms achieved in the fifty years before 1641, and popular religious practice retained a strong local flavour. The further gradual reshaping of Irish Catholicism along the lines laid down by the Council of Trent was to be accompanied by efforts to establish sustainable relations with the succession of political jurisdictions within which the church found itself: the Irish Protestant state until 1801, the United Kingdom until 1922, and latterly the twin states born of partition.

Pastoral and institutional reform

Tridentine reformers took advantage of the stability of the Restoration period to renew efforts to establish administrative structures and to take on the most glaring excesses of the old Catholicism. Their work received a dramatic setback with the Stuart defeat in the Williamite War. However, despite Catholic exclusion from the Irish Protestant state (see penal laws), pastoral and institutional modernization continued. Penal‐era Catholicism bore the marks of poverty and political exclusion but was coloured too, thanks to its largely French‐educated clergy and Jacobite connections, by the Catholic Enlightenment. It stayed in touch with continental developments in church organization, theology, and liturgy. Modest but real progress was made in setting up diocesan and parochial structures, providing education, and modernizing devotional practice. By the middle of the 18th century a church which was recognizably Tridentine was emerging, led by cautious bishops and gentry, served by a reasonably well‐formed clergy, and including a prosperous merchant class which had, already, a mind of its own. Further down the social and economic ladder the old Catholicism remained strong.

After the political upheaval of the 1790s further progress in pushing back this old Catholicism was slow, hampered by rapid population increase, massive impoverishment, clerical shortage, and the dogged persistence of the old ways. Change accelerated, however, as the century progressed. By the mid‐19th century, a massive church‐building programme was transforming the Irish landscape. The mesh of relationships which bound the Catholic community together was taking on the rigidity associated with more complex structures. Religious practice itself was being revamped from above to conform to continental models of popular piety, a phase in the so‐called devotional revolution. Catechesis, especially through parish missions, was pivotally important here and, while it often lacked theological subtlety and emotional depth, it was imposing in its consistency and rigour. The newer institutional Catholicism satisfied the religious needs of the majority who were happy to belong to the more ultramontanist church already emerging prior to the first Vatican Council. It generally proved more than a match for Protestant proselytizing efforts and for the remains of the old Catholicism. Ongoing emigration, which accelerated in the second half of the 19th century, ensured that Irish Tridentine Catholicism would become an international phenomenon.

By the late 19th century, the regulation of the land question consumed the energies of the Catholic community. Given that most priests were drawn from the ranks of the tenant farmers, it was hardly surprising that the institutional church swung in behind land reform. Success here completed the formation of a stable, peasant proprietor class which, along with the urban‐based commercial and professional elites, had become the backbone of the Catholic church. By the century's end, even the very poorest Catholics were at least formally part of the Tridentine ecclesiastical structures. Overseen by a conservative episcopate, dutifully served by a plentiful clergy, composed of a theologically unsophisticated but sacramentally observant laity, the late 19th‐century Irish Catholic church was integrated into a papally oriented international organization and the centre of a vast missionary network. It seemed to be a Tridentine success story which encouraged many Catholics to believe that maintenance of existing structures rather than continued reform was the order of the day. Their error was revealed from the 1960s onwards, when new wealth, increased mobility, and declining esteem for tradition and establishments weakened many Catholics' relationship with the highly institutionalized and clericalized church. These changes were coincidentally rather than causally related to Vatican II.

Church–state relations

The leaders of the Catholic community worked to establish sustainable and, if possible, advantageous relations with the state. Under the Stuarts this was a major challenge: the conflict between loyalty to monarch and to pope, dramatized in the Remonstrance controversy, rendered Catholics second‐class, suspect subjects. After 1691 the penal laws formalized the exclusion from the Protestant state of a Catholic community whose continued links with the Jacobite court seemed to confirm its inherent disloyalty. However, gradually developing a modus vivendi with the Protestant state, the Catholic community built up an impressive record of loyalty to the crown. The state, whether it liked it or not, found itself having to deal with the increasingly well‐organized and influential clergy and laity, who were obedient but desirous of improved political status. Their task was eased by papal refusal to recognize the Jacobite succession in 1766. This freed the Catholic community from its awkward loyalty to an exiled monarch and his interference in ecclesiastical appoinments. Episcopal independence was enhanced.

