Some Notes on Maryland Catholicism

A reconstruction of the Catholic Church
in Saint Mary's City, Maryland, as it
would have appeared c. 1680

Yesterday I made a reference to recusant Catholicism in regard to the Maryland Catholic experience and I have received a number of inquiries asking me to explain that further.  

      As we have mentioned in a number of blogs, Henry VIII broke the Church of England from communion with the Roman Papacy in 1536 (well, truthfully,  in a series of gradual steps from 1528 until 1536) but he changed neither doctrine nor liturgy, keeping the Anglican Church a sort of non-papal Catholicism.  It was his son Edward VI (1547-1553)—or actually Edward’s Regency Council—and his (Henry’s) daughter, Elizabeth (reigned 1558-1603) who made the Church of England Protestant.  Henry’s senior daughter Mary, (reigned 1553-1558) was a Catholic, restored Catholicism, and bitterly persecuted “the heretics” (aka Protestants).  Henry had also persecuted Protestants (even after his break with Rome) and also quite brutally, far more brutally than he executed several dozen Catholics who were beheaded for treason (i.e. denying his royal authority over the Church) rather than for religious reasons (where the punishment was burning at the stake which is what he usually did to Protestants).  Edward and Elizabeth were reluctant to use religion as a reason for execution, which is not to say that they were reluctant to execute, only that they wanted another reason than matters of conscience.  Their reigns were not particularly bloody, at least as far as religion went, and Elizabeth in particular was not anxious to interfere in the conscience issues of individuals.  That is not to say she didn’t do away with a number—and not a particularly small number—of Catholics, in the hundreds. It is only that they were imprisoned, tried, and put to death for treason.  You see, Pope Pius V excommunicated Elizabeth in 1570 (fair enough and about time for that matter) and he also absolved her subjects of their loyalty to her.  In other words, Catholics were told that they didn’t have to support Elizabeth as Queen.  This is because Elizabeth’s nearest kinsperson and heir to her throne, Mary  Queen of Scots, was a Catholic.  If the Catholics rose up and overthrew Elizabeth, England would have a Catholic Monarch again.  Pius liked that Reformation over.  But this put English Catholics in a terrible bind.  They could not be trusted to support the government.  You can imagine if Pope Benedict told modern American Catholics—“go ahead, overthrow your government,” what the outcome would be.  There were fears in American history, especially during the Know Nothing crisis of the 1850’s when many Americans believed precisely that: the Catholics would, as they grew in numbers, replace our Republican Government with a Catholic monarchy where Protestants would be persecuted.  (Check out blog entries for January 23, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31, February 1, March 7—all 2011.) There are people today who believe that Muslims will take over and impose sharia law on the United States.  They want Islam to be illegal in our country.  They want Muslims deported.  They insist that all Muslims are anti-American terrorists.  This is the exact sort of paranoia that gripped England in the years after 1570.  It was complicated by the fact that French and especially Spanish diplomats were encouraging rebellion and providing funds to anti-Elizabeth cabals.  Could you trust Catholics?  Maybe you had Catholic friends.  They seemed like nice people, but could you trust them?  Elizabeth, to her credit didn’t over react despite much pressure from much of her Council.  Elizabeth herself had Catholics among her friends and confidants and she was no fanatic.  Priests—as agents of a foreign power (the Pope and the King of Spain) and those who sheltered priests were hunted out, imprisoned, most often tried and executed.  They were normally executed by hanging until almost dead, then being cut down and gutted while still (barely) alive and then—for good measure—dismembered.  This was the punishment for treason.  Ordinary lay Catholics were usually left alone except for those who sheltered or aided priests. 

       Most of the towns in England, and London in particular, had converted early to Protestantism but much of the rural population had remained Catholic.  In some very rural places, especially in the west and in the far north, Mass was still being said in the parish churches with neglectful sheriffs turning their heads.  Also while the middle class and the “new nobility” (those families raised to nobility by the Tudors in reward for service) were ardently Protestant, many of the “old nobility” (who tended to be anti-monarchy as they saw the London Government taking away many of their hereditary rights) remained Catholic.

