Origins of Radical Catholicism X: A Catholic University

The next scheme the liberal party came up with was the founding of a Catholic University in Washington DC.  John Lancaster Spalding, Bishop of Peoria, won the endorsement of the majority of bishops at the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore in 1884 for this idea.  This should not be surprising as Spalding had already presented the plan to Leo XIII for his approval—which was given—and he also had persuaded a wealthy New York Heiress Mary Gwendolyn Caldwell for a burse of three hundred thousand dollars (worth approx 6.7 million today) to realize the initial phase of the university.  Caldwell Hall, the principal residence for priests professors is named after Ms. Caldwell.   (We might do an adults-only blog on the Spalding/Caldwell ties.)   Not everyone was in favor of this projected university; there was, one should not be surprised, an agenda.  The primary function of the University was to be a  seminarium principale for the American Church—a place where dioceses could send their men to study and earn pontifical degrees without having to go to Europe.  Up until this time, if a priest wished to earn a church-recognized degree (which was required for seminary professors) he had to go to one of the European universities such as Leuven in Belgium or Innsbruck in Austria or one of the Roman Universities.  (There were other options, notably in Spain, but most Americans went to one of the three named; and in fact most went to Rome.) The liberals, in their project to stamp the Church in the United States with a distinctly American identity, wanted to avoid exposing future generations of clergy as much as possible to European thought and customs.  Given the strong monarchial and integrist tenor of late nineteenth century Europe this is understandable.  As the Americanist agenda became more clear, the more conservative bishops—German and American alike—began to back off their support.  Corrigan led the way.  Of course, Corrigan had an agenda too—he wanted Fordham, the Jesuit University in his archdiocese, to be the official Catholic University for the United States.  Milwaukee Archbishop Michael Heiss, the leading German bishop in the United States and an implacable foe of the liberal party, was a member of the committee to choose a rector, and his abrupt resignation alerted Rome that something more than what appeared was going on.  The Jesuits—jealous to protect Georgetown from a second church affiliated university in Washington and anxious to make their university at Fordham the Catholic University, worked with Corrigan.  In the end, it was Gibbons (who ironically was not a supporter of the idea) who used his friendship with Leo XIII to bring the project to fruition.  The University opened in 1889—the centenary year for the establishment of a Catholic hierarchy in the United States—with John Joseph Keane as Rector.  (Keane, you may remember from earlier posts, was a leading liberal).  The university would be the scene of many a battle between liberals and conservatives over the course of the twentieth century, not least of which was the Henry Poels debacle in 1908, the John Courtney Murray archdebacle in the 1950’s, and the case of Father Charles Curran after the Humanae Vitae Encyclical in 1968 with Act II of this tragic farce from 1986-89.   These are blips, however, on a fairly consistent track record of arbitrary authority triumphing over sound scholarship.   At some future time when I do a blog or two on the John Courtney Murray debacle I will justify the words "arbitrary" and "sound," but until then we move on—the next blog will be on the Apostolic Delegation.  Remember that while blogs are posted most days, there will be gaps as i do have a (not terribly demanding) day job.  The image today is McMahon Hall on the campus of The Catholic University of America, Washington DC

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.