Catholic origins in early America

Catholic America:
Then and Now

CATHOLICS LIVED IN AMERICA FOR CENTURIES

 Catholics lived in America for centuries before the colonial period. Priests from religious orders (special communities dedicated to particular works) established Catholic communities in the 16th and 17th centuries.

 Florida,Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Louisiana, and California share the roots of Catholic religion in America

 These priests, who were mostly Spanish Jesuits and Franciscans, converted numerous people in the regions that would later be known as Florida,Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Louisiana, and California, giving Catholicism deep roots in America. These early Catholic missionary priests established the famous Spanish missions in California. The Church established a diocese in the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico in 1511, the oldest diocese in U.S. territory. Spanish colonies also were set up in southern Florida for a short time and Catholic priests established places of worship there. In Canada and parts of what is now the northern midwest of America, French missionary priests did the same thing, living among and working with various Native American tribes in an effort to turn them into Catholic Christians. Two French Jesuits became saints and martyrs (people killed because of their beliefs) when their efforts to convert Huron and Mohawk tribes were met with resistance and the missionaries were killed.

                Europian colonists were divided between two Christian religions

 As European colonists, primarily from Great Britain, began to come across the Atlantic in the early 1600s, Protestants comprised the most influential religious group. They came to New England from Great Britain to establish colonies that eventually became the first states. Many of these early settlers left Britain, which had a state religion that favored certain Christians over others, because they wanted greater religious freedom. Ironically, the colonists also favored certain religious groups and even established their own state religions. For one thing, since Puritans wanted to cleanse Christianity from its ties to the pope, Catholics were unwelcome in most of the early colonies. Orthodox Christianity arrived about this time, too. Priests and monks from the Russian Orthodox Church traveled for 293 days from St. Petersburg, Russia, to Kodiak, Alaska. They arrived on September 24 ,1794, and founded the Russian Orthodox Church in America.