The Catholic University of America A

Home , Augustin Verot, Diocesan chancery, Francis Brennan, Francis Kelley, Glenmary Home Missioners, Henry Joseph Soenneker

THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA

A Church Apart: The Catholic Church in the Rural South, 1939-1990

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to the Faculty of the

Department of History

School of Arts & Sciences

Of The Catholic University of America

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

For the Degree

Doctor of Philosophy

Seth R. Smith

Washington, D.C.

2016 A Church Apart: The Catholic Church in the Rural South, 1939-1990

Seth R. Smith, Ph.D.

Director: Leslie Woodcock Tentler, Ph.D.

This dissertation examines Catholicism in the rural South to answer three questions. The

first is how did priests and lay Catholics engage in a pluralistic American society before and after

Vatican II while drastically outnumbered? The second is what did it mean to be part of the

universal Catholic Church while isolated geographically, socially, and institutionally? Finally,

how do we balance the impact of major national and international events on the Catholicism in

the rural South with the importance of local context? This dissertation seeks to answer these

questions by examining the history of seven parishes – four pastored by Glenmary Home

Missioners and three pastored by non-Glenmarians – in the rural South between 1939 and 1990.

Throughout much of the twentieth century, Southern Catholics were regarded with

suspicion by their neighbors without the protections offered by numbers or their own

confessional institutions. Catholics in the rural South dealt with this in two ways. The first was

by emphasizing their Southerness. Apart from their religious beliefs, they were virtually

indistinguishable from their fellow Southerners, and their views on politics, economics, and race hewed much closer to their non-Catholic neighbors than their co-religionists in the North. The

second way Catholics in the rural South dealt with an inhospitable religious climate was to make

a conscious choice to be Catholic. There was no “cultural” Catholicism here, and minus

institutional support, they emphasized the signifiers, such as liturgy, sacred space, and the priest, that marked them as religiously separate. They wanted to be good Southerners, but they wanted

to belong to Rome too.

The dissertation finds that Catholicism in the rural South could not have grown during the

second half of the twentieth century without the New Deal and World War II stimulating the

region’s economic modernization or the support and priests offered by Catholicism in the urban

North. The Civil Rights Movement and Second Vatican Council altered what it meant to be

Catholic here as well. Rural Southern Catholics viewed these national and international events primarily through the lens of local concerns, which reinforced their sense of isolation and

Southerness.

This dissertation by Seth R. Smith fulfills the dissertation requirement for the doctoral degree in History approved by Leslie Woodcock Tentler, Ph.D., as Director, and by Michael C. Kimmage, Ph.D., and Timothy Meagher, Ph.D., as Readers.

______Leslie Woodcock Tentler, Ph.D., Director

______Michael C. Kimmage, Ph.D., Reader

______Timothy Meagher, Ph.D., Reader

DEDICATION

To my wife, Mary.

iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Abbreviations v

Acknowledgements vi

Introduction 1

Chapter One: Setting the Stage 22

Chapter Two: Into No-Priest-Land, U.S.A., 1939-1957 84

Chapter Three: New Visions for the Church and the South, 1958-1965 133

Chapter Four: Pastoral Approaches to Vatican II, 1966-1975 180

Chapter Five: A Different Kind of Mission, 1976-1990 232

Epilogue 289

Bibliography 294

List of Abbreviations

DOA Diocese of Owensboro Archives.

DSA Diocese of Savannah Archives.

DTA Diocese of Tulsa Archives.

GHMA Glenmary Home Missioners Archives.

ACHRC American Catholic History Research Center and University Archives

SMA St. Mary’s Church Archives

SWA St. William’s Church Archives

Acknowledgments

This dissertation is attributed to one person, but it could not have been completed without the work of many people. A number of generous archivists offered me assistance during my research, including Sister Angela Boone, O.S.U., and Bret Mills of the Diocese of Owensboro;

Joann Bradford of St. Mary’s Parish Archives (Franklin, Kentucky); Gillian Brown of the

Diocese of Savannah; and Joey Spencer of the Diocese of Tulsa. I am especially indebted to

Lucy Putnam, the archivist for the Glenmary Home Missioners, who guided me through

Glenmary’s holdings, worked multiple Saturdays so that I could have extra time in her archives,

and, for seven years, answered numerous “just one more thing” questions from me. She is a

credit to her profession.

I am also fortunate to have enjoyed the cooperation and hospitality of several people

while traveling the country for my research. The Glenmary Home Missioners provided me with

free room and board during the year and a half that I periodically visited their headquarters in

Cincinnati. More than that, they offered me invaluable insight into their work and lives in the

rural South. My conversations with the Glenmarians were among the high points of my work.

So too were my interviews with parishioners at the seven parishes examined in this dissertation.

It would have been impossible to complete this study without their contributions, and I am glad

to have had the opportunity to give them a voice. They made my months on the road more

enjoyable and my work more vibrant. I am grateful for the kindness shown by so many people

who opened their homes to me.

The writing of this dissertation benefitted from the guidance and feedback of innumerable

people. Chief among these is my director, Leslie Woodcock Tentler. I could not asked for a

better advisor in and out of the classroom. She helped me see the importance of ordinary people

vi in history, and I am a better scholar and teacher for having been fortunate enough to work with her. I am also thankful for the work of my other committee members, Michael Kimmage and

Timothy Meagher. Both challenged me to prove my assumptions and place my work in the broader context of American history. Thank you to Christopher Kauffman, who graciously shared his experiences studying Glenmary and offered suggestions as to how I could do the same early in my work, and to Joseph White, who edited a large portion of Chapter Four. Finally, thank you to the many professors, scholars, and graduate students who offered their thoughts on my work at colloquia sponsored by the Catholic University History Department and conferences sponsored by the American Catholic Historical Association and the Cushwa Center.

This project could not have been completed without financial support from a number of sources, including the History Department and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of the

Catholic University. I am especially grateful to Father Frank Donio, S.A.C., for helping me obtain a travel grant from the School of Arts and Sciences.

Thank you also to my parents who never wavered in their love or support of me throughout graduate school.

Finally, I need to thank my wife, Mary. She made substantial sacrifices to aid me in finishing this, not least of all she has read every word I have written in the past seven years multiple times. For that, for our two beautiful children, and for a thousand hidden things, I am grateful.

vii

Introduction

“Vast Areas of Nation Priestless” exclaimed the headline of the first edition of Father W.

Howard Bishop’s The Challenge. Printed as a promotional newsletter for his still theoretical society of Catholic home missionaries, the February 1938 edition of The Challenge illustrated the virtual absence of Catholicism in the rural South through a map indicating the counties that had no resident priest. This territory consisted of roughly one-third of the counties in America,

mostly in Appalachia and the South. This troubled Bishop for two reasons. The first was that he

could not understand why such a large portion of the country had been left unevangelized when

the American Church sent large numbers of missionaries overseas each year. Secondly, some of

the counties that had no priest were among the fastest growing counties in the country.1 Bishop

feared that the Church would have no presence in the areas with the most souls to be claimed.

He hoped that his call to action would be the first step toward creating a society of priests and

brothers who could serve in what he called “No Priest Land, USA.”2

Father Bishop’s concern for the Catholics isolated from both their neighbors and the

institutional Church and his desire to create a society that would serve them shows us a group

that has often seemed invisible in American and American Catholic history: Catholics in the

rural South. Small in number, they did not fit tidily into any religious or ethnic demographic.

As Southerners living in small towns and rural areas, they were a minority in the American

Church, and as Catholics, they were a minority in the South – what Jon W. Anderson terms a

“double minority.”3

1 Howard Bishop, “No Priest Land, USA,” The Challenge 1 (Spring, 1938), 1. 2 Ibid. 3 Jon W. Anderson and William B. Friend, eds, The Culture of the Bible Belt Catholics, (New York: Paulist Press, 1995), 32. 1

In much of the rural South, Catholics made up less than 3 percent of the entire

population.4 In most areas there were no Catholic schools, hospitals, or confraternities such as

the Knights of Columbus or Holy Name Society. Bishops rarely visited these Catholic outposts.

The parishes were simply too remote and too small to warrant much attention. There were few

parishes and fewer priests. Consequently, “Catholic culture” did not exist in the South, certainly

not as experienced in the cities of the Midwest or Northeast. Furthermore, Catholics who could

not find ways to cooperate with Protestants would quickly find themselves short of food, money,

and friends. Exploring the ramifications of Catholic-Protestant interaction in the South offers us

a richer, more complex understanding of Catholicism in America during the twentieth century.5

It also leads us to the second and possibly more interesting aspect of Southern Catholics’

minority status.

From its political foundation, the United States has ostensibly sought to protect the rights

of minorities, regardless of whether the group in question is a minority because of religious,

political, or eventually racial reasons. In reality, the culture has more often been dominated by a

white, Protestant hegemony and a fear of anything alien. Outsiders have had to navigate this

reality throughout time and space in America, from European immigrants in Northeastern cities

during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to Hispanics in the South and Southwest in

the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. As we will see, the Catholics who began arriving in the

South as part of the Sun Belt migration in the 1950s were not exempt. In this case, ethnicity did

4 Anderson and Friend, 11-12, and Howard Bishop, “What are We Doing for These?” The Challenge 1 (Spring, 1938), 2. 5 This immigrant tradition of the urban North dominated American Catholicism and the idea of what it meant to be an American Catholic in the popular imagination from the arrival of the Irish and Germans until the Second Vatican Council, but Catholicism in the rural South in the twentieth century drew on the “republican” tradition of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

3 not matter so much as being from somewhere else. Being a Yankee and Catholic was foreign enough.

Catholicism in this portion of the United States warrants further study for a variety of reasons. This is the story of American Catholicism without a ghetto, a term historians use to talk about “American Catholicism” during the majority of the twentieth century, and what we should more carefully define as Catholicism in cities in the Northeast and the upper Midwest as practiced by European immigrants and their descendants. The Catholics here created support networks that existed parallel to public institutions, and they celebrated their own holidays and heroes, both with civic and religious importance. This sort of Catholicism was deeply ethnic, mostly working class, and often concerned with labor issues. The Church served as not only the spiritual center for its members, but as a cultural, political, and social center as well. Life centered on the parish, with social and educational groups for every demographic: the Knights of

Columbus for men, rosary societies for women, and parochial schools for children. Weekly attendance at mass was a given. Devotion to and respect for the institution’s boundaries and clerical authority marked the faith. Strong bishops like New York’s Francis Spellman and

Philadelphia’s Dennis Dougherty provided a powerful public face for the Church to Catholics and non-Catholics alike. Catholics in this environment could, and often did, remain apart from the Protestant mainstream. Ecumenism was not promoted by the Church, nor was it a regular feature in many Catholics’ lives. This was never true in the South, where Catholics by necessity lived, worked, and socialized with Protestants.

The work of the priest and the role of the Church in the South anticipates the challenges for the Northern, urban Church posed by Vatican II. Ecumenism was institutionally embraced, although it had informally been present for some time, and Catholics joined the American 4

cultural mainstream and economic middle class, leaving ethnic neighborhoods for the suburbs.6

But Catholics in rural Southern parishes had never had the luxury of these networks; they were

often nearly as separate from the universal Church as they were from other denominations.

What, then, was their story?

The purpose of this dissertation is threefold. The first is to show how priests and lay

Catholics in rural Southern parishes engaged pluralistic American society well before Vatican II,

a time during which the universal, institutional Church was steadfastly refusing to engage in

ecumenism. This initial question of pluralism leads us to other related questions: what problems

did this early engagement with pluralism entail? How did Catholic ecumenism change after the council? The second purpose is to examine what it meant to be part of the universal Catholic

Church when one was largely isolated from the Catholic Church institutionally and socially.

How did priests and parishioners in rural Southern parishes conceive of themselves before and

after Vatican II? How did they adapt to these anomalous circumstances? The final purpose is to

take a familiar approach to American Catholic history, the story of immigration, and set it in a

new milieu. The migrants may have only been moving to a new region rather than a new

country, but they still faced challenges of integrating themselves into an unfamiliar and

sometimes hostile environment. Using this approach will allow us to follow the changing nature

of the South as it transformed from the “Bible Belt” to the “Sun Belt.” Entwined in these larger

topics are a number of issues crucial to American Catholicism that Catholics in the South had to

address, often well in advance of much of the rest of the country: lack of religious (priests and

nuns), increased lay involvement, the proper role of women, a growing number of religious

6 For a greater discussion of this transformation, see Charles R. Morris, America Catholic: The Saints and Sinners Who Built America’s Most Powerful Church (New York: Vintage Books, 1997), 255-284; James Hennesey, S.J., American Catholics: A History of the Roman Catholic Community in the United States (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), 280-306; Mark S. Massa, S.J., Catholics and American Culture: Fulton Sheen, Dorothy Day, and the Notre Dame Football Team (New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1999), 82-101. 5

intermarriages, financial problems, race relations, breakdowns in institutional support, and

ecumenism.

These questions have not been answered adequately in large part because of the dearth of

literature dealing with Catholicism in the South during the twentieth century. The works that

have been produced on Southern Catholicism generally fall into one of two categories: diocesan

histories and histories dealing with the Catholic approach to race. Roger Baudier’s The Catholic

Church in Louisiana and Michael V. Namorato’s Catholic Church in Mississippi, 1911-1984: A

History stand out as the best examples of the former, offering insight into the long-term development of the institutional Church in the South.7 R. Bentley Anderson’s Black, White, and

Catholic: New Orleans Interracialism, 1947-1956 and Andrew S. Moore’s The South's

"Tolerable Alien": Roman Catholics in Alabama and Georgia, 1945-1970 are among the most

recent explorations of Catholic participation in and reaction to the Civil Rights movement.8

Both approaches have much to recommend them, but they focus primarily on urban events and the actions of bishops. Given that the population distribution even in these Southern dioceses

7 Roger Baudier, The Catholic Church in Louisiana (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana Library Association Public Library Section, 1972); Michael V. Namorato, Contributions to the Study of Religion, vol. 54, The Catholic Church in Mississippi, 1911-1984: A History (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998). 8 R. Bentley Anderson, Black, White, and Catholic: New Orleans Interracialism, 1947-1956 (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2005); Andrew S. Moore, The South's "Tolerable Alien": Roman Catholics in Alabama and Georgia, 1945-1970 (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press). In addition to a number of diocesan and local histories, the most significant works on Catholicism in the American South include Cyprian Davis, The History of Black Catholics in the United States (New York: Crossroads, 1990); Joseph H. Fichter, Southern Parish: Dynamics of a City Church, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951); Gary W. McDonogh, “A Most Peculiar Institution: A History of Catholic Parish Life in the Southeast (1850-1980,” The American Catholic Parish: A History from 1850 to the Present Vol. 1, ed. Jay Dolan (New York, Paulist Press, 1987); Charles E. Nolan, “Modest and Humble Crosses: A History of Catholic Parishes in the South Central Region (1850-1980), The American Catholic Parish: A History from 1850 to the Present Vol. 1, ed. Jay Dolan (New York, Paulist Press, 1987); Randel M. Miller and Jon Wakelyn, eds., Catholics in the Old South (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1999); Vincent J. O’Connell, “The Church in the South,” The American Apostolate: American Catholics in the Twentieth Century, ed. Leo R. Ward (Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1952); William A. Osbourne, The Segregated Covenant: Race Relations and American Catholics (New York: Herder and Herder, 1967), Edward Wakin and Joseph F. Scheur, The De-Romanization of the American Catholic Church (New York: MacMillan, 1966); James M. Woods, A History of the Catholic Church in the American South, 1513-1900 (Gainesville, FL: The University of Florida Press, 2011); and Andrew H. M. Stern, Southern Crucifix, Southern Cross: Catholic-Protestant Relations in the Old South (Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 2012). 6

skews heavily urban, this is a reasonable approach, but it tells us very little about the life in the

far-flung outposts of the dioceses.

Moore’s The South’s “Tolerable Alien” is the work most relevant to this dissertation. In

examining the role of race in Southern Catholicism during the mid-twentieth century, Moore

makes three interrelated arguments. The first is that Catholicism operated at the margins of

Southern society in which Protestantism, along with being white, was required to be considered a

full member. Catholics in the twentieth century were obliged to be good citizens and good

Catholics in the face of a level of anti-Catholic bigotry not seen in the South since the colonial

era. The second is that the support of many Southern Catholics for maintaining the region’s

racial status quo allowed them to find common cause with Southern Protestants. This argument

confirms the findings of Anderson in Black, White, and Catholic and leads to his third argument:

alliances forged during these efforts resulted in far more practical ecumenism than did reforms of

the Second Vatican Council. The result was that Southern Catholics finally felt secure in their

“Southerness.”

Though this dissertation fits most neatly into the category of Southern history, it is

important to note that South modifies rural rather than the other way around, especially for

people actually living in the parishes. Rural Catholicism, however, is even less studied than

Southern Catholicism. The outstanding study of rural Catholicism is Jeffrey Marlett’s Saving the

Heartland, which focuses primarily on rural Catholicism in the Midwest with some examination

of the South. Marlett argues that that rural idealism constituted an important aspect of the

American Catholic experience of the mid-twentieth century, and that much of contemporary

Catholicism in this country “preserves some link to the Catholic agrarian past.”9

9 Jeffrey D. Marlett, Saving the Heartland: Catholic Missionaries in Rural America, 1920-1960. (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2002). 7

This dissertation builds on Moore’s and Marlett’s work and expands on it. The most

significant way in which it does this is by focusing on Catholicism in the rural South in the mid-

to late-twentieth century. Rural Catholics in the South have more in common with Marlett’s

Catholics in Iowa or the Catholics of rural Michigan described by Leslie Woodcock Tentler in

“’A Model Rural Parish’: Priests and People in the Michigan ‘Thumb,’ 1923-1928,” than their

contemporaries in New Orleans or Savannah.10 With sizeable Catholic populations and

numerous institutions to support them, the experiences of urban Catholics in the South was more

comparable to those of Catholics found in McGreevy’s Chicago, O’Toole’s Boston, or Orsi’s

Italian Harlem than Catholics in Franklin, Kentucky.11 This is not to say that living in the South was not relevant to Southern Catholics on a daily level, regardless of whether they lived in cities

or rural areas. Being Southern meant that these Catholics had to deal with constant anti-Catholic prejudice, though it was often not overt. The fact of living in the South also shaped many

Catholics views on issues other than religion; according to Moore and Marlett, they were conservative on race, government intervention, organized labor, and social issues, just like most of their non-Catholic neighbors. This dissertation essentially finds the same thing to be true, but living far away from urban areas with relatively large Catholic communities and institutional support magnified these issues. Catholics in the rural South were most vulnerable to anti-

Catholicism, and in these areas, anti-Catholicism persisted longer than Moore suggests.

Evidence also suggests that informal ecumenism existed in these places before Vatican II or the

Civil Rights movement. The approach to race was marginally better in Catholic parishes in

10 Leslie Woodcock Tentler, “’A Model Rural Parish’: Priests and People in the Michigan ‘Thumb,’ 1923- 1928,” The Catholic Historical Review 78:3, July 1992 11 See John T. McGreevy, Parish Boundaries: The Catholic Encounter with Race in the Twentieth- Century Urban North (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1998); Robert E. Sullivan and James M. O'Toole, eds., Catholic Boston: Studies in Religion and Community 1870-1970 (Boston: s.n., 1985); Robert A. Orsi, The Madonna of 115th Street: Faith and Community in Italian Harlem, 1880-1950, 3rd ed. (New Haven Conn.: Yale University Press, 2010). 8 small towns, especially in Glenmary parishes. During the 1960s, it was not uncommon for them to be the only integrated churches in their respective towns. The biggest difference between this dissertation and Moore’s work is that Moore understandably views race as the prism through which to see all other issues. This dissertation takes into account other aspects of the local context, especially economic development that brought Catholics from the North to small

Southern towns.

This dissertation will seek to balance local context with larger historical developments in the nation and the world. Recent works like Peter D’Agostino’s Rome in America and Leslie

Woodcock Tentler’s The Church Confronts Modernity have placed American Catholicism within a transnational context.12 Historians are absolutely right to consider national and transnational trends that shape Catholicism, but we must also take into account the unique contexts and circumstances that lead to differences between countries, regions, and even within a single diocese. This dissertation will consider the impact of events such as the New Deal, World War

II, the Cold War, the rise of the Sun Belt, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Second Vatican

Council on Catholicism in the rural South. At the same time, it will acknowledge that Catholics here often felt isolated and local realities occupied them far more than national or international issues. When they did engage in these big issues, it tended to be in local terms: tire rationing during World War II meant that a priest might not be able to visit all of his missions regularly; the Cold War meant support for an assistant Polish pastor; civil rights meant welcoming African

Americans into catechism classes; and Vatican II meant the Mass celebrated in the vernacular.

12 See Peter R. D'Agostino, Rome in America: Transnational Catholic Ideology from the Risorgimento to Fascism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004) and Leslie Woodcock Tentler, ed., The Church Confronts Modernity: Catholicism Since 1950 in the United States, Ireland, and Quebec (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2007). 9

Evangelical Protestantism was a key part of this local context, and along with whiteness,

one of the two components required to be truly Southern. Southern Catholics living in the “Bible

Belt” were outsiders in an area saturated by evangelical Protestant culture, and diverse and well-

developed historiography reflects this fact.13 Evangelical Protestantism, which is not bound by

denominational affiliation so much as it is by belief and mood, is the largest and most influential

religious movement in the region. As Donald G. Matthews notes, “The mood of Evangelicalism

is suspicious of formalism, routine, and elitism…,” which makes it diametrically opposed to the

style and structure of Roman Catholicism.14 This “mood tends to focus more on private behavior

than the social implications of public policy.”15 Matthews also notes six essential tenets of

Evangelical belief: sola scriptura, sola fide, submission of the self in service to God, a

commitment to proselytizing coupled with a distrust of non-Evangelicals, eventual establishment

of the “millennium” described in Revelation 20:1-10 by God, and the primacy of personal

experience in religious matters.16 Thus, the mood and beliefs of Evangelical Protestantism tend

to emphasize the role of the individual (and his relationship with God) over the role of the

community, resulting in a fundamental tension with Catholicism.17

Anti-Catholic sentiment, although always present in Southern Protestant culture, has

nevertheless waxed and waned, peaking between 1900 and 1925, coinciding with a period of

13 See George M. Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006); Kenneth K. Bailey, Southern White Protestantism in the Twentieth Century (New York: Peter Smith Pub Inc, 1988); Frederick A. Bode, Protestantism and the New South: North Carolina Baptists and Methodists in Political Crisis, 1894-1903 (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1975); David F. Wells and John D. Woodbridge, eds., The Evangelicals: What They Believe, Who They Are, Where They Are Changing (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1975). 14 Donald G. Matthews, “Evangelicalism,” in Samuel S. Hill, Charles H. Lippy, and Charles Reagan Wilson, eds., Encyclopedia of Religion in the South, 2nd ed. (Macon, GA.: Mercer University Press, 2005), 306. 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid., 306-307. 17 See Moore, Chapter 1. John McGreevy discusses this tension from the Catholic perspective in Catholicism and American Freedom: A History (New York: W.W. Norton, 2003). 10

massive Catholic immigration from southern and eastern Europe.18 Despite the fact that the number of foreign immigrants arriving in the South has historically been much smaller than in other areas of the United States, Catholics moving here in the early twentieth century were regarded with suspicion, if not outright hostility, for their perceived paganism (being anti-

Christian) and popery (being anti-American).19 Suspicion and isolation meant that Catholics in the rural South, unlike their Northern brethren, had to make the regular, conscious choice to be

Catholic. There was no such thing as a “cultural Catholic.” One either was or was not a

Catholic; the antagonism engendered by identifying oneself as Catholic was not worth the effort if not invested in faith.20

Southern Catholics coped with their situation in four ways: sharing the non-religious

views of their neighbors, informal ecumenism, adopting an evangelical approach to religion, and

clinging to the facets of the faith that were unique. As Moore and Marlett indicate, Catholics in

Southern and rural areas were often indistinguishable from their neighbors with the exception of

religious beliefs. The ecumenism was a practical way of surviving while vastly outnumbered; it

manifested itself in helping a neighbor put up a tool shed or contributing to the library bake sale

instead of theological discourse. Catholics bridged the gap between them and their Protestant

neighbors by embracing what Darren Dochuk describes as the values of the Old South “where

the simple truths of the Gospel were revered, small-town values encouraged, and revival

summoned on a regular basis.” It was an atmosphere in which “Christians were called forth

through modern media, mass marketing, and cultural engagement to become custodians of their

18 See John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860-1925, 2nd ed. (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2002). 19 Anderson and Friend, 82-96. See also Moore, Chapter 1. 20 Anderson and Friend, 33-34, 37. 11

neighborhoods and nation.”21 Although Catholics copied evangelical Protestant style, they were

adamant about retaining Catholic substance. The uniqueness of the Church gave these Catholics

their identity. Liturgy, sacraments, sacred space, and relationship with the priest marked one as

Catholic in the rural South. What we see is a group of Catholic migrants who had to navigate the issue of religious pluralism in a manner more akin to English and American-born Catholics at the beginning of the nineteenth century than the contemporary Church, dominated by the immigrant tradition. Their successes and failures in this effort are the part of the story most important to our understanding of American history.

This dissertation will address race which, like migration, is a central component of

Southern history and Southern religious history. It is not the primary theme of the dissertation, however, for three reasons. The first is that there is a good quantity of excellent recent scholarship on the topic. The second is that the industrialization and economic modernization of the South that led to Catholic migration from the North to the South is extremely important to the growth and development of rural Catholicism in the region and has been understudied. The last is that there simply were not that many African-American Catholics in rural areas, and those that were there often only had marginal influences on their parishes prior to 1990.22

This is partly explained by the recent scholarship which has shown us that the Catholic

approach to race and integration in the middle of the twentieth century was muddled. Catholic

theologians seemed unsure of how to proceed, often hedging their support for African Americans

in general and black Catholics in particular until the 1958 National Bishops’ statement declaring

21 Darren Dochuk, From Bible Belt to Sun Belt: Plain-Folk Religion, Grassroots Politics, and the Rise of Evangelical Conservatism (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2011), xv. 22 The major exception to this in this dissertation is St. Christopher Church in Claxton, Georgia, and its mission, Holy Cross Church, in Pembroke, Georgia. St. Christopher was the first integrated parish in the Diocese of Savannah. 12

that racial segregation was irreconcilable with Catholic teaching. 23Although Catholic thought had coalesced on the issue of integration, Catholic practice most certainly had not.24 White

Catholics in the South often found themselves in a particularly difficult position of having to

reconcile Southern tradition with church teaching, especially when many were more sympathetic

to the region’s racial hierarchy. The response of the Southern clergy to integration was mixed in

part because of differing personal views on the subject and in part because of the opinions of

their flock.

This does not mean, however, that rural priests did not attempt to evangelize Southern

blacks. Glenmary priests in particular saw outreach to African Americans as a core part of their

mission. Howard Bishop mentioned it in the first episode of The Challenge. In practice, the

Glenmary approach was cautious until the late 1950s, after which time many Glenmarys became

vocal supporters of integration and the Civil Rights Movement.25 Despite their commitment to evangelizing African Americans, they were not particularly successful at gaining black converts, especially outside of Georgia. The simple reality is that there were few African-Americans residents in most of these rural parishes. Consequently, race was not a huge issue. This is not to say it was not an issue at all – the Catholic Church was often the only integrated church in town, which sometimes caused problems – but as Anderson, Moore, and others have noted, Catholics’ opinions often did not differ that much from their neighbors. Yes, they wanted members to increase the size of their parish, but they wanted the right kind of members. Black members could potentially mean less numbers in the future, especially prior to 1970s.

23 Moore, 83. 24 See Anderson, S.J., 23-24, 115-116. 25 See Christopher J. Kauffman, Mission to Rural America: The Story of W. Howard Bishop, Founder of Glenmary (New York: Paulist Press, 1991), 80. 13

The story of the Catholic Church in the rural South, like most of American Catholic

history, is one of immigration, but with a twist. The waves of immigrants arriving on the East

Coast in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries created what some historians refer to as

the “immigrant” tradition. This tradition dominated the urban North and defines the “American

Catholicism” of the popular imagination. There are, however, traditions that predate this one.

Aspects of the “republican” tradition have shaped Catholicism in the rural South since the colonial era. Developed by Southern bishops like John Carroll and John England and continued by the Americanist bishops of the late nineteenth century, this tradition is well suited to areas and

times in which Catholicism is a minority faith. It accepts American ideals of democracy and

religious pluralism and encourages an active, if not independent, laity.26

Several analogous features link the republican era following the American Revolution in

the South and the republican style of Catholicism in the South during the twentieth century.

Chief among these were few Catholics, even fewer priests, anti-Catholic prejudice that improved over time but did not entirely disappear, and an acceptance of religious pluralism. In both periods, faith persisted because of the work and voluntary support of the laity. Without a culture

to support the faith, remaining Catholic was a “deliberate decision.”27 The laity of the

republican era and the twentieth century South both desperately wanted a priest to lead them in

“organized forms of Catholic life,” but the lay leadership required by circumstance and the

influence of Protestant neighbors at times resulted in something that looked a bit like Catholic

congregationalism.28 During the republican era, this took the form of trusteeism. Nothing so

extreme took place in the twentieth century, due in part to changing state laws that resulted in all

parish property being held in the local bishop’s name, but parishioners in the rural South had

26 David J. O’Brien, Public Catholicism (New York: Macmillan, 1989), 10. 27 Ibid., 13. 28 Ibid., 20. 14

little problem requesting that priests of whom they disapproved be removed from or not assigned

to their parishes. It was not uncommon for them to feel neglected by far-away bishops. And while they did not seem to share republicans’ fear of “papalism,” a lack of positive evidence suggests that the papacy had little influence on the daily practice of the faith of most small-town

Catholics in the South. Similar conditions also led to similar approaches to interacting with non-

Catholic neighbors. As a tiny minority, Catholics had to embrace religious pluralism and spoke to those around them in a language of common humanity rather than shared faith. Because both the republican era and the twentieth century saw a great deal of anti-Catholic prejudice in the

South, Catholics had to act “always as good citizens and good neighbors.”29 In both periods,

Catholics were usually “conformists, anxious to be seen by their Protestant counterparts as

differing from them only in religion.”30 The result was that deep prejudices declined in both era,

and Catholics began to be accepted, and sometimes even supported, by their neighbors even as

Catholicism was not.

Northern Catholics tended to adopt this style of faith quickly upon arriving in the rural

South, as the small number of Catholics in small Southern towns made the triumphalism of the

immigrant tradition impractical. Thus, the Southern, republican style of Catholicism influenced

newcomers far more than Northern transplants transformed Southern parishes. Catholics here

were heirs to republican heritage due to circumstance rather than conscious choice. Priests who

recognized and adapted to this style thrived. As we shall see, many of those formed in the

immigrant tradition and ordained in the late 1950s struggled to fulfill their vocation to the

priesthood.

29 Ibid., 16. 30 Ibid., 13. 15

The questions and themes of rural Southern Catholicism that I have laid out will be

examined primarily through the parish work performed by the Glenmary Home Missioners from

their foundation by Father W. Howard Bishop in 1939 until 1990. The work of Bishop and his

Glenmary priests allows us to examine these issues in practice. Bishop, a priest of the

Archdiocese of Baltimore, founded Glenmary in 1939 to serve the rural South. He feared that

this vast, priestless “home mission” area would be lost to the Catholic Church unless it was

recognized and designated a specific ministry of the Church. Glenmary missionaries ministered

to the rural and small town areas of the South and Appalachia, spanning a territory from Virginia

to Texas. In these areas, Glenmary served under the jurisdiction and at the invitation of the local

bishop or archbishop in counties where less than 3 percent of the population was Catholic and

where the poverty levels were twice the national average. Therefore, much of the community’s

ministry became ecumenically oriented by necessity and was performed without regard to race,

religion or economic condition. As the work of Christopher Kauffman demonstrates, Bishop was

more consciously an heir to the republican Catholic tradition than the people Glenmary served.31

The first fifty years of Glenmary saw it mature from an idea existing only in the head of Bishop

and the pages of his newsletter to a well-established religious society with priests in most

Southern states. The period also spans roughly twenty-five years pre-Vatican II and post-

Vatican II. This should give an adequate idea of the developments in Southern Catholicism pre-

and post-Vatican II. Although Vatican II was a major event in Southern Catholic history, it was certainly not the only one, or the definitive one. Migration of Northern Catholics to the South

for economic opportunity and the Civil Rights movement, for example, had at least as significant

impact on the daily practice of Catholicism in the South. Perhaps the greatest effect that Vatican

II had in the parishes in this study is the ways in which it altered the formation of Northern

31 See Kauffman, Chapter 2. The next chapter of this dissertation will make this case. 16 priests who would pastor Southern parishes. This study also ends in 1990 because Hispanic migration to small Southern towns began in earnest around this period. Certainly there were

Hispanics in the parishes in this study prior to 1990 (most notably in Georgia and Idabel,

Oklahoma), but the massive immigration wave that continues through the present did not arrive in the rural South until the last decade of the twentieth century. This transformation of Southern

Catholicism will undoubtedly warrant its own study in the coming years.

The Glenmary Fathers offer an obvious entry into Catholicism in the rural South. The work of the Glenmarians is among the most unique and difficult of any performed in American

Catholicism, but the Glenmary story does not define the whole of Southern Catholicism. Thus, in order to demonstrate what is unique to Glenmary and what is common in the South, this dissertation will profile diocesan parishes that are roughly the same in size and geographic, economic, and cultural locale to the Glenmary parishes from three different regions of the South: the Deep South, the northern boundary of the Mid-South (or the Upland South), and the western boundaries of the South.

The Glenmary parishes were chosen based on how long Glenmary served the parish. The parishes where Glenmary arrived the earliest and stayed the longest made for the strongest cases.

Preference was also given towns the farthest away from the chancery in order to explore geography’s impact on institutional strength. The diocesan parishes are located in towns roughly the same size and socio-economic makeup of the towns housing Glenmary parishes, and, when possible, roughly equidistant from the chancery in the same diocese. This method resulted in the following Glenmary parishes being chosen: from the Diocese of Savannah, St. Matthew in

Statesboro, Georgia, and its mission, St. Christopher, in Claxton, Georgia; from the Diocese of

Owensboro, St. Mary in Franklin, Kentucky; and from the Diocese of Tulsa, St. Francis de Sales 17

in Idabel, Oklahoma.32 Their accompanying diocesan parishes are St. Theresa in Cordele,

Georgia; St. Paul in Princeton, Kentucky; and St. William in Durant, Oklahoma.

The dissertation is divided into five major chapters. Chapter One will set the stage for

the action that follows. It will provide a brief overview of Catholicism in the South from the

colonial era to 1939, demonstrating the roots of Southern Catholicism in the republican tradition

of early Southern bishops like Carroll of Baltimore and England of Charleston. It will then

branch into histories of Catholicism in Georgia, Kentucky, and Oklahoma, with introductions to

the dioceses of Savannah, Owensboro, and Tulsa, and the history of the six parishes and towns

being studied prior to 1939. It will provide a brief synopsis of Father Howard Bishop’s formation in the republican and Americanist tradition, his early work in rural ministry, and how these shaped his vision for the Glenmary Home Missioners. Because the missioners who served rural parishes are so vital to this story, the chapter will conclude with demographic information about the sort of men attracted by Glenmary’s work and their education.

Chapter Two will cover the period between 1939 and 1957. The period follows

Glenmary’s first forays into the South. In some cases, the arrival of Glenmary was the first time a Catholic priest had served in the area; in others, Glenmary’s arrival revived a dormant parish.

It will compare the experiences of early Glenmary parishes to those of rural diocesan parishes, most of which had existed for decades before 1939. The industrialization of these Southern towns did not begin in earnest until the end of this period, and despite some initial success with

32 The Deep South contains no parish in which Glenmary served for the duration of this study. Glenmary did not arrive in most states in this area until the 1960s, and its earliest parish in Georgia, St. Matthew in Statesboro, was so successful that Glenmary gave it back to the Diocese of Savannah in 1966. A combination of St. Matthew from 1944 to 1966 and St. Christopher in Claxton from 1966 to 1990 was chosen because St. Christopher was founded as a mission of St. Matthew, and there is a great deal of continuity between the parishes in terms of clerical appointments and lay opinions and trends. 18

the arrival of Glenmary priests, especially in Georgia, many of the parishes examined here

remained small missions.

Chapter Three deals with the changes facing Glenmary, Southern parishes in particular

and the South in general, and worldwide Catholicism between 1957 and 1965. On the local

level, these were the years when industry really arrived in many of the towns in this study

(though it would come later in Idabel). New jobs brought a wave of mostly Northern Catholics to these towns. Not coincidentally, this was the most successful period for Glenmary evangelization. 1957 was a turning point for Glenmary institutionally as well. Howard Bishop died in 1953, and the first priests not picked by him came of age during the late 1950s. This led to a different, questioning, and more liberal ethos in the order, which would have significant ramifications for the society in subsequent decades. This took place at the same time young, college-educated Americans began questioning the institutions and conformity prevalent during the early Cold War. The chapter will parallel the growth of Southern parishes with the intellectual development among Glenmary priests and seminarians. The chapter will pay

attention to larger issues as well, most notably the Civil Rights movement and the Second

Vatican Council. The chapter ends with 1965, which saw the end of Vatican II and the passage

of the Voting Rights Act. Both would have dramatic impacts on Catholics locally and

universally.

Chapter Four follows our parishes through the turmoil of the years between 1965 and

1975. The years were traumatic for the American Church generally and Southern parishes and

Glenmary specifically. The chapter will compare three approaches to implementing Vatican II

and navigating the social realities of the era: that of Glenmary priests who fit into what Andrew

Greeley called the “New Breed,” that of native Southern priests, and that of a Glenmarian who 19

was not a member of the New Breed. In all parishes, the pastor’s implementation of the council

shaped parishioners’ perception of the council far more than the documents of the council itself.

The chapter ends with 1975, after the last big wave of Glenmary defections for several years.

Chapter Five concludes the dissertation and covers the years from 1975 to 1990. By this

point, the immediate conflicts of Vatican II were over, but the after effects were still being felt.

Southern priests, both Glenmary and diocesan, had to adjust to new demands and changes to

their relationship with a laity demanding more autonomy (often while proclaiming their desire

for tradition). It was a period of introspection for Glenmary too, as the society had to figure out

its identity in a South that had transformed dramatically since Howard Bishop conceived its

mission. The things that had once made Glenmary unique – embracing ecumenism, willingness

to live among the laity, distaste for clerical glamour – were now embraced by the Church as a whole. During this time, the society shifted its focus from evangelization to welcoming

Catholics who came to them: pastors more than missionaries. The chapter ends just as Hispanic immigration to rural Southern areas was beginning.

Using the lens of local context magnifies the importance of the priest in the history of

Catholicism in the rural South. For non-Catholics, he was the face of Catholicism; for Catholics, he was a connection to the universal church and its authority. A lack of religious (priests and sisters) meant that the laity generally took a substantial role in running rural parishes. Despite the vital work undertaken by the laity, the priest (even in his absence) was still the most crucial factor in a parish’s success. When the priest understood his parish and could convince the laity to take an active role, the parish thrived. When he attempted to force his views without concern for the realities of his parish, the parish withered. 20

When considering the role of the priest in the parish, one must also consider what exactly it meant for a parish to be “successful.” Prior to roughly 1960, simply establishing a parish, having a church building, and having enough people to fill it for regular celebrations of the Mass on Sundays was a significant accomplishment. Once the survival of the churches in this study was no longer in question, growing membership could not remain the measure as a human and spiritual institution. After 1960, the spiritual vitality and catechetical knowledge of church members became more important. These are admittedly difficult to quantify, though parish bulletins, parish council minutes, parishioners’ letters to the chancery, and their recent memories provide a general idea. In the most successful and mature parishes, an exterior focus on the larger community grew from that interior life. In order to evangelize and thrive, the churches needed to become full members of their towns with real voice on matters of civic life and social justice. More often than not, the parish priest served as the face of all of these endeavors, regardless of era.

Focusing on local context in the rural South very much keeps us in “the trenches” of the

American Catholic experience. There was no remove between the clergy and parish in small

Southern towns, nor did the rural, Evangelical environment lend itself to putting priests on pedestals. The priests may not have been of the rural Southerners they served, but the clergy certainly lived among them. This dissertation will tell the stories of the secular and especially the Glenmary priests who heeded Fr. Howard Bishop’s call to “to live among these rural people and preach the gospel to them in the open air and in public buildings so as to correct misinformation that is in their minds concerning the Church, and to teach them the truths of

Christ.”33 In doing so, the author will illuminate a small section of the American Church, its role

33 Howard Bishop, Letter, 18 April 1940, GHMA. 21 in the Southern religious landscape, its place in Sun Belt migration, and its fundamental human and spiritual universality.

Chapter One Setting the Stage

At the junction of U.S. Highway 41 and State Road 32 on the south side of Cordele,

Georgia, stands a historical marker commemorating what is believed to be the location of the first Catholic mass celebrated in the thirteen original American colonies. The mass, which was celebrated by Franciscans accompanying Hernando de Soto’s expedition, took place in 1540. It would be almost 400 years before another mass would be celebrated in Cordele.1 This gap serves as useful metaphor for Catholicism in the American South. The region was home to many significant, if sometimes forgotten, moments and developments in early American Catholicism, yet the Church faltered there, especially in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It would not be until another wave of outsiders arrived in the mid-twentieth century that Catholicism once again emerged in the out-of-the-way areas of the South.

This chapter will provide an introduction to Catholicism in the rural South by presenting a brief historical overview of Catholic history in the region followed by sketches of the dioceses and parishes discussed in this dissertation prior to Glenmary’s arrival. It will then demonstrate why Glenmary, at least initially, was so well suited to evangelize the region by presenting a brief biography of Howard Bishop and a discussion of his founding of the Home Missioners. What the reader will find are Catholics and a missionary society that were simultaneously more domestic and more foreign than their northern counterparts: domestic because they often eschewed ethnic separatism that typified the northern experience of Catholicism and sought to integrate themselves into general Southern society and republican institutions; foreign because there were so few Catholics in the South, especially in rural areas, that the religion remained exotic and an easy straw man for evangelical ministers and populist politicians when needed.

1 Patrick Adams, O.F.M., “History of Saint Theresa’s – Cordele,” The Southern Cross, 11 November 1986. 22

Overview of the Catholic Church in the South, Colonial Era to 1939

At the time of the Revolutionary War, Catholics made up about 1 percent of the population in the colonies. Most Southern Catholics remained conscious of their minority status and outside the main currents of American religious and social development, benefitting from the diversity of Protestant churches in the colonies and the ideal of religious freedom espoused by the revolution, which allowed them to practice their faith in an almost entirely Protestant world.2

Still, a few Maryland Catholic families gained prominence through wealth and participation in

the American Revolution. Wealthy English Catholic families and Jesuit missionaries had adopted

Southern norms and became slave owners. Public worship was prohibited, so Catholics

participated in masses celebrated at Jesuits’ residences. The most prominent Catholic family in

Maryland (and the colonies) were the Carrolls.3 The family had two remarkable offspring at the

time of the American Revolution. Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the only Catholic signer of

Declaration of Independence, was one of the wealthiest men in the colonies. His cousin John

(1735-1815) was essentially the founder of the formal Catholic Church in the United States.

John Carroll shaped Catholicism in the early republic. He believed that Catholics could and should be active in broader American society, encouraging Catholics to participate in their local communities. Most interestingly, Carroll enthusiastically supported democracy and separation of church and state at a time when the universal Catholic Church supported neither.

Carroll’s writings indicate that he was interested in having local churches have more say in their

2 Randall M. Miller, “The Roman Catholic Church (in the South),” in Encyclopedia of Religion in the South, eds. Samuel S. Hill and Charles H. Lippy with Charles Reagan Wilson, 2nd ed, (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2005), 675. 3 Ronald Hoffman and Sally D. Mason, Princes of Ireland, Planters of Maryland: A Carroll Saga, 1500- 1782 (Chapel Hill: Published for the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Virginia, by the University of North Carolina Press, 2000) 24

governance.4 This collegial approach, combined with the prestige of the Carroll family and the

bishop’s political savvy, lessened anti-Catholic prejudice in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, so much so that Carroll actually preached George Washington’s eulogy.

This participation in broader American life would remain true for Southern Catholics throughout the nineteenth century.

Although the small number of Catholics in their dioceses presented a great challenge to

Carroll and Southern bishops who would follow him, the even smaller number of priests presented an even greater challenge. As Randall M. Miller notes, the “hard physical conditions

of the dispersed and small Catholic population, and the poverty of the church have discouraged

the recruitment of clergy throughout the church’s history in the South.”5 Urban priests were

often expected to care for multiple parishes and sometimes traveled to outlying areas to celebrate

mass. Rural priests functioned essentially as Catholic circuit riders, establishing missions on the

frontier and returning as rarely as once a year to dispense sacraments.6

Recognizing the desperate need for priests to avoid problems like the trusteeism

controversy7 and that the native Catholic population of their diocese could not produce enough

4 James J. Hennesey, American Catholics: A History of the Roman Catholic Community in the United States (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), 85-88. See also Peter Guilday, The Life and Times of John Carroll, Archbishop of Baltimore, 1735-1815 (Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1954). 5 Miller, 676. 6 Patrick W. Carey, Catholics in America: A History, updated ed. (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008), 19. See also Michael Pasquier, Fathers on the Frontier: French Missionaries and the Roman Catholic Priesthood in the United States, 1789-1870, Religion in America Series (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), Chapter 2. 7 The lack of priests forced lay leaders, both in rural and urban areas, to take on some religious duties. They also held title to and administered parish property through their elected trustees, just as their Protestant counterparts did. Having already assumed these duties, some laymen attempted to further emulate their Protestant neighbors by assuming some authority in ecclesiastical affairs. Most notably, some trustees claimed the right to appoint and fire pastors despite church law giving this authority only to bishops. Lay trusteeism burst forth not only in northern cities such as New York and Philadelphia, but also in New Orleans, St. Augustine, and Charleston. The lay rebellions led to interdicts and excommunications in Southern cities during the first half of the nineteenth century. By the 1840s, however, bishops used church councils calling for lay obedience and uniform church practices to assert their control over parishes. Although Southern lay leaders gave up any formal claims to ecclesiastical authority over their pastors, they maintained the informal power to influence the success of their 25

candidates for the priesthood, Southern bishops turned to foreign religious communities to staff

their parishes. The earliest and most influential of these were the Jesuits, but the antebellum

South also hosted foreign-born Sulpicians, Dominicans, and Trappists.

