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The Catholic Church in North America refers to the Catholic Church in North America, in full communion with the Holy See in Rome, including its various geographical coverage on the continent. It is prevalent in many different countries, on the mainland and in both island countries and overseas territories, such as the United States, the Dominican Republic, and El Salvador. [1]
The Catholic Church has begun grouping “North” America with “Latin” and “Central” America as one America. Pope Paul VI was the first Pope to visit the Americas on October 4, 1965. He broke the tradition of treating the Americas separately but rather as one with common issues. These issues include extreme wage gaps, immigration, drug trafficking, human rights, consumerism, and secular thinking. The main issue at stake for the Catholic Church, found across the Americas including New York, São Paulo, and Mexico City, is the loss of Catholic faith. What was once a thriving Catholic region is now endangered by present-day culture and religions originating in the United States, including the Jehovah's Witness, Mormonism, and Protestant evangelical churches. These religions are influencing Mexico and are making their way to the Latin American countries. [2]
On October 4, 1965, Pope Paul VI visited New York City for 13.5 hours, becoming the first Pontiff in the Western Hemisphere. During his visit he gave a 35-minute address on disarmament in the nuclear age, quoting the first Catholic President of the United States, John F. Kennedy. He visited President Lyndon Johnson for 46 minutes at the Waldorf Astoria hotel. He visited St. Patrick's Cathedral and a church near the United Nations. Starting in Queens, going through Harlem, and eventually down Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, he made a 25-mile procession greeting millions. He ended his visit with 90,000 worshipers celebrating Mass at Yankee Stadium. He finished his trip viewing Michelangelo's Pietà at the World's Fair in Queens. It is estimated he was seen in person by one million people and on television by 100 million.
In October 1979, Pope John Paul II visited the United States on his first of seven trips. He started in Boston and went to New York, where at the United Nations he advocated for human rights for all, especially Palestinian Arabs. He spent two days in New York, finishing with 80,000 congregants by celebrating mass at the Yankee Stadium reminding individuals of the "urgent need" to aid the poor. He then met with President Jimmy Carter, becoming the first Pope to enter the White House. He made an address on the South Lawn to 100,000 guests where he spoke on limiting nuclear weapons and against abortion. [3]
In 1984, Pope John Paul II carried out the first papal visit to Canada; he visited again in 1987 and 2002. [4]
Pope John Paul II, known as the first Pope to truly travel to different nations, took a pilgrimage to the Americas to focus on a "reconquest". During the Pope's visit to the Americas he wanted to focus on Mexico as the bridge between the different nations as the majority would soon no longer be Catholic. He made seven trips over two decades in an attempt to prevent Catholics from converting to other religions or to avert growing secularization. During the Pope's fourth trip to Mexico he delivered the conclusions on the November 1997 synod on "America".
Pope Benedict XVI visited President George W. Bush at the White House on April 16, 2008. [5]
Pope Francis visited Cuba and the US in September 2015. [6] He visited he visited Havana, Holguín, Santiago de Cuba, Washington, D.C., New York City and Philadelphia.
Pope Francis visited Canada in 2022. [7] This was a 'penitential pilgrimage' by the Pope to apologize for Catholic Church members' role in the Canadian residential school system.
The Vatican holds North America as a crucial aspect to the Catholic Church as it is the world's superpower made up of mass international culture and a large population of Catholics. Mexico is the second-largest Catholic nation. In hopes of reversing the cultural influences of the United States in order to maintain the current level of Catholicity, the Church is sending what many call confusing signals. It is using modern mass marketing in an ad campaign that promotes the Pope's visits but condemns much of modern society. The mass communication efforts of the Church to North American through intense publicity reflects the hardships the church is going through with secular thinking and represents the efforts it is willing to make to spread the word of Christ in a modern form. [2]
Pope John Paul II was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his death in 2005.
Pope Pius IX was head of the Catholic Church from 1846 to 1878. His reign of 32 years is the second longest of any pope in history, behind that of Saint Peter. He was notable for convoking the First Vatican Council in 1868 and for permanently losing control of the Papal States in 1870 to the Kingdom of Italy. Thereafter, he refused to leave Vatican City, declaring himself a "prisoner in the Vatican".
Joseph Louis Bernardin was an American Cardinal of the Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Cincinnati from 1972 until 1982, and as Archbishop of Chicago from 1982 until his death in 1996 from pancreatic cancer. Bernardin was elevated to the cardinalate in 1983 by Pope John Paul II.
