United States

Although French Catholics participated in the exploration and colonization of the Mississippi valley, among the 13 colonies of the emerging United States only Maryland, which had been settled in 1634 and established in 1649, included an appreciable number of Catholics before American independence. Catholics were often unwelcome in—and even excluded from—many other colonies, where Congregational or Episcopal churches were supported by law; indeed, only one colony, Pennsylvania, allowed mass to be celebrated in public. According to some estimates, there were at most 25,000 Catholics in a colonial population of about 4,500,000 at the time of independence in 1776.

From the first, however, the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church enjoyed a respected place in American society. Charles Carroll, a member of a notable colonial Catholic family, served in the Continental Congress and the U.S. Senate and signed the Declaration of Independence. He also helped to write the Maryland state constitution, which guaranteed freedom of worship for all Christians. His cousin, John Carroll, the first bishop in the United States and the first archbishop of Baltimore, pioneered in exploring positive relations between Catholic religionists and their fellow citizens. One issue that troubled John Carroll’s last years was “trusteeism,” a debate over lay versus clerical control of ecclesiastical institutions and properties. The efforts of lay trustees to govern the temporalities of the church often brought them into conflict with bishops and priests. Administration of church property by the laity was consistent with American practice, and the trustees maintained that they promoted the church’s democratic principles and the interests of parishioners against the hierarchy. In 1829, long after Archbishop Carroll’s death, the First Provincial Council in Baltimore ruled against lay control of ecclesiastical property and strengthened the authority of the bishops. Although the issue of trusteeism would emerge again, the decisions of the council defined the administrative structure of the church and established a precedent that was restated at subsequent councils.

Beginning in the 1830s and ’40s, the assurance of religious freedom was an added attraction for millions of Catholic immigrants who made their way to the United States for economic reasons, and by 1850 Catholicism was the single largest Christian church in the country. Cultural differences between the new immigrants, most of whom came from Ireland or Germany, and the general population led to conflict with the established Catholic community and aroused suspicion and hostility among Protestants. A nativist Protestant crusade, characterized by intense anti-Catholic prejudice, manifested itself in various ways. Anti-Catholic histories were produced by Protestant scholars, and literary accounts of the sexual improprieties of priests and nuns also appeared. Many Americans, including Samuel F.B. Morse, the inventor of Morse Code, believed that immigration was part of a papal plot to take over the United States. In 1849, anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant sentiment led to the formation of the Know-Nothing party. Opposition to Catholicism also led to acts of violence, such as the burning of a convent in Boston in 1834 and the anti-Catholic riots in Philadelphia in 1844.

Despite these problems, American Catholicism endured. Its ranks were greatly increased by immigration, and it attracted a large number of converts—as many as 700,000 during the 19th century, according to some estimates—including the first American-born saint, Elizabeth Ann Seton. The church built an extensive educational system that ranged from parochial elementary and secondary schools to colleges and universities. Parochial elementary schools received further impetus in 1884 when the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore decreed that every parish was to have a school. Through these institutions, Catholic leaders enabled their parishioners to combine religious loyalties to Rome and civil loyalties to the United States.

Ironically, one of the most divisive events in American history, the Civil War (1861–65), contributed to the growing acceptance of Roman Catholicism in the United States. The issue of slavery, one of the main causes of the war, was not a particularly problematic one for the church. Many Catholics were slave owners, and Catholic moral teaching accepted the existence of slavery as a consequence of the sin of Adam. One of the most notorious examples of the church’s hand in upholding slavery was the 1838 bill of sale of 272 enslaved people by the Maryland Jesuits to help pay off the order’s debts and keep the Jesuit-run Georgetown College (now Georgetown University) afloat. Catholic workers opposed emancipation, fearing increased competition for jobs. Although the Roman Catholic Church was not rent by the issue as were many Protestant churches, it did teach that slaves must be treated humanely, and many northern Catholics came to oppose the institution. When war broke out, Catholics on both sides enthusiastically joined the fight. The bishops of New York and Charleston were sent on diplomatic missions, and Catholic priests served as chaplains in both the Union and the Confederate armies. Their support for the Northern or the Southern cause made Catholics more visible and brought them increased acceptance after the war.

