Source: Catholic World News -- Read Full Story

April 8 should be a festival day for Catholic Americans. But America's oldest Catholic communities aren't really in a mood for celebration. On this date in 1808, the Vatican established three new dioceses to serve the growing Catholic communities of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. The Baltimore diocese, already in existence, was elevated to the rank of archdiocese on the same date; and a fourth new diocese was set up in Bardstown (now Louisville), Kentucky, for Catholics on the western frontier. Throughout the 19th century and well into the 20th, those young Catholic communities prospered. Immigrant families poured into the East Coast cities, gained a foothold, and quickly began the massive project of building parishes, parochial schools, convents, and seminaries. Once viewed with suspicion by nativists as an alien presence, Catholics won grudging acceptance into the American mainstream. The grandchildren of illiterate immigrants who had huddled on Ellis Island now sat in corporate board rooms and city-council chambers. Soon the Catholic presence was indelibly stamped on the culture of each city.