Barquilla De Ia Santa Maria BULLETIN of the Catholic Record Society Diocese of Columbus
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Barquilla de Ia Santa Maria BULLETIN of the Catholic Record Society Diocese of Columbus Vol. XXV, No. 11 November 24: St. Colman of Cloyne November, A.D. 2000 The Shepherd Affair - Catalyst for Catholic Action in 1902 Coming to Columbus: Convent Life Exposed, Great Lectures on Romanism, Opportunity to Hear the Eloquent and Brilliant Ex-Romanist Margaret L. Shepherd, nee Sister Magdalene Adelaide, Late Consecrated Penitent of Arno's Court Nunnery, Bristol, England ..• Lectures at the LO.O.F. Hall, South High Street.•• Thus, or something very like this, read the four 1880. She was registered there as Louisa Helen page leaflet handed to bookkeeper Miss Lizzie Westley, told the same tales, and left of her own Sullivan of North Ninth Street in Columbus on a volition in July, after only four months. She "had Winter day early in 1902. Outraged at the slurs such pleasant manners it was difficult for those against her religion and her people, she penned a not experienced not to be taken in by her." reply that was published in The Columbus Press However, "Not a word she said could be on Sunday, January 26, setting off one of the believed." Shortly after, she greatly deceived the more interesting chains of events in the history of clergy of St. Albans, and obtained the interest of Catholicism in Columbus. people by representing herself as connected with a well-known clergyman, whereas in fact she had Personal History met his daughter who was staying at the St. James Home while she was there. Mrs. Margaret Lisle Shepherd, or as she was then known, Louisa Egerton, in October of 1879 As Mrs. Georgina Parkyn she landed in Bodwin was sentenced to six months in the old Gaol in 1882 on charges of forgery and false Westminster prison in Tothill Fields, England, pretenses, "but she pleaded her own case so for obtaining money under false pretenses. She cleverly that she was acquitted." (She had then was about 21 years old and already she had married Richard Parkyn of Roche, Cornwall, but been in two or three penitentiary institutions in the story goes that they both had lied about their London. For the workers at the prison she wove means and, after mutual recriminations, they a story of an Indian army father (an artillery separated.) colonel named Philip Egerton Probyn), work as governess in a nursery, being led astray, losing a In 1883 she was taken as a prostitute to the child, and being connected with many persons of Catholic "penitentiary" in Arno's Court, Bristol, rank and distinction. the Convent of the Good Shepherd, perhaps her first and only real exposure to the Catholic faith, When she had served her time in Tothill Fields, which she turned against so vehemently a few she was placed in the St. James Home in Fulham, years later. She ran away from there and a Church of England institution, in March of wandered into the Salvation Army barracks in 83 the same city, identified herself as Margaret Herbert, and represented herself as homeless and anxious to go the Salvation Army Rescue homes in London. The Army sent her to London to live in their Home there. This was during the "famed Armstrong case" and she "was employed to ascertain facts concerning the case." One day during this work she was allowed to go to the city, but she escaped her escort and later was found "much the worse for drink. 11 The Salvation Army then kept her in separate lodgings and, at her urging, sent her to America to avoid the evil influence of her old companions, as she convinced them. It was about 1885 that she was sent to the Salvation Army in Hamilton, Ontario. By 1887 she had moved to Boston and there she entered into a new, "respectable" phase of her activities, writing an "autobiography" called The Little Mother. She joined the anti-Catholic movement, started the Society of Loyal Women Mrs. Shepherd, from her book The Pope, the Jemiits, of American Liberty, and was that group's first and the People. Courtesy ofSt. Charles Borromeo president. In 1889 she published Confessional Seminary Library, Wynnewood, Pa. Unveiled. .. , which was revised and published about 1894 as a 44-page ·booklet titled Secret In the spring of 1893 Mrs. Shepherd appeared in Confession to the Priest and the Abomination of St. Thomas, Woodstock, London, and Pre-Natal Baptism Exposed; as Taught and neighboring towns in Ontario, where she reaped Practiced by the Priests of Rome. She also the benefit of a strong anti-Catholic feeling. She wrote The Pope, The Jesuits, andthePeople. told suggestive stories of her bad birth and her dissolute life, along with tales of priests' letters Soon she moved to Chicago where two men being found in strange places, rifles and appeared, each of whom she called her husband. ammunition stockpiled in Catholic church One was Asa B. Shepherd, from whom she took cellars, and a massacre of Protestants arranged the name she commonly used; the other was M. for the preceding September. She also was in V. Riordan. Riordan, she claimed, was a Prince Edward Island, Toronto, and many other defrocked priest (perhaps Church of England). places. Her practice was to "turn the edge of (He was in Columbus about the winter of 1890; incriminating evidence and to convert every one wonders what he was doing in Ohio.) In condemnation into useful advertising matter. 