Origins of Radical Catholicism XXIII: Americanism, fact or fiction?

Was there in fact such a thing as Americanism—a “heresy” within the Church that subverted key Catholic doctrines—or, was “Americanism” something that existed only in the mind of those Roman officials who had read Felix Klein’s book, La Vie du Pére Hecker, and found themselves panicked and angered by the values Klein promoted but attributed to Hecker and other American religious thinkers?

Liberals—the intellectual or political descendents of Ireland, Gibbons, O’Connell, Keane and others—tend to deny the charge and claim that they stand in a tradition going back to Bishop John Carroll and his vision for the Catholic Church in the new American Republic.  They claim that while the American and Americanist worldview differed from that of European churchmen, they were orthodox in matters of doctrine and faithful in matters of ecclesiastical discipline.  Conservatives on the other hand—not only the heirs of Corrigan and the Germans, but the Roman Church of the Latter-Day Saints who in these post-Vatican II day rally around such Apostles and Prophets as Raymond Arroyo, “Father Z.”, Joseph Fessio, the Hitchcocks, et al see their foes as a modern day reincarnation of the old American liberal troublemakers and pray that Timothy Dolan won’t go the way of Joseph Bernadin and Roger Mahoney and channel the shades of Cardinal Gibbons or John Ireland.  So who is right?  Were Gibbons and crowd within our without the pale of orthodoxy?    

In its historical context, there certainly was such a thing as “Americanism” though I hesitate to call it a heresy.  It certainly was perceived as a heresy—and I believe that given its place in time it was correctly perceived as one.  There was an ecumenical espirit that contradicted Catholic doctrine as it was held in the 19^th century, although it would look pretty tame compared to official Church positions in this age of the Assisi Encounters and the post-conciliar popes welcoming religious leaders of every stripe at the Vatican.  The idea of the separation of Church and State—and indeed republicanism itself—was contrary to Catholic political theology of the late nineteenth century.  A third valid point (valid for the time and I think still valid today) is that America (whether Catholic or Protestant) then—and now—and always—has overvalued the active virtues and minimalized the interior or contemplative life.  I think too we did and still do place too much emphasis on individual inspiration rather than submission to the common faith and we permit individual inspiration to outweigh, not traditions, but Tradition.   On the other hand, I don’t think it bad—to the contrary I think it healthy—that America has some views that balance the Roman mentality.  I think the Catholic, i.e. universal, Church needs to draw its insights from the many sources of grace where the Spirit flows and not just from Rome’s tired old reservoir.  I think that perhaps what Rome fears from the American Church is that it does seem in these last few decades that a lot of people in Rome itself and around the Church are gradually succumbing to American ideas and values.  It wasn’t just that Paul VI got rid of the monarchical trappings of cardinal’s costumes with their long trains of scarlet silk (though some are trying to bring them back, most notably the American peacock, Raymond Burke) and it has been ages since some old bag with more money than God has been made a Papal Duchess, but that the Vatican has become a business with pricey gift-shops in the museums and a bank that hums with activity as nuns and abbots line up with librarians and bakers to make their deposits and withdrawals.  (If only someone would teach them about bank-cheques all our lives could be easier.)   Not everything American is good, but Americans are efficient and the Italians are not; I think the Church could stand some efficiency in administration.  The downside is that today’s Vatican is as secular as the Metropolitan Museum of Art or the government of Belgium. Romans, Americans, the French, the Chinese, the Kenyans—we live in a modern world and the powers that be in the Church need to make peace with that fact.  I am not saying that modernization is good or it’s bad, only pointing out that there is a significant paradigm shift and the Church must accommodate itself to it. 

What the late nineteenth-century Americanists wanted the Church to do was—and it was one of the things condemned by Pius IX in his Syllabus of Errors—was to make peace with the world in which it exists and not constantly bemoan the good old days when the world was run to suit the Church—and Churchmen.  That day is over and it won’t be coming back.  The Church needs to look for new models—paradigms of existence—that fit the reality of time and place.  Despite its somewhat whitewashed official histories, the Church was not always a Monarchy of Divine Right.  There even was a time, perhaps several times, when the Church understood it had come to serve the needs of sick, the poor, the disenfranchised—rather than to be served by rich and poor alike.   Maybe that time will come again.  I don’t think Gibbons necessarily saw the Church as a servant to the world, and Ireland, despite his liberal ideas, was as autocratic as any French King—but the Americanists did challenge the model of Church where all power came allegedly from God and then from those who were the Lord’s anointed down.  They pointed out that in addition to the Institution, the Church consisted of the poor and suffering who need the Church’s protection and help.  They refocused the vision—not the narcissistic vision of a Church that gazed in the mirror at its own bedazzling image—but the vision which Jesus outlined when he said he came to bring good news to the poor and to announce a year of God’s favour to all.  The Americans would not be the ones to get his message across to the contemporary world.  At Vatican II it would be the Europeans themselves who declaimed the fascination of the Church with clericalism, juridicism, and triumphalism.  But the Americans played a role in the late nineteenth century that would bear great fruit in the middle of the twentieth.    
The image today is the interior of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington DC