      Thus English society under Elizabeth and then under the Stuarts, James I and Charles I, had considerable pockets of Catholicism.  Some wealthy families were even able to retain a Catholic chaplain under the guise of being a tutor to the family children.  As the years passed and especially after the execution of Mary Queen of Scots in 1587, the laws were enforced less vigilantly and priests, if they were careful and especially if they were far from London, could discreetly minister to the great Catholic families and the tenants on their estates.   This isn’t to say that the persecution was over but only that the laws were not always enforced with vigor.  Nevertheless, Catholics could not have churches.  Mass was said in private homes—usually those of the wealthier upper classes who could pay the fines if caught and who had enough political pull to guarantee they were left alone.  Gone were the days when there could be processions in the streets or public devotions.  Catholic devotional life was centered in the family with prayers like the rosary.  There weren’t many statues and crosses—they were hard to come by and dead giveaways that the family was Catholic.   Devotional books of private prayers were popular and the writing of English monks and nuns on the Continent such as Dom Augustin Baker and Dame Gertrude More stressed deep personal prayer—even a tradition of contemplative prayer.  Thus English Catholicism in the seventeenth century became very different than Continental Catholicism.  It was far more restrained in its devotional life, more literate than emotional, Christocentric rather than focusing on saints and miracles.  This was the Catholicism brought to Maryland by the English colonists.  Priests usually wore lay clothes in subdued colors.  The liturgy was simple and without ornamentation as it would be celebrated in private homes.  Statues and devotional objects were rare.  (Bishop John Carroll put no statues in his Cathedral, the Basilica of the Assumption, when it was built.  It was only his French successor but two, Archbishop Ambrose Maréchal, that imported statues of Mary and Jesus from Europe.) The more exotic Catholicism that many of us who grew up before Vatican II remember came to America with the waves of immigrants from Germany and Italy in the mid and late nineteenth-century, but traditional American Catholicism bears greater resemblance to the post-Vatican II practices we know today