11 1891the Chicago branch of the Society of Loyal There she founded the Protestant Protective Women discovered her background and, Association. embarrassed, they seceded from the society and made an effort to induce the Boston branch to Controversy and Arrest in Columbus discountenance her. The Bostonians sustained her, though many members ceased attending Mrs. Shepherd had come to Columbus for their meetings. several years prior to 1902, abuse of Catholics 84 being her trade, making vague and general that Shepherd had not answered the challenge to charges without name, date, or place, but until have her audience inspect the confessionals, that year the Catho lies generally ignored her. convents, and lives of the Catholics; she challenged Shepherd to quote the passages in the She scheduled a lecture in Columbus for January only approved, Latin edition of Gury; and. she 26, 1902 and advertised it by means ofhand-bills , explained a few of the headings that Shepherd in which she challenged any of the Catholic had noted. She closed, "You conclude that it clergy or laity to attend her lectures and debate would be of no benefit to continue this her. (Fifteen cents was the price of admission to controversy, as you are unwilling to take a lecture.) No notice of her presence was taken advantage of my position. Be candid, in this one by the newspapers until January 26 (Sunday) instance, at least, and admit that one reason for when The Columbus Press ran a letter from Miss your being unwilling to continue it is that it would L. Sullivan, 199 North Ninth Street. Elizabeth not involve any 'fifteen-cent admissions' which (Lizzie) C. Sullivan, a 23-year old bookkeeper, you could 'take advantage' of for your material daughter of the late Paul P. and Margaret benefit. I am willing, therefore, that you should Sullivan, in whose home she still lived, described 'take advantage of my position, 1 for I feel that I herself as "a Catholic young lady." She would am well equipped with 'knowledge of my not attend any of the lectures, but professed religion' to hold the fort with the standard of herself"ready and willing to challenge" Shepherd 'Truth.'" Mrs. Shepherd made no further reply in through the pages of The Press. Among other the newspaper. general remarks, she challenged Shepherd to attempt to prove her assertions by having her Other than the exchange in The Press, the series audience inspect the confessionals, visit the oflectures apparently did not attract much public convents, and examine the lives of their Catholic attention, but they aroused much indignation neighbors. among Catholics, who failed to see any reason why they should remain silent sufferers of the Claiming to have once been a nun, in her lectures calumnies coming from such polluted lips. She Mrs. Shepherd told as truths "the lascivious "carried her brazen impudence beyond the visions of her own corrupt imagination -- the lies bounds of endurance, and it was felt that Catholic of a prostitute about the priests and nuns of the manhood and self-respect demanded that some Catholic Church." In conjunction with her action should be taken." lectures she sold a book, Revelations of the Secret Confession -- Horrors of the Carmelite Within several days a return Columbus Nunnery. engagement was announced, to commence in the Odd Fellows' Hall, 198 1/2 South High Street, on Shepherd apparently left Columbus after that Sunday afternoon, February 16. On Saturday, lecture, but soon returned and on February 1 February 15, representatives of the prominent wrote a reply to Miss Sullivan that appeared in local Catholic societies called on Director Byrne The Press of February 2. This letter consisted of the city's Law Department and requested that largely of a list of headings from a purported he draft affidavits against Shepherd. Three translation ofGury's Moral Theology, a Catholic affidavits were drawn up and were sworn to by handbook, chosen apparently for their usefulness Charles A. Brown (an employee of The Catholic in leading astray the imaginations of her readers. Columbian, shortly thereafter President of Sullivan replied with a quite creditable letter that Columbus Printing Co.) and patrolman Peter appeared in The Press on February 3.