History of the Catholic Church in the United States British-America-born Catholic priest. In 1788, after the Revolution, John Jay urged the New York Legislature to require office-holders to renounce foreign authorities "in all matters ecclesiastical as well as civil." In one state, North Carolina, the Protestant test oath would not be changed until 1868. The Catholic population of the United States, which had been 35,000 in 1790, increased to 195,000 in 1820 and then ballooned to about 1.6 million in 1850, by which time, Catholics had become the country’s largest denomination. Between 1860 and 1890 the population of Roman Catholics in the United States tripled primarily through immigration and
United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America of a reunion of two long-separated branches of the larger Presbyterian family deriving from the British Isles. Between 1937 and 1955, both the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, and the United Presbyterian Church of North America had been looking to merge with Reformed Churches. The PCUSA had discussed a merger with the Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUS), as well as with the Episcopal Church. Both denominations had also been in contact with the Reformed Church in America, as well as the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church. By the time of the merger, the PCUSA had churches