The Pope's Stone

Our next story about the development of anti-Catholicism in the United States concerns—of all things—the Washington Monument. There was a huge debate about the idea of a monument to George Washington that began while he was still alive—indeed while he was still in the White House. Well, wait a minute—not exactly. George Washington was never in the White House. The first president to set foot (and live) in the White House was John Adams. By the time the White House—which, by the way, has a Catholic connection in as that its architect James Hoban was a devout Catholic—was ready for occupancy, our first president had been in his tomb just short of a year. During Washington’s term of office the national capital and site of the presidential residences was New York (from 1789-90) and Philadelphia (1790-1797. That was when Washington went out of office; Philadelphia remained the national capital until 1800 when Congress and President Adams both moved to the new capital of Washington DC). Even before there was a presidency of the United States—as early as 1783 when we were still governed by the Articles of Confederation—there had been a congressional resolution that a statue of Washington on horseback (traditional tribute to a military leader) be erected in front of the building where Congress would meet. Various other proposals were made in Washington’s lifetime but as the new national capital city was in the planning and construction phase and there were “bigger fish to fry” as we say—the need for a building for Congress, a residence for the president, a navy-yard to defend the city from enemy ships coming up the Potomac (a real threat in the 18th century) and practical details like drainage of the swampy land we call Foggy Bottom and laying out some streets and avenues and building homes for the officials and workers coming to the new city—nothing happened with the monument. When Washington died, Congress got shaken into action and ordered the construction of a vault under the dome of the Capitol building rising on what had been called “Jenkins Hill” (owned, incidentally by the Catholic Daniel Carroll of the famous and extensive Carroll family of Maryland) where the first president could be entombed. The Washington family, however, declined to allow the body to be moved from its tomb on the family estate at Mount Vernon where the most illustrious of the founding fathers had been buried after his death on December 14, 1799.
The following year, 1800, the Federalist party was voted out of power and Jefferson and his Republicans (who are today’s Democrats) were voted in. They were not keen on a monument to Washington for two reasons. First, they were quite a radical party and didn’t believe that any one individual—even Washington (First in War, First in Peace, First in the Hearts of his Countrymen)—should be honored by anything so monarchical as a monument. They saw it a bit like we might see Lenin’s tomb today: an excessive display for an individual and therefore not in “revolutionary” taste. Remember too that they were opposed to any sort of thing that hinted of aristocracy or inequality, slavery excepted of course. Slavery suited their purposes. The Republicans (aka Democrats) also had a grudge against Washington. Washington had opposed any sort of party-system and felt that government officials should seek only the good of the nation and not become partisan. (Well, Washington was a liberal, rather hopelessly so.) When—to his dismay—parties formed, he not so much joined, as just fell into, the Federalist Party. He was actually sort of shoved into the Federalists by Jefferson whose extremist views regarding the French Revolution were more than Washington could agree with. Washington’s Vice President, John Adams, was less abashed about his Federalism and their subsequent alliance alienated them from Jefferson who openly disagreed with Adams. A lot of this had to do with Adam’s pro-England policies and Jefferson’s pro-France agenda, England and France being at war during much of Washington’s (and Adam’s and Jefferson’s and Madison’s) presidencies. Adams and Washington were appalled at the excesses of the French Revolution (just the excesses, not the revolution itself) while Jefferson applauded them excusing the bloodshed with the claim that “the tree of liberty must be watered from time to time…” Pardon me, I am getting too far afield and by this time you are probably wondering how this fits into Catholic history. You’ll see; I am never one to take a short-cut.
By the 1830’s, as the city of Washington was taking shape as something more sophisticated than government buildings in the middle of a cow pasture, the idea surfaced again of a monument to the first President. By this point the Republicans (now more commonly known as the Democrats) had calmed down a bit and actually were, in most respects, the more conservative party. Andrew Jackson was president and he identified with Washington. Like Washington he was a military hero in a war against England. Unlike Washington he was fashioning the Presidency as a far more powerful office, expanding the powers of the President, and willing to use the image of George Washington to do something that Washington would probably never approve of. (This is what the modern Republican Party would do in refashioning Lincoln to meet their ideology and perhaps even what some claim that President Obama is doing with the heritage of President Reagan. This is why history is so fascinating.) By 1832 $28,000.00 had been raised for a monument to Washington. That may not sound like much but in modern value it is worth about six hundred thousand dollars. It was still not enough however for any sort of a fitting tribute. A prominent architect, Robert Mills, came up with the design of a tall obelisk surrounded on its base with a round “temple” which in turn would hold statues honoring 30 other heroes of the Revolution and be surmounted by a statue of George Washington in a Roman Chariot. George, at least as far as I know, never drove a chariot, but hey don’t let details of history get in the way of art. He probably had never stood up in the boat crossing the Delaware either. Hold on, we are coming to the Catholic part.
Mill’s design would cost one million dollars –twenty-one million in today’s money. The money wasn’t there but then this was federal government so when has that been a problem? Construction started in 1848 and Congress invited the States, public associations, and foreign governments to contribute stones to be placed as tributes on the inner walls of the monument. OK, here is where the anti-Catholicism thing comes in.
1848 is an important year for many reasons. Not only was it the year that construction started on the Washington Monument, but it was a year that revolutions swept a number of European nations. France, Denmark, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Greater Poland, Austria, Bavaria, Prussia, Moldavia, Belgium and several other countries or regions all had uprisings demanding governmental change, generally in favor of more democratic government. In the Italian peninsula there were revolutions in The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (Naples), the Papal States, and the duchies of Tuscany, Modena, and Parma. The Pope, Pius IX (the former Giovanni Mastai-Ferretti) had been a liberal, in favor of democratic reform, but there is nothing like a revolution against you to move a man from being a liberal to a conservative. Pius was forced to flee Rome to Gaeta, near Naples, where a British Warship was ready to bring him into exile for his own safety. He never went aboard however. The French came to his help and put down the Revolution and he returned to Rome. Believe me, the days of democracy in Rome were now officially ended. The Papal Prime Minister, Cardinal Antonelli—one of the last cardinals not to be at least a priest—cracked down imprisoning hundreds of pro-democracy Romans, reinstituting the Jewish Ghetto which Pius had dissolved before the revolutions, and establishing a papal autocracy in which he, Antonelli, controlled all communication to and from Pius.
The suppression of the 1848 Revolution and the Roman Republic it had created made not only Pius but the papacy itself a symbol of everything America and its republican tradition was opposed to. The American Whigs, opposed to Jackson and a strong presidency, had a particular hatred for the papacy and the Know-Nothings claimed it demonstrated clearly that Catholicism and Americanism were incompatible, that immigration from Catholic countries should be cut off, and that Catholics in the United States should be barred from political office and public service as they held allegiance to a foreign tyrant.
In 1853 Pius, like many other national leaders (he was at the time still King of the Papal States) sent a stone from the old Temple of Concord in the Roman Forum to be included in the monument to George Washington. One night the following March, before the stone could be placed into the monument, a band of Know-Nothings broke into the work site, stole the stone, and allegedly threw it into the Potomac. (In 1982 a replacement stone was sent by John Paul II and included in the monument.) That same year the Know-Nothing engineered a takeover of the committee overseeing the monument to make sure that no such stone, indeed any stone that wasn’t “American,” be included in the monument. They retained control of the monument for four years, during which time funds dried up and construction came to a halt. It was only after the Civil War (1861-65) that construction would continue on the monument. Next time we will look at the role Catholics played in the Civil War.

