Let's Hear It For The Ladies cont.

Ven.Anne of Saint Bartholomew

who resisted outside control by

the Cardinal Berulle over the

Discalced Carmelite nuns in 17th

century France

Yesterday I wrote about women religious who resisted the efforts of bishops to exercise control over them and their congregations.  We looked at such outstanding figures as Saint Mary MacKillop, Mary Ward, Margaret Anna Cuscack, and Saint Teresa of Avila.   There are also stories of women who lost the battle—often to the detriment of their congregations. 

      Pierre de Bèrulle is a figure in Church history who, for the most part, I have always admired.  He was ardent for the reform of the Church of France in the early seventeenth century. You see, for a variety of reasons more political than religious, France had not yet accepted the Decrees of the Council of Trent (that only happened in 1615—some 53 years after the Council concluded) and there were a lot of leading French Catholics who saw the great need for reform.  Many of these devout Catholics (actually they were known as the parti dévot) gathered in the home of the wealthy French widow,  Madame Barbe Acarie to discuss plans for reform.  (Francis de Sales, Bennet Canfield, Jean Jacques Olier, and others were all regulars at the Salon Acarie.)  Bérulle understood that the key to reform of the Church was reform of the clergy and religious.  Olier established the Society of Saint Sulpice to prepare candidates for the secular priesthood.  John Eudes established the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament as well as the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity of the Refuge.  Bérulle himself established the French Oratory.  He also invited the two closest companions of Saint Teresa of Avila, Anna of Jesus and Anna of Saint Bartholomew, to come to France and established the Discalced Carmelite nuns.  It was a worthy cause, but as soon as French nuns were professed, Bérulle sent the Spanish Madres packing.   Like Teresa, they did not want the nuns to be subject to external authority and Bérulle wanted them to be under his thumb, er “guidance.”  The Spanish daughters of Teresa went up to the Netherlands where they established the Carmels from which are descended the majority of American monasteries of Carmelite nuns.  The French nuns buckled under and there has long been an argument among Discalced Carmelites whether the French Carmels preserved the heritage of Teresa or not, whether they are authentically “Teresian” or are they “Bérullian.”

     Here in America the disputes over the independence of the religious Sisters has also been a battle.  Bishop John Carroll persuaded the widowed convert, Elizabeth Ann Seton to establish the American Sisters of Charity modeled on the French Institute founded by Vincent de Paul and Louise de Marillac, but Carroll, a very busy man, gave Mother Seton a pretty free hand in her enterprise.  In 1817, just a few years before her death, Mother Seton sent three Sisters from Emmitsburg up to New York City.  When John Hughes became Bishop of New York, one of his first acts was to demand that the New York Charities be withdrawn from the jurisdiction of the Emmitsburg Sisters and placed under his jurisdiction.  He named his sister, Mother Angela Hughes, as the second Mother General of the New York Sisters.  Again, John Hughes is another figure whom I have always admired, but he had a tremendous psychological need for control that went far beyond the Sisters of Charity in his diocese.  His entire style as bishop was “one man rule”—sound familiar?

      Hughes was not exceptional in this matter.  Many religious congregations—both those founded in the United States  (The Charities, the various Newman Communities of Franciscans, the IHMs) as well as those coming from other countries (the Sisters of Mercy) met with demands from American bishops that they sever their ties outside the diocese and place themselves under the jurisdiction of the local bishop.  For the sake of the work that needed to be done for the immigrants, for the poor, for women, or orphans, the nuns acceded to these demands for control.  Other congregations such as the School Sisters of Notre Dame successfully resisted.   The Benedictines were always particularly successful in resisting Episcopal control—but their monastic roots gave them strong precedence on which to stand.  Today’s nuns are well and wise to insist on their autonomy and self-governance.  But a lot of the men just don’t get it—the world has changed.  Collaborative models work in our contemporary world, hierarchical models are as archaic as the Mastodon.  Of course, the danger that both bishops and Rome fear is that if the nuns can take responsibility for their own decision making, will others in the Church see possibilities for collaborative rather than hierarchal models of authority?  Why is always about power and never about the Gospel?

Origins of Radical Catholicism II: The Father McGlynn Story, part I

Jeremiah Cummings was succeeded as pastor of Saint Stephen’s Parish in New York City by his hand-picked assistant pastor, Father Edward McGlynn (1837-1900) who is one of my favorite characters in the history of American Catholicism.  McGlynn was one of ten children of a young widow who had been left—fortunately—in comfortable circumstances by her Irish immigrant husband.  Archbishop John Hughes was a family friend and oversaw the education of the McGlynn children and when Edward expressed a desire to become a priest, he was sent to study in Rome.  McGlynn initially studied at the Urban College of the Propaganda, but when the Pontifical North American College opened in 1858 he transferred there earning doctorates in Theology and Philosophy.  He finished and was ordained a priest in 1860, returning to New York and becoming assistant priest to the progressive Reverend Thomas Farrell at Saint Joseph’s Church in Greenwich  Village.    Farrell was an abolitionist and had a particular concern for the social welfare of African Americans.  Normally a priest with McGlynn’s background would be expected to have a quick rise in the hierarchy and it would not have been unreasonable for McGlynn to foresee a career for himself as a bishop, perhaps even Archbishop of his native New York, but the influence of Farrell set him off on a different track where he became far too radicalized to ever advance in Church politics, even in a dawning era where a liberal party would emerge in the American hierarchy. 

