B. Catholicism, a important growth in the US population
1) Catholicism in modern America:
Sources to use: Second wave of catholicism (Routledge historical atlas of religion in America,
p. 92), source 2 in A, The impact of Latino Immigration (Charles H. Lippy, Religious
Pluralism and the transformation of American culture, p. 92-95).
Source 1: Second wave of Catholicism:
After 1880, a “new” immigration brought Catholics from southern, eastern and central Europe
to the agricultural areas of the Great Plains and, in far greater numbers, the industrial cities of
the Northeast and Midwest. About 3.3 million southern Italian arrived by 1920, forming
ethnic enclaves in Boston, Harlem, and Philadelphia, mistrusting the Irish-American
hierarchy, and practicing a family-centered folk Catholicism. Polish Catholic immigrants –
some 3 million by 1920 – formed the “Polonias” in such Great Lakes cities as Chicago,
Detroit, Milwaukee, Cleveland and Buffalo. [...] Other Catholics arrived from
Austria-Hungary, Lithuania and other European countries.
Source: Routledge historical atlas of religion in America, p. 92
Source 2: The impact of Latino Immigration
Immigration from Central and South America since 19655 has had at least four significant
consequences for American religious culture:
- It is geographically diffuse; that is, it has brought immigrants into every part of the
country, not just the region that shares a border with Mexico.
- Its style is decidedly more hybrid and enthusiastic than that of most US Protestants
and Catholics
- Except for views on immigration policy, Latino/a immigrants tend to hold more
conservative positions on matters of social and ethical import, such as abortion, than
do most other Americans.
- Hispanic immigrants are displacing African Americans in many urban neighborhoods
where, historically, African American churches have dominated religious life.
Source: Charles H. Lippy, Religious Pluralism and the transformation of American culture, 2006, p. 92-95
Question: Explain the evolution of Catholicism from the end of the 19th century to nowadays.
Identify two main periods.
Roman Catholics have experienced a fast growth since the end of the 19th century due to
several waves of immigration:
1. at the end of the 19th century, an increasing number of immigrants from Italy or Poland
arrived in the USA, which explains why the number of Catholics rose very fast: by 1926,
they were already the largest denomination in the USA (with almost 20 million people) ;
2. from 1965 onwards, due to a new immigration policy initiated by President Lyndon B.
JOHNSON, the number of Catholics started once again to increase very quickly due to the
arrival of millions of Hispanics; today, Hispanics have become the largest ethnic minority
nationwide and their population percentage is expected to have doubled by 2030 due to
their higher-than-average fertility rate.
In 2012, Catholics were the largest religious group in the USA with 23.9% of the total
population.
5
At that date, Johnson put an end to the immigration quotas provided in 1920.
2) A difficult path for Catholics in a Protestant America
Sources to use: The Klan’s Americanism (Mark A. Noll, A documentary history of religion in
America, 2008, p. 256-257), Rum and Rome (Mark A. Noll, A documentary history of
religion in America, 2008, p. 263), John F. Kennedy and religion (John F. KENNEDY,
Speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association).
Source 1: The Klan’s Americanism:
While the APA (American Protective Association, an anti-catholic association) worried
chiefly about Roman Catholics, the KKK (Ku Klux Klan) worried about Catholics, Jews,
blacks, and anyone else who did not measure the Klan’s definition of American: native, white,
Protestant. An like the APA, the Klan took the stance (=position) on behalf of an American
which “can only be achieved if pioneer stock is kept pure”. The prominence of Kaln activity
in the 1920s is evident by the space which the prestigious American review gave to it. The
first election by Hiram Wesley Evans, “Imperial Wizard and Emperor, Knights of the KKK”,
sets forth that organisation’s firms convictions. A succeeding issue of the Review carried
responses from Catholic, Jews and blacks such as restricting American citizenship to white
Protestants and restricting immigrations. The restriction of immigration was enacted by the
US government in 1921 and 1924.
Source 2: Rum and Rome
In 1928, nativism had specific target: a Roman Catholic had for the first time in American
history won the nomination of a major political party (Democrates) and was now running for
the presidency of the USA. That he was no special friend of the Prohibition Amendment only
aggravated Protestant anxieties and steeled their resolve to keep this Catholic out of the White
House. In September of 1928 the Methodists of Ohio, meeting in the Newly formed
conference, heard Mabel Walker Willebrandt plead for the defeat of Alfred E. Smith and for
the election of Herbert C. Hoover. In the same fall, candidate Smith, on the campaign trail in
Oklahoma City, responded to the Klan, to Mrs Willebrandt, and to all who would divide
voters along religious lines.