In the second half of the 18th century more relaxed attitudes among Irish Protestants, combined with the military needs of the British state produced limited but significant measures of Catholic relief. Catholic reaction to these measures was mixed. The bishops and gentry favoured gradual reform, leaving the initiative with the Irish parliament and the crown. Radical reformers pushed for more and, by 1792, Catholic opinion was sufficiently politicized to permit the election of a national Catholic Convention which petitioned George III for the Catholic franchise. The 1798 insurrection marked the collapse of the association of interests which had crossed denominational boundaries to demand political reform and Catholic relief. The Catholic bishops and gentry, more impressed by the existing measures of Catholic relief and the promise of full emancipation than by French‐inspired political radicalism, joined with a shaken Protestant establishment in supporting the Act of Union.

Despite the Union the politicization of the Irish Catholic community proceeded. It had two aspects. At home, support for the O'Connell‐led Catholic emancipation and repeal campaigns was massive, forging the Catholic community into a significant force in domestic and British politics and setting the scene for the later growth of nationalism. In the broader British context, as Irish Catholics re‐entered political, economic, and cultural life, the Catholic community took on aspects of an establishment church, without, however, having legal ties with the state.

State‐funded provision for primary education, the national schools, was the first theatre of explicit church‐state co‐operation. There were teething difficulties, exacerbated by tensions between the churches over the vexed question of proselytism and by disagreement among Catholic bishops over relations with the state. Despite this, and further bitter disputes over the Queen's Colleges and the ecclesiastical titles bill, links between the Catholic church and the state deepened, poor relief and health provision being relatively successful co‐operative ventures.

However, as the church institutionalized itself and deepened its relationship with the state, it risked losing its capacity to adapt creatively to changing political and social conditions. The Famine had left a deep scar, emigration was heavy, and nationalism was gaining the people's loyalties. In the post‐Famine period, political initiative ebbed away from the clerical church as it had in the 1790s. Nationalism now took on a life of its own. Whether the clerical church desired it or not and despite the deep divisions left by the Parnell affair, late 19th‐century Catholicism found itself grafted onto Irish nationalism. Whatever the bishops may have thought of the Sinn Féin victory of 1918, they were obliged to acquiesce in their people's political decision.

Partition divided the Catholic community between two jurisdictions, and civil war split southern Catholic political opinion. While the 1922 Free State constitution declared itself religiously neutral, the huge southern Catholic majority meant that the Irish Free State took on a Catholic identity. In any case, the new state needed the stability and recognition which a close relationship with the institutional Catholic church could help secure. While this arrangement of convenience suited both church and state, stability came with a heavy price. Northern Catholics languished in second‐class citizenship while, for their southern counterparts, independence meant economic and cultural isolation.

By the late 1950s, when economic necessity obliged the government to jettison old nationalist certainties and open the country to free‐market capitalism (see economic development), the close church‐state relationship in the Republic was losing its attraction for the state. The clerical church, straitjacketed in old convictions and anxious to protect the status quo, was slow to adjust. The development of the Northern Ireland conflict revealed a versatile, violent nationalism, capable of manipulating the institutional church but armed with its own agenda.

The erosion of church–state relations and the growth of spiritual individualism constitute a challenge for contemporary Irish Catholicism equal to that faced by the Tridentine reformers of three centuries ago.

Bibliography

Connolly, S. J. , Religion and Society in Nineteenth‐Century Ireland (1985)
Corish, Patrick , The Irish Catholic Experience (1984)
Rafferty, Oliver , Catholicism in Ulster 1660–1970 (1994)

Thomas O'Connor

69. Catholicism

See also 79. CHRIST ; 80. CHRISTIANITY ; 260. MARY ; 323. POPE ; 349. RELIGION ; 359. SAINTS ; 392. THEOLOGY .

Americanism

Heckerism.

Anglo-Catholicism

the praetiees in the Anglican communion that hold that Catholicism is inherent in a church whose episcopate is able to traee its line of descent from the apostles and whose faith Catholics agree to be revealed truth. —AngloCatholic, n., adj.

anticlericalism

an opposition to the influence and activities of the clergy in public affairs. —anticlericalist, n.

breviary

a book containing the prayers, lessons, etc., needed by a priest for the reading of his daily office.

Cahenslyism

a 19th-century plan of the German parliamentarian Cahensly, successfully opposed by American interests, to have the pope divide the foreign-born population of the U.S. into ethnic groups and to appoint bishops and priests of the same ethnic and linguistic background as each group.

catechumenism

the condition of a person who is receiving basic instruction in the doctrines of Christianity in preparation for the sacrament of confirmation. Also catechumenate. —catechumen, n. —catechumenal, catechumenical, adj.

celibacy

the state of being single or unmarried, especially in the case of one bound by vows not to marry. —celibate, n., adj.

chrism

1. a sacramental oil.