McGlynn viewed pastoral work very widely—not just the narrow sacramental and educational ministries common to priests of the day, but concern for the social welfare of parishioners and non-parishioners as well—and he threw himself into parochial work to the degree that his health broke after only two years. He was given a recuperation period in Europe but he had drawn the attention of Father Cummings who,  asked the Archbishop McGlynn as his associate.  Cummings died and McGlynn succeeded him as pastor.    Under the tutelage of Farrell and Cummings McGlynn had developed some very strong ideas.   There was a circle of New York diocesan priests who were opposed to the “Europeanizing” of the Catholic Church in the United States.  They—like prominent converts Orestes Brownson and Issac Hecker—believed that the American political and social tradition was compatible with Catholicism and did not need to be abandoned for European models that would appear strange, and even dangerous, in the American Republic.  McGlynn was a strong advocate of Public School education and would not build a parochial school at St. Stephen’s.  Instead he became very interested in providing poor children with good vocational training.  Although Saint Stephen’s was a very fashionable Church drawing membership from the at the time small pool of well-to-do Catholics, McGlynn devoted both personal and parochial resources to ministries to the immigrant poor.  It was probably here where he became involved in the Irish Land league.   

The Irish Land League was an organized attempt in Ireland to relieve the Irish peasantry from the burden of the often outrageous rents they had to pay the landlords—mostly British and Irish Protestant Ascendency—for the tenant farms they held.  This league was an eminently respectable organization benefitting the Irish Catholic peasantry but with the leadership coming primarily from the faction of the Anglo-Irish Protestant Ascendency that favored Irish independence.   It effectiveness was a huge threat to the Irish Status-Quo and the Irish bishops, always ready to accommodate their British Masters, opposed it, although much of the on-the-ground organization was provided by the country parish priests.  Incidentally, while the principal targets were the absentee Protestant British landlords, the first landlord to be hit by a rent strike was a wealthy Roman Catholic priest, Canon Burke of Knock (where, I presume coincidentally, the Blessed Virgin and assorted other heavenly types were allegedly appearing just about this time.  They were, by the way, appearing to the peasantry, not the Landlord-priest).  The Land league was strongly supported by Irish immigrant Catholics in the United States, Canada, and Australia and McGlynn became very involved in the cause.  The Cardinal MacCabe of Dublin and the Irish bishops, opposed to the league, communicated to their American counterparts that they should do their part to keep priests and the faithful from adding to the agitation.  To be fair, this was a very complex time in Irish history as not all the movements were dedicated to peaceful objectives and indeee d it was in the midst of this that the English chief secretary for Ireland, Lord Cavendish and the permanent Undersecretary, Thomas Henry Burke, were murdered at the viceroy’s lodge in Phoenix Park.  McGlynn however was not to be stopped in his publicly advocating support for the Irish tenant farmers and as he travelled around the North East speaking on behalf of the Land League he drew the wrath of a number of bishops.  More to come.    
The image today is Saint Stephen's Church (now known as Our Lady of the Scapular and Saint Stephen's) in New York City,

Catholics in the American Civil War: the North

While many Protestant denominations, Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians among them, broke apart over the issue of slavery or their respective regional alliances, common allegiance to Rome kept the Catholic Church united during the American Civil War. Nevertheless, while the Catholic Church remained intact, it certainly was not of one mind over the political issues of the day. As in the Protestant denominations, the Bishops—and presumably their clergy and laity—found their strongest allegiance to their particular region.

