A Lively Experiment

A Multireligious Historical Overview of Rhode Island



Photo © 2003 The Pluralism Project



Caption









During the early and mid-1800s, federal government construction at Fort Adams as well as the rise of industrialization and the need for workers in mines and mills brought substantial numbers of Roman Catholic Irish immigrants to Rhode Island. In 1828, Fr. Robert Woodley was sent to Newport and established St. Mary's Parish—the first Roman Catholic congregation in the State. Various domestic and international factors caused the Roman Catholic population to ebb and flow, but it began to increase steadily by and after the founding of the Diocese of Providence in 1872. Today, Rhode Island contains more Roman Catholics per capita than any other state.



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St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church in Newport, Rhode Island. St. Mary's Parish is the oldest Roman Catholic congregation in Rhode Island. Its current building was built from 1848-1852. President John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Lee Bouvier were married there in 1953.