The National Catholic Welfare Council (NCWC) was the annual meeting of the American Catholic episcopacy and its standing secretariat; it was established in 1919 as the successor to an emergency wartime organization, the National Catholic War Council. It consisted of a staff of clergy as well as committees of bishops who discussed and sometimes issued statements on matters of national policy such as education, welfare, and health care. Its successor is the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

In order to better address challenges posed by World War I, the American Catholic hierarchy in 1917 chose to meet collectively for the first time since 1884. In June, two months after America's entry into the European war, Paulist Father and Catholic World editor John J. Burke, Catholic University sociology professor William Kerby, Paulist Father Lewis O'Hern, and the former Secretary of Labor, Charles P. Neill, met in Washington, D.C. to formulate an official Catholic response to the war.

As the group's spokesman, Burke consulted with Cardinal James Gibbons of Baltimore, who approved an August meeting of the hierarchy. Representatives from sixty-eight dioceses and twenty-seven Catholic societies met at the Catholic University of America and formed the National Catholic War Council, "to study, coordinate, unify and put in operation all Catholic activities incidental to the war." An executive committee, chaired by Cardinal George Mundelein of Chicago, was formed in December 1917, to oversee the work of the Council.

After World War I ended, Burke and Gibbons led a campaign to establish a permanent bishops' council. The issue of prohibition and the threat of federalization of education necessitated a united Catholic response that only an episcopal conference could provide. Thus, on 24 September 1919, ninety-five prelates from eighty-seven of the country's one hundred dioceses came together at The Catholic University; the result was the formation of the National Catholic Welfare Council.

Archbishop Edward Hanna of San Francisco was elected as the first chairman; he continued as chairman through his retirement in 1935. As chairman, he was responsible for coordinating the American bishops' lobbying efforts and response to the domestic and foreign policies of the government.

The Council created five departments: Education, Legislation, Social Action, Lay Organizations, and Press and Publicity, each headed by a bishop. John Burke was appointed general secretary and Archbishop Hanna was elected to chair an administrative committee whose task he described thus: "The Executive Department has to deal directly with the United States government and its numerous departments on matters that affect Catholic interests."

In 1920, the National Catholic Welfare Council established a Bureau of Immigration to assist immigrants in getting established in the United States. The Bureau launched a port assistance program that met incoming ships, helped immigrants through the immigration process and provided loans to them. The bishops, priests, and laymen and women of the National Catholic Welfare Conference (NCWC) became some of the most outspoken critics of US immigration.

Pope Benedict XV died on January 22, 1922. Cardinals O'Connell and Dougherty arrived in Rome on February 6, only to learn that a new pope had been elected only a half-hour before. As Dougherty was leaving Rome, he was handed a decree of the Consistorial Congregation, signed by Cardinal Gaetano De Lai, one of O'Connell's friends, and dated February 25. It ordered the immediate disbanding of the NCWC.