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The Catholic Church in the United States is part of the worldwide Catholic Church. With 69.4 million members, it is the largest religious body in the United States, comprising 22% of the population.〔''The Official Catholic Directory 2013'', P.J. Kenedy & Sons, p. 2087, quoted by (Celebration Guide for the Inaugural Year, Parish Religious Education Week, Nov 3-9, 2013 ) by National Catholic Educational Association, reports: "Total Catholic population = 69,436,660 individuals"〕〔(Diocese of Reno, 2013-2014 Directory ), p73, reports "Total Catholic Population () 69,436,660"〕 The United States has the fourth largest Catholic population in the world, after Brazil, Mexico and the Philippines,〔http://cara.georgetown.edu/CARAServices/requestedchurchstats.html〕 the largest Catholic minority population, and the largest English-speaking Catholic population. Catholicism arrived in what is now the United States in the earliest days of the European colonization of the Americas. The first Catholics were Spanish missionaries who came with Christopher Columbus to the New World on his second voyage in 1493.〔David Neff, ("Global Is Now Local: Princeton's Robert Wuthnow says American congregations are more international than ever," ) ''Christianity Today'', June 2009, 39.〕 In the 16th and 17th centuries, they established missions in what are now Florida, Georgia, Texas, New Mexico, Puerto Rico, and later in California.〔Richard Middleton, ''Colonial America'' (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2003), 387–406.〕〔American Horizons: U.S. History in a Global Context, edited by Michael Schaller, Robert Schulzinger, etc. (New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016,14), 33〕 French colonization in the early 18th century saw missions established in Louisiana, St. Louis, New Orleans, Biloxi, Mobile, the Alabamas, Natchez, Yazoo, Natchitoches, Arkansas, Illinois,〔Middleton,406–14〕 and Michigan. In 1789 the Archdiocese of Baltimore was the first diocese established in the United States and John Carroll, whose brother Daniel was one of five men to sign both the Articles of Confederation (1778) and the United States Constitution (1787), was the first American bishop. The number of Catholics grew from the early 19th century through immigration and the acquisition of the predominantly Catholic former possessions of France, Spain, and Mexico, followed in the mid-19th century by a rapid influx of Irish, German, Italian and Polish immigrants from Europe, making Catholicism the largest religious body in the United States. This increase was met by widespread prejudice and hostility, often resulting in riots and the burning of churches, convents, and seminaries.〔J. A. Birkhaeuser, () "1893 History of the church: from its first establishment to our own times. Designed for the use of ecclesiastical seminaries and colleges, Volume 3"〕 The Know Nothings, an anti-Catholic nativist movement, was founded in the mid 19th century in an attempt to restrict Catholic immigration and was later followed by the Order of United American Mechanics, the Ku Klux Klan, the American Protective Association, and the Junior Order of United American Mechanics. The integration of Catholics into American society was marked by the election of John F. Kennedy as President in 1960. Since then, the percentage of Americans who are Catholic has remained at around 25%,〔http://blog.adw.org/2010/12/is-the-bottom-really-falling-out-of-catholic-mass-attendance-a-recent-cara-survey-ponders-the-question/〕 due in large part to increases in the Hispanic, especially Mexican American, population which have balanced losses of self-identifying Catholics among other ethnic groups. As of 2015 Catholics serve as Vice President (Joe Biden), Speaker of the House of Representatives (Paul Ryan), Chief Justice (John Roberts), Justices of the Supreme Court (six out of nine, including Roberts),〔http://www.economist.com/node/5442147〕 and a plurality of Senators, Representatives,〔http://www.pewforum.org/2015/01/05/faith-on-the-hill/〕 and Governors. ==Organization== Catholics gather as local communities called parishes, headed by a priest, and typically meet at a permanent church building for liturgies every Sunday, weekdays and on holy days. Within the 195 geographical dioceses and archdioceses (excluding the Archdiocese for the Military Services), there are 17,644 local Catholic parishes in the United States. The Catholic Church has the third highest total number of local congregations in the US behind Southern Baptists and United Methodists. However, the average Catholic parish is significantly larger than the average Baptist or Methodist congregation; there are more than four times as many Catholics as Southern Baptists and more than eight times as many Catholics as United Methodists.〔''Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches 2010''(Nashville: Abington Press, 2010), 12.