The Church provided a buffer for Southern Catholics against the outside world. In many

Southern cities, “Catholic immigrants, Creoles, Cajuns, and free people of color walled

themselves inside a Catholic culture, building schools, associations, and charitable institutions

that paralleled those of Protestants,” much as their coreligionists did in northern cities.8 By the

1850s parochial schools had become especially important to maintaining Catholic identity in the

face of Protestant influence in public schools. The Catholic press in Southern cities, such as the

United States Miscellany founded by Bishop John England of Charleston, also confronted

growing nativism and provided religious and moral instruction.9

Southern Catholics did adopt some aspects of Protestant practice, albeit for their own

purposes. Jesuits and Redemptorists began conducting revivals in rural and urban areas during

the 1850s, reflecting the work done by evangelical Protestants in previous decades and presaging the work of the Glenmarians and others almost a century later.10 The few revivals that reached rural areas sustained the church there, and in many cases offered Catholics on the frontier their only opportunity to fulfill their annual obligation to receive the sacraments of reconciliation and communion.11

pastor’s tenure. See Carey, Catholics in America: A History, 27-29; and idem, People, Priests, and Prelates: Ecclesiastical Democracy and the Tensions of Trusteeism (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1987). 8 Miller, 678. 9 Carey, Catholics in America, 202. England’s style and his willingness to confront anti-Catholicism head- on set the tone of American Catholic journalism thereafter. 10 See John V. Mentag, “Catholic Spiritual Revivals, Parish Missions in the Midwest to 1865” (1957). Dissertations. Paper 489. http://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/489; and Jeffrey D. Marlett, Saving the Heartland: Catholic Missionaries in Rural America, 1920-1960 (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2002),Chapter 4. 11 Jane Abbott, “English Catholics at Locust Grove,” in Mary Jane BeVard, ed., One Faith, One Family: The Diocese of Savannah 1850-2000 (New York: Signature Publications, 2000), 13. 26

As both Andrew H. M. Stern and James M. Woods have noted, the most significant way

Catholics in the South integrated themselves into regional society while maintaining their

Catholic faith was by subscribing to local social values, most notably on issues of race and

slavery.12 Catholicism retained an interesting social status in the antebellum South. There were

few Catholics in Dixie, and many of them were poor immigrants. To oppose slavery would have

made them even more alien, and abolition would have created new competition for jobs and

social status. Additionally, the most influential Southern Catholics were wealthy slave owners.

As John T. McGreevy notes, Catholic bishops in both the North and the South “tended to see

slavery as one among many hierarchical relationships.”13 For these reasons, the American

Catholic Church rarely vocally opposed slavery. Two of the states with the largest contingent of

Catholics, Maryland and Louisiana, were slave states. In 1839, Pope Gregory XVI issued a Bull

entitled In Supremo. Its main focus was to denounce slave trade, but it also condemned racial

slavery of non-white populations. Despite this condemnation the American church continued in

deeds, if not always in public discourse, to support slaveholding interests. Some American

bishops purposely misinterpreted In Supremo as condemning only the slave trade and not slavery

itself. Bishop John England of Charleston actually wrote several letters to John Forsyth, the

Secretary of State under Martin Van Buren arguing that the Pope had not condemned slavery but

only the international slave trade (which had already been outlawed in the United States).14

When war finally came, Southern Catholics fought and died for slavery and secession.

12 See Andrew H. M. Stern, Southern Crucifix, Southern Cross: Catholic-Protestant Relations in the Old South (Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 2012), and James M. Woods, A History of the Catholic Church in the American South, 1513-1900 (Gainesville, FL: The University of Florida Press, 2011). 13 John T. McGreevy, Catholicism and American Freedom: A History (New York: W.W. Norton, 2004, 2003), 53. 14 John England and William George Read, Letters of the Late Bishop England to the Hon. John Forsyth ( John Murphy, 1844). Digital Version. Accessed February 1, 2014. http://books.google.com/books?id=kh5AAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA13&lpg=PA13&dq=%22%2B%22john+forsyth%22 27

Interestingly, despite public clashes between Northern and Southern priests, bishops, and

laymen, slavery and war did not create schism along sectional lines within Catholicism as it had

among Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians. This was partially due to the fact that, as

McGreevy observes, many ultramontane Catholics in America believed slavery was, at least in principle, acceptable and partially because loyalty to the magisterium trumped American politics.

That the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore could include all 45 American bishops only a year after the war’s conclusion was a testament to Catholic unity. Bishops from all regions of the country urged Catholics to tend to the physical and spiritual needs of ex-slaves. The call to evangelization largely failed; the South ignored the ramifications of a racist society, while the massive wave of immigration after the war demanded all of the Northern Church’s attention.

The Church’s practice of permitting national parishes for European immigrants provided the model for the creation of segregated Southern parishes that persisted throughout the Jim Crow era.15 Thus, white racism had driven many blacks out of the Catholic Church, or kept them out,

by the twentieth century.

Although the South lacked the industrial jobs needed to draw many immigrants from

eastern and southern Europe in the late nineteenth century, the few who came were enough to

incite a new wave of nativism. Tom Watson, who as a Populist had championed poor whites and

blacks cooperating politically against Southern elites, now attacked the Catholic minority in the

South for fear that they might ally themselves with African Americans. Watson used his

publications, Watson's Magazine and The Jeffersonian, and political influence to attack Catholics

as un-American and backwards, and priests and nuns as sexual deviants, repeating the same tired

+%2B%22john+england%22&source=bl&ots=onQG26wr7y&sig=0urOXSdMWvkQB2D_mh6yRtJ5CCU&hl=en& sa=X&ei=Cku3U_7eCoydyATV6IKIBg&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false 15 Miller, 682. See also David T. Gleeson, The Irish in the South, 1815-1877 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001). 28

arguments found in The Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk and Know-Nothing propaganda. A

revived Ku Klux Klan emerged in the 1920s, adding Catholics to its list of threats to white,

Anglo-Saxon, Protestant America, and threatening violent reprisal. This was the period of

perhaps the strongest wave of anti-Catholicism in the South since the colonial era.16

Southern Catholics responded to this bigotry in a variety of ways. Some closed ranks and

emphasized their Catholicity. Others, such as the Georgia Laymen’s Society, went on the

offensive, publishing calm responses to Watson and the Klan’s outlandish attacks. Of particular

use in combatting prejudice in small Southern towns and rural areas were parochial schools. The

schools provided a standard curriculum of reading, writing, and arithmetic combined with

vocational training for boys and practical homemaking skills for girls. The curriculum also

included religious education. The schools drew Protestant students anyway because in many

rural areas they were the only source of formal schooling. The schools made no attempt to

convert Protestant children; it was bad for the parish either to incur the wrath of the Protestant

majority or to risk the loss of income if parents pulled their child from the school. Andrew H. M.

Stern suggests that the mingling of Catholics and Protestants because of those schools may have

alleviated anti-Catholicism in some areas of the South.17

The Diocese of Savannah, Colonial to 1939

The history of Catholicism in Georgia is long, contentious, and sometimes violent.

Unlike the other regions discussed in this dissertation, Spanish Catholicism had an influence in

Georgia, although legal discrimination against Catholics ended only in 1789 when a second state constitution went into effect removing requirement that office holders deny the doctrine of

16 Both Stern and Woods argue that while anti-Catholicism existed in the South during the nineteenth century, it was not nearly as bad as anti-Catholicism of the colonial era or the early twentieth century. 17 Stern, Chapter 3. Stern further indicates that Southern Protestants, especially in frontier areas, welcomed Catholic institutions because they provided much-needed healthcare. 29

transubstantiation. Lay people founded the first Catholic Church in Georgia without the services

of a priest at Locust Grove in 1793. At the time, one priest served the entire state. Consequently,

Catholics often saw no priest and received no sacraments for months at a time.18 The situation

improved slightly by the beginning of the nineteenth century as priests and laymen fleeing the

French Revolution settled in Georgia. Catholics also fleeing from slave uprisings in the French

West Indies soon joined them. Consequently most laymen and priests in Georgia were French in

the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. This sometimes led to problems because many

French priests were monarchists and skeptical of republicanism, both in church and state. Their

allegiance to “an ecclesiastical hierarchy and authority, whose opinions they had no choice but to follow,” conformed to the worst Catholic stereotypes held by their Protestant neighbors.19

The influx of French priests, however did not remotely provide an adequate number of priests to meet the needs of Georgia Catholics. The distance from Baltimore, the episcopal seat

for all American Catholics at the time, to Georgia also limited the amount of support for

Catholics in the area. Catholics continued to leave the faith, and those who stayed often

demanded lay control because they were the ones who actually ran the parish. They were aided

in these claims by Georgia law, which required that a church had to be incorporated in the names

of trustees, not a priest or bishop. Despite the law and lay frustrations, Georgia largely avoided

the trustee quarrels that occurred in Charleston, but the problems in South Carolina demonstrated

the need for a new diocese that could effectively administrate the Church farther south.20

18 Abbott, 13. 19 Timothy Tackett, Religion, Revolution, and Regional Culture in Eighteenth-Century France: The Ecclesiastical Oath of 1791 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), 290, from Pasquier, 31. Pasquier demonstrates quite well the complicated influences that shaped the early French clergy in the United States, especially the Sulpicians: moderate Gallicanism; religious, political, and social influences in the lives of French priests who refused to swear allegiance to the 1790 Civil Constitution of the Clergy; definite traits of ultramontanism. 20 Abbott, 11-16. 30

Recognizing that immense territory and very few clergy made the Archdiocese of

Baltimore nearly impossible to administer, the Holy See created the Diocese of Charleston in

1820. The new diocese comprised the Carolinas and Georgia, covering approximately 100,000

square miles. Despite its size, only 3,500 Catholics lived in the diocese, with most living in

coastal cities, including 500 in Savannah. Two priests served the entire diocese; one ministered

to the Carolinas and one to Georgia. Each made his base in a coastal city and traveled to the far-

flung missions under his jurisdiction as time and responsibilities allowed.21

The newly appointed bishop of the diocese personified the development of antebellum

Catholicism in the United States in general and the South in particular. John England was born

in Cork, Ireland, and made bishop of Charleston before he ever set foot in America. His

appointment was indicative of the shift from French clerical dominance to Irish prior to the Civil

War. Unlike many of the French who still had memories of the French Revolution, England

approved of many aspects of the American experiment and was the ideological heir to the

republican-leaning Carroll.22 England’s first task as bishop was to resolve the trusteeism controversy dividing the Church in Charleston. England identified the root problem not as republicanism, but as a lack of priests. To resolve the problem, he recruited foreign priests and established a seminary. England intended the clergy from abroad to be a short-term solution; he was convinced that American flocks could best be created and maintained by native-born priests.

England was far more comfortable with the idea of religious freedom than the French clergy.

This, he believed, was the outstanding feature of American political life. England was certain

that Southern Protestants would accept Catholics as good neighbors and fully American if

21 Brendan Buttimer, “Bishop John England,” in Mary Jane BeVard, ed., One Faith, One Family: The Diocese of Savannah 1850-2000 (New York: Signature Publications, 2000), 24. 22 Woods, 127-128. England tended to minimize the importance of the French clergy in the early United States, focusing instead on the Englishness of American Catholicism and relegating the French to the colonial era. 31

misconceptions about Catholicism were dispelled. To this end, he published the U.S. Catholic

Miscellany “to provide information, defend the church, and give Catholics a voice in national

affairs.”23 The newspaper also linked Catholic congregations which had little contact with each

other. In addition to the newspaper, England published a catechism and missal in English and

became the first unelected Catholic priest to address Congress when he gave a speech explaining

church doctrine in 1826.24 The result of England’s work, as Stern and James M. Woods have

suggested, was relatively cordial relations between Catholics and Protestants in the antebellum

South.25

By the time of England’s death in 1842, the number of churches in Georgia doubled to

six with attached missions covering most of the state. By 1850, 5,000 Catholics, most of them

Irish, lived in Georgia, prompting the creation of the Diocese of Savannah. Although the clergy

welcomed the influx of faithful, larger flocks brought with them new challenges. Irish

immigrants were typically poor, living in substandard house and working dangerous jobs on

railroads and canals. They earned a somewhat justified reputation for alcoholism, violence, and

crime, oftentimes undermining the positive reputation earned by John England.26 Assisting the

Irish with health care, education, and charitable work were the Sisters of Charity of Our Lady of

Mercy (Sisters of Mercy), who came to Savannah in 1845. Despite their association with the

unpopular poor Irish, the Sisters of Mercy offered health care to all Georgians during the

epidemic, which earned them an excellent reputation with Protestants.27

23 Patrick W. Carey, Catholics in America: A History, 202. 24 Father Gabriel Richard was elected Congressional delegate from the Michigan Territory in 1823, when he took his seat in Congress. He spoke on the House floor a number of times. See Stanley McCrory Pargellis, Father Gabriel Richard (Detroit: Wayne University Press, 1950). 25 Woods, 250-251; Stern, 24, 33-34, 124, 126-127. 26 David Gleeson, “Irish Immigrants,” in Mary Jane BeVard, ed., One Faith, One Family: The Diocese of Savannah 1850-2000 (New York: Signature Publications, 2000), 38; Woods, 256. 27 Ibid., 45. 32

Georgia Catholics supported the Confederate cause just as enthusiastically as their

neighbors. Savannah’s third bishop, August Marcelline Verot (1861-1870), also rallied

Georgia’s Catholics to the Confederacy as an outspoken defender of Southern “rights.” Despite

being trained in France as a Sulpician, Verot’s concerns for the realities of life for Catholics in

the American South drove his episcopacy and made him a seemingly contradictory figure. He

cultivated the identity of the “Rebel Bishop,” yet his personal writings indicate that he deplored

slavery and hoped that whites would accept blacks as equal heirs to God’s kingdom.28 Once the

war started, however, Verot gave his full support to the Confederacy and expected the priests in

his diocese to do the same.29

Verot’s complicated career continued after the South’s defeat. He now believed that the

abolition of slavery offered a tremendous opportunity for the evangelization of the half million

African Americans living in Georgia, very few of whom were Catholic. Verot pursued the

opportunity at the local, national, and international levels. In the diocese of Savannah, he

established the first, albeit segregated, Catholic schools for black children. He was one of the

most vocal supporters of the evangelization of African Americans at the Second Plenary Council

of Baltimore in 1866, urging bishops around the country to make the effort a priority. He had

little success though, and the Council accomplished little to improve the lives of freedmen. On

28 Verot was one of the few public figures at the outset of the Civil War who acknowledged that slavery rather than states’ rights were the root cause of the conflict. He opposed immediate abolition because he believed it would lead to war and because of the anti-Catholicism of many abolitionists. He argued that war was an evil means to accomplish the good of ending slavery. Instead, Verot advocated for the moderation of the worst aspects of slavery and called for Christians to work for the “social, moral, and religious improvement” of slaves. He hoped that these actions would lead slavery to die a natural death as it had in Europe. See Augustin Verot, “A tract for the times. Slavery & abolitionism, being the substance of a sermon, preached in the church of St Augustine, Florida, on the 4th day of January, 1861, day of public humiliation, fasting and prayer,” (New Orleans: Catholic Propagator Office, 1861). Digitized by Duke University Libraries, available at https://archive.org/details/tractfortimessla01vero. Accessed 29 May 2014. 29 James Buttimer, “‘Rebel Bishop’: Bishop Augustin Mercellin Verot,” in Mary Jane BeVard, ed., One Faith, One Family: The Diocese of Savannah 1850-2000 (New York: Signature Publications, 2000), 50. Fathers Fathers Jeremiah O’Neill, Sr.; Peter Whelan, and Thomas O’Reilly were notable Confederate chaplains from the Diocese of Savannah. 33

the international level, Verot pressed the Holy See at the First Vatican Council to formally

declare that blacks had souls, echoing Paul III’s Bull “Sublimus Dei,” which declared that Native

Americans were humans with souls rather than animals. 30

After the war, Verot continued to focus on the lived experience of Southern Catholics rather than the mood of Rome. In this, he was very much a precursor to the priests we will see later in this dissertation. He established a parochial school system to counter public schools’ institutionalized nativism. In rural areas where this was impossible, Verot capitalized on the

respect he earned from Georgians during the war to negotiate the integration of Catholic

education into public schools.31 Catholic students could now receive 30 minutes of catechism

before the school day started and were allowed to observe holy days of obligation. At Vatican I,

Verot argued in favor of cooperation with Protestants and against the declaration of papal

infallibility, as he understood that it would antagonize Protestants and offer a powerful weapon

to nativists in America.32 Verot’s efforts seem to have been successful at expanding his flock in

Georgia, if not altering the course of Vatican I. By the end of his time in Savannah in 1870, the

diocese contained 20,000 Catholics, constituting 2 percent of Georgia’s population, and 30

churches, tripling the number at Verot’s arrival. This happened despite the fact that Catholic

immigration to the South largely ceased after the war. Verot did not have as much luck with

priests; he only netted one priest during his tenure, giving the diocese a dozen.

Although attempts to evangelize African Americans continued after Verot departed to

become Bishop of St. Augustine, they were, at best, minimally successful during the remainder

of the nineteenth century. Mother Katherine Drexel made one of the most significant attempts to

reach Georgia’s black population. She founded the Congregation of Sisters of the Blessed

30 Woods, 359-360. 31 James Buttimer, “‘Rebel Bishop’: Bishop Augustin Mercellin Verot,” 54. 32 Woods, 304-305. 34

Sacrament for Indians and Colored People in 1891 and gave money to build schools for Native

and African Americans across the South, including Georgia and Oklahoma. By the time the

Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament arrived in the South, however, they found a climate in which

Populists, most notably Tom Watson, had hardened racist and anti-Catholic sentiment.33 This naturally limited the sisters’ effectiveness but did not seem to dampen their resolve. Meeting with slightly more success were the French Alsatians who arrived in Savannah in 1908 with no money, no English, and little interest from black families. They established a parish, which was not successful, and a school, which was. It stayed open because of an improved curriculum, acceptance of all black students, regardless of religious belief; and dedicated lay teachers.34

From this period though the Civil Rights era, bishops generally brought in outside orders to evangelize African Americans. Though not terribly successful in the late nineteenth or early twentieth centuries, they lay the groundwork for a diocese that would eventually be one of the most integrated in the South.

As the diocese of Savannah moved into the twentieth century, it faced a level of anti-

Catholic anger unseen since the colonial era. At the forefront of renewed hatred and suspicion

was Tom Watson, the 1896 vice presidential nominee of the Populist Party and a sometime

congressman and senator from Georgia.35 A publisher and self-styled intellectual, Watson

dredged up the familiar charges of superstition, anti-Americanism, and sexual deviancy against

the Church of Rome.36 A Watson supporter, J. Reuben Veazey, persuaded the Georgia

33 Muriel McDowell, “Saint Katherine Drexel (1858-1955),” in Mary Jane BeVard, ed., One Faith, One Family: The Diocese of Savannah 1850-2000 (New York: Signature Publications, 2000), 83. 34 Brandis Resendez, “The Benedictines and the Society of African Missions,” in Mary Jane BeVard, ed., One Faith, One Family: The Diocese of Savannah 1850-2000 (New York: Signature Publications, 2000), 73 35 For full details of Waton’s campaign against the Catholic Church, see C. Vann Woodward, Tom Watson: Agrarian Rebel (Eastford, CT: Martino Fine Books, 2014), Chapter 22. 36 Watson was also a racist and anti-semite. He publicly supported lynching African Americans accused of crimes and Leo Frank, a Jewish factory superintendent from Atlanta accused of murdering a female employee. For 35

legislature to pass what became known as the Veazey Act in 1916. The Act “outlawed Houses

of the Good Shepherd (reform schools for girls), though there were none in Georgia, and

required the inspection of convents” to ensure that no young women were being held there

against their will.37 No imprisoned woman was ever found. Prompted by the passage of the

Veazey Act, laymen from St. Patrick Church in Augusta create the Catholic Laymen’s

Association of Georgia with the permission of Bishop Keiley. The Association combatted

bigotry indirectly, avoiding conflict and instead appealing to the fair-minded. The publicity

officer of the group would also send corrections when a newspaper published an offensive or

incorrect article. This would be a prescription that Southern Catholics in general and Glenmary

priests in particular would follow for decades.38

The Catholic Laymen’s Association did not succeed in winning masses of converts in

Georgia, but they did manage to undermine political bigotry aimed at Catholics and discredit

nativists’ myths. This was a significant accomplishment in a state that served as the birthplace of

the second iteration of the Ku Klux Klan at roughly the same time. The Association’s influence

was evident in the 1928 presidential election, when Reid countered anti-Catholic attacks against

full details of the Frank case and Watson’s role in it, see Leonard Dinnerstein, The Leo Frank Case, rev. ed. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2008). 37 Edward Cashin, “The Catholic Laymen’s Association of Georgia,” in Mary Jane BeVard, ed., One Faith, One Family: The Diocese of Savannah 1850-2000 (New York: Signature Publications, 2000), 107. 38 Even this non-confrontational approach, however, was risky. As Bishop Keiley had predicted some members, especially in rural areas, suffered boycotts of their businesses after the Laymen’s Association began its campaign. Ultimately, however, the Catholic men prevailed over Watson thanks to the work of the Association’s second publicity chairmen, Dick Reid. By the time that Reid became publicity chair, Watson had been elected senator from. Having had his first newspaper shut down for opposing American entry into World War I on the grounds that the war was a Jesuit conspiracy, the junior senator from Georgia began editing a new paper, the Columbia Sentinel, from the Senate Office Building. Reid ensured Watson’s downfall by making sure that the newspaper had as broad a readership as possible – especially in the Senate and the White House. Editorials condemning President Harding as a Vatican stooge and claiming that the Catholic Church was kidnapping young women from around the country and chaining them in convents played well with rural populists in Georgia but destroyed Watson’s reputation in Washington. 36

Al Smith with practiced efficiency. The Association would be deemed no longer necessary and

disbanded after John F. Kennedy’s election in 1960.39

St. Matthew Parish – Statesboro, Georgia

By 1944 Georgia was exactly the sort of territory Howard Bishop had created to the

Home Missioners of America to evangelize. The state was infamous among Catholics for being

the birthplace of the modern Ku Klux Klan, and 144 of its 161 counties had no resident priest.40

On the other hand, the state had a long history of an active, engaged laity who defended their

faith while attempting to remain part of their local communities. Bishop’s republican vision for

Glenmary synched perfectly with this approach. Encouraged by Cincinnati Archbishop John

McNicholas and invited by Bishop Gerald O’Hara of Savannah, Father Bishop enthusiastically committed Glenmary to tending to the tiny congregation of St. Matthew parish around

Statesboro, Georgia, in the heart of No-Priest-Land.41 The parish would ultimately become the

most successful Glenmarian mission.

Statesboro, Georgia, can trace its roots to 1801, when George Sibbald of Augusta donated

a 200-acre tract for a centrally-located county seat for Bulloch County. In December 1803, the

Georgia legislature created the town of Statesborough, located fifty miles northwest of Savannah,

as the center for the thriving agricultural county.42 Statesboro remained a tiny settlement until after the 1880s, when a local businessmen paid for the town to be linked to the Central of

Georgia Railway and it became a market for the sale of cotton. By 1908 ten times as much cotton was sold in Statesboro as in Savannah. After the boll weevil plague of the 1920s and

1930s destroyed cotton crops, local farmers shifted their fields to tobacco. Statesboro would

39 Cahsin, 115. 40 W. Howard Bishop to Bishop Francis R. Cotton, 28 September 1944, GHMA. 41 W. Howard Bishop to Bishop Gerald P. O’Hara, 4 October 1944, GHMA. 42 In 1866 the state legislature granted a permanent charter and changed the spelling of the name to its present form of Statesboro. 37

eventually become the biggest tobacco market in Georgia and Florida. The other major impetus

for Statesboro’s growth came from the local institute of higher learning, founded in 1906 as the

First District Agricultural & Mechanical School at Statesboro. Over the years it would become

the Georgia Normal School (1924), the South Georgia Teachers College (1929), Georgia

Teachers College (1939), and eventually Georgia Southern College (1959).43 Statesboro would

later benefit from a nearby Army Air Force training school opened during World War II.44

The Catholic population of Statesboro briefly had swelled with the opening of the Air

Force training school. The diocese sent Father Daniel McCarthy to live in the town and bought a house on Main Street to use as a church for the congregation. When the training school closed in

1944, Bishop O’Hara invited Glenmary to take over a seven county mission territory with

Statesboro as their base. This territory covered 3,059 square miles and had a population of

approximately 100,000. In his letter introducing Fr. Bishop to Georgia, O’Hara noted that there

were only 5 Catholic adults in Statesboro, 15 to 20 in Brooklet, 20-25 at the Army base that

remained open near Statesboro, and 75-100 German Catholics in the German POW camp

between the Army base and Statesboro. He also mentioned a group of about 45 “Irish

Travelers” who settled in the area during the fall and winter months.45 Literally all of these but

one elderly woman were recent transplants to the area. The result was a parish made up almost

entirely of foreigners: Italians, Germans, Irish, and Yankees.

Waiting in Statesboro for Glenmary were four Italian families who had moved from

Jamestown, New York, to Brooklet, a small farming community six miles outside of Statesboro.

The four families, two sets of DeNittos and two sets of Strozzos, had originally planned to move

43 The school assumed its current form of Georgia Southern University in 1990. 44 Delma E. Presley, “Statesboro.” New Georgia Encyclopedia. 03 September 2013. http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/counties-cities-neighborhoods/statesboro. (accessed 12 January 2014). 45 O’Hara to Bishop, 29 September 1944. DOS. 38

to Florida, but real estate agents – who later members of the families half-jokingly suspect were

really con artists – convinced them that the land and climate in southern Georgia were similar to

their native Gaeta, Italy.46 The DiNittos and Strozzos intended to grow “cabbage, cucumbers, carrots, onions, potatoes, peas, beans, and tomatoes” in the rocky soil; their neighbors thought they were crazy.47 By the time they requested a priest for mass in 1934, the families had eight

adults and fourteen children in the truck-farming business. For the next nine years, a variety of

priests – including Bishop O’Hara – traveled an hour from St. John the Baptist Cathedral in

Savannah once a month to say mass at the DiNitto farmhouse.

St. Christopher Parish – Claxton, Georgia

Like many towns in the South, Claxton was founded as a railroad stop.48 Located only an

hour away from Savannah and bisected by U.S. Highway 301, a major north-south corridor on

the way to Florida, Claxton profited from a steady stream of tourists prior to the completion of I-

95 and I-16 in the late sixties. Beyond tourism, Claxton’s economy revolved around industry

(textiles and a factory that was the world’s leading producer of fruitcakes) and a nearby military base. Despite these economic advantages, Claxton remained a small town of 3,000 well into the

1950s, with most of its young people moving to larger towns and cities in the region for work.

Catholicism in Claxton is older than St. Christopher parish, but as was the case in so many small Southern towns, it was not particularly distinguished. The first Catholics arrived in

Claxton in 1880 at the time of its founding. Fr. Joseph D. Mitchell from Savannah took the train once a month to celebrate mass in Claxton. Savannah priests would continue to hold mass in private homes and later a hardware store until the construction of the original church in 1910.

Diocesan priests from Savannah founded a parish dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul in 1910, and

46 Interview with Parishioner F of St. Matthew Catholic Church in Statesboro, GA, April 2011. 47 Interview with Madeleine DeNitto, 1977. DOS. 48 “St. Christopher Celebrates 25th Anniversary,” The Claxton Enterprise, 29 December 1983. 39

continued to travel by train to celebrate mass. The parish died out due to lack of parishioners

after railroad traffic declined in the 1918. After abandoning the church in 1924, the diocese

finally sold the building in 1936.49

The Catholic Church returned to Claxton in 1954 when Glenmary priests opened a

mission there as part of its successful Statesboro parish. Masses were initially celebrated in the

American Legion Hall before Savino Gillio-Tos, the Italian founder of the fruitcake factory who

had converted to Methodism, offered the use of his movie theater until a church could be built.50

Glenmary built St. Christopher Catholic Church in 1959, and it subsequently became its own

parish. The Catholic community in Claxton remained small, with roughly 50 members in 1975,

constituting .33 percent of the town’s population.51 Part of the reason for this may have been the

inhospitable religious climate. Letters from Glenmarians serving in Claxton indicated greater

hostility to the Church here than in other areas in which they served, stating that the greatest

obstacle to conversions was social pressure and a “climate… more suitable for the Grand Dragon

of the KKK” than a Catholic priest.52

St. Theresa – Cordele, Georgia

South and west of Statesboro and Claxton, J.E.D. Shipp founded Cordele, Georgia in

1888. Originally known as the “Hub City,” Cordele benefitted from serving as the junction of

the Savannah, Americus, and Montgomery Railroad and the Georgia Southern and Florida

Railroad.53 The success of the railroads resulted in a new county (Crisp) being founded with

Cordele as its capital to better serve the people and businesses arriving in the region. Using the

49 Ibid. 50 “Saint Christopher Parish, Claxton, Celebrates Golden Jubilee,” The Southern Cross, 24 September 2009. 51 Claxton Mission Information, 1975, GHMA. 52 Mission Coordinator Report, St. Christopher Parish, 5-7 December 1964, GHMA. 53 Carlise E. Womack, “Cordele.” New Georgia Encyclopedia. 15 August 2013. http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/counties-cities-neighborhoods/cordele. (accessed 14 January 2014). The town was named for the SAM Railroad’s president’s daughter, Cordelia Hawkins. 40

same technology that would be used by the Tennessee Valley Authority to build the South’s

electric grid in the following decade, Crisp County built a hydroelectric plant on the Flint River

during the 1920s. The plant and dam created Lake Blackshear, which brought more tourism into

the area. The town remained an important regional transportation center throughout the

twentieth century, as U.S. Highways 41 and 280 complemented the railroads. Agriculture

remained an important part of the local economy as well.54

Despite being the location of the first mass celebrated in the original thirteen colonies,

Cordele was one of the last communities in this study to build a Catholic Church. Catholicism

returned to Cordele as a mission of St. Teresa’s parish in Albany, Georgia, at the beginning of

the twentieth century. During the first half of the century, St. Teresa was the largest Catholic

mission in area in the United States, comprising 22,000 square miles and 52 counties.55 After having only one priest administer the mission for its first 40 years, the diocese finally acknowledged the enormity of the task in 1901, when Bishop Keiley assigned two priests to the area. This allowed St. Teresa parish to celebrate mass on a weekly basis for the first time in its history while also having a priest minister to the towns around Albany, including Cordele.

During this time, the diocesan priests of Albany usually visited once a month to celebrate mass in the homes of Catholics who lived in or around Cordele. Catholics from that era would later fondly recall the fellowship engendered by sharing the mass and a meal in each others’ homes, but they also recall their desire for their own church. Diocesan priests encouraged the small group of local Catholics to contribute to the building of a new church. One former

54 Elizabeth B. Cooksey, “Crisp County.” New Georgia Encyclopedia. 26 August 2013. http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/counties-cities-neighborhoods/crisp-county (accessed 28 January 2014). 55 “Albany: St. Teresa Parish,” in Mary Jane BeVard, ed., One Faith, One Family: The Diocese of Savannah 1850-2000 (New York: Signature Publications, 2000), 107. 41

parishioner remembered that his father took out a loan to contribute to the building fund using a

mule from his parents’ farm as collateral.56

Cordele Catholics finally got their church in 1931 with help from Father Thomas A.

Brennan, pastor of St. Teresa in Albany, and Mrs. Hanna Lynch of Atlanta. Father Brennan was an active and well-regarded presence in Cordele who generated a great deal of enthusiasm for the church project. Parishioners have vivid memories of him walking two miles to eat dinner at a family farm outside the town, helping parishioners control a fire that threatened their farm, and using his connections to have a local girl study nursing at Providence Hospital near the Catholic

University of America in Washington, D.C.57 The bigger assist came from Hanna Lynch, who

was not Catholic, yet still made a contribution of $25,000 to Bishop Michael Keyes for the erection of a mission church in the Diocese of Savannah in 1930. The bishop selected Cordele,

and Father Brennan said the first mass in the new church on March 8, 1931.58 The church was

named in honor of Saint Theresa of Lisieux and often referred to as the Church of the Little

Flower. Father Brennan continued to celebrate mass at St. Theresa until it ceased to be part of St.

Teresa’s parish in Albany in 1942. By that time the Franciscans had taken up residence at St.

Mary’s parish in Americus, Georgia, and St. Teresa became a mission of that parish. Thus, 400

years after they celebrated their first mass in Georgia, the Franciscans returned to Cordele.

The Diocese of Owensboro, 1785 to 1939

Catholicism arrived in Kentucky with the first wave of post-war settlers in 1785. Many

came from St. Mary’s County in Maryland, the “cradle of Catholicism” in America. Religious

persecution in their home state played a minor role in their leaving, but most Catholics moved

56 Rita H. DeLorme, “St. Theresa, Cordele: Franciscans, sacrifice, and a 1930s altar server’s memories,” The Southern Cross, 5 September 2002; Morris Hayes, “The Development of the Catholic Church in Cordele, Georgia,” undated, DOS. 57 Hayes, Ibid. 58 No evidence is available that explains why Mrs. Lynch did this despite not being Catholic. 42

west for the same reason as their fellow pioneers: cheap land. Typical of Maryland Catholics

during the era of “Republican Catholicism,” these pioneers had “a tradition that combined

clerical reverence with a strong streak of lay initiative, religious tolerance, and democratic

pluralism.”59 These attributes served them well on the frontier, where they were only occasionally visited by usually foreign priests.

The Catholic Church did not officially arrive in Kentucky until 1808, when Bardstown was made the see of the first United States diocese west of the Appalachians. It is a measure of the relative importance of Catholicism in the South and West at this time that this occurred at the same time that the dioceses of New York, Philadelphia, and Boston were established. The new diocese covered everything west of the Appalachians to the Mississippi River, from the Great

Lakes to the diocese of Louisiana. At its foundation the Bardstown diocese comprised 16,000

Catholics (out of a population of 406,511) served by six priests (two secular and four

Dominicans) and no women religious. The diocese contained only ten churches, eight of which were not permanent. The number of priests increased to 75 by the time the chancery was transferred from Bardstown to the more suitable Louisville in 1841. Twenty-one of these priests were French, and many had been in the United States for decades after fleeing the French

Revolution, including the diocese’s first bishop, Benedict Joseph Flaget. Evidently neither

Flaget’s nationality nor his religion hindered him as a public figure in the state; he became a friend of Henry Clay and “countless Protestants.”60 Of the remaining priests, 22 were native

Kentuckians, 17 were Irish, and 5 were German.

59 Joseph E. Duerr, “Two Hundred Years of Catholicity – Settlers Laid Foundation for Church in Kentucky,” in Joseph Angela Boone, O.S.U., ed., The Roman Catholic Diocese of Owensboro, Kentucky (Paducah, KY: Turner Pub., 1995), 12. 60 Clyde F. Crews, “Bishops of Bardstown and Louisville,” in in Joseph Angela Boone, O.S.U., ed., The Roman Catholic Diocese of Owensboro, Kentucky (Paducah, KY: Turner Pub., 1995), 15. See also Stern, 2, 34-35, 91, 94-95, 109, 122-124. 43

The demographic makeup of the Louisville diocese’s clergy reflected the makeup of the

Church in Kentucky. Only the thriving German immigrant population was underrepresented.

Irish and German immigration to Kentucky exploded during the mid-nineteenth century.

Although the number of priests and parishes declined during the 1840s to 46 and 44 respectively, the Catholic population grew exponentially, numbering 300,000 by 1850 when Martin John

Spalding became bishop of Louisville. In order to meet the cultural and sacramental needs of his flock, Spalding imported more foreign priests. The invasion of foreign-born priests and laymen during Spalding’s episcopacy (1850 – 1864) heightened anti-Catholic sentiment. These tensions occasionally led to violence aimed at Catholic immigrants, most notably the 1855 Bloody

Monday riot, when Democrat-supporting Irish and German Catholics clashed with nativists supporting the Know-Nothing Party on election day.61

Catholicism grew in the western, rural part of Kentucky during the nineteenth century as

well. Father Elisha John Durbin, “the patriarch of the Catholic Church in western Kentucky,”

was the crucial evangelist in the region.62 Born in 1800 and ordained in 1822, Durbin served

under Bishops Flaget, Spalding, and William George McCloskey (1868-1909). Durbin’s

territory was essentially the entirety of the modern diocese of Owensboro. Durbin administered

the area by himself for years, establishing missions in small towns across western Kentucky. He

eventually purchased property for the first Catholic church in Princeton, Kentucky, and

established his headquarters there in 1873. Durbin did not settle into parish life though; he

continued to ride the circuit until he was 81, when Bishop McCloskey finally pulled him out of

the territory to protect his health and safety.

61 Stern, 130-131, 135-137, 171-172; Woods, 273. 62 John A. Lyons, Bishops and Priests of the Diocese of Bardstown (S.l. : s.n., 1976), adapted for Joseph Angela Boone, O.S.U., ed., The Roman Catholic Diocese of Owensboro, Kentucky (Paducah, KY: Turner Pub., 1995), 17. 44

Durbin’s far-flung territory became its own diocese when Bishop John A. Floersh oversaw the creation of the Owensboro diocese in 1937. Francis R. Cotton, who was born in

Bardstown and had served under Floersh in the Louisville chancery became the first bishop.

According to one of his priests, Cotton was “a man who did not know the meaning of compromise.”63 The priest seems to have said this partially out of admiration and partially out of something less flattering. Cotton had a reputation of being fair, personally kind, and unwilling to ask his priests to do anything he was unwilling to do himself. He was also strict with the clergy and demanded their complete loyalty. Like so many bishops of the era, Cotton was a builder, focusing in particular on health care facilities and schools. He placed a heavy emphasis on youth

ministry and Catholic education, and in the first diocesan synod in 1943 reiterated that Catholics

should not attend non-Catholic or undenominational schools.64 This would prove a challenge for

small parishes in the diocese.

Perhaps most important for the Owensboro diocese’s growth, Cotton understood his see to be mission territory. The 12,502 square miles of the diocese were mostly rural territory with few Catholics; the area contained only two cities, Owensboro and Bowling Green, with populations over 30,000. Cotton, like his predecessors, recognized that he did not have enough local priests to man his parishes and requested outside religious orders to help run parishes.

Among these were the Glenmary Home Missioners, whom he asked to take over parishes in the southern part of the diocese, including Sunfish, Russellville, and eventually Franklin.

63 “Structuring the Dicoese,” in Joseph Angela Boone, O.S.U., ed., The Roman Catholic Diocese of Owensboro, Kentucky (Paducah, KY: Turner Pub., 1995), 56. 64 Ibid., 49, 52. Cotton had a strong interest in education despite leaving diocesan schools under supervision of Louisville until 1953. 45

St. Mary – Franklin, Kentucky

The history of Catholicism in Franklin did not seem particularly promising prior to

Glenmary’s arrival in 1942. Father Durbin worked with John and Lawrence Finn to create a

Catholic community in Franklin. The Finns initially hosted Catholic worship, welcoming Irish

Catholic railroad workers into their home during the 1850s. By 1869 Catholics in Franklin had built their own church and school, dedicating them to St. Mary. Father James P. Ryan and

Father Henry Mertins, respectively, were the first resident pastors. St. Mary’s congregation began to shrink, however, once railroad work began to dry up. The parish had no resident pastor

after 1887, and the school closed shortly after the turn of the century. The descendents of the

Irish families who founded St. Mary’s parish in 1869 left the church for Baptist and Methodist

churches in the area in subsequent decades. Apparently they saw little advantage to belonging to

a church with few members and fewer opportunities to receive the sacraments. St. Mary limped

along with a handful of parishioners and elderly priests celebrating mass twice a month until the

original church burned down in January 1938. The local newspaper, the Franklin Favorite,

printed a brief article on the fire, but did not even provide the proper name of the parish,

referring to it only as “the Catholic Church.”65

The next four years were the most tenuous in St. Mary’s history. Bishop Cotton ordered a chapel to be built in the building that had been used as the one room schoolhouse on the property several years before. Father Bernard Spoelker, the pastor at Sacred Heart parish in

Russellville, Kentucky, divided the old schoolhouse into two rooms (a chapel and a sacristy), and celebrated mass there once a month. The situation deteriorated further when Fr. John C.

Hallahan replaced Spoelker later in the year. St. Mary’s consisted of only four families in 1939,

65 “Catholic Church Burns,” The Franklin Favorite, January 6, 1938. The newspaper offered no evidence that the fire was malicious. 46

and all of them were poor, working as farmers or seasonal laborers. Consequently, collections

did not generate enough money to pay city taxes or the pastor’s salary.66 Hallahan himself was

devout and relatively young, but he could not overcome his poor health and even poorer

circumstances. In 1942 his teeth became so rotted and infected that he was hospitalized for

several weeks.67 Unfortunately for a priest who tended to rural parishes, he did not have a car, and he had to take a taxi for the 42 mile round trip from Russellville to celebrate mass for the five people who still attended mass in Franklin. Considering his salary, the $3.00 fare constituted a considerable hardship, and in August 1942, Hallahan asked if he could cease saying mass on the second and fourth Friday of the month at Franklin.68 Bishop Francis Cotton, recently installed as bishop of the new Diocese of Owensboro in western Kentucky, feared giving up too many parishes and missions due to lack of numbers caused by World War II and asked Hallahan to continue saying mass. It is easy to see why Cotton wanted Glenmary to take over St. Mary in 1942; the situation could hardly have been any worse.

St. Paul – Princeton, Kentucky

Princeton, Kentucky has a longer history than most of the communities in this study.

William Prince, for whom the town was named, was a Revolutionary War veteran who arrived in the area in 1799.69 Eighteen years later his heirs donated the land that became Princeton to be

the site of the courthouse in the newly-formed Caldwell County. Confederate soldiers camped in

Princeton until early 1862 when their retreat left Union soldiers in control of the town for the remainder of the war. By the late nineteenth century, Princeton had turned into a junction for railroads connecting Louisville, St. Louis, Memphis, and Nashville. The soil in western

66 John C. Hallahan to Bishop Francis R. Cotton, 29 May 1942, DOA. Priests in the diocese of Owensboro typically received a salary of $125 per month. Hallahan received $115 for the first six months of 1942. 67 John C. Hallahan to Bishop Francis R. Cotton, 2 August 1948, DOA. 68 John C. Hallahan to Bishop Francis R. Cotton, 23 August 1942, DOA. 69 Prince granted 17,000 acres in gratitude for his service during the war. 47

Kentucky and northwestern Tennessee was conducive to growing “Black Patch” tobacco, which became a major part of Princeton’s economy. Unrest caused by the exploitation of local farmers by the American Tobacco Company led to the “Black Patch Tobacco Wars” between 1904 and

1909, which, according to William Cunningham, represented the longest sustained period of violence and civil unrest in the South between the Civil War and the Civil Rights era.70 By 1936

Princeton had two newspapers, eight churches, and fourteen passenger trains passing through town every day. Like many towns in the South, Princeton benefitted from the New Deal, with the Works Progress Administration paving streets and the Civilian Conservation Corps planting trees and completing other conservation projects.71

One of the eight churches was St. Paul Catholic Church. Like St. Mary in Franklin, it was founded in the nineteenth century. Circuit-riding priests, most notably E.J. Durbin, offered the earliest masses in Princeton in the homes of local Catholics. Having been ordained fifty years and spending most of that time ministering to what would eventually become the entire diocese of Owensboro, Father Durbin asked that be allowed to settle in Princeton while still riding a circuit that allowed him to visit Catholics in Livingston, Crittendon, Caldwell, Trigg, and Lyon Counties. The diocese acquired land in downtown Princeton in 1873, and Father

Durbin built the first chapel there in 1874. Durbin remained in Princeton for eight years until ill health and the bishop forced him to give up his circuit and become chaplain at St. Vincent’s

Academy in Union County, Kentucky.72

The history of St. Paul and its pastors becomes a bit confusing during the early twentieth century. After Father Durbin left, it appears that Princeton had no resident priest until the 1960s.

70 See William Cunningham, On Bended Knees: The Night Rider Story (Kuttawa, KY: McClanahan Publishing House, 1983). 71 Ann Kimmel, ed., Princeton, Caldwell County, History (Princeton, KY: Princeton Art Guild, 1999), 13. 72 Anthony Blackwell, St. Paul Church, 1973-1998, 25th Anniversary, Princeton, Kentucky, A History, (Princeton: privately printed, 1998), no page numbers. 48

The names of the priests who served the church are readily available, but the dates of their

service, the parishes to which they were actually assigned, and the parish of which St. Paul was a

mission are open to dispute.73 Joseph Odendahl, a German-born priest, oversaw the church from

1899 to 1901 as pastor of St. Ambrose in Henshaw. Despite being foreign and this being his first

assignment as a pastor, Odendahl was successful in Princeton, overseeing steady growth of

church membership and the beginning of a major renovation that transformed St. Paul from a

chapel to a church. Edward Boes appears to have been stationed at St. Paul from 1901 to 1902

while looking after missions in Livingston, Crittendon, and Lyon Counties. It is unclear of

which parish he was actually pastor.

Father Joseph Welch, the pastor of Sts. Peter and Paul from Hopkinsville, oversaw the

parish from 1904 to 1925. Renovation of St. Paul in Princeton was completed during his first

year, and the church was finally officially dedicated 30 years after it was originally built.

Newspapers from the time note that a number of non-Catholics attended the dedication, indicating either good relations or curiosity by the townsfolk.74 Pastoral authority becomes

unclear in 1906 when records indicate that Father Anthony O’Sullivan from St. Francis de Sales

in Paducah took over responsibility for the parish, despite Father Welch from Sts. Peter and Paul

still being listed as the official pastor. Over the next three years, Father O’Sullivan gave

Princeton’s Catholics more attention than they had ever received. He celebrated mass twice a

month, began instruction of parish children, and visited members of the parish personally.

Bishop McCloskey of Louisville visited St. Paul for the first time in 1906 and was impressed

enough that he allowed Father O’Sullivan to add three rooms to the back of the Church to serve

73 Ibid. 74 Ibid. 49

as a parsonage. The bishop predicted that a new church and resident priest would soon appear in

Princeton; he was thirty years off on the former prediction and sixty years on the latter.75

The parish continued to grow during the 1920s and 1930s. By 1920, every Sunday saw

mass said in Princeton, and by the 1930s all holy days of obligation were observed with a mass

as well. Particularly important to this growth was Father John Vance, who served Princeton

from Sts. Peter and Paul in Hopkinsville from 1928 to 1937. Vance was respected and well-liked

by Princeton’s citizens, regardless of religious affiliation. He accomplished a great deal during

his time at the parish, including the construction of a new church in 1936 funded by the sale of

the original church property to the neighboring post office. 76 As one wrote to Bishop Floersh,

“I haven’t many friends whom I think as much of as Father Vance and whatever little service I

can render him in connection with his work here you may be sure will be carried out to the best of my ability.”77 When news of Vance’s reassignment reached Princeton in late 1936, every

parishioner present at the November 22, 1936 mass signed a petition to the bishop requesting that

he be allowed to stay for at least two more years. The letter notes the entire town wanted him to

stay, including non-Catholics, because Vance had “done more for this parish than anyone else.”78

Despite the growth of St. Paul and its good relations with non-Catholics in Protestants, it would

remain a mission of other parishes until the 1960s.

Diocese of Tulsa, 1830 to 1939

In the popular imagination, Oklahoma is a western plains state that may or may not have

ever recovered from the Dust Bowl. In reality both the state and the Joads have their origins in

the green foothills of the Ozarks that dominate the eastern portion of Oklahoma. The plains may

75 Ibid. 76 “St. Paul’s Catholic Church,” Princeton Times Leader 21 October 1976. St. Paul Catholic Church 1982 Directory. DOA. 77 Rumsey Taylor to Bishop John A. Floersh, 26 April 1935, DOA. 78 Blackwell. 50

belong to the West, but the eastern, older third of the state is undoubtedly Southern. As James K.

Zink notes, “Oklahoma was one of the latest areas to be identified with the South, an action that

came about more by accident than by plan.”79

This accidental connection began with the forced removal of the Five Civilized Tribes –

Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole – from the Deep South in the 1830s.

