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Archbishop Thomas Toolen
of Mobile 1927-1969
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Racial segregation was a
given fact in U.S. society from the time that African slaves were first
imported to Jamestown in 1619 until the mid-twentieth century and, in fact,
continues today to lurk in various discrete nooks and crannies of our society.
At the very beginning the Africans were treated as indentured servants and
given their freedom after serving a designated number of years, but within a
matter of twenty years this began to change and various court decisions ruled
that Africans bought from Spanish or Portuguese traders were to be held in
permanent servitude. At the time of our
Declaration of Independence in 1776, all thirteen colonies permitted slavery
but gradually over the next thirty plus years Pennsylvania, New York, New
Jersey and the New England States each passed laws abolishing slavery. As Florida and Louisiana became American
possessions they maintained the institution of slavery as they had known it
under Spanish and French rule.
There were social protocols
governing the relationships of masters and servants, whether those servants be
free or enslaved. A servant was a member
of the household, but not of the family.
Just like the Downton Abbey of early 20th century England,
servants never dined with the family, though a member of the family might, on
occasion, eat with the servants.
Servants had their own living quarters distinct from the family. Family members, no matter how young, were
always spoken to by title by the servants and servants were always called by
either their Christian name or their surname but never with a title. If servants were in the family quarters it
was to serve, not just to entertain themselves.
Separation was not strict—masters and servants often worked together on
the farm or the buildings. Servants
helped dress and undress their masters and mistresses. Conversations, while always correct and
somewhat formal, might still be fairly intimate in content.
The Catholic Church, like
most of the Protestant Churches—Anglican, Reformed/Presbyterian, and after 1800
Baptist and Methodist, took slavery for granted. The Maryland Jesuits, the only priests
legally in the colonies before the Revolution, supported their mission work by
the large plantations they owned and the slaves that worked them. There was considerable debate among
theologians about slavery and a distinction was drawn, as it has been about
war, about “unjust” and “just” enslavement.
Nevertheless, the Church was slow to move against slavery. Between 1573 and 1826 books arguing that
slavery was fundamentally immoral ended up on the Index of Forbidden
Books. Some clergy who called for the
emancipation of slaves in the United States were excommunicated. It was only in 1839 that arch-conservative
Pope Gregory XVI issued the Bull In
Supremo Apostolatus condemning both the slave trade and the institution
itself.
In all this we must remember
that the United States was not the only country practicing the enslavement of
human persons. Far more to the
consciousness of the Roman Church was Latin America where slavery both of
native peoples and imported African slaves was widespread. By the time that Gregory issued his Bull,
slavery had begun to disappear in the Latin American scene, at least as a
formal institution. The reaction of the
U.S. Bishops to In Supremo Apostolatus
was much the same as their more contemporary successors would give to the papal
teaching on war, nuclear weapons, economic justice, and now, rights of
immigrants. They explained it away or,
for the most part, just ignored it. By
Gregory’s time, the issue of slavery had become a powder keg threatening to
blow up the Union and the bishops chose to turn a blind eye to slavery and a
deaf ear to the papal magisterium.
Well, the Bishops may not
have touched the match to the fuse but the blowup came and passed with way too
much blood shed and the aftermath was not pretty.
This posting is not about
slavery but about segregation and in the years immediately following the Civil
War the Northern military governments controlling the Southern States which had
been “in rebellion” instituted a program called “Reconstruction.” In an attempt to right the wrongs of slavery
(and to rub the rebel noses in the mud and remind them that they lost the war)
many of the social institutions of the “Old South” were gutted. Former slaves found themselves able to vote
and to hold office while their masters, until they took an oath of allegiance
to the Union could not. The powerful
were cast down from their thrones and the lowly were raised up, but it was a
shaky and fragile state of things. When
the political winds in Washington changed, as they always do, and
Reconstruction ended not with a bang but a whimper, those Blacks who had
collaborated with the Reconstructionist “carpet baggers” found themselves out
on a limb. As more and more whites were
able to vote they took over the political machinery and instituted a series of
laws known as the Jim Crow Laws that established strict segregation of the
races. There were to be “separate but
equal” schools, hospitals, and other public institutions for whites and for
“people of color.” They got the separate
part right, but didn’t score high on the equal.
There were “separate but equal” rest rooms, swimming pools, and waiting
rooms. Restaurants were free to serve
only whites and any restaurant that wanted to succeed in the white community
did precisely that. Whites and Blacks
shopped at different stores, worshipped at different churches, and were buried
in different cemeteries. It was illegal
for Blacks and Whites to intermarry and to be licensed to perform a wedding
clergy had to post a bond that guaranteed that they would perform no such
wedding.
