Chapter 9 The Church in the Americas (1492-1876)

I. A Collision of Cultures
A. Catholicism in Spanish America
1. Explorers and Conquistadors arrive first
2. The Missionaries follow
a. Powerless to stop exploitation
b. Preached the Gospel in new areas
3. Franciscans were the frist missionaries
a. 1500 in Santo Domingo
b. 1524 in Mexico and joined by the Dominican friars
4. By 1549, Jesuits arrived in Brazil
5. Why convert?
a. Missionaries took an educational approach and learned native languages, constructed aplphabets, wrote catechisms to teach the faith
b. Natives believed that the Christian God must be stronger than their own deities because the Spaniards conquered them
c. Some indigenous peoples genuinely believed
6. The Miracle of Guadalupe (12/9/1531)
a. Juan Diego encountered the Virgin Mary on a hill while on his way to church
b. The Virgin tells Juan Diego that she wants the local bishop to build a church on the location of the apparition (near Mexico City)
c. The bishop dismisses Diego’s claim
d. Diego asks the Virgin for a sign to give the bishop
e. Diego was told to gather some roses growing nearby (out of season) and take them to the bishop
f. He carried them in his peasant’s cloak
g. In presenting them to the bishop, they fall out and the image known as “Our Lady of Guadalupe” was miraculously present
h. This image is on display in the basilica in Mexico City and has not faded or deteriorated to this day
7. Bartolome de Las Casas (see p. 216)
8. Junipero Serra and California (see pgs. 219-220)

II. The French Presence in the Americas
A. French Exploration
1. The French arrived in Canada in 1534
2. Their explorers were in search of a Northwest Passage, a non-existent waterway through the Americas from the Atlantic to the Pacific, in order, to go to the Far East
3. The first French colony was established in 1541 to search for silver and gold near Quebec and was eventually abandoned
B. Jesuits amongst the Native Americans
1. The real motivation for colonizing New France came because of the Jesuit missionaries
2. Beginning in 1632, Jesuit missionaries arrived in the modern day province of Quebec
3. They adopted an approach to evangelization that was less accommodating compared to the Jesuits in Asia- they believed the natives needed to become more European to truly convert
C. Saint Isaac Jogues
1. He was one of the first (1636) of the Black Robes, northern Native American term given to the Jesuits because of their clothing
2. He did missionary work originally amongst the Hurons
3. He was eventually captured by the Mohawk tribe and severely tortured and enslaved
4. After escaping, he returned to France for a short while and then resumed his work with the natives in New France trying to establish peace amongst the various tribes at war in the area
5. He was martyred by an Iroquois warrior in 1646 and is one of the patron saints of Canada
D. Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha (1656-1680)
1. Daughter of a Mohawk chief and Algonquin Christian mother
2. She converted to Christianity after a priest visited her village
3. She chose to remain celibate and was mocked by other members of the tribe
4. She left her home and went to a Christian Native American community near Montreal
5. She took a vow dedicating herself to Christ and many claimed that she possessed mystical powers and was treated with great reverence

III. Catholicism in the Colonies and Early America
A. Maryland-A Safe Haven for Catholics
1. The British colonies were mainly a Protestant territory
2. Most of the colonies were founded by religious dissidents except for Virginia which was under the Church of England
3. Maryland became a safe haven for English Catholics coming to the new world because it was founded by a Catholic family named Calvert
4. In 1649, the Act of Toleration decreed freedom of religion in the colony of Maryland
5. Eventually, Puritans took control of Maryland and deprived Catholics of civil rights until the American Revolution
6. John Carroll of Maryland became the first bishop in the colonies in 1789
a. He organized the priests of the colonies
b. His diocese included all of the thirteen colonies
c. He established the first US seminary in 1791 called St. Mary’s seminary
d. The nations first Catholic college, Mount St. Mary’s College, in 1808 as well as Georgetown College (later Georgetown University)
e. He arranged for four new dioceses to be established after the Louisiana Purchase
7. Catholics gained acceptance in the early days of the country because of two primary reasons
a. Their numbers were small
b. Bishop Carroll demonstrated support for the new sysyem of government
8. By the time of independence, most Catholics lived in Maryland or Pennsylvania which had adopted a ploicy of religious toleration under William Penn

B. The American System and the Immigrant Church
1. Lay Trusteeism, the control of parish funds and resources by an elected body of laypeople, was in practice not without its share of problems and was basically an attempt to blend Catholicism and being American
2. The Catholic Church in America from early in the nineteenth to the middle of the twentieth century was an immigrant church
3. The first major group of Catholics in the U.S. were the Irish who moved into the major cities on the East Coast
4. German Catholics made an impact on the Midwest
5. Estimates are that between 1790 and 1850 over a million Catholics immigrated to the U.S. making Catholicism the largest Christian denomination in the nation
6. Due to this large immigration there began a stong anti-Catholic movement known as Nativism among the WASPs and they even formed a political party called the Know Nothing Party
7. The U.S. Council of Baltimore in 1884 decided
a. Catholic schools in all parishes were to be established to counter an anti-Catholic, pro-Protestant bias in the public schools at the time
b. A new question and answer format catechism to be used in the new schools called the Baltimore Catechism