Today's image is Pope Pius IX

The Plug-Uglies take their show on the road

Philadelphia was not the only city to see anti-Catholicism and anti-immigrant prejudice break out into nativist violence. In 1854 runners for a Baltimore Hook and Ladder company formed an associate called the Plug-Uglies that were associated with the Know-Nothing movement. Know-Nothings, like Today’s Tea Partiers, were not so much a nationally organized party as much as a movement consisting of a network of local associations, clubs, and societies. Like the Tea Party they had a common agenda on which they were united—in this case Anti-Catholicism and Anti-Immigrant—and points on which they could not reach consensus, most importantly, slavery. The Plug Uglies were one local group in Baltimore associated with this agenda; another was a gang called the Rip-Raps.
Despite its Catholic roots, Maryland was a stronghold of the Know-Nothings. They were the only State in the 1856 presidential election to go for the Know-Nothing ticked of Millard Fillmore and Andrew Jackson Donelson. But that was not the first election that the Plug Uglies disrupted. Baltimore had election riots in both 1855 and 1856 as Know-Nothings tried to control the polls in the municipal electins and insure that only nativist candidates received votes and the Plug Uglies played a prominent role in both disturbances. Then in June 1857, a Know-Nothing contingent comprised of Plug Uglies and Rip-Raps from Baltimore and the Shiffler Fire Company from Philadelphia descended on the National Capital in Washington to disrupt municipal elections there. President Buchanan called out the Marines who fired on the crowd. While the Plug Uglies and other out-of-town Know-Nothings were at the heart of the riot the majority of rioters were DC Residents. Nine of the ten civilians killed in the skirmish were White Washington nativists.
Know-Nothings also organized an attempt to disrupt elections in New Orleans in 1858. Historically there was a strong Catholic Presence in New Orleans—it had always been a French Catholic city—and while the riots there were anti-immigrant, the Know-Nothing success was more limited and they seemed not to have the ability to recruit as wide a selection of the population for their mob, Nevertheless, the Know-Nothing candidate was elected. Catholics may not have appreciated the Know-Nothing anti-Catholicisnm, but these old time French families may not have liked the immigrants any more than their Protestant counterparts up north.
Bishop John Hughes of New York took a very pro-active response the nativist threat. A native of what is today Northern Ireland, Hughes was never one to mince words, back down from a fight, or resort to diplomacy when he could hammer a point (or an opponent) ino the ground. After the Philadelphia riots in which two churches, a convent, a school and hundreds of Catholic homes were burned, it was rumored that the ringleaders of the Philadelphia riot were coming to New York to incite anti-Catholic riots there. Hughes called out Catholic volunteers to protect Church property and informed the Mayor that if there was any anti-Catholic rioting in New York the city would “become a second Moscow.” This was a reference to the residents of Moscow burning their own city to prevent Napoleon taking it in 1812. (Remember Tchaikovsky’s famous overture?) The threat was taken seriously—as it was meant to be--and the city government made sure there was no trouble in New York. It will be fun to do some blogs on Hughes but I think tomorrow we will go back to the conclusion of the the story about the burning of the Charlestown Convent. Then i want to go back to the saga of the American nuns (You know, the ones whom the Vatica is hell-bent on "investigating") for a day or two—and then something on Rome. When we come back to this topic, we will deal with the Know-Nothings and the “Pope’s Stone.” No—it wasn’t a kidney stone or a gall stone—but it was just as painful and far more embarrassing.