Origins of Radical Catholicism XVI: The Apostolic Delegation part 4

The Apostolic Delegation was established and Archbishop Satolli named Delegate on January 22, 1893.  This followed the presidential election of 1892 so as not to influence the outcome of the election, Republican incumbent Benjamin Harrison having invited Papal representation at the Columbian exhibition and thus having furnished the Holy See with an excuse for getting Satolli into the country.  Harrison lost his reelection bid, but the Vatican having sent a papal Ablegate to the States probably had little or no effect on his defeat.  There were other reasons having nothing to do with religion that Grover Cleveland and the Democrats retook the White House. 

Satolli, had been lured out onto very thin ice by the liberal faction, most notably Monsignor Denis O’Connel and Archbishop John Ireland.    His lifting the excommunication of McGlynn (see blogs of March 9, 10, 11, and 12) not only had infuriated Corrigan but also Cardinal Mieczyslaw Ledóchowski, the new head of Propaganda Fide in Rome.   Ledóchowski, was a conservative and would have had far more sympathy with Corrigan, but he probably had not yet figured out the game that the liberals in America were playing with Corrigan.  As a “new kid” on the block and self-conscious of his authority, Ledóchowski, would have resented Satolli’s independence in acting without consulting him as Propaganda still had control over the American Church.  Furthermore, Ledóchowski,’s appointment to Propaganda Fide put tension between his congregation—Propaganda Fide—and the Secretariate of State and Cardinal Rampola.   Rampola had set a pro-French policy for the Church which is something we will talk about very soon.  Ledóchowski, was pro-German in his policies. Not a good mix.  Satolli, as a papal representative had been answerable to the Secretariat of State while the territory to which he was accredited, the United States, was under Propaganda Fide.  So in the background of the McGlynn affair was a turf war.  Satolli was going to lose whichever way he handled the McGlynn matter.  Moreover, while Satolli was—at least for the time being—in the paws of the liberals, Ledóchowski managed to secure the appointments of the number two and three members of the Apostolic Delegation for his loyalists which caused deep concern among the liberals.  Of course—and keep this in the mix—the fact that Leo’s esteem for Gibbons, at times it seems almost a blind esteem, gave the liberals some weight that even Ledóchowski had to consider.  And Corrigan, for some short-sighted reason, kept muddying the waters as his diocesan newspaper continued to print articles decrying the Delegation.  While Corrigan denied responsibility for these articles and complained the editor would not divulge the name(s) of the authors, the editor himself turned on Corrigan and sent Rome correspondence showing that Corrigan was indeed behind the anti-Delegation articles.  It was very foolish of Corrigan who never got the Cardinal’s hat either because Rome deemed him not sufficiently loyal or more than sufficiently stupid to trust him any further than they had already committed in naming him Archbishop of New York.  But then, to be fair, Corrigan had no right to expect a red hat as previously only one Archbishop of New York, his immediate predecessor, was so honored.  All his successors have been named Cardinals and it is presumable that the current Archbishop, Timothy Dolan, will be made a Cardinal when his predecessor turns 80 and can no longer vote in a conclave. 

The big mistake that led to a wedge between Satolli and the liberals came in the World Parliament of Religions in September 1893.  Rome had always forbidden Catholic Participation in any such ecumenical or inter-faith gathering, even if it did not involve prayer.  The American Archbishops, at the urging of Ireland, had decided to participate in this gathering, claiming that the opportunity of presenting Catholic Doctrine and Truth outweighed any danger of religious indifferentism (the idea that all religions are equally truthful and valid ways of approaching God).  The liberals—Keane, Gibbons, and Ireland—were all prominent participants.  Gibbons explained that the Church needed to stand with other religious leaders against the common enemies: “materialism, agnosticism, and atheism.” Rampola back in Rome was not impressed at this violation of Church policy though he communicated to Gibbons that Leo XIII recognized the “good intentions” of the Americans in participating.  Satolli, though he understood America and the American mind well, was still first and foremost a Roman and saw this as a breach of the stringent ban on any such pan-religious activities.  Ledóchowski, likewise, was totally appalled when he heard of it and communicated this to Satolli. This moved Satolli somewhat more to Ledóchowski’s camp.  Despite the earlier assurances that the American Church would be free of Propaganda Fide once a Delegation had been established, authority was split and Satolli had to answer to Ledóchowski regarding ecclesiastical matters and Rampola regarding political and diplomatic matters.  Given Ledóchowski’s conservativism, Satolli knew which way the wind was blowing and anxious to kiss and make up with Ledóchowski for the way he had handled the McGlynn absolution.  At the same time Satolii began to disengage himself from Gibbons, Ireland, and the liberals. 

