From the desk of the pastor for Feb. 15, 2026

The Lord be with you. Having gone over how the Church spread to Central and South America, we should look at how she developed in our own country. How did the Catholic Church come to the United States? Moreover, how did the Church organize itself in the early days of our country? Let’s find out.

As most Catholics know, Maryland was founded to be a Catholic colony. In 1634 about 150 Catholics and Protestants braved the Atlantic to found St. Mary’s City. Guaranteed religious protection by the Act of Toleration in 1649, Catholics enjoyed their lives with dignity in Maryland for a while. Unfortunately, in 1689 the English Crown revoked the colony’s charter and made the Church of England the official religion of the colony. Catholics, and non-Anglicans, were barred from office and often had to pay double portions of taxes.

In nearby Pennsylvania many Catholics found the Quakers’ religious toleration a true Godsend and began settling there. On the eve of the Revolutionary War, however, Catholics only amounted to 35,000 out of a population of 2.5 million, or barely over 1 percent of the Thirteen Colonies. That war changed Catholics’ fortunes dramatically. Whereas before the war the United States had no bishops but were led by a Papal representative stationed in London, in 1789 Bishop John Carroll became the first bishop with his diocese of Baltimore. Bishop Carroll’s brother Charles had signed the Declaration of Independence representing well the support that Catholics gave our country’s move to independence. Nevertheless, the Church was tiny at the close of the 18th century, with one bishop, about 30 priests, and maybe 40,000 Catholics.

Over the next few decades the Church began to expand from immigration and institutional growth. The Louisiana Purchase in 1804 opened up new lands for settlement as Napoleon’s Wars in Europe displaced populations. By 1810 the United States had its own seminary, Elizabeth Ann Seton had started the first American Catholic school system, and Baltimore had been raised to an Archdiocese along with New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Bardstown in Kentucky. By our country’s 50th birthday, however, the Catholic population had not kept pace with overall growth: 150,000 Catholics out of a population of 12 million is less than 1 percent.

The Church’s real growth would come in the next four decades as immigrants from Germany and Ireland came. By the eve of the Civil War, Catholics would number 3 million out of a prewar population of 30 million: 10 percent! Catholicism went from being a tiny minority to the largest single denomination in those pivotal years with a corresponding growth of Catholic institutions. My own ancestors from Prussia came over during this time and settled in Parma, Ohio, where they continued speaking German.

As one might expect, the influx of non-English speakers upset many Americans. The Nativist movement and its No Nothing Party eventually died off after a few decades, but the opposition that Catholics and Protestants faced at this time remind us that assimilation is rarely easy or straightforward. May we pray that whenever these tensions occur - as they do today - that all sides remember that we are God’s children first.

In His Sacred Heart,
Fr. John