A History of the Catholic Church in the American South, 1513-1900:

Conclusion

Conclusion in 1937, the littlefield fund at the University of texas agreed to finance a series of books on the history of the south. The first volume, written by Wesley frank Craven, appeared in 1949, and it began southern history at 1607. Historians since that time know better and therefore no longer initiate the region’s history at the founding of Jamestown.1 There are certainly still gaps in southern history being filled by writers and scholars, and this work has sought to fill one such lacuna, the story of the oldest Christian denomination in the United states and the american south, roman Catholicism. almost a century before the english arrived at Jamestown, the spanish explored , and then after 1565 colonized, an area they named la florida. for two and a half centuries after 1513, the spanish Catholic Church exerted strong efforts in the american southeast, evidence of which has only recently been unearthed by scholars from different disciplines. This book narrates a Catholic mission effort that is usually associated in the popular mind with the american southwest. The franciscan friars operated some forty missions in the future states of florida and Georgia by the mid-sixteenth century; yet they were driven out of Georgia by 1686, and the spanish and the Catholic Church virtually abandoned the american southeast after 1763. in contrast to the early church presence in florida and Georgia, Catholicism did not reach colonial texas and louisiana until after 1700; however, it persisted in both areas throughout the eighteenth century. Catholicism, its spanish variety in texas and its french variety in louisiana, survived into the nineteenth century even when both provinces were eventually annexed to the american south. for reasons explained in the introduction, southern Catholicism had often been overlooked, but different historians and writers have unveiled 376 recently aspects of this past. This book has sought to bring together the various pieces constructed by these writers and weave a narrative into a larger scheme, a tapestry of faith with many differing colors and hues. Colonial Catholicism persisted in what would become the southern states of texas and louisiana, and it was in Maryland, a southern english colony that germinated the initial american Catholic leadership. fleeing persecution in old england, Catholics left their native isle to found this colony in 1634. The descendants of a wealthy irish/english Catholic family known as the Carrolls supplied the political and ecclesiastical leadership needed for the fledgling Catholic Church to survive and grow in the new nation. Until the fourth decade of the nineteenth century, it was the see at Baltimore that provided much of the oversight for the american and southern Catholic Church. By the time of the Civil War, however, the new york archdiocese surpassed that of the older see at Baltimore in Catholic population, and the american church developed more in terms of the immigrant communities in the northern cities rather than the rural areas of the american south. The Civil War destroyed the economy of the south, making that region even less appealing for foreign, mainly Catholic, immigration. By 1900, southern Catholics, with the exception of texas, louisiana, Maryland, and Kentucky, remained a small religious sect located in the various regional cities. This book sought to highlight the conditions and contributions southern Catholics made to their region and religious faith. not all of the facets of this history are bright and edifying—indeed, some are quite dark. nevertheless, as the U.s. south formed a subset of U.s. history, so southern Catholicism faced its own unique challenges and controversies, which the nation overall did not confront, namely slavery, secession, defeat, and economic devastation . yet it was in the south where the first major leaders of Catholicism lived. it was in the south where the first Catholic seminary, college, and religious order were established. Moreover, it was a southern Catholic bishop who founded the nation’s first Catholic newspaper, wrote theologically about church and state, and confronted the issue of slavery. it was this same southern Catholic prelate of Charleston who was the first to address the U.s. Congress in 1826. in addition, there are many places in north Carolina that are named for a distinguished Catholic congressman and jurist from that state. it was a Catholic priest who also became known as poet laureate of the Confederate lost Cause. it was a southern Catholic cleric as well who penned the most popular apologetic work on Catholicism in the nineteenth century. furthermore, most of the...