1 Bigotry a Shared Experience
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Bigotry a shared experience. By Séamus S. ÓhEarcáin In past several years I have written about centuries of racial bigotry toward the Irish. The origin of this discrimination began when the notorious “Statutes of Kilkenny” in 1366 was enacted - the first ethnic cleansing laws in history, where the Irish dress, language, intermarriage Irish-English were forbidden by law; and, when Henry VIII assumed the mantle of Cæsaropapism of Anglicism in 1536, this sword of intolerance would get an edge of religious bigotry as the Dublin Parliament declared King Henry VIII “…. the only supreme head in earth of the whole Church of Ireland (COI)”. This was followed by the Act for the English order, habit and language, 28 Henry VIII, c.15. The intention of this order was to bring such “rude and ignorant people to the knowledge of God and obedience to their sovereign, they must conform in language, tongue, in manners; order and apparel, with them that be civil people, and do profess and acknowledge Christ’s religion as the English Pale doth.” The Irish were to seek their refuge in their ancient religion – for this they would suffer greatly. During the nightmare of Cromwell, Irish men, women and children would be butchered under the scurrilous tenets of “Manifest Destiny” alias Predestination, and thousands were sent to Barbados as slaves and later intermarried with the slaves brought from Africa - today the feast of Saint Patrick is greatly celebrated by their descendants. Unfortunately intolerance was part of the baggage brought to the new world by the self-styled ‘pilgrims’. Irish Catholics were forbidden into this chosen land, finally arriving as indentured servants, that eventually ‘melted’ into the fabric of the colonies – however, still forbidden in parts of what would be called New England. When the enslaved Indians fled to such places as Spanish La Florida the English colonizers looked towards Africa as a source of cheap labour and the slave trade flourished. La Florida, founded by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, Captain General of the Indies Fleet and a member of the Third Order of Saint Francis after sighting land on 28 August 1565, the Feast of St. Augustine, hence when he and his part of about four hundred men and four diocesan priest landed on 8 September 1565 (the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary) he named his landing site Saint Augustine. In 1585 Fr. Richard Arthur an Irish priest from Connaught would become the first pastor in what would be America’s first city; and America’s hospital and first school educating Indians and runaway slaves. The sobriquet “*No taxation without representation” was a great rallying cry for a trade war purposes, but hardly the basis for an all-out revolution. That said most Americans are not aware of the strong religious components that motivated the colonists to wage a war of independence against England. Firstly, New England Congregationalists condemned King George III giving his royal assent, to the 1763 Treaty of Paris (Quebec), that assured religious liberties to Canadian French Catholics; recalling that Catholics were forbidden to live in part of New England; also Congregationalists detested giving tithes to the Church of England, which they considered too “Papists.” * Prior to the Napoleonic wars there was no income tax. As America expanded waves of Irish Catholic immigrants came to these shores fleeing an uncaring British Empire that regarded them as disruptive savages to their social order. In the 1840’s and 1850’s bowing many State legislatures, bowing to the pressure of the infamous Nativism or “Know Nothing” movement (also known as the American Party), enacted Anti-Irish Catholic statutes disenfranchising these immigrants. This terrorist movement was responsible for the burning of Catholic churches, convents and schools and mayhem directed against Irish- Catholic immigrants in Philadelphia, Boston, New York, etc. that also resulted in numerous 1 deaths and injuries. In 1836, these assaults on Irish Catholic foundations gave birth to the Ancient Order of Hibernians in America, America’s First Civil Rights Organization; thus Irish Catholics were in the forefront of the fight for racial equality – a century before this topic was hijacked by anti-Catholic progressives [italics intentional] since “anti-Catholicism remains America’s last acceptable prejudice.” Before 1869, all education in Florida was private schools and in 1866 Florida law permitted the education of Negroes – however the occupation authorities refused to enforce. In 1870, Saint Augustine became a diocese and Augustin Verot the last of the frontier French bishops in America became the first pioneer bishop of Florida. Encouraged by his Irish born metropolitan, Archbishop Francis Patrick Kendrick of Baltimore, that had been Bishop of Philadelphia during the terrible years of Nativism, Verot contacted the Sisters of