In the second half of the 19th century, the Roman Catholic Church in the United States sought to end its internal divisions and respond to the challenges of the broader world. The Second Plenary Council, held in Baltimore in 1866, addressed matters of discipline and organization, emphasized the importance of the doctrines of the faith, and condemned beliefs such as Unitarianism and Transcendentalism. In 1869–70 American bishops participated in Vatican I, where they were among the minority that opposed the declaration of papal infallibility. Closer to home, the church took steps to evangelize the freed slaves, though it offered them no material assistance. Of greater concern for the church was the continued immigration of Catholics and increasing tensions between immigrant communities, particularly German and Irish. Archbishop John Ireland exacerbated the problem by praising public education and by supporting English as the sole language of instruction in all schools. Such tensions contributed to the controversy over “Americanism,” in which American Catholics were charged with innovating in doctrine and practice and diluting church teachings in order to win converts. Despite these adversities, the church continued to prosper.

During the 20th century Catholics in the United States struggled to find an identity and a place for themselves in American society. In the early part of the century they faced continued hostility from Protestants. A law passed in 1924 limiting immigration from the Catholic countries of Europe was rooted in religious bias. In 1928 anti-Catholic prejudice contributed to the failure of the presidential campaign of Democrat Alfred E. Smith, the governor of New York and the first Catholic presidential candidate. Meanwhile, the church in the United States reshaped its institutions to broaden its perspective and to bring itself closer to the American mainstream. During World War I (1914–18) the National Catholic War Council was formed to demonstrate Catholic support for the American war effort, and after the war it promoted the cause of social justice. During the Great Depression and afterward the efforts of Catholic political activists and reformers such as Dorothy Day received national attention.

The revival of Thomism, the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, was also important. The revival, also known as Neo-Scholasticism, began in the 1850s, and by the papacy of Pope Leo XIII (reigned 1878–1903) it contributed to a flourishing of Catholic theology and biblical studies. Thomism came to be taught in all Catholic schools and, by the 1920s, strengthened the intellectual identity of educated American Catholics.

As in World War I, the patriotism shown by American Catholics during World War II (1939–45) helped to abate anti-Catholic prejudice. In 1960 a Roman Catholic, John F. Kennedy, was elected president—an office previously thought to be out of reach for Catholics. Increasing numbers of Catholics held political office at the local and national levels, though tensions over church-state issues persisted, especially with regard to abortion and aid to Catholic schools. Greater prosperity and demographic changes such as the growth of suburbs increased contact between Catholics and non-Catholics, and the ecumenical movement brought about better relations between the faiths. In the early 21st century Catholics accounted for 24 percent of the American population. With 200 dioceses, the American hierarchy is the third largest in the world, and the United States has the world’s fourth largest population of Catholics.

Yet the church in the United States, as in the rest of the world, endured a period of great turmoil following Vatican II (1962–65), one of the most important councils in the church’s history. Vatican II brought much of Catholic practice up to date (to paraphrase Pope John XXIII), revised the liturgy, altered relations between clergy and laity, and permitted the celebration of mass in vernacular languages. It also encouraged dialogue between the faiths and a more collegial relationship between the bishops. These changes, which profoundly affected the lives of all members of the church, were welcomed by many, though they inspired a minority to leave. A more sizable number of Catholics left the church in the 1960s and ’70s because of what they saw as the church’s failure to fulfill the promise of the council. Many Catholic laity were particularly alienated by the prohibition of birth control, a ban that was subsequently widely ignored. In addition, the church’s emphasis on clerical celibacy led many clergy to renounce their vows or to choose other vocations. Although American Catholics in the late 20th century continued to be devoted to the church—Pope John Paul II remained a beloved figure for most Catholics—many took it upon themselves to decide which strictures they would follow.

