Part 4. The Material and Moral Strength of Roman Catholicism (Cont.) (5)

But a sketch of the development of the material prosperity of the Roman Catholic Church and its present condition would be incomplete if we did not at least briefly mention one aspect in this respect which constitutes one of the characteristic phenomena in American church life, namely the widespread prevalence of speculative credit. Both the general character of American life and the particular position of American church parishes as independent legal and economic units led to the fact that each church, through its trustees, became in material respects a financial company which freely borrowed money on the security of its real property. This on one hand contributed to the development of the material prosperity of churches and the liveliness of their financial operations, but on the other hand led to immoderate speculation, the burdening of churches with debt obligations, which sometimes, in the event of unsuccessful operations, ended in lamentable catastrophe—complete bankruptcy and the sale of the church at auction to satisfy creditors. This general spirit of speculation could not but penetrate into the Roman Catholic Church, especially given the prevalence of trusteism, and we have seen what catastrophe befell the New York churches in the 1840s, when out of eight churches five were sold at auction for debts and purchased by Archbishop Hughes. With the strengthening of hierarchical control over church property, measures were taken to limit this evil, and the Second Council of Baltimore reaffirmed the determination of the First Council that bishops and priests should not burden churches with debts. “We urge the bishops, said the prelates, to see to it that priests, for unwise building or repair of churches or for some other reason, do not burden church property by the contraction of debt obligations (aere alieno contrahendo), or else destroy faith by bringing dishonor to religion: therefore let them examine the condition of the property annually and not permit them without written permission to borrow money on behalf of or for the church.”[1] But the force of circumstances proved more effective than council determinations, and despite them churches continued constantly to resort to credit on a very wide scale, so that at the present time in New York for example only four Roman Catholic churches are completely free from debt, while all the rest are more or less burdened by it, and the largest debt lies on the new Cathedral of St. Patrick. For determining the total amount of debt lying on the Roman Catholic Church we have no data, but an approximate idea of it can be gained from New York. All the property of the Roman Catholic Church in it is estimated at 11,176,500 dollars, while its debt equals 3,042,814 dollars, that is, it comprises about 1/4 of all the property. Judging by this proportion the total amount of debt should amount to 25,000,000 dollars.[2] Clearly, under such a burden there cannot be without financial collapse, as for example recently happened with the college of Mount St. Mary’s, which was mentioned above.[3]

XVI

Having received religious freedom, the Roman Catholic Church, as we have seen, deployed extraordinary strength and in one century not only created a powerful organization thanks to which the flood of Catholic immigration to American shores was incorporated into the Church and did not disperse among the Protestant population, but could at the same time raise the material prosperity of the Church to a high degree. In its numerical growth Roman Catholicism, as has already been shown, is almost exclusively indebted to the incoming immigrant population, and by such composition the Church itself may be called foreign, an exotic plant on American soil, as it is often called by American publicists. In its main aspect it is foreign not only in its popular numbers but also in its very hierarchy, and those numerous monastic orders, both male and female, which constitute one of the strongest strongholds of Roman Catholicism on American soil, are also foreign elements, which emigrated from Europe following the popular emigration. But once having stepped on American soil, this Church could not remain permanently foreign to it and of necessity had to acclimate and take root in the new soil. Thanks to its orderly organization and the tireless energy of its agents, it began to work actively in this direction, and the material prosperity shown above, as acquired exclusively on American soil, constitutes its first and principal success in this respect. By means of its property it became firmly established on the new soil, and this property serves as the chief sign of its acclimation. But material prosperity alone of course is not sufficient for the complete acclimation of the Church as a moral institution. For this it is necessary that it take root also in the people’s consciousness, and this is the most important condition of true acclimation, since without it the Church, despite strong material roots, would morally remain foreign to the American people. After examining the material foundation of Roman Catholicism on the soil of the United States, it is now therefore very important to examine its moral foundations, those roots which it has succeeded in planting in the moral consciousness of the American people. The expression of these roots may be served by those members of the Church who are taken from the very midst of the native American population, namely converts from American denominations to Catholicism. This is a very important question and its investigation will show how firmly Roman Catholicism is indeed rooted on American soil and what may be expected of it in the future.

The question of Roman Catholicism’s gain on American soil through conversions, despite all its importance, is at the same time very difficult to resolve satisfactorily. Exact statistical data were never gathered concerning the number of converts and therefore it is impossible to determine with precision their numerical strength. Meanwhile the importance of such a determination is indisputable for determining the moral position of Roman Catholicism in the country, and it is evident already from the fact that Protestant and Catholic writers constantly vie with each other over the exact number of converts, the former being inclined to reduce it, while the latter to the opposite inclination to exaggerate it.[4] But if it is impossible to determine the exact number of converts from Protestant-American denominations to Catholicism, nevertheless it can be said with confidence that this number, while having great moral significance, does not at the same time represent numerical strength. To gain an understanding of both its aspects, it is necessary historically to trace the most outstanding facts and examples of conversions, which will above all clarify the consistent quantitative and qualitative character of the converts.

