20th-century history of the Catholic Church in the United States
The 20th-century history of the Catholic Church in the United States was characterized by a period of continuous growth for the Church in the United States, with Catholics progressively evolving from a small minority to a large minority.
Early 20th century
In 1900 the Catholic population was 10 million, under the control of 14 Archbishops, 77 bishops, and 12,000 priests. The community had built 10,000 churches, of which two-thirds had resident pastors. Catholic schools educated nearly 1,000,000 children and youth. Catholics were heavily concentrated in the industrial and mining centers of the Northeast; few were farmers and only a small fraction lived in the South, chiefly in Louisiana. Catholics comprised less than one in 7 of the national population of 76 million.National Catholic War Council
It was John J. Burke, editor of the Catholic World, who first recognized the urgency of the moment. Burke had long argued for a national outlook and sense of unity among the country's Catholics. The war provided the impetus to initiate these efforts. The Catholic hierarchy was eager to show its enthusiastic support for the war effort. In order to better address challenges posed by World War I, the American Catholic hierarchy in 1917 chose to meet collectively for the first time since 1884. In August 1917, on the campus of The Catholic University of America in Washington, Burke, with the backing of Cardinal Gibbons and other bishops, convened a meeting to discuss organizing a national agency to coordinate the war effort of the American Catholic community. One hundred and fifteen delegates from sixty-eight dioceses, together with members from the Catholic press and representatives from twenty-seven national Catholic organizations attended this first meeting. It set up the National Catholic War Council, "to study, coordinate, unify and put in operation all Catholic activities incidental to the war." An executive committee, chaired by Cardinal George Mundelein of Chicago, was formed in December 1917, to oversee the work of the Council. The mandate of the newly formed organization included the promotion of Catholic participation in the war, through chaplains, literature, and care for the morale of the troops, as well as lobbying for Catholic interests in the nation's capital.As the war ended liberals hoped that a new commitment to social reform would characterize the ensuing peace. The Council saw an opportunity to use its national voice to shape reform and in April 1918 created a Committee for Reconstruction. John A. Ryan wrote the "Bishops' Program of Social Reconstruction." It was issued to the public on February 12, 1919, through a carefully planned public relations campaign. The plan offered a guide for overhauling America's politics, society, and economy based on Pope Leo XIII's Rerum novarum and a variety of influences reflecting the Progressive Era in the U.S..
The Program received a mixed reception both within the Church and outside it. The National Catholic War Council was a voluntary organization with no canonical status. Its ability to speak authoritatively was thus questioned. Many bishops threw their support behind the Program, while Bishop William Turner of Buffalo and William Henry O'Connell of Boston, among others, opposed it. O'Connell believed some aspects of the plan smacked too much of socialism. Response outside the Church was also divided: labor organizations backing it, for example, and business groups criticizing it.
28th International Eucharistic Congress
In 1926, Chicago hosted the 28th International Eucharistic Congress, the first international eucharistic congress held in the United States and the second to be held in North America.1928 Presidential election
In 1928, Al Smith became the first Roman Catholic to gain a major party's nomination for president, and his religion became an issue during the campaign. Many Protestants feared that Smith would take orders from church leaders in Rome in making decisions affecting the country. Smith was from New York City, with strong ties to the Democratic machine known as Tammany Hall. To top it off, he was a wet who strongly opposed national prohibition.National Catholic Welfare Conference
The National Catholic Welfare Council began in 1919 as the annual meeting of the American Catholic hierarchy and its standing secretariat. It consists of a staff of clergy as well as committees of bishops who discussed and sometimes issued statements on matters of national policy such as education, welfare, and health care.It split into the National Conference of Catholic Bishops and the United States Catholic Conference. Today it is the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Parochial schools
In 1900, the Church supported 3,500 parochial schools, usually under the control of the local parish. By 1920, the number of elementary schools had reached 6,551, enrolling 1,759, 673 pupils taught by 41, 581 teachers. Secondary education likewise boomed. In 1900, there were only about 100 Catholic high schools, but by 1920 more than 1,500 were in operation. For more than two generations, enrollment continued to climb.The Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities was founded in 1899, In 1904, Catholic educators formed an organization to coordinate their efforts on a national scale: the Catholic Educational Association which later changed its name to the National Catholic Educational Association.