Source: Mark A. Noll, A documentary history of religion in America, 2008, p. 263.
Source 3: “While the so-called religious issue is necessarily and properly the chief topic here
tonight, I want to emphasize from the outset that we have far more critical issues to face in the
1960 election (…).
But because I am a Catholic, and no Catholic has ever been elected president, the real issues
in this campaign have been obscured — perhaps deliberately, in some quarters less
responsible than this. So it is apparently necessary for me to state once again not what kind of
church I believe in — for that should be important only to me — but what kind of America I
believe in.
I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no
Catholic prelate (1) would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no
Protestant minister (2) would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or
church school is granted any public funds or political preference; and where no man is denied
public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or
the people who might elect him (3). (…)
Finally, I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end; where all men
and all churches are treated as equal; where every man has the same right to attend or not
attend the church of his choice; where there is no Catholic vote, no anti-Catholic vote (…);
and where Catholics, Protestants and Jews (…) will refrain from those attitudes of disdain and
division which have so often marred (4) their works in the past, and promote instead the
American ideal of brotherhood.”
(1) A prelate: a priest of high rank in the Christian Church (a bishop, for example).
(2) A minister: a religious leader.
(3) Cf. Constitution of the United States, Art. VI: “(…) no religious Test shall ever be required as
a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”
(4) To mar: to damage.
Source: John F. KENNEDY, Speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association (a group of
Protestant ministers), September 12th,1960
Questions:
1. Which were Protestants reactions in front of Catholic immigration at the beginning of the
20th century? How did the government react?
In the early 1920s, a lot of Americans were afraid that the growing number of Catholics and
Jews might pose a threat to national identity. The Ku Klux Klan, a white-supremacist group,
violently denounced the growing influence of Catholicism in American society: according to
these extremists, the Catholic Church was a Rome-led organisation that did not feel deeply
attached to the United States and put pressure on the government to curb immigration from
Southern and Eastern EuropeAs a reaction, the government enacted the 19216 and 19247
immigration acts, that put quotas on immigration.
2. Prove that, in the run for presidential election, candidates’ Catholicism could be a
problem? How did John Kennedy react in front of that questioning?
It was never easy for Catholics to run for office in the United States: when Al SMITH (18731944) was nominated by the Democratic Party for the 1928 presidential election, his
patriotism was often questioned (in the end, he suffered a severe defeat to Herbert HOOVER,
the Republican candidate). When John F. KENNEDY (1917-63) ran for president, in 1960, he
had to defend his candidacy: during the campaign, he gave a speech in front of Protestant
ministers in order to remind them that religion should not interfere in politics and that a
candidate’s faith should not influence how people vote. In November 1960, he was the first
6
The Emergency Quota Act, also known as the Emergency Immigration Act of 1921, the Immigration
Restriction Act of 1921, the Per Centum Law, and the Johnson Quota Act restricted immigration into the
United States. Although intended as temporary legislation, the Act "proved in the long run the most important
turning-point in American immigration policy" because it added two new features to American immigration law:
numerical limits on immigration from Europe and the use of a quota system for establishing those limits.
The Emergency Quota Act restricted the number of immigrants admitted from any country annually to 2% of the
number of residents from that same country living in the United States as of the U.S. Census of 1910. Based on
that formula, the number of new immigrants admitted fell from 805,228 in 1920 to 309,556 in 1921-22.
The act meant that only people of Northern Europe who had similar cultures to that of America were likely to get
in. The excuse was the American government wanted to protect its culture when this act was introduced,
however somefelt it was mainly in response to the millions of Jews who begun fleeing the terrible persecution
they were facing in Eastern Europe starting in 1890.
7
The Immigration Act of 1924, or Johnson–Reed Act, including the National Origins Act, and Asian
Exclusion Act, was a United States federal law that limited the annual number of immigrants who could be
admitted from any country to 2% of the number of people from that country who were already living in the
United States in 1890, down from the 3% cap set by the Immigration Restriction Act of 1921, according to the
Census of 1890. It superseded the 1921 Emergency Quota Act. The law was aimed at further restricting the
Southern and Eastern Europeans, among them Jews who had migrated in large numbers since the 1890s to
escape persecution in Poland and Russia, as well as prohibiting the immigration of Middle Easterners, East
Asians, and Indians. According to the U.S. Department of State Office of the Historian the purpose of the act
was "to preserve the ideal of American homogeneity".[1] Congressional opposition was minimal.
(and, so far, the only) Catholic to be elected president (73% of Catholics voted for him as did
81% of Jews … and 39% of Protestants).
