Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-2pzkn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-22T03:21:15.270Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

An “Aristocracy of Virtue”: Cultural Development of the American Catholic Priesthood, 1884–1920s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 June 2018

Donna J. Drucker
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article examines advice literature directed at English-speaking members of the American Catholic priesthood in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. From the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore in 1884 through the late 1920s, advice literature transformed from emphasizing how the priest should be a man set above the laity into emphasizing how the priest should be part of a broad priestly fraternity, taking on the role of a public citizen speaking out on issues of the day. After the modernist controversies of the first decade of the twentieth century that stifled their intellectual development, American priests’ seminary training particularly emphasized virile masculinity, athletic rigor, and duty and conformity to their superiors. In the late nineteenth century, advice literature encouraged priests to see their lives together in rectories as schools of charity, where all of the priests would, with the assistance of obedient and nonthreatening household staff, encourage each other to be men of prayer and self-sacrifice despite each others’ individual foibles. Every aspect of a priest's life, from the rectory environment to his clothing and bearing, was supposed to mark him as a man set apart. During and after World War I, however, advice literature shifted from addressing the priest's life in his rectory and parish alone to encouraging him to participate in civic duties as an American citizen. Diocesan priests like John A. Ryan took a lead role in advocating for social reforms that married public policy with social and economic justice. While priests’ sacramental duties remained at the center of their lives and ministries, advice literature nonetheless encouraged them to rethink their place in the sociocultural landscape and to become more vocal promoters of Catholic values in the public sphere.

Type
Research Article
Information
Religion and American Culture , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , Summer 2011 , pp. 227 - 258
Copyright
Copyright © Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture 2011

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

Notes

1. Bruneau, Joseph, Our Priesthood (St. Louis: B. Herder, 1911), 143 Google Scholar.

2. Degler, Carl N., “What Ought to Be and What Was: Women's Sexuality in the Nineteenth Century,” American Historical Review 79 (December 1974): 1477 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

3. Hackett, David G., “Gender and Religion in American Culture, 1870–1930,” Religion and American Culture 5 (Summer 1995): 127, 131CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bederman, Gail, Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880–1917 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 7 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4. For examples, see Hoge, Dean R. and Wenger, Jacqueline E., Evolving Visions of the Priesthood: Changes from Vatican II to the Turn of the New Century (Collegeville, Minn.: Litugical Press, 2003)Google Scholar; Hoge, Dean R., The First Five Years of the Priesthood: A Study of Newly Ordained Catholic Priests (Collegeville, Minn.: Litugical Press, 2002)Google Scholar; Unsworth, Tim, The Last Priests in America: Conversations with Remarkable Men (New York: Crossroad, 1991)Google Scholar; and Schoenherr, Richard A. and Young, Lawrence A., Full Pews and Empty Altars: Demographics of the Priest Shortage in United States Catholic Dioceses (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1993)Google Scholar.

5. For one example of the many works on the scandals, see Greeley, Andrew M., Priests: A Calling in Crisis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6. James T. Fisher, “Christopher Kaufmann, the U.S. Catholic Historian, and the Future of American Catholic History,” U.S. Catholic Historian 24 (Spring 2006): 25.

7. Ellis, John Tracy, ed., The Catholic Priest in the United States: Historical Investigations (Collegeville, Minn.: Saint John's University Press, 1971), xiv Google Scholar; Tentler, Leslie Woodcock, “‘God's Representative in Our Midst’: Toward a History of the Catholic Diocesan Clergy in the United States,” Church History 67 (June 1998): 326 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On Yorke, Peter C., see Gribble, Richard, “A ‘Consecrated Thunderbolt’ of Catholic Education: The Contribution of Peter C. Yorke,” U.S. Catholic Historian 24 (Spring 2006): 57–69 Google Scholar, esp. 61n12; Brusher, Joseph S., Consecrated Thunderbolt: Father Yorke of San Francisco (New York: Hawthorne, 1973);Google Scholar and Hackett, , “Gender and Religion in American Culture,” 139 Google Scholar. On the diocesan priesthood in the 1930–1980 period, see R. Scott Appleby, , “Present to the People of God: The Transformation of the Roman Catholic Priesthood,” in Transforming Parish Ministry: The Changing Roles of Catholic Clergy, ed. Dolan, Jay P. and others (New York: Crossroad, 1989), 1–107 Google Scholar.