White settlers heavily influenced these tribes, and by the time of their removal, all of the tribes had incorporated aspects of European-American culture which they found valuable, including a legal system that allowed for slavery. The Choctaw tribe, which settled in the southeastern portion of Indian Territory, was significantly influenced by their interactions with Southern whites.80

Hoping to retain land and autonomy, the Choctaws were the first tribe to acquire land in

Indian Territory, purchasing the area south of the Canadian and Arkansas Rivers. Attempting to

further shore up their position, the tribe gave up its holdings in Arkansas in the Treaty of

Washington City in 1825. In return, the United States government promised an annual payment

of $6,000 “forever,” the removal of white settlers from the Choctaw nation, and the prohibition

of future white settlements. Choctaw territory included the future sites of both Idabel and

Durant. Despite government promises, Choctaws never exclusively occupied southeastern

Indian Territory, though this was partially by choice. Their African-American slaves

accompanied them on the trip west, as did the Presbyterian missionaries who had ministered to

them in Mississippi and Alabama and their slaves. Choctaws and missionaries alike established

79 James K. Zink, “Oklahoma,” in Encyclopedia of Religion in the South, ed. Samuel S. Hill, (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1984), 553-554. Arguably the most influential historian of the South, C. Vann Woodward, also placed Oklahoma in the South. See C. Vann Woodward, A History of the South, vol. 9, Origins of the New South, 1877-1913 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1971), 387-88. 80 See Angie Debo, The Civilization of the American Indian, 2nd ed., vol. [6], The Rise and Fall of the Choctaw Republic (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1961); Carolyn Reeves, ed., The Choctaw Before Removal (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1985); Greg O'Brien, Choctaws in a Revolutionary Age, 1750- 1830, Indians of the Southeast (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002). 51

farms powered by slave labor on the plains north of the Red River. Baptist and Methodist

missionaries arrived in the Choctaw nation shortly after its establishment.81

The Civil War further threatened Choctaw autonomy. Because of the tribe’s pro-slavery laws, nearly all Choctaws supported the Confederacy. The Union’s abandonment of Indian

Territory and its occupation by the Confederacy encouraged support of the Southern cause as well. Stand Waite, a Choctaw and the last Confederate general to surrender after the conclusion of the war, did so at Fort Towson, 25 miles west of Idabel. With the acceptance of slavery and support of the Confederacy, it is difficult to see southeastern Oklahoma as anything other than

Southern.82

Catholic efforts to evangelize the territory that would eventually become Oklahoma

were initially scarce and not sustained. There is some evidence that Jesuits from St. Louis

visited northeastern Oklahoma to minister to the Osage tribe while the French still claimed that

territory. The first recorded instance of a priest in Oklahoma came in 1830, when Father Charles

Van Quickenborne founded missions in the northeast Oklahoma. Van Quickenborne never

returned to the missions after his initial foray into the area. Jesuits from Osage Mission (now St.

Paul), Kansas, continued to visit Oklahoma between 1872 and 1889.83

Catholicism did not permanently arrive in Indian Territory until after the Civil War. A

French Benedictine monk, Isidore Robot, fearing anticlerical laws in France became the first priest to settle in Oklahoma in October 1875. Archbishop Napoléon Joseph Perché of New

Orleans suggested that Robot move to Indian Territory; given Robot’s future personality clashes,

81 Michael J. Cassity and Danney Goble, Divided Hearts: The Presbyterian Journey through Oklahoma History(Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, 2009), 62-63. 82 James Woods supports this sentiment in A History of the Catholic Church in the American South, 1513- 1900, noting that as Indian Territory, Oklahoma was part of the Diocese of Little Rock, and its first bishop came from Belgium by way of the Diocese of Natchez. Woods concludes, “Certainly Oklahoma fits within the South…” xiv-xv. 83 James D. White, This Far by Faith, 1875-2000: 125 Years of Catholic Life in Oklahoma (Strasbourg, France: Éditions du Signe, 2001), 9. 52 it is possible that Perché wanted him as far away as possible.84 Accompanied by Brother

Dominic Lambert, Robot founded the first permanent Catholic mission at the settlement of Atoka in the center of the Choctaw nation. Atoka seemed an ideal location; as the center of operations for the first railroad through Oklahoma it provided an opportunity to minister to Choctaws and

Irish railroad workers. The following year Rome made Indian Territory a prefecture apostolic and Robot its prefect. Despite naming the mission in honor of St. Patrick, the Benedictines had little success with the Irish and the Choctaws, and when given the chance, they moved closer to the center of Oklahoma when the Potawatomi tribe offered them land. The Benedictines used the land to build Sacred Heart mission, which eventually included a monastery, church, and schools, 35 miles south of present-day Shawnee. Although several French monks joined the mission, the mission was only moderately successful at its beginning. Robot’s prickly personality alienated priests and laymen alike, which ultimately led to his resignation in 1886.85

The mission’s prospects improved considerably after this, and Sacred Heart mission became the cradle of Oklahoma Catholicism. From this base, the Benedictines were able to found more missions in the Choctaw nation: Lehigh (1884) Krebs (1885), Coalgate (1890) McAlester (1895).

Each parish predominantly served the Italian immigrants who worked on the railroad and in the coal mines of the Kiamichi Mountains rather than Native Americans.86 Having been the founders of Oklahoma Catholicism, the Benedictines were initially unwilling to share leadership, leading to rivalries with secular priests that would keep Oklahoma from becoming a diocese until

1905. It was not until Sacred Heart mission burned in 1901 that focus shifted to Theophile

Meerschaert, who had been made Vicar Apostolic of Indian Territory ten years earlier and would eventually become Oklahoma’s first bishop.

84 Ibid., 9-10. 85 Ibid., 10. 86 Ibid., 11. 53

Meerschaert came to Oklahoma two years after the 1889 Land Rush. When he arrived in

Guthrie, the territorial capital, from Natchez, Mississippi, where he had been pastor of the

cathedral, the territorial government, Guthrie’s mayor, a brass band, and most citizens of Guthrie

met him at the train station.87 He brought with him Belgian priests, including the first pastor of

St. Catherine in Durant. During Meerschaert’s first five years in Oklahoma, the Belgian and

native-born priests founded several parishes in the Choctaw nation.

The first priest ordained in Oklahoma was William H. Ketchum. The young priest had a

particular interest in evangelizing Native Americans and persuaded the Bureau of Catholic

Indian Missions and Katherine Drexel to fund his projects. It was an early instance of something

that would become increasingly common during the twentieth century: the Church in rural South

relying on help from the urban North. In 1896 Ketchum transferred to Antlers (a future

Glenmary parish) in the Choctaw nation. There he founded St. Mary of the Angels School (later renamed St. Agnes parish), which was made up of a church, a school, and eventually an orphanage. The parish territory was immense, including what would become Idabel. Like the

Benedictines before him, Ketchum did not have a lot of success in converting Choctaws, but he did seem to garner respect as evidenced by the number of Choctaws named William after him.88

His work, however, did not go unnoticed. In 1900, Ketchum was named assistant director of

Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions and became its director the next year. He continued his

work with the Choctaws even from Washington, D.C., as he composed a catechism in

Choctaw.89

87 Thomas E. Brown, Bible Belt Catholicism: A History of the Roman Catholic Church in Oklahoma, 1905- 1945 (New York : United States Catholic Historical Society, 1977), 7-9. 88 Interview with Parishioner D, St. Francis de Sales Church, July 2010. 89 White, 11-14. 54

As Meerschaert’s festive welcome indicates, relations between Catholics and Protestants were relatively good in the frontier days of Oklahoma, but they deteriorated with the increase in

Italian immigration to southeastern Oklahoma during the 1890s. The first Italians had actually arrived in 1873 as coal miners, but their numbers grew for the remainder of the century, and they stayed after the mines closed in the 1920s. American-born Oklahomans complained that the immigrants took jobs from them and subverted the American way of life. Anti-Catholic sentiment in Oklahoma hit its peak during the 1920s. The revived Ku Klux Klan was especially strong in Oklahoma during this decade, which led to problems with the Italian community in and around McAlester. Elsewhere school boards dismissed Catholic teachers when their religion became known, and Catholic candidates for office were routinely defeated because of their religion. During the 1920s threats of violence, burning crosses, and occasionally gunfire drove the entire Catholic population out of Collinsville.90 The election year 1928 was especially bad; burning crosses met the train of Democratic presidential nominee and Catholic Al Smith as he entered the state. The anti-Catholic bigotry Smith encountered in Oklahoma finally forced him to address the issue in campaign speech in Oklahoma City, in which he decried the Klan and stated unequivocally argued that anyone who voted against him solely because he was Catholic was not “not a real, pure, genuine American.”91 Though overt prejudices toward Catholics receded a bit after the 1920s, they remained a part of religious life in Oklahoma.

Prohibition further divided Catholics from their fellow Oklahomans. The state’s 1907 constitution was very much a product of Southern Populist and Progressive politics; in addition to defining the “colored race” in order to allow for Jim Crow laws, it prohibited the shipment of alcohol within state. Ten years later the state went on to pass “Bone Dry” legislation, prohibiting

90 See Brown, Chapter 4; White, 23-25. 91 Robert A. Slayton, Empire Statesman: the Rise and Redemption of Al Smith (New York: Free Press, 2001), ix-xv. 55

all alcohol, including sacramental wine. The diocese of Oklahoma City and Tulsa brought suit

against the state after authorities confiscated a shipment of sacramental wine in August 1917.

The Lutheran and Episcopalian Churches joined the suit, believing law infringed on religious

liberty. The Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled in favor of an exemption for sacramental wine 8-0,

with the Catholic Chief Justice abstaining. This ruling actually helped pave the way for national

prohibition because it resolved religious concerns.92

Throughout its history, the diocese of Oklahoma City and Tulsa sought outside support

for its ministries. In 1924 Francis Clement Kelley of Detroit became bishop. Interested in rural

ministry, Kelley had founded the Catholic Extension Society in 1905 to fund the construction of

churches in rural areas, collect and distribute Mass stipends on behalf of rural missions, and

support the work of priests in these missions around the nation. The Extension Society has been

crucial to the work the Church in the South in general and Glenmary in particular; every parish

discussed in this dissertation received aid from the society at some point. Kelley’s work as head

of the society made him an obvious choice to administer a rural, mission diocese.93 Like every

other Southern bishop, Kelley brought in several religious orders to staff parishes: Augustinians,

Benedictine Sisters, Irish Holy Ghosts priests and sisters for black parishes, and German priests

for German farming communities.94 Strokes in 1942 ended Kelley’s episcopacy; he lived as an

invalid until 1948. Bishop Eugene J. McGuiness of Raleigh came to Oklahoma as Kelley’s

assistant in 1944 and was officially named bishop in 1948. McGuiness oversaw a boom in

vocations. When he arrived in 1945, the state had 11 counties without a priest. By the time of

92 Brown, 65-90; White, 20-22. Oklahoma remained officially dry until 1959, when Governor Howard Edmondson, an opponent of prohibition, challenged the law be enforcing prohibition to the fullest extent. 93 Correspondence indicates that he was not thrilled about it, and many of his friends thought he was wasted in such a remote, backwards, location. See Peter Guilday Papers, Box 9, The American Catholic Research Center and University Archives, Washington, D.C. 94 White, 31-32. See also Richard C. Rohrs, The Germans in Oklahoma, Newcomers to a New Land (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1980). 56 his death in 1957, only two were priestless. It was McGuiness who invited Glenmary to

Oklahoma.

St. Francis de Sales – Idabel, Oklahoma

St. Francis de Sales parish in Idabel, Oklahoma, was one of Glenmary’s most challenging missions. When Glenmary arrived in 1957, there were only forty Catholics in the entire missionary territory, which was roughly twice the size of Rhode Island, including all of

McCurtain and parts of Pushmataha and LeFlore Counties.95 The county lost a little over 20 percent of its population during the 1950s and many of those who remained were desperately poor.96 No priest had ever resided in the county during its short history. It would be difficult to think of a less promising area for Catholic evangelization, yet this was precisely the sort of place

Howard Bishop had in mind for his Home Missioners.

Of the towns discussed in this dissertation, Idabel was the newest, most isolated, and smallest when Glenmary arrived. The town was founded as a stop on the Frisco Railroad in

1902.97 It remained a small, isolated town with a population of 7,500 through the 1960s.98

There were and are no major highways within an hour of Idabel, nor were there any direct routes to major cities in the region. It became the county seat of McCurtain County, the southeastern most county in Oklahoma. The economy of the county revolved around agriculture and timber production. The corner of southeastern Oklahoma in which it was located gained the nickname

“Little Dixie” because many who settled there came from the Deep South. Residents embraced much of what the name historically entailed: distrust of the federal government (despite over half

95 James T. Lawrence, “Christ into the Ozarks: A Discussion of the Glenmary Mission of Idabel, Oklahoma,” TMs (photocopy), 1962, 11, GHMA. The population of McCurtain County was far more diverse than most counties in Oklahoma: 46% white, 36% black, and 18% Choctaw. 96 Ibid. 97 Idabel Chamber of Commerce, “A Glimpse of Idabel’s History,” Idabel, OK, Chamber of Commerce, http://idabelok.usachamber.com/custom2.asp?pageid=3122 (accessed February 18, 2010). 98 Raymond Berthiaume to Robert C. Berson, 19 April 1968, GHMA. 57

of the families in the county receiving some sort of welfare payment in the 1950s), devotion to

the local community and evangelical Protestantism, and intense racism. This racism manifested itself in the event for which Idabel is most famous, a race riot in 1980.99

The history of Catholicism in Idabel is by necessity brief. The town had no Catholic

church prior to 1949. Beginning in 1944, Fr. Vincent McCouldrick, the diocesan priest from

Hugo, Oklahoma (43 miles away), would celebrate mass once a month in the home of Ross and

Mary Dugan. Five years later, McCouldrick bought the land where the church is now located

with assistance through the Catholic Extension Society. The small Catholic community enlisted

the services of the Dugans’ architect son, Ross Jr., to design the church building. His blueprints

called for a cost-efficient and modest building; more than one person has affectionately noted its

resemblance to a chicken shed with a steeple attached.100 St. Francis de Sales was completed in

time for Christmas, 1949, and dedicated the following January by Eugene McGuiness, Bishop of

the Diocese of Oklahoma City and Tulsa.101 Because Idabel was over four-and-a-half hours away from the chancery in Oklahoma City, this was the last time that a bishop would visit for twenty years.102 The church celebrated mass weekly in the years following as a mission of St.

Henry parish in tiny Plunketville, Oklahoma (63 miles away).103

99 See “2 Die in Racial Fighting in a Small Town in Oklahoma,” New York Times (New York), 22 January 1980. The riot began after 100 black residents converged on City Hall to complain that police were not investigating the murder of a black teenager near a private, white nightclub which had been the scene of previous racial incidents. In the ensuing riot, rioters set fire to the club, vandalized businesses, and ripped up gas pumps. Two people were killed and four were injured, all by gunshot. Four of the six casualties were black. 100 Interviews with Parishioners B, C, D, St. Francis de Sales Church, 2010-2011. 101 “Idabel Catholics Set Dedication Sunday,” McCurtain County Gazette, Idabel, OK, October 3, 1981. 102 During the first twenty years of St. Francis de Sales’ existence, there are only two mentions of the Bishop of Oklahoma City and Tulsa visiting the parish: January 22, 1950 and November 28, 1970. See “Idabel Catholics Set Dedication Sunday,” McCurtain County Gazette (Idabel, OK) 3 October 1981, and Raymond Berthiuame to Victor J. Reed, 19 November 1970, GHMA. Evidently neither Bishop McGuiness nor Bishop Victor Reed visited for confirmations. The parish had few teenagers being confirmed, and the ones who did often traveled to McAlester, Oklahoma, to be confirmed as part of a ceremony combining many southeastern Oklahoma parishes. 103 Monsignor John Heiring, an influential priest in Tulsa, built St. Henry’s church in Plunketville as a vacation and retirement home in 1951. He used his own money to build the church without Bishop Eugene McGuiness’s permission and then asked the bishop to visit and dedicate the church. Plunketville itself was not large 58

St. Francis de Sales parish existed largely because Mary Dugan willed it so. A cradle

Catholic from Illinois, she arrived in Idabel with her non-Catholic husband Ross in 1926. At the

time the closest Catholic churches were more than thirty miles away and in different dioceses.

Mrs. Dugan attended these parishes until 1944, when she requested that Fr. McGouldrick

celebrate mass in her home. Given Idabel’s remote location and lack of resident priest, Mrs.

Dugan essentially ran the parish until Glenmary arrived. Her experience is a clear example of

the laity taking an active role in running the parish well before Vatican II. She requested a priest,

she and her husband made sure the church was built, and she maintained the parish. Her duties

included everything from maintaining liturgical linens and vestments to negotiating with the city

government on behalf of the parish. She was also the parish’s representative to the diocese in

charge of corresponding with Bishop McGuinness.104 It is clear that Mrs. Dugan was a very

strong-willed woman, yet the harshest thing any member of the parish who knew her has to say about her is that she was a saint.105 She may have had to have been to keep St. Francis parish

alive until Glenmary arrived. During the 1950s, McCurtain County had the highest exodus rate

of any county in the United States. Thirty percent of the population lived below the poverty

line.106

During the early years of St. Francis parish, the residents of Idabel and McCurtain

County regarded Catholics not so much as a menace as an oddity. Certainly the environment

was not friendly to Catholics – the local newspaper ran advertisements that explained how

enough to be incorporated as a town, consisting only of a post office, a general store, and a few houses. There were essentially no Catholics in the area, and Monsignor Heiring had to convince a Bavarian couple living in Tulsa to move to Plunketville to maintain the parish. At its largest, about twenty people attended St. Henry. The parish was designated the primary parish of McCurtain County due to Hiering’s influence. St. Francis de Sales was made its mission despite being a larger parish in a much larger town. See White, 94; Leo Schloemer to Clement F. Borchers, 7 March 1964, GHMA; and Robert C. Berson to Raymond Bethiuame, 8 August 1967, GHMA. 104 Mary Dugan to Eugene J. McGuiness, 6 April 1952, DOT. 105 Interviews with parishioners, St. Francis de Sales Church, 2010-2011. 106 Interview with Glenmary priest 2, 27 September 2005 in Rhineland, TN, GHMA. 59

Catholics had perverted the Bible – but it was not overly hostile either.107 When Glenmary

priests arrived, they were allowed to place columns in the same newspaper, give sermons on the

local radio stations, join the ministerial alliance, and participate in “Religious Emphasis Week”

at the local high school. The Idabel Chamber of Commerce even honored Mary Dugan’s

husband, Ross Dugan, Sr., as its “Citizen of the Year” in 1957.108 Dugan was a prominent

member of the community. He built the first sawmill in Idabel in 1926, ran a successful lumber

and hardware store, and was appointed to numerous local committees. Though he did not

become Catholic until shortly before his death, he did faithfully attend mass and publicly

supported his wife’s endeavors.109 His solid standing in the community may have also made

Catholicism more acceptable in Idabel. The community’s tolerance of Catholics may have

stemmed from the fact that the congregation was tiny and a rather odd one by the standards of

the town. Most of the parish was made up transplants from the outside world. A few, like the

Dugans, were prosperous, but most were poor farmers. The most exotic of these outsiders were

the two war brides from France and Germany who arrived as the wives of local veterans after

World War II. In such an insular town, this was not a church that was going to challenge the

status quo.

St. Catherine/St. William – Durant, Oklahoma

Durant, Oklahoma, had its foundation in the Trail of Tears and a wheeless boxcar. The

first inhabitants of the area were the Durant family, who were of mixed French and Choctaw

ancestry and arrived in what would become Oklahoma as part of the forced relocation of the

107 “What is in the Bible for me?” McCurtain County Gazette, 1 February 1958. The First Baptist Church of Idabel placed the advertisement in the paper in the form of an article. The advertisement mentions begins, “In 1526 for daring to translate and print the Bible into the language of common people William Tyndale of England was strangled and his body burned. He is not the only one to die because of his faith in this remarkable book… the Bible was about 1500 years in the making….” 108 McCurtain County Gazette, 12 December 1957. 109 Interview with Parishioner F, St. Francis de Sales Church, February 2011. 60

Choctaw nation in 1831. Dixon Durant was the founder and namesake of the new settlement.

As an early day minister, businessman and civic leader, Dixon Durant is credited with pastorates

in local Presbyterian, Congregationalist and Methodist churches.110 He also established the first

general store in the area, which led to the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad (Katy Railroad) placing a wheeless boxcar next to the tracks that passed through the Durant homestead to serve as a station. Dixon Durant’s entrepreneurial spirit, in both business and religion, and the stop on the Katy Railroad were the impetus for the community of Durant’s creation.

Thanks to its being a stop on the only major railroad to pass through the Choctaw nation

and the fertile soil that surrounded the town as part of the Red River flood plain, Durant thrived

in the first thirty years of its foundation. “By 1902 there were eight churches, sixteen groceries,

five hotels, fifteen attorneys, an ice plant, and numerous other businesses.”111 The town also

benefitted economically and socially from the 1909 establishment of Southeastern State Normal

School (now known as Southeastern Oklahoma State University). Despite considerable in-town

growth, Durant’s economy remained based on agriculture in the surrounding areas,

predominantly peanuts, cotton, wheat, and cattle.112

Catholicism in Durant predates the existence of the town itself. John Reece, the first

Catholic to settle in Durant, married Dixon Durant’s daughter, Mollie, in the early 1860s.113 The

fact that a Protestant minister allowed his daughter to marry a Catholic seems significant, though

Dixon Durant’s clerical career indicates that he was not too choosy about denominational

affiliation. The Benedictine fathers from Sacred Heart Abbey visited occasionally to celebrate

110 James C. Milligan, L David Norris, and Ann Vanmeter, Durant, 1872-1990 (Durant, Okla.: Bryan County Heritage Association, 1990), 12. 111 Keith L. Milligan, “Durant,” Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture. http://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=DU010 (Accessed 18 January 2014). 112 James C. Milligan, et. al., 33. 113 Descendants of the Reece family can still be found in St. William parish in Durant. 61

mass in the home of Reece and other Catholics prior to Father Hippolyte Topet, O.S.B. building

a chapel in Durant in 1898. Father Topet was able to do so cheaply because the town offered

free lots to any denomination that would build a church immediately in order to foster population

growth. Topet chose lots near the railroad tracks in hopes that Catholics traveling on the Katy

Railroad might see the church and eventually come back to receive the sacraments.114 The

original one-room chapel was called St. William to honor the patron saint of Father William

Ketchum, who had done so much to evangelize the Choctaws of southeastern Oklahoma. Father

Topet traveled 45 miles from Coalgate, Oklahoma, to Durant on every third Sunday of the month

to celebrate mass for the remainder of the nineteenth century.

The name of the parish changed to St. Catherine of Siena parish after the 1902 expansion

of the original chapel and the concurrent construction of a rectory. No reason for the name

change is available in diocesan records or newspapers of the time. The name would remain St.

Catherine until it reverted back to St. William when a newly constructed church was dedicated in

1952. Despite Durant’s not having a full-time resident priest, Caddo, Tishomingo, and Madill,

Oklahoma, all became missions of Durant during this time. Bishop Meershaert visited for the first time in 1903 to administer the sacrament of confirmation and Father William Huffer conducted the first parish mission in 1908. Catholics and non-Catholics, including a few local ministers, attended the mission, which gained one convert, Mrs. John Thomas. She and several other local women were instructed in the faith by Mary Parker, the widow of the “Hanging

Judge” Isaac Parker, who had moved to Durant after her husband’s death.115 By 1912 the parish

had grown to 31 families, almost all of whom were Northern transplants.

114 This location would eventually cause great consternation to a number of priests because it was in a part of town that would quickly fall out of fashion. 115 Undated history of St. William Church, DOT. 62

Feeling their church was now large enough to warrant a full-time pastor and wanting to recreate their Catholic experience from back home, the members of St. Catherine wrote Bishop

Meershaert expressing their desire for a resident priest, school, and “Catholic societies.”116

Meerschaert explained that the parish must provide trustees to advise the priest on “financial and

material maintenance of the parish” and make sure the pastor was paid.117 The parish agreed,

and the bishop sent Father Sjoerd Laurentius Wiersma, a Dutch priest, to formally establish St.

Catherine as a parish. The result was three decades of the most contentious and colorful history

of any parish in this study that illustrates the challenges posed by rural, Southern circumstance

for both pastor and parish.

Father Wiersma’s arrival ushered in thirty years of discord between priests and

parishioners at St. Catherine. Wiersma’s time as pastor was often productive, but it was also the

most antagonistic of any priest in Durant in the first half of the twentieth century. The tensions

centered on three issues: parish finances, the parish school, and Wiersma’s low opinion of the

parish and town. Although the parish had agreed to Bishop Meerschaert’s requirements, its

members had a difficult time paying for a full time pastor.118 As was the case in most parishes in

small Southern towns, Durant’s Catholics were generally poor, with few prominent citizens in

the early twentieth century. Even though fourteen new families joined the parish during

Wiersma’s first two years, contributions went down. By Wiersma’s calculations, the parish

could pay a maximum of $600, “and therefore, only [had] a right to three Sundays each

116 Board of Trustees to Bishop Theophile Meerschaert, 12 March 1912, DOT. 117 Bishop Theophile Meerschaert to Board of Trustees, undated (ca 1912), DOT. 118 $900 plus housing and bills. 63 month.”119 His building projects, a new rectory and school, also placed financial strain on the parish. Parishioners began to weary of their priest’s constant talk of money.

Weirsma’s dedication to the school in particular demonstrated his best, but more often his worst, qualities. The school had eight grades, and Wiersma hoped to eventually add a high school. He contracted with the teaching sisters from St. Joseph Academy in Enid, Oklahoma, to provide two sisters with the possibility of a third.120 The process of building the school showed

Wiersma’ impatience and insistence on forging ahead with his ideas regardless of diocesan protocol or full involvement from his parishioners. Despite being reprimanded by the chancellor for his rashness, Wiersma was able to start the school and obtain the service of the teaching sisters.121 By 1918, he had paid off the construction costs of the school and a small house for the sisters, a considerable achievement for a parish of such limited resources.

Poverty was not the only way in which the parish and town left Wiersma unimpressed.

He wrote to Bishop Meerschaert that “there are not many practical catholic [sic] men here.”122

He was also frustrated by the small size of the parish. Despite earlier evidence of at least cordial relations between Catholics and their neighbors, Weirsma bristled at what he perceived as

Catholicism’s low status in Durant. When a Father Pirigord planned to give a lecture in Durant in 1918, the Chamber of Commerce required that the lecture be given in the local Methodist

Church. The Chamber denied Wiersma’s request that the lecture be given elsewhere, and he then asked the diocesan chancellor to cancel the lecture as a protest to demand equal treatment of

Catholics and that Protestants show a willingness to work with Catholics.123

119 Draft of letter Sjoerd L. Wiersma to Congregation of St. Catherine’s Church, undated (ca January, 1914) DOT. Bishop Meerschaert authorized Wiersma to draft a letter to address the issue of his salary. Meerschaert rejected the draft, possibly because Wiersma’s tone of frustration with the parish is evident throughout. 120 Sjoerd L. Wiersma to Urban de Hasque, D.D., 9 July 1914, DOT. 121 Urban de Hasque, D.D. to Sjoerd L. Wiersma 17 July 1914, DOT. 122 Sjoerd L. Wiersma to Bishop Theophile Meerschaert, 26 January 1914, DOT. 123 Sjoerd L. Wiersma to Urban de Hasque, D.D., 26 January 1918, DOT. 64

Difficulties with the parish school led to the end of Wiersma’s pastorate of St. Catherine.

By the fall of 1919, 35 children attended the school; others had not yet returned to school

because the cotton picking season finished late that year. One of the two teaching sisters from

St. Joseph Academy left in November because of trouble in another school. A sister who had

almost no teaching experience and had worked in a laundry most of her life replaced her. This

infuriated Wiersma, who sent the new sister home in an effort to show Mother Joseph that he

was “running this joint.”124 With Wiersma’s patience fraying, some of the worst side of his

personality showed in his letters complaining to Bishop Meerschaert. “I suppose Mother thinks

that that we are nothing else here but Mexicans or a bunch of niggars [sic] and that the priest has

to say, thank you, no matter whether she sends a competent teacher or a laundry working sister

as teacher…”125 Wiersma went to his lawyer to see about suing in order to force Mother Joseph to fulfill the contract; his lawyer advised him to try to work through the diocese to resolve this before going to court. Five years after he complained that the parish was too poor to pay him,

Wiersma became very upset when the sisters complained about the same problem, and demanded

that the bishop force Mother Joseph to sign contracts. One suspects that Wiersma’s strong

feelings about the school stemmed from the fact that he had relatively little success creating

converts or a rapport with the parish, and the school would be his legacy in Durant.126 There is

no reply on record from the bishop, but Meerschaert evidently did not comply with Wiersma’s

request; the school closed, and the sisters left. Wiersma sold all of the “furniture and equipment”

in the school and the sisters’ house before he was replaced by Father G. Kickx in 1921. The

incident seems to have a caused some sort of break for Wiersma. His family never heard from

124 Father Sjoerd L. Wiersma to Bishop Theophile Meerschaert, 9 December 1919, DOT. 125 Ibid. 126 Ibid. 65

him again, and the diocese evidently lost track of him as well.127 The incident upset the

parishioners as well; all of the families with school-age children, including the trustees, voted not

to re-open the school when Kickx replaced Wiersma in 1921.128

The difficult relationship between the parish and Wiersma established a pattern of discord

that would last for decades. The first four years after the Dutch priest’s departure saw five

pastors. One of them, William, H. Hall, was a veteran of the “hardest and most difficult

missions,” but became “disgusted and discouraged” after eight months when the parish failed to

pay him a living wage. 129 In light of his advancing age and desire to save some money for

retirement, Hall requested a transfer. There is some evidence of lay activity in Durant during this

time; the first St. Catherine’s altar society was founded in 1923 with Mrs. A.L Stout as president.

Finances were a constant concern for pastors during the 1920s, as was anti-Catholic bigotry.

That combination, along with the rapid turnover of pastors, gave St. Catherine’s the reputation of

being a very difficult parish. Father W.J. Stephenson alluded to this reputation several times in

his correspondence with the diocesan chancellor, Monsignor G. Depreitere, but expressed hope

that he could save the parish.130 It only took three months for his spirit to be broken by his lack

of progress in the parish “spiritually, socially, or financially.”131 Despite the fact that 75-80 attended Sunday mass, Stephenson considered his parishioners weak in faith and practice:

Scarcely a soul calls to see me from Sunday to Sunday. Up to date I have received about $90 for my support. Were it not for my friends in the North I could scarcely live. I do most of my own cooking, and I live in a dirty old shack.132

127 Y. Wiersma to Postmaster of Durant, 12 November 1951 DOT. McGuiness to Y. Wiersma, 24 December 1951. DOT. 128 G. Kickx to Bishop Theophile Meerschaert, 18 July 1921, DOT 129 Willam Hall to Bishop Theophile Meerschaert, undated (ca. 1922), DOT. Father W.J. Stephenson to Monsignor G. Depreitere, 14 September 1925, DOT 130 Father W.J. Stephenson to Monsignor G. Depreitere, 18 June 1925, DOT. Stephenson to G. Depreitere, 14 September 1925, DOT. 131 Stephenson to Depreitere, 14 September 1925, DOT 132 Ibid. 66

Stephenson sent several letters in this vein, complaining about the parish’s inability to support

him financially, his lack of an automobile that would allow him to more effectively minister to

the missions of St. Catherine, and his belief that larger, wealthier, and more socially prominent

Protestant churches had sown anti-Catholic bigotry in the area.133 This last point is a complicated

one; Stephenson argued that Durant was prejudiced against Catholics and that the Ku Klux Klan

was quietly very strong, but acknowledged that his election as chaplain of the American Legion

post in 1926 gave him “considerable prestige amongst the best of the professional and business

men.”134

Although Stephenson’s complaints may have been justified, it appears that he was

unprepared emotionally and materially for the realities of small town Catholic life. He had no

concept of the poverty of Catholics, the reality that work and travel difficulties might prevent

regular attendance at daily mass, and that three months might not be enough to reverse the

damage done by thirteen years of uncertainty and distrust of pastors. He seemed only partially

aware of the significance of being elected chaplain of the American legion post in a town with a

strong Klan presence. Ultimately Stephenson left St. Catherine after one year, leaving behind no

financial records or furniture in the rectory.135

The situation finally began to stabilize with the arrival of Martin Mulcahy, O.S.B. in

1926. Mulcahy had been in Coalgate prior to coming to Durant. Consequently he was used to

small parishes, and although he shared his predecessors’ financial concerns, he was a much more

adept and realistic manager of money. Mulcahy also had a number of his own possessions,

including a car, which made him the first priest in the history of the parish to have an

133 Ibid. Fiancial Report of St. Catherine’s Parish for Final 3½ months of 1926 prepared by Martin Mulcahy, DOT. W.J. Stephenson to Bishop Francis Kelley, 12 December 1925, DOT. 134 W.J. Stephenson to Father J.B. Dudek, 21 June 1926, DOT. 135 Fiancial Report of St. Catherine’s Parish for Final 3½ months of 1926 prepared by Martin Mulcahy, DOT. 67

independent means of transportation.136 This allowed him to make home visits to Catholics in

rural areas and more effectively serve the missions in Madill, Tishomingo, and Caddo. St.

Catherine’s remained poor, but Mulcahy began to clean up finances. Still, he noted that “Durant

[was] a parish that [had] the ingrained habit of not trusting any Priest.”137 Apparently bad blood

between Stephenson and one of the men acting as a trustee exacerbated the situation.138

Mulcahy finally gave up on the idea of a parochial school and sold the school building in 1929 to

cover parish expenses.139 He did manage to establish better relations with the parishioners.

Under his watch the parish elected new trustees and held its first meeting in five years in January

1928.140

Despite improved cooperation with the laity and getting the parish’s finances under

control, some members of the parish were still not happy with him. The first letter from a St.

Catherine parishioner appears in the diocesan records during Mulcahy’s pastorate. In it Anna E.

Powers complains about inadequate instruction for children about to be confirmed and the fact

that they had to travel 45 miles to Coalgate to be confirmed.141 Her next letter laid out many

personal issues with priest, complaining that he did not celebrate the mass correctly and limited

devotional life.142 Perhaps the most interesting aspect of her letter is that it contradicted the assessment of every priest who had ever served at Durant that virtually no parishioners attended daily mass. Mulcahy left in 1930.

St. Catherine parish was very disheartened by the time Father J.R. Campbell arrived in

1936 due to antagonistic relationships between past priests and parishioners. The lack of

136 Martin, Fiancial Report of St. Catherine’s Parish for Final 3½ months of 1926, DOT. 137 Martin Mulcahy to Bishop Francis Kelley, 17 March 1927, DOT. 138 Ibid. 139 Martin Mulcahy to Bishop Francis Kelley, 9 April 1929, DOT. Bishop Francis Kelley Martin Mulcahy, 12 April 1929, DOT. 140 Martin Mulcahy to J.B. Dudek, 20 January 1929, DOT 141 Anna E. Powers to R. Sevens, 5 May 1929, DOT. 142 Anna E. Powers to Bishop Francis Kelley, 12 May 1929, DOT. 68

enthusiasm manifested itself in the church’s physical plant. Both the old and new rectories had

been rented for a number of years and needed extensive repairs. The church itself became run

down to the point that Catholics seemed “to almost be ashamed to be seen coming to mass or

have it be known that they [were] Catholic.”143 No prominent citizens of the town belonged to

the parish. Like every pastor in the 1920s and 1930s, Campbell suggested that the houses be

sold to benefit the parish. He suggested that the funds be used to renovate the church and start a

building fund.144 Unlike his nine predecessors, Campbell’s request was approved, but he chose to lease the land instead. More importantly, a ray of hope emerged during Campbell’s time in

Durant. Talk had begun of building a dam on the Red River near town. Campbell presciently predicted that the economic boom created by the dam would help turn St. Catherine’s into a

strong parish.145 The next twenty years would prove him right.

Summary of Towns, Parishes, and Catholicism in the South

Having sketched the histories of these towns, their parishes, and Catholicism in the

South, a general portrait emerges. With regard to the towns, despite being located in different

regions of the South, they share similar patterns of development. With the exception of Idabel,

all were founded in the nineteenth century. All of them were and are at least an hour away from

a major urban center and usually much farther. Railroads played a formative role in

development of all of the towns, with each of them serving as either a rail stop or hub. In some

cases, the railroad was the impetus for the creation of the town. During the nineteenth and early

twentieth centuries, agriculture dominated the economy of each community, though shipping

was important to Princeton and Cordele, and manufacturing played a significant role in Claxton’s

143 J.R. Campbell to Bishop Francis Kelley, 30 November, 1936, DOT. 144 Ibid. 145 A preliminary study had just been completed for the project, and the prospect of the dam excited local businessmen. 69

economy. All of the towns suffered as agriculture in the South decayed during the late

nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and railroad traffic declined. All had a population of

10,000 or less, with the average population closer to 5,500. All would rebound over the course of this study thanks to the economic modernization and industrialization of the South, at least for

a while. The following chapters will detail the reasons for that rebound.

Likewise, the Catholic parishes share several commonalities, despite being located in

different regions of the South. All were established initially as missions served by priests from

elsewhere. Those that existed in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries struggled mightily

with small numbers, impoverished members, and priests who were not always fully equipped for

the rigors of ministry in larger rural areas. Until a resident, or least regular, priest arrived, mass

attendance was small and irregular because sacraments were only offered sporadically. Almost

all Catholics in these towns were recent transplants from the North or other countries. This was

a pattern that would continue throughout the twentieth century, though intermarriage increased

during this time as well. Curiously for American Catholic history, ethnicity seems not to have

been a major aspect of Catholics’ lives in these parishes. Certainly there were immigrants in

these parishes; Irish, Italians, Germans, and French number among the faithful in these small towns. But unlike the North, no ethnic groups were big enough to develop rivalries. Instead, because Catholics were so vastly outnumbered in these towns, they had to work together to survive. Despite being made up of transplanted Catholics, there was very little immigrant

Catholic culture in these parishes.

In truth there was virtually no Catholic culture of any kind – certainly not a triumphalist or separatist culture of the variety one might see in the urban North. Instead, Catholics had to get along with their neighbors, participate in civic organizations populated by evangelical 70

Protestants, and send their children to public schools. They remained distinct because of their

religion, but they tried not to stick out too much. These circumstances favored the republican form of Catholicism that predated the arrival of the immigrant tradition. The priests who served rural Southern parishes were rarely adept at handling this reality because they were formed in a different tradition. As later chapters will demonstrate, the situation improved as Southern dioceses produced local vocations in greater numbers. In the meantime, Catholics in the rural

South needed someone who would understand their situation. Fortunately, there was someone –

Howard Bishop.

W. Howard Bishop – Founder of Glenmary

As Christopher J. Kauffman ably demonstrated in his 1991 biography of W. Howard

Bishop, Glenmary’s founder had a Catholic identity developed by Southern influences. His was

not the immigrant, urban, triumphalist subculture of Northern Catholicism but the republican

Catholicism found in Baltimore under John Carroll and Charleston, South Carolina, under John

England and perpetuated by Americanists like James Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore, Bishop

John Ireland of St. Paul, and Bishop John Lancaster Spalding of Peoria who influenced Bishop

so much as a young man.146 Kaufman refers to the Americanists as “transitionalists” who

“extolled the legitimacy of organized labor, the public school, etc, and displayed an expansive

posture toward the principles of religious liberty, separation of church and state, and religious

denominationalism.”147 He goes on to argue that “[i]f one views Americanism as derived from experiences in the young nation, then one discerns forms of Americanism in such diverse manifestations as new missionary movements, including Maryknoll, in the modern

146 Christopher J. Kauffman, Mission to Rural America: The Story of W. Howard Bishop, Founder of Glenmary (New York: Paulist Press, 1991), 15. According to Kauffman, Americanists “represent the maturation of the seeds sown by John Carroll and John England.” 147 Ibid., 10-11. 71

organizational character of the movement of eucharistic piety, in the lay activism of the retreat

movement, and in the structure and spirit of the National Catholic Welfare Conference

(N.C.W.C.)”148 In these formulations Kaufman neatly describes Howard Bishop’s conception of

the Catholic Church and how it ought to fit into the American context. Kaufmann implicitly

demonstrates that Bishop was in heart and mind a Southern Catholic.

Howard Bishop’s Southern influences were not simply intellectual; they were personal

as well. He was born to a relatively prominent and wealthy family in Washington, D.C. in 1885.

Cardinal Gibbons instructed Bishop’s father, Francis, when he converted to Catholicism and

celebrated Francis’s marriage to Bishop’s mother, Eleanor. The family moved in high circles,

socializing with congressmen and senators and occasionally inviting Chief Justice Edward White

to dinner, and were moderates on race by the standards of the day.149 Howard met Thomas F.

Price, the co-founder of Maryknoll, as a young man when Price visited the Bishop home.150

Price spoke with Howard about missions to non-Catholics. This was something Howard had already shown interest in, and it would become a hallmark of Glenmary’s ministry. Howard seemed to be more at ease with lay people and Protestants, and his studies emphasized social reform while avoiding triumphalism and Catholic separation. A serious student with a serious demeanor, Howard attended Harvard for two years before joining the seminary in 1909, during

Gibbons’s episcopacy. He studied at St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore, whose Sulpician

superior, Alphonse Magnien, was the “heart and head” of the Americanist movement.”151

Archbishop John Ireland and John Lancaster Spalding visited St. Mary’s Seminary during

Bishop’s first year there, and though there is no record of their meeting at this time, Ireland may

148 Ibid., 13. 149 Ibid., 21. 150 Price was a classmate of Eleanor when they were children. 151 Ibid., 11. 72

have been the Americanist most influential to Bishop’s understanding of his vocation. Certainly

the two men shared a love of rural Catholicism. Both believed that the countryside represented

Palestine to the city’s Babylon. Ireland actively worked to move urban Catholics to rural areas

in hopes that it would improve their social, economic, and spiritual wellbeing. Between 1876

and 1881 Ireland established seven colonies in southeastern Minnesota for Irish Catholics living

in eastern cities.152 It should be noted that Bishop’s life demonstrated other strains of thought

found in the South during this period. The Bishop family was, by Southern standards of the day,

moderate on racial issues, maintaining a patronizing rather than overtly hostile racist attitude

toward African Americans.153 Bishop’s ideas on rural life share an uncanny resemblance to the

Southern Agrarian literary movement of the 1920s and 1930s. Although his diary entries predate

their writing, Bishop’s journal sometimes read like a Catholic version of I’ll Take My Stand: he

criticized urbanization and industrialization and advocated a return to traditional agrarian, rural,

local values and lifestyle. He very clearly saw modernization as something to be fought against.

Bishop’s romantic vision of rural life caused him to long to serve a country parish. He got his

wish in 1917, when he was made pastor of St. Louis parish in Clarkesville, Maryland.

The harsh realities of rural ministry did not dim Bishop’s romance, but rather caused him

to learn new skills to better serve the countryside. The chief skills he learned were organization

and persistence. Organization was crucial in a parish with far flung members. It took effort for

them to participate in parish life, which meant that programs had to be well considered and

planned. Bishop quickly realized that much organizational skill would need to revolve around

152 Ireland worked with the state government and western railroads to obtain over 400,000 acres of farmland. He then brought more than 4,000 Catholic families from eastern cities to rural Minnesota. The experiment may only be considered successful when compared to other Catholic rural colonies. See Marvin Richard O'Connell, John Ireland and the American Catholic Church (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1988) for more information. 153 Kauffman, 21. Bishop’s father, who had been raised in North Carolina, was a Republican. Dr. Bishop’s relative moderation would be seen in Fr. Bishop’s gradualist approach to integration in the 1930s and 1940s. 73

improving economic and education programs, which rural Catholics cited as obstacles to greater

participation in church life. Lack of knowledge or understanding of Church teaching seemed to

be the most common reason why Catholics left Bishop’s parish. With that in mind, Bishop

began seeking help to build a school at St. Louis parish. He became a spokesman not just for his

parish but for rural parishes within the Diocese of Baltimore, using the diocesan newspaper to

drum up support from urban Catholics for rural parochial schools. In his letters and articles in

the newspaper, Bishop identified himself as a rural missionary to all of Clarkesville, not just its

Catholics.154 He went on to create the League of the Little Flower to support rural parochial

schools in Maryland.

His leadership in this organization led him to joining the National Catholic Rural Life

Conference (NCRLC), which put him in contact with many national figures interested in rural

Catholicism and Catholic social justice, include Luigi Ligutti, John LaFarge, Edward V. O’Hara,

and John Ryan. Bishop eventually became president of the organization. Bishop’s presidency

demonstrated a strong interest in social justice and economic issues, believing the Church was

responsible for more than just its members’ spiritual welfare. His writings from the period

demonstrate the influence of papal encyclicals, including Leo XIII and Pius XI’s opposition to

unchecked capitalism as a great evil.155 Bishop also used his position to promote urban awareness of rural problems. While economic problems were chief among these, Bishop also drew attention to the religious bigotry facing Catholics in rural areas. He believed prejudice was even more severe than in urban areas, saying that these were “the most important and difficult battlegrounds.”156 Bishop supported the call of Oklahoma City and Tulsa’s Bishop Francis

154 This would become a hallmark of Glenmary’s ministry; although Glenmarians avoided conversion of members of other churches, they considered everyone living within their parish boundaries to be their responsibility. 155 Kauffman, 98. 156 Ibid., 82. 74

Kelley to found a national organization that would coordinate a large-scale effort to combat

prejudice. Most significant to Bishop’s presidency of the NCRLC was his championing of a

back to the land movement for Catholics. Like John Ireland’s plan for Minnesota, the plan called

for the creation of Catholic agricultural colonies that would alleviate urban unemployment and

poverty during the Great Depression by providing land for subsistence farming. For much of his

presidency, Bishop could not be dissuaded from this plan, leading to at least temporary hard

feelings with other important figures in the NCRLC.157 Ultimately the plan failed from lack of

interest, just like every other attempt to create a Catholic agricultural colony.

After this plan’s failure, Bishop turned his attention to serving the Catholics already

living in rural areas and potentially converting more souls for the Church. This was not a

common point of view in a church that was booming in urban areas; Bishop knew that many

bishops regarded rural parishes as places to train young priests for a few years or hide problem

priests. He would take a different route, following the home mission path traced by a variety of

Protestant denominations while using the Maryknoll example used in foreign missions.158 The

result was a society of priests trained specifically to handle the needs of rural ministry in areas

with few Catholics. To this end, he set about creating the Home Missioners of America in 1935.

The idea met with little support initially; only a few bishops and some rural mission priests

supported the idea. Even the NCRLC and Bishop Curley opposed the idea, believing it

impractical. It was not until 1939, when Archbishop John T. McNicholas of Cincinnati provided

patronage for Bishop’s proposed society that Glenmary became a reality. The group took its

157 Ibid., 144. Ligutti in particular commented on Bishop’s single-mindedness, comparing the Glenmary founder’s tenaciousness to a wild dog and noting on stubbornness. 158 Ibid., 106-107, 112-113. Kauffman states that in addition to Thomas Price, Bishop heavily influenced by James A. Walsh, another founder of Maryknoll. 75

nickname, “Glenmary” from Glendale, the Cincinnati suburb where the group’s headquarters

was located until 1971, and Mary, patroness of the society.159

From its inception, Glenmary willingly chose one of the most difficult assignments in

American Catholicism. The society sent its priests to the most remote Catholic outposts in the

country. Glenmary only considered counties where less than three percent of the population was

Catholic and poverty levels were twice the national average.160 As a result, they ministered to very small and often very poor Catholic communities. Bishop’s vision for Glenmary was to send two priests and a brother, if possible, to a base parish. He sent the men as a community due to the amount of work entailed by evangelization and to ward off the loneliness that he himself had experienced during his twenty years as a rural pastor. These men were to establish themselves in the community and then begin to establish missions as soon as possible in the surrounding towns.