The image today is John Hughes, 1797-1864, fourth bishop and later first Archbishop of New York.

More on the "City of Brotherly Love" and its hatred for Catholics

Yesterday we talked about the Philadelphia riots in May 1844. Churches and a convent , were burned, a school was destroyed, hundreds of Irish Catholics lost their homes to the mob and scores of people were left dead or injured. A grand jury blamed the riots on the Catholics. Bishop Fenwick, who had done everything possible to quell his flock and keep them calm under attack from the nativists who claimed that Catholics were trying to get the bible out of the public schools, changed his strategy. No longer confident that Catholics could expect protection in a Protestant dominated society he began to creat a Catholic Ghetto, a society within the larger society with its own schools and organizaitons where Catholics would not be exposed to the prejudices of the Know-Nothings and their nativist friends. But the trouble was not over. On July 3—just short of two months after the first riots, Father John Patrick Dunn of Saint Philip Neri parish in the Southwark District was warned that an Independence Day parade scheduled for the next day and led by the Know-Nothings, might attack his church. The parish applied to the Governor for the formation of a volunteer force, armed from the local arsenal to defend the church. The request was granted. The Pennsylvania militia was also put on alert and weapons were handed out--twenty-five rifles--to those appointed to guard the church building.
In the event, the parade went on without incident but the next day a nativist mob of several thousand, hearing there were weapons at the church, gathered outside the building. The mob demanded that the weapons be removed. Despite the legitimacy of the weapons having been authorized by the governor, the sheriff complied. However after the sheriff left, a speaker whipped the crowd into a frenzy demanding that representatives of the mob be authorized to search the church for yet more weapons. You would think the sheriff would have found them all but when an alderman, the sheriff (who had returned) and seventeen of the mob entered the Church they an incredible amount of armaments—fifty-three muskets, ten pistols, a keg of gunpowder and ammunition—being guarded by ten armed men. This was far in excess what the governor had authorized. Had the Catholics been storing weapons on their own in anticipation of a papal invasion? It sounds silly to us, but not the Know-Nothing mobs whose newspapers and preachers had been admonishing to protect the American Republic "from the bloody hand of the pope." At nightfall, after the crowd had returned to their homes, the little arsenal was removed
The tension escalated with incredible stupidity being shown by those very officials the governor had charged with guarding the church. In addition to the militia, the sheriff had gathered a posse of 150 men. They seemed to go out of their way to incite the mob. They brought cannon to defend the church and then actually fired on the crowd when the crowd began to pelt them with stones. Most of the soldiers sent to protect the buildings left during the night of July 6th but the crowd returned, led by the alderman and the sheriff—who apparently couldn’t decide whose side he was on. The few remaining soldiers abandoned guarding the church, the mob turned two of the cannon on the building, weakening the walls. The mob broke into the church trashing the interior. That evening the soldiers returned with more cannon which they turned on the mob. The mob having seized the cannon earlier brought, turned them on the soldiers. Fighting raged through the night but by July 8th the soldiers had captured all the cannon and the crowd dispersed. Approximately 20 people had died and 50 were injured. The Grand Jury blamed the Catholics for the incident,.
Philadelphia became a strong-hold of the Know-Nothing party. Their candidate won the mayoralty in 1854 with the promise to fire all non-American born city employees. The Catholic immigrant population, feeling that they could not count on the city government for justice, withdrew into their own enclave, building Catholic schools to avoid the public ones and forming various Catholic organizations—including Militia—to protect themselves and avoid contact with the Protestant population. This strategy of withdrawing into closed Catholic Ghettoes would become increasingly popular for most working-class Catholics in the ninetenth and well into the twentieth centuries.
The Philadelphia riots were far more serious than the Charlestown Convent burning—not only in scope but in breadth—in as that Charlestown people of what might be called “the better sort” that is educated and middle class were appalled at the violence while in Philadelphia, although the mayor and the governor played their roles well, the mob was by no means limited to the poor and working classes. Even more disconcerting is that while Boston had a long history of “anti-popery,” Philadelphia had always been, even in colonial days, a city of great tolerance where the Catholics had existed in peace with their neighbors. These riots marked a clear change in the place Catholics held in American society. But Philadelphia was not the only place where Know-Nothingism raised its ugly—plug ugly—face. But more about that tomorrow. Also, i found that I had written a bit more on the Charlestown Convent burning and forgot to publish it--so more of that in a day or two as well.