In the early 21st century the American church was shaken by accusations of child molestation on the part of many clergy. A study commissioned by the National Review Board of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops showed that some 4 percent of American priests (more than 4,000) had committed such crimes, in some cases repeatedly and over a period of several decades. More than 10,000 cases of molestation were authenticated, though victims groups asserted that additional cases went unreported because the victims were ashamed to come forward. It also became evident that some bishops had shielded priests who had sexually abused minors or by transferring them to other pastoral assignments. When faced with the immensity of the problem, the church, after some halting steps, dealt with it publicly and worked to prevent abuse from happening again. By 2004 the Roman Catholic Church worldwide had paid out more than $1 billion (U.S.) in jury awards, settlements, and legal fees, leading some dioceses to consider protection under bankruptcy law.

Renewed concerns about abuse, however, were raised in 2020 with the release of the McCarrick Report, the church’s investigation into its handling of accusations of abuse against former archbishop of Washington, D.C., Theodore McCarrick. The report, which had been ordered by Pope Francis, found that the church had responded ineffectively to the allegations and that Pope John Paul II, who had been a friend of the archbishop’s, may have been swayed by their friendship and ignored the extent of the crisis.

The church in the United States faced other issues in the early 21st century, caused in part by the diversity of the American church and its willingness to take positions not fully in line with those enunciated in Rome. The relatively large number of Hispanic Catholics, who represented nearly 40 percent of American Catholics, translated to more parishes offering mass in Spanish in many communities. Changing demographics also introduced to American Catholicism such traditions as the Christmas celebrations Las Posadas (from Mexico) and Simbang Gabi (from the Philippines), much as earlier waves of immigrants helped popularize the Feast of the Seven Fishes (Sicily) on Christmas Eve, pre-Lenten pa̡czki (Poland), and St. Patrick’s Day (Ireland). In the 21st century the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops elected its first Black president (Wilton Gregory, 2001–04) and its first Latino president (José H. Gomez, 2019–22).

U.S. bishops sought to repair the church’s damaged reputation in the wake of the pedophilia scandal and to extend the church’s moral authority by reinforcing adherence to traditional Catholic teachings on a wide range of issues. Some bishops even suggested that Holy Communion be withheld from politicians and their supporters who do not accept the church’s teachings on such issues as abortion, euthanasia, same-sex marriage, and stem-cell research. More-liberal Catholics criticized this as being one-sided, noting that no penalties were suggested for those who rejected the church’s opposition to the death penalty or stymied its work with migrants and refugees. Many American Catholics also ignored bans on birth control and abortion and demanded a greater role for women in the church.

Canada

The Roman Catholic Church entered Canada with some of the first French explorers and colonists and, despite the country’s eventual domination by the English, has remained the largest Canadian church. Explorers who established the first permanent French settlements in the 17th century were joined by Catholic missionaries, generally members of religious orders such as the Franciscans and Jesuits. Catholic clergy participated in the founding of the settlements at Port Royal in 1604 and Quebec in 1608. Although divided on the nature of their Catholicism (between Gallicanism and ultramontanism), these missionaries introduced church institutions and actively preached among the Indigenous population, achieving early success among the Huron. In the late 17th century, members of the Iroquois and Mohawk nations converted, including Kateri Tekakwitha, who was the first Native American to be canonized as a saint (in 2012). Some missionaries, however, suffered martyrdom at the hands of Indigenous peoples who opposed the French and their faith. Despite these setbacks, the work of evangelization continued, as did the establishment of bishoprics and parishes, and Catholic missionaries were involved in the further exploration and colonization of Canada and the Louisiana Territory.

Although the French established an early presence in Canada, they were gradually overtaken by the English. England acquired the province of Nova Scotia from the French in 1713. During the French and Indian War the English conquered Quebec, and by the Treaty of Paris (1763), which ended the war, they took possession of the rest of French Canada. The Quebec Act of 1774 guaranteed the rights of Canadian Catholics but also contributed to the outbreak of the American Revolution (because it appeared to revive French influence in North America). The act, however, failed to satisfy many Canadians, and a new constitution was created in 1791. The territory was divided into two administrative regions, one of which was predominantly French and Catholic. In the 1790s the Catholic community in Canada was strengthened by the addition of a number of priests who fled the French Revolution. Most French Canadians opposed the Revolution, and as a result they drew closer to the government in London, which granted them greater civil rights.

