Section 3. The External and Internal Growth of Roman Catholicism (Cont.) (7)

In 1854 the nuncio left the country, but fanaticism did not leave with him. It spread among the masses. In New York agitation began, preachers came forth who in the squares began to attack the Pope and all Catholics. A secret society called the “Know Nothings”[1] formed, which by secret means began to incite the crowd against Roman Catholics, especially the Irish, who had begun to compete successfully in labor and art with the native American population.[2] The base instincts of the American mob—the most terrible and bloodthirsty mob one could imagine—were unleashed. Armed gangs began to form processions, trying in every way to provoke hostility from Irish Catholics in order to start a massacre.[3] In the city of Newark, neighboring New York, a procession in broad daylight rushed upon a Catholic church and destroyed it under the pretext that a shot had been fired at the procession from it.[4] Then rioting spread throughout the country, the reign of a ferocious mob began, which started everywhere to burn and plunder Catholic churches and monasteries. New York, Boston, Brooklyn, Saint Louis, Louisville, and other cities became the scenes of shameful occurrences and mob rule. A man named Orr emerged as the leader of the movement, calling himself the “angel Gabriel,” summoned to the destruction of Catholicism. In New Hampshire the mob destroyed and scattered two Catholic churches, one of which it blew up with gunpowder. In the state of Maine a mob, led by the “angel Gabriel,” broke into the doors of a church and scattered the altar, pulpit, crosses, and icons. The Bishop of Portland had gathered to lay the foundation of a new church to replace the destroyed one, but the mob attacked the place of consecration and dispersed everyone.[5] In Louisville, during the elections of 1854 and 1855, religious fanaticism united with political. The “Know Nothings” agitated against Catholics as foreigners and papal servants, set fire to Catholic houses and killed residents. The mob even approached the cathedral to burn and destroy it, and the cathedral was saved only because Bishop Spalding handed the keys to it to the city mayor.[6] But the mob did not confine itself to the destruction of Catholic property. It extended its rioting also against the representatives of the papal hierarchy. An example is the sad fate of the Jesuit John Bapst. The reverend Jesuit, serving as pastor of a Catholic church in Ellsworth, in the state of Maine, appealed to the schools requesting that they not force Catholic children to read the Protestant translation of the Bible. The teachers agreed, but the school committee intervened in the matter and ordered the teachers to force Catholic children to read the Protestant Bible under threat of expulsion. Catholics appealed to the court against such injustice, but this so inflamed the rage of fanatics against the Jesuit Bapst that a huge meeting was held, which resolved, for the trouble caused to the city by his troublesome behavior, “to provide him with a new suit of clothes such as cannot be found in any tailor’s shop.”[7] The resolution was accepted unanimously and the mob did not delay in carrying it out. On October 14, 1854, the Jesuit Bapst, living in the town of Bangor, as was his custom went to Ellsworth to perform Mass on Sunday. The waiting mob had been expecting nothing else. In the evening the mob surrounded the house in which the Jesuit was staying, seized him and dragged him into the street, placed him on a rail and carried him about the city with all manner of insults and mockery. Finally, stripping him naked, they covered him with liquid tar and rolled him in feathers, leaving the unfortunate Jesuit in that condition.[8]

The mob’s rioting finally became so insufferable that it aroused indignation even among the Protestant population, which took measures to suppress it. But the ideas of the “Know Nothings” society had spread so widely that a special anti-Catholic party formed, which began to exert influence in politics. At elections it put forth many members who acted in legislative assemblies in this anti-Catholic spirit. Their influence was especially strong in the legislative assembly of the state of New York, which made several anti-Catholic ordinances, for example that no donation for religious or charitable purposes could be considered legal if it did not fall under the control of trustees, thereby denying the bishops’ authority over such donations.[9] The Massachusetts legislative assembly, under the influence of rumors spread by the anti-Catholic party concerning immoral life in Catholic monasteries, appointed a special committee to inspect all monasteries—male and female—which directly violated the rights of the Roman Catholic Church to independence, and the inspection itself was accompanied by many improprieties on the part of committee members.[10]

