Faith in the World (1492 A.D. to Now)

A HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

Time Line1492 AD Columbus reaches the Americas

1500s Catholic missionaries in Americas, Asia

1600s 13 English colonies in the Americas

1700s Great Awakening in 13 coloniesAmerican Revolutionary War

1800s Catholic immigration to the U.S.

New Protestant religions are born in U.S. – Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Adventists, ChristianScientists

1900 Pentecostalism begins in U.S.

1930sDorothy Day and Catholic Worker House Movement

1960 John F. Kennedy, 1st Catholic President

1960s Thomas Merton

TOPICS in this POWER POINT

TOPIC 1: Christianity Goes GlobalTOPIC 2: Christianity in North AmericaTOPIC 3: RenaissanceTOPIC 4: Protestant ReformationTOPIC 5: Catholic (Counter) ReformationTOPIC 6: European Wars of Religion

TOPIC 1: Christianity Goes Global• As the Protestant Reformation of Martin

Luther took off in Europe, the European Age of Exploration also was beginning.

• Columbus discovered the Americas in 1492. Spain and Portugal created New World colonies in Mexico, the southern U.S., the Caribbean, and all of Central and South America.

• Portuguese sailors found a way around Africa to Asia.

• Christian missionaries soon were evangelizing in the Americas, Asia and Africa.

Africa1. Kingdom of Kongo: In the 1400s, Portuguese

brought Catholicism to the Kongo in central-west Africa. In the 1700s, because of the African Slave Trade and failure of the Pope to take notice and intervene, Kongo reverted back to paganism.

2. Ethiopia : Located south of Egypt, Ethiopia had become Christian in Roman times, along with Egypt and the rest of North Africa. But it was the only part of ancient Christian Africa to resist the Muslim takeover of North Africa in the 600s and 700s AD, and to remain Christian.

3. Late 1800s and 1900s: European nations carved Africa into colonies, during a period called the “Scramble for Africa.” Christianity, Protestant and Catholic, returned to Africa, and spread like wildfire. Today, Africa is largely Christian (33%) and Muslim (21%).

Asia1. St. Francis Xavier, SJ (1506-1552): He was a companion of St.

Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, and took Christianity to India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Indonesia and Japan. Instead of imposing Christianity, he used Pope Gregory the Great’s missionary strategy of blending Christianity with local customs and traditions.

2. Fr. Matteo Ricci, SJ (1552-1610): He was a Jesuit missionary to China and also embraced blending Christianity with Chinese traditions and customs. A later Pope banned this blending approach, and China’s emperor expelled Christians from China.

3. Christianity in Japan. In 1614, the Japanese shogun (ruler) banned Christianity, fearing Western influence on Japanese culture. Thousands of Christians were martyred.

4. Christianity in the Philippines. In the 1500s, the Philippines became a colony of Spain, and missionaries spread Christianity. They often protected the Filipino people from slavery and mistreatment by the Spanish. Today, the Philippines is the only predominantly Christian nation of Asia.

AustraliaChristianity came “down under” in 1788, when British established Australia as a colonyfor prisoners. At first, the church in Australia was Anglican. Later, starting in 1803, Catholic priests who were also convicts started celebrating Mass for Catholic prisoners.

Latin AmericaThe Spanish and Portuguese colonized the Caribbean, Mexico and the southern U.S., Central America and South America. The conquistadores were brutal, killing or enslaving the native Americans and wiping out their civilizations (Aztec, Maya, Inca). When most native Americans died of European diseases, the Spanish and Portuguese began importing black slaves from Africa to work in sugar plantations, etc. Catholic missionaries accompanied the conquistadores and slowly converted the native Americans and African slaves to Christianity.

1. Bartolomé de Las Casas (1484-1566). This Spanish Dominican priest vigorously defended the native Americans and condemned their mistreatment by the Spanish.

2. Our Lady of Guadalupe, 1531. This famous appearance by Mary, Mother of God, to a native American, Juan Diego, helped spread Christianity in Mexico.

3. St. Martin de Porres (1579-1639). Catholic Dominican brother and first black saint of Peru.

Two Missionary Philosophies

In Asia:The Philosophy

of Pope Gregory the Great – Cultural blending: Missionaries attempted

to adapt Christianity to native culture and traditions. For example, Catholic missionaries

dressed as Confucian scholars.

In Africa & Americas:The Philosophy of the Conqueror.