They did this through visiting people in their homes, street preaching, missions given from their trailer that involved teaching apologetics, and speaking on radio programs. Bishop also planned to have Glenmary sisters who would teach religious education and provide practical services like a health clinic or teaching home crafts. Realizing that seeking converts from among Protestant congregations would only serve to alienate them further from communities already suspicious of

Catholics, the Glenmarians publicly emphasized ecumenism and conversion of the unchurched.161 The society soon realized that Christian charity was more effective than

theology in winning converts. Out of this grew an emphasis on social justice and advocacy.162

159 “Glenmary at a Glance,” Glenmary Home Missioners Website. Available from http://www.glenmary.org/about/overview/About_Glenmary.htm (accessed 20 February 2008). 160 Ibid. 161 True to Catholic theology of the era, articles in the Glenmary Challenge expressed a belief that all people would be better off if they were Catholic. See Raphael Sourd, “Leadership in America,” The Challenge 9 (Summer, 1946): 6. 162 Glenmary advocacy revolved primarily around economic issues. See Howard Bishop, “The Least of These,” The Challenge 2 (Christmas, 1939): 2. 76

Although Bishop was a product of Southern and Republican Catholic influences, he

turned primarily to men of Northern and immigrant Catholic heritage to staff his society of

missioners. In fact, Glenmary could never have existed without support from the Northern,

triumphalist church and its surplus of young men interested in the priesthood. Most of the

Glenmarians ordained between 1937 and 1990 came from a Midwestern town or city of more

than 10,000 people.163 Many of them were of immigrant stock, often eastern European, and

some changed their surnames to something less foreign sounding before they arrived in the

South. Their average age at ordination was 29, and age at ordination seems to have had little

connection to whether a priest remained with Glenmary or not.164 The isolation inherent in

Glenmary’s work seemed to appeal to them; the phrase that both the Glenmarians and the priests

and laity who have encountered them regularly use to describe the personality of a Glenmarian is

“lone ranger.” They tended to prefer working without a great deal of supervision, and many

seemed to favor living by themselves, at least at first. It was not unusual for Glenmarians to be

activists for social and racial justice, which could make them appear countercultural in the South.

This individualistic streak may have also contributed to an almost 50% chance of leaving the

order between 1939 and 1990, although at least a quarter of the men who left Glenmary

remained priests. For those who left Glenmary, they usually did so after an average of 13 years,

though this average time of service hides polarized patterns in which men either tended to leave

after only a few years or after multiple decades ending with joining a diocese in order to stop

moving from parish to parish. Glenmarians from towns in the Midwest with populations of less

than 10,000 and from Southern cities were most likely to remain with the order their entire lives,

163 A dividing line of 10,000 was chosen because virtually all towns in which Glenmary had missions were that size or smaller when Glenmary took over the mission, including all four Glenmary missions in this study. Most remain much smaller than 10,000. All of the demographic information in the remainder of the chapter comes from data provided by the Glenmary Home Missioners in January 2013. 164 The average age of those who left Glenmary was 28; the average age of those who stayed was 30. 77

lending some credence to the idea that men who were either familiar with rural life or Southern

culture were best suited to the demands of ministering in the rural South.165

Given Glenmary’s location it is unsurprising that many of its early vocations came from

the diocese of Cincinnati and especially from the city itself. Between 1939 and 1957, most

Glenmarians came from towns and cities of more than 10,000 in the Midwest, supplemented by

men from Midwestern towns of less than 10,000. It would not be until the later 1950s that

Glenmary started winning vocations from Northeastern cities. Beginning a pattern that would

hold true throughout Glenmary’s history, only one man joined the order from the rural South,

coming from a small town in Kentucky. All told, about a quarter of Glenmarians came from rural

areas during this time period, and they were slightly more likely to remain with the society than

their urban peers. Glenmary seminarians during this time trained primarily at St. Gregory’s

Seminary in Cincinnati, and Mount St. Mary’s of the West, in Norwood, eight miles northeast of

Cincinnati. In the early years of Glenmary, “a section of the top floor of St. Gregory’s was allotted to the new group and Father Bishop resided there with them. Sundays and holidays were

spent at old St. Martin’s parish in Brown County, where Fr. Bishop had been pastor since his

arrival” in the diocese. The close quarters would have permitted camaraderie to develop among

the seminarians and given them greater exposure to Father Bishop.

Of the sixty-two men ordained between 1939 and 1957, twenty-four would ultimately

leave Glenmary: twelve of them ordained prior to 1954, and twelve of them ordained between

1954 and 1957. Eighteen of the twenty-four left after Vatican II. Nine of twelve priests ordained

165 To be fair about numbers: by far the most vocations came from Midwestern towns and cities of more than 10,000 people – 100 out of 180 total. 52 of those left Glenmary (at least 11 remained priests). 31 vocations came Midwestern towns of less than 10,000, and only 10 of those left (at least 2 remained priests). The number of priests from the South is significantly smaller: 5 from Southern towns and cities of more than 10,000 people, and 3 from Southern towns of less than 10,000. Only 1 from larger Southern communities left. Most interestingly, but perhaps too small to statistically significant, is the fact that 2 of the 3 vocations from small Southern towns left Glenmary. 78

before 1954 who left Glenmary did so to join a diocese, usually leaving Glenmary within a few

years of ordination. They did so for a variety of reasons: some were unprepared for the realities

of rural life; some preferred working within a diocesan setting that allowed a more settled

lifestyle, and some did not get along with Howard Bishop, who was not one to tolerate dissent or

share credit. Regardless, the Glenmarians ordained during this period had the lowest attrition

rate of any Glenmarians until the mid-1970s. This is unsurprising, given the mentality of the

priesthood of the era and the fact that Bishop himself approved everyone joining the society.

The period between 1958 and 1965 saw massive changes within Glenmary, and

especially in the men who joined the society. Some of these changes were, of course, due to

larger trends occurring within the Catholic Church. The years before the Second Vatican

Council saw a new mentality among American seminarians, which led Andrew Greeley to dub

them “the New Breed.” The New Breed, which will be examined at length in Chapter 3, was

exceptionally ill-suited for ministry in the rural South. This, combined with changes (and a lack of changes) in what it meant to be a priest, led to thousands of men around the United States leaving the priesthood. Glenmary was not immune to these movements, but there were some developments unique to Glenmary at the time. The first among these is that Glenmary saw a sharp increase in vocations between 1958 and 1965. Fifty-seven men were ordained in this eight year period – almost as many as the previous twenty years. After Bishop died in 1953, Clement

Borchers became the second superior of Glenmary. Bochers grew up on a farm near Fort

Larmie, Ohio, and “could operate any piece of equipment on the place by the time he was eight.”166 Borchers was more charismatic and overtly masculine than the reserved Bishop, and

under his leadership the society sold itself as almost a vocation of adventure in which young men

166 Rita H. DeLorme, “Father Clement Borchers, GHM, typified his orders ‘good company of men,’” Southern Cross, 11 September 2008. 79 could prove their manly virtue. Whatever the reason, Glenmary experienced a great boom in vocations during Borchers’s time in charge of the society. The boom in vocations and the boom in departures suggests that there were a lot of young Catholic men excited about the prospect of joining mission work, but not as many actually cut out for it.

The period between 1957 and 1965 saw Glenmary pulling in men from the widest area: in addition to a large contingent from the Midwest, far more men came from the Northeast.

Glenmary also had its most vocations from the South (two from large towns and two from small towns) and its only vocation from the western United States. The only Glenmarian to come from a Glenmary mission was ordained in 1964.

Bishop and Borchers knew what they were getting into when they signed on for rural ministry. On the other hand, 86 percent of the men who joined Glenmary during their combined time as superiors were from towns and cities larger than the ones they were going to. They would be separated from the usual supports for priests found in urban parishes, and many of them had a difficult time adjusting.

One of the biggest supports they lacked was fellowship with fellow priests. In small towns in the South, Catholic priests stood out as foreign, as odd, as “other.” Connections with other priests would be vital for maintaining morale. Bishop understood this, as had other planners of successful missionary endeavors in the rural United States. For this reason, Bishop had originally intended to send two priests and a brother to each mission. These men had to spend a certain amount of time under the same roof each week. Despite a fair number of personality clashes, this model seems to have been beneficial while Glenmary was able to maintain it. Vocations, however, were not the only thing that expanded during Borchers’s time as superior of Glenmary. It was no longer practical to devote three men to one mission or to 80

have them spend much time under the same roof. Eventually Glenmarians found themselves in a

situation in which the nearest priest might be thirty miles away. Although some Glenmarians

liked this, they lacked companionship to combat loneliness, doubts about their vocation, and

personal struggles. This was devastating for the members of the New Breed and in the wake of

Vatican II.

Another support that many Glenmary seminarians lost during this period was shared

vocational training. St. Gregory’s Seminary in Cincinnati suffered a terrible fire in April 1956

which significantly reduced its capacity, meaning that Glenmary had to relocate most of its

students. They did so at a number of other seminaries: at St. Mary’s College in St. Mary’s,

Kentucky; St. Meinrad’s in St. Meinrad, Indiana; the University of Fairfield in Fairfield,

Connecticut; St. John Vianney Seminary in Steubenville, Ohio; and the Servite Fathers Seminary in Hillside, Illinois. Having the seminarians so split up during their formative years seems likely to have prevented the creation of an esprit de corps that could have sustained these men through the difficult years that lay head.

Ultimately, 33 of the of the 57 men ordained between 1958 and 1965 left Glenmary, including most of the men ordained between 1958 and 1960 and about half of the men ordained between 1961 and 1963. Very few remained priests. In addition to the reasons stated above, there is one other possible explanation for the mass defection: the men who joined Glenmary during its first 20 years had been accepted, at least in part, by Howard Bishop. Certainly all of them had been influenced by him and his vision. Later generations did not have this exposure, and perhaps did not understand Glenmary’s mission in the same way. Whatever the reason, the loss of priests during this period and the decade after Vatican II was a disaster for Glenmary. 81

The decade following the council was, of course, a tremendously difficult period for the

Catholic priesthood, but a declining number of vocations and the increasing number of

departures was especially hard for Glenmary because the society was so small. Glenmary only

ordained 36 during the decade; 20 of those men would eventually leave. The late 1960s and

early 1970s saw bit of a retrenchment for Glenmary with 26 of the new priests coming from the

Midwest. There was a slight percentage increase in priests from rural areas, who now made up

20% of the new priests. The reasons for departure seem consistent with other priests’ reasons: a

questioning of vocation, a desire to pursue a romantic relationship, and an unease with the

direction of the Church. There is some evidence that many of the new ordained men had been

influenced by events of the 1960s and were newly socially conscious. Some Glenmarians saw

their work in the rural South as a way to put that consciousness into action, but many others

found going to the South very difficult.

In attempt to provide more support for its seminarians, Glenmary reconsidered its

approach to their formation during this time. In 1966 the Glenmary Council brought all of its

seminarians together for the first time in a decade. Glenmary worked out an agreement with the

Maryknoll fathers to have residential space at Maryknoll College in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. The

seminarians moved from Illinois to Loyola University in New Orleans three years later in order live in the South and “become familiar with the culture and the people with whom they would work as priests.” Glenmary would send its seminarians to Loyola until 1977. Though the

Catholic culture of New Orleans was a far cry from that found in small-town Georgia, Kentucky, or Oklahoma, the attempt to create community among seminarians and have them learn about

Southern culture before they became pastors in the South represents a significant improvement

over the scattershot approach to education used in the previous 10 years. 82

After 1975, the situation stabilized quite a bit for Glenmary. The numbers of vocations declined between 1976 and 1990, with only 25 men being ordained, but the percentage of departures was the lowest of any of the periods described here, with 9 leaving Glenmary for some reason. The decline in vocations is due in part to the fact that the Catholic Church as a whole experienced a significant decrease in the number of vocations. The decline in departures is more interesting. The period saw the greatest percentage of vocations from towns of less than

10,000 people, 7, and only two of those left. In addition to moving away from the tumult of

Vatican II, it seems likely that men from rural areas were at least somewhat better equipped for the realities of rural ministry. Most of the men ordained during this period trained at the

University of Dayton in Dayton, Ohio.

Looking over the development of the Catholic Church in the South and the first fifty years of Glenmary history, some themes become apparent. One is the republican nature of

Catholicism in the South. There were few Catholics here, and they tended to interact with their non-Catholic neighbors with varying levels of tension, depending on era and circumstance. They did not have the schools, the hospitals, and the parallel social networks that typified the urban,

Northern Catholic experience, and their small numbers meant that, at least in rural areas, they rarely had to navigate the ethnic tensions of Northern Catholicism. There just were not enough

Catholics to be particular about the company they kept inside or outside of Church or to be triumphalist. Like the Northern Catholics, Catholics in the South tended to have migrated to the region from somewhere else, but they generally shared the opinions of their neighbors and considered themselves as much loyal sons and daughters of the South as they did a part of the

Church of Rome. Howard Bishop grew out of this tradition and founded his society to minister to people formed by it. He was an expert and veteran not only of the Southern Church, but the 83 rural Church. Those Glenmarians who heeded his call and understood the nature of Catholicism in the rural South either by upbringing or disposition often thrived in their missions; those who did not had a far more demanding time of it. The following chapters will trace the successes and difficulties of ministering in the rural South.

Chapter Two Into No-Priest-Land, U.S.A. 1939-1957

In his cover article in that first issue of The Challenge, Father W. Howard Bishop noted that much of his concern for the lack of evangelization of the South stemmed from the fact that some of its priestless counties were among the fastest growing counties in the country. 1 What he

did not mention was why those counties grew so fast, and he certainly had no sense that the

growth would only gain speed over the next twenty years. Broadening our scope beyond just

Catholic issues, we now have the benefit of seeing the historical trends just taking shape in the

South that Bishop could not. By 1939, the New Deal had begun to have a positive, if not yet

hugely significant, effect on the Southern economy. Having identified the South as “the Nation’s

No. 1 economic problem,” President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his fellow New Dealers poured

$4 billion of federal money into addressing the South’s economic, educational, demographic, and

social problems.2 The result was the beginning of the transformation of all these aspects of

Southern life, especially the rural, agricultural life that Bishop so loved.3 Even more important to the South’s shift from an agricultural economy to an increasingly industrial economy was

World War II. Due to the relatively accommodating weather and the power of Southerners in

1 Howard Bishop, “No Priest Land, USA,” The Challenge 1 (Spring, 1938): 1. 2 National Emergency Council, Report on Economic Conditions in the South, (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1938). 3 For additional information on the New Deal’s transformation of the South, see Bruce J. Schulman, From Cotton Belt to Sunbelt: Federal Policy, Economic Development, and the Transformation of the South, 1938-1980 (New York: Oxford Press, 1991); Anthony J. Badger, New Deal/New South: An Anthony J. Badger Reader (Fayetteville, AR: University of Arkansas Press, 2007); Roger Biles, The South and the New Deal (Lexington, KY: The University of Kentucky Press, 1994); George T. Blakey, Hard Times and New Deal in Kentucky, 1929- 1939 (Lexington, Ky.: University Press of Kentucky, 1986); Frank Freidel, The New Deal and the South: Essays, [chancellor's Symposium Series] (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1984); Jack Temple Kirby, Rural Worlds Lost: The American South, 1920-1960 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1987); Michael J. McDonald and John Muldowny, TVA and the Dispossessed: The Resettlement of Population in the Norris Dam Area (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2001, 1982); Paul E. Mertz, New Deal Policy and Southern Rural Poverty (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1978). 84

Congress, the military opened numerous bases in the region, bringing enlisted from all over the

country to the South. With these bases came new businesses to cater to the influx of soldiers.

More significantly, the South’s industrial output doubled between 1940 and 1945, sending

Southerners from farms to towns and from towns to cities in search of jobs. The Cold War that

followed World War II ensured that the government did not cut military budgets in the 1950s and

1960s. The military bases that opened during the war stayed open and even expanded, often

accompanied by the establishment of defense contractors and plants nearby.4 As William

Faulkner would write in 1956, “Our economy is no longer agricultural, our economy is the

federal government.”5 The developments of the New Deal, World War II, and the Cold War did

not bring large numbers of Northerners to the rural South permanently between 1939 and 1957,

but they did lay the framework for the economic boom that eventually would.

It is an amusing, and perhaps instructive, coincidence that both the federal policies that

would forever alter the South and Father Bishop himself hailed from Washington, D.C. Just as

Roosevelt had seen the South as the major economic problem for the entire United States, Bishop

saw the South as the major evangelization problem for the American Catholic Church. He

intended to attack the problem in its most challenging locations. Compared to the diocesan

parishes examined in this study, the Glenmary parishes were generally in worse shape in 1939, if

they even existed. None of the three parishes examined here had weekly masses, a resident

priest, or even a priest whose primary responsibility was the parish. Whatever obvious

4For more information about how the effects of defense spending during World War II and the decade following the war on the South, see Schulman, From Cotton Belt to Sunbelt: Federal Policy, Economic Development, and the Transformation of the South, 1938-1980; Neil R. McMillen, ed., Remaking Dixie: The Impact of World War II on the American South (Jackson, Miss.: University Press of Mississippi, 1997); Charles D. Chamberlain, Victory at Home: Manpower and Race in the American South during World War II, Economy and Society in the Modern South (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2003); James C. Cobb, The Selling of the South: The Southern Crusade for Industrial Development 1936-1990, 2nd ed. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993). 5 Faulkner is quoted by Schulman, 135. 86

difficulties presented themselves, Bishop saw potential to realize his vision for the rural Church

and his society in Kentucky and Georgia.6 The areas around Russellville and Statesboro offered

Glenmary large, rural areas with a stable base mission from which to expand. What Bishop had

no way of knowing was that the economic and social changes he would have found every bit as

disgusting as Faulkner would ultimately play an important, and often decisive, role in the success

of Glenmary missions.

The diocesan parishes were on slightly more stable footing. Two of the three had a priest

whose primary responsibility was their care in 1939, and the other, St. Theresa in Cordele,

Georgia, had one by 1942. They had longer histories in their communities, and parishioners

tended to be famers whose families had lived in the area for at least a generation, which meant

that these parishes were not quite the oddity the Glenmary parishes were. This meant that

Catholics and their parishes tended to be more accepted by their neighbors, though there were

limits to this. It also helped that parishioners in the diocesan parishes were a tad better off

financially than the lay people in Glenmary parishes. Ultimately, however, the differences

between the diocesan and Glenmary parishes tend to be of degree rather than kind between 1939

and 1957.

The remainder of this chapter will provide sketches of the three Glenmary parishes and

the three diocesan parishes over the course of 18 years. Four main themes will emerge. One is

that while race was an issue for Catholics in the rural South, it was one that they approached with great caution and ambivalence. The second is that World War II mattered in many of these parishes, contributing either to their creation or their growth. The last two themes were

6 Bishop’s successor as the leader of Glenmary, Father Clement Borchers, took a much more ambitious approach to sending out Glenmarians, accepting almost any offer from a bishop to send his men to a parish. It was he who chose to staff St. Francis de Sales in Idabel to the surprise and consternation of many of his fellow Glenmarians. 87

intertwined and determined the health of a parish: economic growth led to Catholic growth in a

town, and having a resident pastor or at least a priest dedicated to the local church made a

massive difference for the morale of the laypeople, and in turn their ability to ingratiate

themselves into Southern town life.

St. Mary – Franklin, Kentucky

The Diocese of Owensboro represented Glenmary’s first foray into No-Priest-Land after

manning a few rural parishes in the Diocese of Cincinnati. Father Bishop wanted quite a bit of

territory for his first mission, but he was fairly particular about where that territory would be.

Cotton initially suggested establishing St. John the Evangelist Church in Sunfish as mission

base.7 Bishop rejected this because the area served by St. John did not fit his theory of mission

work; it was too small an area with too few people and too few towns for outdoor preaching.8

He and Cotton finally settled on two missions: one based in Sunfish and one based at Sacred

Heart Parish in Russellville that would serve Logan, Simpson, Toddy, and Allen counties. The

Russellville mission bordered the Sunfish mission and contained eleven towns, including

Franklin in Simpson County. Considering that Russellville’s pastor, Father John C. Hallahan, was in ill health, had no independent means of transportation, and wanted to stop celebrating mass for the five Catholics in Franklin, it seems reasonable to suggest that the arrival of

Glenmary saved St. Mary’s Church.

Fr. Bishop’s plan was to send two men – one older and one younger – to Kentucky to provide a sense of community and combat “bad habits” that came with loneliness, such as drinking, melancholy, and visiting particular families too much.9 Practical concerns would not

7 Bishop Francis R. Cotton to W. Howard Bishop, 13 March 1942, GHMA. 8 W. Howard Bishop to Bishop Francis R. Cotton, 16 March 1942, GHMA. 9 W. Howard Bishop to Bishop Francis R. Cotton, 5 June 1942, GHMA. 88

allow this, so Bishop sent two younger men with the goal having them in neighboring parishes so

they would not be too lonely.10 The first was Clement Borchers, who was sent to Sunfish. The

second was Benedict Wolf, who became pastor of Sacred Heart in Russellville and,

consequently, its mission of St. Mary in Franklin. Wolf had a reputation for being pious and

zealous as well as being a bit rash and judgmental.11 He was also among the rare Glenmarians at the time who willing to voice a difference of opinion with Fr. Bishop.12 These traits would benefit and hinder his work in Franklin.

In the early years of the society, Fr. Bishop expected his priests to be both pastor and missionary. In many ways, they were circuit riders. They were to establish a central base (e.g.

Sacred Heart in Russellville) and then cultivate small bases in towns around the area. Assuming that the Glenmarian could minimize hostility toward Catholicism and win enough converts, the base would turn into a mission. Once it was successful enough, it would become a parish, and missions would spring forth from it. Eventually the most successful parishes would be given back to the diocese. Priests like Fr. Wolf had huge territories to cover, but Bishop and Cotton were careful not to overburden them. In many mission towns, mass was only held once a month.

Still, this was far more attention than they had ever received.13

Fr. Wolf had little success as either pastor or missionary in Franklin during his first year

in Kentucky. He did manage to increase the number of people attending mass to 15 by reaching

out to fallen away Catholics. One of his main hindrances was the building being used as a

church. The crumbling little chapel lowered already negative Protestant opinions of Catholicism.

10 W. Howard Bishop to Bishop Francis R. Cotton, 26 June 1942, GHMA. 11 W. Howard Bishop to Bishop Francis R. Cotton, 8 September 1942, GHMA. 12 Most notable disagreement was over issue of Glenmary sisters coming to Russellville to run vacation school; Wolf wanted sisters who wore habits; well aware that the habits drew attention and gave a sense of authority 13 W. Howard Bishop to Bishop Francis R. Cotton, 7 March 1943; GHMA. 89

With its leaking roof, shoddy exterior, and broken windows, most in the town thought the place was disgraceful and should be torn down. Wolf tended to agree with them, and wanted to build a new church in Franklin as early as his first year, but Bishop Cotton favored a more cautious approach until there were greater numbers, although he did give some financial support for renovations in 1943.14

Relations with Protestants took a brief turn for the worse during Fr. Wolf’s second year.

Previous pastors had allowed Protestant churches to borrow items from the church and parishioners to attend Protestant services in an effort to weave St. Mary into the fabric of the community. This is perhaps more understandable when considering mass was only held twice a month, and the few parishioners who did attend mass believed “that to be sociable with their

Protestant society folks they have to go along with them every once in a while to hear a good sermon by Dr. So and So.”15 Wolf condemned this practice, refused to loan a candelabra for use in two Protestant weddings in early 1944, and told his parishioners they could not participate in the weddings. This upset his parishioners, who chalked up his adherence to canon law to the

“‘queer Yankee doings of their pastor.’”16 For his part, Wolf believed the problem stemmed from a few people who had “Non-Catholitis,” meaning they did not know teachings of the

Church but presented themselves as pillars of the Church. Wolf claimed he was willing to “give the shirt off my back” but unwilling to compromise church teaching. The priest could not understand the problem; he believed he was simply doing what a Catholic priest was called to

14 Cotton was not sure there would ever actually be enough Catholics in Franklin to make it a full parish. 15 Benedict Wolf to Francis R. Cotton, 7 February 1944, DOA. 16 Ibid. 90

do. If this involved offending his parishioners and the Protestants of Franklin by referring to

Protestantism as a “false religion,” so be it.17

The situation began to improve the following year due to physical improvements to the church and Wolf’s evangelization. The church gained several new members, including a realtor and a couple of recently-arrived doctors who were considerably more prosperous than Wolf’s

initial parishioners. Wolf earned the respect of the African-American community when he said a

prayer for the repose of the soul of “one of [his] old colored friends” before a funeral at the First

Colored Baptist Church.18 His evangelization moved to radio waves in 1946, when he convinced the radio station in nearby Bowling Green to play Catholic programs for free.19 The Glenmarian also had better luck getting financial support from parishioners, especially when it came to the issue of building a new church.20

Wolf received support for his efforts from fellow Glenmary priest, Father Raphael Sourd, who spent several summers traveling through the area conducting open-air preaching from a trailer chapel dubbed the “Chapel of the American Martyrs.”21 Sourd’s program generally

consisted of singing hymns, followed by a movie or a slideshow of the Baltimore Catechism, and

finishing with a question and answer session. To those interested, he would hand out catechisms

after the program. Though clearly inspired by evangelical revivals, Sourd eschewed emotional

sermons and preferred to make his appeal using logical and theological discourse.22 Over the

course of a month, Sourd and his fellow missioners would visit several towns in southern

17 Ibid. 18 Benedict Wolf, “Mission Letters,” The Challenge 8 (Summer, 1945), 3. 19 Part of the reason Wolf was able to do this was that the man was Catholic and happy to see inroads being made in the area. 20 Benedict Wolf to Bishop Francis R. Cotton, 15 June 1946, DOA. 21 “The trailer contained an altar, vestments, candles, crucifix, chalice, missal, stations of the cross, and a confessional.” Bishop via Kauffman, 170. 22 Raphael Sourd to W. Howard Bishop 11 July 1945, GHMA. 91

Kentucky for a few nights, including Franklin, and would occasionally have separate meetings

for African Americans. Sourd claimed that they usually drew between 80-100 people a night to

the main meetings.23 The tour did create some push back: Masons destroyed Catechisms at one

location; the trailer’s tires were deflated and power generator was sabotaged at another; hecklers

showed up most nights. Opposition only turned violent once, when a couple of members of the

audience threw rocks at Sourd while the lights were out after a film ended. One of the rocks

caught him squarely in the head, bloodying him, but not seriously harming him. According to

some Glenmarians, this was the most important thing to come of the open-air preaching because

each time the story was told while making an appeal in a Northern church, it raised hundreds of

dollars for the mission effort.24

St. Mary truly found new life when Father Robert Healey from Boston was appointed

assistant pastor to Wolf in December, 1946. Although Healy was officially stationed at Sacred

Heart parish in Russellville, St. Mary had a priest dedicated primarily to serving it for the first

time in its history.25 Certainly the parish benefited from the enthusiasm of a priest in his first

assignment.26 Healey soon asked permission to say two extra masses a week in Franklin, and with volunteer help, enlarged the chapel and closed in the back porch of the old building. In addition to the chapel, it now had a sacristy, bedroom, and room for instruction.27 He was able to get sisters to visit in the summers to instruct local children as well. The result was that more people in Franklin became interested in joining the church, and with this increase, Bishop Cotton

23 Ibid. 24 Sourd never tired of telling the story, repeating the story regularly until his death. According to one Glenmary priest, if Sourd had known how to talk to people, they never would have thrown rocks at him. 25 Robert Healey to Bishop Francis R. Cotton, 11 December 1947, DOA. 26 This was actually true for every Glenmary priest who served Franklin between 1942 and 1957. In each case, St. Mary was his first assignment after being ordained. 27 Robert Healy to Bishop Francis R. Cotton, 10 April 1948, DOA. 92

finally gave the approval to begin plans for building a church in late 1949.28 He remained cautious, however, and despite pledges from the Catholic Extension Society, Glenmary’s

Northern boosters, and the parishioners of St. Mary’s, construction of the new church did not begin until 1952.29

It is tempting to give Glenmary all of the credit for the improvement of St. Mary’s

fortunes. Certainly there is a clear correlation between the amount of attention Glenmary gave

the parish, first with Wolf visiting from Russellville and then with Healy being devoted to it

almost fulltime, and its growth. This does not, however, provide a full explanation for the

parish’s dramatic turnaround in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Instead it is helpful to consider

the parishioners themselves. As previously noted, the financial and social status of the

congregation improved throughout this period, which increased the church’s reputation around

town. Perhaps the most important parishioner in this regard was John Larue. Larue had returned

to the Catholic Church in 1945. As a farm auctioneer and major property owner in Franklin, he

had influence in many parts of town.30 Larue was quite happy to use his influence and business

acumen to benefit St. Mary’s. At various time he proposed ventures that would both make the

parish money and support its evangelistic mission to the area.31 Interestingly, Larue’s support of

the parish does not seem entirely altruistic. He managed to make money on most deals he

28 Robert Healy to Bishop Francis R. Cotton, 12 December 1949, DOA. 29 There were a number of reasons for this. Healy’s initial estimate of $12,000 as a final cost correctly struck Bishop Cotton as unrealistic. He dismissed Glenmary’s second set of plans as being physically impossible. See Bishop Francis R. Cotton to Robert Healy, 1 December 1949; William O’Brien to Bishop Francis R. Cotton, 27 February 1950; Patrick O’Donnell to Bishop Francis R. Cotton, 14 August 1951; Patrick O’Donnell to Bishop Francis R. Cotton, 18 June 1952; Bishop Francis R. Cotton to Patrick O’Donnell, 3 July 1952; and William O’Brien to Bishop Francis R. Cotton, 16 July 1952, DOA. 30 Benedict Wolf to Bishop Francis R. Cotton, 15 September 1945, DOA. 31 Most notably, he proposed that the parish buy a hospital for sale in Franklin and staff it with Glenmary sisters. His plan to make better use of the plots in the Catholic cemetery was his most successful on behalf of the parish. 93

secured for the church, and he seemed to delight in mischievously scandalizing Protestants.32

Regardless, his participation helped legitimize St. Mary’s in the eyes of the community and put it

on more stable financial ground.

The legitimization of Catholicism in Franklin was certainly a primary component of

Glenmary’s approach to evangelization. In a small town where anonymity was impossible and church membership helped determine reputations, few people wanted to join a church that was seen as evil, foreign, unstable, or simply weird. Beginning with Healey, Glenmarians in Franklin made themselves as visible as possible. They joined civic organizations, participated in town parades, and lobbied (unsuccessfully until 1956) to participate in the local ministerial alliance.33

The priests were also acutely aware of the negative stereotypes of Catholics in general and

priests in particular in the South and worked to dispel them. Women, for example, could not ride

alone in cars with priests; this was especially true for nuns.34 Although they were involved in

civic organizations and charitable groups around town, they avoided any semblance of political

activity, particularly when workers at a nearby plant considered unionizing in 1957. Lastly,

although the Home Missioners ministered to African Americans and celebrated segregated

masses for them, this work was done discretely.35 Both Glenmary and the diocese were aware

that one public mistake could set back the work of evangelization a generation.

Glenmary priests also used local media, particularly the Franklin Favorite, as a means to introduce Catholicism to the area. Healy had permission to print Catholic information articles in

32 Wolf to Cotton, 15 September 1945. 33 Franklin Favorite 1952-1957. 34 W. Howard Bishop to Bishop Francis R. Cotton, 12 July 1942, DOA. Bishop Francis R. Cotton to Clement Borchers, 26 May 1945, DOA. 35 Bishop Francis R. Cotton to Robert Healy, 10 April 1951, DOA. 94

the Favorite as long as they did not raise ire of Protestants.36 Healy and other Glenmary priests took full advantage of this, and one can chart the parish’s rise in community esteem in the pages of the Favorite. In 1938, the church did not warrant a mention of its proper name. During the

1940s and early ‘50s, priests had to pay for their information articles to be published while the

Baptist minister’s Sunday sermon was published for free. Eventually the Favorite began to publish these and parish news articles for free, but they were often hidden in the second section or at the end of the classified ads. Mass and radio broadcast schedules began to appear on a regular basis. By 1957, parish events were listed prominently on the paper’s religion page and sometimes even made the front page. Citizens of Franklin seemed particularly interested in St.

Mary’s Christmas celebrations.

Despite Glenmary priests’ best efforts, however, opposition to Catholicism in Franklin remained, although, as Bishop Cotton noted, that opposition was rarely straightforward.37 Older parishioners recall that at the time Protestants would rarely say a rude word to them, but they would suddenly find a reason to cross to the other side of the street rather than meet a Catholic on the sidewalk.38 As Monsignor Peter Braun noted in his assessment of Franklin in 1942,

Franklin is a Baptist town. People were friendly, but there is prejudice. The Baptist minister, Brother Davis, wields considerable influence. Baptists and Davis would be very prejudiced against a Catholic nursing home or hospital. Civil officials would follow. 39

The issue of a local Catholic cemetery also created tensions between Catholics and their neighbors. The cemetery was a holdover from the nineteenth century, and few of the Catholics in Franklin had any relatives buried there. The more important issue stemmed from the fact that

36 Robert Healy to Bishop Francis R. Cotton, 29 March 1951. DOA. 37 Cotton to Healy, 10 April 1951. 38 Interview with Parishioners A and C, St. Mary Church, and Father George Mathis, March 2011. 39 Peter Braun of Owensboro, Assessment of Franklin to Bishop Francis R. Cotton, 11 November 1952, DOA. 95

the parish could not afford to keep up the cemetery, which bordered the main town cemetery.

The circumstances offended the friends and families of people buried in both cemeteries and hurt

the reputation of the parish.40 The city wanted to buy the land, but neither the parish nor the diocese could determine whether the land had ever been consecrated, which would prevent it from being sold to non-Catholics. This hesitancy to sell, combined with the fact that the city did perform some maintenance on the cemetery that was paid for by all the citizens of Franklin, engendered some hard feelings until the parish eventually sold the land.41

Whatever problems the citizens of Franklin may have had with their Catholic neighbors,

St. Mary grew enough to finally warrant a new church in 1952. The building would hold 145

people. This seemed likely to meet the parish’s long-term needs, considering that it had gained

about eight new members a year during Glenmary’s time in Franklin, resulting in 75 attending on

a weekly basis in June 1952.42 The church was to be built in what assistant pastor Pat O’Donnell

called a “colonial” style with no side altars and a simple tower intended to be cheap to build and

maintain. Healy and O’Donnell hoped to meet all of the parish’s needs in one building by

including a bedroom/rectory in the back of the church and a basement that could serve as a

fellowship hall and location for catechism classes. In addition to the money raised by the parish,

the building fund included $10,000 from the Catholic Extension Society and donations from

several friends of O’Donnell’s from Chicago.43 It appeared that these donations would cover

$22,000 that O’Donnell estimated it would cost to build the new building.44 By the time new St.

40 Robert Healy to BFrancis R. Cotton, 5 December 1950, DOA. 41 Patrick O’Donnell to Francis R. Cotton, 11 October 1951, DOA. 42 O’Donnell to Cotton, 18 June 1952, DOA. 43 O’Brien to Cotton, 16 July 1952, DOA. 44 Francis R. Cotton to Patrick O’Donnell, 16 June 1952, DOA. 96

Mary Church had been completed in 1953, however, it was clear that he was off by about

$8,000.45

This miscalculation is indicative of a problem shared by many Glenmary priests at the

time: they were enthusiastic, they were dreamers, they were anxious to get to work, but they

were not overly concerned with details. Many of them operated by the adage that God would

provide for their needs without considering the full consequences of their actions. This would

have serious ramifications later in their ministry, and in this instance, it earned them the wrath of

Bishop Cotton, who was ultimately responsible for the construction costs. He was upset both

because the Glenmarians had not received permission to spend more than $22,000 and because

he believed that having outstanding debt would damage the Church’s reputation in Franklin.46

Fr. O’Donnell, the assistant pastor who was actually in charge of St. Mary and therefore did much of the planning for construction of the church, had transferred to another parish just before construction began and thus avoided reprimand. Fr. Healy was not so lucky and was told that he was not to engage in any further construction projects while he was in the Diocese of

Owensboro.47 This slowed down the growth of the parish until Fr. George Mathis arrived in

1955.

Mathis seemed to be a natural fit for Franklin. In an article in the Glenmary Challenge

detailing his work in Franklin, Mathis freely stated that personality trumped theological

argument in gaining converts in small towns. Unlike Wolf and Sourd, he favored ecumenism

and community building based on kindness: he avoided contentious theological issues when

possible, and always had a supply of jelly beans for the children of Franklin. The result of his

45 Bishop Francis R. Cotton to Robert Healy, 16 December 1953 and 4 February 1954, GHMA. 46 Ibid. 47 Bishop Francis R. Cotton to Clement Borchers, 16 February 1954, GHMA. 97

approach, as the Challenge put it, was that “all kinds of people like to help out Father George.”48

Mathis’s personality was just one of the qualities that served him well in Franklin. His talents as an artist, designer, and cabinet maker allowed the parish to finish decorating their new church at a great savings and endeared him to his congregation.

Despite Glenmary’s relative success during the first fifteen years in Franklin, their accomplishments never quite seemed to match their ambitions. Their correspondence indicates their desire at various times to open a school or a nursing home or a hospital. None of these ever got past the planning stage. The parish increased in size, but never quite as much as it did in other parishes around the same time. Although Glenmary’s work was crucial to establishing a permanent Catholic presence in Franklin, St. Mary’s exponential growth between 1958 and 1968 was not the result of any ingenious new approaches to mission work or a Catholic revival.

Instead, the opening of several new factories and businesses brought dozens of Catholics from the North.

St. Matthew Church – Statesboro, Georgia

The Glenmary mission in Statesboro, Georgia followed a similar, albeit far more successful, pattern as Franklin in the 1940s and ‘50s. In fact, Glenmary priests, almost to a man, still refer to St. Matthew mission as the most successful one the society ever had. Some of this success resulted from the hard work of Glenmary priests, and some of it resulted from simply being in the right place at the right time, demonstrating the importance of economic and social conditions beyond the Glenmarian’s control to his success as a missionary.

Thanks to the influx of Catholics from other areas just prior to and during World War II,

Father Bishop saw potential in Statesboro, and the Georgia mission received even greater support

48 “Mission Trooper for Two Counties,” The Challenge 20 (Autumn, 1957): 8-9. 98

from Glenmary than Franklin. It was one of the few parishes in which he was able to implement his ideal grouping of missioners: two priests and a brother. In this case, Father Francis McGrath

became pastor, Father Ed Smith became assistant pastor, and Brother Vincent Wilmes assisted

them during their first year in 1944. McGrath, a quiet, studious young man, was considered a

rising star in Glenmary. Smith was gregarious and soon became a common sight around town

wearing his cassock while walking his St. Bernard, Bruno. Both priests shared an enthusiasm for

mission work, an enthusiasm that was not dampened by the fact that they generally had less than

10 parishioners at Sunday mass. As Smith later noted, “In the first year we had more visitors via

the fireplace than through the front door. Folks were sort of scared of us, but the rats, squirrels,

mice, roaches, ants, and chipmunks who called on us down the chimney were legion.”49 Taking

their lack of parishioners as a challenge, McGrath and Smith traveled the area saying mass in

homes and military installations. The fact that their largest congregation was made up of

German POWs did nothing to convince the citizens of Bulloch County that Catholicism was not

a foreign and possibly dangerous religion.

McGrath and especially Smith sought to counteract this by being as visible in Statesboro and the surrounding communities as possible. They were adamant that they would not compromise their faith, but this did not mean they could not be neighborly or civic minded.

Smith joined a variety of civic organizations. He also conducted open air preaching in 1945, seeking to use a typically Protestant approach to evangelization. Smith, ever the optimist, claimed to have generated a great deal of interest through these sessions, but there is scant evidence that they ever resulted in more than a handful of converts.50 What it did do was

announce to the community that the Catholic Church had arrived in this corner of southern

49 “From Small Beginnings.” Undated article regarding the history of St. Matthew Church, DOS. 50 Ed Smith to Glenmary, 9 August 1945, GHMA. 99

Georgia. The large outdoor Nativity scene centered among the pine trees on church property

attracted quite a bit of attention as well, with Smith reporting that several cars stopped each night

so that their inhabitants could study the scene.51 As in each of their missions, Glenmary used

local media to increase their visibility. They published columns in the Statesboro Herald and

bought time on the local radio station to broadcast Catholic programming as well. Like Franklin,

this programming varied between canned programs, like the St. Mary’s Hour and sermons, and apologetics lessons delivered by the priests themselves. Initially they only broadcasted once a month, but by 1954, they were on twice a week.52 This public approach continued after Fr.

McGrath left Statesboro in September, 1946, to study in Rome. Fr. Smith became the pastor of

Statesboro with Fr. Henry Burke as his assistant. Fr. Joe Nagele replaced Burke in 1947 and

would have the longest term of any Glenmary priest in Statesboro, serving as assistant pastor

until 1952 and then as pastor until 1957. Fathers John Garry, Charles Hughes, and Robert “Doc”

Rademacher assisted him between 1954 and 1957. This was the first assignment for each of

these young priests, and they each seem to have embraced the idea that everyone living in the

seven county region was a part of their mission, Catholics and non-Catholics alike.

With regard to their mission of actually winning souls for the Catholic Church, the

Glenmarians eventually settled on a three-prong approach to missionary work, focusing on

tenant farmers, the needy, and area youths. Glenmary’s focus on farmers and the needy made

sense considering at the time of their arrival in Georgia, many of the Catholics they found were

poor farmers. The priests regularly visited these farmers at their homes, baptizing their children

and creating a sense of community among them. The parish aimed many of its charitable actions

at sharecroppers, distributing several hundred pounds of clothes to them each year, regardless of

51 Ed Smith, Journal, undated. 52 Ed Smith to Clement Borchers, 23 May 1954, GHMA. 100

religious affiliation.53 Although the parish’s generosity won it some favor with the community,

Fr. Smith’s sponsorship of Polish, Ukrainian, and Croatian “Displaced Persons” to work on local farms did not. The Displaced Persons often had a difficult time finding work, but were invaluable to the parish as a source of cheap labor. When several of them left in 1950 to join their respective ethnic groups in various cities, people in both the town and the parish criticized

Smith for wasting the effort and expense needed to bring them to the United States. Smith disagreed, arguing that charity demanded it.54

Father Smith seemed to have a higher opinion of the D.P.’s than he did the African-

American sharecroppers who remained in the area. In reports from his mission published in the

Glenmary Challenge in 1949, Smith discussed the impact of D.P.’s on the community and parish

in Statesboro. His article stated that black sharecroppers now had competition from

“industrious” Displaced Persons. In the following issue, Smith reiterates how hard the Displaced

Persons worked and how well they had assimilated themselves into Georgian society.55 These compliments might not stand out so much if not for a 1946 picture of a sharecropper that accompanied one of Smith’s reports from the Statesboro mission. The picture carried the caption

“Genial, care-free, and unambitious, but with a great capacity for religious fervor, the Southern

Negro goes his way unconscious of his spiritual needs.”56

The third prong of Glenmary’s evangelistic approach – youth ministry – was particularly

important to Fr. Smith’s mission work and seems to have been a successful way for Catholicism

to enter into the town’s life. He gave special attention to mentoring the boys of the parish, but,

53 Ed Smith, Journal, April 15 to May 15, 1950. GHMA. 54 Ibid. 55 Howard Bishop, “We Visit Three Mission Areas,” The Challenge 9 (Summer, 1946): 5; Ed Smith, “Letters and Comments,” The Challenge 11 (Spring, 1948): 7; Ed Smith, “Statesboro, Georgia,” The Challenge 12 (Summer, 1949): 3; Ed Smith, “Statesboro, Georgia,” The Challenge 12 (Fall, 1949): 7. 56 Ed Smith, “From the Mission Front,” The Challenge 9 (Spring 1946): 2 101

here again, the Glenmarian did not limit himself to only ministering to Catholics. Many teenage

and young boys from around the town admired him, calling him “one of the gang.”57 He could

call on them to go camping or to help paint the church and apparently received an enthusiastic

response to both.58 He also sent out regular mailings to young people in the community. Smith

was not alone in ministering to the youth of the area. The most memorable of the programs was

a summer camp taught by the visiting Glenmary Sisters. Protestant and Catholic children of the

seven counties in the Glenmary mission resided at Molly Lears’s rural home for this residential

camp. The home had once been quite elegant, but by the time “Ms. Molly” volunteered its use, it

was in rough shape. The floors slanted east, causing the furniture to follow suit, the walls were

papered with old newspapers, and the house lacked any plumbing. Yet the children, regardless

of background, loved it. One of them later remembered that it was there she learned the “truth of

what it meant to be Catholic.”59 After that camp ended, St. Matthew parish began holding

Vacation School in Statesboro, which made the town aware of the number of Catholics in the area and even made the local newspaper at a time when St. Matthews was rarely mentioned.

Despite the relative success of Glenmary at reaching out to young people in the area, the priests obeyed Fr. Bishop’s wishes, and none ever attempted to found a Catholic school.

The priests were not the only members of the parish interested in proving that the

Catholic Church could be a valuable part of the community. In April, 1945, the parish established a women’s group who attended to the church and charitable needs. They did a lot of fundraising for the parish, doing everything from selling religious articles and Christmas

Cards to having dinners and bazaars for the entire community. The first of these, a Spring

57 History of St. Matthew’s Catholic Church, 1944-1993, (Statesboro: privately published), DOS. 58 Ibid. 59 Ibid. 102

Festival in 1946, saw approximately 200 people from Statesboro attend.60 The numbers only increased from there. The women of the church were thus able to both raise the social standing of St. Matthew in the town and greatly improve the parish buildings, adding everything from pine trees to a library. The situation was further improved as new, middle-class and professionally-trained Catholics arrived to work for the Georgia Power Company and Georgia

Teachers College. The fervor of their pastors inspired the congregation to greater involvement in both the parish and the community.61 The parish remained small, but what it lacked in membership, it made up in zeal.

Smith’s six year tenure saw the Catholics of Statesboro move their place of worship four times. It took the Glenmarians three years to save enough money to buy a central gas furnace for their initial rectory/chapel, which promptly burned down the building the first night it was installed in December 1946. A parishioner worked for the Georgia Power Company, which offered the use of a large room in its Stateboro office to the congregation for Christmas Midnight

Mass and subsequent services until a permanent facility could be found. Seven months later,

Smith chose an old concrete block building that had been used as a liquor store to be the new chapel. After the county voted to become dry, the owner sold the building and the property to the Catholic Church out of spite.62 The grumbling and jokes in Statesboro about Catholics moving into a liquor store were perhaps not surprising. Finally, 1950 saw the completion and dedication of the original St. Matthew Church.

Like the construction of the new church in Franklin, the construction of St. Matthew

Church provides insight into the complex relationship between Catholics and their fellow

60 Minutes of Council of Catholic Women, St. Matthew Church, April 1946, DOS. 61 Interviews with Parishioners A-D of St. Matthew Catholic Church, Statesboro, GA, March-April, 2011. 62 Interview with Glenmary priest 1, Glenmary Oral Histories, GHMA. 103

townspeople. The Spanish-Gothic style church, while relatively simple by Catholic standards,

was quite impressive compared to other Statesboro churches. This caused some consternation

among Protestants who, up this point, had dismissed Catholics as “a small, unimportant minority

group.” Father Smith encountered quite a bit of opposition from the Missionary Baptists’

minister in particular, who used his local radio program to attack Catholicism in general and St.