Now, before we think this is
a Southern issue, the Northern States had a far more discrete method of
segregation. An African-American family
looking to buy a home was shown homes in neighborhoods with other
African-American families and Whites lived in White neighborhoods. This meant, of course, that schools would be
predominately White or “Colored” depending on the neighborhood. And just like in the south, the schools where
the majority of students were of African descent were last to receive books,
experienced teachers, and educational materials. As for churches—the parochial system in the
United States guaranteed that Catholic churches in white neighborhoods would be
white; those in Black neighborhoods would minister to the Black Catholic
community, which generally was quite small.
I remember myself seeing, probably around 1960, a number of people stand
up and leave the communion rail when a black family appeared at it. To the Church’s credit, however, it provided
many good and affordable parochial schools in Black parishes which gave
children an opportunity to get ahead in competition of better high schools and
colleges. There were several religious
orders of women established to work with African American children but most of
the traditionally White communities pitched in just as hard. If anything good can be said about the
Church’s response to racial injustice, it is due to the women, not to the
men.
Throughout the nineteenth
century and well into the twentieth, the American bishops accepted the
segregation status quo without complaint.
Although Missouri, a slave state, had remained in the Union during the
Civil War it, like other Border States such as Kentucky and Maryland, had
adopted the strict segregation policies of the deep South. The Archdiocese of Saint Louis ran a good
number of Catholic Schools for Black Children but the schools were all strictly
segregated. In the 1940’s progressive
clergy—especially the Jesuits at Saint Louis University—began to press for an
end to segregation and the Archbishop, John Glennon (later Cardinal), an octogenarian,
fought the change from segregation.
Glennon, incidentally was not a Southerner himself but was Irish born
and bred. One priest, a member of the
faculty at Saint Louis University, gave a blistering sermon that was reported
in newspapers across the country accusing the Archdiocese of Saint Louis of
immorality in its racial policies. Other
priests also spoke up in favor of integration and organized to push for
integration of Church institutions. In
1943 Webster College, a woman’s college run by the Sisters of Loretto agreed to
accept black students. Glennon contact
the superior of the Sisters at the Motherhouse in Kentucky and had the decision
reversed. However the Jesuits at Saint
Louis University began admitting African American students at the (then)
all-male University. The relationship of the Jesuits at Saint Louis University
and the Archbishops of Saint Louis has some interesting chapters, renewed again
during the episcopate of our dear Cardinal Burke.
The story was not much
different elsewhere. Archbishop Michael
Curley of Baltimore/Washington resisted pressure to integrate the schools and
parish of his Archdiocese which included the national capital. As the Civil Rights Movement picked up
momentum Catholic clergy were initially absent from the ranks because their
bishops and religious superiors refused them permission to participate. Cardinal McIntyre of Los Angeles, one of the
greatest blemishes on history of the Church in the United States, suspended
priests for preaching in favor of Civil Rights for African Americans. Archbishop Thomas Toolen of Mobile had made it
clear that no priest was to participate in the marches with Dr. Martin Luther
King and other Black leaders. Once again, it was the women who led the way
as the nuns showed up where the priests feared to go. In fact, much of the “radicalization” of
American Religious Women is rooted in their experience of challenging both the
authority of the bishops and the power of social norms in their participation
in the Civil Rights Movement.
Toolen is an interesting
example of the ambivalence of the American hierarchy towards racial
justice. He opened new churches,
hospitals, schools, and orphanages to minister exclusively to African Americans
and was derided as “the nigger bishop” for his commitment to work in the Black
community. In 1950 he opened Saint
Martin de Porres Hospital in Mobile where both African American and White
physicians could practice. In 1964 he
ordered the integration of the Catholic schools in his diocese—of course this
was ten years after the Supreme Court’s Brown vs. Board of Education decision
mandated integration of public schools.
To be fair, however, most public schools in the south had yet to be
integrated so this is another instance where the Church is slow but still on
the cutting edge. As stated above he
opposed the Civil Rights marches and demonstrations and forbad the clergy from
participating. One priest, Father
Maurice Ouellet of the Edmundite Fathers was removed from his pastorate for
permitting the parish rectory to be used for organizational meetings for Civil
Rights Events. He also rejected African
Americans as seminary candidates for priesthood. One of those rejected, Joseph
Howze, later became the first Bishop of Biloxi.
In my next posting we will
deal with the saga of Archbishop Joseph Rummel of New Orleans and the
excommunication of Judge Leander Perez, Jackson G. Ricau, and Una Gaillot,
three segregationists who opposed his desegregation of Catholic Institutions in
New Orleans Archdiocese.