Missionaries tried to wipe out native religions and culture,

imposing Christianity. For example, native pyramids and temples were destroyed, and churches were built

on top of the old sites of the temples and pyramids.

TOPIC 2: Christianity in North America• THE SPANISH brought Catholicism into North

America – in Florida, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California. Jesuit Fr. Eusebio Kino (1645-1711) started a string of mission churches in Arizona and other parts of the Southwest, and Franciscan Fr. Junipero Serra (1713-1784) started the string of California mission churches.

– St. Augustine, Florida, is the first permanent Catholic settlement in North America, founded in 1565.

– Santa Fe, New Mexico, was founded in 1610, just 3 years after the first permanent English settlers to North America founded Jamestown.

– The Alamo in San Antonio, Texas, was a mission before it became a fort, and was founded in 1718.

Fr. Junipero Serra, OFM, and California Missions

• FRENCH MISSIONARIES brought Christianity to Native Americans as they accompanied explorers to Canada, along the Great Lakes and down the Mississippi River as far south as New Orleans. The most famous was Jesuit Fr. Jacques Marquette (1637-1675). Some tribes became Christian, but others resisted, and some missionaries were killed – for example, Jesuit Fr. Isaac Jogues (1607-1646) and his 7 companions. A famous Indian convert was St. Kateri Tekakwitha, known as the “Lily of the Mohawks,” who died in 1680.

– The Archdiocese of New Orleans was established in 1793, when it was part of France’s colonies in the Americas. The Diocese of Baltimore was established in 1789.

– Fr. Basil Moreau, CSC, founded Holy Cross in France and sent missionaries to this part of the Americas in the early 1800s because it was French-speaking. Fr. Edward Sorin, CSC, founded the University of Notre Dame in northern Indiana, near Lake Michigan, in 1842. He later founded St. Edward’s University in 1878.

The Thirteen Colonies• In 1607, the British established their first permanent

settlement in the New World, Jamestown in Virginia.Thirteen British colonies soon dotted the eastern Atlantic coast of North America.

– Virginia, founded in 1607, was mostly Anglican.

– Massachusetts was founded by Pilgrims at Plymouth in 1620, from the ship the Mayflower, and later in 1629 by Puritans.

– Maryland became the “Catholic” colony in 1634 and also granted religious freedom, especially after passing an Act of Toleration in 1649. It was founded by Lord Baltimore (Cecil Calvert).

– Roger Williams started Rhode Island, 1636, after being banished from Massachusetts. This was the first colony to provide religious freedom.

– William Penn, a Quaker, started Pennsylvania in 1682, also as a haven for religious freedom. Its main city, Philadelphia, means “city of brotherly love.”

Highlights of Church History in the U.S.• John Wesley (1703-1791): An English Anglican who along with

his brother Charles founded the Methodist Church, so-named because of its “method” for spiritual growth. Wesley traveled to the American colonies conducting tent revivals. The two largest Protestant churches in the U.S. became the Baptists and the Methodists.

• The Great Awakening, 1730s and 1740s: Spiritual revival that swept the American colonies, led by talented traveling preachers such as George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards.

• Abolitionism, Underground Railroad, Temperance, Women’s Suffrage. In the mid-1800s, a “Second Great Awakening” swept across the U.S. It supported abolishing slavery (abolitionism), helped slaves escape from the South to the North via the Underground Railway, supported avoidance of alcoholic beverages (temperance), and favored voting and equal rights for women (suffrage).

• Joseph Smith and the Mormon Church: The U.S. produced many new religious groups. Most notably is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormons), founded by Joseph Smith. Mormonism started in New York, then moved westward to escape persecution – to Ohio; then to Illinois, where Smith was killed; and finally to Utah, led by Brigham Young.

• Other religious groups that began in the U.S. include Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christian Scientists, Seventh Day Adventists, and Holiness and Pentecostal churches. In the 20th century, the U.S. saw a huge rise in Evangelical Protestantism, often associated with large, nondenominational mega-churches and televangelists.

Catholic Church History in the U.S.• Maryland started as a colony for

Catholics. Charles Carroll was the only Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence.

• Baltimore, Maryland, became the first Catholic diocese in the U.S. in 1789. Its first bishop was John Carroll, a cousin of Charles Carroll.

• In 1808, four other dioceses were created in the U.S. – Boston; New York; Philadelphia; and Bardstown, Kentucky (later, Louisville, Kentucky).

