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The Catholic Church in America |
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The Spanish Missions
The Spanish were greedy; they robbed, pillaged and eventually annihilated millions of Indians in South and North America. They were conquistadors. Theirs was a crusade, made all the more "just" precisely because it was conducted on behalf of the Church.
The marriage between conquest and conversion was not unusual in Europe during the 15th and 16th centuries. Most people were still viewing life through a medieval prism view that knew no separation between religion and society, church and world.
The two realms were interwoven in such a way that it was unthinkable to distinguish the sacred from the secular, to separate religion from the activities of daily life.
Columbus was a good example of this mentality. His thoughts, deeds and aspirations were permeated with religious faith. He was more particular than many clergymen in saying daily the Divine Office of the Church and seldom missed an opportunity to hear mass on his voyage of discovery. Columbus prayed daily and sang the Salve Regina. He believed he was an instrument of God, whose providence and power had safely brought him to America. And even though Columbus was a sailor and not a saint, religion was the indispensable compass of his life.
In the new world there was no limit to the Spanish Crown’s authority. Its control over the church was absolute, and the Spanish king was virtually the pope of the new world. The Crown controlled the appointment of bishops and superiors of religious orders. Any cleric going to America had to be approved by the Crown.
The Spanish conquest of the new world and the beginnings of Catholicism in the United States must be viewed against the cultural and religious background of 16th century Spain. Spanish civilization was permeated with religion. The new world was viewed by many as the Promised Land, the last, best hope of Christianity. The Catholicism of the conquistador and the friar was a blend of profound spirituality and racial superiority. These traits in one way or another, helped to shape the Spanish phase of colonial Catholic history.
The French missions
The lust for gold and the Northwest Passage to the orient led French and English explorers to the North American seaboard. Instead of gold and a passageway to the east, they found codfish, and lots of it. Throughout the 16th century, scores the fishermen set up stations along the coast of Newfoundland to harvest the abundant fish of the north Atlantic. Soon they came across another valuable commodity, the beaver, and it was not long before the French were involved in lucrative trade with the Indians of North America.
In 1608 Samuel de Champlain (1567?-1635) founded Quebec as the center of the new colony and from there he went up river toward of the Great Lakes exploring the territory and expanding the fur trade.
Soon missionaries tried vainly to evangelize the Indians. When the French gained control of Canada, the Jesuits were eager to take up their work. The crown granted them undisputed control of the Indian missions and in 1632 they began a crusade for souls which would take them from Quebec to New Orleans and from the Saint Lawrence to the upper Great Lakes.
By the middle of the 17th century, the number of Jesuits had increased to 15,000 world-wide. They were spread across the globe preaching the gospel in India, in Africa and in America. The Jesuits were the most dynamic element of the Roman Church between 1550 and 1650.
Native American Cultures
To convert and civilize the Indians was a monumental task which ultimately ended up in frustration and failure. The reasons for this are not hard to discover. One of the most obvious was the language barrier. Yet in the early 17th century, Franciscans in missions in Florida and New Mexico did attempt to learn the native language so they could evangelize the Indians more effectively.
But learning the language of the Indians was only the first step. Next came the necessity of translating the gospel message into the language of the natives; this proved to be a serious problem. Fundamental to this was the difference between the two cultural systems. The Europeans possess and literate culture and the religious system that thrived on textbook precision. The Indian culture was not literate and their language did not possess the language usage of catholic theology. A Jesuit in New France described this cultural difference:
“They have no words which can represent the mysteries of religion, and it would be impossible to translate even the Lord’s Prayer into their language save by paraphrase. For of themselves they do not know what is sanctification, or the kingdom of heaven, or to lead into temptation. The words glory, virtue, reason, beatitude, Trinity, Holy Spirit, angels, archangels, resurrection, paradise, hell, Church, baptism, faith, hope, charity, and an infinity of others are not in use among them.”
The Indian mind was not empty as regards religion. It was formed by a tribal lore, ritual, and belief. Once their religion was challenged by the missionary they reacted critically, evaluating the religion of the white man in relation to their own beliefs and customs.
Conversion to Christianity meant, men adopting new clothes, a new language, a new moral system regarding marriage and sex, and often an apostolic fervor to go forth and persuade others to do likewise. Such radical conversion seemed to have been more the exception than the norm.
Despite intensive evangelization in California native and religious customs persisted. “Superstitions of the most extravagant nature were found.”
The shaman, whose presence was a challenge to the authority of the friar, also remained a highly respected figure in the community. One 19th century visitor to the mission of San Luis Rey said “though all are Christians they still keep many of their own beliefs which the padres, from policy, pretended not to know.”
Catholics in the English Colonies
In March of 1634, two ships, the Ark and the Dove sailed up the Potomac River. After four months on the high seas the group of about 140 had at last reached Maryland and was about to begin a new chapter in the English colonization of North America. The founding of Maryland was a joint effort of Catholics and Protestants to establish the colony where “mutual love and amity” would prevail among people of differing religious beliefs. The Story of the Ark and the DoveBy the time two small wooden sailing ships lifted anchor, on the 22nd day of November, 1633, and set sail from Cowes, Isle of Wight, England, much planning already had been done. Cecil Calvert, the organizer of the venture, was sending people to establish the English colony of Maryland on the North American coast. He did not want to repeat any of the mistakes made by earlier groups, such as the colonists at Jamestown and Plymouth, and so he made sure his travelers were well prepared. He carefully chose people who were important to the success of the colony: farmers to grow food, carpenters and brick layers to build houses, shipbuilders, blacksmiths, even soldiers for protection. Among the colonists were two Jesuits priests. It is from the writings of Father Andrew White that we have learned so much about the voyage of the Ark and Dove, as well as the early years of settlement in Maryland. As part of the planning, the Calverts carefully selected and stored barrels of flour, meat, dried vegetables, water, beer, sugar, salt, vinegar, and other food stuff. The colonists had to take enough food, not only for the long voyage, but to keep the settlement alive in case no other food was found when they arrived. Clothing for everyone, for both summer and winter, was packed. Seeds, roots, and plant cuttings were stored for planting fields and gardens. Many kinds of tools were taken for home and furniture construction, farming, building fortifications, and even making small boats. The ships were armed with cannon for protection at sea from pirates. Guns, knives, and swords were brought for protection and hunting when they reached land. Even trade goods were packed for trading with Native Americans. All of these provisions were stored on board so they took up as little space as possible and in such a way that food-related items would not spoil. Between space for supplies and living accommodations for approximately 200 men and women, the little ships were quite full. One lesson the Calvert family had learned from earlier ventures was correct timing. The voyage left England in the fall so that the band of colonists would arrive in North America in the spring. This way they would have time to grow food before the following winter and would not need warm houses for several months. Finally, the two ships set sail. They would not travel directly westward toward Maryland. Instead, a southwesterly course was set, with planned stops at the Canary Islands and then the Cape Verde Islands off the west coast of Africa, then west across the Atlantic Ocean to Barbados Island in the Caribbean. These would be stepping stones across the vast Atlantic, and the route should give them favorable winds. From the calmer waters of the Caribbean, the ships planned to sail northward up the coast of North America, with a stop in Virginia before proceeding to Maryland. Not long after going to sea, the Ark and Dove were swept by a terrible storm. At midnight, the Dove signaled that it was in distress. So fierce were the wind and waves, however, that the Ark could not help. When dawn came, the Dove had disappeared. The Ark sailed on alone. The ship reached Barbados on January 3, 1634. As the passengers and crew rested and gathered fresh water and food supplies, the Dove appeared on the horizon. The smaller vessel had turned back to the English harbor and waited out the storm before continuing on. All were united again. On February 27, both ships arrived off of Point Comfort, Virginia and visited the colonists at Jamestown. They bought pigs, cows, and other needed supplies. Soon they set sail up the Chesapeake Bay, bound for the Potomac River and Maryland. People crowded the decks anxious to get their first glimpse of Maryland and its forests, birds, and Indians. At a small island then called St. Clement's (today called Blakistone) they went ashore, set up a large cross, and gave thanks for their safe arrival. The date was March 25, 1634 which we celebrate today as Maryland Day.
The settlers were not yet able to
set up their homes but their long four month sea voyage was
ended. Their next new venture was to begin.
The dream of Protestants and Catholics working together in mutual love and amity vanished rather quickly but Maryland did prosper and became in the new world home for a sizable number of English Catholics.
The Colonies were, first and foremost, profit making ventures. Closely joined to the hope of economic gain was the loftier motive of converting the Indian to Christianity. In this regard the English were not very different from the Spanish and the French.
The religion of the 17th century England, however, was quite different from that of Spain and France. The Protestant reformation had revolutionized the religious situation in England. The authority of the papacy was overthrown, monasteries were ransacked and Catholics went into exile.
The Church of England replaced the Church of Rome, and Queen Elizabeth became the supreme governor of the English Christianity. From many English men and women the Elizabethan church had still remained too Catholic their purist tastes. They desired a greater purification of the Church of England from the taint of Romish practices and beliefs. These were the Puritans.
The major Puritan exodus this to a “new” England began in 1630. Within a decade close to 20,000 men and women had migrated to the settlements in Massachusetts and Connecticut.
In England, loyalty to the Pope had become an act of treason. But few people were willing to die for the Papacy. When Elizabeth ascended the throne every effort was made to wipe out all traces of Roman Catholicism. Through 1559 until her death in 1603, Elizabeth and her government passed a series of penal laws against Roman Catholics.
During the last years of the Elizabeth’s reign Roman Catholics in England were a small, persecuted minority who were anxious only to live out their lives in peace.
Between the death of Elizabeth in 1603 and is the outbreak of civil war in 1642 the English Catholic community underwent a revival. Catholics in England learned how to be loyal to England and faithful to Rome at the same time. The English Civil War consisted of a series of armed conflicts and political machinations that took place between Parliamentarians (known as Roundheads) and Royalists (known as Cavaliers) between 1642 and 1651 The Civil War ended with the Parliamentary victory at the Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651. Constitutionally, the wars established a precedent that British monarchs could not govern without the consent of Parliament. In June of 1632, the charter for the colony of Maryland, named in honor of the King’s French catholic wife, was approved and work of colonization passed to Lord (George) Baltimore’s (1580-1632) 26 year-old son and heir Cecil Calvert (1605-1675).
Although Cecil Calvert was a Catholic and a convert, the Maryland colony was not founded primarily as an asylum for refuge for Catholics. Maryland was established, first and foremost as a commercial enterprise.
One of the harshest pieces of anti-Catholic legislation was enacted in 1704 by the Maryland Assembly. Entitled “An Act to prevent the growth of Popery with in this Province”, it was aimed at curbing the work of the Jesuits. It was clear that the convert work of the Jesuits, so prominent a part of their apostolate throughout the 17th century, had aroused the ire of Maryland Protestants. To prevent such proselytizing, the assembly forbade “any Popish bishop priest or Jesuit from persuading anyone to embrace and be reconciled to the Church of Rome”.
They also prohibited any priest from baptizing children “other than those born of Popish Parents”. In addition, to “say mass or exercise function of a Popish Bishop or Priest” was outlawed. In effect they wanted to drive the Jesuits it was out of the colony. Violations of these laws meant a fine and six months in jail.
In 1707 however, the Maryland Assembly allowed Catholics the right to private worship. This law set the pattern for private religious services in the 18th century man and reinforced the domestic character of religion in the catholic community. Parishes, as we know them, would come later…
The home was the main school for religious instruction, and by the 18th century the mother of the family was the accepted teacher. This central place of women may also be seen in penal legislation passed by the Maryland assembly; the lawmakers recognized the important place of the mother in the religious training of children and were intent upon reducing this influence when Protestant children were left with the Catholic mother.
Two events in the 1770s altered the course of history for colonial Catholics. First was the suppression of the Jesuits in 1773, the second was the Boston Tea Party, the symbolic beginning of the American Revolution in December of the same year.
The Suppression of the Society of Jesus in July 1773 by Pope Clement XIV, under secular pressure, was due to the same causes which later brought about the French Revolution. These causes varied somewhat in different countries. In France, many influences combined, from Jansenism to Free-thought, to the then prevalent impatience with the old order of things. For, though in France the king was averse to the Suppression of the Jesuits, the destructive forces acquired their power because the king was too indolent to exercise control, which at that time he alone possessed. Outside France it is plain that autocracy, acting through high-handed ministers, was the determining cause.
The Jesuits were suppressed in all countries except Prussia and Russia, where Catherine the Great had forbidden the papal decree to be promulgated. Because millions of Catholics (including many Jesuits) lived in the Polish western provinces of the Russian Empire, the Society was able to maintain its legal existence and carry on its work all through the period of suppression.
The Boston Tea Party led to a series of events which brought prominence to Charles Carroll (1737-1832). Now as First Citizen he was acclaimed a hero and a celebrated spokesman for the cause of natural rights. Charles Carroll achieved widespread popularity and was acknowledged as a great patriot. Thrust into the political arena, he emerged as a major figure in the struggle for independence. He was a delegate at the first Continental Congress in Philadelphia and 1774. Later that year he was elected to the Maryland convention, the first catholic to hold political office in Maryland since the 17th century. Two years later, Carroll was a delegate to the Continental Congress and fixed his signature to the Declaration of Independence.
Carroll’s support of the patriot cause was the decisive step for the Catholic community. Thenceforth, Catholics would be united with Protestants in the struggle for independence. The contagion of liberty had broken down the barriers of religious bigotry, and an increasing number of Catholics stepped into the political arena during the revolutionary period.
One incident, which took place in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, in 1810 summed up this new ecumenical spirit. The occasion was the dedication of the Catholic church. A Jesuit priest Father John William Beschter, presided, and he preached both in German and English to a mixed congregation of Catholics and Protestants. After the service all the clergy dined at the home of the local Lutheran minister.
John Carroll (1736-1815), a cousin of Charles, was born into aristocratic society of Maryland. He studied and worked extensively in Europe. He returned to Maryland in 1774 at the age of 38 and as a Jesuit priest.
There was an obvious need for organization if the American church was to have a future; in addition, there was the issue of ownership of farms, the large estates acquired by the Jesuits in the colonial period. Carroll sought to resolve these issues by drawing up a plan of organization for the clergy. When Carroll heard that the Vatican, independent of the American clergy, was in the process of appointing a superior for the American church he was more than a little upset.
Central to this understanding was the desire of American Catholics to be free and independent from all foreign influence or jurisdiction.. Catholics did not want to be subject to a foreign authority, be it English or Roman.
To his great surprise John Carroll was chosen for this position as Superior of the Missions in America. He knew the American political revolution was extraordinary but he believed that religion had undergone a revolution more extraordinary still.
The revolution had created a new religious situation and for Catholics it was a blessing and an advantage. In a very real sense all things are beginning anew; a new political and social order was being born; a new religious environment was taking shape. Onto this stage stepped John Carroll, and together with his colleagues among the clergy and laity, he began to articulate an understanding of Roman Catholicism that was unique in Western Christendom.
Neither John Carroll nor the other priests were satisfied with his appointment as superior of a mission church, because this meant that the church in America would be dependent on the Propaganda, the Vatican congregation in charge of the missions.
The desire for independence eventually persuaded Carroll and the rest of the clergy that what American Catholicism needed was a bishop who by virtue of his office would be dependent on the Pope alone and only in matters spiritual.
They conveyed their sentiments to the Pope who went along with their request. The first election of a bishop in the United States took place in May of 1789, and not surprisingly, the popular choice of the clergy was John Carroll.
Closely joined with this independent attitude was a consciousness of being a national church. Like most Americans Catholics were caught up in the enthusiasm of the birth of the nation. Catholics accepted the rights-of-man philosophy and enthusiastically supported the concept of a public free church in a free society. Such thinking placed the American Catholics squarely in the mainstream of Catholic Enlightenment thought.
The acceptance of the separation of church and state was the most important issue that found support among American Catholics. Such a mentality persuaded them to look upon religious pluralism in a positive manner. Such positive support for the separation of church and state went against the traditional medieval catholic position which envisioned a society in which church and state were united and religious pluralism was not tolerated.
Eventually this American tradition of religious freedom did gain acceptance in the Roman Catholic Church but it took almost 200 years before the church, at the Second Vatican Council, would endorse the position of the Catholic Enlightenment.
The Immigrant Church, 1820–1920
As a world religion, Roman Catholicism had roots in many nations and cultures. People of different nationalities were mixed together, and somehow, they had to adjust to the American way of life while preserving their own unique heritage.
During the first half of the 19th century the Irish and the Germans were the two groups that had the most visible impact on American Catholicism. The total Irish immigration during the period of 1820 to 1920 was 4.3 million people. The typical Irish immigrant was the young man or woman, unmarried and poor.
The concentration of Irish immigrants at the bottom of the social structure meant that such working class families needed more than one breadwinner. This meant that wives and children went to work to support the family.
For example, in 1860 in Jersey City, New Jersey, 76% of Irish female workforce were employed as domestic servants. The domestic servant would wash on Monday, iron on Tuesday, sweep on Wednesday, go courting on Thursday, clean on Friday, and bake on Saturday. She was cook, waitress, chamber maid, and butler. She worked sometimes 15 hours a day and often seven days a week. Her pay was about $6.00 a month in addition to room and board.
An estimated 1½ million German Catholics emigrated to the United States during this same period of time. Of importance to German Catholics at this time was the Kulalturkampf, a period of religious persecution of the Catholic Church. The German term Kulturkampf (literally, "culture struggle") refers to German policies enacted from 1871 to 1878, by the Chancellor of the German Empire, Otto von Bismarck. Until the mid-19th century, the Catholic Church was still also a political power. The Pope's Papal States were supported by France but ceased to exist as an indirect result of the Franco-Prussian War. The Catholic Church still had a strong influence on many parts of life, though, even in Bismarck's Protestant Prussia. In the newly founded German Empire, Bismarck sought to bolster the power of the secular state and reduce the political and societal influence of the Roman Catholic Church by instituting political control over Church activities. Another sizable group of catholic immigrants were the Italians. Between 1900 and 1920 approximately three million Italians emigrated to the United States and almost all of these people were Catholic.
Other significant groups included the Polish, French Canadians, Slovaks, the Lithuanians, Ukrainians, and people from Mexico. Of all Catholic ethnic groups the Mexicans were clearly the most disadvantaged. While other groups experienced various degrees of upward mobility the Mexican Americans remained stuck at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder.
The Parish
In 1820, American Catholicism was still missionary, an outpost equal in significance to a small dioceses in Europe and surpassed in importance by the church in Canada and Cuba. In this year it had fewer churches than any other religious denomination and an estimated population of less than 200,000. That put its number of people behind the Methodists and the Baptists. By 1850, however, Catholics numbered 1½ million and by 1860, over three million.
Although there were many Catholic communities scattered across the country the city had become the favored home of immigrant Catholics. As immigration increased the national parish soon became the norm. The earliest German parish was established in Philadelphia in 1787.
In many instances people did not have the benefit of clergy. Groups of Catholics would gather in homes, barns and storefronts to pray together. This was the style of religion for Catholics in much of an the northeast during the 1820s and 1830s, and it was commonplace in the western territories half a century later.
Eventually as parishes began to be formed the initiative was taken by the lay people themselves. The leaders of the building project were known as trustees. The trustee system led to a power struggle between the bishop and the pastor on the one hand and the lay board of trustees on the other. Overtime the power of the bishop prevailed and with him so did the power and authority of the pastor.
Though opposition to the trustee system centered around the specific issues of ownership of church property and the authority of the bishop over the appointment and dismissal of parish clergy, the implications were much wider. Two concepts of local church governments were at odds: the congregational model in which there was an emphasis on a democratic exercise of authority, and a hierarchical model, which meant clerical supremacy in church affairs. In English-speaking communities, clerical supremacy clearly became the norm. In other words, at the turn of the twentieth century a little more than half of the catholic communities were organized in parishes in which the priest’s authority was supreme.
Conflict was not unusual. The parish of Saint Stanislaus Kostka in Chicago was founded in 1867 by a Polish mutual benefit society of the same name. From the very beginning, conflict divided the community; one group of people could be labeled nationalists and for them politics and nationalism were more important than religion. For the others, the clerical party, religion was more important than politics.
With this ideological split as a backdrop, the issue of parish ownership became the spark that ignited the flames of conflict. Within five years the nationalists founded a new church, Holy Trinity, three blocks from Saint Stanislaus. The priests at St. Stanislaus tried to take over Holy Trinity parish, but the people would not allow it.
For the next 20 years the two groups fought. One priest walked the neighborhood armed with a pistol; people rioted in the streets and demonstrated in church, throwing hymnals, yelling and stamping their feet; several times the parish was closed by the bishop, and finally the people appealed their case to Rome. In the surprise move, Vatican authorities supported the dissidents in Holy Trinity parish and in 1890 the parish was turned over to the Holy Cross priests from the University of Notre Dame. Peace was restored and the new pastor, a 26 year old Holy Cross priest, became the pastor of Holy Trinity parish where he remained for the next 55 years.
Catholic Schools
Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton
(1774-1821) was born
28 August
in New York City into a wealthy and influential Episcopalian family,
the daughter of a
Dr
Richard Bayley, Her
mother
died
when Elizabeth was three years old, her baby sister a year later.
She married the wealthy businessman William Magee Seton in
1794
at age 19, and was the
mother
of five.
When Archbishop Dennis Dougherty (1865-1951) was appointed to the see of Philadelphia as archbishop he had already been a bishop in the Philippines and Buffalo New York. He arrived on the train with an entourage of 150 priests with bells ringing in all of Philadelphia’s churches. He arrived at the Cathedral in a limousine followed by other limousines of dignitaries, marching bands and roaring motorcycles, filled with all of the top political and religious leaders in the city. When he entered the Cathedral the choir sang "Ecce Sacerdos Magnus" (Behold the Great Priest)! He was “God’s bricklayer who built parishes, hospitals and schools”. He was a flamboyant churchman of his time.
The 19th century was a time when the schoolhouse became the sacred temple of the American nation. The school had replaced the family as the principle educational institution and, by mid century, politicians and educators we’re working together for a common goal: state supported education for all children. By the late 19th century the public school had acquired a sacred aura and anyone opposed to this institution would likely be regarded not only as an enemy of education, of liberty and of progress but also guilty of treason to our country.
It was within this context that the Catholic parochial schools emerged. Like its counterpart, the public school, it became the principle educational institution in the Catholic community, and Catholic educators promoted it with the same type of zeal found among public school crusaders. By the 1880s, the parochial school was the most important school in the Catholic community.
The catholic school began as the shoestring operation in a damp church basement or a log cabin room where a single instructor taught the basic four Rs to a group of children ranging in ages from 6 to 12. In New York City, most catholic parishes during the 1830s, had some type of school. Generally it was in the basement of the church where children were so closely push together that they hardly had room to move. By 1840 about 5000 children attended these schools. The major problem for the school’s was finances.
The Public School Society operated the schools in New York, and this society of Protestant gentlemen promoted an evangelical Protestant piety in the city’s schools. To many Catholics, this was offensive. For almost two years, Catholics pushed the campaign for public funds. In the end their petition was denied. Defeated in their attempt to obtain public funds, Catholics began to concentrate on building their own schools. Archbishop of New York John Hughes coined the phrase: “to build the schoolhouse first and the church afterwards”.
True to his word and Hughes began to build new school houses. He recruited orders of religious women along with the Christian brothers to teach in them. By 1865 75% of the parishes in the city had their own schools with 16,000 students.
Third Council of Baltimore - 1884 Title 6, Of the Education of Catholic Youth, treats of Catholic schools, especially parochial, of their absolute necessity and the obligation of pastors to establish them. “Parents must send their children to such schools unless the bishop should judge the reason for sending them elsewhere to be sufficient. It is desirable that these schools be free. Every effort must be made to have suitable schools of higher education for Catholic youth.” In 1900, an estimated 3,500 parochial schools existed in the United States. Within 20 years, the number of elementary schools had reached 6,551, enrolling 1,759,673 pupils taught by 41,581 teachers. Secondary education likewise boomed. In 1900, Catholics could boast of approximately 100 Catholic high schools; by 1920 more than 1,500 existed.
For more than two generations, enrollment continued to climb. Four decades later, total elementary and secondary enrollment is 2.6 million. By the mid-1960's, it had reached an all-time high of 4.5 million elementary school pupils, with about 1 million students in Catholic high schools.
Although the
strong commitment by church and lay leaders alike to Catholic
education remains constant, changing demographics have had a major
impact on enrollment. The waiting list for Catholic schools is often
over 40 per cent. The challenge is there are many school buildings
in urban areas without a nearby Catholic population to support them.
And there are thousands of potential students in suburban areas
where schools have yet to be built.
It should also be noted that the Catholic commitment to parochial schools got stronger just as the public school commitment to religion weakened. The walls separating church and state in the area of education has steadily risen in the late 19th century; this development canceled out any attempt at compromise between Catholics and a state- supported system of education. Anti-Catholic prejudice on the part of some educators also influenced Catholics. This took a variety of forms: forced reading of the bible, church and convent burnings, the passing of laws that overtly discriminated against Catholic schools and prejudice against hiring Catholic teachers.
The school became the key part of the local parish culture, and the commonplace crusade to preserve culture through religion strengthened its importance. By the middle of the century, teaching had become the preserve of women, and Catholics were fortunate to have available a large pool of women religious, sisters, to staff the schools.
They belonged to religious orders founded in the United States specifically to work in the area of education. The Sisters of Charity of the Emmitsburg, founded by Elizabeth Seton in 1809, were representative of this type. Close to 1600 women belonged to this community in 1900, and they taught in schools throughout the country. Their willingness to work for low wages lowered the cost of Catholic schooling considerably and made feasible an otherwise financially impossible undertaking. Yet most religious women were poorly prepared for teaching.
There were many reasons for this. The most obvious one was their level of education. Most teachers entered the classroom with no more than an elementary level of education. Sisters generally entered religious life of an early age, after elementary school or in their mid-teens. After year of a spiritual formation, called the novitiate, they were sent off to teach. While teaching they received on-the-job-training from an older, experienced teacher; then during the summer, they would attend classes run by the religious order to upgrade their education.
Another reason for poor teacher preparation was that each religious order went its own way in this area. Because they were so competitive and jealous of one another, religious orders never banded together to establish a common normal school.
Bishops did little to correct the situation and many schools were forced to close because of financial difficulties and those that remained open were a financial drain adding 30 to 50% to the total cost of operating the parish.
The major reason why parochial schools made it at all financially was because the sisters subsidized them through their low salaries. By the early 20th century, sisters generally received an annual salary of about $200, or one third less than female public school teachers and half that received by teaching brothers.
Without a doubt, the development of the parochial school, as a keystone of Catholic institutional life was a notable achievement during a century of immigration. In these schools, thousands of children acquired the basic learning the skills needed in a developing modern society. Together with other educational agencies, the school had a major influence in shaping the catholic system of values. It had become the centerpiece of a school system that by 1920 was second in size and scope only to the public school system. It was clearly one of the wonders of the immigrant Catholic world.
Religion and Society
Even before masses of immigrants started flowing to the United States, Roman Catholicism was experiencing a fundamental conflict in its relationship to American Society. Some Catholics wanted a church that would be thoroughly American. These were the Americanists. Rooted in American soil, the church would be independent of any foreign interference. Its clergy would be in tune with the American way of life; church and state would be separate and religious toleration would be a virtue not a vice. English not Latin, would be the language of church prayer. These Catholics were mostly American Irish or Irish born. Other Catholics however had a different view. They wanted to transplant a European model of Roman Catholicism to the United States. These were the Europeanists.
The Americanists, exhibiting evidence of enlightenment influence, defined the church in a positive, interventionist stance as regards society. Europeanists viewed the church as a perfect society whose mission was to conquer the world and ultimately bring all culture under its control. From this point of view society was an adversary, not an ally.
In 1916, George Mundelein and was installed as the new archbishop of Chicago. A third generation German American Catholic Mundelein was a staunch supporter of 100% Americanism. For this reason he was very reluctant to organize separate national parishes for differing foreign language groups. He also ordered that the English become the principle medium of instruction in Catholic parochial schools.
The Americanizers clearly wanted immigrants to blend into American Society. Immigrants should adopt American ways, learn the language, and become loyal citizens. The Europeanists saw the church as a perfect society superior to all other human societies and immune to any change. It was unthinkable that the church would ever be influenced by the culture. This view of the church prevailed until the second Vatican Council.
John Carroll (1736-1815) was an intellectual and heir of the Enlightenment, and his thinking on the nature of the church leaned in the modern direction. He wanted to adapt church practices to the American environment. These included the training of priests, an English language liturgy, friendly relations and cooperation with Protestants and a church independent of foreign interference. In this manner he envisioned a church in the United States distinct from Roman Catholic churches in other countries. Such a program of adaptation to the American cultural situation clearly pointed in the modernist direction. Carroll celebrated religious liberty.
This too, challenged the prevailing Roman Catholic position that error and no rights and that false religious beliefs could not be tolerated. In advocating these positions of religious liberty and the separation of church and state, Carroll was implying that the understanding of the church should be adapted to the cultural context, in this case the United States. Such thinking reflected a historical consciousness, a modern mentality when it came to defining the meaning of the church. Historical consciousness: a more imminent understanding of God and mystery and the concept of the progressive realization of the kingdom of God. Although the intellectual movement called The Enlightenment is usually associated with the 18th century, its roots in fact go back much further. This is one of those rare historical movements which in fact named itself. Certain thinkers and writers, primarily in London and Paris, believed that they were more enlightened than their compatriots and set out to enlighten them. They believed that human reason could be used to combat ignorance, superstition, and tyranny and to build a better world. Their principal targets were (1) religion (embodied in France in the Catholic Church) and (2) the domination of society by a hereditary aristocracy. Modernism is a trend of thought that affirms the power of human beings to create, improve, and reshape their environment, with the aid of scientific knowledge, technology and practical experimentation, and is thus in its essence both progressive and optimistic. The term covers many political, cultural and artistic movements rooted in the changes in Western society at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century. Broadly, modernism describes a series of reforming cultural movements in art and architecture, music, literature and the applied arts which emerged in the three decades before 1914. But Modernism encouraged the re-examination of every aspect of existence, from commerce to philosophy, with the goal of finding that which was "holding back" progress, and replacing it with new, progressive and therefore better ways of reaching the same end. In essence, the modernist movement argued that the new realities of the industrial and mechanized age were permanent and imminent, and that people should adapt their world view to accept that the new equaled the good, the true and the beautiful. Embracing change and the present, modernism encompasses the works of thinkers who rebelled against nineteenth century academic and historicist traditions, believing the "traditional" forms of art, architecture, literature, religious faith, social organization and daily life were becoming outdated; they directly confronted the new economic, social and political aspects of an emerging fully industrialized world. Some people divide the 20th Century into movements designated Modernism and Postmodernism, whereas others see them as two aspects of the same movement. In 1907 Pope Pius X issued his encyclical against modernism Pascendi Dominici Gregis. In one fatal blow the pope destroyed the budding renewal of Catholic theology. The encyclical spelled out in summary fashion the errors of the modernists. But it went even further and prescribed concrete remedies to combat modernism. These ranged from canonizing scholastic philosophy, to establishing a council of vigilance in each diocese to be on the lookout for modernist errors. Then, three years later the pope imposed an oath against modernism that all priests and candidates for the priesthood had to take. These actions ended the modernist crisis but cast a gloomy pall over Catholic intellectual life throughout the world. With some few notable exceptions, Catholics accepted the decision of Pius X, but the church paid a heavy price. In the United States the effects of the condemnation of modernism soon became apparent. In 1908 the popular Catholic magazine New York Review ceased publication. Seminaries were a special target, and soon and seminary libraries closed their doors except for a few hours a week; suspicious books were removed from library shelves; secular newspapers and periodicals became forbidden reading for seminarians; intellectual curiosity was discouraged. Brain rot set in as a climate of fear gripped the academy. Some scholars took up new pursuits. Witch hunts to purge out all vestiges of modernist thinking from Catholic seminaries began to occur. Even the slightest suspicion of modernism was enough to damage a person’s reputation. The fear of heresy settled over episcopal residences, chanceries, seminaries and Catholic institutions of higher learning. Security, safety, conservatism became national imperatives. Free intellectual inquiry in ecclesiastical circles came to a virtual standstill. The nascent intellectual moment went underground or died. Contract with Protestants and secular thinking was broken off. It was as though someone and pull the switch and the lights had failed all across the American Catholic landscape. A half century later, American Catholics wondered why the church and produced so few intellectuals; the answer lay scattered among the heap of rubble produced by the fallout of Pascendi Dominici Gregis. The condemnation of modernism, coupled with the condemnation of Americanism, brought to an end the American Catholic romance with modernity. Postmodernist religious thinkers believe the Gospel must speak to culture, thus, as culture changes, so does the Gospel. Postmodern Liberalism places an immense weight on the notion of universal human religious experience, and denies absolute truth, as well as the objectivity of truth. It emphasizes transient cultural relationships, and surrenders Christian theology at the expense of changing times or the need for a new and fresh redefining of terms. Postmodernism has come to be known as a “cultural sensibility”: without absolutes, fixed certainties or foundations. It delights in pluralism, and divergence, and thinks in terms of situational ethics. Postmodern philosophers are as diverse in their theological outlook as they are many. They are primarily concerned with the developments of liberal theology, and how theology affects and interpolates with culture. Changes in Church and Nation Colorful personalities such as Cardinals Dougherty of Philadelphia, Glennon of St. Louis, Mundelein of Chicago, Spellman of New York and Cushing of Boston were local catholic heroes. In the popular mind, the bishop not only represented the church, he was the church. As a result, a top-heavy/monarchical understanding of the church became quite popular. In 1924 Congress passed a quota system for entrance into the country based on race and ethnicity; under the new quota system just under 154,000 people could enter the United States each year. This legislation had a dramatic effect on the development of 20th century Catholicism. It slowed the growth of Catholicism considerably. From the mid 1920s to the mid 1950s there was a growth of approximately 42% of Catholics in the country. This was a dramatic turnaround from the 19th century when in a 30 year period, 1830-1860, the number of Catholics increased by almost 900 percent.
The catholic policy toward blacks as they moved into the northern cities was to segregate them into their own separate parishes. In some southern parishes, blacks and whites did worship together; segregation separated them at the altar and in the pew. When northern cities began to acquire sizable black populations, one church in each city was designated as exclusively for blacks. One church, however, could never adequately serve the needs of increasing numbers of people scattered throughout the city. Some blacks did attend and the local parish church, but the racial biases of most clergy and people discouraged black Catholics from joining white parishes.
In 1946, Cardinal Glennon died, and his successor, Joseph E Ritter, wasted little time in tackling the issue of integration. In 1947 he issued an edict that demanded the integration of parochial schools. He threatened those who opposed his policy with excommunication. Thus by a stroke of the pen, Ritter accomplished what lay people and parish priests acting together could not. The power of the bishop could not have been more clearly demonstrated. Though Ritter met with strong opposition, his decision, supported by church authorities in Rome, prevailed. Ritter exemplified a new type of bishop, who unlike Glennon and Mundelein, did not believe the time was “inopportune” for integration.
