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The American Catholic Minority in the Later Nineteenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Thomas T. McAvoy C.S.C.
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Extract

The factors that caused the Roman authorities to insist on a Plenary Council of the American Bishops in 1884 have not been sufficiently explained. Perhaps the role of the American prelates in opposing the opportuneness of the definition of the doctrine of infallibility had some influence. Undoubtedly the reports of the bishops in their ad limina visits to Rome did little to subdue any fears that may have arisen. The frequent appeals of recalcitrant clergymen against their bishops were going directly to Rome because there was no intermediate court. The Instruction of 1878 makes this quite clear. Rome had shown its dissatisfaction with the condition of Catholic education by its interrogatory and its Instruction of 1875. The renewed condemnation of the Fenians had some American effects; and the renewed condemnation of the Masons with applications to certain other American social organizations indicated that all was not well in the social conditions of Catholics in the United States. Had the prelates in Rome understood American democracy and American conditions they would have had to have been much better informed than most Europeans in the nineteenth century. America was to Europe a land of great physical possibility, but a land without any great culture or religious accomplishments. Even European liberals did not understand the manhood suffrage of American democracy. The Catholic leaders of southern Europe, so generally aligned with conservative and monarchist parties, could have little understanding of American democracy in the religious sphere. In Rome where the hierarchical arrangement had not been fully dissociated from monarchical government and where Roman law with its insistence on the union of Church and State was the basis of most political thought, even the most sympathetic seemed to have some misgivings about the manifest loyalty of the American Catholics to the Holy See.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 15 , Issue 3 , July 1953 , pp. 275 - 302
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1953

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References

* This essay is a portion of the author's study of the Americanist controversy (1895–1900) now in preparation. In his researches he received aid in the form of a grant from the American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia.

1 The best account of the American Prelates at the Vatican Council is contained in Clancy, Raymond J., C.S.C., “American Prelates in the Vatican Council”, Historical Records and Studies of the U.S. Catholic Historical Society of New York, Vol. XXVIII, (1937), pp. 7–135.Google Scholar

2 Zwierlein, Frederick J., Life and Letters of Bishop McQuaid (3 vols., Rome and Louvain, 1925–1927). Vol. II, pp. 171–208Google Scholar offers a good example of these troubles. The New York Freeman's Journal carried a series of letters and articles on this subject during the years 1868–71.

3 The Instruction of 1878 is printed in The Pastor, I (04, 1883), 170–178Google Scholar, and quoted in part in Acta et Decreta Concilii Plenarii Baltimorensis Tertii (Baltimore, 1886), pp. 287–297.Google Scholar

4 The Instruction of 1875 is printed in The Pastor, IV (06, 1886), 232–237Google Scholar and quoted in the Acta et Decreta Concilii Plenarii Baltimorensis Tertii (pp. 279–282)Google Scholar. Cf. Burns, J. A., C.S.C., Growth and Development of the Catholic School System in the United States (New York, 1912) pp 189–196.Google Scholar

5 Cf. Macdonald, Fergus, The Catholic Church and Secret Societies in the United States (New York, 1946), pp. 32–62, and the correspondence between Archbishop John B. Purcell of Cincinnati and Cardinal Barnabo and Cardinal Patrizi on the subject, in the Cincinnati Papers, University of Notre Dame Archives.Google Scholar

6 Billington, Ray Allen, The Protestant Crusade (New York, 1938)Google Scholar, Chapter I, “The Roots of anti-Catholic prejudice.”

7 Most studies of intolerance in the United States seem to have missed the fact that the rise of intolerance in any group usually comes when the group enjoys prosperity. Persecution in social matters costs money and implies a feeling of superiority not usually associated with difficult times.

8 Cardinal John McCloskey (1810–1885) was Bishop of Albany from 1847 to 1864 and Archbishop of New York from 1864 to 1885.

9 Lord, R. H., Sexton, J. E. and Harrington, E. T., History of the Archdiocese of Boston (3 vols. New York, 1944), III, 63–87Google Scholar, treats of this post-war outburst. Pp. 86–87 treats of the political aspects of the movement.

10 Desmond, H. J., The A. P. A. Movement: a Sketch (Washington, 1912)Google Scholar is a popular treatment of the history of the movement.

11 A letter of Bishop John J. Keane to Archbishop James Gibbons, July 4, 1883, in the Baltimore Cathedral Archives contains a good discussion of the causes of misunderstanding between Rome and the American bishops and the suggestion that an American representative in Rome was more important than a Roman representative in the United States.

12 Ellis, John Tracy, The Life of James Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore 1834–1921. 2 vols. (Milwaukee, 1952)Google Scholar, is the latest study of this distinguished prelate. Father Ellis has probed most of the archival sources on his subject and gives a full account of the preliminary meeting of the Archbishops, the appointment of Gibbons, and of the Council in I, 203–251.