• A Church of Immigrants: As the U.S. expanded, immigrants from Europe flooded into the U.S. to escape political or religious persecution, or to escape poverty. Most were Catholic. Parishes and Catholic schools became the center of immigrant social life – for common language and culture; education to learn English’ and to escape Protestant prejudice in public schools and society.– The first great wave of immigrants came

from Ireland, particularly after the Irish Potato Famine (1845-1852).

– The second great wave came from Germany.– The third great wave came from Italy and

Eastern Europe (Poland, Hungary, etc.).– The last wave has come from Mexico and

other parts of Latin America, and from Asia (Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Filipinos, etc.).

• Anti-Catholicism: The U.S. was mostly Protestant. This majority feared the Pope would try to take over the U.S.

• Nativism was an anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic bigotry movement in the 1800s. It wanted the U.S. only for “native-born Americans.”

• Know-Nothing Party was an anti-Catholic political party in the 1800s, so-called because it evaded answering questions.

• Ku Klux Klan (KKK): A racist secret movement that was anti-black and anti-Catholic.

• In 1928, New York Governor Al Smith, a Catholic, ran for president and was trounced, largely because of anti-Catholic bigotry.

• In 1960, John F. Kennedy became the first and only Catholic to win the presidency – but despite widespread anti-Catholic rhetoric.

• By the 1960s, Catholics had entered the American mainstream, by and large.

• Black Catholics: Many blacks in the U.S. became Catholic. There were even religious orders of black Catholic priests, brothers and nuns. But until the 1960s and the Civil Rights Movement of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., white Catholics discriminated against blacks.

– Before the civil war, many white Catholics favored slavery, even though the Vatican condemned it. Some religious orders even owned slaves!

– The first black priest from the U.S. was Fr. Augustinbe Tolton, ordained in 1886. He had been born into slavery. He had to attend seminary in Rome because U.S. seminaries would not let him in.

– Catholic parishes and schools were segregated until the 1960s.

• Women Catholics: Catholic women served the sick, the poor and immigrants in the U.S.

• St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, an Anglican widow and mother of 5, became a Catholic. In 1809, she started the Sisters of Charity, the first religious order to originate in the U.S. They started the first Catholic schools in the U.S., as well as hospitals and orphanages. She is the first native-born citizen of the U.S. to become a saint.

• Nuns served heroically as nurses in the Civil War. These included Holy Cross sisters.

• In 1880, Mother Frances Cabrini, an Italian immigrant, founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart to serve poor immigrants in New York, Chicago and elsewhere. She also is canonized as a saint.

Other Famous American Catholics You Should Know• Father Damien, 1840-1889: Catholic priest who

ministered to lepers in Hawaii (on the leper-colony island of Molokai). Became a saint in 2009.

• Dorothy Day (1897-1980): In the 1930s, started the Catholic Worker Movement in New York City to help the poor and homeless.

• Archbishop Fulton Sheen (1895-1975): Famous Catholic TV preacher in the 1950s. Show won top ratings.

• Thomas Merton (1915-1968): Catholic Trappist monk who wrote “Seven-Storey Mountain” (spiritual autobiography, 1948) and many later books against Vietnam War; pro-Civil Rights Movement; Buddhist-Christian Dialogue; meditation; spirituality; etc…

• Mother Angelica, a Franciscan nun, started a Catholic cable television network, EWTN, the Eternal Word Television Network.

KEY TERMS (The Church Goes Global)• Kongo

• Ethiopia

• St. Augustine, Florida

• Maryland and 13 Colonies

• St. Francis Xavier, SJ

• Blessed Fr. Matteo Ricci, SJ

• Bartolome de las Casas

• Our Lady of Guadalupe

• Fr. Junipero Serra

• Fr. Jacques Marquette

• St. Kateri Tekakwitha, “Lily of the Mohawks”

• Fr. Basil Moreau, CSC

• Pilgrims / Puritans / Massachusetts

• Roger Williams / Rhode Island

• William Penn / Pennsylvania

• Charles Wesley / Methodists

• Great Awakening

• Abolitionist Movement / Underground Railroad

• Joseph Smith / Brigham Young/ Mormons

• Pentecostalism

• Evangelicalism

• John Carroll (first bishop in U.S.)

• Immigrant Church

• Nativism / Know-Nothing Party / Ku Klux Klan

• President John F. Kennedy

• St. Elizabeth Ann Seton

• Mother Frances Cabrini

• Fr. Damien

• Dorothy Day

• Archbishop Fulton Sheen

• Thomas Merton

• Mother Angelica