20th-century history of the Catholic Church in the United States greater frequency. 20th-century history of the Catholic Church in the United States The 20th-century history of the Catholic Church in the United States was characterized by a period of continuous growth for the Church in the United States, with Catholics progressively evolving from a small minority to a large minority. In 1900 the Catholic population was 10 million, under the control of 14 Archbishops, 77 bishops, and 12,000 priests . The community had built 10,000 churches, of which two-thirds had resident pastors. Catholic schools educated nearly 1,000,000 children and youth. Catholics were heavily concentrated in the industrial and mining centers
Catholic Church in Russia praying every day versus 17% of Orthodox. Due to the long-held views of the Russian Orthodox Church, Catholicism is not recognized by the state as a legitimately Russian religion, and Catholics have often been seen as outsiders, even if they are ethnically Russian. The Soviet Union, which persecuted all religions, also saw Catholicism as a non-Russian allegiance. Since Rus' (the Eastern Slavic polity that later came to be Russia, Belarus and Ukraine) was converted in 988, before the Great Schism (1054), it is somewhat anachronistic to talk of the Catholic versus the Eastern Orthodox Church in the origins of Russian