Today's image is "Citizen Know-Nothing"--a nineteenth century nativist engraving depicting the ideal "American Man" --white, of Anglo-Saxon background, and Protestant.

When the City of Brotherly Love didn't live up to its name part I

I mentioned yesterday that the Know-Nothing Party, known also as the Native American Party and the American Party, bore in several respects a great resemblance to today’s Tea Party. It appealed primarily to working class whites who felt that their livelihood was being threatened by the massive immigration of the time. Like today’s Tea Party it was, at least in its formative years, not a political party as such but a loose coalition of local groups who had reached a consensus on many, but not all, issues. It was unable, for example, to reach a consensus on slavery—a crucial question of the time. It did reach a consensus on immigrants and on Catholicism. It was opposed to rights for both.
The 1840’s and 1850’s were a tumultuous time for Catholics and Nativists alike. Philadelphia suffered particularly badly in the conflict that erupted over the petition of the Catholic Bishop, Francis Kenrick to the School Board that Catholic Children either be excused from the daily bible reading—where the King James Version was read—or permitted to read from the Douai version which was used by Catholics. He also insisted that Catholic children be excused from religious (Protestant) education in the public schools. The School board concurred but this decision started rumors that the bishop and his flock—at the instigation of the pope—were trying to ban the bible from public schools.
Philadelphia, much like Charlestown and Boston, was a field of conflict between its native born working class—mostly Protestant—and the large number of immigrant workers—mostly Irish and Catholic—who were willing to work more cheaply and thus threatening the livelihood of the native-born American workmen. As in Boston demagoguery played on the tension between immigrants and native-born Americans and anti-Catholicism regularly appeared in the pulpit and in print. This was the atmosphere that the Know-Nothings thrived in and in May 1844 the American Republican Party—a local group o f Know-Nothings—organized a rally in the heart of the Kensington District, a stronghold of Irish Catholics. It was obviously meant to be provocative and a good lesson is never provoke an Irishman. The Irish love a fight. Local residents attacked the speakers’ podium and the Know-Nothings fled. They returned two days later in greater numbers. This time the meeting turned violent with several of the Know-Nothing party killed. The mob then attacked a convent of the Sisters of Charity and several Catholic homes. The violence continued the next day and it was beyond the power of the local authorities to stop. The Know-Nothings rallied the nativist forces with the call to deliver America “from the bloody hand of the pope.” Buildings were burned, people were killed until the State militia came in and put the riot down. Bishop Kenrick issued a directive for Catholics to avoid confrontation and violence.
Nonetheless, the violence continued. The Know-Nothings returned the next day and burned down two Catholic Churches—one in the Kensington district and the other in Philadelphia itself, cheering as the steeple of the Philadelphia church tottered and fell. A school and more homes were destroyed, In the final analysis fourteen people were killed, fifty injured and, several hundred at lost their homes, moreover two churches, a convent, and a school were burned to the ground.
The Mayor ordered protection for Catholic churches and Bishop Kenrick closed the churches on the following Sunday to avoid any organized retribution as well as to prevent an attack on the Catholics while at mass. by the Know-Nothings. The Bishop told his flock that they should wait until the legal processes dealt with the rioters. In the end, however, a grand jury decided that the riots were due to “the efforts of a portion of the community (the Catholics) to exclude the Bible form the public schools” and the immigrants having disrupted legitimate public meetings.

More to come on the Philadelphia riots of 1844.

The image today is Old Saint Jospeh's--the oldest Catholic Church in Pennsylvania. Located in Philadelphia. The parish goes back to 1733!