Catholic temperance movement

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, Father Theobald Mathew persuaded thousands of people to sign the pledge, therefore, establishing the Teetotal Abstinence Society in 1838, which would later be renamed the Knights of Father Mathew.

The League of the Cross was a Catholic total abstinence confraternity founded in 1873 by Cardinal Manning.

Many years later, in 1898, James Cullen founded the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association in response of the fading influence of the original temperance pledge.