As the U.S. marked its 250th birthday with fireworks, parades and barbecues, Catholic Scouting America members of course joined in the fun — but they also had a more serious mission during the entire month of July: They were praying for the future of the country.
A small churchyard amid Wisconsin farmland became the site of a big holiday celebration over the Fourth of July weekend. The National Shrine of Our Lady of Champion hosted an event highlighting the Catholic Saints of America, with relics of 14 saints and blesseds, along with tents of displays from shrines and sainthood guilds around the country.
Unable to receive a Catholic education in the British colonies in North America, three young men from wealthy Maryland families were sent to Saint-Omer, France, to study at the College of the English Jesuits.
Religious liberty “holds sacred the inner sphere of the person where convictions are formed and where conscience can guide the decisions made in the intimacy of the human heart,” said Pope Leo XIV, as he accepted a major civic award for upholding freedom of belief on the eve of the nation’s 250th anniversary.
Participants in the 2026 National Eucharistic Pilgrimage carry on the “great legacy of faith” that has crucially shaped the U.S., now marking its 250th anniversary, said Pope Leo XIV.
On this 250th anniversary, we celebrate our democracy and our achievements as a nation, but at the same time we can never forget that it was because of immigration that we have achieved so much.
Catholic bishops from the U.S.-Mexico border region led a day of pastoral accompaniment in Nogales, Arizona, and Nogales, Mexico, on June 26, as the U.S. approaches its 250th birthday.
A look at some landmark milestones in American Catholic history, from the early Church in the colonies to milestones in leadership, education, religious life, sacraments, and public life.
A lot has happened over those 250 years to get to this point. Here is a look at Catholicism in the United States.
All told, there has been a Catholic presence in the United States for more than 400 years. Here, The Tablet looks at some of the historical sites that established the earliest Catholic roots in the U.S.