Matthew’s building fund in particular.63 Yet it is clear that Smith and the other Glenmarians’

efforts to publicize Catholicism and turn it into part of Statesboro’s civic landscape during the

1940s were successful in winning at least a grudging acceptance from their Protestant neighbors.

As Smith noted in late 1950, “The folks in town seem to have finally accepted the new church as

inevitable, and there is little anti-Catholic propaganda floating around in comparison to several months ago. The church is still a local showplace…”64 Perhaps the most telling indicator of

improving stature of Catholicism in Statesboro was the fact that 66 Protestant businessmen in

Statesboro contributed to the cost of construction, which amounted to $30,000. Although the

majority of the funding for the new church came from Glenmary’s northern supporters and the

Catholic Extension Society, this still represented a surprising show of Protestant support in 1950.

This is not to say that Statesboro completely accepted St. Matthew and its parishioners as

full participants in community life. The Statesboro Herald regularly placed stories about the

First Baptist Church on the front page; St. Matthew stories were relegated to the later pages on

the rare occasions when they appeared. Questions of whether or not Catholics were really

Christian or really American persisted, and relationships between Catholic and Protestant young

people were discouraged by parents on both sides.65 In 1950 an imposter “renegade” priest

63 Ed Smith, Journal, April and May, 1950, GHMA. 64 Ed Smith, Journal, November and December, 1950, GHMA. 65 Interviews with Parishioners A-F of St. Matthew Catholic Church, Statesboro, GA, March-April, 2011. 104

sponsored by the Christian Mission Organization, “an alleged organization of ex-priests,” arrived in Statesboro to denounce the Catholic Church as un-American and anti-democratic.66 Perhaps

the most overt instance of anti-Catholicism came in 1954 as Fr. John Garry worked with the

African-American population in Statesboro in 1954. He had some success, particularly with teachers.67 This caught the attention of the local Ku Klux Klan, who left a line of dead crows on

the street in front of the old liquor store that was still used as a parish hall and catechism

classroom. Glenmary did not end its outreach to blacks in Statesboro, but it did so more

discretely in the future. 68

Fr. Smith unquestionably established a solid foundation for the parish, but St. Matthew and its associated missions became even more successful in the years after he left. By 1950,

Glenmary had successfully established missions in Bay Branch and Millen. Within four years

they added missions in Claxton and Sylvania and took on responsibility for the prison in

Reidsville. Smith’s replacement, Fr. Joe Nagele is remembered as an extremely hard working

man, open to physical and spiritual labor, but he believed that the work of caring for the seven

county mission had become too great to be handled by one parish in Statesboro.69 Despite the

addition of a third priest, Nagele repeatedly asked that Sylvania be split into its own parish.70

Unreliable cars, long distances, dirt roads, and lack of extra hours in the day all conspired to keep

the priest from completing the work he believed necessary to maintain their congregations.

Eventually he did succeed in building a church in Sylvania and having it declared a separate

66 Andrew S. Moore, The South's Tolerable Alien: Roman Catholics in Alabama and Georgia, 1945- 1970 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2007), 33-34. 67 Joe Nagele to Clement Borchers, 3 January 1954, GHMA. 68 Interviews with St. Matthew Parishioner B, April 2011. 69 He was famous especially for building Quonset huts to house catechism classes and parish other events. 70 Joe Nagele to Clement Borchers, 13 May 1954, GHMA. 105

parish in 1954. This was the first of many parishes that would be split off from St. Matthew, exactly as Howard Bishop had hoped and planned.

While much of Glenmary’s success in Statesboro can be attributed to their cultivation of converts and relationships with non-Catholics, there is no doubt that most of their accomplishments were aided by the economic boom that the town experienced in the 1950s. In addition to businesses arriving, the college rebranded itself as Georgia Southern University and began to grow, bringing in more Catholics. With the 1956 relocation of the Rockwell

Manufacturing Plant from Pittsburgh, large numbers of Catholics moved to Statesboro. The parish quickly doubled in size. Glenmary’s work as missionaries should not be discounted, but their greatest value to the Catholic community of Statesboro was simply being present as Sun

Belt migration began. Twenty-five years before, the closest Catholic Church was in Savannah.

Because of the Glenmarians’ efforts, the small waves of Catholics who arrived in Statesboro during the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s had a spiritual home where they could retain their faith, instead of looking elsewhere as they sought to fit into their new locale.

St. Francis de Sales Church – Idabel, Oklahoma

If St. Matthew was Glenmary’s most successful mission, St. Francis de Sales parish in

Idabel, Oklahoma, was one of its most challenging. Glenmary only arrived in this parish at the end of the period discussed in this chapter, just as other parishes began to boom. The parish was tiny, isolated, and poor, even by the standards of this study, when Glenmary arrived in 1957.

Fathers John Garvey and Leonard Spanjers were stationed at St. Henry in Plunketville, with a population of less than 100, because, against all reason, it was the official parish of McCurtain

County. The roads in McCurtain County were so underdeveloped that in order to travel the 63 miles from Plunketville to Idabel, they actually had to drive out of Oklahoma, into Arkansas, and 106

then back into Oklahoma.71 Adding to the priests’ difficulties was the general lawlessness of the county. Stories of cattle rustling, bar fights resulting in deaths, and especially moonshining were a weekly feature of the front page the McCurtain County Gazette. The common joke

among diocesan priests in Oklahoma was that in McCurtain County, murder was only a venial

sin. Don Stevenson, the local district attorney and a member of St. Francis, complained that

juries were hesitant to give harsh sentences because so many of them had relatives who had been

arrested. 72 It comes as no surprise then that in such an isolated, violent area about 50 percent of

McCurtain County did not attend church.73 The overwhelming number of those who did belong

to a church attended Baptist churches of various types. Clearly this was a difficult territory in

which to gain converts to Catholicism. Even many Glenmarians thought it was far too hard a

proposition.74 They thus altered their initial goals in McCurtain County, focusing on helping

isolated Catholics preserve their faith rather winning new souls. Simply surviving as a present

and public face for Catholicism was an accomplishment in this part of Oklahoma.

Upon arriving in McCurtain County in 1957, Fathers Garvey and Spanjers began

broadcasting a weekly radio program on Catholicism. They also engaged in the common

Glenmary practices of street preaching and providing clothes to the needy. These actions

seemed to have little effect in the first year in Oklahoma, as the only people to join their

churches were the few Catholics who moved in from elsewhere. They did, however, create

greater interest in Catholicism, as evidenced by the 30 people Spanjers noted as wanting to learn

71 Interview with Glenmary priest 2. 72 Ibid. 73 1957 Glenmary census of County, GHMA. 74 Interview with Glenmary priest 2 and interviews with several Glenmary priests, 2009-2010. 107

more about the Church in his yearly report to Glenmary headquarters.75 It would take about fifteen years for the parish to truly begin to grow.

Looking back at the three parishes, Howard Bishop’s influence can be seen in virtually everything Glenmary did from its foundation in 1939 until the mid-fifties. His grounding in the republican Catholic tradition meant that Glenmary, while unquestionably loyal to Rome, concentrated more on the local, American context in which they operated. Its very existence grew out of the desire to save Americans who, in Bishop’s view, otherwise lived in darkness.

The way to do this was through Catholic evangelization, but even more importantly, by simply being present. He wanted his priests to be good neighbors and citizens in the small towns in which they lived. Consequently, Glenmarians believed that the entire population of the county constituted their parish, not simply the Catholics. They were to turn no one down and became the ministers known for charity in their communities.

One of the major differences between Glenmary and diocesan parishes during this period was that all of the Glenmary parishes in this study had priests who came from the immigrant, urban tradition of the North, while the diocesan parishes usually had local, diocesan priests who grew up in the republican, if not necessarily rural, tradition of the South. But Bishop’s training and outlook mitigated this difference; the Glenmarians may not have been of the South, but

Bishop made sure they were formed for life in the region. These early Glenmary fathers were not trying to change the Southern Church or Southern culture; they were trying to build the former by blending into the latter. The result was a fairly cohesive relationship between the

75 Mission Progress Report for Plunketville, 1957. GHMA. 108

priest and parish that would not be seen in later decades as Bishop’s influence diminished after

his death.76

As the following parish sketches will make evident, a few other differences between

Glenmary and non-Glenmary parishes existed. The non-Glenmary parishes tended to have deeper, older roots in the community, and their members tended to be slightly more prosperous.

Parishioners’ recollections and a lack of archival evidence suggest that Catholics in these towns may have faced slightly less animosity that Catholics in towns with Glenmary parishes in the

1940s and 1950s. Being closer to middle class also made these Catholics a little more respectable. The fact that these diocesan parishes tended to be less ethnically diverse than the

Glenmary parishes may have helped as well. These churches were not yet relying on Catholics moving into town to create a community. Instead, they were steady, albeit small, parishes that relied on intermarriage and the occasional convert to maintain their numbers. Of the three diocesan parishes in this study, only St. William in Durant saw significant growth, and that was due primarily to a post-World War II economic boom.

St. Paul Church – Princeton, Kentucky

Roughly 85 miles away from the Glenmary parish in Franklin, St. Paul’s Church in

Princeton, Kentucky, further demonstrated the value of financial stability and having a priest

dedicated to the community. Beyond the purchase of a pipe organ in 1941, little of note

76 Another factor that mitigated the differences in development between the Glenmary and diocesan parishes that were found is that the Franciscans who administered St. Theresa in Cordele, Georgia, for much of this period were outsiders too. Coming from New York, the friars had to learn the ways of Southern Catholicism as well. They did so admirably. Although the Franciscans had no figure equivalent to Howard Bishop, the most significant priests in the early years of Franciscan presence in Cordele, Godfrey Weitekemp, was admired for reasons that could have been applied to the founder of Glenmary. Leaders of the Savannah diocese praised him for being prudent, sympathetic to Southern culture, and having a good work ethic (Bishop Gerald O’Hara to Bertand Campbell, O.F.M., 4 September 1945; Joseph Moylan to Thomas Plassman, O.F.M, 28 January 1950; DSA). What we see, then, are priests in small Southern parishes who adapted to Southern realities either by upbringing or formation. 109

happened in the parish between the building of the new church building in 1936 and Father

George Boehmicke’s purchase of a building to serve as a parochial school in 1947. It is unclear

from parish records whether Boehmicke was an assistant pastor at Sts. Peter and Paul in

Hopkinsville or Immaculate Conception in Earlington, but what mattered was that the Catholic

population of Princeton was his primary responsibility. The parish was financially sound in the

years immediately following World War II, and parishioners hoped that Bishop Cotton would

give permission for them to support Boehmicke as their resident pastor and to open a school.77

St. Paul got the school, if not the resident priest. Father Boehmicke purchased a frame

house at 203 South Seminary Street from Necie Cattlette Poston for $1.00. The building would

serve as the parish school until 1963, and Boehmicke brought in the Ursuline Sisters of Mount

St. Joseph from Maple Mount, Kentucky, to teach.78 Virtually every diocesan record from this

era related to St. Paul deals with school concerns, reflecting Bishop Cotton’s passion for Catholic

education. Of all of the towns in this study in which a major economic boom did not take place

prior to 1957, St. Paul was the steadiest Catholic community. There were no major controversies

nor did parishioners or priests from the era recall a great deal of overt anti-Catholicism.79 The primary concerns of the priests who followed Boehmicke at St. Paul, William Borntraeger from

1949 to 1956 and Carl J. Glahn beginning in 1957, were mostly mundane, dealing with the daily issues of running a parochial school, such as requests for dispensations from the Eucharistic fast for a student with asthma, concerns about children’s balls rolling into neighbors’ yards, and

77 George Boehmicke to Bishop Francis Cotton, 30 January 1947. DOA. 78 Anthony Blackwell, St. Paul Church, 1973-1998, 25th Anniversary, Princeton, Kentucky, A History, (Self-Published, 1998), no page numbers. 79 Interviews with St. Paul parishioners A, D, March 2011. 110

advice on transporting students to school.80 The school enjoyed a good reputation among

Catholics and non-Catholics in Princeton, and longtime members of St. Paul credit the school for

building respect for Catholics in the town.81

Foundational to the growth of the school and the stability of the parish were the Catholic families in Princeton. All three priests who attended St. Paul between 1939 and 1957 referred to

several “good Catholic families” in the parish.82 At a time in which priests’ letters often offered

blunt assessments of the ways in which the laity failed to meet to meet the standards the clergy

held for them, such praise was not necessarily a regular occurrence in letters to bishops. For

priests who had to balance responsibilities to at least three communities, this support was

invaluable. The school in particular served as a rallying point. Families in St. Paul had a deep

commitment to Catholic education, which they supported through time, talent, and especially

treasure. With the help of Bishop Cotton and the diocese, the parish paid off the school’s debt

quickly, earning further respect from non-Catholics in Princeton.83 The anti-Catholic prejudice found so often in rural western Kentucky was milder here.

Catholicism in Princeton was steady if unspectacular through the late 1950s. St. Paul’s history over these twenty years demonstrates what having a committed priest and a dedicated, if small, laity can do, but also demonstrates the limits of growth in prestige and numbers when there was nothing to draw Catholics into the area. Intermarriage and conversion were not enough to swell the number of Catholics despite a friendly, well-managed parish.

St. Theresa Church – Cordele, Georgia

80 Richard Clements to Bishop Francis Cotton, 2 October 1951; William Borntraeger to Bishop Francis Cotton, 3 December 1951; Carl J. Glahn to Francis Cotton, 3 October 1957, DOA. 81 Interviews with St. Paul parishioners B, D, E March 2011. 82 George Boehmicke to Bishop Francis Cotton, 5 August 1945; Bishop Francis Cotton to William Borntraeger, 2 February 1954; Carl J. Glahn to Bishop Francis Cotton, 3 August 1957, DOA. 83 William Borntraeger to Bishop Francis Cotton, 2 August 1950, DOA. 111

St. Teresa parish in Albany, Georgia, remained large and remote in 1939. Father Thomas

Brennan, and his assistant pastor, Father James Doherty, celebrated mass at St. Teresa and its

missions on a weekly basis. Among the missions were St. Mary Church in Americus (38 miles

away) and St. Theresa Church in Cordele (52 miles away). Though isolated by location, radio

and newspapers kept Albany in touch with national concerns, including Father Charles

Coughlin’s campaign of anti-semitism. In 1939 Brennan wrote that Coughlin’s political views

were beginning to create anti-Catholic sentiment in southwestern Georgia, telling Bishop O’Hara

that the Albany Herald had “always been fair and considerate of us, but it seems they are out of

patience with Fr. Coughlin’s breaking into national politics. There is scarcely a time I go down

town that someone approaches me re: Fr. Coughlin.”84 Brennan’s letter was notable in that

contained a rare mention among the records of the parishes in this study of anything outside of

local concerns. Brennan was grateful for his bishop’s support via mail, as the missions in

southwest Georgia were very much out on their own. This meant that Catholics in the area

usually had to fend for themselves. In order to combat the negative attention garnered by

Coughlin, the Albany chapter of the Catholic Laymen’s Association of Georgia paid for Catholic radio broadcasts to be played on the local radio station, WGPC.85

The parish’s isolation from Savannah became a massive problem over the next few years, as the priests’ poor health and needs elsewhere created an administrative disaster for Bishop

O’Hara. In November 1940, Father Brennan suffered his second heart attack in three months

while his assistant pastor, Father Doherty, was rushed to the hospital with appendicitis. Because

84 Thomas Brennan to Bishop Gerald O’Hara, 1 February 1939, DSA. In his reply to Brennan, O’Hara demonstrated the tribalism and long-term thinking common to the American hierarchy that allowed Coughlin to flourish in the short-term, dismissing the editorials as the press simply using Coughlin as an excuse to take “a dig at the Church” and expressing hope that Brennan and his parishioners weren’t too “annoyed” until the controversy passed. Bishop Gerald O’Hara to Thomas Brennan, 1 February 1939, DSA. 85 Bishop Gerald O’Hara to Thomas Finn, 2 April 1941, DSA. 112

of the parish’s immense size, there were no diocesan priests nearby and none to spare to cover

masses in Albany, Americus, or Cordele. O’Hara had to request a replacement from the

Redemptorists in Tampa until he could find an available priest from his diocese.86 Father

Thomas Finn came to Albany from Atlanta in March 1941, where he had been in charge of the

Georgia Tech Newman Club, Regional Direction of the C.Y.O, and the President of the Union of

the Holy Name Societies Atlanta Division. Finn was a short timer who seemed to have been

brought in to appraise the situation for O’Hara before a permanent replacement could be found.

After examining St. Theresa in Cordele, where the church property consisted of almost an entire

city block, Finn proposed that the parish retain enough property to build a rectory, a school, and

a convent and sell the rest.87 In June 1941, O’Hara assigned Monsignor Joseph Cassidy to be

pastor of St. Theresa and its associated missions and moved Finn to a parish in the Atlanta

suburbs.88 By October of that year, Father James King was the new pastor of St. Theresa, and

Father Nicholas Frizzelle was his assistant.89 No information in the diocesan archives explains the reason for Cassidy’s reassignment. In sum, St. Theresa had four pastors and two assistant pastors in less than eleven months, and would ultimately have five pastors in less than two years.

Though no current parishioners recall this tumultuous period, it is difficult to believe that this could have had anything but a negative effect on the perception of Catholicism in Albany,

Americus and Cordele, if not the practice. Neither the parishioners nor the townspeople in any of these communities had time to get to know the pastors, lending an air of instability to the

86 Bishop Gerald O’Hara to Francis Brennan, 6 November 1940, DSA. 87 Bishop Gerald O’Hara to Thomas Finn, 3 March 1941; Thomas Finn to Bishop Gerald O’Hara, 15 March 1941; Bishop Gerald O’Hara to Thomas Finn, 22 March 1941; O’Hara to Finn, 2 April 1941; DSA. 88 Bishop Gerald O’Hara to Thomas Brennan, 18 June 1941, DSA. 89 Bishop Gerald O’Hara to James King, 18 October 1941, DSA. 113

churches. Father King was a seasoned priest, and having been the pastor of the parish in Athens,

Georgia for many years prior to coming to Albany, the situation calmed a bit during his tenure.

Unfortunately for Father King, the outbreak of World War II exacerbated the challenges presented by Albany’s relative remoteness. Creating particular difficulty was the rubber rationing caused by the war. King and Frizzelle traveled more than 100 miles each week to say mass at the missions of St. Teresa, and their car needed new tires. The chairman of the local rationing board said he regretted that priests would be so inconvenienced “because [they took their] religion more serious [sic] than the other preachers,” but the board gave “preference to business, as business is a greater necessity than religion.”90 The chairman’s statement indicated definite respect for Catholicism, but a fundamental lack of comprehension as well. As O’Hara wrote when he offered to help King obtain the tires, the problem was the result of Rationing

Boards in Georgia typically being made up of Protestant men who did not “understand the difference between a Minister and the Priest.” To them, public services with a minister were optional; to the priest, skipping the sacrament of the Eucharist was unconscionable. O’Hara was familiar with the issue because so many priests in the diocese were mission priests who had to cover great distances each Sunday to offer mass in multiple churches. The bishop feared losing progress made in small cities and towns and rural areas in southern Georgia because mass could not be said regularly.91

The priests of southwest Georgia worked very hard to ensure that no progress was lost, especially Father Frizzelle. The assistant pastor obtained O’Hara’s enthusiastic support for broadcasting weekly 15 minute sermons on radio stations in Albany (WALB) and Cordele

90 James King to Bishop Gerald O’Hara, 1 June 1942, DSA. 91 Bishop Gerald O’Hara to Harry P. Sommers, 8 June 1942; Hughes Spalding to Bishop Gerald O’Hara, 19 August 1942; DSA. 114

(WMGA). Frizzelle thought that he would “have much opposition and competition from the ministers,” but he hoped that his “yankee-cracker brogue” and what he had to say would win many souls.92 Frizzelle focused his energy especially on Americus, which generated enthusiasm

for the parish and desire to renovate the church facilities. This enthusiasm may have been what

allowed for Americus to become a separate parish in 1942.93 King and Frizzelle received

additional help when a Catholic chaplain was stationed at the recently-opened Turner Army

Airfield just outside of Albany. The situation became untenable, however, when King was also made an Army chaplain in July 1942. It was at this point that Bishop O’Hara asked King if he was willing to have Franciscans take over administration of part of the parish. The beleaguered priest welcomed the help, and the Province of the Most Holy Name Franciscan Fathers of New

York would serve in the area for the next fifty years.94

The New York Franciscans had been interested in sending priests to the Diocese of

Savannah for over a year when Bishop O’Hara gave them permission to send a pastor for the

newly erected parish of St. Mary in Americus. Due to the increase in vocations that was

common in Northern cities, the Franciscans had enough priests to carry on “regularly established

work” and expand activity to mission work abroad and at home. Like the Glenmarians, they

were interested in missionary dioceses in the South, having already served in the Dioceses of

Raleigh, Charleston, and Richmond.95 O’Hara initially refused their offer because he had

brought in two other religious congregations in the previous three years, and he feared that there

92 Nicholas Frizelle to Bishop Gerald O’Hara, 9 July 1942, DSA. 93 James King to Bishop Gerald O’Hara, 18 July 1942, DSA. 94 James King to Bishop Gerald O’Hara, 23 March 1942; James King to Bishop Gerald O’Hara, 29 July 1942; DSA. 95 Jerome Dawson, O.F.M., to Bishop Gerald O’Hara, 27 April 1941, DSA. 115

would not be enough parishes for secular clergy. He also worried that the diocese would not be

able to adequately fund any new Franciscan missions.96

The bishop reconsidered his stance a year later. The stresses caused by the war and the

rapid turnover of priests in southwestern Georgia certainly played a role in O’Hara’s reversal,

but it seems more likely that by 1942 he had a plan for how to deploy the Franciscans – “[f]irst-

work among the white populations and secondly-work among the colored.”97 He planned to

place the Franciscans in small cities with populations of 7,000-10,000 that had only a few

Catholic families. He believed a resident priest could win converts, though he acknowledged

that this was slow work that could take many years. In this regard, O’Hara’s plan for the

Franciscans was essentially the same as Howard Bishop’s for his Glenmarians. The difference between the two societies was that the Franciscans would minister to African Americans much more directly than Glenmary did in its early years. The diocesan priests in the area, especially

Monsignor Josesph Cassidy, had made a number of black converts over the years. O’Hara hoped the Franciscans could build on this by creating a separate ministry for African Americans.

Interestingly, according to the Franciscans stationed in Americus, blacks wanted their own parishes and priests as much as whites. Father Brendan Pyle, a Franciscan who worked with the black community, thought blacks “would resent being served by a priest attached to a white parish.”98 By using outsiders trained in the North (though some of them were from the South) to

96 Bishop Gerald O’Hara to Jerome Dawson, O.F.M., 17 July 1941, DSA. 97 Bishop Gerald O’Hara to Jerome Dawson, O.F.M., 6 July 1942, DSA. O’Hara’s efforts to improve race relations within the Church earned the reputation of being a liberal. Of particular relevance to both Glenmary and the Franciscans the seven-point social and racial program he launched in the 1930s, drawing attentions the plight of rural areas during the Depression and calling for aid to African-American children. 98 African-American ministry was a major part of the Franciscans’ work in Albany and Americus but not in Cordele. As such, even though the Franciscans’ work in this area is fascinating and worthy of additional study, it is beyond the scope of this dissertation, especially after 1944, when Cordele began to receive more attention as more Franciscans arrived. The first direct mention of Catholic African Americans or outreach to African Americans in Cordele did not take place until after 1957 and will be described in the next chapter. For further information on the 116

work with the black community in each town, O’Hara could avoid the risk of backlash aimed at

local priests. If the situation became too tense, the Franciscans could leave the diocese.

In December 1942, Father Godfrey Weitekamp, O.F.M., became the first Franciscan

priest to celebrate mass in Georgia since the original Spanish missions had been destroyed. He

celebrated his first mass at St. Theresa in Cordele on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception for

eleven people, two of whom received communion. He had difficulty opening the church’s front

door, but otherwise thought it a “beautiful brick church…seating about 175.”99 This was more

than adequate for the 20 Catholics in Cordele (pop. 8,255) at the time. Weitekamp set about

trying increase that number and repair the church in the early months of 1943, holding a mission

in February that attracted an average of 17 people a night and having the windows and door

fixed. His work resulted in two converts in Cordele in his first year.100

Despite being born into a Brooklyn family that had produced several vocations,

Weitekamp had no problem settling to into his surroundings. From his base at St. Mary in

Americus, Weitekamp said mass 31 miles away in Cordele on weekly basis, and took on Tifton

(75 miles from Americus) as a mission in July 1943. Weitekamp’s dedication to mission work

earned him the respect of people in all three towns and O’Hara, who was now willing to allow

the Franciscans establish a permanent house in Americus and send an assistant pastor to aid

Franciscans’ work with African Americans, see O’Hara to Dawson, 6 July 1942; Bertrand Campbell, O.F.M, to Bishop Gerald O’Hara, 1 June 1944; Bertrand Campbell, O.F.M, to Bishop Gerald O’Hara, 6 August 1945; Bishop Gerald O’Hara to Bertrand Campbell, O.F.M., 10 August 1945; Bertrand Campbell, O.F.M, to Bishop Gerald O’Hara, 18 August 1945; O’Hara to Campbell, O.F.M., 4 September 1945; Bishop Gerald O’Hara to Godfrey Weitekamp, O.F.M., O.F.M., 20 April 1946; Godfrey Weitekamp, O.F.M., O.F.M. to Bishop Gerald O’Hara, 20 July 1946; Thomas Plassman, O.F.M. to Bishop Francis Hyland, 6 February 1952; DSA. 99 Patrick Adams, O.F.M., “History of Saint Theresa’s – Cordele” The Southern Cross November 13, 1986; Godfrey Weitekamp, O.F.M., O.F.M., Personal Journal, 5-8 December 1942; DSA. 100 Godfrey Weitekamp, O.F.M., O.F.M. to Bishop Gerald O’Hara, 14 February 1943; Bishop Gerald O’Hara to Godfrey Weitekamp, O.F.M., O.F.M., 10 March 1943; Godfrey Weitekamp, O.F.M., O.F.M. to Bishop Gerald O’Hara, 21 March 1943, DSA. 117

Godfrey.101 This would be the beginning of St. Theresa in Cordele becoming the primary

responsibility of one priest, typically the assistant pastor of St. Mary in Americus.

The next decade and a half in Cordele were steady years of small growth. The various

priests who served St. Theresa, including Father Thomas Albert, O.F.M.; Father Aloysius

Hopkins, O.F.M.; and Rayner Dray, O.F.M., mention making small improvements to the church

and the house next to it in which they stayed a few days each week.102 In several years, no

children made first communion or were confirmed due to the small number of children in the

parish.103 The parish seemed to gain and lose two or three members each year. Longtime

members of the parish have positive memories of this period and the Franciscans who served in

Cordele, so it would be incorrect to characterize these as tough years. This was simply a small

parish in a small town. Two minor incidents are worth noting: for some unexplained reason, the

collections in Cordele spiked in the first half of 1949. Collections at St. Theresa were generally one-third to one-half the size of the collections at St. Mary in Americus, but between March and

July of that year, Cordele’s collections suddenly rivaled or surpassed those in Americus.

Diocesan records provide no suggestions as to why this was the case, and parish members do not recall any notable new members or increase in membership during this time period. The other notable event came two years later, when Bishop Francis E. Hyland saw an article in the Atlanta

Journal about a group of Mexican workers in Vienna, 10 miles north of Cordele. Hyland asked the Franciscans of Americus to provide a Sunday mass for these workers and provide any

101 Flavian Walsh, O.F.M., “Legends: Godfrey Weitekamp, O.F.M., 1906-1962” undated article; Bishop Gerald O’Hara to Jerome Dawson, O.F.M., 16 April 1943, DSA. 102 See Godfrey Weitekamp, O.F.M. to Joseph Moylan, 10 October 1946; Godfrey Weitekamp, O.F.M. to Joseph Moylan, 19 October 1946; Godfrey Weitekamp, O.F.M. to Joseph Moylan, 10 March 1948; Godfrey Weitekamp, O.F.M. to Joseph Moylan, 7 November 1949; Raynor Dray, O.F.M. to Bishop Francis Hyland, 15 March 1952, DSA. 103 Most years in the 1940s and 1950s, the parish had less than 5 school aged children. This was significantly fewer than in Americus or Tifton. 118

additional needed spiritual assistance. This was the first instance of what would eventually become an important part of Catholicism in southwestern Georgia in general and Cordele in particular – outreach to migrant Mexican workers.104

St. Catherine/St. William Church – Durant, Oklahoma

The years preceding World War II were even less promising for St. Catherine Church in

Durant, Oklahoma, than they had been for St. Theresa in Cordele. A February 1941 letter from

Father Louis Sittere to the chancellor of the Diocese of Oklahoma City and Tulsa, J.B. Dudek, painted a depressing picture of the parish. Despite the good news of the an unexpected gift of

$1,000 left to the parish in a local woman’s will, Sittere’s letter was glum, suggesting that it was better to stash the money in the bank rather than try to find a use for it. The church building, he said, was old and deteriorating, and the parish had not grown in the last seven to ten years. In fact, the parish had actually decreased to “its smallest size in recent memory” by 1941.105

Sittere’s bleak picture had a few causes. One was the parish’s continued strained relations with its Benedictine pastors. Neither diocesan records nor interviews with longtime parishioners shed a great deal of light on why parish and pastor got along so poorly in the late

1930s and early 1940s, but it is clear, especially from archival material, that the Benedictine priests assigned to Durant enjoyed little camaraderie with their parishioners.106 The most significant sources of the parish’s problems, however, stemmed from the fact that Durant had not fully recovered from the Great Depression. The expected oil boom never materialized, and the

104 Francis Hyland to Thomas Albert, O.F.M., 19 September 1951, DSA. 105 Louis Sittere to J.B. Dudek, 16 February 1941, DTA. 106 This had been the case throughout the history of the Catholic Church in Durant through the early 1940s. See previous chapter. 119

town remained dependent on federal aid to sustain itself.107 Area famers kept their land by participating in the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA). Money from the Works Progress

Administration (WPA) provided 85 percent of the funds to build a new city hall and fire station and improve Durant’s sidewalks, streets, and water and sewage facilities.108 Although the

projects kept some residents of Durant employed, they were not enough to turn the local

economy around.

Instead, it took another, much larger federal project to alter the region’s fortunes. Begun

in 1940 and completed in 1944, the Army Corps of Engineers’ construction of Lake Texoma on

the Texas-Oklahoma border was intended to generate hydroelectricity and control flooding in the

Red River Valley.109 The even bigger benefit was the creation of a new recreation area that

promised to draw more than a million tourists each year. The lake had exactly the intended

effect, creating new jobs for Durant and members and enthusiasm for St. Catherine’s Church.110

The parish’s turnaround was dramatic, as was the shift in tone from Father Sittere’s letter

to the next letter from Durant in the diocesan archives.111 Father Leo Hardesty became the first

secular priest to pastor Durant in 1945, and his letter to Bishop Eugene McGuiness in July of that

year was one of the most enthusiastic letters to come out of any of the parishes in this study

during the fifty years examined. Hardesty reported that the church was taxed to capacity on

Sundays, the communion rail was full, and attendance was up at weekday masses. When

Hardesty announced his intention to have the parish construct a new church, parishioners “hailed

107 James C. Milligan, L. David Norris, and Ann Vanmeter, Durant, 1872-1990 (Durant, Okla.: Bryan County Heritage Association, 1990), 83. 108 Ibid., 75, 79. 109 Ibid., 81. 110 Ibid., 82. 111 Father Gerard Nathe, O.S.B., was the last Benedictine priest to serve in Durant, administering the parish between 1942 and 1945. There are no records for the parish during these years in the diocesan archives, and no current parishioners have any memory of him. 120

with joy” his spirit. He happily summed up the situation by noting that there was a “great deal of

gratifying enthusiasm and good will in the parish.”112

The next three years saw continued growth at St. Catherine’s as Durant’s economic boom

grew and Father Hardesty settled in. The completion of Lake Texoma and the subsequent

opening of a state park on the lake made Durant the tourist and business center of southeastern

Oklahoma. In addition to the new shops, restaurants, and automobile and boat dealerships that

sprang up to serve lake visitors, the creation of a sizable oil and gas distribution center further

expanded Durant’s economy.113 Southeastern State College increased its enrollment, faculty,

and size in response to the local boom and the G.I. Bill. With new jobs came new Catholics, not

only to Durant, but also to Tishomingo and Madill.114 Father Hardesty believed that the

increasing numbers warranted building new churches in each town. Hardesty himself became

enough of a fixture in Durant that Southwestern Bell deemed him worthy of becoming the first

Catholic priest in the history of the town to have a permanent phone number.115

The gains made during the pastorate of Hadesty’s successor, Father J.W. Kerns, were

even more impressive. Among the most significant was improved reputation and relationships

with non-Catholics in the area. Shortly after arriving in Durant in December 1948, Kerns wrote

to Bishop McGuinness that he was gratified by how many non-Catholics had been “very helpful”

to him as he began his ministry.116 With the help of a laywoman named Virginia White, Kerns

was able to advertise in a local newspaper, The Texoman, that he would be providing Catholic

112 Leo Hardesty to Bishop Eugene McGuinness, 5 July 1945, DTA. 113 Milligan, pg. 91. 114 Leo Hardesty to Ray Harkin, 9 March 1945; Leo Hardesty to Bishop Eugene McGuinness, 19 February 1947, DTA. 115 Charles Buswell to Southwestern Bell Telephone Company, 19 July 1947, DTA. 116 J.W. Kerns to Bishop Eugene McGuinness, 31 December 1948, DTA. 121

instruction on Friday nights to Catholics and non-Catholics in the Texoman Building.117 Even

more significantly, Kern taught a religious education class at Southeastern State College during

the spring and fall semesters of 1949. The class was open to Catholics and non-Catholics, and

the spring class resulted in two converts.118 Like the open-air preaching conducted by Glenmary

priests of the era, Kerns’s classes were open to anyone interested in attending. That Kerns could

do this at the local college, however, indicates that Protestant-Catholic relations were stronger in

Durant than in many of the towns in this study during the late 1940s and early 1950s.

While Kerns was certainly engaged in civic life, Catholics in Durant benefitted far more

from the esteem some of its lay members enjoyed in the community. Some of these members,

such as Mr. and Mrs. Monroe Payne and Mrs. Ora O’Reilly, had been members of St.

Catherine’s for decades. The Paynes had 14 children, 11 of whom had “good standing” in the

parish and the town, and the others were Sisters in the Order of St. Mary of Ft. Worth.119 Mrs.

O’Reilly was especially noteworthy, garnering national attention for her efforts to combine

Christian faith with civic pride. On the local level, she organized showings of religious movies to civic organizations and public schools, advocated for religious monuments to be placed in public locations, and organized a parade with the Chamber of Commerce and local churches that

emphasized “religious aspects of the Christmas season and de-emphasize[d] the commercialism” in 1950. Santa Claus and his reindeer were banned from all floats.120 Her most ambitious

project was to attempt to have a picture of Christ hung in American Legion Posts and public

117 Advertisement in The Texoman (c. December 1948), DTA. 118 J.W. Kerns to Bishop Eugene McGuinness, 8 August 1949, DTA. 119 J.W. Kerns to Bishop Eugene McGuinness, 6 February 1950, DTA. 120 “Noted Film Procured for Durant Showing,” Durant Daily Democrat 8/24/50; “Durant monument in danger”; KXII, 9/25/2007; http://www.kxii.com/home/headlines/10011696.html; “The Week in Religion” Walla Walla Union Bulletin, Walla Walla, Washington; 15 December 1950. 122

offices around the country as a reminder of what was at stake in the Cold War.121 The fact that

she actually was able to get local businesses to participate in the parade, local organizations to

screen her movie, and local government offices to erect her monuments and hang her pictures

indicate a level of public support for a Catholic unseen in any of the other towns in this study

prior to Vatican II, and in many places, even after.

This unprecedented run of good fortune ultimately manifested itself in the construction of

a new church with a new(ish) name. Like Father Hardesty, Father Kerns wrote to Bishop

McGuinness that the church was overcrowded each Sunday. He expected the problem to get

worse as Durant’s economic growth continued unabated, bringing with it a population that was

expected to reach 25,000 by 1955.122 After providing financial support for a new church in

Madill in the late 1940s, McGuinness gave permission for the construction of a new church in

Durant in 1951 at 8th and University, on the edge of Southeastern State College’s campus. He also selected Durant for a $10,000 gift from the Catholic Extension society on the condition that the new church must be called St. William. It is not clear if older parishioners knew this was the original name of the parish, but they were pleased with it and, more importantly, grateful for the gift.123 Kerns estimated that the construction would cost $70,000, and even with another

generous $10,000 gift from Countess Katherine Price, this was a large sum for the Catholics of

Durant. Still, laying the foundation built enthusiasm and pledges for the church, which grew as

121 “Christ’s Painting Presented to American Legion Post,” Durant Daily Democrat 27 August 1950. 122 Kerns to McGuinness, 8 August 1949. 123 Bishop Eugene McGuinness to J.W. Kerns, 20 February 1951; J.W. Kerns to Bishop Eugene McGuinness, 10 April 1951, DTA 123

Catholics in the area returned to the faith. 124 Bishop McGuinness would dedicate St. William’s

Church on April 24, 1952.

The growth at St. William’s and its mission meant more masses and more work for

Kerns, who requested a second priest to help. In late 1951 he celebrated daily mass and two

Sunday masses at Durant, and alternated between having a Saturday mass at Madill and a

Sunday mass at Caddo and vice versa. Kerns wanted help because the towns around Durant and

the Catholics in them remained predominantly agricultural, and they often could not attend a

Saturday evening mass due to work demands. It is unclear from diocesan or parish records how

Kerns knew that Father Waclaw Jurga planned to emigrate from Poland to Oklahoma, but he

requested Jurga specifically because there were a few Polish families in the area who had drifted away from the Church due to lack of sacraments or Masses. Kerns was also optimistic about

establishing a mission in tiny Bennington, Oklahoma, 22 miles away, though this never

happened. At the time, however, he thought that Father Jurga would “not lessen work, but

[would] mean that more work can be done.”125 Somewhat surprisingly, the parishioners of St.

William took to Jurga better than most American parishes did to foreign-born priests in the second half of the twentieth century. This may have been the result of Jurga’s nationality giving

Durant Catholics the feeling that they were playing some role in the fight against communism, but the explanation may have been simpler than this. Kerns noted that that the Pole studied

English for a minimum of six hours every week with a female professor at the college who was

124 J.W. Kerns to Bishop Eugene McGuinness, 23 April 1951; J.W. Kerns to Eugene McGuinness, 31 October 1951, DTA. Mrs. Price was intent upon aiding the church in the Southwest in the form of donations from the estate of her late husband, Lucian B. Price. Made several donations to parishes in Oklahoma. In 1935, Pope Pius the XI conferred upon Mrs. Price the title of Papal Countess in recognition of her work. 125 St. Catherine Parish Bulletin, 18 November 1951; J.W. Kerns to Bishop Eugene McGuiness, 24 November 1951, DTA. 124

taking religious instructions from Kerns. Rather than criticize Jurga, the parishioners appreciated

his progress in learning the language and the local culture.126

As much as St. William Church thrived during the 1950s, it still faced some challenges

resulting from remaining a relatively small parish in an area that still saw Catholicism as foreign.

Despite his appreciation for the kindness shown by local Protestants upon his arrival, Kerns

admitted that he and the parish were still not fully of the community. This became apparent after

the Vatican forbade Catholic priests from joining Rotary International in December 1950.127

Many Catholic priests were confused by the prohibition and held the Rotary Club in high esteem,

but Kerns, like other priests, obeyed the order and withdrew his membership in the Durant

Rotary Club. In a letter to Bishop McGuinness, he lamented that his withdrawal had elicited

some accusatory questions from non-Catholics around town. Kerns also had to deal with

continuing financial issues. Certainly St. William was in better financial shape than it had been

as St. Catherine, but due to its size, its finances were still precarious. As soon as Kerns arrived

in December 1948, a check bounced because Father Hardesty had written several checks without leaving a record of them before he left the parish in November. The check “just barely”

bounced, causing more embarrassment to Kerns and the parish than any real financial

hardship.128 Increasing attendance in the early fifties led to increasing collections, but the parish

was not self-sufficient. St. William received aid from the diocesan offices in Oklahoma City and

from parishes in the Diocese of Philadelphia through the Society for the Propagation of the Faith

Missionary Cooperative Plan.129 Even with the outside help, the parish’s difficulties in paying

126 J.W. Kerns to Bishop Eugene McGuinness, 25 March 1952, DTA. 127 See Daily Oklahoman January 14, 1951, and “Vatican Decree Bans Catholic Priests from Rotary Clubs,” St. Petersberg Times 12 January 1951. Catholic laymen were still allowed to join. 128 Kerns to McGuinness, 31 December 1948. 129 Bishop Eugene McGuinness to John E. Boyle, 10 July 1952, DTA. 125

off the debt incurred by construction worried Kerns. Still, he was able to hand St. William over in sound health to Father George Wagoner in 1954.

Having been assigned to a small but growing parish with a new church, Wagoner focused on creating new ministries, especially catechetical ministries. He established the first Newman

Club at St. William for 19 students at Southeastern in 1954, and he and his assistant pastor,

Father Daniel Keohane continued Father Kerns’s work of teaching religion courses at the college.130 In the same year Wagoner also established a Catechetical Center with the Missionary

Sisters of Our Lady of Victory Noll from Huntington, Indiana. Two sisters taught 34 grade school children and 8 high school children from Bryan and neighboring Johnston and Marshall

Counties. By 1957, the sisters taught 76 children at Durant and its missions. With Durant serving as their base, they taught an additional 21 students at Immaculate Conception parish in

Hugo (53 miles away) and 32 students at Blessed Sacrament in Coalgate (45 miles away). In addition to their religious work, the sisters made more than 100 home visits and a dozen sick visits, contacted almost 500 non-Catholics, and distributed more than 2000 pieces of literature, religious articles and clothing.131 Having the sisters in the parish tremendously improved

Catholic outreach and education in the area, and when combined with the work of Fathers

Hardesty, Kerns, and Wagoner, made St William the most vibrant of the parishes in this study in

1957.

St. William may be the outstanding example of how important a resident priest and economic growth were to the fortunes of the local parish. Durant had both, and as a result, boomed in the post-war era. It did not matter than pastor-parish relations had been fraught for decades prior. The parish had its first diocesan priests rather than Benedictine priests; for the

130 Undated parish history (ca. 1955), DTA. 131 Our Lady of Victory Missionary Sisters, Annual Report September 1957 – July 1958, DTA. 126

first time the pastor’s attention was entirely on Durant rather than split between the parish and the Benedictine abbey in Shawnee. Leo Hardesty and George Wagoner had successful tenures, and J.W. Kerns was wildly successful. The construction of Lake Texoma aided their efforts considerably; without the lake’s construction, it is unlikely that even the most gifted priest could have improved the lot of Catholicism in Durant a great deal. The lake proved to be a huge economic boon for the town that brought Catholics into the area. St. William grew in numbers and prestige as its members joined the middle class and participated in civic life.

Conclusion

Looking at the six parishes in this study, it becomes apparent that the ghetto mentality often associated with urban, immigrant Northern parishes simply did not exist here. Practical concerns and pastoral philosophy would not allow it. When Catholics in these towns did find themselves separated from the mainstream, it was not by choice. When Glenmary arrived in the

South in the 1940s, Catholic priests were not allowed to join local ministerial alliances (leading more than one Glenmarian to start his own ministerial alliance, usually consisting of himself) or participate in civic events. As evidence in all six parishes suggests, the situation improved civically by the late 1950s. The reason for this varied from parish to parish – at St. Paul in

Princeton, Kentucky, the construction of a parochial school helped; at St. Francis de Sales in

Idabel, Oklahoma, and St. William in Durant, Oklahoma, committed laywomen like Mary Dugan and Ora O’Reilly garnered attention and support for their parishes by publicly proclaiming their faith.

In looking at the parishes, it is interesting to note how focused Catholics were on local rather than national and international events. As numerous historians have described, World

War II and the Cold War helped Catholics join the American mainstream by proving that they 127

could be patriots and faithful Catholics at the same time. There is, however surprisingly little mention of these events in the archival records of these parishes outside of a few mentions in parish bulletins. When they were mentioned, it was usually in the context the larger event’s local impact. St. Matthew Church in Statesboro experienced an influx of Catholics due to the construction of a nearby Army Air Force base and the construction of German POW camp. St.

Theresa Church in Cordele also benefitted from the construction of an Army airfield, but its pastor had a difficult offering the Mass in his missions because of tire rationing resulting from the war effort. St. Mary in Franklin remained open during the war because Bishop Francis

Cotton did not want to lose another mission parish due to declining numbers. Parishioners at St.

William in Durant welcomed a Polish priest at the height of the Cold War. Mrs. O’Reilly’s public campaigns against communism and atheism as an ideology rather than something that directly affected her parish were the exception rather than the rule in these parishes between

1939 and 1957.

Glenmary priests were particularly interested in making sure their parishes were seen as a full member of the community. The priests themselves made Catholicism more visible and far less alien through apologetic radio programs and newspaper columns. They made enough headway that by the late fifties, the local media essentially treated them as equals to the much larger evangelical Protestant Churches. The Glenmarians, like other priests in small towns in the

South, also participated in local clubs and events, befriending influential members of the community. They indirectly improved the Church’s standing in communities through winning a few converts and providing a church home for the Catholics who moved into the area.

Protestants’ opinions of Catholics improved simply because they realized that they actually knew

Catholics. In the time-honored Southern way, many Protestants still thought the Roman Catholic 128

Church was a malevolent institution, but the Catholics they knew were just fine, if a little wrong- headed.132

Glenmary, Franciscan, and diocesan priests helped maintain this slightly patronizing, but generally friendly attitude by steadfastly refusing to get involved in politics. Though all

Glenmary priests had been raised in Northern cities, they obeyed Father Bishop’s mandate that they avoid any controversial issues. Southern Catholics were alien enough without supporting unpopular causes like the civil rights movement or organized labor. Some Glenmarians had misgivings about Bishop’s approach and did not believe that it measured up to the heroic images they had of themselves as missionaries, but they did believe that his position was prudent at the time. The Franciscans of southwestern Georgia also hewed a cautious course when dealing with race, recognizing “the difficulties that were connected with the colored apostolate vis a vis the reaction of white people, even Catholics.”133

Another difference between Catholics in Southern parishes and their Northern brethren was the fact that ethnic rivalries had no place in Southern Catholicism, especially in Glenmary parishes. St. Matthew in Statesboro had been founded by four Italian families, of course, but the fact that they were Italian mattered less in rural Georgia than the fact that they were outsiders.

This was true of most Catholics in Glenmary parishes: they were either transplants moving into the town for work, or they had married a local non-Catholic and moved to the area. In close-knit

Southern towns, not having generations-old roots was enough cause for concern; being Catholic or having an ethnic-sounding name only exacerbated the situation. The result was that ethnic differences that might have mattered in the North were ignored.

