Emergence of The American Catholic Church
In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the Roman Catholic Church experienced unique difficulties within America. “Unlike all Protestant churches in America, the Roman Catholic church depended for its identity upon keeping doctrinal and administrative unity with a European-based authority." The papacy was cautious of the freedom found in America as it showed similarities to the attitudes behind the French Revolution. The papacy wanted to preserve the hierarchy of the church in America. At this time, Catholics were chiefly located in Pennsylvania and Maryland and were greatly influenced by their Protestant neighbors. They, too, wanted a church that empowered the laity. In 1788 Charles Carroll was elected the first American Bishop. He struggled to balance the desires of the American trustees to adapt and empower the laity and hold church property with the requests of the bishops and hierarchy oversees to preserve the doctrine. This controversy ran from approximately 1780 to 1850. In the end, the power and authority were too differential and the bishops won. This marked the creation of the “American Catholic Church with the laity subordinate to priest and bishop.” This system remained until the mid-20th century.
Read more about this topic: Catholic Church And The Age Of Discovery
Famous quotes containing the words catholic church, emergence of, emergence, american, catholic and/or church:
“Every country gets the circus it deserves. Spain gets bullfights. Italy gets the Catholic Church. America gets Hollywood.”
—Erica Jong (b. 1942)
“Much more frequent in Hollywood than the emergence of Cinderella is her sudden vanishing. At our party, even in those glowing days, the clock was always striking twelve for someone at the height of greatness; and there was never a prince to fetch her back to the happy scene.”
—Ben Hecht (1893–1964)
“Much more frequent in Hollywood than the emergence of Cinderella is her sudden vanishing. At our party, even in those glowing days, the clock was always striking twelve for someone at the height of greatness; and there was never a prince to fetch her back to the happy scene.”
—Ben Hecht (1893–1964)
“An ... important antidote to American democracy is American gerontocracy. The positions of eminence and authority in Congress are allotted in accordance with length of service, regardless of quality. Superficial observers have long criticized the United States for making a fetish of youth. This is unfair. Uniquely among modern organs of public and private administration, its national legislature rewards senility.”
—John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)
“Carlyle is not a seer, but a brave looker-on and reviewer; not the most free and catholic observer of men and events, for they are likely to find him preoccupied, but unexpectedly free and catholic when they fall within the focus of his lens.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“You don’t decide to build a church because you have money in the bank. You build because God says this is what I should do. Faith is the supplier of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.”
—Jim Bakker (b. 1940)