Development.

The diversity of Catholics in the United States reflected the diversity of the nation. Catholicism remained the largest single religious organization in the nation, representing 28 percent of the general population. The decade of the 1980s marked the bicentennial of the Catholic hierarchy in the independent United States and the church proved in this decade that it had become a formidable force in the United States, particularly in the areas of politics, policy, and morality. The Catholic Church continued its mission to reach out to immigrants. One in five Catholics belonged to a minority group. The two largest new Catholic populations were Hispanics, who made up 16 percent of Catholics, and African Americans who were about 3 percent of the population, or 2 million people. Struggling to meet the special needs of these new groups as well as tackle the growing dissent in its ranks was the...