8. Tentler, “‘God's Representative in Our Midst,’” 328.

9. Leo XIII, “True and False, Americanism in Religion [Testem Benevolentiae],” in Leo XIII, The Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII (New York: Benziger Bros., 1908), 441–53; Pius X, “On the Doctrines of the Modernists [Pascendi Dominici Gregis],” September 8, 1907, http://wwwvatican.va/holy_father/pius_x/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-x_enc_19070908_pascendi-dominici-gregis_en.html (accessed April 25, 2011); Michael V. Gannon, “Before and After Modernism: The Intellectual Isolation of the American Priest,” in Ellis, , Historical Investigations, 340–41Google Scholar; Dolan, Jay P., The American Catholic Experience: A History from Colonial Times to the Present (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992), 315–19Google Scholar; and Hennesey, James, American Catholics: A History of the Roman Catholic Community in the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981), 217 Google Scholar.

10. Shelley, Thomas J., “A Sober Anniversary,” America 198 (March 31, 2008)Google Scholar, http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=10718 (accessed April 25, 2011); Ellis, John Tracy, “The Formation of the American Priest: An Historical Perspective,” in Ellis, Historical Investigations, 75 Google Scholar; and Morris, Charles R., American Catholic: The Saints and Sinners Who Built America's Most Powerful Church (New York: Vintage, 1997), 135 Google Scholar.

11. Bederman, , Manliness and Civilization, 7 Google Scholar.

12. Ibid., 11–12; and Charles Rosenberg, “Sexuality, Class, and Role in Nineteenth-Century America,” American Quarterly 25 (May 1973): 139.

13. For examples of the substantial literature on gender and class in the Victorian era, see Bederman, Manliness and Civilization, 11–12, 17; Cott, Nancy F., The Bonds of Womanhood: “Woman's Sphere” in New England, 1780–1835 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977)Google Scholar; Blumin, Stuart M., The Emergence of the Middle Class: Social Experience in the American City, 1760–1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989)Google Scholar; and Rosenberg, “Sexuality, Class, and Role in Nineteenth-Century America,” 142–53.

14. McDannell, Colleen, “‘True Men as We Need Them’: Catholicism and the Irish American Male,” American Studies 26 (Fall 1986): 19 Google Scholar; and Cummings, Thomas Harrison, “The Catholic Gentleman in Fraternity,” Donahoe's Magazine 33 (November 1895), 1249 Google Scholar, quoted in Gender Identities in American Catholicism, ed. Paula Kane, James Kenneally, and Karen Kennelly (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 2001), 54.

15. O’Reilly, Bernard, The Mirror of True Womanhood; A Book of Instruction for Women in the World (1877; repr., New York: P. J. Kenedy, 1883), 289 Google Scholar.

16. McDannell, “‘True Men as We Need Them,’” 21; Zuleta, F[rancis] M., The Divine Educator; Or Guide to the Promotion of Frequent and Daily Communion in Educational Establishments (New York: P. J. Kenedy & Sons, 1912), 245 Google Scholar; and Slater, T[homas] and Rauch, A., Rules of Life for the Pastor of Souls (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1909), 31 Google Scholar.

17. Zuleta, , Divine Educator, 248 Google Scholar.

18. Rung, Albert, The Seminarian: His Character and Work (New York: P. J. Kenedy & Sons, 1916), 117–18Google Scholar; and A[dolph] von Doss, Thoughts and Counsels for the Consideration of Catholic Young Men, trans. and adapt. Augustine Wirth (Elizabeth, N.J.: N.p., 1889), 213. G. Stanley Hall, the psychologist and founder of Clark University, was well known for his stance against adolescent masturbation. See Bederman, Manliness and Civilization, 48, 81–83, 101–2, 261n11.

