Challenge: Eastern Rite Catholics as largest US denomination

[varyar]

This just popped into my head yesterday. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to construct a scenario where the largest religious denomination in the United States in 2009 is "Eastern Rite Catholic."

Two initial ideas come to my mind:

1) A TL where all or at least a great part of Orthodox Europe converts to Eastern Catholicism

2) Much, much greater Ukrainian and Catholic Arab immigration to the USA early on, replacing or at least overshadowing the Irish/Italian/German influxes that formed most of OTL's Catholic American population.

 

[Paul V McNutt]

I don´t how this happens but it means marriage for catholic priests is not such a big issue.

 

[sahaidak]

2) Much, much greater Ukrainian and Catholic Arab immigration to the USA early on, replacing or at least overshadowing the Irish/Italian/German influxes that formed most of OTL's Catholic American population.

It wouldn't help. There were only some five million of Eastern Rite Catholics (not only Ukrainians) in all of Europe in 1914, and much less of them in, say, 1860. Christian Arabs were even less numerous, and they did emigrate to the USA in great numbers, so there wasn't much space for increasing immigration.

1) A TL where all or at least a great part of Orthodox Europe converts to Eastern Catholicism.

It could help. If the Orthodox bishops were not reinstated in Ukraine and Belorussia in 1620-1632, those countries could become strongly Catholic (they became mostly Catholic in 18th century (with important Eastern Ukrainian exception), but that happened too late, and Russian conquest with subsequent re-introduction of the Orthodoxy took place very soon after Catholicization). However, Catholic credo doesn't help to increase grain yields, so Catholic East Slavs would be just as poor as they were in OTL. With growing population, they would be compelled to emigrate. In OTL they (being Orthodox) emigrated mostly to Siberia, Russian Far East and Central Asia. Being Catholic, they would be naturally inclined to settle in the Catholic countries or at least in the countries, which did not discriminate against Catholics.
However, even this would not be sufficient: Roman Catholic (primarily, Irish, German, Polish and Italian) immigration was too strong. So, you need to add diminished Irish, German and Italian immigration to the increase of Eastern European immigration (Poles would migrate together with Ukrainians and Belorussians, so Polish part of Latin Rite Catholic immigration is inevitable).
I see one obvious way to butterfly significant part of the Irish immigration - of course, I mean absence of Great Irish Famine. However, I don't know, how it could be possible to prevent Italian immigration - they settled Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro in OTL, but even after those feats there were enough Italians to settle New York... The same for the German immigration - there were simply too many Germans, including Catholic ones.

 

[xelas2547]

First of all make more people follow the eastern churnch after the schism in the first place. And after while most turn back to Catholics. Then make no-eastern catholics weak or move someplace other than US.

Eithor that make US weak country and only eastern catholics want to live there.

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

This just popped into my head yesterday. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to construct a scenario where the largest religious denomination in the United States in 2009 is "Eastern Rite Catholic."

Two initial ideas come to my mind:

1) A TL where all or at least a great part of Orthodox Europe converts to Eastern Catholicism

2) Much, much greater Ukrainian and Catholic Arab immigration to the USA early on, replacing or at least overshadowing the Irish/Italian/German influxes that formed most of OTL's Catholic American population.

This would take a massive change in history. Still it might be possible. OK, firstly, we have to knock DOWN the number of Latin Rite Roman Catholics. OTL, according to
http://www.adherents.com/rel_USA.html#Pew_branches
'Roman Catholics' are almost a quarter of the population. I doubt we can get 'Greek Catholics' that high.

So... Texas never enters the Union and Irish and Poles are kept out?

The next largest single denomination seems to be Southern Baptists at ~13%, so we may want a bit more schisming among Baptists (shouldn't be hard).

The next largest group is 'Methodists' at ~8%, and if the various mergers of the 20th century hadn't happened (Methodist Episcopal, Southern Methodist and Methodist Protestant all merged in the ?1930s?; then the Methodists and EUBs merged in 1968), we could knock that figure down to 4% for the largest group there.


Still we have to get MILLIONS of Uniates (=Eastern Rite, = Greek Catholics) in the US. Hmm...

How about Russian America extends down to California and receives massive (probably forced) immigration. A goodly chunk of the exiles might well be Uniate (western) Ukrainians. Then when people get totally fed up with the Tsar's rule and the area revolts (led by Uniate Ukrainians), they also revolt against the Tsar's church (and don't doubt for a minute that the Tsar didn't have a LOT of control over the Russian Orthodox church). Eastern Rite Catholicism allows them to keep most of their worship and traditions, but frees them from the Tsar.

Then (handwaves) the area joins the US and you have millions of Uniates in OTL BC, Washington and Oregon.

Of course, if the anti-Catholic prejudice is enought to keep out Poles and Irish in the 1830s-18??, would the US really want millions of new subjects under the Pope? Well, maybe there's a huge swing in popular opinion in, say the 1880s (why?)....

But having a large 'ex-russian', partly 'ex-orthodox' population on the west coast is the only way I see to make this happen....