The Catholic Church in Canada, is part of the worldwide Catholic Church, and has a decentralised structure, meaning each diocesan bishop is autonomous but under the spiritual leadership of the Pope and the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops. As of 2021, it has the largest number of adherents to a Christian denomination and a religion in Canada, with 29.4% of Canadians being adherents according to the census in 2021. There are 73 dioceses and about 7,000 priests in Canada. On a normal Sunday, between 15 and 25 percent of Canada's Catholics attend Mass.
The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception is a Catholic minor basilica and national shrine in Washington D.C.. It is the largest Catholic church building in North America and is also the tallest habitable building in Washington, D.C. Its construction of Byzantine and Romanesque Revival architecture began on 23 September 1920.
Pope Francis is head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State. He is the first pope to be a member of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), the first from the Americas and the Southern Hemisphere, and the first born or raised outside Europe since the 8th-century papacy of the Syrian Pope Gregory III.
The Archdiocese of Edmonton is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or archdiocese in the Canadian civil province of Alberta. The archbishop's cathedral see is located in St. Joseph Cathedral, a minor basilica in Edmonton. The Archdiocese of Edmonton is the metropolitan see of its ecclesiastical province, which also contains two suffragan dioceses: the Dioceses of Calgary and Saint Paul in Alberta.
The current United States Ambassador to the Holy See is Joe Donnelly, who replaced the ad interim Chargé d'Affaires, Patrick Connell, on April 11, 2021. The Holy See is represented by its apostolic nuncio, Cardinal Christophe Pierre, who assumed office on April 12, 2016. The U.S. Embassy to the Holy See is located in Rome, in the Villa Domiziana. The Nunciature to the United States is located in Washington, D.C., at 3339 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.
Holy See – Mexico relations are foreign relations between the Holy See and Mexico. Catholicism was introduced in Mexico in 1519 by the Spanish Empire. The majority of Mexicans practice the Catholic faith, however, since the adoption of the current Constitution in 1917, Mexico is a secular nation.
Holy See–Soviet Union relations were marked by long-standing ideological disagreements between the Catholic Church and the Soviet Union. The Holy See attempted to enter in a pragmatic dialogue with Soviet leaders during the papacies of John XXIII and Paul VI. In the 1990s, Pope John Paul II's diplomatic policies were cited as one of the principal factors that led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli visited the United States for two weeks in October–November 1936 as Cardinal Secretary of State and Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church. At the time, Pacelli was the highest-ranking Catholic official ever to visit the US. Although he did not visit the US as Pope, he was the first Pope who visited the US at any time in his life.
Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the United States took place from April 15, 2008, to April 20, 2008. It was his only visit to the United States. It was officially titled the "Apostolic Visit to the United States of America and to the Seat of the United Nations". It was the sixth official papal visit to the United States since the U.S. established full diplomatic relations with the Holy See in 1984. In addition to his 1979 visit, Pope John Paul II visited the United States in 1987, 1993, 1995, and 1999. Pope Francis visited the United States in 2015.
Holy See–South Korea relations refers to the relations between the Holy See and the Republic of Korea. The Catholic Church in South Korea is the fastest growing Church in East Asia. According to statistics, as of December 31, 2017, the number of Catholics in Korea was 5,813,770. It amounted to 11.0% of the total population of South Korea. The total number of Catholics in Korea has slightly and consistently been increasing since the 1950s.
Pope Francis visited North America—Cuba and the United States—from 19 to 27 September 2015. It was his first state visit to both Cuba and the U.S., as well as the third official papal visit to Cuba and the seventh to the United States since the U.S. established full diplomatic relations with the Holy See in 1984.
Basilicas are Catholic church buildings that have a designation, conferring special privileges, given by the Pope. Basilicas are distinguished for ceremonial purposes from other churches. The building need not be a basilica in the architectural sense. Basilicas are either major basilicas, of which there are four, all in the Diocese of Rome, or minor basilicas, of which there were 1,810 worldwide as of 2019.
Pope Francis visited Canada from July 24 to 29, 2022, with stops in the provinces of Alberta and Quebec and the territory of Nunavut. The trip mainly focused on apologizing for the Catholic Church's role in the Canadian Indian residential school system and on reconciliation with the country's Indigenous peoples. It was the first papal visit to Canada since 2002, when Pope John Paul II visited Toronto for World Youth Day.