The church in Canada experienced important spiritual and secular changes and challenges in the 19th century. By mid-century the church had restructured the episcopal hierarchy, built new schools and hospitals, and expanded into western Canada. The church suffered occasional hostility from Canadian Protestants, and French Canadian Catholics opposed the union of the provinces in 1840. From that time, the church in Quebec identified itself increasingly with French Canadian culture and nationalism, a development that complicated the position of the church following the union of Canada in 1867. For much of the rest of the century there were tensions between Catholics and Protestants over education, financial resources, and settlement patterns. Catholics in Canada also faced issues raised by the decisions taken at Vatican I, which they generally supported, as well as the problem of finding a proper balance between French and non-French members of the church.

Many of these difficulties were resolved by the early 20th century. By then the Canadian church, in the eyes of Rome, had reached its maturity, and Canada was no longer considered a missionary territory. During the period of new nationalism after World War II, French Catholics in Quebec became concerned about the assimilation and possible disappearance of their culture, and they took steps to assure the perpetuation of their faith and language in an otherwise largely Protestant and English-speaking nation. Beginning in the 1960s, Canadian Catholics faced the challenge of responding to the decrees of Vatican II and the postconciliar popes. The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB), whose formation in 1943 anticipated the council’s call for national bishops’ councils by some two decades, provided leadership for the church after Vatican II. The CCCB encouraged interfaith dialogue with Protestants and Jews in Canada and addressed matters of social justice, including the rights of Canada’s Indigenous peoples. The church also instituted the vernacular mass and other liturgical reforms established at Vatican II.

In the late 20th century the Roman Catholic Church in Canada faced difficulties, including a decline in the number of both priests and parishioners. Protestant churches as well as the Catholic church were challenged by the increasing secularization of society. As a result of the “Quiet Revolution,” a period of rapid social and political change in Quebec in the 1960s, the church lost its influence over education and other social institutions in the province and the population came to identify itself in terms of French culture rather than Catholicism. In 2002, however, John Paul II’s celebration of World Youth Day in Toronto offered Canadian Catholics an opportunity to reaffirm their faith. The church’s treatment of Indigenous children in religious-run residential schools that operated in Canada between 1883 and 1995 became a focus of controversy in the 21st century. Many First Nations children were forcibly taken to the schools for the purpose of assimilating them to Western culture. The schools became notorious for their widespread physical and sexual abuse. In 2022 Pope Francis made a penitential pilgrimage to Canada to meet with survivors of the schools and issue an apology for the church’s involvement with the schools and the treatment of Indigenous peoples in Canada.

Missions in Africa

In the early church, Africa was one of the great centers of the faith and the home of some of its most influential figures, including Perpetua, Tertullian, Athanasius, and Augustine. With the exception of the Coptic Church in Ethiopia, almost nothing remained of the strong early Christian communities in the north after the introduction of Islam to the region in the 7th century. The success of the new religion in North Africa was attributable in part to its inherent appeal and in part to dissatisfaction with the policies of political and religious leaders in Constantinople. The very success of Islam, however, eventually inspired Catholic leaders in Europe to return to Africa to defeat the rival faith. In the 15th and 16th centuries, Portuguese explorers and missionaries made alliances with West African leaders and induced them to accept baptism. The church enjoyed some success in the Kongo kingdom, and missionaries moved into Central Africa from there. But the collapse of the kingdom in the mid-17th century and the decline of Portuguese power undermined this success, and by the 19th century the Catholic church in Africa had virtually disappeared.