19. Shaughnessy, Gerald, Has the Immigrant Kept the Faith? A Study of Immigration and Catholic Growth in the United States, 1790–1920 (New York: Macmillan, 1925), 262 Google Scholar; Morris, , American Catholic, 114, 446Google Scholar.

20. Concilii Plenarii Baltimorensis II., in Ecclesia Metropolitana Baltimorensi (1866; repr., Baltimore: John B. Piet and Sons, 1882), 93–100 (pars. 147–63); Decreta Concilii Plenarii Baltimorensis Tertii (1884; Baltimore: John Murphy, 1901), 39–42 (pars. 74–81); and John Daniel Mary Barrett, “A Comparative Study of the Councils of Baltimore and the Code of Canon Law” (Ph.D. diss., Catholic University of America, 1932), 48–50, 52–53. Translations are author's own.

21. Sullivan, Robert E., “Beneficial Relations: Toward a Social History of the Diocesan Priests of Boston, 1875–1944,” in Catholic Boston: Studies in Religion and Community, 1870–1970, ed. Sullivan, Robert E. and O’Toole, James (Boston: N.p., 1985).Google Scholar

22. 1 Thessalonians 4:4–5; 1 Timothy 5:13; Concilii Plenarii Baltimorensis II., 101 (par. 164).

23. Concilii Plenarii Baltimorensis II., 101, 105 (pars. 164, 169); and Decreta Concilii Plenarii Baltimorensis Tertii, 42–43 (par. 81).

24. Millet, Jacques, Jesus Living in the Priest, trans. Byrne, Thomas (New York: Benziger Bros., 1901)Google Scholar; Manning, Henry Edward Cardinal, The Eternal Priesthood (Baltimore: John Murphy and Co., 1883)Google Scholar; Keatinge, James, The Priest, His Character, and His Work (New York: Benziger Bros., 1901)Google Scholar; Gibbons, James Cardinal, The Ambassador of Christ (Baltimore: John Murphy and Co., 1896)Google Scholar; and White, Joseph M., The Diocesan Seminary in the United States: A History from the 1780s to the Present (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1989), 211–12Google Scholar.

25. For an extensive discussion of the growth and development of American seminaries, see White, Diocesan Seminary in the United States; on Ireland, see ibid., 212–14. This article does not include a full explanation of all of the priests’ sacramental duties. For analysis of diocesan clergy in St Paul, Minnesota, and in St. Louis, Missouri, see Daniel P. O’Neill, “The Development of American Priesthood: Archbishop John Ireland and the Saint Paul Diocesan Clergy, 1884–1918,” Journal of American Ethnic History 4 (Spring 1985): 34–35; and James Hitchcock, “Secular Clergy in Nineteenth-Century America: A Diocesan Profile,” Records of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia 88 (March- December 1977): 31–62.

26. White, Diocesan Seminary in the United States, 212–24, 338–41, quote on 223.

27. Doss, , Thoughts and Counsels for the Consideration of Catholic Young Men, 497, 498, 499, 500Google Scholar; Slater, and Rauch, , Rules of Life for the Pastor of Souls, 77 Google Scholar; and Sullivan, “Beneficial Relations,” 218.

28. Sullivan, “Beneficial Relations,” 206; William Graham, “Sermon on the Occasion of a Priests’ Silver Jubilee,” Homiletic Monthly and Catechist 5 (April 1905): 630–32, quote on 630; and John Cavanaugh, “The Christian Priesthood: Sermon Delivered by the Very Rev. John Cavanaugh, C.S.C., D.D., President of the University of Notre Dame, upon the Occasion of the First Holy Mass of the Rev. John F. O’Hara, C.S.C.,” Homiletic Monthly and Catechist 17 (June 1917): 741. O’Hara later became president of Notre Dame himself, archbishop of Philadelphia, and a cardinal.

