Hostname: page-component-84b7d79bbc-c654p Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-28T14:24:30.575Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Voluntaryism: An Irish Catholic Tradition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Patrick Carey
Patrick Carey
Affiliation:
assistant professor of theology in Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Oscar Handlin noted some years ago that most immigrants to the United States found the voluntary practices of American religious institutions “unfamilar and disturbing.” This was not the case with the Irish Catholic immigrants in this country. They had little difficulty adjusting to these practices in America since they had developed them in Ireland before coming to the United States. Thus, many American Irish Catholics viewed voluntaryism not as a uniquely Protestant or American experience; they saw it as part of their Irish Catholic tradition.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 48 , Issue 1 , March 1979 , pp. 49 - 62
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1979

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Handlin, Oscar, The Uprooted: The Epic Story of the Great Migration that made the American People (Boston, 1951), p. 126.Google Scholar

2. Wall, Maureen, The Penal Laws, 1691–1760: Church and State from the Treaty of Limerick to the Accession of George III (Dundalk, 1961), p. 35.Google Scholar I would like to thank Professor Maurice O'Connell of Fordham University for drawing my attention to this work.

3. Ibid., p. 69.

4. Ibid., p. 58.

5. See Burns, Robert E., “Parson, Priests and the People: The Rise of Irish Anti-Clericalism, 1785–89,” Church History 31 (1962):151–163.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6. See the eighth decree of the 1817 Provincial Council of Tuam, , Acta et Decreta Sacrorum Conciliorum Recentiorum Collectio Lacensis, 8 vols. (Friburg, 1875), 3:763.Google Scholar

7. Statuta Synodalia Pro Unitis Dioecesibus Cassel et Imelac… 1810 (Dublin, 1813), p. 123.Google Scholar

8. Murphy, John A., “Priests and People in Modern Irish History,” Christus Rex 23 (10 1969):245.Google Scholar

9. Murphy, John A., “The Support of the Catholic Clergy in Ireland, 1750–1850,” Historical Studies 5 (1965):104.Google Scholar

10. O'Connell, John (ed.), The Select Speeches of Daniel O'Connell, M.P., 2 vols. (Dublin, 1867), 1:165, 169.Google Scholar

11. Ibid., 1:321.

12. Ibid., 1:420.

13. Ibid., 2:16. On O'Connell's position on separation and religious liberty see the excellent study by Sister Coldrick, Helen, “Daniel O'Connell and Religious Freedom,” (Ph.D. dissertation, Fordham University, 1974).Google Scholar

14. Quoted in [England, John], The Religious Repertory (Cork, 1814), p. 35.Google ScholarGuilday, Peter, The Life and Times of John England, 2 vols. (New York, 1927), 1:119–120,Google Scholar indicated that he could not uncover any documentary evidence of England's direct role in the veto controversy. Specially, he was unable to discover any copies of the Repertory (see ibid. 1:83) or any of the Cork Mercantile Chronicle which England edited (see Ibid. 1:111). In 1974, I uncovered three volumes of the Repertory and numerous issues of the Chronicle (1808–1818) in the National Library in Dublin, Ireland, St. Patrick's College, Maynooth, and St. Patrick's College, Carlow. These documents throw new light on England's early clerical career in Ireland and upon his early intellectual development.

15. Ibid., pp. 40–41.

16. The bishops' statements for 1813 and 1814 can be found in England, Repertory, pp. 41–44.

17. On the resolutions from these conferences, see ibid., pp. 53–64; 70; 137; 201–207; 345–350; cf. also Cork Mercantile Chronicle, May 18, 20, 27, 1814.

18. On Doyle, see Fitzpatrick, William, The Life, Times, and Correspondence of the Right Rev. Dr. Doyle, 2 vols. (Boston, 1862).Google Scholar

19. See Coldrick, , “Daniel O'Connell,” pp. 207–237Google Scholar and Reynolds, Ignatius A. (ed.), The Works of the Right Reverend John England, 5 vols. (Baltimore, 1849), 3:511.Google Scholar

20. Doyle, James W., A Defense of His Vindication of the Religious and Civil Principles of the Irish Catholics (Dublin, 1824), p. 41.Google Scholar

21. Doyle, James W., Letters on the State of Ireland (Dublin, 1825), p. 291.Google Scholar

22. On England's position on religious liberty, see Carey, Patrick, “John England and Irish American Catholicism 1815–1842: A Study of Conflict,” (Ph.D. dissertation, Fordham University, 1975), pp. 79–110;Google Scholar see also Rousseau, Richard, “Bishop John England and American Church-State Theory,” (Ph.D. dissertation, Saint Paul University, 1969).Google Scholar

23. Cork Mercantile Chronicle, May 10, 1813.

24. Ibid., June 6, 1814.

25. England, like many of the Irish Catholic liberals, overestimated the financial importance of the regium donum to the Presbyterians. On this, see Beckett, James C., Protestant Dissent in Ireland 1687–1780, Vol. 2 of Studies In Irish History, ed. Moody, T. W., Edwards, R. Dudley and Quinn, David B. (London, 1948), pp. 106–115.Google Scholar

26. England, Repertory, p. 181.

27. Cork Mercantile Chronicle, June 6, 1814.

28. Journal des Debats, October 19, 1830 quoted in United States Catholic Miscellany, December 11, 1830, p. 190.

29. Cork Mercantile Chronicle, September 5, 1814.

30. O'Leary, Arthur, Miscellaneous Tracts, 2nd ed. (Dublin, 1781), p. 345.Google Scholar

31. Cork Mercantile Chronicle, September 5, 1814.

32. Ibid., December 8, 1815.

33. “Bishop Dubois on New York in 1836,” United States Catholic Historical Society Historical Records and Studies 10 (01 1917):126.Google Scholar

34. England to Dr. Michael O'Connor, February 25, 1835, in Guilday, 1:481–482.

35. Reynolds, , Works, 3:505;Google Scholar cf. also “Papers Relating to the Church in America from the Port-folios of the Irish College in Rome,” Records of the American Catholic Historical Society 8 (1897):305–308.Google Scholar

36. Reynolds, , Works, 4:49.Google Scholar

37. Ibid., 1:438; cf. also 3:512.

38. “Papers Relating,” pp. 303, 306.

39. United States Catholic Miscellany, 01 15, 1831, pp. 230–231;Google Scholar January 31, 1832, p. 236.

40. Ibid., February 27, 1841; cf. also Reynolds, , Works, 4:114–115.Google Scholar

41. “Papers Relating,” p. 312.

42. “Diurnal of the Right Rev. John England, First Bishop of Charleston, South Carolina, 1820–1823,” Records of the American Catholic Historical Society 6 (1895):204.Google Scholar

43. Ibid., p. 202.

44. United States Catholic Miscellany, 06 5, 1822, p. 5.Google Scholar

45. Reynolds, , Works, 5:91–105.Google Scholar

46. “Papers Relating,” p. 307.

47. Ibid., p. 317.

48. Reynolds, , Works, 3:241–242.Google Scholar

49. Ibid., 5:421.

50. Ibid., 4:334.

51. Ibid., 1:435–436. England's ideas on freedom within the church were realized in his diocese, but not in many other dioceses at the time.

52. Ibid., 2:81; 1:166, 249.

53. United States Catholic Miscellany, 02 4, 1824, p. 66.Google Scholar

54. Reynolds, , Works, 3:454.Google Scholar

55. Ibid., 2:82.