There was one more nail in the coffin of the liberal’s hope for control of the Delegation.  During the World Parliament of Religions the Archbishops held a meeting and could not come to a consensus on the issue of secret societies and whether Catholics could belong to them.  Under consideration were specifically The Oddfellows and the Knights of Pythias.  The prelate’s failure to make an outright condemnation shocked Satolli as the Holy Office (today’s Congregation for the Doctine of the Faith) had been unambiguous in previous cases in condemning Secret Societies.  Satolli finally saw that the Americans were not given to be little ducklings in a tidy line behind the Roman hen.  For the most part, the old generation of bishops, liberals or conservatives, didn’t accommodate themselves to the authority of the new Delegation but Rome would soon begin appointing bishops who knew who the boss was.  Before we get there, however, we have some other issues to look at—notably the Americanist heresy and Rome’s alarm at the American understanding of Catholicism. 

Let me say that though I use a variety of sources in my research for this series, I am particularly indebted to Gerald P. Fogarty SJ and his The Vatican and the American Hierarchy 1870 to 1965.  I am so dependent on Fogarty’s work that I would be a plagiarist (at least) if I didn’t acknowledge it.  Today's image is the plaque on the front of the Basilica of the Portiuncula (Saint Mary of the Angels) in Assisi commemorating the two inter-faith meetings held their under the auspices of John Paul II.  Such meetings were once prohibited. 

Origins of Radical Catholicism XV: The Apostolic Delegation part 3

Monsignor Denis O’Connell and Archbishop Ireland did a masterful job in putting their foe, Archbishop Corrigan of New York—the leader of the Conservatives—in bad light for the arrival of the papal delegate, Archbishop Francesco Satolli.  O’Connell, traveling with Satolli, wrote Corrigan informing him that he and Archbishop Satolli would be arriving in New York on their way to the Columbian Exhibition in Chicago where Satolli would be representing the Holy Father at a Vatican Exhibit.  A letter obviously could travel no faster than the ship that carried it so it gave Corrigan no advance warning.  Nevertheless, Corrigan had heard rumors and tracked them down to learn that Satolli was coming and would be aboard the Majestic when it docked in New York on October 12 1892.  But Ireland had arranged a curve ball to Corrigan in case of just such an event.  As Satolli was coming to the exhibition at the invitation of the United States Government who was sponsoring the Columbian Exhibition, the Delegate was an official guest of the government and would be met by a Coast Guard cutter as the ship entered the harbor and conveyed privately to shore.  Try as he could, Corrigan could not get information regarding the cutter or its landing place.  Thus he was neither aboard the cutter nor at its dock to greet the Delegate.  The liberals leaked it to the press that this was a “snub” to the papal representative and so it was interpreted by all, including Satolli.  This was only the first step in the anti-Corrigan plan. 

Corrigan could not find the cutter or its dock, but he did know the date of arrival and he had arranged a dinner at his residence adjoining Saint Patrick’s Cathedral for the papal representative.  Under the circumstances the dinner was, shall we say, “strained.”  The next morning Satolli and O’Connell boarded a private railway car arranged for by Gibbons and travelled on to Baltimore where Gibbons welcomed the Delegate more appropriately.  He was taken to Washington where again there was a very gracious welcome by the Secretary of State on behalf of President Harrison who was absent tending to his dying wife. Satolli’s remarks, prepared by O’Connell, praised the American form of republican government and its freedom of Worship—this was a bit edgy for the time as we shall see in several future blogs about the situation in France and then later about an American Jesuit who would be removed from teaching these ideas at the Catholic University in Washington.  But for now, back to Satolli.   While in Washington the papal representative was taken to the new Catholic University where he was greeted by university officials and faculty.  Then on to Chicago with various stops along the way, all orchestrated by Archbishop Ireland who made sure that the Delegate was treated with great respect to contrast with Corrigan’s failures in New York.  Meanwhile, Denis O’Connell kept sending messages back to Cardinal Rampolla (the papal Secretary of State) in Rome about the warm welcomes extended to the papal representative and never mentioning Corrigan in his dispatches.   Then, somewhat ill-considered, Corrigan’s New York Catholic Newspaper published a diatribe against government collaboration with the Church in regards to education and Satolli, by now a convert to the liberal cause, cabled Rampolla himself about how injurious such criticism could be to the cause of the Church in the United States.  Corrigan was in deep, up to his ears and the liberals were enjoying every bit of it. 