Threats
After World War I, some states concerned about the influence of immigrants and "foreign" values looked to public schools for help. The states drafted lawsdesigned to use schools to promote a common American culture.In 1921, the Ku Klux Klan attracted as many as 14,000 members in Oregon, establishing 58 klaverns by the end of 1922. Given the small population of non-white minorities outside Portland, the Oregon Klan directed its attention almost exclusively against Catholics, who numbered about 8% of the population.
In 1922, the Masonic Grand Lodge of Oregon sponsored a bill to require all school-age children to attend public schools. With support of the Klan and Democratic Governor Walter M. Pierce, endorsed by the Klan, the Compulsory Education Act was passed by a vote of 115,506 to 103,685. Its primary purpose was to shut down Catholic schools in Oregon, but it also affected other private and military schools. The constitutionality of the law was challenged in court and ultimately struck down by the Supreme Court in Pierce v. Society of Sisters before it went into effect.
The law caused outraged Catholics to organize locally and nationally for the right to send their children to Catholic schools. In Pierce v. Society of Sisters, the United States Supreme Court declared the Oregon's Compulsory Education Act unconstitutional in a ruling that has been called "the Magna Carta of the parochial school system."
The Catholic leadership in 1924 mobilized to defeat a constitutional amendment that, they feared, would mean not just federal control of child labor, but also would be the opening wedge for federal invasion of individual and parental rights, that would threaten parochial schools. Many church leaders had also opposed woman suffrage. When it passed in 1920 they called upon Catholic women to start voting. Most of the Catholic women actually started to vote in 1928, when there was a Catholic on the presidential ticket.
Polish Catholic parish schools
Polish Americans boosted membership in the Catholic church and expanded parishes previously non-existent in the Midwestern United States. Student enrollment had increased significantly in the interwar period and many young Polish women were requested to teach in the schools. Polish-born nuns were strongly desired for educating the students. A study in 1932 found that close to 300,000 Polish Americans were enrolled in over 600 Polish grade schools in the United States. Very few of the Polish Americans who graduated from grade school at the time pursued high school or college at that time. High School was not required and enrollment across the United States was far lower at the time.Polish Americans took to the Catholic private schools in great numbers. In Chicago, 35,862 students attended Polish parochial schools in 1920. Nearly every Polish parish in the American Catholic Church had a school, whereas in Italian parishes, it was typically one in ten parishes. Even as late as 1960, estimates of Chicago's students attending Polish parochial schools was about 60% of the Polish American population.
Supreme Court upholds parochial schools
In 1922, the voters of Oregon passed an initiative amending Oregon Law Section 5259, the Compulsory Education Act. The law unofficially became known as the Oregon School Law. The citizens' initiative was primarily aimed at eliminating parochial schools, including Catholic schools. The law caused outraged Catholics to organize locally and nationally for the right to send their children to Catholic schools. In Pierce v. Society of Sisters, the United States Supreme Court declared the Oregon's Compulsory Education Act unconstitutional in a ruling that has been called "the Magna Carta of the parochial school system."Peak
By the mid-1960s, enrollment in Catholic parochial schools had reached an all-time high of 4.5 million elementary school pupils, with about 1 million students in Catholic high schools. The enrollments steadily declined as Catholics moved to the suburbs, where the children attended public schools.Hospitals
As cities grew rapidly in the late 19th century, all major religious denominations built hospitals in urban areas. Catholics led the way for a large proportion of the patients were Catholic immigrants. In 1915, the Catholic religious orders for women operated 541 hospitals. They were open to patients regardless of religion. Costs were minimized by relying heavily on the work of women students who paid tuition and nuns who had taken a vow of poverty.In 1945, there were 685 Catholic hospitals with a bed capacity of 87,000. Fifteen years later, there were 800 hospitals with 137,000 beds. Between 1960 and 1970, the number of patients nearly doubled. By 2000, however, mergers reduced the number of smaller hospitals, while patient admissions continued to grow rapidly, with heavy federal funding from Medicare and Medicaid.
In the late 20th century the hospitals increasingly closed their training programs and relied on paid graduate nurses who had college degrees in nursing. In the 21st century, as the cohorts of nuns aged, they turned their hospitals over to lay boards thus allowing the last generation of sister administrators to retire.