In the Union, the strongest Catholic voice supporting the Union was New York Archbishop John Hughes. Hughes was a close friend of and regular correspondent with Lincoln’s Secretary of State, William Seward. While Seward was an Episcopalian, his prominence in New York politics—he had been Governor (1839-1842) and served New York in the United States Senate (1849-1861) led to contact with and then friendship with Hughes. In the Seward Home in Auburn NY, among the dignitaries whose portraits grace the hall and main stairway is Archbishop Hughes. One of the challenges facing the Union was raising troops—and keeping them—and the New York Irish were a valuable resource to the Union Army. Hughes played a leading role in the recruitment of Irish troops to the national cause. Lincoln invited Hughes to meet with him and his cabinet in October 1861—he wanted to offer Hughes an official position as Jefferson Davis was offering one to Bishop Lynch of Charleston. Hughes declined the office but agreed to visit Europe to explain the Union cause to the Pope and to the French Emperor, Napoleon III. Hughes hoped—in vain—to forestall a papal recognition of the Confederacy, but he had more success with the French Imperial Court which was also considering, along with Great Britain, in giving formal recognition to the Confederate government. Such diplomatic recognition would have given the Confederacy an internationally recognized legitimacy which the Union wanted, indeed needed, to prevent.
Another danger to the Union was a possibility that Britain would not only recognize the Confederacy but send troops to help the South defend itself against the North. Hughes was an inveterate Irishman, native to Ireland, and no friend of the British. He used his contacts in Ireland to make sure that the British understood that the Irish who had fought for the British crown in the Crimea and in India, would not fight against the United States. Moreover, Hughes recruited several Irish officers fighting in the papal armies—John Coppinger, Myles Keogh, Daniel Keily, and Joseph O’Keeffe—to come and fight in the Union Army. Coppinger would eventually attain the rank of General while Keogh would die with Custer at the Little Big Horn.
In the summer of 1863 New York was racked by draft riots. Four hundred and forty-three people were arrested, one hundred twenty eight were injured, and more than fifty were killed protesting the new draft laws designed to replenish the Union Armies as the war dragged on. These riots were the biggest demonstration of civil strife to date in the United States. Over a hundred buildings were burned to the ground and several hundred more were severely damaged. Much of the rioting was from the Irish immigrant community who had come here looking for work not for a war in which they, as recent immigrants, felt no compelling interest.
Hughes was already terminally ill (he would die the following January) but he called a rally at Old Saint Patrick’s Cathedral where he declared “no blood of innocent martyrs, shed by Irish Catholics, has ever stained the soil of Ireland.” I am not quite sure how that was relevant to the issue, but it sufficed to quiet the populace and suppress the riots.
Other Yankee bishops did not achieve the national acclaim that Hughes did for their support of the war but the hierarchy in New England and the Mid-Atlantic States was solidly behind the Union cause. Bishop John Bernard Fitzpatrick of Boston made a trip to Europe during the war, ostensibly to Belgium for his health but seemingly also making political contacts on behalf of the Union Cause. The Border States were another issue. Archbishop Martin John Spalding of Louisville was a Confederate sympathizer and published a pro-Confederacy article in L’Osservatore Romano, the official press of the Holy See. The Archishops of Baltimore, Francis Patrick Kenrick, and Saint Louis, Peter Richard Kenrick, were brothers and they both headed dioceses where the Union cause was very unpopular and consequently they remained very non-committal about the political conflicts of the day which, under the circumstances, gave the appearance of being pro-Confederacy. This was probably not fair. Peter Richrd Kenrick—when the war was over—was an ardent supporter of the radical reconstruction severity designed to punish the former Confederate States.
The Bishops of Ohio and Indiana were not very enthusiastic about the war either. Ohio, and even more Indiana, were heavily rural states and while they were free states, the farmers in the southern part of Ohio and Indiana felt more in common with the rural south than the industrial north. Strong prejudice among the rural farmers against people of African descent did not serve to stir pro-Union loyalty either. Despite Archbishop Purcell’s support of the Union cause, the assembled bishops at a Provincial synod in Cincinatti in May 1861, a month after the war began, issued the following evasive statement.
It is not for us to enquire into the causes which have led to the present unhappy condition of affairs. This enquiry belongs more appropriately to those who are directly concerned in managing the affairs of the Republic. The spirit of the Catholic Church is eminently conservative, and while her ministers rightfully feel a deep and abiding interest in all that concerns the welfare of the country, they do not think it their province to enter into the political arena. They leave to the ministers of the human sects to discuss from their pulpits and in their ecclesiastical assemblies the exciting questions which lie at the basis of most of our present and prospective difficulties. Thus, while many of the sects have divided into hostile parties on an exciting political issue, the Catholic Church has carefully preserved her unity of spirit in the bond of peace, literally knowing no North, no South, no East, no West. Wherever Christ is to be preached and sinners to be saved, there she is found with ministrations of truth and mercy. She leaves the exciting question referred to previously where the inspired Apostle of the Gentiles left it, contenting herself, like him, with inculcating on all classes and grades of society the faithful discharge of the duties belonging to their respective states of life, knowing that they will all have to render a strict account to God for the deeds done in the flesh, that this life is short and transitory, and that eternity never ends. Beyond this point her ministers do not consider it their province to go, knowing well that they are the ministers of God, who is not a God of dissension, but of peace and love.
Had this wise and considerate line of conduct been generally followed throughout the country, we are convinced that much of the embittered feeling which now unfortunately exists, would have been obviated, and that brotherly love, the genuine offspring of true Christianity, instead of the fratricidal hatred which is opposed to its essential genius and spirit, would now bless our country, and bind together all our fellow-citizens in one harmonious brotherhood. May God, in his abounding mercy, grant that the sectarianism which divides and sows dissensions, may gradually yield to the Catholic spirit which breathes unity and love!
If it were not for a few jibes at their Protestant neighbors, this would seem an irenic statement but it is not consistent with the Catholic Church's support for American military policy in other wars--from the Revolution down to today's conflict in Afghanistan. Its failure to support the Union cause, despite the pious--indeed smarmy--words, was read as an endorsement of secession and its lack of patriotic commitment would never have come from John Hughes.