C. The distorted perception of Islam
Sources to use: Islam, a growing religious group in the USA (Charles H. Lippy, Introducing
American religion, 2009, p. 222), We’re all Americans (Advertisement from Council on
American Islamic religion in year-long campaign in the New York Times in 2005), Muslim
Community Center in Lower Manhattan, Park51 (New York Times, August 3rd, 2011).
Source 1: Islam, a growing religious group in the USA
The growth of Islam in the US is even more striking than the growth of Hinduism and
Buddhism. Estimates indicate that, in 1970, the US, was home to around 800,000 Muslims,
not including those associated with the Nation of Islam and black Muslims. Thirty years later,
there were at least 4 million, with some analysts claiming that the number was much higher,
perhaps as high as 5.5 million.
[...] In Muslim cultures, Islam has as many diverse forms as American Protestant Christianity
has denominations. [...] Muslim law intermingles religious and civil matters, for at heart there
is no divergence between sacred and profane. [...] Since the attacks on the WTC in NYC in
2001, many US Muslims have muted efforts to persuade others to convert. The lower profile
means that outsiders are less likely to be aware of the growing Muslim presence.
[...] The experience of these traditions as minority religions in a culture long dominated by
forms of Christianity and Judaism echoes that of earlier minority movements. [...] But because
that identity is largely non-European, more subtle forms of discrimination and hostilityy
replaced the overt anti-Catholicisme and anti-Semitism of earlier generations.
Source: Charles H. Lippy, Introducing American religion, 2009, p. 222
Source 2: We’re all Americans
Source: Advertisement from Council on American Islamic religion in year-long campaign in the New York
Times in 2005
Source 3: Muslim Community Center in Lower Manhattan, Park51
The planned construction of a Muslim community center in Lower Manhattan morphed into a
controversy about Sept. 11, Islam and freedom of religion that echoed worldwide in 2010.
The community center is part of a complex called Park51, planned for a site two blocks from
ground zero.
The organizers of the project were Feisal Abdul Rauf, the imam of a mosque in the financial
district; Daisy Khan, his wife; and Sharif el-Gamal, a young real-estate investor born in New
York. Their first public presentation of the project […] was on May 5, 2010.
[…] But over the next few months as word of the project spread there were angry protests
from some relatives of 9/11 victims, politicians and others who said it would be insensitive to
build a Muslim institution close to where Islamic radicals attacked the World Trade Center on
September 11th, 2001. The furor was fanned by Internet-based activists who viewed Muslim
influence as a threat and called the project a “victory mosque.” The developers, unprepared
for the outcry, were thrown into disarray, trying to defend a plan that was still embryonic.
City officials, particularly Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, forcefully defended the project on
the grounds of religious freedom, saying that government has no place dictating where a
house of worship is located.
In August 2010, the project received its final city approval when the landmarks commission
voted 9 to 0 to deny granting historic protection to the building in Lower Manhattan.
Source: New York Times, August 3rd, 2011
Questions:
1. Present the evolution of Islam in the USA.
Islam is the fastest-growing religious group nationwide: indeed, the number of Muslims has
been multiplied by 2.5 since 1990 (from 527,000 to 1.3 million between 1990 and 2008). But
Muslims account for less than 1 percent of the total population: as a result, their influence
should not be overstated. The first mosque ever built in the United States was built in 1915: in
the early 1950s, there were about 20 mosques but the number had risen to 1,200 in 2009 (most
of them were built in the last 30 years).
2. What has been the situation of American Muslims since 11/9/2001? (Detail a precise
example).
Since 9/11, a lot of Americans have expressed anti-Muslim feelings, often confusing Islam (a
religion) for Islamism (an ideology). In 2010, a lot of people denounced the idea of building
an Islamic community centre in Lower Manhattan as disrespectful to the victims of the 9/11
terrorist attacks. Even if it was often referred to as the “Ground Zero Mosque”, it is not a
mosque and is not built on Ground Zero: in fact, Park 51 (its official address) is aimed at
promoting inter-faith dialogue. It was never going to be easy for Barack OBAMA (a lot of
people in the USA think he is a Muslim in disguise) to express his opinion on the “Ground
Zero Mosque”: in truth, his only option was to remind people that Muslims had the right to
build a mosque and to call for religious tolerance. The fact that the project sparked
controversy shows that Americans don’t trust Muslims and consider them responsible for the
9/11 events.
CONCLUSION: According to a recent survey, a lot of Americans tend to change religions
regularly. It means they have an individualistic approach to religion: they are still deeply
religious (in 2008, 92% of Americans said they believed in God), but are not necessarily
attached to a church in particular. Indeed, the importance of individualism in the USA can be
explained by the influence of Protestantism which is characterised by a personal relationship
with God.