For centuries the Catholic missionary effort in Africa was hampered by the Atlantic slave trade and by the missionaries’ association with European colonization. After about 1800, however, evangelization was vigorously renewed. Catholic missionaries had little success in western and southern Africa, where British and Dutch Protestant evangelists had preceded them, but they fared better in other parts of the continent. An archbishopric was established in Algiers, and in 1868 Archbishop Charles Lavigerie founded the White Fathers, an energetic order of missionaries whose name derived from their white cassocks. The order was quite successful in East Africa; many Africans joined it, and the first modern African Catholic bishop was a White Father. Another order, the Holy Ghost Fathers, established a settlement for formerly enslaved people in Bagamoyo (in present-day Tanzania). Catholic missionaries also moved into Central Africa, and by 1900 there were some two million Catholics south of the Sahara.

The church expanded in Africa during the 20th century, improving its efforts in education and ministry and increasing the number of African priests and bishops to minister to the faithful, whose numbers grew to nearly 140 million by the early 21st century. The Roman Catholic Church was the first Christian denomination to staff an entire diocese with African clergy, and an increasing number of Africans were raised to the rank of cardinal by the popes. Further profound changes resulted from the process of decolonization. In the 1950s and ’60s, when the countries of Africa gained their independence, Catholics and other Christians played important roles in the development of new states such as Tanzania. The church’s traditional support for education was an influential factor in its success, and in the 1990s many governments turned to the church to help them run their educational systems. In the generations following independence, the church often found itself defending the disenfranchised and opposing repressive military regimes. The church’s advocacy did not come without cost, however, as large numbers of Catholic clergy and laity were murdered or kidnapped in the civil disorders that plagued the continent.

As it struggled to establish its place in postcolonial Africa, the church also responded to the challenges posed by Vatican II. Indeed, the African church was particularly open to some of the changes recommended by the council. Having previously taken steps toward Africanizing the hierarchy, the church redoubled its efforts in that regard. Although in competition with Muslim leaders for converts, African Catholic leaders such as the influential Nigerian cardinal Francis Arinze also pursued interfaith dialogue. African vernaculars replaced the traditional Latin of the mass, and the process of “inculturation” resulted in the incorporation into the liturgy of African traditions in music and dance. At the start of the 21st century, the church in Africa was one of the most dynamic churches of postconciliar Catholicism and was poised for continued growth and wider influence.

In the 20th and 21st centuries, a number of Africans and people of African descent were canonized as saints or were being considered for sainthood. Notable among those was Josephine Bakhita, a Sudanese woman who survived kidnapping and enslavement. She was canonized in 2000 by Pope John Paul II and declared the patron saint of Sudan and of victims of human trafficking. Meanwhile, the increasing internationalization of the Roman Catholic Church’s hierarchy made likely the prospect of an African pope in the near future. In 2024 the number of African cardinals had grown to nearly 30. At the same time, some parts of Africa saw a rapid increase in Catholics, and the continent also had gains in the number of women religious and seminarians in an era of global decline in vocations.

Missions in Asia

In Asia, Catholicism profited from Portuguese and Spanish adventures beginning in the 16th century. In that part of the world, however, the church faced unique challenges. Asians had not had contact, as Muslims had, with biblical views of history and destiny. Buddhists, Daoists, Confucians, and Hindus were devoted to worldviews uncongenial to Western attitudes toward God, time, and history. In the encounter, Catholics vigorously debated the permissible degrees of accommodation to Asian views of life, rituals, and religious concepts.

In India there were traces of missionary activities from premodern centuries (e.g., the Malabar, or Thomas, Christians), and Catholicism here and there succeeded in finding new bases. But the suppression of the Jesuits in 1773 by Pope Clement XIV removed from the scene the most assertive group of Catholic missionaries at the most inopportune moment. However, in Indochina, in what is now Vietnam, Catholicism flourished despite persecution.