2. a sacramental anointing; unction.

3. Eastern Christianity. the rite of confirmation.

clericalism

1. an undue influence of the hierarchy and clergy in public affairs and government.

2. the principles and interests of the clergy.

3. the system, spirit, or methods of the priesthood; sacerdotalism. Cf. laicism. —clericalist, n.

Curialism

1. the philosophy and methods of the ultramontane party in the Roman Church.

2. the methods and processes of the Curia Romana, the bureaucracy of congregations and offices which assist the pope in the government of the Roman Church.

decretist

1. a canon lawyer versed in papal decrees on points in ecclesiastical law.

2. a person versed in the decretals. Also decretalist .

dulia

the devotion, veneration, or respect accorded saints.

ecclesiarchy

the control of government by clerics. Also called hierocracy . —ecclesiarch. n.

encyclical, encyclic

a letter from the Pope to the Roman Catholic clergy on matters of doctrine or other concerns of the Church, of ten meant to be read from the pulpit.

extrascripturalism

the view that the faith and practice of the Church are based in both tradition and the Scriptures. See also 43. BIBLE .

Gallicanism

the body of doctrines, chiefly associated with French dioceses, advocating the restriction of papal authority, especially in administrative matters. Cf. ultramontanism. —Gallican, n., adj.

Heckerism

the teaching of a 19th-century Paulist priest, Isaac T. Hecker, who regarded Catholicism as the religion best suited to promoting human aspirations after liberty and truth and to the character and institutions of the American people. Also called Americanism.

hierocracy

ecclesiarchy.

Hildebrandism

the views of Hildebrand, Pope Gregory VII (1073-85), especially those underlying his drastic reforms within the Roman Church and his assertion of papal supremacy. Usually called ultramontanism. —Hildebrandic, Hildebrandine, adj.

imprimatur

permission, particularly that given by the Roman Catholic Church, to publish or print; hence, any sanction or approval. (Latin: ‘let it be printed.’)

infallibilism

1. the belief in or adherence to the dogma of papal infallibility.

2. the dogma itself.

Jesuitism

1. the doctrines, practices, etc., of the Jesuit order of priests.

2. Disparaging, lower case. casuistry or equivocation. Also Jesuitry . —Jesuitic, Jesuitical, adj.

laicism

1. the nonclerical, or secular, control of political and social institutions in a society.

2. lay participation in church matters. Cf. clericalism. —laity, n.

Liguorist, Liguorian

a believer in the theological doctrines of St. Alfonso Maria da Liguori (1696-1787), founder of the Redemptorist Order.

Marianism

Rare. a religious cult based on the veneration of the Virgin Mary.

Mariolatry, Maryology, Maryolatry

the cult of the Blessed Virgin Mary. —Mariolater, n. —Mariolatrous, adj.

Maronism

an Arabic-speaking Uniat sect in Lebanon, under the authority of the papacy since the 12th century but maintaining its Syriac liturgy, married clergy, and practice of communion in both bread and wine. —Maronite, n., adj.

marranism, marranoism

the forced conversion of Jews or Moors in medieval Spain. —marrano, n.

martyrology

1. a history or registry of martyrs.

2. the branch of ecelesiastical history that studies the lives and deaths of martyrs.

3. an official catalog of martyrs and saints, arranged according to the dates of their feast days. —martyrologist, n. —martyrologic, martyrological, adj.

Molinism

the doctrine of the 16th-century Jesuit Luis Molina, who taught that the work of grace depends on the accord of man’s free will. —Molinist, n.

Norbertine

a Premonstrant.

Novationism

a 3rd-century controversy in the Roman diocese in which Novation, elected bishop of a schismatic group, declared that lapsed Christians could not be received again into the Church. —Novationist, n.

oblate

a person resident and serving in a monastery but not under vows; a lay religious worker.

ostiary

1. a member of the lowest-ranking of the four minor orders in Roman Catholicism.

2. a doorkeeper of a church.

papalism

1. the institution and procedures of papal government.

2. the advocacy of papal supremacy. —papalist, n., adj.

papism

Usually disparaging. authoritarian government under the direction of the pope. Also papistry . —papist, n. —papistic, papistical, adj.

