The Roman Catholic Church is the largest single religious body in the nation, claiming just under fifty million members in 1980. This book, written by one of today's foremost historians of American Catholicism, tells the story of that community from colonial times to the present. The book is in the author's term. "a people's history." While not neglecting structures and institutions, bishops and clergy, Hennesey is most concerned with the ordinary people of the Roman Catholic Church. Where did Catholics come from? Why did they come to America? How did the environment into which they came affect their Catholicism?