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20 - Roman Catholicism in the English North American Colonies, 1634–1776

from SECTION IV - RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY IN BRITISH AMERICA – 1730S–1790

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2012

Tricia Pyne
Affiliation:
St. Mary’s Seminary and University Associated Archives
Stephen J. Stein
Affiliation:
Indiana University, Bloomington
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Summary

The English Province of the Society of Jesus was responsible for the Catholic mission to the English North American colonies. The first missionaries were sent to Maryland (established 1634) at the invitation of the proprietor, the Catholic Lord Baltimore Cecil Calvert (1605/6–75), where they maintained a presence for the entire colonial period. Maryland served as their headquarters for a mission that encompassed the territory between New York and Virginia at the time of the American Revolution. In all, more than 150 priests and brothers were sent to labor in the colonies between 1634 and 1776. The Jesuits financed the mission with the support of the English Province, the profits generated by the plantations and properties they owned in Maryland and Pennsylvania, bequests they received from the laity, and two endowed funds. They operated independently of the Sacred Congregation of the Propaganda Fide, the Vatican agency created in 1622 to oversee missions, which expressed little interest in the activities of these missionaries. When the Jesuits were suppressed as a religious order by Pope Clement XIV in 1773, the missionaries in the American colonies submitted to the authority of the vicar apostolic of the London district and continued on in their labors as secular (diocesan) priests.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2000

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References

Curran, R. Emmett, ed. American Jesuit Spirituality: The Maryland Tradition, 1634–1900. New York, 1988.
Hardy, Beatriz Betancourt. “Papists in a Protestant Age: The Catholic Gentry and Community in Colonial Maryland, 1689–1776.” Ph.D. diss., University of Maryland, 1993.
Hennesey, James. “Catholicism in the English Colonies,” in Charles H. Lippy and Peter W. Williams, eds., The Encyclopedia of the American Religious Experience: Studies of Traditions and Movements. New York, 1988, I: 345–55.
Hughes, Thomas, ed. History of the Society of Jesus in North America: Colonial and Federal documents. New York, 1908, vol. 1, part 1.
Krugler, John D.The Calvert Vision: A New Model for Church-State Relations.” Maryland Historical Magazine 99:3 (Fall 2004).Google Scholar
Pyne, Tricia T.Ritual and Practice in the Maryland Catholic Community, 1634–1776.” U.S. Catholic Historian 26:2 (Spring 2008).Google Scholar

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