Petrinism

the theological concepts taught by or ascribed to St. Peter. —Petrinist, n.

popeism,popery

Pejorative. papal authority or actions.

portiforium

a breviary.

postulator

a priest who submits a plea for beatification or canonization.

Premonstrant

one of the order of Roman Catholic monks founded at Premontre, France, by St. Norbert in 1119. Also called Premonstratensian, Norbertine.

recusancy

resistance to authority or refusal to conform, especially in religious matters, used of English Catholics who refuse to attend the services of the Church of England. Also recusance . —recusant, n., adj.

reunionism

advocacy of the reunion of the Anglican and Catholic churches. —reunionist, n. —reunionistic, adj.

Ribbonism, Ribandism

the principles of the Ribbon Society, a Roman Catholic secret society of the mid 19th century. —Ribbonist, Ribandist, n.

romanism

the practices and doctrines of Roman Catholicism. —romanist, n. —romanistic, adj.

sacerdotalism

the system, practices, or principles underlying the priesthood. —sacerdotal, n., adj.

simonism, simony

the practice or defense of the selling of church relies, preferments, etc. —simoniac, simonist, n.

sodality

a fellowship, brotherhood, or other association of a benevolent nature, especially in the Roman Catholic Church. —sodalist, n., adj.

stigmatism

the state of one who has received supernatural stigmata, i.e., marks on hands, feet, and side similar to the wounds of Christ. —stigmata, n. —stigmatic, adj.

synodist

a member of a council, meeting to consult and decide on church matters. —synodical, synodal, adj.

traditionalism

adherence to tradition, rather than to revelation, independent Bible study, or individual reasoning, as the authority controlling religious knowledge and practice. —traditionalist, n. —traditionalistic, adj.

Trappist

a member of a Roman Catholic monastic order, a branch of the Cistercians, observing an austere, reformed rule, including a vow of silence; named after the monastery at La Trappe, France, where the reformed rule was introduced in 1664. —Trappist, adj.

ultramontanism

the advocacy of the supremacy of the papacy and the papal system, in opposition to those favoring national churches and the authority of church councils. Cf. Gallicanism. —ultramontane, ultramontanist, n. —ultramontanistic, adj.

Uniatism

the union of an Eastern Rite church with the Roman Church in which the authority of the papacy is accepted without loss of separate liturgies or government by local patriarchs. —Uniat, Uniate, n.

Vaticanism

the doctrine or advocacy of papal supremacy. —Vaticanist, n.

Catholicism

Sources

Immigration. During the first half of the nineteenth century the Roman Catholic Church in the United States was transformed from a tiny religious minority into the largest church in the nation. There had been many Catholics among the earliest European explorers and settlers of the North American continent, and the colony of Maryland became a haven for English Catholics. But Catholicism was still the smallest denomination in the nation, with only 195, 000 members. In the 1830s this situation began to change dramatically as tens of thousands of Catholic immigrants flooded into the United States from Ireland and Germany. These new immigrants greatly altered the ethnic makeup of the American Catholic Church, which grew to 1, 600, 000 members by 1850, and changed the religious composition of the United States as a whole.

Irish and Germans. The first significant wave of Irish immigration to America was prompted largely by social and economic stresses caused by rapid population growth in Ireland. Job opportunities at home were limited, and the lure of positions in American factories was strong. In 1845 the potato blight hit Ireland, causing widespread famine and a new surge in emigration. Most Irish immigrants were single men and women with little money who settled primarily in the growing port cities of New England and the Middle Atlantic states, where work was easy to find. German immigrants, in contrast, tended to arrive in family units and settle in both urban and rural areas. Some German Catholics left Europe in the face of political and religious conflict, but as in Ireland, population growth was a major factor prompting emigration. Crop failures, scarce land, and industrialization had begun to eliminate traditional occupations. Many German farmers and artisans chose to leave for America rather than adapt to the factory system. Because they had more money than Irish immigrants, they were often able to head inland and take advantage of farming opportunities, settling in western New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and the upper Midwest.

