The Church in the United States reached maturity in the twentieth century. In the century's first decade, the Vatican ended the nation's status as a missionary territory. Immigration slowed in the 1920s and what had been a predominantly "foreign" religion was, for better and worse, increasingly assimilated into American culture. Second and third generation immigrants advanced up the economic ladder, a climb expedited by the GI Bill's educational funding after World War II. By 1960, the country was ready for a Catholic president. Yet another sign of maturity was the capacity for self-criticism, and observers inside and outside the Church found flaws enough in Catholicism's liturgy, culture, and intellectual life. The post-Vatican II period was by most accounts a time of crisis. Laity, more highly educated and culturally influential than ever before, assumed more active roles in the Church's affairs, but statistics on Catholic school enrollment, divorce, and priesthood and consecrated religious life suggested weakness. Whether the final decades of the twentieth century represented the initial stages of a long decline or the tumultuous beginnings of an exciting renewal will be determined by the history of a new century, yet to be made.
1904 Catholic Education Association founded
1906 Msgr. John A. Ryan publishes A Living Wage
1908 US removed from jurisdiction of Propaganda Fide (ends mission status)
1912 Our Sunday Visitor begins publication
1917 Fr. Edward Flanagan founds Boys Town
1918 Knute Rockne becomes head coach of Notre Dame football team
1919 National Catholic Welfare Council formed
1921 Ven. Nelson Baker begins construction of Our Lady of Victory Shrine
1923 Mae Nolan elected as first Catholic US Congresswoman
1923 St. Augustine Seminary founded
1924 Ven. Solanus Casey assigned to St. Bonaventure Monastery, Detroit
1926 Fr. Virgil Michel founds liturgy journal Orate Fratres
1927 Fr. Daniel Lord assists production of feature film King of Kings
1928 Al Smith wins Democratic nomination for president, loses general election
1933 Catholic bishops establish movie monitor, Legion of Decency
1933 Dorothy Day publishes Catholic Worker
1934 Fr. John LaFarge forms Catholic Interracial Council
1937 Association of Catholic Trade Unionists founded
1939 Card. Francis Spellman named archbishop of New York
1944 GI Bill passes, enabling college education for working-class Catholics
1946 Clare Booth Luce converts to Catholicism
1948 Thomas Merton publishes Seven Storey Mountain
1952 Abp. Fulton Sheen's Life is Worth Living debuts on ABC
1955 Msgr. John Tracy Ellis publishes "Catholics and the Intellectual Life"
1956 Thomas Dooley publishes Deliver Us From Evil
1960 John F. Kennedy elected president of the US
1960 FDA approves the Pill, invented by Dr. John Rock
1962 Abp. Joseph Rummel integrates New Orleans Catholic schools
1962 Second Vatican Council begins
1963 John McCormack becomes first Catholic Speaker of the US House
1967 Catholic educators issue Land o' Lakes Statement
1968 Pope Paul VI issues Humanae Vitae, American theologians protest
1968 César Chávez leads United Farm Workers strike
1968 "Catonsville Nine" burn draft records
1972 Phyllis Schlafly begins campaign against Equal Rights Amendment
1975 St. Elizabeth Ann Seton canonized (first native-born US citizen)
1976 Paul Horgan wins Pulitzer Prize for Lamy of Santa Fe
1981 Fr. Robert Drinan, SJ, finishes term in Congress
1981 Eternal Word Television Network begins transmitting
1984 US government establishes diplomatic relations with Holy See
1984 Governor Mario Cuomo delivers Notre Dame address
1987 Fr. Stanley Jaki wins Templeton Prize
1990 Fr. Richard John Neuhaus converts to Catholicism
1996 Cardinal Joseph Bernardin dies