Ireland next brought Archbishop Satolli to his diocese, Saint Paul Minnesota, to help him prepare for a meeting of the American Archbishops.  Ireland’s real agenda was to convince Satolli of Ireland’s program on “The Schools Issue.” Ireland had a fourteen point program in which he basically supported public school education over the parochial system advocated by most American bishops. Indeed the bishops had incorporated the idea that every parish should have its parochial school and parents should be obligated to send their children to these schools under penalty of being deprived of the sacraments as legislation at the Plenary Councils of Baltimore.  Ireland, on the other hand, had sold a number of Catholic Schools to the State of Minnesota which in turned hired the nuns and priests to teach in these now public schools, reserving religious education for Catholics until after normal school hours.  Ireland did a great sales job and Satolli endorsed the fourteen points at the subsequent meeting of the Archbishops.  The leading opponent to Ireland’s plan was, of course, Archbishop Corrigan of New York who now found himself more isolated than ever from Satolli. 

Satolli also polled the Archbishops on the suitability of establishing a permanent Apostolic Delegation in Washington.  Rome was determined to do so, but wanted it to be at the “request” of the American hierarchy.  Ireland was the only one of the Archbishops to vote in favor of the delegation.  Most of the others demurred claiming they needed to consult the suffragen bishops of their respective provinces. Even Gibbons did not speak in its behalf, but remained silent.  This was an orchestrated plan however.  Gibbons’ had not joined in the chorus against the delegation and his silence was explained as “fear” in face of the opposition and, given that he was the senior American Churchman, a reluctance of compromising himself in case he should be needed as mediator between opposing wings of the hierarchy.    Satolli was furious at the Archbishops for refusing to endorse the Delegation and he blamed Corrigan and the conservatives for the reluctance of the American hierarchy, cabling  Rampolla in Rome that the Holy See should just go ahead and establish the Delegation with or without the approval of the American hierarchy. 

Corrigan realized that he was being made a scapegoat both with Satolli and the Holy See and he begged O’Connell to smooth things out.  O’Connell told Corrigan not to worry, it was just a tempest in a teapot (idiomatic translation of the actual words which were incidente accidentale).  Well, if it were, O’Connell was making sure the winds blew strong in that teapot.  He wrote Rampolla telling the Cardinal that the pope needed to back up Satolli’s endorsement of Ireland’s fourteen points as well as the other liberal agenda to show that Satolli was speaking for the Holy See because the American Archbishops opposition to Satolli and his proposed Delegation was a contest between their authority and Roman authority.  Rome needed to bring the bishops into line.  This is so deliciously ironic that the conservatives found themselves out on a limb and the liberals looked like the loyalists.  Gibbons, Ireland, O’Connell, Keane and their party were having a field day and poor Satolli was being played like a puppet on strings and had no idea.  But such hubris leads to overconfidence and that brings us to a fall.  Stay tuned.  The image today is the Papal Nunciature in Washington DC, originally the Apostolic Delegation until the Holy See and the United States established formal diplomatic relations during the Reagan Administration. 

Origins of Radical Catholicism XI: The "German Question."

I had thought I move on to the subject of the establishment of an Apostolic Delegation but I forgot that we first have to deal with “The German Question,” most notably with the events surrounding the “Abbelen Memorial” to the Roman Congregation of Propaganda Fide. 

Peter Abbelen (1843-1917) was a German born priest of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee who on behalf of the German speaking clergy of the Milwaukee, Cincinatti, and Saint Louis Archdioceses submitted a petition to the Congregation of Propaganda Fide in Rome to establish and protect the rights of German priests and congregations in the United States.  Propagada Fide (literally: for the spread of the faith), known today as the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, is the bureau in the Papal Curia that is responsible for work in missionary countries; as such it oversaw the Church in the United States until 1908.  At the same time that Propaganda Fide had jurisdictional oversight of the American Church, other Roman dicasteries, most notably the Secretariat of State, also had authority and this enabled the Bishops and others to play one congregation off against another from time to time as we shall see in blogs over the next week or so. 