Anti-Catholicism. The transition to life in America was not easy for most of these new immigrants, who faced not only the hardships of finding homes and work but also the anti-Catholic prejudices of a largely Protestant population. In the cities immigrants brought unwelcome competition for industrial jobs and, because of their poverty, placed economic burdens on their communities. Their religious beliefs and rituals seemed alien and deeply suspect to many non-Catholics, and these feelings merged with negative ethnic stereotypes, particularly of the Irish, who were thought to be lazy, depraved, corrupt, and prone to drunkenness. Additionally, many Protestants felt that the authoritarian and hierarchical nature of the Catholic church, along with its allegiance to a foreign power in the figure of the Pope, made the religion inherently incompatible with American values and potentially subversive. Bolstered by the growing Protestant press, anti-Catholicism made integration into American life difficult for many immigrants and sometimes sparked violence.

Social Resources. As the Catholic community grew, so did its social resources. Catholic relief agencies were established to aid impoverished immigrants, and local parishes offered housing and employment opportunities. Dozens of Catholic schools were built to provide an alternative to the newly developed American public school system. While many non-Catholics felt that the public schools simply transmitted the religiously neutral ideals of republicanism and democracy, most Catholics believed the schools propagated Protestant views that threatened the faith of Catholic schoolchildren. In 1840 New York’s Bishop John Hughes sought to secure public funds for Catholic schools. He failed to win enough support, however, and it became clear that Catholic education would have to rely on private resources.

Ethnic Differences. Throughout much of the nineteenth century ethnic differences simultaneously strengthened the American Catholic Church and kept it from being fully united. Catholics from England, France, Ireland, Germany, and later Italy and eastern Europe not only spoke different languages but also had different cultures and styles of worship. Rituals for births, weddings, and funerals differed, as did tastes in sacred music. Most Catholic immigrants preferred to live, work, and worship within ethnically defined parishes, where they could maintain their native languages and customs. At the same time, however, strong ethnic identification served to create conflict. Well after Irish and German Catholics became numerically dominant, the church hierarchy continued to be occupied by bishops of English and French heritage. When assigning priests to local parishes, these bishops often antagonized immigrant Catholics by ignoring their desires to have German priests appointed to German churches or Irish priests to Irish churches. Imbued with American democratic ideology, many laymen argued that they should have the power to select their own priests. Others proposed further “Americanist” innovations such as allowing the laity, rather than the clergy, to control church property, as did most Protestant congregations. Bishops strongly opposed such innovations, and they worked during the 1830s and 1840s to increase uniformity and centralized authority in the church. This was a challenge, however, since the appearance of Irish and German bishops resulted in sharp differences and power struggles even among church leaders.

Cultural Prominence. Despite internal differences and opposition from outside, Catholics made significant progress toward becoming a strong cultural force in American life. By 1850, as the flow of immigration continued unabated, dozens of Catholic newspapers issued from the presses, often carrying news of the remarkable successes of Irish-Catholic politicians. Denominational colleges such as Holy Cross and Notre Dame had been established, and great advances had been made in women’s education. Though some Catholics left the fold to join Protestant churches, more notable were the number of prominent intellectuals who converted to Catholicism in the 1840s and 1850s. These included Orestes Brownson and Isaac Hecker, both of whom became eloquent spokesmen for the growing importance of the Catholic Church in Protestant America.

Sources

Jay Dolan, The American Catholic Experience (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1985);

James Hennesey, American Catholics: A History of the Roman Catholic Community in the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981).

Catholicism

In the Middle Ages, Christians of western Europe looked to the pope, the bishop of Rome, as the earthly leader of their faith. The “catholic” church meant the entire community of believers, whose lives were guided by church doctrine, and whose heresies and sins were punished by church authorities. Catholicism knit Europeans together at a time when political authority was weak, and when most people knew little of the world outside their village or feudal domain. Although the Holy Roman Emperors would challenge the popes for power in Italy, in the rest of Europe the Catholic hierarchy remained an unquestioned authority; the seven sacraments administered by a priest marked the most important events in an individual's life, and the calendar of holidays, saints' days, feasts, and fasts guided believers through the seasons of the year.

The Catholic Church grew into a wealthy institution from the tradition of the tithe, a donation of 10 percent of one's goods or income to the church. In Rome, the popes lived in luxurious palaces and presided over the Curia, the papal headquarters. Catholicism was a complex hierarchy of cardinals, archbishops, bishops, and local priests, who administered the sacraments and guided the members of the parish. The church was a cultural as well as religious institution. Catholic doctrine guided artists in their works, universities were founded under the authority of the church, and scholars devoted their writings to interpretation of the Bible and the works of the early church fathers.

