Roman Catholic Church in the United States

Catholic Church in the United States
The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, in Washington, D.C., is the largest Catholic church building in North America.
Type	National polity
Classification	Catholic
Polity	Episcopal
Governance	United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
Pope	Pope Francis
President	Daniel DiNardo
Prerogative of Place	William E. Lori
Apostolic Nuncio	Christophe Pierre
Region	United States, Puerto Rico, and other territories of the United States
Language	English, Latin
Headquarters	Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington, D.C.
Founder	Bishop John Carroll
Origin	1789 Baltimore, United States
Members	70,412,021 (as of 2017)
Official website	Episcopal Conference of the United States

The Catholic Church in the United States is part of the worldwide Catholic Church in communion with the Pope in Rome. With 77.4 million members, it is the largest religious denomination in the United States, comprising 22% of the population as of 2017. The United States has the fourth largest Catholic population in the world after Brazil, Mexico and the Philippines, the largest Catholic minority population, and the largest English-speaking Catholic population. The central leadership body of the Catholic Church in the United States is the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The history of the Catholic Church in what is now the United States has its background in the European colonization of the Americas. The first Catholics were Spanish missionaries who came with Christopher Columbus to the New World on his second voyage in 1493. In the 16th and 17th centuries, they established missions in what are now Florida, Georgia, New Mexico, Puerto Rico, Texas, and later in California.French colonization in the early 18th century saw missions established in Louisiana, St. Louis, New Orleans, Biloxi, Mobile, the Alabamas, Natchez, Yazoo, , Arkansas, Illinois, and Michigan. St. Augustine, Florida, founded in 1565, has the oldest continuous parish in the US. In 1789 the Archdiocese of Baltimore was the first diocese established in the newly formed United States. John Carroll, whose brother Daniel was one of five men to sign both the Articles of Confederation (1778) and the United States Constitution (1787), became the first American bishop.John McCloskey became the first American cardinal in 1875.