The Development and Improvement of Instructions
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
WELFARE AND CONVERSION: THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN AFRICAN AMERICAN COMMUNITIES IN THE U.S. SOUTH, 1884-1939 A Dissertation by WILLIAM FRANCIS COLLOPY Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY December 2011 Major Subject: History Welfare and Conversion: The Catholic Church in African American Communities in the U.S. South, 1884-1939 Copyright 2011 William Francis Collopy WELFARE AND CONVERSION: THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN AFRICAN AMERICAN COMMUNITIES IN THE U.S. SOUTH, 1884-1939 A Dissertation by WILLIAM FRANCIS COLLOPY Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Approved by: Chair of Committee, Harold C. Livesay Committee Members, Cynthia A. Bouton April L. Hatfield Albert S. Broussard Lanny Martindale Head of Department, David Vaught December 2011 Major Subject: History iii ABSTRACT Welfare and Conversion: The Catholic Church in African American Communities in the U.S. South, 1884-1939. (December 2011) William Francis Collopy, B.A., Iona College; M.L.A., University of St. Thomas Chair of Advisory Committee: Dr. Harold C. Livesay The dissertation argues that Catholicism’s theology and sacramentalism constituted the foundation of a ministry that from Reconstruction through the 1930s extended the religion’s reach in the U.S. beyond its historical loci of numerical strength and influence to African American communities in the South. The dissertation draws on decrees of the Council of Trent, papal encyclicals, pastoral letters, theological treatises, and Catholic interpretation of Judeo-Christian scripture to demonstrate that the Church’s beliefs manifestly shaped its African American ministry. The dissertation illuminates a missiology that employed uniquely Catholic sacral elements in a framework designed to assist the faithful in living a virtuous life and attaining salvation. Within the temporal sphere, education functioned as the centerpiece of the Church’s missionary effort, and the dissertation demonstrates the capacity of Catholic educational initiatives to advance African Americans socially and spiritually. The study assesses the efficacy of different educational methodologies and concludes that the Church prescribed industrial education for both white and African American iv students and, wherever and to the extent possible, simultaneously provided instruction in classical, non-vocational subjects. The dissertation establishes the centrality of priests and religious sisters to the work of evangelization in its various forms. Focusing on three American orders of sisters, and four orders of priests with European roots, the study concludes that the efforts of these women and men had a salutary effect on the lives of African Americans in the South. While both priests and sisters served as spiritual guides and counselors, priests functioned mainly as ministers of the Church’s sacred rights while the sisters crafted and managed the work of education. Although the Church Universal received its direction from the Vatican, the dissertation argues that American bishops, faced with the realities of the Jim Crow South, demonstrated a lesser commitment to the African American apostolate than the Holy See decreed. The work of priests and sisters at the local level, on the other hand, more clearly reflected the course that Rome expected the American Church to follow. v DEDICATION In 1941, the Josephite Press in Baltimore published Father John T. Gillard’s Colored Catholics in the United States: An Investigation of Catholic Activity in Behalf of the Negroes in the United States and a Survey of the Present Condition of the Colored Missions. Gillard dedicated his work, which countless students of the African American apostolate have referenced over the years, as follows: “This book is reverently dedicated to the priests and Sisters of yesteryear – many now sleeping in nameless graves in forgotten cemeteries in the Southland, many still straining to the yoke – who espoused the cause of the Negro when his friends were few and to do so meant many and great sacrifices.” I can do no better than to echo Father Gillard’s thoughtful, loving dedication. vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my committee for their guidance and support as I conducted research and produced the dissertation, as well as the other members of the History Department faculty at Texas A&M University who encouraged and inspired me throughout my course of study. I also want to extend my gratitude to the kind and helpful staffs of: The American Catholic History Research Center and University Archives at Catholic University of America; Mullen Library at Catholic University of America; Archives of the University of Notre Dame; Passionist Fathers Archives; Associated Archives of St. Mary’s Seminary and University; Archives of the Society of the Divine Word; Archives of the Sisters of the Holy Family; Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture; Archives of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit (Spiritans); Archives of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament; and Archives of the Society of St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart. Lastly, I would like to express my sincere appreciation to the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism for generously providing a travel grant that made part of my research possible. vii NOMENCLATURE AASM Associated Archives of St. Mary’s Seminary and University ACUA Archives of the Catholic University of America ACP Passionist Fathers Archives ACSSp Archives of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit ASHF Archives of the Sisters of the Holy Family ASSJ Archives of St. Joseph’s Society of the Sacred Heart ASVD Archives of the Society of the Divine Word AUND Archives of the University of Notre Dame viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT .............................................................................................................. iii DEDICATION .......................................................................................................... v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...................................................................................... vi NOMENCLATURE .................................................................................................. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS .......................................................................................... viii LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................... ix LIST OF TABLES .................................................................................................... x CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION ................................................................................ 1 II TENETS OF CATHOLICISM: A BASIS FOR SOCIAL ACTION .. 16 III THE AMERICAN CATHOLIC CHURCH, 1492-1884 ..................... 63 IV THE CHURCH AND AFRICAN AMERICANS ................................ 124 V EDUCATION IN THE AFRICAN AMERICAN APOSTOLATE ..... 158 VI WOMEN AND MEN IN THE HARVEST FIELD: THE NUNS AND PRIESTS OF THE AFRICAN AMERICAN APOSTOLATE ............ 197 VII CONCLUSION .................................................................................... 249 LITERATURE CITED.............................................................................................. 261 VITA ......................................................................................................................... 280 ix LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE Page 5.1 Statue at St. Joseph’s Industrial School, Wilmington, Delaware ............... 196 6.1 Chapel car St. Peter, showing pews, altar, and crucifix ............................. 239 x LIST OF TABLES TABLE Page 5.1 Self-reported Georgetown students’ religion, 10-year periods .................. 161 5.2 Negro mission work, 1894 ......................................................................... 179 5.3 Public school expenditures per pupil, selected southern states, 1910 ........ 182 1 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION On September 1, 1926, the Ku Klux Klan kidnapped a white Roman Catholic priest in Princess Anne County, Virginia. The victim of the crime, Father Vincent Warren, pastored St. Joseph’s Church in Norfolk, a parish with an almost exclusively African American congregation.1 Under Warren’s leadership, St. Joseph’s had encouraged its parishioners’ efforts to improve their place in society in a locale where many in the majority white population hardly characterized the social advancement of African Americans as a positive development. As Warren might have foreseen, he and St. Joseph’s attracted the attention, suspicion, and animosity of local Klansmen who saw kidnapping the priest as an appropriate response to his violation of what they considered the natural order of things. Although Warren’s kidnappers ultimately released him relatively unharmed, they sent a strong reminder to local residents, both white and African American, of the social boundaries between the races – boundaries of which the Klan had appointed itself the arbiter – and a warning that no one who crossed those boundaries could expect to do so with impunity. Father Warren’s ordeal constitutes but a fragment in the far larger story of the Catholic Church’s involvement with African Americans in the American South. This dissertation neither summarizes that larger story nor focuses on a single event – such as This dissertation follows the style of The Chicago Manual of Style, 16th Edition. 1 J.