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The situation of the Catholic Church in the Thirteen Colonies was characterized by an extensive religious persecution originating from Protestant sects, which would barely allow religious toleration to Catholics living on American territory. Nonetheless, Catholics were a part of colonial history from the beginning, especially in Maryland, a ...
San Miguel Mission, in Santa Fe, New Mexico, established in 1610, is the oldest church in the United States.. The Catholic Church in the United States began in the colonial era, but by the mid-1800s, most of the Spanish, French, and Mexican influences had demographically faded in importance, with Protestant Americans moving west and taking over many formerly Catholic regions.
American anti-Catholicism originally derived from the theological heritage of the Protestant Reformation and the European wars of religion (16th–18th century). Because the Reformation was based on an effort to correct what was perceived as the errors and excesses of the Catholic Church, its proponents formed strong positions against the Roman clerical hierarchy in general and the Papacy in ...
Many of the British North American colonies that eventually formed the United States of America were settled in the 17th century by men and women, who, in the face of European religious persecution, refused to compromise passionately held religious convictions (largely stemming from the Protestant Reformation which began c. 1517) and fled Europe.
American Catholics were not exactly happy to see the new immigrants. Not only did the exponential growth set off nativist alarms among Protestants, they presented problems for the existing Catholic parishes. The wave of immigration from Ireland led to tension between the Irish and the French-dominated American Catholic Church.
In the American colonies the First Great Awakening was a wave of religious enthusiasm among Protestants that swept the American colonies in the 1730s and 1740s, leaving a permanent impact on American Christianity. It resulted from preaching that deeply affected listeners (already church members) with a sense of personal guilt and salvation by ...
He cited education at a young age promoted the reason and experience necessary for a strong religious background. He called American Catholics "to multiply our schools, and to perfect them". [43] By 1852 the bishops recommended "Catholic children should attend only schools that were under church control". [44]
The Calverts intended the colony to function both as a haven for English Catholics fleeing religious persecution and as a source of income for themselves and their descendants. [3] Many of Maryland's first settlers were Catholic, including at least two Catholic priests, one of whom became the earliest chronicler of the colony's history. [4]