rn ,H ■ <U W » 1 " i k j -Á t y u l a j l c c ^ COM Ite, TL L&Oo\ os, SUB SERIES ------------ BOX 15 """’ ---------- FOLDER_ ___ \kO >L l i , _ -C a ti Number F / s y ,r¿ U 15 C**l 'ÏAiduùck LùJtfaL- Author \d b u J L L UMUhid*-.. Title Form No. A ‘328 HSU The Irish in America By CARL WITTKE r" " !i S- H /- 1 .X 6 \ a ) r ( v - j LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS Baton Rouge 92 THE IRISH IN AMERICA a total which probably errs on the side of caution, for it counts only those whose fathers were Irish. Studies of specific dioceses show a similar preponderance of Irish names.11 As late as 1886, according to John Tracy Ellis, of the sixty-nine bishops in the United States, thirty-five were Irish. The Germans ranked second with only fifteen.12 There is hardly a dio­ cese or an archdiocese in the United States that has not been governed by prelates of Irish birth or descent. This predominance of the Irish was important in several attempts to “Americanize” the Catholic Church—an issue over which bitter controversies developed among the princes of the Church and which has bearing on the perennial question of the extent to which the immigrant has kept the faith in the United States.13 One of the first to raise the issue of “Americanizing” the Church was Orestes A. Brownson, a New England intellectual who was a convert to Catholicism. He looked with grave concern on the Irish invasion of his Church and stated frankly that the Roman Catholic Church could not become properly American until it ceased to be Irish, and that it would not grow as it should until it could be proved that Americanism and Catholicism were compadble. Brownson voiced his respect for the Irish peasantry and sympathized with their suffering, but he did not regard them “as the advance guard of humanity.” Such statements provoked a vigorous counterattack by his bishop and by the Boston Pilot and other papers. In a letter of 1849, Brownson had the temerity to write, “Nobody can deny that in external decorum and the ordinary moral and social vir­ tues the Irish Catholics are the most deficient class of our community,” lie warned against the danger to the Church if Catholicity should be­ come identified with “Irish hoodlumism, drunkenness and poverty.” 14 Father Isaac Hecker was another who labored to convince Americans that the Catholic Church was not undemocratic, and he pleaded for a more liberal spirit within the Church itself. On one occasion he wrote, the Church “is not national with us, hence it does not meet our wants, nor does it fully understand or sympathize with the experiences and disposi­ tions of our people. It is principally made up of adopted foreign individ- 11 James D. Hackett, Bishops of the United States of Irish Birth or Descent; O. B. Corrigon, “ Chronology of the Catholic Hierarchy of the United States,” The Catholic Historical Review, I (19 16 ), 367-89; II (19 17), 131-4 5 , 283-301. See also Michael J. Hynes, History of the Diocese of Cleveland. 12 John Tracy Ellis, The Life of fames Cardinal Gibbons, I, 334. See also Michael A. Corrigan, “Register of the Clergy Laboring in the Archdiocese of New York from Early- Missionary Times to 1855,” United States Catholic Historical Society Historical Records and Studies, II (19 0 1), Part I, 36 -Si; Part II, 227-67. 1:iSee Gerald Shaughnessy, Has the Immigrant Kept the Faith? x i Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Orestes A. Brownson, 214. lu Quoted in Handlin, Boston’s Immigrants, 153-54. See also Isaac Hecker, The Church and the Age. THE IRISH AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH uals.” 15 Prelates like John Ireland, James Gibbons, and John Spalding, and others of Irish stock, shared this attitude to a greater or less degree. They argued that all the national differences among the Catholic mem­ bership should be ironed out by emphasizing Americanization, abandon­ ing foreign customs, and co-operadng, even with Protestants, in civil and moral reforms for the good of all Americans. Such matters had a way of developing into doctrinal controversy, and, on several occasions, appeals were carried to Rome to quiet the factionalism in the American Church. In the sharp division between what might be called the more liberal and the more conservative wings, one finds prelates of Irish stock on both sides of the controversy, though the “Americanizers” were in the minor­ ) ity. In the end, the Pope sided with the more conservative majority in N his Testem Benevolentiae, and only Cardinal Gibbons’ unusual skill pre­ vented a blast from the Vatican which would have damned “American­ ism” as heresy.16 The number of distinguished Irishmen in the American hierarchy is so large that