The Knights of Columbus is a global Catholic fraternal service order founded by Fr. Michael J. McGivney on March 29, 1882. Membership is limited to practicing Catholic men. It is led by Patrick E. Kelly, the order's 14th Supreme Knight. The organization is named after the explorer Christopher Columbus.
The Oxford Movement was a movement of high church members of the Church of England which began in the 1830s and eventually developed into Anglo-Catholicism. The movement, whose original devotees were mostly associated with the University of Oxford, argued for the reinstatement of some older Christian traditions of faith and their inclusion into Anglican liturgy and theology. They thought of Anglicanism as one of three branches of the "one, holy, catholic, and apostolic" Christian church. Many key participants subsequently converted to Roman Catholicism.
With 23 percent of the United States' population as of 2018, the Catholic Church is the country's second largest religious grouping, after Protestantism, and the country's largest single church or Christian denomination where Protestantism is divided into separate denominations. In a 2020 Gallup poll, 25% of Americans said they were Catholic. The United States has the fourth largest Catholic population in the world, after Brazil, Mexico, and the Philippines.
Anti-Catholicism is hostility towards Catholics and opposition to the Catholic Church, its clergy, and its adherents. At various points after the Reformation, some majority Protestant states, including England, Northern Ireland, Prussia, Scotland, and the United States, turned anti-Catholicism, opposition to the authority of Catholic clergy (anti-clericalism), opposition to the authority of the pope (anti-papalism), mockery of Catholic rituals, and opposition to Catholic adherents into major political themes and policies of religious discrimination and religious persecution. Major examples of groups that have targeted Catholics in recent history include Ulster loyalists in Northern Ireland during the Troubles and the second Ku Klux Klan in the United States. The anti-Catholic sentiment which resulted from this trend frequently led to religious discrimination against Catholic communities and individuals and it occasionally led to the religious persecution of them. Historian John Wolffe identifies four types of anti-Catholicism: constitutional-national, theological, popular and socio-cultural.
Americanism was, in the years around 1900, a political and religious outlook attributed to some American Catholics and denounced as heresy by the Holy See.
Christopher Henry Dawson was an English Catholic historian, independent scholar, who wrote many books on cultural history and emphasized the necessity for Western culture to be in continuity with Christianity not to stagnate and deteriorate. Dawson has been called "the greatest English-speaking Catholic historian of the twentieth century" and was recognized as being able to expound his thought to "Catholic and Protestant, Christian and non-Christian."
First Things (FT) is an ecumenical journal aimed at "advanc[ing] a religiously informed public philosophy for the ordering of society", focusing on theology, liturgy, history of religion, church history, culture, education, society, politics, literature, book reviews and poetry. FT is inter-religious and inter-denominational, representing a broad intellectual tradition of Christian, Jewish and Islamic critique of contemporary society. With a circulation of approximately 30,000 copies, it articulates Christian ecumenism, Christian–Jewish dialogue and erudite social and political conservatism.
James Cardinal Gibbons was a senior-ranking American prelate of the Catholic Church who served as apostolic vicar of the Apostolic Vicariate of North Carolina from 1868 to 1872, bishop of the Diocese of Richmond in Virginia from 1872 to 1877, and as ninth archbishop of the Archdiocese of Baltimore in Maryland from 1877 until his death. He was elevated to the rank of cardinal in 1886.
John Courtney Murray was an American Jesuit priest and theologian who was especially known for his efforts to reconcile Catholicism and religious pluralism and particularly focused on the relationship between religious freedom and the institutions of a democratically-structured modern state.
The National Catholic Reporter (NCR) is a progressive national newspaper in the United States that reports on issues related to the Catholic Church. Based in Kansas City, Missouri, NCR was founded by Robert Hoyt in 1964. Hoyt wanted to bring the professional standards of secular news reporting to the press that covers Catholic news, saying that "if the mayor of a city owned its only newspaper, its citizens will not learn what they need and deserve to know about its affairs". The publication, which operates outside the authority of the Catholic Church, is independently owned and governed by a lay board of directors.
Commonweal is a liberal Catholic journal of opinion, edited and managed by lay people, headquartered in New York City. It is the oldest independent Catholic journal of opinion in the United States.
The Catholic University of America Press, also known as CUA Press, is the publishing division of The Catholic University of America. Founded on November 14, 1939, and incorporated on July 16, 1941, the CUA Press is a long-time member of the Association of University Presses. Its editorial offices are located on the campus of the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. The Press has over 1,000 titles in print and currently publishes 50-60 new titles annually, with particular emphasis on theology, philosophy, ecclesiastical history, medieval studies, and canon law. CUA Press distributes books on behalf of Sapientia Press of Ave Maria University, books of the Franciscan University of Steubenville Press, Humanum Academic Press of the John Paul II Institute, and for the Academy of American Franciscan History. CUA Press also publishes books under its Catholic Education Press imprint.
Anti-Catholicism in the United States concerns the anti-Catholic attitudes which were first brought to the Thirteen Colonies by Protestant European settlers, mostly composed of English Puritans, during the British colonization of North America. Two types of anti-Catholic rhetoric existed in colonial society and they continued to exist during the following centuries. The first type, derived from the theological heritage of the Protestant Reformation and the European wars of religion, consisted of the biblical Anti-Christ and the Whore of Babylon variety and it dominated anti-Catholic thought until the late 17th century. The second type was a variety which was partially derived from xenophobic, ethnocentric, nativist, and racist sentiments and distrust of increasing waves of Catholic immigrants, particularly immigrants from Ireland, Italy, Poland, and Mexico. It usually focused on the pope's control of bishops, priests, and deacons.
John Tracy Ellis was a Catholic Church historian and priest, born and raised in Seneca, Illinois, USA.
Edward Gordon Selwyn was an English Anglican priest and theologian, who served as Warden of Radley College from 1913 to 1919; Rector of Red Hill, near Havant. He was Dean of Winchester from 1931 to 1958. He wrote sermons and other books and was the editor of the liberal Anglo-Catholic journal Theology during the first fourteen years of its existence, 1920–34.
Arkansas Catholic is an American weekly newspaper and the official publication of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Little Rock. Founded in 1911 as The Southern Guardian, it was renamed the Arkansas Catholic in 1986. Today it has a circulation of 7,000.
Stratford Caldecott was a Catholic author, editor, publisher, and blogger. His work spanned subjects as diverse as literature, education, theology, apologetics, economics, environmental stewardship, sacred geometry, art, and culture. His books include Secret Fire, Radiance of Being, Beauty for Truth's Sake, All Things Made New, and Not as the World Gives. He was a founding editor of the online journal Humanum and a contributor for several online and print journals. He was inspired by the Catholic author J. R. R. Tolkien and became known as a Tolkien scholar.
The political activity of the Knights of Columbus deals with the involvement of the fraternal order in efforts to influence public policy.