132 Interviews with St. Mary’s parishioners and St. Francis de Sales’s parishioners, January-March 2011. 133 O’Hara to Campbell, O.F.M., 4 September 1945. 129

Instead, Catholics became united by a new sense of pride in being Catholic. During the

period between 1939 and 1957 these parishes received more attention than they ever had. For

the first time, the Glenmary parishes actually had resident priests, and the diocesan parishes had,

at minimum, a priest whose primary responsibility they were. The Glenmarians were not content simply to minister to the tiny flock they inherited as the previous visiting priests had but instead actively sought to grow into a full parish. It would be an exaggeration to state that Glenmary was wildly successful in its missionary goals (except, perhaps, in Statesboro), but in each location, the presence of a priest had the effect of getting people to either return to the church or become aware of its existence in their area. Idabel, despite its lack of resident priests until 1957, may provide the best example of the growing fervor of Southern Catholics during the 1940s and

‘50s, as the parish’s very existence was solely the result of the laity’s work and devotion.

This is not to say that Southern Catholics were in any way triumphalist. The evangelical

Southern culture in which they found themselves influenced them far more than the other way

around. Politically, most were Dixiecrats opposed to organized labor and the civil rights

movement, just like their neighbors. There is no evidence that the Southern secular priests at the

diocesan parishes in this study felt any differently. As Andrew Moore suggests, Glenmary and

Franciscan priests were unlikely to receive much support from their congregations if they had

spoken out on these issues, as some younger Glenmarians would find out to their dismay in the

1960s and 1970s. There was little difference culturally between Catholics and Protestants in

these towns either. Bulletins and newspapers indicate an interest in the papacy and the

persecution of Catholics in countries behind the Iron Curtain, but the same sources indicate a far

greater interest in the local economy, the success of the high school basketball team, and

generally being a good neighbor in a small town. In terms of religious practice, there is 130

surprisingly little mention of the devotional life that typified the Catholic experience in the urban

North in archival records. The only devotion mentioned with any regularity is the Forty Hours.

Lay confraternities, such as the Knights of Columbus and the Holy Name Society, did not exist

in these parishes. Ultimately, outside of the core substance of their faith, Southern Catholics in

rural areas had more in common with their fellow small-town Southerners than they did with

urban, ethnic Catholics in the North.

But for all their differences, there were also many connections between Northern and

Southern Catholics. In fact, Catholics’ situation in the South would have been even more

difficult without the support of Northerners. This most often took the form of financial aid.

Glenmary priests regularly made tours through parishes in Northern cities asking for donations to

the home missionary cause, and the Franciscans in Georgia relied on help from back home.

They also cultivated friendships with potential donors and sought the assistance of family

members in order to supplement their parishes’ income. Virtually every parish built in small

Southern town received support from the Catholic Extension Society based in Chicago. The

most unique Northern support that Glenmary parishes received were the priests themselves.

With only a handful of exceptions (Howard Bishop being the most obvious), every Glenmary

priest in history of the society has come from a Northern city. The difficulties in bridging the

gap between their urban upbringing and the rural circumstances in which they found themselves

as priests would become more evident in the subsequent decades.

The other connection between Northern and Southern Catholics arose from the fact that many Southern Catholics had once been Northern Catholics. The period between 1939 laid the foundation for the future growth of Catholicism in the South just as the New Deal and especially

World War II laid the foundation growth for future economic growth of the South. Just as New 131

Deal programs like the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Works Progress Administration provided the necessary infrastructure to modernize the South, all six of these parishes engaged in building projects, including four churches and one school, during this period. While the federal government sent young men to the South for public works projects and military training, the glut of priests in the North allowed Glenmary and the Franciscans to send young priests to the South.

By the time that federal intervention had created the favorable economic conditions necessary for the boom of the Sunbelt, Catholic churches in the rural south were prepared for the influx of

Catholics that came with the boom. The work done by these parishes during this time paid off in each community between the late 1950s and the early 1970s.

Admittedly, most of the parishes sketched in this chapter did not explode in size between

1939-1957, with St. William in Durant and St. Matthew in Statesboro being the exceptions.134

These examples demonstrate, and we will see throughout the rest of the study, an important truth of Southern Catholicism: southern parishes did not grow until the local economy grew. Southern priests, including Glenmarians, were rarely successful at going into the community and winning converts. Instead Catholics were coming to them. They were a different sort of Catholic as well.

Before the infrastructure improvements of the New Deal and the new economy created by military spending, the few Catholics in the South were mostly poor farmers. Now parishes became prosperous as Catholic professionals moved to the South: doctors, lawyers, realtors, small business owners, middle management of factories and plants, and college professors.

These were well-educated, middle class people who raised the community’s estimation of the

Church. No longer could Catholics be dismissed as poor, superstitious sheep who did as their

134 It should be noted that these are the only towns in this study to have a college. While there is no concrete evidence demonstrating their importance to the health of the parish in their town other than sometimes bringing in Catholic faculty and staff, their presence seems significant. 132

priests told them. For their part, these migrant professionals adopted many Southern norms.

They were generally provincial, opposed to the labor movement, and noticeably quiet on the

issue of civil rights. This bled through to their religious practices. Italian Catholics in Statesboro

were more likely to attend open-air preaching that looked like an evangelical revival than a

Marian procession like their brethren on 115th Street in Harlem.

One could argue that the move to the Sun Belt is an extension of the move to the suburbs

and the de-ethniziation of Catholicism that began following World War II. But there is

something more at work here. Northern Catholics moving South were headed into an area that had been historically and openly anti-Catholic. It was a place where Will Herberg's idea of civil religion did not yet hold sway in the 1950s. If, as Flannery O'Connor, suggested, it was not precisely "Christ-centered," it was certainly "Christ-haunted," and the means of that haunting was evangelical, and often fundamentalist, Protestantism. The appropriate move for Catholics concerned only with material gain and getting along – the one that promised least resistance and best prospects for economic and social advancement in their towns – was to join the Baptist or

Methodist churches. This, after all, had been what their predecessors had prudently done in the nineteenth century. Instead, they remained Catholics. They did not do so ostentatiously or provocatively, but they were devoted. They absolutely engaged in informal ecumenism, and their surroundings certainly had more impact on them politically and culturally than they did on it, but when they were in their parish, they were distinctly and emphatically Catholic. As later chapters will demonstrate, it is clear that they were proud of their sacred space, devoted to the

Eucharist, and active in devotional life. It would be inaccurate, then, to say they assimilated.

Instead twentieth-century Catholics in the rural American did what Catholicism had done for millennia: they adopted the essentials of the faith to the immediate needs of their location.

Chapter Three New Visions for the Church and the South 1958-1965

The Church and the region that Howard Bishop devoted his life to evangelizing have

changed in ways that he could not have anticipated when he died in 1953. This was especially

true in the period between 1958 and 1965, which saw perhaps the greatest shift between Bishop’s

initial visions for the Glenmary Home Missioners and the Catholic Church in the rural South and

what they would both eventually become after his death. This chapter will follow three

important shifts during this period: the transformation of Glenmary and diocesan parishes in

small Southern towns by the growth and modernization of the South’s economy, the changing

theological views of Glenmary seminarians, and the increasingly visible involvement of

Glenmarians in the Civil Rights movement.

The struggle experienced by William Faulkner’s residents of Yoknapatawpha County to

reconcile the agrarian values of the old South with modern industrial capitalism that defined the

Sunbelt seems to have been resolved by the late 1950s, and small towns around the South opened

up for business. They offered Northern companies a variety of incentives to relocate from the

Rust Belt, most notably low taxes and little involvement of labor unions. The continued presence

of military installations after World War II was an additional inducement for businesses to move

to the South. Although the region never fully gave up its agrarian economy or its provincialism,

even small towns have sought economic opportunity through industrialization and integrated the influx of outsiders that came with it.

The Second Vatican Council and the emergence of a young, college-educated generation who questioned traditional authority and the conformity of the early Cold War brought about reforms that altered both the practice and mentality of Catholics in the United States. Priests

133

134 celebrated mass in the vernacular, the laity took a more active role in participating in the mass, and the Church opened itself to the modern world. Even more important than changes in practice was the shift in mindset. As Joseph P. Chinnici, Timothy Kelly, and Andrew Greeley have suggested, Lumen Gentium’s declaration that the Church was “the People of God” affirmed the shift in thinking that had already taken place among many American Catholics, especially those living in the urban North. Although the Catholic Church had not become a democracy, most of the laity came to expect and, in fact, exerted greater control of parish life. Their role was not just confined to active participation in mass; as the number of religious in America declined, the laity took a greater leadership role in all facets of the Church, often due to necessity as much as desire. Catholic institutions and parishes that once relied informally on lay women’s support to run efficiently now put them in formal administrative positions. Greater lay involvement also led to greater questioning of the hierarchy and magisterium. Priests remained generally revered, but they were no longer considered infallible by their flocks in the way that they had been in the preconciliar era.

The Civil Rights movement of the late 1950s and 1960s sought to overturn centuries of institutionalized and cultural racism in the South. Through campaigns of civil resistance like the

Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Selma March, the movement was able to gain national attention and support in its attempts to have racial discrimination outlawed and the voting rights guaranteed by the Fifteenth Amendment restored to African Americans. Among its most notable achievements were the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which banned discrimination based on “race, color, religion, or national origin” in employment practices and public accommodations, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which restored and protected voting rights.

Although the movement was successful in striking down Jim Crow laws in the South, one must 135

be careful not to overstate its triumph. Cultural racism persisted in the South (and other parts of

the United States) despite improved race relations. And despite the fact that many Catholic

Churches in the rural South were the only integrated churches in their respective towns, the

number of black Catholics remained miniscule.

Catholic Migration to the South

Howard Bishop’s great romance with the South stemmed from his love of traditional,

agrarian life. As mentioned in Chapter 1, he shared the skepticism of industrialization and urban

life held by his civic heroes like Thomas Jefferson and his Catholic heroes like Archbishop John

Ireland. Bishop feared that factories and cities had brutalized the American landscape, fostering

an environment of greed and squalor that would eventually crush beauty, justice, virtue, and

connection to God. Bishop’s twenty years of experience as pastor of a rural parish also

convinced him of the superiority of country living, providing him with a love of rural life and a

command of the practical considerations that must be taken into account when performing rural

ministry. He believed that returning to the land would solve the problems of encroaching

modernity. The distributism espoused by Hilaire Belloc and G.K. Chesterton provided the

philosophical underpinning of his opposition to industrialization and capitalism and his

sanctification of the agrarian way of life.1 During his time as president of the National Catholic

Rural Life Conference, he emulated the rural colonization attempts of Archbishop Ireland, with

about the same level of success. All of these influences led to a vision for Glenmary specifically

and rural Southern Catholicism generally that was anti-capitalist, anti-industrialism, and anti-

urban. In a 1935 editorial in Landward, Bishop placed the idea of a home missionary society

within the context of his agrarian Catholicism, writing that “the church must throw a vastly

1 Christopher J. Kauffman, Mission to Rural America: The Story of W. Howard Bishop, Founder of Glenmary (New York: Paulist Press, 1991), 98. 136

greater initiative into the country place” due to the “strategic importance of winning a foothold in

the country.”2 Although maintaining an agrarian South ended up not being crucial to

Glenmary’s success, it was crucial to Howard Bishop’s conception of his society and God’s

purpose for him.

Significant portions of Bishop’s vision for Glenmary remained relevant after his death.

His understanding of the republican heritage of Catholic practice in the South and his attention to

practical, pastoral detail more than theological depth, for example, were crucial to the home

missioners’ successes. The part of his vision for Glenmary about which he was most passionate

– converting unchurched Southern farmers to Catholicism and encouraging an agrarian

worldview – was rendered irrelevant by the rise of the industry in the South. Certainly

Glenmarians still conceived of themselves as missionaries, and some were especially successful

at winning converts.3 But while Glenmarians did not abandon their role as missionaries between

1958 and 1965, they began to find that their pews were filled not by Southern converts but by

Northern transplants who moved to the South for economic opportunity. The aspect of the South

that Bishop identified with the most – its agrarian heritage and economy – was about to pass

away as industry arrived in many of the small towns Glenmary served.4

As mentioned in the previous chapter, federal support and subsidies during the New Deal

and World War II were crucial to the development of the modern South. Thanks in part to

powerful Southern legislators, infrastructure spending for new highway construction

disproportionately favored Southern, as well as Western, states.5 Small towns like the ones in

2 Kauffman, 106. 3 Interview with Glenmary priest 2, 27 September 2005 in Rhineland, TN; the Glenmarian mentioned Father Ray Dehan by name as being excellent at gaining conversions. 4 Although Glenmary gave up on yeoman farmers, the society never abandoned Howard Bishop’s call for social justice and advocacy on behalf of the poor. 5 David C. Perry and Alfred J. Watkins, eds., Urban Affairs Annual Reviews, vol. 14, The Rise of the Sunbelt Cities (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications, 1977). 137

this study were now linked to major cities. Southerners’ antipathy toward an expanding federal

government’s interference in local affairs seemed to melt in the face of improved infrastructure

and business opportunity. The fact that Washington generally avoiding confrontations regarding

the South’s social and legal traditions smoothed the path as well. Defense spending led the way,

with military installations spread across the South. As mentioned in the previous chapter, this

was one of the major reasons for the foundation of St. Matthew’s Parish in Statesboro, Georgia.

Industry followed, lured by the promise of low taxes and an area unfriendly to unions.6 The mass production of air conditioners made the South’s sweltering summers bearable, and milder winters lowered heating costs. When combined with typically lower costs of living, the South

increasingly appealed to young families and retirees. In his study of the shift of manufacturing

and population from the North to the Sunbelt, Emilio Casetti, noticed an increase in migration to

the South in 1958 and a dramatic surge in 1965.7 The reason for this exponential increase will

be discussed later in the chapter.

Although most of the South’s population and economic growth took place in cities, small

towns benefitted as well. Five of the six communities in this study experienced either an

increase or continuation of manufacturing and population growth between 1958 and 1965. In

four of the five growing towns, the size of the Catholic parish increased as well. Consequently,

David C. Perry’s and Alfred J. Watkins’s study of the urban Sunbelt, The Rise of Sunbelt Cities,

is relevant to the economic development of small Southern towns. The book identifies six

“pillars” on which the Sunbelt economy rests: agriculture, defense, advanced technology, real

6 Catholics, whether Northern transplants or native Southerners, shared this opposition with their neighbors despite papal encyclicals supporting organized labor. Catholic bishops quietly supported unions with little impact. 7 Emilio Casetti, “Manufacturing Productivity and Snowbelt-Sunbelt Shifts,” Economic Geography, Vol. 60, No. 4 (Oct., 1984), pp. 313-324. 138

estate and construction, tourism and leisure. These six pillars, along with higher education,

explain the growth of each town and Catholic parish studied in this dissertation.8

Statesboro, Georgia, enjoyed the greatest economic growth in the late 1950s and early

1960s of any town in this study, and, as mentioned previously, Glenmarians still refer to St.

Matthew’s with pride as their most successful mission almost fifty years after they returned it to

the diocese. While much of Glenmary’s success in Statesboro can be attributed to their cultivation of converts and relationships with non-Catholics, there is no doubt that most of their

accomplishments were aided by the economic boom that the town experienced in the 1950s.9 In

addition to businesses arriving, the college rebranded itself as Georgia Southern University and

began to grow, bringing in more Catholics. The parish increased its collegiate ministry to

accommodate them. The most significant event of the era, and perhaps in the parish’s history,

was the 1956 relocation of the Rockwell Manufacturing Plant from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to

Statesboro. Many of employees who relocated with the factory were Catholics, and the parish

quickly doubled in size and continued to grow over the next decade. James Woods writes that

men’s, women’s, and children’s social groups and devotional activities now had more

participants.10

The Catholics who moved to Statesboro with the Rockwell Plant included members of

management as well workers on the shop floor. This benefitted the parish in two ways. The first

was that because “a number of Catholics were prominent in the company and were part of the

wealthier members of the local society, this opened many doors and added greater prestige to the

local Catholic citizenry.” The second was that the new parishioners “generously supported the

8 See Perry and Watkins. 9 Interview with Glenmary priest 1, Glenmary Oral Histories, GHMA. 10 James Woods, “The Rockwell Era: 1956-1967” in History of St. Matthew’s Catholic Church, 1944-1993 (Statesboro, GA: privately published), DSA. 139

activities of the church in the area.”11 The construction of a new parish hall soon after Father

John Loftus became pastor in 1960 demonstrated the growing financial autonomy of the parish.

The low construction bid was $50,000, which would have seemed an impossible sum for a

mission parish that had been supported by Glenmary and the diocese up until this point. After

securing $15,000 from “a group in Chicago” the parish had to finance the rest. Loftus and the

parish determined that if every family would increase contribution by $1 a week, the parish could

handle the financing for the hall. They managed to do so, demonstrating a financial

independence and dedication to their parish that were major steps in achieving Glenmary’s goal

of turning the mission into diocesan parish.12

Franklin, Kentucky, and St. Mary’s Parish followed a similar pattern, albeit on a smaller

scale. Potter and Brumfield, a manufacturer of electrical relays, established a plant in Franklin in

1956, bringing workers from the company’s headquarters in Princeton, Indiana and management

from Princeton and New York. A four-month-long strike later that year halted production and

engendered even greater than usual anti-union sentiment. 13 This was true among Franklin’s

Catholics, some of whom had arrived in town as middle managers. By the late 1950s, Potter and

Brumfield’s sales increased, and the plant was expanded in the 1960s.14 Franklin’s industrial

output continued to grow in 1957 as the Kendall Company, which produced industrial adhesives,

transferred its plant from Chicago to Franklin.15 When combined with the transportation and tourism opportunities provided by the Louisville and Nashville Railroad and the construction of

11 Ibid. 12 Ibid. 13 Editorial, The Franklin Favorite, 10 October 1957. 14 The America Machine and Foundry Company, based in New York, owned Potter and Brumfield. “Potter & Brumfield Inc. History,” adapted from International Directory of Company Histories, Vol. 11. St. James Press, 1995. Reprinted at http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/potter-brumfield-inc-history/ (accessed 2 February 2015). 15 Phone Interview, Sarah Smith, Simpson County Historical Society, 2 February 2015. 140

I-65 on the town’s southern edge, it is little wonder that by 1970, Glenmary reported that “the

economic situation in Franklin is good and even borders on excellent.”16

As with Statesboro, with manufacturing jobs came Catholics, and the size of the parish

doubled over the course of a decade.17 Unlike their predecessors ninety years previous, the new

Catholic arrivals in Franklin found a town that had an established parish with a priest whose

primary responsibility was to serve it. Rather than joining the Methodist or Baptist churches,

they remained Catholic and raised their children in the faith. The missions’ priests continued to

grow in confidence and stature, with Fathers William Bow and John Lauer continuing to publish

articles in the Franklin Favorite and present 15 minute programs on the local radio station,

WFKN. They thought, and Clement Borchers agreed, that writing their own programs would be

preferable to “using canned goods made for the city-Catholic consumption.”18 In doing so, Bow

and Lauer demonstrated a pastoral sensitivity to the differences from the urban tradition from

which they hailed and the rural reality in which they now found themselves. William Bow

would later recall that “as old prejudices and misunderstandings began to die, the priests became

more and more involved in community affairs.”19 For his part, Lauer described the people of

Franklin as some of the “most open and friendly” people in any Glenmary mission town and

wrote to Borchers that a Protestant lawyer had asked if he could send people with domestic problems to the Glenmarians for counseling. The laity of St. Mary’s did their part to improve the church’s ties to the community too. Several of the families who have constituted the backbone of the parish over the last fifty years arrived between 1958 and 1965, and the parish’s members

16 Grant Chapline, “Report on St. Mary’s Parish, 1970,” GHMA. 17 John Lauer, 1963 Parish Report, GHMA. 18 “St. Mary to Present Good Friday Program over WFKN Radio,” Franklin Favorite, 15 April 1960; St. Mary’s Parish Archives; John Lauer to Clement Borchers, 4 November 1961; Clement Borchers to John Lauer, 7 November 1961; GHMA. 19 William Bow, “100 Years in Franklin, Kentucky” Glenmary Challenge Autumn 1968. 141

were increasingly middle class. The church’s 1965 rolls included a veterinarian, a dentist, two

physicians, a jewelry store owner, and a manager at the Potter and Brumfield factory.20 By 1964

Glenmary and the Diocese of Owensboro considered St. Mary’s stable enough to be elevated to

the status of a parish, and in 1966 the Franklin-Simpson Chamber of Commerce listed St. Mary

as one of the nine notable churches in Franklin.21

Yet for all the expansion of the Catholic community in Franklin during this period, there is a sense of a missed opportunity among many Glenmarians and long-time members of St.

Mary’s. As we will see later in this chapter and in the next, several of Bow’s and Lauer’s

Glenmary successors, beginning with the first resident pastor, Father Raymond Berthiuame, had

different conceptions of the relationship between Church and society and pastor and parish than

the members of St. Mary’s. These difficulties are a warning against the temptation to accept

economic considerations as the only ones that matter when examining the growth or vibrancy of

a parish, and they would severely challenge the vitality of the parish in the coming decades.

Idabel, Oklahoma, which was by far the most isolated town examined in this dissertation,

was the counter-example to Statesboro and Franklin. The town’s economy was not in

completely terrible shape, but it was not growing, and there were few industrial jobs. Almost all

of the 669 factory workers in McCurtain County worked in lumber, and these jobs were spread

out across the second biggest county in Oklahoma.22 Judging by the era’s headlines in the

McCurtain Gazette, it is tempting to think that moonshining drove the economy. The population

of Plunkettville, where Glenmary’s actual parish was located, did not increase at all between

1950 and 1962, and Idabel lost nineteen from its population. One Glenmarian recalled hearing

20 Interview with St. Matthew parishioner F, April 2011. 21 “Industrial Resources – Franklin, Kentucky” Prepared by the Franklin-Simpson County Chamber of Commerce & The Kenucky Department of Commerce, Frankfort, KY, October 1966; GHMA. 22 James T. Lawrence, “Christ into the Ozarks: A Discussion of the Glenmary Mission of Idabel, Oklahoma”, 1962, GHMA. 142

that McCurtain County had the highest exodus rate of any county in the nation.23 Although this appears to be an exaggeration, it offers insight into the difficult state of affairs for Glenmary in southeastern Oklahoma.

The parishioners of St. Francis de Sales did their best to support the church, but they were not many (only 14 in 1955), and outside of the Dugan family and a couple of others, they were not prosperous. There was no rectory until 1963, so the Glenmarians improvised with regard to

living arrangements, at times living in the finished attic of a building with two families living

underneath or a room off the sacristy in the church.24 At one point Father Leonard Spanjers

lived with his mother in a one bedroom apartment. Despite having very little in the building

fund, the parishioners of St. Francis did manage to put together enough money to build a rectory

in 1963. The pastor, Leo Schloemer was happy and impressed, telling Bishop Victor Reed that

“the general design of the structure, which is very good, has caused quite a bit of comment

among people in the town. It speaks well for the Church and the Diocese.”25

None of the Glenmarians between 1958 and 1965 had much luck winning converts. The

few converts they did get were often poor or uneducated, and as one Glenmarian recalled, tended

to belong to every church in town at some point or another. Most eventually drifted away. One

convert that Glenmary did make was Don Stevenson, the local district attorney. Though a

prominent citizen, Stevenson was not the man to bring others to Catholicism because so many

people in the area had problems with the law, especially moonshining.26 Ross Dugan, Jr. was

important to Idabel’s economic and civic life, but he did not actually join the church until well

after 1965. Where the Glenmarians thought they were successful was in breaking down anti-

23 Interview with Glenmary priest 2. 24 Ibid., Leo Schloemer to Bishop Victor J. Reed, 4 May 1961, DTA. 25 Leo Schloemer to Victor J. Reed, 19 January 1963; DTA. 26 Interview with Glenmary priest 2. 143

Catholic prejudice. As per Glenmary custom, all the pastors of St. Francis de Sales ran columns

in the local newspaper.27

Despite the lack of growth, either in Idabel or within St. Francis de Sales’s, one should

not dismiss the importance of Catholics moving to the area in sustaining the church. Roughly half the parish came from outside of southeastern Oklahoma. The driving force behind

Catholicism in Idabel, the Dugan family, moved in from Illinois. A Dr. Lee, a surgeon for the

Kansas City Southern Railroad, joined the church along with his wife.28 And coming from

furthest away, war brides from Germany and France were vital to the life of the parish.

The Glenmary parishes in this study demonstrate the importance of economic

considerations and having a priest who understood the local context to the spiritual life and

numerical growth of a parish. This is not a shocking observation, but getting both of these

variables right was fairly rare for Catholic churches in the rural South prior to World War II.

With arrival of industry and priests from the North, however, having both became more likely.

St. Matthew’s Parish in Statesboro had grown and thrived beyond anyone’s expectations. St.

Mary’s Parish in Franklin profited from economic progress, but, as we shall see, struggled

because its parishioners and pastors were rarely on the same page after 1964. The result was definite and important growth, but not on the same scale as St. Matthew’s. Finally, the priests and laity of St. Francis de Sales worked together as best they could under difficult circumstances, but the parish would not fully bloom until the area’s economy modernized in the 1970s.

By no means had Glenmary given up on evangelization or winning converts, but the reality was that most of their time was now given to taking care of a population that was coming to them and breaking down anti-Catholic prejudice through ecumenical activities and use of

27 Ibid. 28 Ibid. 144

mass media. Howard Bishop’s conception of converting farmers to create agrarian Southern

Catholicism was no longer the driving force behind Glenmary’s actual work. The result was that

Glenmary reached far more Catholics in the South than Bishop could have imagined.

This pattern is borne out in the three diocesan counterparts. St. William’s Parish in

Durant, Oklahoma continued to enjoy the prosperity that had accompanied the construction of

Lake Texoma in 1945. The lake remained the greatest attraction in the area. A new lodge was

built on the lake in 1956 and became a popular convention center and resort area. Capitalizing on

the popularity of the lake, town leaders sought to bring new industry to Durant. New businesses

and industries opened in and around the town, including a regional airline and bus line. There

was a high turnover rate though, and few of these businesses lasted more than a few years.

Outside of those connected to the lake, the most successful businesses had to do with oil and

natural gas. The construction of U.S. 69, a major thoroughfare that connected eastern Oklahoma to Dallas, added to Durant’s vibrancy and brought more tourists to the lake.29

It would have been impossible for St. William’s to continue to grow at the pace it did between 1945 and 1957, but the parish continued to thrive, at least in terms of membership and civic involvement. St. William’s priests continued their connection to Southeastern College, and assistant pastor Stanley Rother taught a class on Old and New Testament Scripture at Murray

State College in Tishomingo.30 The work of the Victory Noll sisters remained critical to

Catholic life in the area as well. They conducted religious education not only in Durant but in

every Oklahoma town with a Catholic church or mission within a fifty mile radius. According to

29 James C. Milligan, L David Norris, and Ann Vanmeter, Durant, 1872-1990 (Durant, Okla.: Bryan County Heritage Association, 1990), 91-104 30 Francis Helderle to Raymond Harkin, 20 October 1965, DTA. Father Rother may be the single most significant person associated with any of the parishes in this dissertation. He served as a missionary to Guatemala from 1968 until his assassination by a death squad in 1981. During that time, he translated the New Testament into the Tzutuhil language and began the regular celebration of the liturgy in the same tongue. The Archdiocese of Oklahoma City has opened a cause for beatification for Rother. 145 pastor Joseph Howell, they were “particularly effective at apostolic work of finding, instructing, and encouraging fallen-away families.”31 The parish built the sisters a convent in 1964, which constituted no small hardship, as money remained tight despite Durant’s economic prosperity.

St. Williams’ parish had to rely on outside help to pay the sisters and keep their cars running.32

St. Theresa’s Church in Cordele, Georgia also welcomed outsiders in the late 1950s, though these newcomers were neither from the North nor were they prosperous. In 1958 Father

Finian A. Riley, O.F.M., requested permission to celebrate the occasional mass on Sunday afternoon for Catholics in a local prison camp.33 Later that year “the annual invasion of Mexican cotton pickers” arrived in the area. The braceros only numbered 430 in 1958 due to the restricted acreage caused by the Soil-Bank program.34 Because the farms on which the braceros worked were too far away from Cordele to have mass at St. Theresa’s, Riley drove to them to offer the liturgy.35 A thousand braceros traveled to work in cotton fields around Cordele the following year, but Riley was disappointed that he could still only contact about 300 to 400 of them. The major problem was transportation. The migrant workers relied on local cotton farmers to get around, but only one cotton farmer in the area was Catholic, and only two or three others would take workers into Cordele or to other farms for mass. Bishop Thomas McDonough appreciated

Riley’s efforts and gave him a great deal of latitude to accommodate the Mexicans’ religious needs.36 Though all of these migrants were temporary, they greatly increased the Catholic population in and around Cordele.

31 Joseph Howell to Bishop Victor Reed, 22 April 1965, DTA. 32 Joseph Howell to Bishop Victor Reed, 31 March 1964; Howell to Reed, 22 April 1965; DTA. St. William’s received aid from the Indian and Negro Bureau to pay the sisters’ salaries. 33 Finian A. Riley, O.F.M to Bishop Thomas J. McDonough, 10 May 1958; DSA. 34 The Agricultural Act of 1956 created Soil Bank Act, which authorized short- and long-term removal of land from production with annual rental payments to participants. 35 Finian A. Riley, O.F.M to Bishop Thomas J. McDonough, 8 September 1958; DSA. 36 Finian A. Riley, O.F.M to Bishop Thomas J. McDonough, 22 August 1959; Bishop Thomas J. McDonough to Finian A. Riley, O.F.M, 26 August 1959; DSA. 146

Like every town except Idabel, Oklahoma, Princeton experienced manufacturing growth

during the first half of the 1960s. In fact, a 1967 report by the John M. Smith Appraisal

Company found that the number of manufacturing jobs in Princeton tripled during the early

1960s (1,850 jobs in a town 6,000 and a county of 14,000). Manufacturing now represented the

largest portion of Princeton’s economy. State and federal governments constructed a number of

highways in western Kentucky, including I-24 that ran along the north edge of Princeton. The highways shipped manufactured goods out of town and brought tourists to nearby Barkley Lake

(one of the 10 largest man-made lakes in the world at the time) and a national recreation area developed by the TVA. The appraisal concluded by predicting gradual economic and population growth for Princeton.37

Although Princeton’s trajectory matched that of most of the towns in this study during

this period, St. Paul’s Church represented a slight outlier among the parishes because there is no

archival evidence that the general population’s growth led to growth within the Catholic

population. Instead, St. Paul continued the steady pace that had characterized the previous

twenty years. Certainly more Catholics joined the church, but the increase did not correlate to

the growing population of Princeton. The impact of the town’s modernizing economy could be

seen, however, in the improving finances of the church and its members. Parishioners’

contributions allowed the parish to repair and redecorate the church after a 1960 fire damaged

the floor of the inner sanctuary. The next year the parish purchased 12.74 acres on the south side

of Princeton from the Hubbard family.38 The Hubbards evidently settled on a favorable rate for

the land, but it was not quite as generous as the $1 Necie Poston charged in 1948 for the sale of

the house that became the original school. That St. Paul’s Church had the wherewithal to buy

37 Appraisal by the John M. Smith Appraisal Company, Paducah, Kentucky (ca. 1967), DOA. 38 Gerald Glahn to Bishop Henry Soenneker, (ca. 1961), DOA. 147

the land and complete the construction of the new school building by November 1964 suggests

financial assets that only St. Matthew’s in Statesboro could match. Bishop Henry Soenneker of

Owensboro recognized the stability of the church and elevated it to the status of parish in the

same year, appointing Father Thomas Clark the first resident pastor of St. Paul’s Parish.39

Having discussed the effects of migration to the South on Catholic churches in small

Southern towns, it seems appropriate to examine the Catholic transplants who would shape these

churches in the following decades. How much did the arrival of Northern lay Catholics alter

Southern Catholicism? Interviews with parishioners and a lack of archival evidence suggests

little, if any. The Catholics who moved to the South as part of this mass migration quickly

adopted the norms of Southern Catholicism out of necessity. They were friendly with their non-

Catholic neighbors, civic-minded, and took on greater responsibilities in the parish demanded of them due to the lack of paid personnel and priests. There was perhaps an uptick in awareness of ethnic identity, but it never created any conflict within any of the parishes in this study.40

Northern Catholics also assumed the characteristics of broader Southern culture, though the fact that the people who moved were a self-selecting group meant that they might have had these characteristics before they moved. They were generally socially, politically, and economically

conservative. Like their Southern neighbors, they shared an aversion to controversy and

“radicalism.” On the topic of race, a few espoused openly racist attitudes, but the great majority

were gradualists. And Catholics, whether Northern transplants or native Southerners, shared the

39 Anthony Blackwell, St. Paul Church, 1973-1998, 25th Anniversary, Princeton, Kentucky, A History, (Self-Published, 1998), no page numbers. 40 Ethnic conflict would not be a serious issue in any of the churches until the arrival of Hispanics in large numbers in some of the communities in the 1990s. 148

region’s opposition to unions, despite the support of papal encyclicals and Southern bishops for

organized labor.41

The other distinguishing feature of Catholics in these small towns was a sense of isolation. For Southern Catholics, this was nothing new, and the feeling intensified depending on distance from the chancery. For Northern transplants, this was very much a new feeling, and one that intensified connection to their faith and the local parish. Deborah Dash Moore’s essay,

“Jewish Migration in the Sunbelt,” found in the anthology Shades of the Sunbelt: Essays on

Ethnicity, Race, and the Urban South, provides an explanation for this intensification. Moore writes that in Southern cities, where evangelical Protestantism dominated, Jewish newcomers were more likely to strengthen their religious awareness, while Jewish migrants to more religiously diverse western cities did not feel the same need to bond with their coreligionists.42

The same appears to be true of the Catholics who moved to small Southern towns during this

period. Without the existence of a Catholic culture to sustain a casual faith, Southern Catholics

had to take their faith seriously. They wanted to be part of the town, but they also wanted to be

distinctly Catholic. Those who chose not to do so were consciously choosing not to be Catholic.

The “New Breed” and Vatican II

As Christopher Kauffman discusses at length his biography of the founder of Glenmary,

Howard Bishop could be autocratic. He was impatient with questions or any challenges to his or

41 Catholic clerics, Methodist and Presbyterian pastors, and rabbis belonging to the Rabbinical Council of America spoke out against right-to-work legislation. The AFL- CIO enlisted the aid of mainline American churches, including many prominent Catholic clergymen. To stop power the right-to-work movement, the Catholic Council on Working Life published pamphlets to complement the AFL-CIO’s literature, such as “20 Questions about . . . ‘the right to work,’” which broke down the meaning of the legislation for American workers. See Catholic Council on Working Life, “20 Questions about . . . ‘the right to work’” (Chicago, 1958), “Right to Work” boxes, Nevada AFL-CIO Collection; National Council for Industrial Peace, “Why So Many Faiths See Evil in ‘Right-to- Work’ Laws” (Washington, D.C, undated), in ibid. 42 See Deborah Dash Moore, “Jewish Migration in the Sunbelt,” in Randall M. Miller and George E. Pozzetta, eds., Shades of the Sunbelt: Essays On Ethnicity, Race, and the Urban South (Boca Raton: Florida Atlantic University Press, 1989), 41-52. 149

Church authority.43 Those priests who did question or challenge Bishop tended to either eventually reconcile themselves to his way of thinking, leave Glenmary, or, in the case of Father

John Marquardt, found themselves exiled to the short-lived mission in Buffalo, Oklahoma, 963 miles from Cincinnati.44 Given his twenty years of work in a rural parish without access to tremendous financial resources, Bishop’s ideas of what kind of man made good missioner material leaned toward the masculine and the practical: he liked men who had done agricultural or manual labor and were self-sufficient. This despite that the fact that Bishop himself had been raised as the son of doctor in northwest Washington, D.C. and attended Harvard. Many early

Glenmarians were often older men, and several had served in World War II. As one would later recall, “Being a veteran, I was a little bit more mature than some guys who joined the society and that could have helped me along the way.”45 The discipline and acceptance of authority within the military may have made it easier for the veterans to accept Bishop’s authority. Most early

Glenmarians thought of themselves as doers rather than thinkers. This is not to say they were anti-intellectual; Francis McGrath, James Kelly, and John Marquardt, among others, were especially gifted intellectually. But the demands of the rural South required a priest who was more pastor (and secretary and handyman and chauffer and scrounger) than professor.46 Each of the men who joined Glenmary during Bishop’s life was vetted by him. Perhaps most significantly, he passed along his understanding of life in an isolated Southern parish: the need for a priest to allow lay initiative, the need to be ecumenical, and the need to fit into Southern society.47

43 Interview with Glenmary priest 2; several mentions of this in Chapters 7-11 of Kauffman. 44 See Kauffman, 233. It is unclear if Father Marquardt’s assignment to the mission in Buffalo in western Oklahoma was actually an exile, though many Glenmarians certainly believed it was. Marquardt’s assignment has become a source of humor for Glenmarians who knew him because he could be every bit as domineering as Bishop. 45 Interview with Glenmary priest 2. 46 Ibid. 47 Ibid. 150

Bishop’s death in 1953 did not slow down vocations to Glenmary, despite him being the singular driving force behind the society. The missionary zeal of the American “Church

Triumphant” in the 1950s resulted in an increasing number of vocations interested in home missions.48 Some were contacted by Glenmary priests like Kelly and Ed Smith during mission and vocation appeals in Northern cities. Others were inspired by the example of Luigi Ligutti, president of the National Catholic Rural Life Conference.49 During the 1953 to 1954 school year, Glenmary had 60 men studying to become priests and thirteen studying to become brothers.

Of these, 46 were in their first, second, or novitiate year, meaning that most of them had little or no exposure to Howard Bishop, and he did not personally approve their entry into Glenmary.50

All but two were from the North (the others were from California and Maryland), and most were from major urban areas. None were from towns as small as the ones they would serve if they became Glenmary priests. These new recruits were much younger than many of the men who had joined Glenmary under Bishop, and would obviously be much less further along in the discernment process. One priest who entered formation in 1953 later recalled that only two of the boys who began their first year of high school with Glenmary actually became priests.51

The trend continued into the sixties; of the 16-20 seminarians in taking moral theology in 1961, only five were ordained.52 The uncertainty of the era seemed to play a role in men joining and then leaving Glenmary. In the fifties, many of the seminarians were unsure of whether

Glenmary was for them. For the men in seminary during the early 1960s, the changes of Vatican

48 Ibid. 49 Interview with Glenmary priest 1. 50 Among Us, Volume VI No 1, 17 October 1953, GHMA. 51 Interview with Glenmary priest 3, 13 March 2006 in Lafayette, TN, GHMA. 52 Interview with Glenmary priest 1. 151

II created a great deal of anxiety, adding another layer to the discernment process. As one priest

recalled, “we were ordained into a church that we did not know what it was going to be.”53

Glenmarians’ formation in the late 1950s reflected that uncertainty. The 1956 novitiate

class was the first to have a whole year under Father Frank Korzinek, who was considered to be

a little more lenient than his predecessors. According to a member of the class, some of its

members had “daring personalities” and did things, such as smoking, which were prohibited.

Many of the seminarians also began to have closer friendships with Glenmary Sisters, though all

those relationships were platonic but one.54 The new seminarians preferred more intellectual

pursuits to manual labor, though their formation still emphasized rural life. Their novitiate year

included work on a farm. The Glenmarians who grew up in cities did not care for the farm

chores and were particularly nervous around cattle.55 They seemed to prefer the classroom, where some ambiguity was beginning to appear as well. One seminarian from the time recalled,

Joe O’Donnell had a good sense that things were going to be different…. He would bring in Karl Rahner and his Theological Investigations, which were good at raising questions more than giving answers. So I felt that I built a good foundation for dealing with what was coming. On the other hand, John Marquardt, teaching Moral Theology and Canon Law gave a good sense of stability, clarity and sureness of where one stands. Probably they were important complements to one another that if all you had was that sureness, it would be very difficult to deal with change. But whereas, if all you had was the sense of change, it would be hard to know what you are committing to.56

Beginning in 1959 and continuing through the early 1960s, Glenmarians would complete

their formation by doing a pastoral year after their ordination at the St. Pius XII Pastoral Center

at Buck Creek, an old mountain lodge with no electricity outside of Murphy, North Carolina.

The pastoral year was the idea of Fathers Raymond Berthiuame and Don Kaple and was intended

53 Interview with Glenmary priest 3 54 Interview with Glenmary priest 1 55 Ibid. 56 Interview with Glenmary priest 3 152 to teach Glenmarians how to be pastors now that they had been taught how to be priests. As will become evident during the remainder of this chapter and the next, there is an irony to the pastoral year being Berthiuame’s idea. It demonstrates that he was genuinely dedicated to being pastoral, but it also suggests that it did not come naturally to him. For him, how to be a pastor was an intellectual problem to be solved rather than a practical concern to be experienced and learned from. The young priests at Buck Creek would typically spend three to four days a week in the classroom and the rest of their time doing mission work.57 By 1961, the assistant pastor at St.

William in Murphy, Jim Wilmes, was the director of the pastoral center. Wilmes was an intense priest who had left the Archdiocese of Chicago to join Glenmary. Despite not having been formed by Glenmary, he had no problem telling the five newly ordained priests that year that they lacked the proper Glenmary Spirit. The five classmates did not particularly appreciate his criticism considering that he had done neither a noviate nor a pastoral year before moving into parish work. Wilmes also seemed to put pastoral ministry ahead of their training, “not show[ing] up until sometimes Monday afternoon or Monday evening.”58 For many young Glenmarians, the clash between the Home Missioners’ traditional emphasis on rural life and the new intellectual approach to formation in the seminary was disconcerting.

“Among Ourselves,” the internal newsletter of the Glenmary missioners, provides some of the best glimpses of the changing nature of priests and seminarians in the late fifties and early sixties. During Bishop’s life, the newsletter was a basic affair consisting primarily of dispatches from far flung Glenmary missions interspersed with news and directives from Cincinnati and jokes and anecdotes designed to keep lonely missioners’ spirits up. The newsletter’s scope increased a bit after Bishop’s 1953 death, with the editors now including short articles written by

57 Ibid. 58 Interview with Glenmary priest 1. 153

Glenmary priests on such practical issues as “Creating the Ideal Base Parish” and “The Aim and

Expected Results of Our Radio Program.”59 Written by veteran priests who had joined the

society while Bishop was still alive, these articles demonstrate far more concern with the details

of creating successful missions than with theological development. Still, they evince a growing

confidence among the Glenmary priests willing to voice their opinions on how best to make

Bishop’s vision for the South a reality. The editors of Among Ourselves gave the articles greater

prominence as time went, moving them from the back to the front of the newsletter.

The dramatic change, however, came in the October 1956 issue with the introduction of a

new section called “Sunspots.” The section was intended to be “a literary organ to air opinions

and observations concerning spiritual, theological, sociological, philosophical, missiological, and

liturgical” concerns.60 Over the two years that Sunspots appeared in the newsletter, it did its best

to live up that billing. The writers, many of whom were seminarians or young priests, seemed

particularly interested in exploring economic issues with articles that condemned the materialism

of the day, questioning whether or not distributism was a viable Christian solution to economic

issues in the South, and exploring contemporary Catholic thought on right-to-work laws. They

also anticipated new directions for the Church with articles on ecumenism and engaged in self-

examination when discussing the very meaning of mission work. Most of these articles were

more descriptive than critical and do not indicate terribly deep theological thinking, but they

were a sincere attempt to grapple with theological and social issues of the day. Interestingly the

articles dealt with topics that concerned Howard Bishop during his life, but rather than simply

accept his viewpoint, these men who had little or no experience with Bishop sought their own

59 See Among Ourselves, Volume VII, No 1, 15 October 1954, and Among Ourselves, Volume VII, No 5, 1 May 1955, GHMA. 60 Among Ourselves, Volume IX, No 1, October 1956, GHMA. 154

answers. Taken in sum, the articles are certainly evidence that Glenmary was attracting a new

type of young man to the priesthood.61

The first piece to appear in Sunspots was a review of A Survey of Protestant Theology in

Our Day by Gustave Weigel, S.J., written by a seminarian named Raymond Berthiuame.

Although he is never listed as the editor of “Sunspots,” it seems likely that Berthiuame was the,

or one of the, driving force behind the section. Besides writing the first piece, he was the most

prolific author within the section, and the section disappeared after his ordination in 1958.

Whatever the case, that Berthiaume was involved in “Sunspots” was indicative of his future

priestly career (see below, chapter five). Both parishioners and priests describe him as being

serious and intellectual. As a seminarian, Berthiuame explored Catholic theology in his writing

and sought to improve the ways in which Glenmary formed its priests. The topic of the piece

also presaged his commitment to ecumenism following Vatican II. Berthiaume is perhaps the

best example of a new sort of Glenmary priest who was more urban intellectual than rural

laborer. Consequently, he was a prolific writer during both his formation and career as a priest,

which has led to a greater role in the pages of this dissertation than his actual participation in

Glenmary would seem to suggest appropriate. Many priests with longer, more vital associations

with Glenmary wrote much less, and, as a result, appear here far less.

Berthiaume and several of his fellow young Glenmary seminarians and priests

exemplified what Andrew Greeley famously called the “New Breed” of young people appearing

in seminaries and colleges in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Joseph Chinnici places them within

the larger cultural transformation taking place among young, educated Americans who were

suspicious of Cold War conformity, critical of the domestic social problems they saw in the

61 See Among Ourselves, Volume IX, No 2, 20 December 1956; Among Ourselves, Volume IX, No 3, 5 March 1957; Among Ourselves, Volume IX, No 4, May 1957; Among Ourselves, Volume X, No 1, 15 November 1957; Among Ourselves, Volume X, No 2, 20 January 1958, GHMA. 155

United States, and often future members of the New Left.62 Greely succinctly summed the New

Breed of Catholics up as

a paradoxical bunch, supremely self-confident, yet anxious and restless; they are organizationally efficient and yet often diplomatically tactless; they are eager to engage in dialogue and yet frequently inarticulate in what they want to say; they are without ideology and yet insistent on freedom; they are generous with the poor and suffering and terribly harsh in their judgments of their elders and superiors; they are ecumenical to the core and yet astonishingly parochial in their tastes and fashions; they want desperately to love but are not sure that they know how to love.63

As a result of these contradictions, members of the New Breed suffered from an identity crisis.

They did not know who they were or what they wanted, but they were sure something was wrong with the status quo. And while they were not necessarily opposed to authority so long as it was right authority, they were deeply suspicious of organizations. Whenever possible, members of the New Breed sought to work with and among people, volunteering in the early 1960s for the

Peace Corps or to be Freedom Riders.

At times Greeley’s article reads like a biography of many Glenmary seminarians of the

late 1950s. They respected authority, but they insisted on questioning it in a way that would

have been unthinkable if Howard Bishop were still alive. They insisted on honesty, sometimes

to their detriment, and were “appalled when their honesty [was] taken as disrespect and their

desire to discuss [was] understood as disobedience; they [couldn’t] see how such an

interpretation [could] be put on their intentions,” either by their instructors while they were

seminarians or by their parishioners when priests.64 Their suspicion of organizations and desire

to minister to people by living among them made Glenmary a perfect fit. They would be able to

62 Joseph P. Chinnici, “The Catholic Community at Prayer, 1926-1976,” in James M. O'Toole, ed., Habits of Devotion: Catholic Religious Practice in Twentieth-Century America, Cushwa Center Studies of Catholicism in Twentieth-Century America (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004), 73-75. 63 Andrew Greeley, “The New Breed,” America 23 May 1964. 64 Ibid. 156

go off to the South and work among the poor and marginalized with minimal oversight. And, as

we will see in the next chapter, they were preoccupied with questions of love, openness, and

ecumenism. Unlike their predecessors in Glenmary, Howard Bishop did not guide them as they

sought answers.