29. Bruneau, , Our Priesthood, 133 Google Scholar; and R. F. Moore, “The Priest and Society: Address Delivered on the Occasion of the Civic Celebration of the Silver Jubilee of the Rev. J. T. Winters (New Britain, Conn.), by Rev. R. F. Moore, A.M.,” Homiletic Monthly and Catechist 6 (September 1906): 926.

30. D[aniel] Berberich, “Sermon on the Occasion of Priests’ Silver Jubilee,” Homiletic Monthly and Catechist 5 (January 1905): 350; Nash, John J., “The Dignity of the Priest: Preached at the Silver Jubilee of Rev. Felix Scullin by the Rev. John J. Nash, D.D.,” Homiletic Monthly and Catechist 15 (December 1915): 266 Google Scholar; Berberich, “Sermon on the Occasion of Priests’ Silver Jubilee,” 352; and Nash, “Dignity of the Priest,” 267. Berberich was a Pallotine missionary priest known for serving former slaves in the diocese of Charleston, South Carolina, in the 1890s. Nash and Scullin were priests in the diocese of Buffalo, New York.

31. Ferdinand Heckmann, “The Power and Dignity of the Catholic Priesthood: Sermon Delivered on the Occasion of the First Holy Mass of the Rev. John J. Cleary, in St. Elizabeth's Church, Wyckoff, N.J.,” Homiletic Monthly and Pastoral Review 19 (June 1919): 791. Heckmann was a Franciscan who wrote many entries in the Catholic Encyclopedia (New York: Robert Appelton Co., 1907–1912).

32. Bruneau, , Our Priesthood, 140 Google Scholar.

33. Midler, Michael, The Catholic Priesthood (New York: Fred. Pustet and Co., 1885), 210 Google Scholar.

34. Ellis, John Tracy, American Catholicism, 2d ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969), 124 Google Scholar; Morris, , American Catholic, 115–17Google Scholar, quote on 134; Tentler, “‘God's Representative in Our Midst,’” 329. See also Gannon, “Before and After Modernism,” 356.

35. O’Neill, Arthur Barry, Sacerdotal Safeguards: Casual Readings for Rectors and Curates (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1918), 71, 75.Google Scholar

36. Manning, , Eternal Priesthood, 247 Google Scholar; and White, , Diocesan Seminary in the United States, 210, 455n3Google Scholar.

37. Gannon, “Before and After Modernism,” 356.

38. Sheehan, Patrick Augustine, My New Curate: A Story Gathered from the Stray Leaves of an Old Diary (Boston: Marlier and Co., 1901), 117.Google Scholar

39. Ibid., 221.

40. Keatinge, , Priest, 157–58Google Scholar. See also Geiermann, Peter, The Mediator: Jesus Christ in the Scriptures; The Model of the Priest (St. Louis: B. Herder, 1917), 311–12Google Scholar; and Barry O’Neill, Arthur, Clerical Colloquies: Essays and Dialogues on Subjects Sacerdotal (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1916), 139 Google Scholar.

41. Clasby, M. C., “Petty Jealousy in the Rectory: A Diagnosis and Remedy,” Homiletic Monthly and Pastoral Review 25 (January 1925): 359, 360Google Scholar; and Clasby, M. C., “Petty Jealousy in the Rectory: A Diagnosis and Remedy (Concluded),” Homiletic Monthly and Pastoral Review 25 (February 1925): 487 Google Scholar. See also Schaefers, William, “Clerical Companionship,” Homiletic Monthly and Pastoral Review 28 (July 1928): 1080–81Google Scholar; and O’Neill, , Sacerdotal Safeguards, 80 Google Scholar.

42. Sullivan, “Beneficial Relations,” 225.

43. Clasby, “Petty Jealousy in the Rectory,” 357; Slater, and Rauch, , Rules of Life for the Pastor of Souls, 107 Google Scholar.

44. Sullivan, “Beneficial Relations,” 223; Tentler, “‘God's Representative in Our Midst,’” 338; and Sheehan, , My New Curate, 226 Google Scholar. For similar sentiments, see Geiermann, , Mediator, 313, 334–36Google Scholar; and Kelley, Francis C., Dominus Vobiscum: A Book of Letters (Chicago: Matre and Co., 1922), 133 Google Scholar.

