A Selection of Antebellum American Catholic Opinions Dealing with the Issue of Slavery
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SILENT REPLY: A SELECTION OF ANTEBELLUM AMERICAN CATHOLIC OPINIONS DEALING WITH THE ISSUE OF SLAVERY Thesis Submitted to The College of Arts and Sciences of the UNIVERSITY OF DAYTON in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for The Degree Masters of Arts in Theological Studies by Michael M. Geelan UNIVERSITY OF DAYTON Dayton, Ohio November, 2007 Approved by: ------- -- —■— Faculty Advisor Faculty Reader Faculty Reader Chairperson ii. ABSTRACT SILENT REPLY: A SELECTION OF ANTEBELLUM AMERICAN CATHOLIC OPINIONS DEALING WITH THE ISSUE OF SLAVERY Geelan, Michael, McDonnell University of Dayton Advisor: Dr. William Portier The impetus for this study came to the author while he was gathering data for his research paper for a graduate course entitled “U.S. Catholicism.” For that paper, the author had naively sought to uncover the “official” U.S. Catholic response to Pope Gregory XVI’s 1839 apostolic constitution condemning the slave trade in all its nefarious forms. The author soon discovered, however, that no definitive U.S. Catholic position regarding the issue of slavery as practiced in the southern states existed prior to the end of the American Civil War. What did exist was a mountain of letters, editorials, manuals, and pastorals written by both lay American Catholics and members of the American Hierarchy struggling to reconcile the continued existence of slavery long after Gregory's constitution had been promulgated. Alas, a 20 paged research paper for a graduate course proved not to be an adequate medium for a discussion on the various opinions and arguments expressed within this material. Thus, the author decided to retain the vast amount of data collected for use in his graduate thesis. iii Despite the increased space afforded by the graduate thesis format, the endeavor still proved to be quite immense, given the fact that the American populace in the antebellum era was far from homogeneous. In an effort to make this study intelligible, the scope was limited by choosing to focus only on the opinions expressed by Irish, German, and French Catholics living in the Archdioceses of New York, Cincinnati, and New Orleans respectively. Particular attention is paid to the ecclesiastical and lay leaders of each group, as well as the major newspapers each group chose to read. After providing a preliminary discussion on the theology of slavery as interpreted by the American Catholic ecclesiastical leaders of the era, the chapters deal with how each ethnic group attempted to incorporate that theology into their unique geographic, social, and economic situation. The results of each group suggests that prior to the end of the Civil War, the American Catholic Church remained purposely ambiguous in its response to the South’s peculiar institution. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS To My Parents: Thank you for being among the few who stood by me throughout the thesis process. You were the voices that cried out in the wilderness that was my heart. I owe you everything. Michael V TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT......................................................................................................................iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS..............................................................................................v INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................ 1 CHAPTER I. IRISH-AMERICAN AMBIVALENCE TO THE AFRICAN AMERICAN.................................................................................................. 46 II. JAGGED DAGGER: ARCHBISHOP JOHN HUGHES’ EVOLVING POSITION ON THE ISSUE OF SLAVERY................................................ 68 III. FRENCH CATHOLIC INFLUENCE UPON AMERICAN OPINIONS ON SLA VERY........................................................................................... 104 IV. CINCINNATI’S GERMAN CATHOLIC PRESS AND ITS POSITION ON SLAVERY..............................................................................................122 V. A LONE VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS: ARCHBISHOP JOHN PURCELL’S POSITION ON SLAVERY.................................................... 145 VI. CONCLUSIONS........................................................................................... 