Like so many other members of the Catholic New Breed that Greeley observed, most

young Glenmarians came from the urban, immigrant Catholicism of the North. By the 1950s,

this tradition had reached its apex of power in the United States. Yet, at the same time, many

Catholics, especially young Catholics, felt that this tradition was stultifying, focusing too much

on rules and ritual and rote prayers at the expense of forming meaningful relationships with God

and fellow man. The rumblings of change in the American Church were conceived in the

immigrant neighborhoods of Northern cities before being born in the Second Vatican Council.65

It was from this triumphalist, legalistic heritage that the New Breed Glenmarians emerged, and it

was this heritage they were reacting against.

These New Breed Glenmarians would face a challenge, however, that neither Greeley nor

they foresaw. Unlike their New Breed brothers and sisters, the Glenmarians were about to head

to the rural South, a place that was unprepared for them, and they for it. Their formative

experiences of Catholicism in the North were largely irrelevant because parishioners in these

Southern parishes did not have the same concerns or understanding of Catholicism. Recent

arrivals from the North wanted to hold onto familiar forms of Catholicism, and Catholics raised

in the South wanted nothing so much as to belong to a strong, established church. None of them

65 See Jeffrey M. Burns,"Prelude to Reform:The Church in San Francisco before the Council," U.S.Catholic Historian, 23 (Fall, 2005), 1–15; Leslie Woodcock Tentler, ed., The Church Confronts Modernity: Catholicism since 1950 in the United States, Ireland, and Quebec (The Catholic University of America Press: Washington, DC, 2007); Timothy I. Kelly, The Transformation of American Catholicism: The Pittsburgh Laity and the Second Vatican Council, 1950-1972 (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame, 2009); James M. O'Toole, The Faithful: A History of Catholics in America (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2008), Chapter 4; David J. O’Brien, Public Catholicism (New York: Macmillan, 1989); Colleen McDannell, The Spirit of Vatican Ii: A History of Catholic Reform in America (New York, NY: Basic Books, 2011), Chapter 2. 157 wanted the Church or Southern society to be revolutionized; the New Breed Glenmarians did.

And when they arrived in the South, they were not ready for people who disagreed with them.

Though Greeley did not see these particular circumstances coming, he did predict problems for the New Breed because of their approach to the faith rather than a lack of orthodoxy. In his 1965 follow up article, “The Temptation of the New Breed,” Greeley wrote that the New Breed drastically need to change their style – to gain an understanding of how the world and people actually worked rather than how they wanted them to work. If they failed to do so, he argued, they risked disillusionment and failure to achieve their goals.66 As we shall see in next chapter, many of the New Breed Glenmarians suffered this precise fate.

The young priests and seminarians in Glenmary were not the only ones going through a period of reevaluation in the years immediately preceding Vatican II. Led by Clement Borchers, the superior of Glenmary after Bishop’s death, the society came together for a “Congress of

Mission Techniques” in 1954 and continued each subsequent year. Like the newsletter Among

Ourselves, early congresses dealt with the nuts and bolts of being missionaries in the South: how to build a base parish, how to evangelize, how to break down prejudices, how to best use the local media, and so on. In the minutes of these congresses, priests were able to share their views on these topics in a way they never could while Bishop was still alive. Discussions were passionate but usually cordial, marked by a common respect for the work of the missioners and the society as a whole. As with Among Ourselves, 1957 marked a turning point for the congresses. The Glenmarians turned their attention from their flock to themselves, pondering the issue of the spiritual life of the society. It was the first of many congresses in which the priests evaluated themselves against Howard Bishop’s vision for Glenmary and the current realities of mission work in the South. With so many of the priests at the congress having been formed by

66 Andrew Greeley, “The Temptation of the New Breed,” America 22 May 1965. 158

Bishop, it comes as little surprise that they rededicated themselves to maintaining his standards.

The fact that they thought the conversation was worth having in the first place, however, indicates that Glenmary and its priests were beginning to move beyond Bishop. This interior turn appeared again in 1959 with a congress dedicated to idea of how best to live “the common life.” Glenmary would alternate between examining how best to continue their mission work and appraising their priestly vocation through the 1960s.67

The 1964 congress was particularly notable because it was the first to deal explicitly with

reforms brought about by the Second Vatican Council. Given that Sacrosanctum Concilium had

been promulgated the year before as the first document of the council, it is unsurprising that

Glenmary’s congress focused on the liturgy. Discussions within the congress debated how best

to prepare their congregations for the changes. Most young priests were excited about changes

to the liturgy, as the changes discussed appealed to the sensibilities described in Greeley’s 1964

article: liturgy would be new, revolutionary, and offer a sense of renewal. The New Breed was

not alone its excitement; records of the congress indicate that older Glenmary priests expressed

enthusiasm about the changes as well. Congress records also indicate that most Glenmarians had

a heavy interest in ecumenism, an area in which both the men trained in Howard Bishop’s

republican Catholicism and the New Breed priests overlapped. This enthusiasm squares with

Joseph Chinnici’s argument that Catholic thought regarding liturgy, ecumenism, and the role of

the church in the modern world began to change prior to the council.68 As with lay Catholics,

Glenmary priests’ most practical concerns were with liturgy and effect on sacred space. What neither the veteran priests nor the New Breed considered was that with the call to greater

67 See reports on Congress 1954-1964, GHMA. 68 Joseph P. Chinnici, O.F.M., “An Historian’s Creed and the Emergence of Postconciliar Culture Wars,” The Catholic Historical Review XCIV, 2008. 159 participation in the Church, their parishes might disagree with them on how to resolve these concerns.69

The effect of having a new breed of priest and trying to implement the early changes to come out of Vatican II played out in varying ways in Glenmary parishes. St. Matthew in

Statesboro seems to have handled the transitions well for a few reasons. One was that due to the massive influx of new Catholics, it would have been almost impossible for the parish not to do well. Parishioners remember some unease with the changes, but most say they simply adapted to what the Church told them because that is what Catholics did. More memorable to them was the excitement of the period as new Catholics moved into the parish and young families began to have children.70

These good feelings seem to have allowed the parish to thrive even as there was some conflict between older and younger priests at St. Matthew. The pastor of the parish in the early sixties was John Loftus, who had been a priest in the archdiocese of Chicago for 25 years before joining Glenmary. While in Chicago, Loftus had been heavily involved in the Christian Family

Movement (CFM). He continued his participation with the movement after moving to

Statesboro, taking on the role of director of Marriage Counseling and director of CFM for the diocese.71 In addition to these responsibilities, in 1963 Loftus moved his residence from the base parish in Statesboro to a new satellite mission in Jessup. The extra diocesan work along with building a new mission meant that Loftus had little time for Statesboro. Normally, Loftus would have been named pastor of Jessup, and his assistant pastor, Don Duffy, would have become pastor of Statesboro. Glenmary had other ideas. Duffy was part of the New Breed, but the actual concern was that the society considered Duffy “neurotic” and unfit to be pastor of such a

69 Reports on 1964 Glenmary Congress, GHMA. 70 Interviews with St. Matthew parishioners, A, B, C, and D, March 2011. 71 Interview with Glenmary priest 1. 160

relatively large parish. That Loftus and Duffy had a bad relationship did not help matters. As a

result, Glenmary sent August “Gus” Guppenberger to Statesboro as an assistant pastor.

Guppenberger was a young, recently-ordained priest, but he was considerably more traditional

than “the new breed.” During his time in Georgia, he was essentially the administrator of St.

Matthew and a mediator between Loftus and Duffy. He seems to have performed well in both

roles, and St. Matthew continued to grow in the early and mid-sixties.72

All of the priests in southern Georgia seemed eager to embrace, or at least educate themselves on, the changes going on in the universal Church before and during Vatican II. To this end, they enlisted Sister Magdalene, a Glenmary sister who had studied at the catechetical center at Louvain and who came back with new ideas on teaching, to teach them the new catechism and provide information about the new “liturgical movement.”73 The fact that several

priests from multiple parishes – including Loftus, Duffy, Guppenberger, John Garvey, Will

Steinbacher, and George Mathis from Claxton – would gather weekly for instructions from a nun

in the early sixties seems significant in and of itself. Glenmarians wanted to know more about

new developments and ideas in the church, and they were willing to seek out new sources for

that information.

The impact of Vatican II and the new breed of priest were inseparable at St. Mary’s parish in Franklin during the mid 1960s. After serving as an assistant pastor at Sacred Heart

Church in Burnsville, North Carolina, following his ordination, Ray Berthiuame was made senior pastor of St. Mary’s with Father Bob Dalton appointed his assistant pastor. Berthiuame’s

72 Ibid. 73 Ibid. The Glenmary Sisters had been coming to Statesboro since 1946 to run a summer religious camp and established a permanent convent there in 1959. They remained at St. Matthew’s for a decade, even after Glenmary returned the parish to the Diocese of Savannah. 161

excitement over a “new mood” in the Church and the changes made by the council dominated his

time in Franklin.

Berthiuame, like so many other Glenmarians, was intrigued by the changes to the liturgy

found in Sacrosanctum Concilium and the formal call to ecumenism of Unitatis Redintegratio.

Liturgy seems to have been particularly important to Berthiuame. A great deal of space in the

parish bulletins of the time was dedicated in some form or another to discussing the mass. Prior

to the switch of the mass to being celebrated partially in the vernacular on the first Sunday of

Advent, 1964, St. Mary celebrated a “dialogue” mass in which the congregation responded to the

priest’s prayers (all in Latin). This mass sometimes included a longer than usual homily that

included a dialogue between priest and parish. Bulletins in 1964 regularly provided instructions

for parishioners unsure of how they should participate in the mass. As Vatican II changes to the

mass filtered down to the parish level, Berthiuame took more liberties with both liturgy and the

church space itself. In June of 1965 he replaced a daily mass with what he called an “Upper

Room Meal.” The idea was to have a ceremonial meal that would parallel the Mass, but not

actually be one. The congregation would surround the altar, all prayers and songs would be in

English, and a whole loaf of whole-wheat bread and grape juice used.74 He also discouraged private devotions during mass, stating that the public act of worship must take precedence over all private devotions. For this reason, he made changes to the sanctuary to emphasize the altar.75

Parish bulletins from the time also reflected Berthiaume’s growing interest in ecumenism

and engaging with the community outside the parish. The bulletin regularly announced the

appointment of new pastors in Franklin’s Protestant churches. Berthiaume was particularly

friendly with the local Lutheran minister, and sometimes listed events at the Lutheran church in

74 No actual consecration of the bread and juice took place. 75 St. Mary Bulletin, 23 August 1964, SMA. 162 the bulletin, including a showing of the 1953 film, Martin Luther.76 It is difficult to ascertain how many Catholics in a town that was not particularly friendly toward Catholics wanted to attend a movie about the man who started the Protestant Reformation. Berthiaume further sought to encourage ecumenical activity among his parishioners by giving over an entire bulletin to “Ten Commandments for Dialogue” explaining how Catholics could engage in ecumenical dialogue with their neighbors. The commandments stressed that Catholics should not be defensive; it also cautioned them to leave theology to theologians.77 Finally, Berthiaume continued to reach out to the community by publishing articles in the Franklin Favorite and sponsoring a program on the local radio station.78

St. Mary’s parish appears to have generally accepted the alterations to liturgy and call to ecumenism. As with the parishioners of St. Matthew in Statesboro, they abided the changes because they were told to.79 Yet the bulletins and letters of the time suggest there was some tension between the parish and Berthiuame regarding the particulars. This tension mirrored exactly the problems that Andrew Greeley stated in his first article on the new breed and a follow up article entitled “The Temptation of the New Breed.” In both articles, Greeley predicted problems that awaited the New Breed: their honesty would seem like rudeness; they could be perceived as too intellectual and aloof; they were inflexible; they liked to challenge authority but did not like to be questioned; their search for meaning made it difficult for them to connect with others. St. Mary’s bulletins and parishioners’ memories bear this out. Berthiuame did not encourage or request; he demanded. He demanded that they show up on time for mass. He demanded that they show up for daily mass. He demanded they actively and vocally participate

76 St. Mary Bulletin, 7 June 1964; 7 November 1964, SMA. 77 St. Mary Bulletin, 6 September 1964, SMA. 78 St. Mary Bulletin, 12 April 1964, SMA. 79 Interviews with St. Mary parishioners A, B, D, and F, February 2011. 163

in mass and other liturgical events, going so far as to tell parishioners not to bother come to the

Upper Room Meal if they were only going to be spectators. He demanded that they be

ecumenical. He demanded that they give more money to the parish. He demanded that they be

more involved in their children’s religious education.80

The condescending and authoritative way in which he spoke turned off many

parishioners. They responded in the only way they could: by restricting the time and money they

gave to the parish. Despite the fact that several new Catholic families had moved into the area

since the construction of the Potter and Brumfield and Kendall Company plants, some of whom

were management level, St. Mary constantly struggled to make ends meet financially.

Berthiuame repeatedly provided finance reports to the parish and exhorted them to give more of

their treasure in support of it. Parishioners seem hesitant to give much of their time as well.

Very few attended daily mass; Berthiuame noted that he usually celebrated mass on weekdays by

himself or with one other parishioner.81 Outside of the mass, there were few other activities, and getting volunteers to teach religious education from the parents of the children attending was a constant struggle. On both the issue of funds and education, Berthiuame threatened to let the

parish do without if they did not pull their weight.82

Despite these strains, the parishioners of St. Mary’s have better memories of him than

members of other Glenmary parishes where he served. The Franklin consensus was that he was

serious, intellectual, and detached, but he was a dedicated priest and “not a bad guy.”83 This was

an apt description, and one that differentiated Berthiaume and the New Breed from their fellow

Glenmarians. Where other Glenmary priests spent their free time doing handiwork at the parish

80 See St. Mary’s bulletins from 26 January 1964 to 7 November 1965, SMA 81 St. Mary Bulletin, 31 May 1964; 13 September 1964, SMA. 82 Ibid. 83 Interviews with St. Mary parishioners A, C, D, February 2011. 164

or around town, Berthiuame was in the process of writing “a simple catechism.”84

Consequently, Berthiuame had a harder time connecting to his parishioners. The challenges he

encountered at St. Mary’s foreshadowed his even greater difficulties as a priest in the rural South

later in the sixties.

Like other rural parishes, the initial primary impact of Vatican II in St. Francis de Sales’s

Parish was on the liturgy. Frank Schenk arrived in Idabel as the pastor just as the liturgical

changes were being implemented, and rather than rely on his own expertise or opinion, he

frequently sought advice from the diocesan chancery on practical considerations. The parish had

already begun reciting some parts of the mass in English by July of 1964, and Schenk wanted to

make sure that this was acceptable to the bishop.85 His other questions ranged from details as small as the proper composition of the sanctuary light (did it have to contain bees wax or olive oil?) to how best to renovate the sanctuary in order to face the congregation while celebrating mass.86 The latter was no small matter, as the Catholics of Idabel built the church themselves

without a resident priest, and, as later events in the 1960s would demonstrate, were very

protective of it. In each case, the diocese responded giving Schenk great latitude to do as he saw

fit. As Jeremy Bonner has noted, this leniency was characteristic of the way Bishop Victor Reed

ran the diocese and was a source of concern for some neighboring dioceses.87

The pastors of St. Francis de Sales between 1958 and 1965 – Leonard Spanjers, Leo

Schloemer, and Schenk – also shared the Glenmary enthusiasm for ecumenism and

evangelization. All three joined the local ministerial alliance, and all three wrote columns for the

84August Bulletin 1964; SMA. 85 Frank Schenk to Charles H. Schettler, 28 July 1964, DTA. 86 Schenk to Schettler, 28 July 1964; Frank Schenk to William Garthoeffner, 3 December 1964, DTA. 87 Charles H. Schettler to Frank Schenk, 4 August 1964; Tulsa; William Garthoeffner to Frank Schenk, 5 December 1964, DTA. See also Jeremy Bonner, The Road to Renewal: Victor Joseph Reed & Oklahoma Catholicism, 1905-1971, (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2008). Bonner describes at length the diocese’s and Bishop’s Reed’s reputation for allowing experimentation with the liturgy and new ways for the clergy to relate to the laity. 165

local paper and either sponsored or gave programs on the local radio station. They visited the

funeral home whenever someone died, even when the deceased was not Catholic, in an effort to

build goodwill and break down prejudice.88 Schenk was the most concerned about the propriety

of doing this, writing the chancery to make sure that his leadership of a public non-

denominational Thanksgiving services was appropriate and asking if there were any particular

pitfalls he should avoid. Unsurprisingly, he was given full permission by the diocese. The fact that the diocese did not bother to respond until the week after Thanksgiving indicates how little concerned it was with the matter. 89

What differentiated St. Francis de Sales from its Glenmary counterparts in Statesboro and

Franklin was the lack of any New Breed priests serving there in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s.

Instead the priests there were older, more experienced priests, all of whom had joined Glenmary while Howard Bishop was still alive. Their style of ministry relied more on encouragement than chastisement, and all seemed willing to accept their congregation and rural community on their own terms rather than preconceived notions. Parishioners and fellow Glenmarians recall that

Leonard Spanjers in particular “had a real terrific ministry ability” and was more adaptable than any other priest they had ever seen. Several noted that he was “very patient with people.”90 The

closest thing to a priestly challenge that Idabel faced during the period was the arrival of Frank

Wuest, who had been reassigned to Idabel after having a “mental breakdown” at another

Glenmary parish. As Idabel was one of the smaller Glenmary missions, Glenmary president

Clem Borchers though the best way to ease Wuest back into active ministry was as Leo

Schloemer’s assistant pastor. This made for a slightly awkward dynamic because Wuest had

88 Interview with Glenmary priest 2 89 Frank Schenk to William Garthoeffner, 28 September 1965, Tulsa; Garthoeffner to Schenk, 5 December 1964; DTA. 90 Interview with Glenmary priest 2; Interview with St. Francis de Sales parishioners A and B, July 2010. 166 been Schloemer’s instructor in seminary. Wuest was considered a good priest, but he moved at a slower pace than many Glenmarians. This was in part because of the tranquilizers he took to control his nerves, but nevertheless actually seemed to suit the parishioners of St. Francis de

Sales, who appreciated his calm nature.91

Small, rural diocesan parishes in the South shared the Glenmary excitement and concerns about implementing Vatican II on the local level, but they seem less affected by the New Breed of priests. Letters from St. William’s parish in Durant and St. Theresa’s parish in Cordele to their respective chanceries request information regarding liturgical changes, most notably on the new guidelines for distributing the Eucharist.92 At St. Paul’s parish in Princeton, Fr. Gerard

Glahn was cautiously interested in ecumenism prior to the council. On notable example came in

July 1961, when Glahn was invited to take part in an interdenominational panel discussion on the radio concerning matters of religion. The initial topic was supposed to be Church-state relations.

Glahn demurred for fear of the topic being too controversial, so organizer E.B. Self, pastor of the

Midway Baptist Church, agreed to change topic and drop “prayers, hymns, or whatever else might be offensive to the Catholic.” Ultimately, Self was willing to alter the program to just be an introduction to Catholicism. The episode encouraged Glahn because it indicated to him that

“now in Princeton and elsewhere there is an effort being made to see the Church as socially acceptable, and since there is a manifest discontent in Protestant quarters here, the time is opportune for us to shed the air of the mysterious by enlightening those sincere in the desire to know their Catholic friends.”93 While liturgical changes and initial gestures toward ecumenism occupied these parishes in the early and mid sixties, conflicts with their pastors did not. In each

91 Ibid. 92 Anonymous memo, May 12, 1960; DTA; Godfrey Riley, O.F.M., to Bishop Thomas J. McDonough, 15 June 1964, DSA. 93 Gerard Glahn to Bishop Henry J. Soenneker, July 1, 1961, DOA. 167

case, the pastors of these parishes were veteran priests who had been ordained for more than a

decade.

The full weight of the changes and challenges caused by the New Breed and Vatican II

will not be seen until the next chapter. What can be seen between 1958 and 1965 is the beginning

of substantial differences between Glenmary and non-Glemary parishes. Distinctions were no

longer of degree; with the arrival of the New Breed Glenmarians, the distinctions became of

kind. Priests from the South and those trained by Glenmary during Howard Bishop’s life

understood, even if they did not always accept or approve of, Southern culture and Catholicism.

As we will see in greater detail in the next chapter, New Breed Glenmarians came to the South

with Northern, urban Catholic baggage, and they intended to fix Southern culture using Northern

solutions. They would run into serious problems over the next ten to fifteen years, especially as

the laity, already inclined to be active in the running of their churches as a result of their

republican heritage, claimed the spirit of Vatican II and began to challenge the authority of their

pastors.

Glenmary and the Civil Rights Movement

If priests in small southern towns had to deal with momentous changes within the Church

between 1958 and 1965, they had to grapple with equally momentous changes within in the

South as well. These years coincided with the most crucial years of the African-American civil rights movement in the South. As a number of historians have noted, the Catholic Church in the

South found itself in an awkward position in relation to the civil rights movement. According to

Andrew S. Moore, by the mid-twentieth century, Catholics were a “tolerable alien” in the South.

Regarded as outsiders, their situation was too precarious to vocally support integration and 168

African-American voter rights.94 Moore argues that white Catholic Southerners were aware that

any advantage their skin color might provide was minimal. As religious outsiders, the violence

and intimidation used to keep blacks in their place could very easily be directed at them.95

Catholics also realized that they were vulnerable because of their small numbers. Certainly there

were sizable Catholic communities in cities like New Orleans, Mobile, and Savannah, but many

Catholics lived in small communities spread across the South. White Catholics often allied

themselves with the white Protestant majority in maintaining the region's racial status quo as a

way to get along and assure their place in Southern society. The result was that few African

Americans joined the Catholic Church, and those who did were often consigned to secondary

status in mission parishes and the rear of churches and public processions.96 It was within this

tension that Glenmary and other southern priests attempted to operate.

The relationship between the American Catholic Church and African Americans has been

an uneasy one, even into the twentieth century. In the middle of twentieth century, only 325,000

blacks were Catholic, and most of them lived in the Jim Crow South.97 Initially, the Catholic

approach to integration during this period was muddled. Catholic theologians seemed unsure of

how to proceed, often hedging their support for African Americans in general and black

Catholics in particular. Father John A. Ryan, long one of the most liberal Catholic leaders in the

country, stated that legal segregation was morally wrong, but he stopped short of calling for

equal voting rights. Theologian John Courtney Murray, S.J., supported integration as a matter of

charity but refused to support integration of Catholic schools. His fellow Jesuit, Gerald Kelly,

94 See R. Bentley Anderson, Black, White, and Catholic: New Orleans Interracialism, 1947-1956 (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2005); Andrew S. Moore, The South's "Tolerable Alien": Roman Catholics in Alabama and Georgia, 1945-1970 (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press). 95 This was especially true after the creation of the reconstituted Ku Klux Klan, which targeted Catholics, Jews, and immigrants as well as African Americans. 96 Moore, 62-68. 97 Howard Bishop, “What are We Doing for These?” The Challenge 1 (Spring, 1938): 2. 169 counseled prudence in dealing with segregation, believing that immediate integration would create as many problems as it solved. To some degree, his position on integration mirrored the

Jesuits’ position on slavery ninety years before: wait and things would eventually work themselves out.98

Other Catholic intellectuals, however, had a very clear stance on the moral imperative of integration. Interestingly, it was another Jesuit, John LaFarge, who took the most progressive approach. LaFarge came from a wealthy, sophisticated background that was the antithesis of the tribalism and racism found in so many Catholic communities.99 As a result, he became a leading exponent of the “interracial apostolate,” a Catholic Action program that battled racial segregation and emphasized the unity of all human beings within the Mystical Body of Christ.100

LaFarge’s writings on the subject led Pope Pius XI to summon him to Rome to work on an encyclical condemning racism and anti-Semitism.101 It is worth noting that LaFarge and Howard

Bishop exchanged correspondence early in their careers.

By the late 1950s, Catholic intellectual opinion about segregation had moved in a more liberal direction. Other Catholic thinkers joined LaFarge in calling for immediate integration.

Murray now argued that the sinfulness of segregation was “entirely clear.”102 There were several reasons for Catholics to take a unified progressive stance on the issue. Some echoed LaFarge, believing that segregation was an affront to the equality found in the Mystical Body of Christ.

Others were simply taking into account the ruling of the Supreme Court in the case of Brown v.

98 John McGreevy, Catholicism and American Freedom: A History (New York: W.W. Norton, 2003), 208. 99 James T. Fisher, Communion of Immigrants: A History of Catholics in America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 117. LaFarge's father was a celebrated artist, and his mother was a descendant of Ben Franklin. He had been educated at Harvard 100 James Hennesey, S.J., American Catholics: A History of the Roman Catholic Community in the United States (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), 265, and McGreevy, 210. 101 McGreevy, 210. The encyclical was never released. This has sparked much debate related to the controversy surrounding Pius XII and his alleged sympathies for the Nazis. 102 Ibid. 170

Board of Education.103 Finally, some Catholic thinkers stressed the importance of protecting

African Americans from Communist infiltration. This seems reasonable considering that anti-

Communism was the dominant political issue in American Catholic life during the era.104

The response of the Southern clergy to integration was mixed in part because of differing personal views on the subject and in part because of the opinions of their flock. Some, like

Archbishop Paul J. Hallinan of Atlanta supported integration and believed that “Church doctrine could be applied to society at large.” Others were more conservative. Archbishop Thomas J.

Toolen of Mobile-Birmingham, for example, took a defensive stance, ignoring the social plight of African Americans in Alabama. A few reformers, such as Father Albert Foley, a sociology professor at Spring Hill College in Mobile, openly and forcefully challenged segregation.105

Numerous white Catholics rejected calls from these reformers to abide by Church teaching and instead branded them as outsiders. As a result, reformers were often silenced or transferred out of the diocese. By the late 1950s, however, these activists gained support from the Church and grew more vocal in challenging Jim Crow practices. The 1958 National Bishop’s statement declaring that racial segregation was irreconcilable with Christian teaching gave episcopal authority to their charges.106 Now the social arrangement that had made life as a Catholic in the

South manageable was being threatened from within. This was the situation in which the

Glenmarians and other southern priests found themselves in the mid-twentieth century. They served a minority religious group in a hostile area with mixed opinions on the defining social issue of the era. If they were too reform-minded, they risked the wrath of both the parish and the

103 A constant struggle for Catholics in American history until the 1950s had been to prove themselves both good Catholics and good Americans. Following the law of the land would allow them to do this. 104 Fisher, 120. Here again was an opportunity for Catholics to prove themselves good Americans. 105 Andrew Moore discusses Hallihan, Toolen, and Foley in the later chapters of The South’s Tolerable Alien. 106 Fisher, 83. 171

community – a practical problem. If they were did not advocate enough reform, they would be

opposing Church teaching – a theological and moral problem.

In theory, African Americans were always a part of the Glenmarians’ apostolate.

Howard Bishop recognized the need for mission work among blacks in the rural South in the first

issue of the Challenge, the public newsletter (and eventual magazine) of the Home Missioners.

Bishop believed that miniscule numbers of black Catholics meant the “Church of Christ must

increase its efforts on their behalf.”107 Consequently, blacks were necessarily a part of any

mission efforts within the United States. Bishop also warned that Catholic evangelization could

slow Communist infiltration into the black community. Despite this seemingly urgent plea,

Bishop did not see fit to mention the need to minister to African Americans again until three

years later.108 Blacks may have been part of the apostolate, but they were apparently not a

crucial part.

Blacks did not disappear entirely from the pages of the Challenge in the intervening

years. As part of a call for vocations, an article entitled “Help Wanted!” listed the wonders

awaiting a northern young man if he became a priest in the South. Included was a picture

entitled “Negroes Picking Cotton.” The picture’s caption reads “When your windshield encloses

SUCH treasures, the old Ford just has to stop for a spell and give the camera a chance. ‘Stan’

quiet, now chillum, so the gent’man can take yo’ picture.’”109 Even by the conservative

standards of the time, the author’s use of the awful economic and social conditions of blacks in

the South as an enticing feature of the area is patronizing. This would mark the first of many

107 Bishop, “What are We Doing for These?” It seems notable that Bishop wrote this at approximately the same time that Jesuits, including John LaFarge, were drafting Humani generis unitas, an encyclical planned by Pope Pius XI to condemn antisemitism and racism, including a clear condemnation of the Jim Crow system of segregation. 108 Howard Bishop, “A Call to Battle for Christ and Souls,” The Challenge 5 (Spring, 1941): 1. 109 Eugene Holmes, “Help Wanted!” The Challenge 1 (Christmas, 1938): 7. 172

times that the Challenge would portray blacks as speaking a backward dialect of English.110 The

same picture was used in 1941. This time the caption referred to blacks as “successful

competitors” with Southern whites who could better handle heat, long hours, and little pay.

There are several explanations for the initial restrained approach of Glenmary to race.

One is that Howard Bishop opposed racism, but he, like many other Catholic leaders, favored a

gradualist approach to the problem. Glenmary priests were instructed to accept blacks into their

missions but avoid active participation in integrationist movements.111 In the meantime,

Glenmarians were to be patient and pray for an end to racism. Bishop took a pragmatic approach

to race because he understood, as Andrew Moore would argue seventy years later, that Catholics

were outsiders in the South. Southern Catholics were at the mercy of their Protestant neighbors,

and this was doubly true in the areas in which the Glenmarians served. It would not do for

priests to be rabble-rousers when rural Southerners were already shooting at them and accusing

them of being spies simply for wearing Roman collars.112 Beyond this, most of the Catholics in

Glenmary missions were whites, and there were more opportunities to convert unchurched

whites than blacks.113

As the Church’s position on race became more progressive, so did the Home Missioners’.

In 1950, they published their first article dealing entirely with black evangelization. The article

was prompted by Pope Pius XII’s statement that more needed to be done to minister to African

Americans. Pius noted that only one-fortieth of blacks in America were Catholic in 1948; this

110 In fairness to the author of this piece, most Southerners quoted in the Challenge seemed to share this dialect (though blacks appear to be the least articulate of all Southerners). Part of the reason for this may be that the overall tone of the “slice-of-life” pieces was extraordinarily corny, even by clerical standards. 111 Kauffman, 180. 112 Howard Bishop, “In the Line of Fire,” The Challenge 6 (Summer, 1942): 3. 113 Howard Bishop, “Holy Father’s Intention” The Challenge 12 (Spring, 1950): 6. Bishop acknowledged the historic ties between African Americans and Protestant Churches. The Challenge claimed this was the result slave owners “poisoning” slaves’ minds against the Catholic Church. Glenmary admitted no Catholic complicity with slavery or segregation. 173 was roughly the same ratio as at the end of the Civil War. Glenmary advocated more prayers for the conversion of blacks. The Challenge’s article claimed that the American Church had made some progress. The current numbers, however, were skewed because the ratio had dipped to one-seventieth in the 1920s. The article also reasonably pointed out that a major problem was that most blacks lived in the rural South where there were few Catholics of any race.114 Bishop himself became more progressive shortly before his death, condemning Jim Crow laws in a speech to Xavier University in Cincinnati.115

Glenmary became more outspoken in its support of African Americans immediately following Bishop’s death. Just a few months after Bishop passed away in 1953, the Challenge put a picture of a black sharecropper on its cover.116 This was a risky decision for a magazine distributed among whites in the South. Four years later the magazine ran a small feature on a

Glenmary priest providing rosaries to black children.117 The Home Missioners were no longer discretely attempting to evangelize African Americans; they were openly fulfilling the promise of Bishop’s statement in the first issue of the Challenge and moving beyond his personal example.

In the latter years of the 1950s and early years of the 1960 the Home Missioners followed the lead of the American Church and spoke out unambiguously against racism. Opposition to racial prejudice manifested itself in many ways in the pages of the Challenge. Some of them were minor, such as the publication of a picture showing Father William Tegeler of Claxton,

Georgia, holding a black child in his lap.118 Other pieces were more overt, including an essay

114 Howard Bishop, “Holy Father’s Intention,” The Challenge 12 (Spring, 1950): 6. 115 Kaufman, 231. 116 “Cover Image,” The Challenge 15 (Autumn, 1953). 117 Anonymous, “Dixie Pictorial,” The Challenge 20 (Spring, 1957): 3. 118 Anonymous, “Father Claxton Makes the Rounds,” The Challenge 22 (Autumn, 1959): 5. 174

decrying the bigotry aimed at African American as well as Catholics in the South.119 The most explicit example of Glenmary’s newly vocal opposition to segregation came in the Fall 1960 issue of the Challenge. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the article dealt with Ray Berthiaume, who was an assistant pastor at Sacred Heart parish in Burnsville, North Carolina, at the time. A local crisis had flared when thirty-two blacks were refused entrance in the county’s public schools.

Berthiaume joined a committee of Christian integrationists who condemned the schools for failing to abide by the Brown v. Board decision. The group resolved to build a small three room school for the children until the case could be resolved. For his part, Berthiaume wrote to

Catholic magazines and newspapers across the country in hopes of obtaining funds and teachers for the school. He acknowledged that his participation in the project could make him unpopular among hostile Protestants, but he believed that the situation was too unjust to ignore. The

Glenmarians supported this position, arguing that it was in keeping with Church teaching and

American justice. 120 Berthiuame continued to support the civil rights movement after moving to

St. Mary’s parish in Franklin through the parish bulletin and the distribution of a flyer providing

facts about the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to parishioners.121 This stood in stark contrast to

Howard Bishop’s caution to avoid publicly taking sides in the segregation controversy fifteen

years earlier. Glenmary had chosen the side of integrationism and Church teaching.

The Glenmarians at St. Matthew parish in Statesboro and St. Francis de Sales in Idabel

also fought segregation in their respective communities. In the early sixties, Glenmary

conducted trailer-chapel missions in the nearby small towns within the parish boundaries of each

church. These missions were intentionally integrated, and the results were mixed. In St.

Matthew’s parish, integrated audiences in the towns of Pulaski and Stillmore had “fair to good

119 Anonymous, “Appalachian Survey,” The Challenge 22 (Christmas, 1959): 8. 120 Anonymous, “Bucking Public Opinion,” The Challenge 23 (Fall, 1960): 11. 121 Undated Flyer (ca 1964), SMA. 175

reactions” to the missions. In Rincon the mission was in the black section of town and got a

good reaction from the 25 attendees the first night and 50 the second. On the other hand, no

African Americans attended the mission in Twin City, “the only town that gave [the

Glenmarians] any trouble with regard to the race problem. The police car was posted on the

main road blocking the entrance to the trailer chapel on the 1st night.” The trailer chapel then

moved to the neighboring mission of St. Christopher in Claxton. Race relations were worse here,

and blacks were not invited to missions, possibly out of worries after the experience in Twin

City. 122 Idabel conducted similar missions in 1960. Their attempts at integrating the missions

met with little success, but they did attract African Americans to missions conducted in the black

neighborhoods on the edge of town.123 None of these missions garnered larger numbers of

African-American conversions, although there were typically one or two families who joined the church in each parish. Despite the small numbers, this is actually quite significant because it

meant that the Catholic Church was the only integrated church in Statesboro, Franklin, and

Idabel.

John Loftus, the pastor of St. Matthew, was an especially ardent proponent of

desegregation. He had been an army chaplain during World War II for integrated units, and

commitment to integration became an important part of his ministry in Georgia. During the

summer of 1963, the parish hosted integrated ecumenical meetings for the college of Georgia

Southern University. Loftus did not enjoy the support of all of the students; one of the more

devout Catholic college student admitted to being uncomfortable meeting with black students,

even though the student thought he should not be.124 Loftus also met with resistance when he

attempted to propose an integration program to the city council. The city council rebuffed him,

122 Statistical Report on Trailer-Chapel in Georgia Mission July 16 – August 8, 1961, DSA. 123 Interview with Glenmary priest 2. 124 Interview with Glenmary priest 1. 176 explaining that it had no regularly scheduled meetings, only private “called” ones when need arose and not made public. As one home missioner recalled, “the town was pretty well closed down to being open to new ideas; especially for someone who is coming to talk about integration.”125

In Idabel, some African Americans viewed St. Francis de Sales as a haven from segregation. One Glenmarian recalled that the Sunday after the September 15, 1963, bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, young African Americans came to the church to pray. “We had black groups, lots of them; kids just sort of show up. Ours was the only white church they could come and visit. I remember that they came on the Sunday after that terrible bombing. No eyebrows were raised because they were not making a protest. And other groups had come before that.”126 The Glenmarians regularly visited and preached in the black sections of Idabel, though, like the missions, their work showed little yield in terms of growing the numbers in the pews of St. Francis de Sales. They believed their work was important nonetheless. “The schools were segregated. The blacks could not go into any of the restaurants at that time in Idabel…. There was segregation and that is why [the Glenmarians] were trying to reach out to them. In the restaurant and every other way.”127

The non-Glenmarian parishes of St. Theresa in Cordele, St. Paul in Princeton, and St.

William in Durant were much more cautious on the topic of integration. No record exists from the period of any African-American families attending any of the parishes. The only mention of race in the correspondence or records of these parishes between 1958 and 1965 appears in a letter from the pastor of St. Therese, Fr. Godrey Riley, O.F.M, to Auxiliary Bishop Thomas J.

McDonough of Savannah in 1959. Riley told of being stopped by a black workman asking for a

125 Ibid. 126 Interview with Glenmary priest 2. 127 Ibid. 177 religious medal. The man was Catholic and had been living in Cordele for three years.

According to Riley, “due to the present strained relations between the races, [the workman] has been afraid to come to Mass at St. Theresa’s, the ‘white’ church in town.” The man told Riley that his wife and four children wished to become Catholic along with one of his co-workers and there were “three or four” other black Catholics in town, some of whom were attending

Protestant churches. Riley’s feelings about the practicality of integration of St. Theresa’s were revealed when he asks the auxiliary bishop for permission to say an extra mass at noon at “some suitable location in the Colored section.”128 It is unsurprising that the only mention of race in one of the non-Glenmarian parishes came from the one staffed by the Franciscans of New York. As mentioned in the last chapter, they had been brought to southwest Georgia specifically for the purpose of evangelizing African Americans in and around Americus. By 1959, the Franciscans had absorbed Bishop Gerald O’Hara’s warning about “the difficulties that are connected with the colored apostolate vis-à-vis the reaction of white people, even Catholics. Extreme prudence and caution are required in order to not antagonize the whites. Their hostility could easily ruin the entire endeavor.”129 The Franciscans were fervent in their desire to reach out to blacks, but they did so discretely in accordance with the era’s social norms.

Self-preservation was not the only consideration in shaping southern priests positions on race; the stance of the larger Catholic Church affected them as well. They were small parts of the universal Church and abided by its teachings. When the Church’s stance on race was unclear, they hesitated to assert themselves. As the universal and American Church began to speak out against segregation and racism, the Glenmarians at least began to act on these pronouncements.

128 Godfrey Riley, O.F.M. to Bishop Thomas J. McDonough, 19 November 1959, DSA. The Franciscans in Georgia had already established two chapels for blacks in nearby towns in order to avoid integrating their parishes. 129 Bishop Gerald O’Hara to Bertrand Campbell, O.F.M., 4 September 1945, DSA. 178

Conclusion

Each of the three developments in this chapter – the migration of industry and Catholics

to small towns in the South, the emergence of the New Breed priests and Vatican II, and the

Catholic Church’s response to and participation in the African-American civil rights movement –

represents an important bridge between Howard Bishop’s vision and what Glenmary and

Catholicism in the rural South would eventually become. Bishop had envisioned Glenmary

priests as missionaries winning converts among Southern farmers. Although missionary work in

agricultural areas remained a key part of their calling, during the late fifties and early sixties, the

economic transformation of the South meant that Glenmarians spent less time evangelizing

native Southern farmers and more time tending to the transplanted Catholics who came to them

along with a wave of industrialization. Another challenge to Bishop’s paradigm came with the

introduction of a new wave of seminarians in the mid-1950s. In the early days of the society,

Bishop handpicked candidates for the Home Missioners. If he did not approve of them, they

were not permitted into the seminary. The years between 1958 and 1965 saw the ordination of

the first Glenmary priests that had not been personally chosen by Bishop. They were typically

younger and more interested in theological debates than the men that Bishop had brought in.

These would be the young, energetic missioners during and immediately after Vatican II. They

would also often be the most radical priests and the first to leave the priesthood and even the

church after the Council. For better and for worse, these men often shaped the perception of

Glenmary in the parish and the community, and it was with the arrival of these men that real

differences began to emerge between Glenmary and non-Glemary priests and parishes. Finally,

Bishop had been a gradualist on race relations and argued for an extremely cautious approach to evangelizing African Americans. After Bishop’s death, Glenmarians became more involved in 179 the Civil Rights movements in ways both visible and discreet. In each case, Glenmary was responding to larger issues going on around it instead of simply trying to challenge Bishop’s views, and the fact that his death was swiftly followed by such massive upheavals in the Catholic

Church and the South led to dramatic changes within Glenmary. Ultimately these changes allowed the Glenmary Home Missioners and the Catholic Church at large to have a greater impact in the South in the late 1950s, early 1960s, and beyond than they would have if they had hewed more closely to Bishop’s initial vision of Southern Catholicism.

One last important development between 1958 and 1965 should be noted before moving into the post-Vatican II era: after 1965, there were was little chance of Catholicism disappearing in any of these towns. The Catholic community in every town but Idabel had experienced relatively significant growth, and every church was the primary responsibility of at least one priest. Between 1939 and 1957, the arrival of priests and laypeople in these towns ensured that

Catholicism would survive; between 1958 and 1965, the flood of new Catholics and subsequent stability of the churches ensured that Catholicism would thrive. The result was usually enthusiastic cooperation between priest and laity to create a strong parish. And considering that challenges that many of these churches would face over the next ten years, that strength would be needed.

Chapter Four Pastoral Approaches to Vatican II 1966-1975

Vatican II does not seem to have caused the same massive upheaval in the South as it did in urban Northern enclaves shaped by an immigrant tradition. Instead, the ramifications and reality of life after the main thrust of the Civil Rights movement and the beginning of the demographic revolution caused by the move of Northern industry and business to the South were far more transformative for Southern parishes and parishioners. The number of Catholics in these small towns increased not because Glenmary founder Howard Bishop’s vision of converting unchurched Southerners worked but because Catholics moved to the towns along with new businesses and factories. (It should be mentioned that parishes were also growing due to conversions resulting from intermarriages.) Whatever the cause, the result of the churches’ growth meant that many of them either became canonical parishes or received their first resident priest following Vatican II. The Catholics who arrived in the 1950s and 1960s were usually much better off economically and socially than the local Catholics of previous generations. They were middle class and better educated – middle management of new factories, doctors, lawyers, a few professors. They tended to be anti-union, moderates at best on civil rights, and generally preferred personal charity over social justice. Consequently, they tended to be more respected by their neighbors – but not too respectable. 1 The Roe v. Wade decision allowed Catholics and

Evangelicals in small Southern towns to really begin to find common cause, though one should be careful not to overstate the strength of that cooperation.

1 Andrew Moore makes the case that the Civil Rights movement allowed Catholics to join the Southern mainstream. He makes an excellent case for this on a macro level, but some hostility toward Catholicism remained in the rural South well into the 1990s. 180

181

Because these other considerations were more significant to the experience of being

Catholic in the rural South, it is possible to step back from historians’ usual focus on Vatican II

and use the council and its consequences as a means to examine the life of the parishes in this

study. Documents from the era and interviews with parishioners in these studies suggest some

trepidation and some enthusiasm for the council from Southern Catholics, but most simply

accepted the changes.2 Few mention any major concerns about the council itself. With regard to

the liturgy, some lament a loss of beauty, but many, especially among then recent converts,

appreciated the switch to the vernacular. It made Catholicism seem less exotic, which is to say

less pagan, to their Evangelical neighbors. Other than a general sense that it was odd, no one

mentioned a problem with the priest facing the congregation. There was a general sense of

appreciation for active participation in the Mass, especially singing popular Protestant hymns,

which were already familiar to many Southern Catholics. The idea of ecumenism was not a

shock because, as we have seen, Catholics in the rural South had been doing it for ages. There

were not the same boundaries to cross as in urban areas. Documents from the era do, however,

indicate that they were not particularly interested in becoming more ecumenical – they wanted to

be distinctly Catholic.

In these churches the memories parishioners recall most often are of how the parish priest

attempted to implement the council on the local level. Vatican II was not a problem for these

Catholics, but it could reveal what happened when the relationship between priest and parish

broke down. Obviously the priest shaped the life of most parishes, serving as mediator, teacher,

source of authority and the sacraments, but this was even truer in small isolated parishes where

2 This pattern is consistent across all of the parishes in this study. Few documents demonstrating responses at the grassroots level to the Second Vatican Council exist for the majority of parishes in this study, and parishioners’ memories of the council have far more to do with the way in which pastors implemented Vatican II’s mandates than they do with the council itself. Very few parishioners had actually read the documents produced at the council. 182 parishioners were a long way away from other parishes. If parishioners had problems with their priest, they had nowhere else to go. What becomes apparent is that a symbiotic relationship between priest and parish was necessary for success. It also becomes clear that those priests who developed this relationship had either been formed to accept the pluralism, localism, and importance of lay support that were the heritage of republican Catholicism in the South, or were at least open to them. The arrival of the New Breed priests in Glenmary parishes during the period covered in the previous chapter would lead to problems during the period described in this chapter. What this all suggests is that the growth of Catholicism in the rural South cannot simply be reduced to a matter of economics and Sun Belt migration. Instead, we will see that the challenges of Vatican II demonstrate the centrality of the priest to these small far-flung parishes, despite the long tradition of having an active laity.

The parishes in this study fall into a broad continuum in terms of successfully navigating developments between 1966 and 1975. The Glenmary parishes in Idabel and Franklin led predominantly by New Breed priests during these years suffered through contentious periods that pitted pastors against parishioners. Although the parishes gained at least a few new members during this decade, hostility arising in large part from how the pastor understood and attempted to live out Vatican II limited that growth and damaged the local Catholic community. Non-

Glenmary parishes fared considerably better. Pastors who were either raised or had their priestly formation in the South oversaw the parishes in Cordele, Princeton, and Durant. These men avoided the radicalism that would have alienated their parishioners, opting instead for an approach that emphasized continuity. This allowed their parishes to continue to grow in spirit and numbers, but it could prevent these churches from addressing major problems of the day, such as continued poverty and racism or the call to evangelize. The most successful parish of the 183

era in this study was St. Christopher in Claxton, Georgia. The Glenmary pastor here combined a

sympathy for the republican-influenced Catholicism of the rural Southern laity with an outsider’s

eye. The result was a parish that not only grew, but managed to alter its town for the better.

The priests whose parishes had traumatic experiences of Vatican II were decidedly not

Southern, in either origin or attitude. The letters of Glenmary Father Raymond Berthiuame at St.

Francis de Sales in Idabel, Oklahoma, and Father Paul Ackerman at St. Mary in Franklin,

Kentucky, reveal that they viewed the pre-conciliar church as complacent, insular, and too concerned with rules and devotions to engage with the real issues of the day – all complaints aimed at the Church found in urban, ethnic enclaves in which these men learned the faith. The problem was that this church never existed in the South. The Church in these small towns was often young and small. Some Catholics were converts who had to learn the basic teachings of the faith in order to join the Church, and many were Northern transplants looking for a spiritual home. As a result, the Church never had the chance to grow complacent. Glenmary Father John

Barry, who followed Ackerman at St. Mary, was never as strident as the other two, but many parishioners thought his approach muddied what it meant to be Catholic. In young parishes without much institutional or cultural support, this approach could be equally problematic.