The problem began in St. Louis where Archbishop Peter Kenrick established the policy that within the boundaries of any one territorial parish there could be only one canonical parish and any other church or quasi-parish did not carry with it the rights and privileges of a canonical parish.   Now that sounds confusing but let me present an example illustrating what he meant.  A parish is not simply a church, it is a territory served by that church and with a pastor appointed to minister to the Catholics in that territory and administer the property of that parish.  So a parish is a territory.  Now let us say that within that territory a specific group of Catholics wish to establish a second church for their own purposes.   For example: a group of several hundred German immigrant families wish to establish a German church within the boundaries of an already existing English-language parish, or overlapping the boundaries of several English-language parishes, they can—with the bishop’s permission build a church but that church is not a parish.  It is a secondary chapel, or a chapel-of-ease, to the parish in whose territory the church itself stands.  By the letter of the law—the canons of the Council of Trent (1545-1562) that policy is correct; but that policy was not drawn up with the American situation of islands of alien immigrant communities surrounded by a native population who speak a different language and have a different culture.  And while the German quasi-parishes or national churches functioned well-enough in Saint Louis, their rectors did not have the full rights under canon law as the (English speaking) rectors of the established territorial parishes.  Most important, the rector of an established parish could not be removed at will by the bishop.  But the English speaking rector (pastor) of the parish in which the German parish stood was technically the pastor of those German parishioners.  He could block the construction of a school in which the children would be taught in German.  He could set requirements for first communion and confirmation for English and German children alike.   He had rights over the administration of baptism and marriages.  In other words, the German speaking priests would always be second- class citizens unless they were named pastor of a territorial parish—all of which were English speaking—and their parishioners would always be at the whim of the policies of English-speaking pastors.  As I said, in Saint Louis where the Vicar General, Monsignor Muehlsiepen was a German, the day to day pastoral practicalities worked out, but the German pastors were still second-class citizens as they could be moved at whim and also, not being irremovable rectors they lacked rights of being consulted for diocesan policies and for the nomination of bishops.  Cincinatti and Milwaukee also had large German immigrant populations with their own churches and their clergy were also in this ambiguous position.     

Abbelen went to Rome with a petition of the German clergy from those three Archdioceses asking Rome to give ethnic parishes the same rights as territorial parishes. Abbelen’s petition also requested that the Holy See mandate the appointment of a German speaking Vicar General for the German faithful in those dioceses where neither the bishop nor his Vicar General spoke German.  And thirdly, his petition sought that the Holy See require that the adult children of those parishioners in German ethnic parishes have the consent of the pastor of the German parish before they could change their membership to the territorial parish.  This last point would, of course, keep the German faithful in the German parish for two, three, and more generations, guaranteeing the survival of the German parishes.

Beneath Abbelen’s petition—and it should be remembered that while he presented it, there was a large body of German clergy (including Archbishop Heiss and Bishop Katzer) behind it—was a certain ethnocentricism, almost racism.  That is not to say that it didn’t have merit, but rather it saw the world in categories of German/non-German.  It needs to be kept in mind that Germans were the largest non-English speaking immigrant group but they were not the only ones.  Lithuanians, Hungarians, Slovaks, Czechs, Belgians, French, and especially Italians and Poles were facing the same difficulties, but Abbelen’s petition concerned only the German immigrant churches.  Moreover the petition called all English speakers “Irish,” which neglected completely the ethnic complexity of English-speaking American Catholicism.    Several German-born bishops, notably Richter of Grand Rapids and Rademacher of Nashville, did not support it the Abbelen memorial.  Archbishop Ireland and Bishop Keane were in Rome and obtained a copy of the petition, Kean calling it “A more villainous tissue of misstatements I have seldom read.”  Gibbons collected the opinions of the other bishops and sent them on to Rome, none supporting Abbelen.  Belgian-born Bishop Camillus Maes of Covington KY wrote that the petition sent to Rome by “German Prelates” was “nothing less than an insult to the hierarchy of the United States.”  Martin Marty, the Swiss-born Benedictine bishop of the Dakotas likewise saw this as a “secret” of the German bishops and clergy, while Katzer of Green Bay (and later Milwaukee) wrote Propaganda Fide defending and endorsing the petition. 

When the German Catholics of the United States planned a national gathering, a Katholikentag for Cincinnati in 1888, they requested a Papal Blessing from Leo XIII, but while the blessing was yet on its way, Denis O’Connel, Rector of the North American College, and Roman agent for the liberal bishops, managed to have it withdrawn.  This was an egregious insult to the Germans no matter how tense the ethnic divide was.  In the end, Rome decided the various questions more or less in favor of the German petition.  Yes, two parishes could exist in the same territory.  Yes, the pastors of the German parishes could be and have the rights of Irremovable rectors. And the children of German parents should be in the German parish until their legal majority.  Rome did not give the German pastors the right to refuse adult parishioners the right to transfer to an English language parish.   But the battle was not over.  A German layman and a German Cardinal would stir up the pot again.  the image today is the Cathedral of Saint John the Evangelist, Milwaukee

Origins of Radical Catholicism IX: Factions among the Bishops

       Before we go on, let me clarify the situation in the American hierarchy at this point.  There were essentially three factions among the bishops: the American Liberals, the American Conservatives, and the Germans. 

We have talked a lot about the liberals.  The Dean of the Liberal faction was Cardinal James Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore.  The other principle players were John Ireland, Archbishop of Saint Paul Minnesota; Denis O’Connell, Rector of the North American College in Rome (and later Bishop of Richmond); John Lancaster Spalding, Bishop of Peoria; John Joseph Keane, Bishop of Richmond, and John Moore, Bishop of Saint Augustine, FL. 