The authority of the popes, however, posed a direct challenge to secular rulers who were attempting to consolidate their authority and create national governments. The kings of France had a long standing feud with the church over the authority of the pope to appoint bishops. Eventually, a French faction would take the Papacy out of Rome entirely and establish a new Catholic capital in the French city of Avignon. This Babylonian Captivity led to a split in the church and to several men all claiming to be pope at the same time. To resolve the problem, church members held a series of councils; this conciliar movement, which claimed that an assembly of church leaders held ultimate authority over the pope himself, became another source of debate and division.

In the Renaissance, as communication improved, as the Bible was translated into new languages, and as scholarship brought to light ancient philosophies, the Catholic Church found its doctrines and authority challenged. Jan Hus, a fifteenth-century reformer from Bohemia, founded a national church that paid no allegiance to the pope. Martin Luther, a German priest of the early sixteenth century, directly challenged the pope, accusing his church of corruption, worldliness, and godlessness. Hus, Luther, and other reformers sought to return Christianity to its roots, and restore the simple faith and religious devotion of the apostles and the early Christians. Luther's reform took Christians out of the Catholic Church entirely, and denied the authority of popes, bishops, and priests over the lives of believers.

The Catholic Church fought this Protestant Reformation with religious trials and threats of excommunication, which denied the sacraments to a heretic and barred his entry into heaven. The church also fought heresy with the Inquisition, a religious court, and the Index, a list of prohibited books. Catholicism was coming into conflict with many new currents of philosophy as well as scientific investigation. Astronomers such as Galileo Galilei and Nicolaus Copernicus had to be cautious about advancing theories that conflicted with accepted church doctrine.

In the century following Martin Luther's Reformation movement, civil and international wars were fought in Europe between Catholics and Protestants, with northern Europe largely breaking away, and southern Europe remaining loyal to papal authority. Although the Renaissance popes were the most powerful individuals in Europe, with immense treasuries and armies at their disposal, they were looked on as just another center of power, contending for land, taxes, and political authority with all the other rulers of the continent. The Papacy, in the hands of many Renaissance popes, became an instrument of amassing wealth and prestige and advancing the interests of their families.

The movement known as the Counter-Reformation was in full swing by the end of the Renaissance. The Council of Trent, which first convened in 1545, passed decrees against the Protestant movement, clarified Catholic doctrine, and attempted to set down uniform guidelines for the administration of the church. Although the Council of Trent was meant to reassert Catholic primacy, the church struggled for centuries to implement the decrees in the far-flung domains that still accepted the Catholic Church as the true Christian authority. The rise of powerful nation-states brought the church directly into conflict with kings over the appointment of bishops, the ownership of income-producing land, the authority of the religious courts, and other matters, while secular authorities sought to assert themselves as the final law of the land.

The most beneficial legacy of the Renaissance Catholic Church was its patronage of artists and their work. Under the commission of church authorities, artists such as Giotto, Michelangelo, Masaccio, and others raised artists well above their traditional status as mere artisans. The Renaissance popes made possible the new classicism in architecture, the monumental sculptures of Rome and other cities, and the innovations in painting, woodworking, engraving, and metalworking, all done in the service of the church. Even as the Protestant movement was splitting the church down a lasting divide, the popes were creating an enduring artistic legacy in cities all over Europe.

CATHOLICISM

The Roman Catholic Church established ties to the Russian lands from their earliest history but played only a marginal role. The first significant encounter came during the Time of Troubles, when the Catholic associations of pretenders and Polish interventionists triggered intense popular hostility toward the "Latins" and a hiatus in Russian–Catholic relations. Only in the last quarter of the seventeenth century did Muscovy, in pursuit of allies against the Turks, resume ties to Rome. Peter the Great went significantly further, permitting the construction of the first Catholic church in Moscow (1691) and the presence of various Catholic orders (including Jesuits).

But a significant Catholic presence only commenced with the first Polish partition of 1772, when the Russian Empire acquired substantial numbers of Catholic subjects. Despite initial tensions (chiefly over claims by the Russian government to oversee Catholic administration), relations improved markedly under emperors Paul (r. 1796–1801) and Alexander I (r. 1801-1825), when Catholic—especially Jesuit—influences at court were extraordinarily strong.