The turbulent period lay heavily as a burden on the Roman Catholic Church and naturally retarded its growth; but it could not stop it. On the contrary, from the midst of the very evils came in some respects a blessing. Thus the madness of the “Know Nothings” awakened in many a feeling of sympathy for the persecuted Catholics and because of this, according to the expression of a Catholic historian, “thousands of good, sensitive people entered the true flock.”[11] Moreover, as if in retribution to the destroyers, Catholics in the subsequent years erected and founded one after another such magnificent cathedrals as had never existed before. In 1855 magnificent cathedrals were solemnly consecrated in Pittsburgh and Buffalo; in 1858 the foundation of the Cathedral of Saint Patrick in New York, the finest temple on the continent, was laid; in 1857 three new dioceses were opened,[12] and in 1858 Pope Pius IX elevated the Baltimore see to the rank of a primacy.[11] But in general, this period was destined to be a time of all manner of trials not only for the Roman Catholic Church but for the whole country. Scarcely had the country recovered from the rioting of fanatical mobs when fate prepared for it the heaviest trial of all. In 1861 a civil war between North and South broke out and filled the country with the destructive horrors of fratricide. During the war much of the Roman Catholic Church’s property, plundered and burned by the warring sides, was lost along with public property, and moreover Roman Catholicism lost many of its members, as the armies consisted chiefly of Irish Catholics.[13] The trials of the war were hard for the whole country, but it emerged from it chastened and renewed. It renewed in the people the consciousness of its organic unity and killed separatism both political and religious. The ideas of separatist-democrats and anti-Catholic Know Nothings were driven from the country by the blows of war. In the people the idea of their national unity began rapidly to develop and strengthen, and this idea, as we shall see later, gave new strength to the Roman Catholic Church of the United States.

After the fratricidal war the country found itself in a weakened and devastated condition both materially and morally. The excessive strain of passions during the war had now turned into apathy bordering on despair. Only Roman Catholicism did not lose heart, and scarcely had the deadly thunder of weapons fallen silent when it renewed its organizing activity. War left it in inheritance destroyed churches, devastated dioceses, bereaved families, helpless invalids. Some of the southern dioceses almost disappeared from the face of the earth.[14] The Church faced a difficult task—to examine its condition, assess the harm done to it, and determine the new conditions of its position. For such activity the individual and scattered efforts of separate provinces would not have sufficed; the collective efforts and collective wisdom of the whole Church were necessary. And indeed a new general council was appointed, convened in 1866 in Baltimore under the name of the “Second Plenary Council of Baltimore.”[15] This council, both by the particular conditions of the Church’s position and by the importance of its significance for it, marks a new epoch in the history of Roman Catholicism in the United States, and as such deserves detailed investigation. Never had Roman Catholicism appeared before the country in such splendor and power as at this council, and it was not only a demonstration of the vitality of the Catholic community in the country but also gave encouragement to the very weakened country itself. “The country had just emerged from the most terrible crisis, in which the very ship of state had been torn from its moorings. House rose against house and the hands of brothers rose against brothers. The sects had broken up and were still in confusion and disorder, contributing to the widening of the chasm that threatened to engulf the life of the nation. Half the country was laid waste and devastated; the beaten people bent under the double burden of the memory of the past, which could not return again, and thoughts of the future, which seemed hopeless. On the other side were weariness and exhaustion, which follow extreme strain, and a longing for peace and quiet after so much bloodshed and so much suffering. All were glad to welcome any force that would be able to survive this terrible struggle—unharmed and unbroken. When therefore the Catholic Church came before the eyes of the people, clothed in the full armor of undiminished strength and unbroken unity, thousands, who a short time before would have looked upon this display of its power with jealous envy, now welcomed it with joy as a harbinger of good omens. It should also be acknowledged that during the war the people saw this Church more and came to know it better, and having known it better, came to love it more. Throughout the country there was not such a village in which some brave warrior—not a Catholic—did not praise its heroic daughters, who during the battles stood nearby to staunch the blood of the wounded.”[16] And indeed, if the first Plenary Council was the occasion for an outburst of anti-Catholic passions among the Protestant population, the second was the occasion for complete recognition by Protestantism of its weakness compared to the constantly united and unbroken Roman Catholicism. And this was a great moral victory for the latter. Beginning from this time a new era of unprecedented prosperity and progress dawned for Roman Catholicism, and it began to grow even more rapidly in its numbers and strengthen in its organization. By the end of the century of American independence it represented such a magnificent edifice as to require a special crowned head for itself, which was given to it by Pius IX in 1875, when he elevated the Archbishop of New York John McCloskey to the rank of cardinal,[17] and raised four archbishoprics to the rank of metropolitan sees.[18] The history of this epoch has as the basic seed of its development the Second Plenary Council, which weighed the vital forces of the Church and juridically determined the plan of its subsequent development, and therefore the best indicator of the current condition of Roman Catholicism in the United States is precisely this council, which therefore requires detailed investigation. But before turning to this investigation, we consider it necessary to summarize the features of the juridical position of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States, thanks to which Roman Catholicism could grow and develop unhindered both in its numerical composition and in church organization.