The work of Father Mathew in promoting temperance across the U.S. led to the establishment of numerous separate and independent Catholic temperance groups. The Catholic temperance societies of Connecticut created a state union in 1871, from which a national union was formed the following year at a convention in Baltimore, Maryland. 177 such societies from 10 states and the District of Columbia, representing a total of 26,481 members, created the Catholic Total Abstinence Union of America.
The Union included women's and juvenile societies as well as the Priest's Total Abstinence League. Its monthly publication was The C.T.A.U. Advocate.
President Theodore Roosevelt positively cited the work of the Union in an August 1905 address.