Thereafter, however, relations proved extremely tempestuous. One factor was the coercive conversion of Uniates or Eastern Catholics (that is, Catholics practicing Eastern Rites), who were "reunited" with the Russian Orthodox Church (in 1839 and 1875) and forbidden to practice Catholic rites. The second factor was Catholic involvement in the Polish uprisings of 1830-1831 and 1863; subsequent government measures to Russify and repress the Poles served only to reinforce their Catholic identity and resolve. Hence Catholicism remained a force to be reckoned with: By the 1890s, it had 11.5 million adherents (9.13% of the population), making it the third largest religious group in the Russian Empire. It maintained some 4,400 churches (2,400 in seven Polish dioceses; 2,000 in five dioceses in the Russian Empire proper). The 1905 revolution forced the regime to declare religious tolerance (the manifesto of April 17, 1905); with conversion from Russian Orthodoxy decriminalized, huge numbers declared themselves Catholic (233,000 in 1905-1909 alone).

The 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, however, brought decades of devastating repression. The Catholic Church refused to accept Bolshevik nationalization of its property and the requirement that the laity, not clergy, register and assume responsibility for churches. The conflict culminated in the Bolshevik campaign to confiscate church valuables in 1922 and 1923 and a famous show trial that ended with the execution of a leading prelate. That was but a prelude to the 1930s, when massive purges and repression eliminated all but two Catholic churches by 1939. Although World War II brought an increase in Catholic churches (mainly through the annexation of new territories), the regime remained highly suspicious of Catholicism, especially in a republic like Lithuania, where ethnicity and Catholicism coalesced into abiding dissent.

The "new thinking" of Mikhail Gorbachev included the reestablishment of relations with the Vatican in 1988 and relaxation of pressure on the Catholic church in the USSR. The breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 turned the main bastions of Catholicism (i.e., Lithuania) into independent republics, but left a substantial number of Catholics in the Russian Federation (1.3 million according to Vatican estimates). To minister to them more effectively, Rome, in February 2002, elevated its four "apostolic administrations" to the status of "dioceses," serving some 600,000 parishioners in 212 registered churches and 300 small, informal communities.

See also: lithuania and lithuanians; orthodoxy; poland; religion; uniate church

bibliography

Zatko, James. (1965). Descent into Darkness: The Destruction of the Roman Catholic Church in Russia, 1917-1923. Toronto: Baxter Publishing.

Zugger, Christopher. (2001). The Forgotten: Catholics of the Soviet Empire from Lenin to Stalin. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.

Gregory L. Freeze

Catholicism

In Roman Catholicism, death has been understood primarily in terms of an issue of justice. Having turned away from God, humans are deprived of the life-giving energy that they need and which is to be found solely in God. Death, then, is both a sign of and an effect of human estrangement from God. The radical character of this consequence mirrors the radical character of human (intended) dependence upon God for identity and existence. For some Catholic theologians in the past, death is the most symmetrical consequence of a desire for ontological independence, as death reveals the fundamental limitation of that very ontology. In the very early Church, Catholics were encouraged to reject any fear of death, as it seemed to express too great an attachment to the life of "this world." But by the end of the fourth century, fear of death was understood as an internal sign that something about the way things were—the cosmic order— was indeed wrong. As a pedagogic device, then, the fact of death should teach humility; fear of death is the beginning of a wise appreciation of human fragility. "Death" became an ascetic metaphor for selflessness and the end of pride.

If death is the greatest sign of human dislocation, it is the punishment for the act of will that produced the fundamental dislocation—sin. Traditional Catholic theology emphasized the just character of the punishment, in part to explain why the sentence of human mortality could not be simply overturned. Human explanation of the efficacy of the incarnation—God becoming human—and crucifixion has been that the unjust death of Jesus, the Son of God, ended the just claim death had upon humanity. In his resurrection, Jesus was thus the physician who dispensed the "medicine of immortality." The incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection reveal something about God as well, namely that the old punishment was overturned "not through power," as St. Augustine put it, "but through humility."

As a community, Catholics live and die with the ambivalence typical of the modern world: A loved one's death is a great loss and an occasion of intense trauma, and must be acknowledged as such. Death is also a great transition for the deceased, who exchanges penalty for reward, replacing estrangement from God with fellowship. To deny grief is to deny what the experience of death teaches; to deny hope is to deny what the resurrection offers.

See also: Christian Death Rites, History of; Heaven; Hell; Jesus; Protestantism; Purgatory

MICHEL RENE BARNES

Catholicism

See Christianity, Roman Catholic, Issues in Science and Religion

Catholicism, see Roman Catholic Church in America.

Catholicism See ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH.