Section 3. The External and Internal Growth of Roman Catholicism (Cont.) (5)

The ecclesiastical difficulties caused by these disturbances led to the development of a new form of church management. To successfully combat disorder, individual efforts of separate bishops would not suffice; collective efforts of the entire hierarchy, the collective wisdom of the whole Church were required. The idea naturally arose of convening a council for general discussion of the Church’s condition. The implementation of this idea fell to the next Archbishop of Baltimore, Whitfield, who convened in 1829 the “first Provincial Council of Baltimore.” During the period before the convening of the council, the hierarchy, despite difficulties, developed with extraordinary rapidity, and by the time of its convening the Church consisted of nine dioceses, with the Baltimore metropolia at its head.[1] The council was composed of six prelates, as others could not attend for various reasons.[2] Private councils had been held in Baltimore before this,[3] but they had merely a consultative character. The present council, however, had independent legal significance as an organ of church management, and therefore many important questions about church life and church administration were submitted to its discussion, and some of them had such significant legal character that the prelates called upon the best lawyers of the country to resolve them.[4] Various questions arising from the circumstances of church life were proposed for the council’s consideration, but primary importance was given to the question of the relationship of the hierarchy to the laity, as required by the disturbances and fermentation caused by the Protestant tendency of laymen to intrude into church management. Therefore the bishops with special insistence and force affirm the right of the bishop to appoint priests to churches and limit the claims of trustees.[5] Meeting at the council, the bishops were able from the comparative position of the dioceses to determine the Church’s overall condition both morally and materially. Among other things they determined the number of the Catholic population at that time. Comparing individual reports and bringing them to a general total, the council concluded that the number of Catholics in the United States in 1829 was more than 500,000, and was growing daily from emigration and conversions.[6]

The conciliar form of church discussion and management, after the first trial, proved to be most suited to the condition of the Church, whose members were indeed increasing daily by thousands from the influx of European settlers that began at that time, which required extraordinary effort from all the organizing powers of the Church to preserve Catholic emigration from scattering among the Protestant population. And indeed in the subsequent period councils were convened in rapid succession one after another. From their activity and composition one can judge both the development of the Church’s juridical consciousness and the growth of church organization. In 1833 the “second Provincial Council of Baltimore” was convened. It was attended by ten prelates with the Archbishop of Baltimore at the head, among whom three were representatives of the newly opened bishoprics of Saint Louis, Mobile, and Detroit.[7] The council adopted rules for the election of bishops,[8] outlined new dioceses, entrusted Native Americans and Blacks to the care of the Jesuit order, determined the opening of a seminary in each diocese, and again urged the establishment of exclusively Catholic schools.[9] In 1837 the third Provincial Council of Baltimore convened, and at it the prelates drafted a proposal to the papal curia concerning the opening of four new dioceses, three of which were indeed opened shortly thereafter.[10] In 1840 the fourth Provincial Council convened in Baltimore, in which thirteen prelates participated.[11] At this council, among other matters, the prelates by their fifth decree urged the necessity of forming “societies of temperance and abstinence from spiritous liquors” among Catholics[12] and made an important resolution concerning the administration of church property.[13] In 1843 the fifth council convened in Baltimore, at which sixteen prelates were present.[14] At this council the strict Catholic view of marriage as an ecclesiastical act was canonically confirmed and the penalty of excommunication ipso facto was established against those who, after obtaining a civil divorce, would consider themselves entitled to a second marriage.[15] In view of the new growth of Catholic population and the increasing needs in church administration, the council made a representation to the curia concerning a new subdivision of dioceses, and as a result of this representation four new bishoprics were opened.[16] At the sixth Provincial Council in Baltimore, in 1846, twenty-three prelates were present, whose very numbers sufficiently expressed the strength of the church organization that Roman Catholicism had acquired in America. By its first decree the prelates proclaimed, “with fervent and unanimous voice,”[17] the Blessed Virgin Conceived Without Sin the patroness of the United States,[18] and proposed for approval the opening of three new bishoprics, which were indeed opened in Buffalo, Albany, and Cleveland.[19]

In 1849 the seventh Provincial Council of Baltimore was convened. This was a time of severe trials for the head of Roman Catholicism, Pope Pius IX. Elected to the papal throne in 1846, he was exalted with praise for his liberalism by the revolutionary Italian party, and after two years he was forced to flee Rome, escaping from this very party. The Pope’s calamity was felt with particular force by the Catholics of the United States, and the thought arose among them that the soil of the New World might be the best refuge for the Pope during the revolutionary turmoil. In execution of this thought the prelates of the United States wrote a letter to the Pope, asking him to “honor Maryland with his sacred presence.”[20] But the far-sighted Pope did not wish to give his enemies cause for joyful proclamation of the transfer of the papacy to America, which would surely have resulted from even this temporary visit to the New World, and he declined the offer of his faithful prelates. Though “deprived of the happiness of having as their presiding officer the successor of the Prince of the Apostles, the fathers of the seventh Council of Baltimore wished to show their living sympathy by ordering a collection in their dioceses for the Peter’s Pence. This voluntary collection yielded about 26,000 dollars, which were transmitted to the papal nuncio in Paris by the Archbishop of Baltimore.”[21] On the appointed day the council opened in the presence of twenty-five prelates. As at the previous council, the prelates devoted their first and second decrees to the question of the Immaculate Conception and proclaimed that the veneration of the Immaculate Conception had been universal both among the clergy and the laity in the United States, and declared that “the prelates with living joy would have received the dogmatic definition of this mystery from the supreme high priest, if he, in his wise judgment, considered this definition timely.”[22] These decrees were accepted unanimously by all except one bishop of Richmond,[23] who so vigorously defended his dissenting opinion that it was entered into the acts of the council. The council further noted the unceasing continued growth of the church organization and proposed for opening three new bishoprics and one vicariate, which were indeed opened in 1850.[24]