The American Catholic

Chapter Four

The Struggle to become an American

     The economy of America rose and fell from prosperity to depression in vicious cycles in the last 1800's. The wealthy cities that featured skyscrapers and mansions on 5^th Avenue were sharply contrasted to the slum areas where disease and violence was rampant. Government circles were widely corrupt and the American Catholic Church became the single largest denomination. The real question for the American Catholic remained, "shall we assimilate into this culture or be separatists". 

      Bishop John Ireland, who came from Ireland at the age of 11 on one of the  coffin ships, was now was of the leading political figures in America. At the age of 36 he became Bishop of St. Paul Minnesota. He was energetic, outspoken and brilliant. Afraid of nothing, Bishop Ireland became the symbol for American Catholics for what it meant to be proud of who there were in this new country. In 1884 he made his first presentation to a gathering of American bishops in Baltimore. He was well received by some and definitely not well received by others. This gathering of bishops produced the Baltimore Catechism that many of us were to learn from for the next 75 years. A book of question and answer about Catholicism, it became the standard of apologetics until the new Catechism was published just a few years ago.

      The bishops adjourned this meeting with two major issues unresolved: (1) Could Catholics join a labor union such as the Knights of Labor; (2) Whether or not America would charter a national Catholic University which required papal approval. A third issued arose that was unexpected while Ireland was on his way to Rome for his ad limina(every five years a bishop must present himself to the pope and give a state of address on his diocese) visit to see the Holy Father. The issue was that a German-born priest of Milwaukee, Wisconsin had petitioned the Pope to intervene in the treatment of German Catholics by the Irish Clergy threatening an all out war between the two ethnic groups. Those three issues were controversies that the American Catholic had to deal with in order to come to terms with who they were as Americans.

Labor Unions

     The Knights of Labor was a Catholic rendition of everything from farmer labors to railroad workers and a rag tag of everything in between. By the mid 1880's the Knights of Labor were recruiting Irish Catholics into their fold by the hundreds of thousands. Historically, the Church was always opposed to labor unions in Europe because of their anti-clerical stance towards the Church, but in American this movement was being led by Terence Powderly. He was charismatic with political savvy, self-educated and a devout Catholic. This organization was unlike those of the European style. Catholics were the working class of America and the bishops in Baltimore could not ignore the question. The Knights of Labor had already been condemned by the Vatican in Canada and although Powderly promised Archbishop Gibbons of Baltimore that he would amend any secrecy clauses in the Knights constitution, the issue was not settled there and therefore being taken to Rome for the Vatican to settle.

     From the view of the Vatican, America was still seen as something more transient than permanent, so to speak of building a Catholic university here was seen as an extravagant waste of resources. Translate that statement into "money". A rich heiress gave Bishop Spalding of Peoria Illinois one third of her fortune to build the university and this was pretty a persuasive argument before the council in Baltimore to make the proposal to the Vatican.

The German/ Irish Confrontation

     The issue of the Milwaukee priest, Father Abbelen, and the German verses Irish controversy was over the number of German bishops in America as opposed to the overwhelming number of Irish bishops. If the truth be known the bishop to ethnic ratio of Irish and German was exactly where it should have been. The real issue was not over bishops, but Irish bishops rule over German parishes and communities. The Germans held the position that America was a "no nation, no race, no people, like France, Italy or Germany". Therefore, refused to be assimilated into American culture by maintaining their own language, their own schools and churches. The German mind-set maintained that in America could be created another mini-Germany. Not a mind-set that was to go over very well with the Irish or anyone else in America. This mind-set was viewed as anti-American was to put German peoples into an "either/or" situation soon enough. The German church in Europe had the tradition that lay people participated totally in the church, including electing their own bishops. They also were serious beer drinkers and resented the Irish movements of temperance in America. They liked their alcohol and no Irishman was going to keep it from them. Especially an Irish clergyman.

     The Irish looked upon America as the second fatherland as his alone. English was to be spoken and taught to all foreigners. Bishop John Ireland even went so far as to tell his German constituents that if they didn’t like it here they could go back home and "creep in fear and abject misery under the tyranny" they left behind. This didn’t make him very popular with the non-Irish Catholic American.

     Of the 50,000 Italian immigrants in New York, most were men who came to America for short periods of time and then returned to Italy with the money they had made here. Of those 50,000 Italian men a mere 1200 attended mass regularly. Obviously, the Vatican didn’t want to hear that there own countrymen didn’t even support, much less attend Italian churches in America. The Irish viewed Italians as uncivilized common workers that hardly took a bath and lived in filth. The Italian clergy weren’t much better off. Out of a dozen Italian priests in New York, ten had been dismissed for sexual misconduct. And so the American contingent of two bishops standing before the Vatican hierarchy was set in motion and on some pretty shaky ground at all three levels.

The Case is Presented

     After much political maneuvering on both sides all three proposals were settled. Father Abbelen’s petition was buried as unimportant enough to even discuss. The university was to be built within a year and it became acceptable for the blue collar worker to belong to a labor union. The ramifications of these three petitions are important. The German/Irish issue entrenched the Irish in control of the American Church. The university status in America sent the message that an American university and the American people were a force to be reckoned with in a new game of political activism with the Vatican. And thirdly, unlike Europe, the labor unions in America were not anti-clerical, but rather very supportive of the clergy and their religion in this new land. In fact, the clergy helped to make it all happen in the first place. The Irish American Church was gaining its own dignity and self-esteem by rallying around the cry "my Church and my Country", meaning of course, America. The Germans were not pleased. Their mind-set was still on a mini-German country in America at the turn of the century.

The German/Irish Controversy Continues

     The liberal Irish clergy were against building and supporting parochial schools since they tended to retard the assimilation of children into the American mainstream of life, especially the German populations. Therefore, they began fostering the idea of public schooling for children. In Minnesota the mixture of German and Irish populations, both poor, could not continue to sustain their parochial schools financially and proposed to the local secular governments that they take over the schools making them public institutions since the church could no longer afford to run them. It was an experimental idea, but one that smacked of mixing church and state and ran into much opposition from both sides. Eventually it never happened because the infighting amongst the Catholics and Protestants alike.

Catholics in America on tract to assimilation

     By 1899, Catholics and the secular world were at peace with one another. The controversy over schooling had been settled as if it had always been Catholics went to Catholic school and others went to public school. The America compromise between Catholics and Protestants seemed to have been settled and the Irish. The mind-set of the American Catholic, framed by the Irish clergy, was that there was no conflict between being an American and a follower of the Pope. The Catholic Church was the grandest Church in the world and the Pope was its grandest leader. America was at the same time the grandest country to live in and well on its way to becoming the most powerful in the world. To be Catholic in America came to be known as Irish, much to the chagrin of the Germans. The Catholic in America was patriotic, a resolute Church goer, in a country that separated state and church on equal footing. This is a very different picture of the European Catholic. The Vatican came to realize that when the European Catholic Churches were falling apart, the American Catholic Church was not only being faithful, but financially generous as well. Money talks in the business world. Money still talks in Church circles.

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