Catholic temperance movement

Social movement in Catholic societies The Catholic Total Abstinence Centennial Fountain in Fairmount Park was dedicated on 4 July 1876, following a parade of more than 5,000 and a Mass at the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul. Catholic involvement in the temperance movement has been very strong since at least the nineteenth century, with a number of specifically Catholic societies formed to encourage moderation or total abstinence from alcohol. In Ireland, the priest Theobald Mathew persuaded thousands of people to sign the temperance pledge, therefore, establishing the Teetotal Abstinence Society in 1838, which would later be renamed the Knights of Father Mathew.[citation needed] The League of the Cross was a Catholic total abstinence confraternity founded in 1873 by Cardinal Henry Edward Manning. The Plenary Councils of Baltimore declared: Let the exeretions of Catholic temperance societies meet with hearty co-operation of pastor and people, and they will go farr towards strangling the emonstrous evil of intemperance. Pastoral Lettere, Acta, p. xciii. The misuse of intoxicating drinks is certainly one of the most deplorable evils of our age and country. Intemperance is a constan