only a few can be singled out for special mention. John Eng­ land was the son of an Irish refugee hedge schoolmaster and Cork to­ bacconist. He was prepared for his ministry in Ireland. In the United States, he became the bishop of the new diocese of Charleston. His nota­ ble career has been fully described in a biography by the late Peter Guilday. Francis Patrick Kenrick, a native of Dublin, was the bishop of Philadelphia. His brother Peter published the Catholic Herald and, in 1847, became the archbishop of St. Louis. John Hughes was the famous fighting Irish bishop of New York and its first archbishop. Cardinal Gibbons referred to him as “active, bold, vigorous, aggressive . another Joshua fighting in the valley.” Hughes was a native of county Tyrone. His family came to Pennsylvania, where the future prelate worked as a day laborer and as a gardener at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary. Here he was educated for the priesthood. He was an uncompromising champion of Roman Catholicism and a builder and promoter of great success. He fought for the bishop’s right to control local church property, and he was ready to battle—with bullets, if neces­ sary—the nativists who attacked his Church and called him “Dagger John.” A shrewd and masterful prelate, and a public figure of great influ­ ence, he held the Irish of New York in the hollow of his hand. He was involved in many controversies and some inconsistencies on public issues, but never in the matter of his Church, which he served with unwavering devotion.17 16 See Peter E. Hogan, “ Americanism and the Catholic University of America,” The Catholic Historical Review, XXXIII (1947), 164, 176, 177. 17 See Kahoe, Complete Wor\s of Reverend John Hughes. 94 ‘ THE IRISH IN AMERICA Bernard John McQuaid, first bishop of Rochester, was an ultramontane Catholic who fought for the orthodox Catholic position and uncom­ promisingly resisted his fellow prelates who wavered on such questions as schools and secret societies. He was the son of an Irish immigrant laborer who was killed in a fight with a fellow worker. The orphan found refuge with the Sisters of Charity, and the Church, recognizing his abil­ ity, gave him his educadon. Archbishop Michael Augusdne Corrigan was another second-generation Irishman, whose father, a cabinetmaker, emi­ grated in 1828. Young Corrigan rose rapidly from teacher, to president of a seminary, to bishop of Newark, and to archbishop of New York in 1885. Like McQuaid, Corrigan was ultraconservative. He denounced the organizadons of Irish nationalists and joined in the attack on Archbishop John Ireland on the school question. John Ireland came from county Kilkenny. His family went by covered wagon to Minnesota in the i 85o’s, where the father became a carpenter and a local Democratic politician. Discovered by Bishop Joseph Cretin, Ireland was well educated by the Church and became a priest in St. Paul in 1861. During the Civil War he served in the Union army as a chaplain, and ever after played a national role in the Grand Army of the Republic. An ardent reformer, a total abstainer, a dynamic public figure, and an aggressive bishop, he was variously known as the “Father Mathew of the West” and “ the Consecrated Blizzard” of the Old North­ west. He fought municipal corruption, was friendly to labor, except in the Pullman strike of 1894, opposed free silver, was an ardent Republican and a friend of Theodore Roosevelt, was a shrewd colonizer, and was the champion of a Catholic University of America. His liberal views about Americanizing the Church, his attitude on the school question, and on the role of the Church in civic and political affairs brought him into con­ flict with his fellow bishops. He never received the red hat of the cardi­ nal, though Theodore Roosevelt and John Hay were eager to get it for him. His “spirit of false liberalism” was denounced occasionally from Catholic pulpits, but there is no reason to question his orthodoxy on fun­ damentals. He regarded himself as a thoroughly loyal son of the Church. James Cardinal Gibbons was in many ways the most distinguished and the most universally reverecToF all the American Irish prelates. His fam­ ily came from Ireland in 1829, and the father died when the boy was thirteen. Six years later, James resolved to become a priest, and he was ordained in 1861. Seven years later, he was the “boy bishop” of North ~^> Carolina. In 1886, he became,a..-cardinal: Able, intelligent, conciliatory, and kindly, Cardinal Gibbons was respected as a great American as well as a powerful prelate. He counted among his friends many public men THE IRISH AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 95 of all religions.