In with the spirit of the 1920s, the church in Los Angeles inaugurated an extensive Americanization program. The bishop at the time was John J Cantwell. He was a big supporter of this movement and received help from the knights of Columbus who published a civics catechism in Spanish. His successor, Francis McIntyre, continued this emphasis on Americanization; during his episcopacy the parish school became the principle agency in the Americanization of the Mexican population.
Reforms
The liturgical movement originated in the in the 19th century in French Benedictine monasteries. The goal of the liturgical movement was to create a better understanding of the mass through a more active participation on the part of the people. It encouraged singing at mass, at first by chanting parts of the mass in Latin and then, by the 1950s, singing popular hymns in English. It urged people to follow the mass in an English-language hand missal; and it promoted the dialog mass, in which the people would respond in Latin to the prayers of the priest. By the 1950s, supporters of the liturgical movement even wanted to have the entire mass said in English, rather than the traditional Latin. At the time it was the very radical proposal.
Unlike in Germany, the Bishops in the United States did not provide the leadership role in liturgical renewal. Most bishops and priests were raised in the Novena-rosary tradition and never questioned its value. They looked with suspicion, if not hostility, at liturgical innovation. Since liturgical reform touched a very sensitive nerve, the nature of a person’s relationship with God, most people felt threatened by any suggested changes in this relationship. Even though all indications pointed to a decline in the popularity of devotional Catholicism or the 1950s, the vast majority of Catholics still clung to the old-style of religion. As a result, they were poorly prepared for the sweeping changes in the liturgy that took place in the 1960s as a result of the Second Vatican council.
John Ryan was a prominent Catholic reformer. From his position as head of the Social Action Department of the NCWC, He kept the torch of Social Catholicism burning during the 1920s. Through essays, lectures, and personal involvement in a variety of issues, he sought to awaken the Catholic conscience to the demands of a social gospel. His cause received boost in 1931, when Pope Pius XI published the social encyclical, Quadragesimo Anno. Issued on the 40th anniversary of Rerum Novarum of Leo XIII, it affirmed the church’s support for labor and endorsed the law of social justice as the great equalizer of society’s riches.
Much more popular and famous than liberal clergymen was the radio priest, Charles E Coughlin (1891-1979). Coughlin rose to national prominence in the early 1930s as a radio preacher. At first pleasant talks on religious subjects, his radio sermons became an explosively political. With the depression as a backdrop he preached the message of “want in the midst of plenty”. Anticapitalist as well as Anti-communist he was heard by millions of people and his name became a household word. He received more mail than the president and at one time needed over one hundred secretaries to handle it. High school football games stopped so that players and fans could listen to this Sunday afternoon sermon. People walking down the street remember hearing out of every window the voice of Father Coughlin blaring from the radio. You could walk for blocks, they recalled, and never miss a word.
The first Coughlin was a supporter of Roosevelt and the New Deal as the answer to the nation’s economic problems, but by the 1936 election yet become an outspoken opponent of Roosevelt and joined with other critics of the New Deal to form a third political party, the Union Party. From his parish in Royal Oak, Michigan, a Detroit suburb, Coughlin kept up his radio preaching throughout the late 1930s and augmented this with the newspaper, Social Justice. His attacks against communism appealed to many people who feared Communist infiltration and subversion.
But he had added a new theme, anti-Semitism, and his verbal attacks on the Jews were soon turned into physical attacks by his followers, who were now organized into neighborhood clubs call the Christian Front. His bigoted attacks on Jews led to his downfall; in 1942 he was forced to abandon public life and returned to his parish. His voice was silent. He died in 1979, a fallen, but not forgotten, former hero.
The Catholic Worker was born on May Day 1933 in New York’s Union Square when a woman and three young men began selling The Catholic Worker to a crowd of fifty thousand Socialists and Communists for a penny a copy. The newspaper was the brainchild of Dorothy Day, a leftist journalist and recent convert to Catholicism, and Peter Maurin, a French Catholic peasant and thinker.
The Catholic Worker put no hope in the modern state. It put faith in the community of the sacred; the spiritual was more central to life than the material; peace was better than war; love in action was superior to love in dreams; the ideal of Christian perfection far surpassed the minimalism of the natural-law tradition; personalism outranked pragmatism; and in the end, the primacy of love would redeem history. The Catholic Worker wanted to change hearts of people and in that way effect a radical reconstruction of society.
The church of the immigrants, with its own unique style of devotional Catholicism, was no longer making it in the 20th century. A new age and a new people demanded a new Catholicism. More and more frequently came the call for reform and renewal. The pope sensed the need better than most and in January 1959 John XXIII called a council to bring the church up to date. It would not be long before the strong undercurrents of reform would surface and change the nature of mainstream Catholicism both in the United States and throughout the world.
A pastoral pope, John wanted Catholicism to be in tune with the times and its dogmas presented in a language reflective of modern thought. The Second Vatican Council ushered in a new era for Roman Catholics. The age of Tridentine Catholicism had come to an end.
The most revolutionary document was on the liturgy. Close behind came the documents on the new understanding of the Church and the declaration on religious freedom.
The classicist or Neo-Scholastic world view, which focused on the static, unchanging nature of theology, was giving way to the modern historical perspective, which emphasized development in theology. It forced upon Catholics, in the most startling way, the fact that the church changes. This simple revelation turned Catholicism on its head, and it has caused serious division in the church ever since.
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