The American Conservative faction was larger but had less influence.  It was led by Archbishop Corrigan of New York and included Bernard McQuaid, Bishop of Rochester NY; Patrick Feehan, Archbishop of Chicago; Patrick John Ryan, Archbishop of Philadelphia; William Henry Elder, Archbishop of Cincinnati; and William H. Gross, Archbishop of Oregon City, OR.  You might remember Elder—he was the bishop who during the Yankee occupation of Natchez in the American Civil War was imprisoned by the Yankee army for refusing to have prayers said in the churches for the President of the United States.  (See Blog for 2/10/11.)

It is difficult to know where to put Peter Richard Kenrick, Archbishop of Saint Louis.  In some respects he might also be considered in this party but he was pretty much of a non-entity as his stands at Vatican I had alienated Rome.  I suppose actually that Kenrick would have been considered a Liberal and an Americanist at the time of the Council.  He advocated that issues in the American Church not be referred to the Roman Curia but dealt with by the American hierarchy, and this would be a position that men like Gibbons (more subtly than Kenrick) and Ireland (who was never subtle) would espouse. Kenrick also was one of the few bishops at the Council who opposed the definition of Papal Infallibility.  His positions on these issues put him on the enemies list for the Roman Curia and made him a pariah among his fellow American bishops.  In the matter of the Knights of Labor he opposed Gibbons and the defense of Labor Unions.  He probably resented Gibbons for several reasons, not least of which is that Gibbons had succeed his brother, Francis Kenrick, as Archbishop of Baltimore and Gibbons became a Cardinal, an honor never extended to Kenrick’s brother.  The last few years of his episcopacy he had a co-adjutor, John Joseph Kain, to whom he was ardently and publicly opposed.  Finally in 1896 Pope Leo XIII canonically deposed him and he died weeks later. His was a sad story. But back to our main theme.

The third party among the Hierarchy were the German bishops led by Archbishop Katzer of Milwaukee.  (Katzer was actually Austrian born but we are including the German-speaking bishops in this category.) Katzer’s predecessor, Michael Heiss had led the German faction prior to his death in 1890.  Others in this party were Sebastian Messmer (actually Swiss, but German speaking) of Green Bay, Kilian Flasch (d. 1891) and James Schwebach of LaCrosse.  Henry Muehlsiepen, Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Saint Louis was also in this camp—and a leading protagonist of the German cause—and while not a bishop wielded considerable power and influence given the confused state of Kenrick’s episcopacy.  Not all German-born or German-speaking bishops could be counted on to support the more extreme demands of the German party.  Bishops Joseph Rademacher of Nashville and Henry Richter of Grand Rapids distanced themselves from the German agenda.

The German agenda deserves a posting of its own and we will do that soon. 

The Liberal Americanist wing, despite its smaller size, dominated through the 1880’s and into the 1890’s.  Their strength was most likely due to Gibbons personally.  He was the only American Cardinal at the time, but more important (and not unrelated) was the friendship and trust in which Pope Leo XIII held him.  Leo was no liberal—especially in theological and ecclesiological matters—but he was no conservative either and he did make some surprising choices for his Cardinals, John Henry Newman being another liberal whose appointment to the Sacred College astonished (and in the case of Henry Manning , Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, dismayed) his contemporaries.  Even after the fall of the liberals in 1894 Gibbons remained in Leo’s confidence.  Corrigan, on the other hand, as hard as he worked for Roman favor, never got his galero.     
The image today is Cardinal Gibbons, the leader of the Americanist Party

The Origins of Radical Catholicism VIII: The Fight for Catholic Schools, part 3.

I mentioned in the last episode that Cardinal Melchers, the exiled archbishop of Cologne, delated (reported for heresy) Archbishop John Ireland of St. Paul Minnesota to Rome for his endorsement of the Public School system in the United States.  The issue behind Ireland’s speech and Melcher’s denunciation was English-only education and, on a broader scale, the integration of immigrants (in the instance of Melcher’s concern, specifically German immigrants) into American society and culture.  There was more.  Ireland and others in the liberal faction were trying to get John Lancaster Spalding, the bishop of Peoria, appointed to be the Archbishop of Milwaukee.  John Martin Henni, a Swiss had been appointed bishop of the new see in 1844 and promoted to Archbishop when the diocese became the Archdiocese of Milwaukee in 1875.  His successor, Michael Heiss was German.  When Heiss died in 1890 there was a concern on the part of the liberals to make sure the new Archbishop was American born lest the Germans become entrenched there and use it as a powerbase.  Spalding was perfect, or rather appeared perfect as a candidate for the See.  He came from an old Maryland Catholic family that had emigrated to Kentucky at the end of the 18^th century and his uncle Martin John Spalding had been Archbishop of Baltimore from 1864 until his death in 1872.  Spalding would have blocked the German domination of the Church in Wisconsin and supported the English-only education policies of the Republican gubernatorial administration in Wisconsin.   In the event, it did not happen and Milwaukee would be ruled by an Austrian (Frederick Katzer) and then a Swiss-German (Gerard Messmer) Archbishop for the next forty years.  Despite the efforts of Gibbons and Ireland, Catholicism in Milwaukee would be German Catholicism. 