175 BIBLIOGRAPHY............................................................................................................181 vi INTRODUCTION For years, the government of Great Britain had been trying without success to end the slave trade. At the request of the British government, Pope Gregory XVI was persuaded to issue an apostolic letter emphatically condemning the traffic of slaves. This letter, issued in December 1839, was named In Supremo Apostolatus. It was alleged that a strongly worded apostolic letter such as In Supremo Apostolatus might convince Spain and Portugal to follow the existing laws against the slave trade. However, the letter had little influence on either country.' Instead, In Supremo Apostolatus launched a vigorous debate within the United States among both Catholics and Protestants seeking to either discredit or embrace its content depending upon one’s already formulated opinions 2 regarding slavery. In Supremo was but the latest of a series of papal documents addressing the issue of racial slavery. According to the papal historian Reverend Joel S. Panzer, while in the past the papacy regarded “just titles” of servitude as permissible, it strongly condemned 1 According to Owen Chadwick, the Portuguese government paid no attention to Pope Gregory XVI. However the Pope issued the document anyway in an effort at moral suasion. See Owen Chadwick, A History o f the Popes, 1830-1914 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 1-60; George Wiegel, “Papacy and Power,” First Things: A Monthly Journal o f Religion and Public Life (February 2001): 18. 2 John F. Quinn, ‘“Three Cheers for The Abolitionist Pope!’”: American Reaction to Gregory XVI’s Condemnation of the Slave Trade, 1840-1860,” The Catholic Historical Review 90 (January 2004): 67-93. racial slavery “as soon as it was discovered.” Accordingly, on January 13, 1435, Pope Eugene IV promulgated Sicut Dudum, a papal bull that threatened European colonists of the Canary Islands with excommunication if they “deprived the [black] natives of their property or turned it to their own use, [or] have subjected some of the inhabitants.. .to perpetual slavery [and] sold them to other persons and committed other various illicit evil deeds against them.”* 4 On June 2, 1537, just over one hundred years after Sicut Dudum, Pope Paul Ill’s Sublimis Deus reinforced the words of Eugene IV by proclaiming that Satan had “thought up a way, unheard of before now, by which he might impede the saving word of God from being preached to the nations.” Satan’s method, Paul III declared, is to stir up “some of his allies who, desiring to satisfy their own avarice, are presuming to assert.. .that the Indians of the West and the South.. .be reduced to our service like brute animals....And they reduce them to slavery, treating them with afflictions they would scarcely use with brute animals.” Contrary to the attitude of their enslavers, Paul III asserted: ’ Joel S. Panzer, The Popes and Slavery. New York: Alba House, 1996), 10; Panzer notes that during the Middle Ages, the Church as well as civil governments permitted perpetual servitude as a penalty to criminals and prisoners of war. Additionally, free citizens could freely choose indentured servitude to pay off debts. Nevertheless, the Church was always adamant about the obligation of masters to give fair and humane treatment to those held in servitude, and even encouraged their liberation. See Panzer, The Popes and Slavery’, 2. 4 Eugene IV, January 13, 1435, Sicut Dudum, available from Internet, http://www.papalencyclicals.net/EugeneO4/eugeneO4sicut.htm, accessed August 3, 2006; Panzer emphasizes the significance of the date o f Sicut Dudum: “Nearly sixty years before the Europeans were to find the New World, we already have the papal condemnation of slavery as soon as this crime was discovered in one of the first geographical discoveries.” See Panzer, The Popes and Slavery, 8. .. .that the Indians themselves indeed are true men and are not only capable of the Christian faith, and wishing to provide suitable remedies for them, by our Apostolic Authority decree and declare by these present letters that the same Indians and all other peoples—even though they are outside the faith—who shall hereafter come to the knowledge of Christians have not been deprived or should not be deprived of their liberty or their possessions. Rather they are to be able to use and enjoy this liberty and ownership of property freely and licitly, and are not to be reduced to slavery, and that whatever happens to the contrary is to be considered null and void. These same Indians and other peoples are to be invited to the said faith in Christ by preaching and the example of a good life.5 In his follow-up papal bull, Pastorale Officium, Paul III excommunicated all who “presume to reduce... Indians to slavery or despoil them of their goods.”6 After Sublimis Deus came a number of papal bulls that chose to substantiate the Church’s consistent condemnation of unjust enslavement of humans by citing the pronouncements of previous papal bulls.7 8 Thus, in 1639’s Commissum Nobis, Pope Urban VIII noted Paul Ill’s teachings contained in Sicut Dudum and Pastorale Officium and then, “following [in] the footsteps of Paul our Predecessor,” prohibited: ...anyone from reducing to slavery, selling, buying exchanging,