Catholics

Catholics

  • Submitted By: hamzeh00
  • Date Submitted: 11/24/2008 8:22 AM
  • Category: Religion
  • Words: 3721
  • Page: 15
  • Views: 1

CATHOLICS
In the period 1820–1870 Catholicism became the
single-largest individual religious denomination in the
United States, although by 1850 American Protestants
counted together outnumbered American Catholics
by two to one. The growth of American Catholicism
can be seen in the fact that while in 1826 there were
250,000 Catholics in the United States, by 1865 there
were 3.5 million. In part the numbers swelled due to
the high number of conversions: 700,000 from 1813
to 1893. In 1835 Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)
commented on the large number of conversions to
Roman Catholicism among Americans, noting in his
magisterial study Democracy in America that Americans,
who were otherwise governed by individualism in
their civil lives, welcomed a religion that exhibited
discipline and unity.

AN IMMIGRANT CHURCH
The increase in the population of American Catholics
was also driven by natural population growth and by a
formidable influx of Catholic immigrants. These
immigrants came principally from Ireland, especially
at the time of the Great Potato Famine (1845–1849).
In spite of their poverty and lack of marketable skills
Irish immigrants had an advantage over Catholic
immigrants from other countries. They could speak
English—even if their education in other respects was
lacking due to the severe privations imposed upon
them by English rule. Nonetheless, in 1850 over 75
percent of the Irish Catholic population of America
could read and write English. All the same, these
immigrants tended to be employed in unskilled jobs—
manual labor for the men, household duties for the
women. The effect of this was that relatively few Irish
Americans before 1870 had risen into the middle class.
Most were poor members of the working class, and for
this reason these immigrant Catholics were regarded
with condescension and sometimes with contempt by
the Protestant establishment.
Prior to 1820 the Catholic population of the
United States...

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