Catholic missionaries arrived in Japan in the 16th century at the time that European traders began making contact with the islands. The Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier made the first converts in Japan in 1547 and founded Catholic communities in several Japanese cities. Other missionaries followed during the second half of the 16th century. They were supported by some Japanese nobles and began to have success on the island of Kyushu and other parts of the south, establishing the faith in cities such as Nagasaki and Kyōto. A college and two seminaries were founded, and the first efforts at organizing the church were made. By the end of the century, however, opposition from Japanese Buddhists and others had limited the spread of the faith, and several missionaries and Japanese Catholics had suffered martyrdom. In the 17th century widespread persecution of Catholics began, and the church was officially suppressed.

Roman Catholicism in Japan enjoyed more-lasting success in the 19th and 20th centuries, despite occasional setbacks. Catholic and other Christian missionaries returned to the country after Commodore Matthew Perry in 1853–54 forced Japan to allow entry to foreigners. These missionaries made contact with descendants of 17th-century Christians and sought new converts. The reappearance of missionaries led to a wave of persecution and the exile of thousands of Catholics. Government policy, however, was quickly reversed and religious freedom was established throughout the country. Catholic seminaries and other institutions were introduced to Japan, and religious orders of men and women began establishing communities there late in the 19th century. Pope Leo XIII established the Japanese church hierarchy in 1891, and Catholic secondary schools and a university were founded in the late 19th and the early 20th century.

The rise of Japanese militarism and imperialism during the first half of the 20th century brought renewed hardship to the church. The Catholic church in Japan suffered during World War II, as did all of the country, and in 1945 Nagasaki, the oldest center of Catholicism in Japan, was largely destroyed when an atomic bomb was dropped on it. After the war the church grew once again, thanks to the guarantee of religious freedom in the new constitution. In the generations following the Second Vatican Council (1962–65), the church made greater efforts to adapt to Japanese culture, which were reinforced by Pope John Paul II’s visit to Japan in 1981 and by subsequent initiatives during his long reign (1978–2005).

China, unlike Japan, was visited early by Christian missionaries; Nestorian Christians had arrived already in the 7th century. The first Catholic missionaries, however, began preaching in China only in the late 13th century, when the Franciscan Giovanni da Montecorvino was welcomed by the khan (the Mongol ruler of China). A small number of missionaries followed in the 14th century and, like Montecorvino, baptized members of the foreign ruling elite and built churches and other Catholic institutions. However, the failure to convert native Chinese and an interruption in the arrival of missionaries from Europe led to the virtual disappearance of the faith by the end of the 14th century.

A more lasting Catholic presence in China was established by Jesuit missionaries in the 16th century. Francis Xavier inspired the first Jesuit mission to China, though he died before reaching the Chinese mainland. Adopting Xavier’s approach of preaching to the Chinese on their own terms, Matteo Ricci and other missionaries adopted the dress of Confucian scholars and gained the respect of the Confucians through discussion and display of scientific knowledge. In the 17th century the Jesuits were joined by various other religious orders, including Dominicans, Franciscans, and Augustinians. Despite jurisdictional disputes and competition for converts, missionary activity extended into nearly every Chinese province. The deposition of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) and the establishment of the Qing dynasty (1644–1911/12)—which adopted a less tolerant attitude toward the missionaries, especially after the church forbade Chinese converts from continuing the local practice of honoring Confucius and family ancestors, during the Chinese Rites Controversy—helped to bring a successful period of missionary activity in China to an end. During the 18th century, preaching and converting to Christianity were prohibited, the church was persecuted, and the number of Chinese Christians declined dramatically.

In the 19th century, Roman Catholicism experienced a revival in China as European economic exploitation of the country increased. Treaties imposed on the Chinese during the Opium Wars (1839–42; 1856–60) led to the abolition of restrictions against Christians and the restoration of church property. Missionaries returned in large numbers, and Catholic churches, hospitals, and schools became familiar sights on the Chinese landscape. Although only a small percentage of the people had become Catholic, the church had grown so large that the pope ordered the reorganization of ecclesiastical districts in China in 1879. Meanwhile, however, Chinese resentment of the Western presence in their country continued to grow. The eventual result, the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, took the lives of some 30,000 Catholics, both Chinese and missionaries; 86 of the martyrs were later canonized.

