Catholics in
Antebellum America
Religion
in America
French Catholicism
■
A divided church in New Orleans
Spanish Catholicism:
missions
■
Mixed success in New Mexico
Small success in
Texas
Franciscans in
California
■
Father Junípero Serra
Floods from Europe
■
Irish potato famine, 1840s
–
1 million poor Irish Catholics to U.S.
■
Failed 1848 Revolution in Germany
–
Protestant & Catholic middle-class
Catholic Growing
Pains
■
Phenomenal growth of Catholic Church
–
Number of churches up 885% 1820-50
–
Largest denomination by 1860
■
Huge ethnic diversity and tensions
–
Discrimination strengthens Catholic identity
–
Tension between Germans & Irish & others
Anti-Catholicism returns
■
Effects of Second Great Awakening
■
The cross: “outward emblem of Popery”
–
1854: mob attacks chapel, burns cross
■
Schools: Battleground
–
Requirements of Bible & prayer in schools
–
Catholic Church protests
–
Separate public schools?
■
Protestants: separation of church and state!
■
Catholics set up parochial school system
Anti-Catholic riots
■
1834 Ursaline Convent burned, Boston
Anti-Catholic books
1844 “Bible riots”
in Philadelphia
Mob
burns two Catholic churches
Know-Nothing Party,
1850s
Catholic conspiracy
against America?
Effects on
Protestants
■
Cultural effects: teaching Americans to have fun
–
Halloween, Christmas
–
Saloons and urban lower-class entertainments
–
Salacious and sensationalist books and cheap newspapers
■
“Ritual envy”
■
Worry about attraction of Catholicism’s
“superstitions”
■
The cross: Recapture a central Christian symbol
■
The Gothic revival