〕 In the United States, there are 195 dioceses/archdioceses, one apostolic exarchate, and one personal ordinariate: * 145 Latin Catholic dioceses * 33 Latin Catholic archdioceses * 15 Eastern Catholic dioceses (eparchies) * 2 Eastern Catholic archdioceses (archeparchies) * 1 apostolic exarchate (for the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church) * 1 personal ordinariate (for former Anglicans who became Catholic) Eastern Catholic Churches are churches with origins in Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa that have their own distinctive liturgical, legal and organizational systems and are identified by the national or ethnic character of their region of origin. Each is considered fully equal to the Latin tradition within the church. In the United States, there are 15 Eastern church dioceses (called eparchies) and two Eastern church archdioceses (or archeparchies), the Byzantine Catholic Archeparchy of Pittsburgh and the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia. The apostolic exarchate for the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church in the United States is headed by a bishop who is a member of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. An apostolic exarchate is the Eastern Catholic Church equivalent of an apostolic vicariate. It is not a full-fledged diocese/eparchy, but is established by the Holy See for the pastoral care of Eastern Catholics in an area outside the territory of the Eastern Catholic Church to which they belong. It is headed by a bishop or a priest with the title of exarch. The Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter was established January 1, 2012, to serve former Anglican groups and clergy in the United States who sought to become Catholic. Similar to a diocese though national in scope, the ordinariate is based in Houston, Texas and includes parishes and communities across the United States that are fully Catholic, while retaining elements of their Anglican heritage and traditions. , 6 dioceses out of 195 are vacant (''sede vacante''). Another seven bishops, including three Archbishops and one Cardinal, are past the retirement age of 75. The central leadership body of the Catholic Church in the United States is the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, made up of the hierarchy of bishops (including archbishops) of the United States and the U.S. Virgin Islands, although each bishop is independent in his own diocese, answerable only to the Holy See. The USCCB elects a president to serve as their administrative head, but he is in no way the "head" of the Church or of Catholics in the United States. In addition to the 195 dioceses and one exarchate〔On July 14, 2010, Pope Benedict XVI erected the Syro-Malankara Catholic Exarchate in the United States.〕 represented in the USCCB, there are several dioceses in the nation's other four overseas dependencies. In the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the bishops in the six dioceses (one metropolitan archdiocese and five suffragan dioceses) form their own episcopal conference, the ''Conferencia Episcopal Puertorriqueña''. The bishops in US insular areas in the Pacific Ocean—the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the Territory of American Samoa, and the Territory of Guam—are members of the Episcopal Conference of the Pacific. No primate exists for Catholics in the United States. In the 1850s, the Archdiocese of Baltimore was acknowledged a ''Prerogative of Place'', which confers to its archbishop some of the leadership responsibilities granted to primates in other countries. The Archdiocese of Baltimore was the first diocese established in the United States, in 1789, with John Carroll (1735–1815) as its first bishop. It was, for many years, the most influential diocese in the fledgling nation. Now, however, the United States has several large archdioceses and a number of cardinal-archbishops. By far, most Catholics in the United States belong to the Latin Church and the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church. Rite generally refers to the form of worship ("liturgical rite") in a church community owing to cultural and historical differences as well as differences in practice. However, the Vatican II document, ''Orientalium Ecclesiarum'' ("Of the Eastern Churches"), acknowledges that these Eastern Catholic communities are "true Churches" and not just rites within the Catholic Church.〔Richard McBrien, THE CHURCH/THE EVOLUTION OF CATHOLICISM (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2009), 450. Also see: BASIC VATICAN COUNCIL II: THE BASIC SIXTEEN DOCUMENTS (Costello Publishing, 1996).〕 There are 14 other Churches in the United States (23 within the global Catholic Church) which are in communion with Rome, fully recognized and valid in the eyes of the Catholic Church. They have their own bishops and eparchies. The largest of these communities in the U.S. is the Chaldean Catholic Church.〔 Information sourced from ''Annuario Pontificio'' 2009 edition〕 Most of these Churches are of Eastern European and Middle Eastern origin. Eastern Catholic Churches are distinguished from Eastern Orthodox, identifiable by their usage of the term Catholic.〔McBrien, 241,281, 365,450〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Catholic Church in the United States」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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