St. Joseph of his home town (Le Puy, France) asking them to “consecrate themselves to the service of the poor Negroes.” In spite of fierce local opposition, the sisters opened their first school for blacks in St. Augustine and by 1876 five black schools were in Florida. Verot’s successor, Bishop John Moore was born in Rossmead, Ireland and studied in Rome. In 1886, Bishop Moore brought the Benedictines from St. Vincent Archabbey in Latrobe, Pennsylvania to Pasco County to establish St. Leo’s Abbey, and 1889 inviting the Jesuits of the New Orleans Province take over the missions in South Florida’s eight counties. The exception being Key West, because of its Italian pastor, Flelix Ghione, was canonically irremovable. However, his most significant contribution was the recruitment of priests and sisters from Ireland for service in Florida. Thereafter Irish men and women were to play a crucial role in the history of Florida and Bishop Moore travelled to Ireland and personally recruited seminarians from Mungret College in Limerick, All Hollows in Drumcondra (Dublin). Later priests would also come from St. Patrick’s in Carlow, St. Cierans in Kilkenny, St. Patrick’s’ in Thurles, and St. John’s in Waterford, to serve the needs of Florida’s expanding church. The last of the pioneer bishops to Florida was William J. Kenny, an Irish-American (Ó Cionaoith) was particularly sensitive to the plight of Black Catholics. He contacted Mother Katherine Mary Drexel, founder of the 1891 Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Indians and Coloured People. Mother Drexel gave Kenny a grant to build the first Black parish in Florida called Saint Benedict the Moor that was dedicated in 1911. Irish nuns were recruited by Bishop Kenny starting in 1904 Bishop Kenny began recruiting sisters of St. Joseph in Ireland Note: Mother Drexel was canonized by his Holiness Pope on 01 October 2000. On 24 October 1868 the Sisters of the Holy Names of Canada arrived in Key West to establish an academy with a grant of land provided by Stephen R. Mallory. In 1898 the sisters offered the US Navy the use of the Convent of Mary Immaculate in the event of hostilities between the US and Spain. Thus expressing a Catholic patriotism at a time when many American either openly discriminated against Catholics or looked down on them, especially after the 1892 inflation and strikes that forced 2,000 Cubans to move to Tampa (Ybor City). The first Catholic parish established on Florida’s southeast coast was not in Miami but in West Palm Beach by the Jesuits from Tampa and made possible by the benefaction of two Irish Catholics, Joseph McDonald an architect for the Flagler hotels and John B. Kelly, the first mayor of Miami. In 1914, the 15,600 Cubans outnumbered the 10,000 native-born American Catholics in the Diocese of St. Augustine, although by then the Cuban presence was concentrated in Tampa. Although the population of Florida doubled between 1920 and 1940 to almost two million the Catholics would continue to be a small proportion of the general population scattered throughout the expansive territory. 2 Starting in 1911 overt racism and anti-Catholic bigotry sought to stop the expansion of Catholicism in America in general, exacerbated by the rise of nationalism in Ireland, mainly led by Irish Catholics. In 1915 William J. Simmons, a former Methodist preacher re-organized the evil subculture founded by Nathan Bedford Forrest called the Ku Klux Klan at Stone Mountain, Georgia as a “patriotic Protestant fraternal society” to combat “un-Americans” this was Klan- speak for Blacks, Jews and Roman Catholics, especially Blacks that were Roman Catholic. We should not dismiss the open antipathy Woodrow Wilson had towards Catholics in general and Irish Catholics in particular. Wilson’s successor, Warren G. Harding was a KKK member - hardly encouraging support from Catholics. Another KKK personality was an Alabama jurist Hugo Lafayette Black that became a US Senator and in 1937 was appointed Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court where he emerged as a champion for the Bill of Rights and a strong constitutionalist. In the early years of the 20th century a strong (re-) emergence of Fundamentalist Christianity swept across America, carrying a crusade of against “Rum and Romanism” and was especially prominent in Florida. In 1913, this crusade would lead to creating the Saint Petersburg County from out of the western part of Hillsborough County. In 1916 Sidney Johnson Catts, an Alabama born Baptist Minister was elected as Governor of Florida (1917-1921). His ran as an Independent Prohibition candidate on a so-called fusion ticket with like minded Democrats and Republicans. His sole campaign platform was “The Roman Catholic Menace” to America. During the critical years between 1914 -1940 two great Irish born Florida Bishops would provide indispensable leadership. Michael J. Curley, born in Athlone and Patrick Barry, born in County Clare, both were educated at Mungret College.