13 Spalding, J. L., The Life of Most Rev. M. J. Spalding, Archbishop of Baltimore (New York, 1873), pp. 298–320, especially pp. 301–2Google Scholar; Concilia Plenarii Baltimorensis II (1866) Acta et Decreta (Baltimore, 1877).Google Scholar

14 I have discussed this briefly in “The Catholic Minority in the United States 1789–1821”, Historical Records and Studies of the U. S. Catholic Historical Society XXXIX–XL (1952): 33–50.Google Scholar

15 Lord, , Sexton, and Harrington, , op. cit., III:3–437.Google Scholar

16 Memorial of the Most Reverend Michael Augustine Corrigan, Third Archbishop (New York, 1902)Google Scholar is the only volume on Archbishop Corrigan, but his activities are recorded partially in the biographies of Gibbons, Ireland and McQuaid.

17 The three volume Zwierlein study of McQuaid to which we have already referred was an outstanding contribution to the study of American Church history. Much archival material has been made available since their publication, but the incentives to most of the recent studies have come from the frankness of Father Zwierlein's work which aroused interest in the personalities he discussed.

18 Lamott, John H., History of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati 1821–1921 (Cincinnati, 1921)Google Scholar, treats briefly of Purcell, pp. 70–85.

19 Cf. J. L. Spalding's biography referred to above, footnote 13.

20 There is no satisfactory biography of Bishop John Lancaster Spalding. Cf. McAvoy, T. T., C.S.C., “Bishop John Lancaster Spalding and the Catholic Minority (1877–1908)”, Review of Politics, XII:3–19.Google Scholar

21 There are some interesting documents quoted in Character Glimpses of Most Rev. William Henry Elder, Second Archbishop of Cincinnati (New York, 1910).Google Scholar

22 Barry, Colman's The Catholic Church and German Americans (Milwaukee, 1953)Google Scholar was not yet available when this essay was written.

23 Moynihan, James, The Life of Archbishop John Ireland (New York, 1953)Google Scholar has given us the first real biography of the central figure of middle-western Catholicism during this period. Moynihan gives us a vivid picture of the strong character of the archbishop and of his eminent leadership in a period of great controversy.

24 O'Shea, John J., The Two Kenricks (Philadelphia, 1910)Google Scholar, is interesting but inadequate on these two scholarly prelates who held the important sees of Baltimore and St. Louis at the time of Civil War.

25 Howlett, W. J., Life of the Right Reverend Joseph P. Machebeuf, D.D. (Pueblo, 1908)Google Scholar, remains one of the best sources on the Missionary period in the southwest even though Machebeuf went later to Colorado.

26 Much work remains to be done on these western regions. Palladino, L. B., S. J., Indian and White in the Northwest (Baltimore, 1894)Google Scholar treats of Montana missionary activity, and Walsh, Henry J., S. J., Hallowed Were the Gold Dust Trails (U. of Santa Clara, 1946)Google Scholar, treats of the mission activities in Northern California.

27 Baudier, Roger, The Catholic Church in Louisiana (New Orleans, 1939)Google Scholar is a pioneer attempt to tell the story of this southern center of French and American Catholicism. Much remains to be done on this history which is replete with romantic and tragic episodes.

28 A copy of the Capita Praecipua … pro futuro Concilio, preserved in the Boston Archdiocesan Archives, was obtained through the courtesy of Father John Tracy Ellis.

29 The official account of the Council and its decrees are contained in the Acta et Decreta to which I have already referred.

30 The Memorial Volume: A History of the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore November 9-December 7, 1884 (Baltimore, 1885)Google Scholar lists the members of the Council with brief accounts of the prelates and contains the chief sermons and the pastoral letter of the Council.

31 The Constitution Romanos Pontifices of Leo XIII is printed Acta et Decreta, pp. 212–230.Google Scholar

32 Official Report of the Proceedings of the Catholic Congress Held at Baltimore, Md. November 11th and 12th, 1889 (Detroit, 1889)Google Scholar contains many interesting and informative papers prepared for the Congress.

33 Progress of the Catholic Church in America and the Catholic Columbian Congress of 1893, 2 vols, in 1 (4th ed. Chicago, 1897)Google Scholar, gives many of the addresses of this 1893 Congress in the second volume.

34 Pahorezki, Sister M. Sevina, O.S.F., The Social and Political Activities of William James Onahan (Washington, 1942)Google Scholar is the best account of Onahan. Studies of Henry Brownson and the other lay leaders of the day are much needed.

35 Schaff, Philip, America: a Sketch of the Political, Social and Religious Character of the United States, Tr. from the German, (New York, 1885), p. 226.Google Scholar