While Melchers and the German Catholic community were mobilized to resistance by Ireland’s speech, Americans in general (and that means Protestants) cheered it.  A Baptist minister described the Catholic Church as follows:

There are two distinct and hostile parties in the Roman Catholic Church in America.  One is led by Archbishop Ireland.  It stands for Americanism and a large independence.  It is sympathetic with modern thought.  It believes the Roman Catholic Church should take its place in all the great moral reforms.  It is small but progressive, vigorous, and brave.

The other party is led by the overwhelming majority of the hierarchy.  It is conservative, out of touch with American or modern ideas.  It is the old medieval European Church transplanted into The Nineteenth Century and this country of freedom, interesting as an antiquity and curiosity, but fast losing its power and consequently growing in bitterness.

Statements like this did not help Ireland’s cause and they certainly did not endear him to the authorities in Rome.  Ella B. Edes, a Brahmin convert to Catholicism who served as a secretary to Cardinal Simeoni of the Propaganda Fide—the Roman Congregation that oversaw the American Church at the time—and spy-agent provocateur for Archbishop Corrigan of New York, remarked that “Ireland is the stuff of which heretics are made.”  Edes had perhaps the most viperfish tongue to ever grace the halls of the Vatican—no small distinction—and Simeoni to whom she reported the back-alley gossip of the American Church was pathologically anti-American.  This is not to say that Edes’ wasn’t witty nor to say that Simeoni’s fears were unfounded.  But distrust of Ireland in Rome undoubtedly had much to do with Spalding’s never rising above Peoria and Ireland’s never getting a red hat. Both men had the talent to go further in their careers than they did, but neither knew his Achilles’ heel and it marked them each for disappointment.

In the immediate fallout, the Schools Question ended up in Rome for a decision and that will be part of the story of the first Apostolic Delegate.      

The Origins of Radical Catholicism VII: The Fight for Catholic Schools part 2

Although the Catholic Bishops of the United States had supported parochial schools since the First Plenary Council of Baltimore in 1840, many parish priests and even a few bishops were entirely content with Catholics attending public schools.  Where bias against Catholics was non-existent or not particularly high, clergy could not see the problem with the public schools that priests and parents were having when anti-Catholics controlled the school boards.  In some places Catholics were excused from bible reading and prayers; in others their attendance was required despite the protests of parents and pastors. 

Probably the most outspoken Churchman in favor of the Public Schools was John Ireland (1838-1918).  Ireland was Irish born but his family had immigrated to the United States—to Saint Paul, Minnesota—when he was still a child.  Entering the seminary, Ireland was sent to France for his education.  This French education exposed him to the liberal strain of French Catholicism which made him suspicious of Rome.  Nevertheless, Ireland was made bishop coadjutor of St. Paul in 1875 and ordinary (bishop of the diocese) in 1884.  In 1888 St. Paul was raised to the status of an Archdiocese with Ireland as its first Archbishop.  Ireland favored public schools and allowed several parochial schools of his archdiocese to be sold to the State of Minnesota with priests and nuns as salaried teachers who taught religion only after regular school hours.  That arrangement would never stand in civil court today but it was a commodious arrangement for both Church and School Boards in several Minnesota towns of that time. 

There were probably several points of agenda beneath Ireland’s stance on Public Schools.  Ireland was a convinced liberal and an ardent Republican.  (Remember that in our last blog I had told you that in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the Republican Party was the Liberal Party.)  As part of his liberal and Republican stance, Ireland was opposed to foreign-language schools and wished to require English as the only language of instruction.  Ireland was opposed to Europeanization under any and all circumstances.  Immigrants were to be Americanized as soon as possible.   He saw these German (or other language) parochial schools as one of the forces that were preventing the new generation from becoming truly American. 

Ireland said in one speech:

"The public schools are our pride and glory.  The Republic of the United States has solemnly affirmed its resolve that within its borders no cloud of ignorance shall settle upon the minds of the children of its people. In furnishing the means to accomplish this result its generosity knows no limits.  The free school of America!  Withered be the hand raised in sign of its destruction." 