At the end of the past and even in the first quarter of the present century, Roman Catholicism was too weak both in numbers and in ecclesiastical organization to exert any moral influence on the surrounding faiths. On the contrary, it was the most abandoned and almost despised communion, so that moral strength was not on its side, and it could not only not think of subjecting non-Catholics to its authority but had to make every effort to protect its members and its organization from foreign Protestant influence. From this it is understandable that during this period of its history it could not have much hope of acquiring converts, and indeed it had almost none, except for a few more or less scattered instances, which at the same time were offset by losses to Protestantism.[5] Thus at the end of the past century Catholic historians note the fact of conversion to Roman Catholicism of a Congregationalist minister named John Thayer, “a member of one of the oldest families in New England and a gentleman of more than ordinary substantial education”.[6] But even with this conversion, the American Roman Catholic Church owed it in essence not to its own moral influence but to the influence of Rome. Thayer, having traveled to Europe for scholarly purposes, did not intend to convert to Catholicism and was extremely prejudiced against it, especially against the Jesuits, and only in Rome itself, having encountered the Jesuits, did he yield to their moral and scholarly superiority and accept the Catholic faith.[6] This occurred in 1783. Fifteen years after this, we encounter an instance of native conversion and moreover not of a single person. The circumstances of this conversion are very characteristic both of the position of the Church and of the circle in which it began to make its acquisitions. In a remote corner of Virginia stood a sparsely populated village called Middleway, consisting of a few pioneer houses. There settled a Pennsylvania native named Adam Livingston, a Lutheran by faith. He was kind and hospitable, and once took into his home a wandering Irish Catholic when he fell ill; he cared for him and buried him properly, but refused him one thing – namely his request to send for a Catholic priest for him. He had never seen Catholic pastors and “very likely, like many others, thought they were living emissaries of Satan and had horns like their master”.[7] This refusal became the occasion of numerous troubles for the good Lutheran. “His house apparently was given over to Satan’s sport. His barns suddenly caught fire and burned, no one knows how; his horses and cattle fell sick; his clothing and that of his entire family, the bedding and bedclothes – all of this either burned or was cut into such small scraps that there was no way to repair it. Boots, saddles, harnesses – all met the same fate; burning coals whirled around the floor without any apparent reason; all sorts of sounds tormented the ears of the entire family; furniture moved and struck at all hours, dishes crashed to the floor and shattered into fragments”.[8] Such sport of Satan plunged the unfortunate family into grief and terror and struck fear into all the neighbors. The Lutheran appealed to various Protestant pastors to drive out Satan, but Satan did not yield and once suddenly silenced the pastor’s chanting by hurling a huge stone from the stove.[9] Livingston, in despair, did not know what to do. Then he had a dream, “so remarkable and so vivid as a vision”.[10] He dreamed that with great difficulty he climbed a rocky mountain and there saw a beautiful church and in the church a man – wearing such garments as he had never seen – and heard a voice: “such a man can deliver you from misfortunes.” When he told this dream to his wife and neighbors, judging from the description of the garments, all came to the conviction that the man was a Catholic priest. Not far away there turned out to be a Catholic pastor, in whom Livingston recognized the very man he had seen in his dream. The pastor sprinkled holy water on the house and all of the dwelling of the unfortunate man, and Satan’s sport apparently ceased, but soon began again. Then another Catholic pastor, the Sulpician Prince Dmitri Golitsyn, undertook the work of driving out Satan. Apparently relying on his princely authority, he “resolved to drive out the evil spirits entirely; but hardly had he begun to exorcise them when there came a terrible crashing and rumbling, as though from countless chariots, and this so affected his nerves that he could not sufficiently control himself to continue reading the exorcism”.[11] Only later, together with the former pastor, Prince Golitsyn finally overcame Satan and delivered from him not only the house but also the souls of its inhabitants, for Livingston with his entire family accepted the Catholic faith after this, except for his wife, who “was never sincerely converted and always called herself Judas”.[12] Word of this defeat of Satan spread throughout the previously quiet region and the result was the conversion to Catholicism of several people, so that “in the course of one winter fourteen (14) people were converted as a result of this”.[13]

From the beginning of the present century there are found in history already a few more examples of conversion, although all of them stand separately and individually, not representing any constant and developing phenomenon. Thus in the course of the first decade the Catholic historian names the names of six Protestant ministers who converted to Catholicism, and says that even “the Episcopal bishop of New York himself, Hobart, repeatedly expressed the desire to end his days in the bosom of the Roman Catholic Church”.[14] Among these six converts, John Richards, a Methodist minister, is worthy of attention. He was a fanatically zealous preacher of Methodism and with the goal of spreading it traveled to Upper Canada to convert Catholics. In 1807, in the city of Montreal, he met with members of the Sulpician order and even attempted to convert them to Methodism. But here he encountered strong opponents. The Sulpicians for their part gave him books explaining the doctrines of Roman Catholicism to read. He read them carefully and – turned to the order “not in order to convert others but to receive further instruction”.[14] For several months he engaged in careful study of this system. “The further I go, he writes in his diary, the clearer the truth becomes to me, so that I am fully convinced that no teaching has been so perversely interpreted (as Catholicism) as far as I can understand it. I see in it nothing but what has the sanction of God’s word”.[15] After his conversion he entered the Sulpician seminary, was ordained as a pastor, and preached Catholicism with the same zeal with which he had formerly preached Methodism, – to the no small confusion of the Methodists, although this fact did not have substantial consequences for acquiring new converts. Then in the chronicles of the historical life of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States there appear, scattered here and there, examples of other conversions, to follow which would be wearisome and useless for our purpose. Much more important is an investigation of those historical periods with which the greatest quantity of conversions is connected. Such an investigation will clarify the dependence of conversions on one or another historical condition that the Roman Catholic Church experienced in America.