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Ecumenical Stirrings: Catholic-Protestant Relations during the Episcopacy of John Carroll

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Joseph Agonito
Affiliation:
Mr. Agonito is professor of history in Onondaga Community College, Syracuse, New York.

Extract

In 1790, the year John Carroll was consecrated as the first Roman Catholic Bishop of Baltimore, the Catholic population numbered less than 40,000—a very distinct minority in a country of nearly 4,000,000 people. As a small group living in a society overwhelmingly composed of Protestants, Catholics could not avoid mixing with those of different faiths in their everyday life.1 Carroll viewed such contacts with mixed feelings. As a native American he understood that so many of his countrymen considered his church, however wrongly, an “alien” institution. He resented most the accusation that the allegiance that Catholics owed to Rome detracted from their attachment to the United States.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1976

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References

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73. CarroU to Thayer, 22 February 1791, JCP. Carroll to Plowden, 3 February 1781, MPA, Box 202–B34. While recognizing, at this time, Thayer's good qualities—his piety and defense of the faith—Carroll regretted that the convert-priest was not “more gentle in dealing with heretics, and with his own flock as well.” Carroll to Antonelli, 17 June 1793, JCP.

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77. A copy of Mrs. Jameston's “Affidavit,” dated 11 January 1801 can be found in AAB, Special Case A-H9. It would appear from Badin's correspondence that the case did not move beyond the local level and no legal action was taken against Thayer.

78. Badin to Carroll, 9 March 1801, AAB, Special Case A-H16; Carroll to Badin, 18 March 1801, JCP.

79. Carroll to Badin, January 1801, JCP; Carroll to Badin, 18 March 1801, JCP; Badin to Carroll, 28 October 1800, AAB, Special Case A-H15.

80. Badin to Carroll 5 May 1801, AAB, Special Case A-H2.

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82. Badin to Carroll, 3 November 1801, AAB, Special Case A-H12.

83. Spalding, John Martin, Sketches of the Early Catholic Missions of Kentucky (Baltimore: John Murphy Company, 1844), p. 47,Google Scholar narrates the story of Father Whelan, the first Catholic priest to serve in Kentucky. Whelan was sued for slander by some of his parishioners, and the jury which found him guilty fined the priest five hundred pounds with imprisonment until paid. Fortunately, Whelan. did not go to jail since one of his “detractors” stood bail. Years later, Father Badin spent a night with a man named Ferguson who had served on that jury. Ferguson, not knowing Badin was a priest, said to him of that case: “they [the jurous] had tried very hard to have the priest hanged, but were sorry that they could find no law for it.” See also Spalding, p. 26, n., and pp. 119–120, for further examples of anti-Catholicism.

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99. Bishop Carroll to Charles Carroll, 15 July 1800, AAB, Case 9–F2; Carroll to James Barry, 8 April 1806, AAB, Case 9–C6.

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115. I have developed this theme at length in my dissertation, “The Building of an American Catholic Church: The Episcopacy of John Carroll,” (Ph.D. cilis.: Syracuse University, 1972), chap. 9, “Catholic Opinion of Protestants and Protestantism,” pp. 179–204.

116. Flaget to his brother, 21 March 1811, Mount St. Mary's Seminary Archives, Joseph Herman Schauinger Transcript (Private collection); Memorial of Haroldite Supporters to Carroll, 22 January 1812, AAB, Case 4–M7; DuBourg, Louis Guillaume Valentin, St. Mary's Seminary and Catholics at Large Vindicated Against the Pastoral Letters of the Ministers, Bishops, and of the Presbytery of Baltimore (Baltimore: Bernard Dornin, 1811), p. 43Google Scholar; see also The Catholic Religion Vindicated (n. p.: the author, 1813), p. 57.Google Scholar