The suppression of the rebellion was followed by a period of expansion of the church in China that lasted until the triumph of communism in the country in 1949. The communist authorities halted Catholic missionary activity and proscribed indigenous Catholic practices. Although the faith survived, it was divided between Roman loyalists and adherents of an autonomous Chinese church, the Patriotic Catholic Church, which rejected papal authority and maintained an independent hierarchy. During the Cultural Revolution (1966–76) both churches were persecuted, and Christian clergy and laity were tortured or sent to labor camps. Starting in the late 1970s, the situation of Christianity in China greatly improved, and the divisions between the two Catholic churches diminished. The revived Patriotic Catholic Church—often called the Open Church because it registered with the government—restored the prayer for the pope to the order of the mass, and Pope John Paul II legitimized most of its bishops; the Chinese government permitted its spiritual affiliation with Rome in 1989. The Underground Church, which resumed the tradition of obedience to Rome and did not register with the government, faced continued difficulties, especially during the crackdown on unregistered groups following the official proscription of the Falun Gong movement in 1999. Meanwhile, long-standing tensions between Rome and Beijing were exacerbated by the ordination in 2000 of bishops of the Open Church without papal approval and by the canonization of 87 Chinese Christians and 33 missionaries to China in the same year. The latter action was interpreted by Chinese leaders as an attempt to reassert control over the church in China and as an homage to those who had assisted European imperialism. In 2007 China consecrated two bishops supported by the Vatican, signaling a move toward better relations between Rome and Beijing.

The Philippines had become Roman Catholic, at least nominally, under Spain’s administration in the 16th century. Manila became the ecclesiastical capital of the Philippines. The governor-general was civil head of the church in the islands, but the archbishop vied with him for political supremacy. In the late 17th and 18th centuries the archbishop, who also had the legal status of lieutenant governor, frequently won. Religious orders, Roman Catholic hospitals and schools, and bishops acquired great wealth, mostly in land, which augmented their political power. Royal grants and devises formed the core of their holdings, but many arbitrary extensions were made beyond the boundaries of the original grants.

The power of the church derived not simply from wealth and official status. The priests and friars had a command of local languages rare among the lay Spanish, and in the provinces they outnumbered civil officials. Thus, they were an invaluable source of information to the colonial government. The cultural goal of the Spanish clergy was nothing less than the full Christianization and Hispanization of the Filipino people. In the first decades of missionary work, local religions were vigorously suppressed; old practices were not tolerated. But as the Christian laity grew in number and the zeal of the clergy waned, it became increasingly difficult to prevent the preservation of ancient beliefs and customs under Roman Catholic garb. Thus, even in the area of religion, pre-Spanish Filipino culture was not entirely destroyed.

Economic and political institutions were also altered under Spanish impact but perhaps less thoroughly than in the religious realm. The priests tried to move all the people into pueblos, or villages, surrounding the great stone churches. But the dispersed demographic patterns of the old barangays largely persisted until the late 18th century. Not until 1863 was there public education in the Philippines, and even then the church controlled the curriculum. The limited higher education in the colony was entirely under clerical direction, but by the 1880s many sons of the wealthy were sent to Europe to study.

By the late 20th century some four-fifths of Filipinos professed Roman Catholicism. During the 20th century the church also had gained local strength through growth in the number of Filipinos in the hierarchy, construction of seminaries, and, especially after 1970, increased involvement of the church in the political and social life of the country. Cardinal Jaime Sin, archbishop of Manila, was one of the country’s most politically outspoken spiritual leaders of the late 20th century. Another prominent Filipino in the Catholic hierarchy was Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, whose name was often floated as papabile (a likely candidate for the papacy). In 2019 Pope Francis appointed Tagle as prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples (now the Dicastery for Evangelization) in the Roman Curia.

In the 21st century the Philippines boasted the world’s third largest Catholic population and the largest in Asia. Filipinos were largely devout, expressing highly positive views of the pope in a survey during Francis’s papacy as well as a tendency toward social conservatism on issues such as abortion and divorce.