Part 4. The Material and Moral Strength of Roman Catholicism (Cont.)

The most important agency in the accumulation of church property then is the monastic orders—male and female. These are among the most active pioneers of the Roman Catholic Church, not only in the spiritual but also in the material respect. One can judge the success of their activity in this respect by the fact that from Europe the orders sent to America only a few brothers or sisters, supplying them with barely sufficient means for initial establishment. [1] Within a few years, the brothers and sisters not only managed to ensure their own existence with their own means, but also had the ability to begin solid construction of monasteries on land acquired in their own right, and at present throughout the United States the traveler constantly encounters monastic castles nestled in all localities distinguished by the most beautiful scenic beauty. By the rapid development of their prosperity, monasteries are indebted not only to the usual religious zeal of the Catholic population, but also to their active public activity. Among American orders, only a few have a specifically contemplative character. Most of them conduct lively public activity—educational and charitable. Almost all of them have educational or charitable institutions attached, which are maintained partly on voluntary donations, partly on fees charged, and partly even at state expense. We saw above what enormous sums the government of New York State annually pays to charitable Catholic institutions. But an even more important source of income for monasteries is their educational institutions—colleges, academies, and schools. While elementary schools are maintained partly at the monastery’s own expense and tuition is not charged for them, the so-called colleges and academies are entirely of a private, expensive boarding-school character. These colleges and academies are closed schools, in which the students or female students receive both education and complete maintenance during the course for a certain annual fee. And this fee is very high, as can be seen from the following examples. The New York college of the “Brothers of Christian Schools,” the so-called “Manhattan College,” in its advertisements sets forth the following conditions: “For maintenance, laundry, and tuition during the ten-month season—800 dollars; entrance fee 10 dollars; for medical care—10 dollars; for vacation time in college 40 dollars. For instruction in music, German and Spanish languages, drawing, and for the use of apparatus in the study of chemistry and natural philosophy, a separate fee is charged. Books are sold at current prices. Payment for half a season in five months is made in advance.” [2] Thus the annual tuition at this college amounts to 400 dollars, while it is overcrowded with students, so that according to statistics from 1876, it had 740 students, [3] who thus gave the college an annual income of more than 250,000 dollars. Another Roman Catholic college in New York, maintained by the Jesuits, the so-called “college of Saint John” (St. John College), charges 340 dollars from boarders, apart from a special fee for instruction in languages and drawing, and 60 dollars from day students. [4] In 1876, it had 200 students, [5] which gave the college an annual budget of 68,000 dollars. [6] Similar prices approximately prevail in the remaining colleges and seminaries. If we take into account that in the United States there are 107 colleges and seminaries with a total of about 20,000 students, it is evident that the annual income of male orders from this item should be counted in millions of dollars. [7] Even more income is extracted from this source by female orders. According to the latest statistical data, female monasteries in the United States maintain 511 female academies or boarding schools. [8] Tuition in them is as high as in male colleges. Thus the “Academy of Mount St. Vincent” (Academy of Mt. St. Vincent), several miles from New York, charges for instruction and maintenance 250 dollars per year, apart from special fees for instruction in music, languages, etc., raising this amount to 300 dollars. [9] In 1876, the academy had 200 female students, [10] giving the academy an annual budget of 60,000 dollars. The “Institute of Our Lady of Maryland” charges 375 dollars per year. In the last academic year, as shown in its circular, the institute had 110 female students, [11] which makes for the institute an annual budget of 44,250 dollars. Some colleges, such as the academy at “Presentation Convent” in San Francisco, have up to 700 female students. [12] If we assume an average of one hundred (100) female students per academy, this constitutes all the number of female students in the academies run by the sisters more than fifty thousand—(50,000), [13] which in monetary terms gives female orders from this source alone, at an average fee of 200 dollars, an enormous annual budget of ten million dollars (10,000,000).

