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The Demands of Humanity and Religion: The U.S. Catholic Church, Colonization, and the Mission to Liberia, 1842–44
- The Catholic Historical Review
- The Catholic University of America Press
- Volume 100, Number 1, Winter 2014
- pp. 27-51
- 10.1353/cat.2014.0041
- Article
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The failure of the U.S. Catholic Church’s mission to Liberia in the mid-nineteenth century represented the Church’s inability to practice its idealistic teaching concerning slavery and manumission, as well as to cope with the situation of free persons of color in a culture where race and ethnicity were of the greatest significance. The mission’s lack of success can be attributed to a dearth of ecclesiastical personnel equipped to work among Americans or Africans; a predominantly Protestant environment hostile to the Catholic Church; large-scale immigration from Europe; and cultural differences between European churchmen and their American and African flocks.