45. Sheehan, , My New Curate, 227 Google Scholar. See also O’Neill, , Sacerdotal Safeguards, 54, 64.Google Scholar

46. Manning, , Eternal Priesthood, 248 Google Scholar.

47. Tentler, , “‘God's Representative in Our Midst,’” 39; and O’Neill, Sacerdotal Safeguards, 71–72 Google Scholar.

48. Cavanaugh, John, “The Priest and His Friends,” Homiletic Monthly and Pastoral Review 20 (April 1920): 633 Google Scholar.

49. Manning, , Eternal Priesthood, 241 Google Scholar.

50. Slater, and Rauch, , Rules of Life for the Pastor of Souls, 32 Google Scholar (see also O’Neill, , Clerical Colloquies, 36–37 Google Scholar; and Kelley, , Dominus Vobiscum, 258)Google Scholar; Sullivan, “Beneficial Relations,” 235–37, 226.

51. Slater, and Rauch, , Rules of Life for the Pastor of Souls, 78–79 Google Scholar; for quote, see Manning, , Eternal Priesthood, 243–44Google Scholar.

52. Sheehan, , My New Curate, 6 Google Scholar; Clasby, “Petty Jealousy in the Rectory (Concluded),” 491. See also Geiermann, , Mediator, 309 Google Scholar; and Keatinge, , Priest, 158–60Google Scholar.

53. Sullivan, “Beneficial Relations,” 221; Cavanaugh, “Priest and His Friends,” 632; Slater, and Rauch, , Rules of Life for the Pastor of Souls, 47 Google Scholar; O’Neill, Arthur Barry, Priestly Practice: Familiar Essays on Clerical Topics, 2d ed. (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1914), 159–73, 224–27Google Scholar; and Keatinge, James, The Priest: His Character and Work, 2d ed. (New York: Benziger Bros., 1914), 140–42Google Scholar. See also Manning, , Eternal Priesthood, 249 Google Scholar; and Jordan, Edward B., “Nature Study as a Hobby for Priests,” American Ecclesiastical Review 52 (June 1920): 657–67Google Scholar.

54. Keatinge, , Priest, 2d ed., 107, 167Google Scholar; O’Neill, , Priestly Practice, 74–85, 223–24Google Scholar.

55. Sullivan, “Beneficial Relations,” 217; and O’Neill, , Clerical Colloquies, 138 Google Scholar.

56. Kelley, , Dominus Vobiscum, 128–29Google Scholar.

57. Moore, , “Priest and Society,” 926 Google Scholar.

58. Ibid., 927.

59. Schaefers, “Clerical Companionship,” 1081; and Tentler, “’God's Representative in Our Midst,’” 328.

60. Dolan, American Catholic Experience, 342–44; and Ryan, John A., “‘Program of Social Reconstruction,’ Issued 12 February 1919 by the Administrative Committee of the National Catholic War Council,” in Public Voices: Catholics in the American Context, ed. Avella, Steven M. and McKeown, Elizabeth (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1999), 115–21Google Scholar.

61. Slater, and Rauch, , Rules of Life for the Pastor of Souls, 48 Google Scholar; Rung, Albert, “Esprit de Corps among Priests,” Homiletic Monthly and Pastoral Review 20 (May 1920): 753 Google Scholar; and Slater, and Rauch, , Rules of Life for the Pastor of Souls, 102 Google Scholar.

62. Shaughnessy, , Has the Immigrant Kept the Faith? 262 Google Scholar.

63. Rung, “Esprit de Corps among Priests,” 754, 757.

64. Schmidt, George T., The American Priest (New York: Benziger Bros., 1919), 14 Google Scholar.

65. Ibid., 64–65.

66. Ibid., 20, 22.

67. Tentler, “‘God's Representative in Our Midst,”’ 338; and Schaefers, “Clerical Companionship,” 1082–83.

68. Schaefers, “Clerical Companionship,” 1084.