The Germans, for their part, had an ally in their cause for German language schools in Cardinal Melchers, the Archbishop of Cologne.  Melchers is himself a very complex figure but he had extreme credibility among the conservative forces of the Church in Europe—indeed among European Catholics in General.  He had been arrested by Bismark during the German Kulturkampf for his defense of the Catholic Church against Bismark’s secularist  and anti-Catholic administration and would have been deported to German territory in what is now Poland had he not instead fled to the Netherlands.   Consequently he had the status of a living martyr. 

Melchers, like many Germans both in Germany and the United States, saw the German population of the American Republic first and foremost as Germans, not as Americans.  One priest from Germany who came to America to minister to German immigrants wrote:  A German is a German although he has shaken off the dust of his fatherland and everywhere a true German longs for a greater Germany.  I am one of those who want to remain a German. This attitude was not in accord with Ireland’s integrationist philosophy and up and through World War I German Americans would be held suspect for their allegiance.  Melchers delated (made an official complaint) Ireland to Rome for his statement on Public Schools.   

Melchers had no right, of course, to interfere in matters outside his own diocese, but seeing the German Immigrants as Germans believed that he had jurisdiction over them or at least the responsibility of being a sort of “Cardinal-Protector” for them.  The interference of European bishops in American dioceses regarding matters of immigrants from their home countries and dioceses infuriated American bishops, but it betrayed a lack of clear understanding regarding Church authority.  

The image today is Cardinal Melchers, Archbishop of Cologne

The Origins of Radical Catholicism III--The McGlynn Story part 3

McGlynn was not the only priest who had been having difficulty with his bishop; in fact Roman authorities were concerned with the number of complaints they had received from American priests who complained about the arbitrary and authoritarian ways some bishops were handling their office.  In 1892 the Holy See sent Archbishop Francesco Satolli to the United States as Papal Ablegate ostensibly to represent the Holy See at the Columbian Exhibition in Chicago—the “World’s Fair” to  mark the fourth centenary of Columbus’ arrival in the “New World.”  However a Papal Ablegate is “able” to do a lot more than cut a ribbon at an exhibition hall. Satolli had also been charged—discreetly—to investigate the conflict over public vs. parochial schools that was dividing the hierarchy (we will look at this in the not-to-distant-future) and to investigate the complaints against several bishops for their dictatorial ways, and in particular to investigate the McGlynn case.  Satolli was being managed during his American tour—and he did not realize quite how much he was being managed—by liberal Archbishop (and foe of Corrigan) John Ireland of Minneapolis-St. Paul and (somewhat in the shadows) Cardinal Gibbons). 

There had been a change of actors back in Rome with Cardinal Simeoni having died and been succeeded at Propaganda Fidei by Polish Cardinal Mieczysław Halka Ledóchowski who was very interested in bringing McGlynn back into the good graces of the Church.  Moreover, Gibbons who had bungled things four years earlier when he had not passed McGlynn’s letter explaining his position and why he (at least in his own mind) could not come to Rome to personally answer the charges against him to the Pope and Simeoni, was anxious to repair the damage.  Gibbons was a friend of McGlynn’s and, as we shall see in future postings, a strong advocate for the rights of the working classes whom McGlynn was championing, but he was also an implacable foe of Corrigan and a victory for McGlynn would be a defeat for Corrigan.  With Bishop John Moore of Saint Augustine Florida acting as intermediary, inquiries were made of Satolli what would be necessary for McGlynn to do to have the censures lifted.  Satolli and McGlynn met privately and Satolli cabled Rome for all the permissions needed to lift the excommunication. McGlynn had to submit a written statement outlining  his opinions on the rights of property and it was submitted to a panel of theologians who agreed that it was consistent with Catholic doctrine.  McGlynn further agreed to go to Rome within the next several months to formally make his submission to the Holy See.  Satolli then lifted the excommunication. 

Satolli never informed Archbishop Corrigan of his communications with McGlynn or his intentions to lift the excommunication.   Corrigan found that his punishment of McGlynn had been reversed when he read it over breakfast in the papers on Christmas Eve morning 1892.  It ruined his day.  He was furious.  He proclaimed to his mentor, Bishop Bernard McQuaid of Rochester “Our people are terribly worked up; especially the better classes.”  Well that was part of the problem.  The “better classes” were terribly worked up, but to the ordinary New Yorker—and to many of the clergy and religious to whom Corrigan was a tyrant—McGlynn’s vindication was their victory as well.  The New York Tribune proclaimed “the McGlynn incident …means that American Catholicism is adjusting itself to the free institutions of this country.  There is no doubt that the mission of Monsignor Satolli is to hasten this process.”  Well, it was most certainly not Satolli’s mission to do so—he had been maneuvered into this by the liberal wing of the bishops—but it did mark the triumph of the American wing of the Church over the Europeanists.  The victory would not last, however, and the McGlynn story is still not finished.   
The image today is the "villian' our our story, Archbishop Corrigan of New York