In view of the figures presented, the fact that the prosperity of the Roman Catholic Church developed proportionally faster than the prosperity of the country itself should not be surprising, as can be seen from the following statistical data. In 1850, the entire value of property in the United States, according to the government census of that year, was estimated at 7,135,780,228 dollars; in 1860, it rose to 16,159,616,068 dollars; in 1870, to 30,668,518,507 dollars; finally, for 1880, it is estimated at 50,000,000,000 dollars. [14] The percentage growth of national wealth will thus be for the decade 1850–1860 about 125 percent, for the following decade about 86 percent, and for the last decade 1870–1880 about 60 percent. If we take the value of property belonging to the Roman Catholic Church, then for the corresponding years it is expressed in the following figures. In 1850, its property was valued at 9,256,758 dollars. In 1860, it rose to 26,744,119 dollars; in 1870, it was valued at 60,985,556 dollars; finally, in the last census, it is tentatively estimated at 100,000,000 dollars. [15] That is, the value of the property of the Roman Catholic Church for the first decade from 1850 to 1860 increased by 189 percent, from 1860 to 1870—by 128 percent, and for the last decade by 60 percent. Thus, while the wealth of the country for the first of these decades (1850–1860) increased by 125 percent, the wealth of the Roman Catholic Church increased by 189 percent. For the second decade, the wealth of the country increased only by 86 percent, while the wealth of the Roman Catholic Church increased by 128 percent. [16] For the last decade, the percentages of increase, due to the absence of exact data, we have taken as equal, although undoubtedly, judging by the previous decades, the property of the Roman Catholic Church increased faster than the general property of the country.

Along with the sources and methods of gathering material wealth, the system of managing it is of paramount importance, and in this respect the history of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States presents highly interesting data determining both its relationship to church property and its relationship to American property laws.

According to the laws of most states, property may be owned by either a person or any community or association—commercial, industrial, or religious. Any religious society, represented by its trustees, readily obtains corporate rights (incorporation), meaning it is recognized as a legal person entitled to own property, accept gifts, and receive inheritances. This right is ordinarily limited to a certain sum, but it is far greater than what any community needs. Even if the amount of property should exceed the determined maximum, it is easy to satisfy legal requirements by establishing a new center for property, for example, by building a new church, etc.[17] Given such legal provisions, church administration of property has all necessary conveniences and advantages. The Church, as a community, evidently has the same rights to property ownership as any other association in the state. And so it truly is in practice. Each church, through its elected trustees, possesses corporate rights, freely gathers property, owns and manages it according to its needs and requirements, without any interference from civil authorities. Such an arrangement would seem to be most favorable for the Roman Catholic Church, whose fundamental principle is independent management of church property in accordance only with its own statutes and rules. In reality it proved to be not particularly favorable and was a source of numerous and very serious difficulties for it. The reason is that civil legislation in this, as in many other respects, adopted a Protestant point of view, which proved contradictory to the fundamental spirit of Roman Catholicism as a church organization. By recognizing corporate rights to the church community, the legislation, in accordance with Protestant views, recognized the parish as the highest corporate unit and limited corporate rights to it. From the Protestant point of view, the parish is indeed the true highest corporate unit, an independent whole having no superior legal authority on which it depends. It is quite different in the Roman Catholic Church. The parish is not an independent legal unit, but only an organic component part of a higher unit, namely the diocese, on which it is entirely dependent and from whose representative, the bishop, it receives all its rights and all its governance. Clearly, this is a fundamental difference, and therefore legislation, having adopted the perspective of one of the concerned parties, thereby placed itself in contradiction with the other party. And since it adopted the Protestant point of view, it thereby placed itself in contradiction with the Roman Catholic perspective. This fact is the source of difficulties for the latter down to the present day, and at the same time the movement it produced threatened serious harm to the very integrity of its organization. This is precisely the so-called “trusteism” (trusteism), a movement hostile to the Roman Catholic organization, which found encouragement and support in the aforementioned legislation concerning the corporate rights of the religious community—the parish, not the diocese. The history of the Roman Catholic hierarchy’s struggle with this movement is not only interesting from a general historical perspective, but is also highly important for clarifying the principles of the Roman Catholic Church in managing church property.

The movement of trusteism received its name from the word “trustee,” which means steward, guardian, and as applied to church matters means a church steward in the broad sense of the word. In American church life, trustees played a very important role. All power of church administration—not only in material but also in spiritual matters—was concentrated in their hands. They represented the religious community before the state in their own name and received corporate rights under their names. In most cases by right of election from the parish, and in some cases, when the church was built with their own funds, by right of ownership, they were complete masters of the church: they sought sources for its maintenance, conducted the sale of church seating, hired choirs and orchestras, and finally, most importantly, they sought out the best pastor-preacher within their means, paid him his salary, and when dissatisfied replaced him to find a better one. Except for the parish, they had no superior jurisdiction over them and in their actions they were guided only by the voice of the parishioners and the interests of the church. This system of parish-church governance became deeply rooted in American church-religious life and constitutes a particular expression of the general principles of American public life, which has a strong tendency toward decentralization and the concentration of independent jurisdiction in each relatively separate public unit. With such an arrangement, the structure of Roman Catholic church-religious life, with its opposite tendency toward relentless centralization, naturally found itself immediately in contradiction with the prevailing principles. Between these two opposite systems of things, collision was inevitable, and it soon occurred, expressing itself in the trusteism movement.