What America at 250 Needs From Catholics Today

A call to renewal rooted in history and mission

(Photo: Lightstock, created with AI)

By Forest Barnette

In the span of the memory of the Church, 250 years is just a drop. While the United States is right to swell with pride at the accomplishments of the Founding Fathers, Catholics claim a heritage at least as old as Abraham.

Despite the youth of America and Colorado, God has nevertheless moved in big ways through the Centennial State to encourage and renew his people. The June 2026 issue of Denver Catholic has been filled with such accounts of the Lord’s sovereignty throughout our brief history. But what is his call for the Coloradans of today? How can we be renewed in our mission and bravely engage his charge for the future of our beautiful state?

No Future Without the Past

The word “renewal” is often misunderstood. Though it seems to imply novelty, renewal hinges upon what is old: something long-standing brought back to life by modern expressions rooted in the same truth. It requires a sort of ever-ancient-ever-new quality, if you can imagine such a thing.

Let’s look back across 150 years of Coloradan history and consider how God may be reinvigorating Colorado and his Church. Where might God be calling you — yes, you specifically — to step forward and labor for his Kingdom?

New Territory

When Father Joseph Projectus Machebeuf rode around the Rockies adopting the tough-and-tumble lifestyle of the cowboys, he didn’t know he would become the founding bishop of the Diocese of Denver. (Although with a middle name like that, could it have played out any other way?) He was just a priest of Jesus Christ, tending to the nomadic souls he was charged with evangelizing. It was a dangerous job: he gave away so many of his material possessions that he didn’t even have his own overcoat during the fierce Colorado winters, and on several occasions, he nearly contracted smallpox.

While the boomtowns have waned into ghost towns in the last 150 years, the need for a missionary Church in Colorado has only strengthened. Today, Coloradan evangelists stare down a post-Christian landscape. For the first time in history, Western civilization is trying to shed the Christian identity that gave it meaning in the first place. We’ve entered a different kind of Wild West, and Coloradans need new Father Joes to bravely carry Christ to those who have decided they’ve evolved beyond him.

Hostile Territory

As the Scriptures warn us and history demonstrates, the world is inconvenienced by those whose allegiance lies not with party lines but with Truth Himself, Jesus Christ. Hostility to Catholics is nothing new.

Historically, such prejudice has been so prominent that it was even institutionalized; official organizations like the “Know-Nothing Party” and the Ku Klux Klan helped to legitimize anti-Catholic sentiment in Colorado.

Yet saints like St. Therese of Lisieux were clear about these inevitable betrayals: “The world is thy ship and not thy home.”

So the Diocese of Denver didn’t cower in the face of hatred or allow the faith to be paralyzed by fear. In fact, it was the precursor to this very magazine that loosened the chokehold of the KKK on Colorado’s politics by way of clever and often humorous articles emphasizing the truth of the Church, and the truth about the Klan.

It is our duty to claim Colorado for Christ, combating the current of cultural trends to properly form society in accordance with the truth of the Gospel, even when it means braving accusations of disloyalty. The success of the Church is not dependent on the extent to which we are accepted.

Alien Territory

In 1887, a small, frail woman deboarded a boat in New York City. Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini didn’t really want to be in the United States, but the pope himself sent her. By the Holy Spirit and her Italian grit, she was determined to make the best of it. 

By 1917, when the future saint died, she had established more than 60 schools, hospitals and orphanages across the Americas and Europe. She permanently changed the experience of Italian immigrants in the United States and especially in Denver’s own “Little Italy” neighborhood, where she and her sisters faithfully served.

Over and over in Colorado’s history, immigrants have been the changemakers and groundbreakers who challenged the status quo, showing up for their new home, fighting for a better life. Too often, however, the native neighbors of the immigrants have failed to love them as the Gospel demands, and only the Church is left to step in, as Pope Leo XIII did when he sent St. Cabrini to the outcast Italians of Colorado.

Historic Territory

That very homeliness and universality of the Church has been key in bringing together the many communities and colors that make up vibrant Colorado. And the places we meet to worship are as central to that mission as the people who gather there. Churches built with intentionality, ornamented with the most painstaking labor of the artisans and finest offerings of the people, are as perfume poured over the feet of Christ. Colorado is blessed to be home to many such sanctuaries of faith.

It is right and just to allow such places to move us. We must preserve that which shelters the bodies, elevates the minds and enamors the hearts of God’s people so our children may be similarly enriched. And, perhaps most importantly, we must participate in it.

At such a time as Colorado’s 300^th birthday, God willing, what beauty will our era have to show for it? Are the sanctuaries we build or renovate today sanctuaries of beauty and history as well as faith? Do they immerse the present in lessons of the past? Are they adorned with our finest offerings, or are they merely built out of necessity? Will they inspire future generations to pour out their lives in the service of their Creator?

Revived Territory

Thankfully, despite the general march of the United States toward a pagan or even atheistic society, an opposing undercurrent quietly gains momentum: a groundswell of pious fervor is sweeping the country. Catholic dioceses are reporting nearly 40% sustained increases in catechumens completing OCIA annually, and even more fully initiated adults reverting to the faith.

Such a revival of religious expression is wonderful and praiseworthy! These moments should inspire us to earnestly thank God for his faithfulness. It is true that this religious revival, like all revivals before it, will likely pass, but only insofar as we allow it to be merely another phase. We must respond to the movement of the Holy Spirit and double down our efforts to build upon his momentum. We must anticipate the needs of new Catholics and accompany them through obstacles so they, too, may become missionary disciples in their own communities.

Renewed Territory

It’s easy to look back and marvel at the heroes who shaped the past. We may be tempted to imagine that the driving force of the Church is some external force ordained by God to save souls while we watch.

But history doesn’t stop. We can either ignore God’s call and be mowed down by the consequences, or we can engage our God-given mission and be the Church that shapes the world. The Holy Spirit is already here. No other help is coming. We’ve got history to learn from, saints to inspire us and the Barque of Peter, the Church, which will keep us safe in every storm.

America needs us. Colorado needs us. Christ needs us. Are you in?