In the foregoing circumstances Glenmary Father Raymond Berthiuame entered St.

Francis de Sales with “a crewcut and clothing that was soberly clerical.”3 Berthiaume described

himself as “coldly idealistic” and had a problem with authority dating from seminary days.4 His writings reveal that he saw the Church as stodgy and too clerical. This unease with clergy

3 Raymond Berthiuame, Glenmary Missioner Newsletter, 22 July 1971, DTA. 4 Ibid., Raymond Berthiuame to Robert C. Berson, 4 September 1967, GHMA. 184

extended to uncomfortable relationships with his assistant pastors, both fellow Glenmarians. He

preferred to live alone.5

Berthiuame, idealist that he was, was thrilled about changes in the post-conciliar Church

and society in education, social action, ecumenism, liturgy, and the role of the clergy. The

council apparently offered answers to most problems he believed plagued the Church, which

energized him.6 As described in the previous chapter, his commitment to new approaches had dominated his pastorate of St. Mary Church, Franklin, Kentucky, sometimes to the chagrin of its conservative parishioners. Parish bulletins of the era carry Berthiaume’s chastisements for parishioners’ lack of support for his ideas.7 Undeterred, he made them the cornerstone of his

ministry in Idabel when he arrived in 1966.

St. Francis de Sales’ new pastor began his assignment with enthusiasm. In some ways,

Berthiaume seemed to have learned from his experiences at Franklin, Kentucky. By creating a

rapport with his congregation, he hoped to change the dynamic of the pastor-parish relationship.

He invited families to “stop in at the rectory and spend ‘an evening with the pastor.’ Sure, bring the kids. We can put on some records, look at the tropical fish, drink and talk.”8 He painted a

giant smiling sun on a wall of the rectory living room as a conversation piece.9 His initiatives

aimed to humanize the priest and make it easier to relate to him. He celebrated daily mass at

Idabel, largely leaving the Plunkettville and Broken Bow missions to assistant pastors, Robert

5 Berthiuame’s strained relations with Robert Valenza arose from personality clashes and the latter informing St. Henry parishioners of the former's proposal either to close or move their parish in 1967. See Robert C. Berson to Raymond Berthiuame, 2 June 1966, GHMA; Raymond Berthiuame to Victor J. Reed, 8 May 1967, DTA; Raymond Berthiuame to Victor J. Reed, 17 April 1967, DTA; Robert Valenza to Victor J. Reed, 3 May 1967, GHMA; Berson to Berthiuame, 8 August 1967, and Raymond Berthiuame, Glenmary Missioner Newsletter, 30 July 1968, GHMA. 6 See the previous chapter for a discussion of Berthiaume’s involvement in creating “Sunspots,” a supplement to Glenmary’s internal newsletter, Among Ourselves. 7 Parishioner interviews. See St. Mary's bulletins from 26 January 1964 to 7 November 1965; St. Mary's Parish Archives, Franklin Kentucky. 8 St. Francis de Sales Parish Bulletin, 28 August 1966, DTA. 9 Raymond Berthiuame, Glenmary Missioner Newsletter, End of August 1966, DTA. 185

Valenza and later Bob Cameron.10 Berthiaume was clearly focused on creating community

within his parish.

In a deeper way, however, he fundamentally never understood how to serve these

Southern parishes, despite experience and desire. For example, one of Berthiuame’s greatest

hopes for the parish was to improve educational programs for children and adults. The

importance of education, especially to understand Vatican II’s reforms, was a constant theme in

his correspondence and bulletins. Parishioners’ apparent lack of interest in education caused him

immediate disappointment, and one of his constant complaints during five years in Idabel was

parents’ lack of interest in their children’s education.11 The situation finally became serious

enough that St. Francis de Sales co-sponsored religious education classes with St. Luke’s

Episcopal Church for the 1969-1970 school year in order to have enough teachers and students.12

He did not fare much better in convincing adults to further their religious education. Their

apparent apathy regarding Vatican II confused him; he could not understand why they were not

as interested as he was. Given their lack of enthusiasm for education, he came to resent his

parishioners, dismissing them as backward and unengaged, rather than trying to understand an

environment in which Vatican II was not as important as local concerns.13

Berthiuame’s social action program created division between pastor and parishioners.

Embracing the decade’s ethos of actively pursuing social justice, he wanted to tackle local issues,

especially racism and poverty. That St. Francis de Sales had a few black parishioners certainly

10 Robert Valenza to Robert C. Berson, 13 August 1966, GHMA; Bob Cameron to Victor J. Reed, 26 April 1968, DTA; Raymond Berthiuame, Glenmary Missioner Newsletter, 30 July 1968, DTA. 11 Raymond Berthiuame, Glenmary Missioner Newsletter, 26 October 1968, DTA. Because of lack of participation, Berthiuame left religious education up to parents during the 1968-1969 school year. He had the high schoolers join a youth group at the local Methodist Church. 12 Raymond Berthiuame, Glenmary Missioner Newsletter, 20 June 1970, DTA. The experiment was unsatisfactory to both sides and did not continue. St. Luke's appears to have been especially uneasy with the co- religious classes, in part because some of the Catholic students were black. 13 Raymond Berthiuame to Grant Chaplain, 5 August 1970, GHMA. 186

motivated Berthiuame’s interest in racial issues. His writing reveals his obvious interest to take

part in the great issues of the day.14 He supported the black students’ 1970 boycott of the town’s

recently integrated high school in response to some faculty members’ racism and open support of

George Wallace.15 Berthiuame’s letters to friends and Glenmary superiors label the community

at large and his parishioners in particular as racist.16

Berthiuame’s interest in civil rights and other social issues eventually came to dominate

his time in Idabel. He served as secretary for the Lions Club, a McCurtain County lobbyist at the

state capital, chairman of the Concerned Citizens Committee, founder of a community “Help

Center,” coordinator of the McCurtain County VISTA program, and a vocal environmentalist.17

Parishioners did not seem to share his interests. When asked on a diocesan questionnaire to list

the parish’s point person for social action, Berthiaume responded, “I wish I could name just one

person but cannot.”18 Parish bulletins tell the story of a pastor increasingly interested in external

social action and decreasingly interested in his parish. By the end of his assignment, the bulletins

usually had a ratio of roughly one parish event for every half dozen non-parish events.19 More

and more he looked outside his parish to serve Christ.

Ecumenism became Berthiuame’s abiding passion and means to express his call to

ministry. From the moment of his arrival, he regularly encouraged parishioners to engage in

ecumenical activities. They never fully followed him in this endeavor, in part because, as we

14 Raymond Berthiuame to Robert C. Berson, 19 April 1968, GHMA. Bethiuame notes that St. Francis de Sales is the only integrated church in Idabel. 15 Berthiuame, Glenmary Missioner Newsletter, 26 October 1968, Raymond Berthiuame, Glenmary Missioner Newsletter, 25 September 1970, DTA. 16 Berthiaume to Berson, 19 April 1968, Berthiuame, Glenmary Missioner Newsletter, 26 October 1968, and Raymond Berthiuame to Robert C. Berson, 12 December 1969, GHMA. Interestingly, Berthiuame himself had a low opinion of blacks in Idabel, commenting on their lack of education, ability, ambition, and personal hygiene. 17 See Raymond Berthiuame, Glenmary Missioner Newsletter, 4 May 1967; Raymond Berthiuame, Christmas Letter 1969, DTA; Raymond Berthiuame to Robert C. Berson, 29 April 1970, GHMA. 18 Social Action Survey, 10 July 1970, DTA. 19 See St. Francis de Sales Parish Bulletin 18 March 1970, 26 April 1970, 10 May 1970, and 2 August 1970, DTA, for examples. 187

have already seen, they already engaged in practical ecumenism with non-Catholics neighbors in

their daily lives. Undeterred by their attitudes, he became involved in ministerial alliances in

Idabel and Broken Bow, where he served as president of the alliance.20 He spearheaded creation of a ministerial alliance in nearby Valliant, Oklahoma, during a population boom in 1970.21

Other ministers held him in high regard. He accepted the invitation to give the opening address at

the Idabel high school’s Religious Emphasis Week in 1968 and was accorded that greatest of

honors for a local pastor—offering the invocation at the local rodeo.22 He was especially popular

with black churches because of his involvement in local civil rights activities. Most notably, he

was the only white clergyman asked to participate in conducting the funeral of Idabel’s most

prominent black citizen, dentist and undertaker, H.W. Williamston.23 In Berthiaume’s own words, he “failed with most of the Catholic congregation, [but had] influenced the community-

at-large, and [had] developed some close friends.”24 No doubt the sincerity of his ecumenical

undertakings became an escape from an unhappy parish life.

When turning attention to the parish, Berthiuame was usually planning experimentation

with the church building or liturgy. Experimentation, far more than his outside interests, led to

friction between pastor and parish. The congregation was particularly sensitive to proposed

changes to the church building. After all, one of their own had designed it—it was theirs.

Berthiaume never understood their attachment. The church needed more seating. His proposal to

move the altar to its left wall would allow more people to be seated. Rearranging the church in

this manner would also have the benefit of creating a horizontal layout instead of a vertical one,

20 Berthiaume to Berson, 19 April 1968, GHMA. 21 Berthiaume, Glenmary Missioner Newsletter, 20 June 1970, Raymond Berthiuame to John Sullivan, 6 October 1970, DTA. 22 Raymond Berthiuame, Glenmary Missioner Newsletter, 26 October 1968, DTA. 23 Raymond Berthiuame, Glenmary Missioner Newsletter, 20 June 1970, DTA. 24 Berthiuame, Christmas Letter 1969. 188

thus placing the entire congregation closer to the altar.25 After failing to receive parish support

for his plan or receive an acceptable alternative, he had the church rearranged on a Saturday

night. The next day parishioners responded with anger, leading to one of the most intense

confrontations of his tenure. They were furious that the church had been rearranged and without

their permission.26 The church interior was ultimately restored to its original layout.

Berthiuame experimented regularly with the liturgy, though not always in a radical way

and very much in keeping with the times. As Church law prescribed, he adopted the new Roman

Missal for the celebration of mass in 1970.27 Early in his tenure, he celebrated a well-received

mass whose parts he explained as he went along, beginning with how he vested.28 He encouraged

the congregation to take Eucharist under both species. He was fond of taking worship outside the

church and into the world, celebrating mass outdoors and in people’s homes.29 Much of the

foregoing met with parishioners’ approval that belied Berthiuame’s stated belief in the parish’s

apathy. What the people wanted was the Church in their homes, not social action ministry. Some

of his other ideas made parishioners far more uneasy. He became fond of dropping songs from

the Beatles and Jesus Christ Superstar into the Mass.30 His love of ecumenism prompted him to invite the Methodist minister to preach on the Feast of Christ the King.31 He wrote his own

25 Berthiuame first proposed alterations to church layout in the St. Francis de Sales Parish Bulletin, 20 November 1966. DTA. He initially planned construction of a new sanctuary platform that would be permanent. 26 Robert C. Berson to Raymond Berthiuame, 9 December 1969, GHMA. 27 St. Francis de Sales Parish Bulletin 26 April 1970. 28 Raymond Berthiuame, Glenmary Missioner Newsletter, End of August 1966. The mass was celebrated in accordance with directives of the Diocese of Oklahoma City and Tulsa's "Little Council." For more information on the Little Council, see Jeremy Bonner, The Road to Renewal: Victor Joseph Reed & Oklahoma Catholicism, 1905- 1971 (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2008), 109-114. 29 Celebrating mass in homes and outdoors. See Berthiuame, Glenmary Missioner Newsletter, End of August 1966, Berthiuame, Glenmary Missioner Newsletter, 30 July 1968. 30 See St. Francis de Sales Parish Bulletin, 18 January 1970, Glenmary Home Missioners Archives, Cincinnati, and Berthiuame, Glenmary Missioner Newsletter, 22 July 1971. 31 Berthiuame, Christmas Letter 1969. 189

service for Earth Day 1970.32 In further liturgical experimentation he used a loaf of bread

instead of hosts, inviting communicants to partake from the chalice themselves, and keeping

consecrated hosts in the rectory.33 Again, parishioners hesitated to follow his lead. Accordingly,

he complained that they were not adequately participating in the Mass, with too few singing or receiving Holy Communion.34 Participation diminished during his tenure; daily mass attendance

declined to the point that it was discontinued by 1970.35

The final area of Berthiuame’s challenging tradition was the priest’s role. As is obvious,

he was uncomfortable with traditional perceptions of priest and hierarchy on several levels,

ranging from the superficial to the fundamental. On the superficial level, his letters indicate an

obsession with appearances as he described his hair length and the cowboy get-up worn at the

rodeo.36 He did not want to look like a priest and increasingly avoided wearing clerical dress. He

began to refer to himself simply as “Ray” in formal correspondence. On the fundamental level,

Berthiuame questioned the hierarchy’s role. He worried that the elevated status of clergy harmed the Church as the Body of Christ and vehemently opposed Church authority’s teaching on birth control.37 Most important, the role of priest placed personal limitations on him. Craving new types of personal relationships with the laity in general and women in particular, he pursued these during his later years in Idabel. He happily wrote about parties with lay friends in Paris,

32 Raymond Berthiuame, "Earth Day Service," 3 May 1970, DTA. He wrote the service that included a news report from Mars—"The Earth Is a Dead Planet," and Litany of Confession asking forgiveness for such environmental sins as using "no-deposit-no-return containers for our products." 33 Robert C. Berson to Raymond Bethiuame, 9 December 1969, GHMA. Berson insisted that Berthiuame return the Eucharist to the tabernacle. 34 Raymond Berthiuame to Victor J. Reed, 19 November 1970, GHMA. 35 For comparison, see St. Francis de Sales Parish Bulletin, 28 August 1966, St. Francis de Sales Parish Bulletin, 11 August 1968, DTA, and St. Francis de Sales Parish Bulletin, 18 January 1970. In succeeding bulletins, one sees that daily mass goes from offered daily to offered by appointment to not being mentioned at all. 36 Raymond Berthiuame, Glenmary Missioner Newsletter, 30 July 1968, GHMA, Berthiuame, Glenmary Missioner Newsletter, 26 October 1968, Berthiuame, Glenmary Missioner Newsletter, 20 June 1970. 37 St. Francis de Sales Parish Bulletin, 11 August 1968, DTA; Raymond Berthiuame, Glenmary Missioner Newsletter, 30 July 1968, GHMA, and Raymond Berthiuame, Glenmary Missioner Newsletter, 26 October 1968, DTA, Berthiuame, Glenmary Missioner Newsletter, 22 July 1971. 190

Texas, (an hour away from Idabel) and spending his thirty-ninth birthday learning to dance and

“talking and touching” with VISTA workers around his “‘magic’ orange candle” until 2:00 a.m.38 Among his final letters before leaving Idabel, he wrote,

Regarding my priesthood & ministry, I want to be open to closer working with Catholic laymen, closer family-type interpersonal relationships, transition to priest-worker style of ministry, the possibility of marriage in the future, the possible ejection from the institutional Church by conservative Church authorities. Please pray for me.39

Berthiuame’s struggle with his vocation became obvious to some parishioners, and many had

little sympathy. They wanted a traditional priest, which he was unwilling or unable to be. If he did not want to be a priest, one parishioner stated, he should “sell insurance for a living.”40

Despite Berthiuame’s distrust of Church authority and embrace of the laity, he came to dislike

intensely the laity of his own parish. They, in his words,

are conservative in all areas of life, take the Bible or catechism literally, are inhibited when sober, prone to violence, are not articulate or affectionate, are suspicious of anyone that looks or sounds different and are racist.41

Berthiuame was fond of a certain kind of laity – one that followed his directions and shared his

enthusiasms. Although he wrote the letter quoted above after four years of aggravation and

struggle, his condescension toward parishioners is evident even at the beginning of his tenure.42

The people of St. Francis de Sales never fit his conception of the empowered laity. In perhaps the

greatest irony of his time in Idabel, Berthiuame, out of frustration, asked Bishop Victor Reed to

threaten closing the parish due to lack of support.43 If the laity would not act as the Body of

38 Raymond Berthiuame to Friends, 6 January 1970, DTA, Berthiuame, Glenmary Missioner Newsletter, 20 June 1970, Berthiuame, Glenmary Missioner Newsletter, 25 September 1970. 39 Raymond Berthiuame, Glenmary Missioner Newsletter, 17 March 1971, DTA. 40 Robert C. Berson to Victor J. Reed, 16 December 1970, GHMA. 41 Berthiuame, Glenmary Missioner Newsletter, 17 March 1971. 42 Raymond Berthiuame, Glenmary Missioner Newsletter, 4 May 1967. 43 Raymond Berthiuame to Victor J. Reed, 17 January 1969, GHMA; Raymond Berthiuame to Grant Chaplain, 5 August 1970, GHMA, Raymond Berthiuame to Victor J. Reed 19 November 1970, GHMA, Raymond Berthiuame to Robert C. Berson 12 January 1971, GHMA. Berthiuame believed parish support did not justify 191

Christ, he thought a hierarch should use authority to force them. He stirred an active laity in one

respect; parishioners held multiple meetings to try to remove him.44

Berthiuame finally requested a transfer in January 1971. Glenmary President Robert

Berson complied and assigned him to Mississippi that fall. He would leave the priesthood and

marry three years later. St. Francis de Sales parish revitalized itself after he left. The construction

of a Holly Creek Fryers Chicken Plant, new Weyerhauser lumber mills and plants, and opening

of the tourist attraction, Broken Bow Lake, brought the area an economic boom and new, young

Catholic families. Though this happened more than a decade later in Idabel than in most of the

towns in this study, the results were similar. The parish bought property adjacent to the rectory

the year after Berthiuame left explicitly to renovate the existing house for religious education

classrooms and a center for parish events. The first parish council was established under the

leadership of Father George Hutchinson, Berthiuame’s successor.

Though not all the Glenmarians who served at St. Mary’s Church in Franklin, Kentucky, were members of the New Breed or “radicals,” the ones who were had a significant impact on the parish. Berthiuame left Franklin for Idabel in 1966, replaced by Father Augustus “Gus”

Guppenberger. Father Paul Ackerman replaced him two years later, and two years after that, in

1970, Father John Barry replaced him. After another two year pastorate, Guppenberger returned to Franklin in 1972 and remained until 1975. When Guppenburger arrived at St. Mary in 1966,

Glenmary president Bob Berson described the parish as “having great potential.”45 By the time

Guppenburger completed his second tour in 1975, the situation had become so toxic that Bishop

Henry Soennecker proposed the transfer of administration of the parish to the Benedictine

having a resident pastor, suggesting that the parish either be closed or made a mission of Hugo. If closed, he stated, parishioners wanting to attend mass could drive 30 miles to Clarkesville, Texas or De Queen, Arkansas. 44 Raymond Berthiuame, Christmas Letter 1969. 45 Robert C. Berson to August Guppenberger, 1 March 1966; Glenmary Archives, Cincinnati, OH. 192

Fathers of St. Maur’s Priory of South Union, Kentucky, 17 miles away.46 An examination of the

New Breed and “political” priests and the manner in which they navigated the immediate post-

Vatican II church offers some insight into the deteriorating relationship between St. Mary’s

parishioners and their Glenmary pastors.

Berthiaume’s successor at St. Mary’s Church, Gus Guppenburger, was the right man at

the right time when he came to Franklin in 1966. Although he had been ordained in 1961, he

appears to have shared few New Breed attitudes or skepticism. Instead, Berson described him as

a congenial man who was easy to get along with and remained settled and faithful to his

vocation.47 Guppenburger is remembered as laughing a lot and being nice to everyone, and like

Berthiuame, he was clean cut and clean shaven with horn-rimmed glasses during his time at St.

Mary’s in the 1960s. Like his predecessor, and in accordance with Glenmary’s mission,

Guppenberger involved himself in ecumenical and civic life in Franklin. He took over

Berthiaume’s office as secretary of the Franklin-Simpson Ministerial Fellowship. As in Idabel, those outside of the Catholic community in Franklin held Berthiaume in high regard, and they did the same for Guppenberger.48 His approach to ecumenism appeared to agree with

parishioners. Part of the reason may have been that it did not require them to do much outside of

the church. Ecumenism at this time often took the form of Guppenberger giving a talk about

Catholic beliefs at Franklin’s First Baptist Church.49 This was a rare example of cooperation

with Southern Baptists at the time. St. Mary’s pastor regularly appeared in the pages of the

Franklin Favorite between 1966 and 1968, often supporting youth activities at the parish and in

46 Robert C. Berson to Henry J. Soenneker, 30 July 1975, Diocese of Owensboro Archives 47 Robert Berson to August Guppenberger, 11 January 1967; Glenmary Archives, Cincinnati, OH; Robert Berson to John Lacy, Sr. 7 July 1967; Glenmary Archives, Cincinnati, OH. 48 Robert Berson to John Lacy, Sr. 7 July 1967; Glenmary Archives, Cincinnati, OH; “Pastor of St. Mary’s Church to Leave Franklin on July 8,” The Franklin Favorite, 23 May 1968 49 Church Bulletin, First Baptist Church of Franklin, 15 October 1967, St. Mary’s Archives, Franklin, KY. 193

town. St. Mary’s pastor, who had a knack for public relations, made sure that the parish’s

involvement in children’s activities at the parish and in town appeared frequently in the Franklin

Favorite between 1966 and 1968. This included Vacation Bible Schools taught by visiting

sisters and support for the Boy Scouts. The parish had grown numerically in the years prior to

Guppenberger’s arrival, but now it seemed to be thriving spiritually and civically. After less

than a year, Berson praised St. Mary’s pastor, writing “It is great to see how much the situation

has improved in Franklin under your kindly guidance. If we can just leave you where you are,

the Franklin church should be ready to give to the Bishop by 1977.”50 Unfortunately this was

not to be the case, as society demands required that Guppenberger return to Glenmary

headquarters in Cincinnati to become executive secretary of the Promotion Department. Bishop

Soennecker also acknowledged his success as he left Franklin, remarking that Guppenberger

gave “a good account of himself during the time he worked in the diocese.”51 The promise of

Guppenberger’s initial two years in Franklin made what followed all the more disappointing to

Glenmarians and Franklin’s Catholics alike.

In contrast to Guppenberger, Paul Ackerman was the very model of a New Breed priest.

Bishop Thomas McDonough, who oversaw Ackerman in the Diocese of Savannah in the early

1960s, described him as a “sincere young priest” who struggled to remain objective, had a

“chronic difficulty relating to authority,” and was generally quite frustrated in the priesthood.52

These traits has already caused problems for Ackerman. One his earliest assignments after being

ordained in 1960, and the one that brought him into contact with Bishop McDonough, was as

assistant pastor of St. Christopher Church in Claxton, Georgia, in 1962 and 1963. Though some

50 Robert Berson to August Guppenberger, 11 January 1967; Glenmary Archives, Cincinnati, OH. 51 Henry J. Soenneker to Robert Berson, 21 May 1968; Glenmary Archives, Cincinnati, OH. 52 Thomas McDonough to Franjo Cardinal Seper, (ca. early 1971), Glenmary Home Missioners Archives, Cincinnati, OH. 194

appreciated his work in the parish, many parishioners considered him a radical and unfit priest.

Consequently, when Bob Berson considered assigning Ackerman as pastor of St. Christopher in

1968, members of the parish informed Glenmary that he would be rejected.53 He was sent instead to St. Mary. He came to Franklin from St. Lucien parish in Spruce Pine, North Carolina, in the Diocese of Raleigh. He left on bad terms with the new pastor of the parish and the local bishop.54

The differences between Guppenberger’s and Ackerman’s approaches were immediately

apparent and significant. Guppenberger was outgoing and chubby; Ackerman was handsome

and reserved. The pictures of Guppenberger with children and articles detailing St. Mary’s

commitment to religious education receded from the pages of the Franklin Favorite, replaced by

stories about the parish engaging in social action. Like Berthuiaume, national issues like racial

unrest, the Vietnam War, the “War on Poverty,” and the relevance of the Catholic Church in the

modern world animated Ackerman more than the immediate concerns of his parishioners. He

favored a more proactive approach to ecumenism, partnering with the local Episcopal,

Methodist, and Presbyterian churches in a series of programs designed to address the

aforementioned social issues.55 Believing that the local white population, including St. Mary’s parishioners ignored the problem and challenges facing African Americans, Ackerman made working with blacks a key part of his ministry. His greatest success was the creation of a

“Human Relations Council” that successfully lobbied Franklin to allow blacks to find housing in any part of Franklin.56

53 Robert C. Berson to Paul Ackerman, 8 February 1968, GHMA 54 Robert Berson to Paul Ackerman, 21 September 1968; Glenmary Archives, Cincinnati, OH. 55 “The Church and Race,” The Franklin Favorite, undated article (ca. 1969); “World Day of Prayer Tomorrow,” The Franklin Favorite, undated article (ca. 1969) 56 Grant Champlain, Report on St. Mary’s Parish, Franklin, Kentucky, June 15, 1970. GHMA. 195

Perhaps the root cause of the problems during Ackerman’s two years at St. Mary’s was

that neither pastor nor parish met the other’s expectations. As a Glenmary Home Missioner,

Ackerman saw himself as a missionary out to sow the seed of Catholicism in virgin territory. If

the Catholics of Franklin had been the same impoverished handful that greeted Benedict Wolf in

1942, he might have been satisfied. It would have allowed him to engage in the sort of economic

justice activities that inspired him. Instead, Ackerman found an established, maturing parish

whose members were relatively affluent, educated, and independent – though they still craved

the guidance of a priest.57 They wanted a particular kind of priest though, and Ackerman was not it. Although the parish had grown, it was not big. Parishioners wanted a priest who would

pay attention to local concerns in a small, conservative town while connecting them to the larger

church. Instead, they got a priest whose focus in action and homilies was a progressive approach

to national politics and social issues and who evinced a discomfort with the traditional authority

of the church.

This last point suggests another complicating factor: Ackerman did not know what he

thought the church or a priest ought to be, and he was certainly uncomfortable with both in their

current conception. Ackerman believed that the contemporary understanding of the priesthood

opened a “deep gap… between people and priest.”58 The reason for this, he believed, was the world constantly changed, but the church did not. He expressed his concerns in his final letter to

Bishop Soennecker, writing

More importantly, gone indeed is the day when the priest was and knew himself to be an effectively educated leader for current concerns and change. Instead, we priests find ourselves today without any real competence for effecting this needed change – Theology [sic] included – and thus unable to fill our unique role as “the” community Christian leader. Therefore, I feel that it is this existence of the clergy as a distinct group or class that is a basic reason for our inability to effectively

57 Robert Berson to John Barry, 19 December 1970; Glenmary Archives, Cincinnati, OH. 58 Paul Ackerman to Henry J. Soenneker, 19 June 1970; Diocese of Owensboro Archives. 196

demonstrate His Good News to the poor, as that early Christian community did so well, and in that process, changed the world!59

In this questioning of the role of the priest, Ackerman had much in common with Berthiaume.

Like his fellow member of the New Breed, Ackerman struggled with Humanae Vitae. He sympathized with priests who dissented from its teachings, going so far as to request that Bishop

Soennecker participate in some sort of mediation on behalf of the 19 priests disciplined by

Cardinal Patrick O’Boyle in 1968 for their public opposition to the encyclical.60 To Ackerman, the cardinal’s actions demonstrated a lack of “due process” for priests who opposed the magisterium, which violated his sense that the church should be open to all and confirmed his belief that “the pace of renewal in the Church… [was] much slower than it ought to [have been].”61 His belief that a priest could dissent from church teaching and still remain faithful was not uncommon at the time. In a parish where the priest was the primary connection to the institutional church, however, it created an untenable situation.

Ackerman requested and was granted a leave of absence in June 1970 after parishioners refused to support his plan to begin an Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) Program in

Franklin. The frustrated priest stated that he had “received permission from everybody except his own parishioners” for the program. Ackerman read the parishioners’ lack of support for the program as evidence of “the apathy of the Catholics in the area to accept the changes in the

Church and apathy to accept involvement in their community and in their parish life.” At this point, he felt that he could be a better missioner “by working with non-Catholics, people who are willing to accept change, than perhaps being burdened down with a handful of people who have

59 Paul Ackerman to Henry J. Soenneker, 19 June 1970; Diocese of Owensboro Archives. 60 Paul Ackerman to Henry J. Soenneker, 2 November 1968; Diocese of Owensboro Archives. 61 Robert C. Berson to Henry J. Soenneker, 29 May 1970; Glenmary Home Missioners Archives, Cincinnati, OH. 197

closed minds.”62 During the leave of absence, Ackerman studied marriage counseling at

Western Kentucky University 20 miles away in Bowling Green, Kentucky, and conducted himself as a priest until he was released from his vows a little less than two years later. He remained Catholic and eventually married. No archival evidence or interviews indicate that

Ackerman’s struggles were as profound as Berthiaume’s, and the fact that he stayed in the church would seem to confirm this. Despite the fact that Berson noted “there [had] been no scandal in Franklin to [his] knowledge and there [was] no moral problem of any kind,” the damage done was similar to Berthiaume’s time in Idabel, leaving many parishioners wary of future Glenmarians.63

Berson sent John Barry to Franklin in 1970 because he needed “a good man” to clean up the mess left by Ackerman. Barry had been director of college seminarians between 1966 and

1970, and he had a more collegial approach than New Breed priests like Berthiaume and

Ackerman. In fact, evidence from parish bulletins, letters, surveys, and parish council minutes

suggest that he went out of his way to solicit the opinions of his parishioners on a number of

issues, especially liturgy. In a questionnaire distributed to parishioners in late 1970, Barry

gauged the interest of the laity in folk masses, Latin masses, receiving the Eucharist under both

species, and the practice of intincting. The results do not indicate that St. Mary’s members

wished to return to the Tridentine liturgy, with the parish overwhelmingly in favor of intincting

and having occasional folk masses and ambivalent regarding the Latin mass.64 Barry’s approach

62 Grant Champlain, Report on St. Mary’s Parish. 63 Robert C. Berson to Henry J. Soenneker, 29 May 1970; Glenmary Home Missioners Archives, Cincinnati, OH. 64 St. Mary’s Parish Bulletin, 20 December 1970; Glenmary Home Missioners Archives; Cincinnati, OH. Ninety-one parishioners responded. On the question of intincting, 60 were in favor, 15 opposed, and 15 indifferent. On the question of pre-announced folk masses, 50 were in favor, 25 opposed and 15 indifferent. On the question of pre-announced Latin masses, 29 were in favor, 32 opposed, and 30 were indifferent. Parishioners did show a traditionalist streak in overwhelmingly supporting a shrine in the confessional alcove with “traditional statues of 198 was admirable in its openness and in keeping with the republican tradition of cooperation with the laity. This inclusive approach carried over into Barry’s attempted to address contemporary issues like abortion and the church’s relevancy in the modern world. Like his predecessor, Barry preached relatively progressive politics from the pulpit, which was a poor fit for his parish.

The problem was that after all of the uncertainty of the 1960s, Vatican II, and the

Ackerman years locally, many parishioners wanted a leader rather than a peer and clarity rather than complexity. Certainly they wanted a pastor who paid attention to their needs, but what they needed at the moment was a priest who could affirm the church’s tradition at the time when many of Franklin’s Catholics felt tradition was crumbling under modernity’s attack.65 Differing ideas of what Vatican II meant and how to address the church’s role in the world and what it meant to be Catholic placed pressures on St. Mary’s that threatened to split the parish. Instead of offering them a definitive vision of what it meant to be Catholic, Barry introduced ambiguity by trying to attend to the interests and concerns of all parishioners and offering complex answers to the questions of the era. Some parishioners rebelled, accusing Barry of heterodoxy in homilies and religious instruction in letters and personal visits to Bishop Soennecker. Among the charges parishioners leveled were that Barry had replaced mass with ecumenical prayer services, publicly criticized Humae Vitae, contradicted church teaching on divorce, undermined the importance of confession, and questioned the Real Presence in the Eucharist.66 The bishop enumerated these in a three-page letter to Barry in early 1972 in which he refused to make accusations but also refrained from offering support to the Glenmarian. Soennecker acknowledged that some statements Barry had allegedly made could be true under particular circumstances, but his

Mary and Joseph and vigil lites [sic]” (68 votes) and expressing a desire for the return of a crucifix to the sanctuary (73 votes). 65 St. Mary’s Parishioners, B, D, F. 66 Henry J. Soennecker to John Barry, 7 January 1972, Glenmary Home Missioners Archives. 199

parishioners were not trained moral theologians with the ability to understand this sort of nuance, and Barry must avoid giving scandal. Knowing that he was about to be reassigned by new

Glenmary President Charles Hughes to be the full time Glenmary representative to the Catholic

Committee of Appalachia, Barry decided against trying to refute each of the accusations. He instead replied to Soennecker that he would learn from the situation. “I felt all along that openness would keep the air clear. In the past few weeks it appears to have fogged up,” he wrote in January of 1972.67 Barry also later confided to Hughes that had lost patience with

Owensboro’s chancery.

One other source of tension between Barry and some parishioners was the use of the

church’s basement as a daycare for low income families on weekdays beginning in December

1970. The basement served as the church hall and space for CCD classes, but otherwise was not

used much. Barry saw thought of the hall as “wasted space” and wanted the building to be a tool

of “Christian service” and “divine worship,” which also serves as a nice summation of his

understanding of the priesthood. He worked with the Office of Economic Opportunity and other

government programs to create a child care facility that could look after more than a dozen

children between the ages of six months and five years.68 Those opposed to the daycare

complained that the facility was inadequate to serve its purpose as a daycare and that the smell of

the daycare lingered in the church on Sundays.69 There may have been a lack of interest in social

justice as well – some expressed concerns about the effect of “give away” programs like clothes

drives on the character of those benefitting from them.70 At a time when Great Society

initiatives were making inroads across the country, many in the rural South remained

67 John Barry to Charles Hughes, 29 January 1972, Glenmary Home Missioners Archives. 68 John Barry, “No Wasted Space,” The Glenmary Challenge (Summer 1972). 69 Interviews with St. Mary’s parishioners, D, B. 70 St. Mary’s Parish Bulletin, 15 November 1970, Glenmary Home Missioners Archives. 200

conservative. Whatever the reason, the church itself became a point of contention between Barry

and a group of parishioners. They wanted the church to be a sacred place, not merely a meeting

space. To this end, they did not support the daycare, advocated for the placement of a statue of

Mary in a prominent place near the front of the church, and reported that the tabernacle light was

not lit when the Eucharist was present.71

St. Mary’s Parish would have been a difficult assignment for any priest after Ackerman.

Barry was a conscientious priest, but the wrong man for St. Mary’s at this time. At a moment when parishioners wanted a leader who would guide them through a tumultuous period and connect them to Catholic tradition, Barry introduced complexity in terms of church teaching and the appropriate roles for everyone in the parish. Many parishioners decided that the Glenmarians were insufficiently faithful priests. If the situation was extremely difficult when Barry got to

Franklin, it was impossible for Glenmary when he left.

The tenor of St. Mary was decidedly different when Guppenberger returned to St. Mary’s

in 1972 than it had been when he left in 1968. Far from a thriving parish that was nearly ready to

be returned to diocesan care, the Ackerman and Barry years had created divisions not only

between pastor and flock but also between the parishioners themselves. Parish surveys, parish

council minutes, and letters to the diocese indicate that the majority of the parish supported or at

least tolerated the Glenmarians’ initiatives, but a sizable minority vocally opposed them,

especially among those most involved in parish activities.72 Despite Guppenberger’s prior

success, he could not win this group back. It did not help that he had grown a beard during his

time in Cincinnati; one parishioner conspicuously held up the diocesan newspaper so she would

71 Henry J. Soennecker to John Barry, 7 January 1972, Glenmary Home Missioners Archives. Interviews with St. Mary’s parishioners, D, B. 72 See St. Mary Parish Council Minutes, 1972-1973, Diocese of Owensboro Archives; St. Mary’s Parish Bulletin, 15 July 1973, Glenmary Home Missioners Archives; June Haddox to Henry Soennecker, 10 February 1975; Diocese of Owensboro Archives. 201

not have to look at his “awful beard.”73 It seemed a symbol of the radicalness that the

parishioners now associated with Glenmary. Despite the fact that Guppenberger was no radical,

and he did have some successes such as forming the ecumenical Franklin Right to Life

Committee and purchasing property adjacent to the church for use as a religious education

center, the Glenmarian could not win these people over.74 Given Guppenberger’s successful tenure four years previous, he should have been the right man to reestablish trust between St.

Mary’s parishioners and Glenmary. Instead, the situation in Franklin only deteriorated between

1972 and 1975 as the parish became more divided and collections dwindled.75

The nadir came in 1974 and 1975 with the assignment of newly ordained Glenmary

Father Dominic Duggins as pastoral intern to St. Mary’s. By this time some parishioners made a

show of reading other Catholic texts during homilies as a protest against what they believed were

teachings against the church. Allegedly some homilies were surreptitiously recorded in an

attempt to catch the Glenmarians preaching heterodoxy. Duggins, who had been placed in

charge of religious education for the parish due to his training in the field at St. Louis University,

had a disagreement with the teacher in charge of children making their first communion,

resulting in her being asked to turn in her teaching materials rather than teach something that violated her conscience. An anonymous letter to the diocese in the early fall of 1975 summed of the feelings of those opposed to Glenmary: “NO DOCTRINE – NO DOLLARS There are many more like me. This is the only way we have to protest the neglect and abuses here. We still give to the Church – but to worthy priests and Catholic organizations.”76

73 Interview with Glenmary priest 1, Glenmary Home Missioners Archives. 74 Mrs. James Beach, Sr. and James Henry Snider, Franklin and Simpson County, A Picture of Progress, 1819-1975 (1976); Augustus Guppenberger to Carl Boehler, (undated, ca. 1974), Glenmary Home Missioners Archives. 75 See St. Mary’s parish bulletin, 31 August 1975, Glenmary Home Missioners Archives. 76 Undated Letter Anonymous Letter, (ca. 1975); Glenmary Home Missioners Archives. The letter included two church bulletins from 1975. 202

The letter did not represent the attitudes of all of St. Mary’s parishioners, but it did

represent enough that the situation became intractable. Duggins returned to St. Louis having

learned much from a tough experience, and Bob Berson, who had once more been elected

president of Glenmary, recognized that Guppenberger, who had health issues, needed help and could not manage the difficulties by himself. Consequently, Berson replaced him with another

veteran of St. Mary, Father Robert Healey.

Letters, homilies, and bulletin announcements from Berthiuame, Ackerman, and Barry

demonstrate great excitement about Vatican II, especially Sacrosanctum Concilium’s call for lay

Catholics to take part in the liturgy fully aware of what they are doing, actively engaged in the

mass in the vernacular; Lumen Gentium’s call for an active, empowered laity; Unitatis

Redintegratio’s openness to ecumenism; and Gaudium et Spes’s command to become active in social justice, which they took primarily to be participation in the Civil Rights movement. This enthusiasm is commendable, but the problem for these priests lay in their implementation of the ideas and hopes expressed in these documents. Berthiaume and Ackerman in particular did not seem interested in applying the council in a manner that would address the concerns of the parish in an organic manner. Instead, they attempted to force the parish to embrace their respective visions of the post-conciliar church without actually receiving input from parishioners.

Parishioners were asked to participate in civil rights demonstrations, interdenominational prayer services for the environment, and experimental masses filled with pop music and prayers not found in the missal. Parishioners were uncomfortable with these programs, wondering how they benefitted their faith lives or the Church.77 When parishioners refused to participate, the priests

came to resent them, and the parishioners returned the feeling. Ironically, these priests wanted

an empowered laity, but one empowered in exactly the manner directed by their priest.

77 St. Mary’s Parishioner B, F. St. Francis de Sales Parishioner E. 203

Barry’s problem was different. Unlike the other two, he was too open and created

uncertainty among the parishioners of St. Mary’s Church. Though it was established, it was still

young. Its parishioners wanted guidance and assurance, not an introduction to nuance and

ambiguity. St. Mary’s laity made a conscious choice to be Catholic in town where that was still

not an easy decision; they did not want to be part of just another church. Though Berthiuame

and Ackerman could be autocratic and Barry was not, the root problem remained the same: they

did not understand the nature of the church in the rural South.

Further undermining their effectiveness were their own questions about the priesthood.

All would leave the priesthood by 1978. Their correspondence reveals men sincerely struggling

to reconcile their vocation with their worldview. While genuinely wanting to serve Christ,

Berthiaume’s and Ackerman’s difficulties stemmed from an inability to communicate or share

this desire with others. The reforms of Vatican II, they believed, offered salvation for the Church

and themselves. Berthiaume in particular never understood why someone might not agree with

him and often labeled those who disagreed with him on an issue as “mentally unstable.”78

Berthiuame conceived of himself as the radical exemplar of the new Church, leading it forward out of stodgy irrelevance. In reality, he was not radical in his conception of the laity. Instead, he was every bit the model of the stereotypical imperious pre-conciliar pastor, issuing edicts from on high and expecting parishioners to obey.

The non-Glenmary parishes had priests that understood the culture, which is to say

usually that they were Southern, and Vatican II was implemented with relatively little pain.

These men tended to be moderates on Vatican II, quiet on race, and competent at incorporating new people into the parish. It is fascinating that the parishes in which the priests mentioned

78 See Raymond Bethiuame to Robert C. Berson, 13 May 1969, GHMA; Raymond Berthiuame to Kenneth King, 29 September 1972, DTA. 204

Vatican II the least seemed to have the least traumatic experience of it. This is not to say they ignored the council. The reforms of Vatican II were something they implemented rather than something that defined their approach to their faith. In their letters these priests mention ecumenism, liturgical changes, and race relations, but these are rarely the point of the letters.

The Franciscans of Americus continued their solid, quiet ministry to St. Theresa’s Church in Cordele in the years following the council. Unlike the Glenmarians, their communications with the diocese never referenced Vatican II directly. In fact, the only related topic that ever appeared in any of their communication was an invitation by the pastor of the Episcopal Church in Cordele to give a sermon on the Gospel during evening prayers on the Sunday after Easter during the Episcopalians’ Ecumenical Week. The Franciscan attending to Cordele, Father

Francis Azar, was not inclined to do so, but did not wish to be rude and decline on the spot. He told the minister he would have to contact the bishop for permission. Bishop Gerald Frey instructed Azar to decline until guidelines for ecumenism could be drawn up.79 It is unclear whether Father Azar was uncomfortable with the idea of ecumenism in general or the lack of clear guidance for its implementation in the Diocese of Savannah.

Azar and his successor, Father Rayner Dray, O.F.M., instead dealt with the daily realities of a small, isolated parish. The church building needed a new heating and cooling system that it could not afford. The diocese would ultimately cover the entire $4,200 expense. An even greater problem was the “old Thorpe house.” The house had been built on the church’s property in 1938 and was used by the friars in charge of St. Theresa’s as a “quasi-rectory” when overnight accommodations were required in Cordele. More often the friars just commuted back and forth, as the dilapidated condition of the house often convinced them to return to the friary in

79 Francis Azar, O.F.M to Gerald Frey, 29 March 1966; Gerald Frey to Francis Azar, O.F.M., 4 April 1966, Diocese of Savannah Archives. 205

Americus.80 By 1968, the Thorpe house was a complete mess due to age and termites – the refrigerator no longer worked, the floor in the kitchen, pantry, and porch swayed “like a ship at sea,” and Father Dray actually fell through the front steps. The Franciscan fixed the steps himself, but appealed to diocese for help with the rectory situation. Dray did end his appeal on an upbeat note. Despite the financial difficulties caused by only having 18-20 member families,

things were going well in the parish.81

The two most important events in the modern history of St. Theresa’s would occur over

the next eight years. The first took place in the same year that Dray wrote his letter – the arrival

of Father Patrick Adams, O.F.M. Adams was born in Macon, Georgia, in 1916, making him the

first native Georgian to serve St. Theresa’s since the arrival of the Franciscans in 1942. In

addition to his ties to Georgia, Adams had strong connections to the Franciscans. He had been

baptized George Raphael in honor of his uncle, Father Raphael Adams, O.F.M., who was the

rector of the Callicoon seraphic seminary. Patrick enrolled in Callicoon at the age of 14 before

proceeding through the internal schools of the Holy Name Province in New Jersey, New York,

and Washington, D.C. He was ordained in the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception

the same year that Franciscans took over St. Theresa’s. He served in parishes in New York and

New Jersey before spending six years as a Navy chaplain, including two years of wartime service

in Korea. After additional parochial ministry in New York, Rhode Island, and Quantico Marine

Base, Adams arrived in Georgia in 1968. What St. Theresa’s received was “a resolute Southern

gentleman of the old school” who had been formed in the North.82

80 Patrick Adams, O.F.M., “History of the Church of the Little Flower,” St. Theresa’s, Cordele, Ga., 1975, Diocese of Savannah Archives. 81 Letter from Rayner Dray, O.F.M. , 24 June 1967; Letter from Raynor Dray, O.F.M, 31 October 1968, Diocese of Savannah Archives. 82 John Ahearn, O.F.M. to Brothers of the Franciscan Holy Name Province, 19 November 1999, Diocese of Savannah Archives 206

The parishioners of St. Theresa’s and Adams’s fellow Franciscans held him in high

esteem. All recall him as gregarious and people-loving. Parishioners described him as being social and having a ready laugh. He also had a “hands-on personality” that led to an action- oriented ministry. All of these attributes were well-suited for ministry in a town that had few

Catholics and existed on the margins of the diocese.83

Like his predecessors, Adams initially attended St. Theresa’s in Cordele as the assistant

pastor of St. Mary’s in Americus. Unlike his predecessors, Adams sought out opportunities to

work with other churches and exploit “his role as a Franciscan ecumenical presence visible and

available to the wider community.”84 Catholics and non-Catholics revered him for his well-

known penchant for outreach to the citizens of Cordele, regardless of religious affiliation. The

differences between Adams’s and previous Franciscan’s approaches to ecumenism can be seen in

the changing relationship with Cordele’s Episcopalian Church. In a 1975 letter to the new

bishop of Savannah, Raymond Lessard, the Episcopalian minister of Cordele expressed his

appreciation for the kindness and friendship shown by Adams. Some of this had to do, of course,

with the Catholic Church having had time to work out what ecumenism was going to look like in

practice after the Second Vatican Council. A 1975 joint statement by Lessard and Episcopalian

Bishop Reeves on ecumenism between Catholics and Episcopalians on Pentecost certainly

demonstrated institutional support for the endeavor.85 St. Theresa’s good relations with

Cordele’s Episcopalians could further be partially explained by the fact that, in general,

Episcopalians were also small in number in these towns and thus tended to be Catholics’ most

willing collaborators. What was unusual was that Adams developed strong relationships with the

83 Ibid., Interviews with parishioners A-F, Cordele, Georgia, April, 2011. 84 Ahearn letter. 85 Edward McCoy to Raymond Lessard, 31 May 1975 207

evangelical Protestant churches as well, most notably the Baptists.86 Here was an instance in

which Adams’s southern upbringing differentiated him from previous Franciscans in Cordele.

Adams recognized the necessity of Catholics cooperating with other churches. Adams’s

approach resulted in greater status and influence for St. Theresa’s in Cordele.87

If Adams’ enthusiasm for ecumenism in the late 1960s and early 1970s was notable, so

too was his silence on the issue of race relations. There are any number of reasons that could

explain this. It could be that like the Catholics described in Andrew Moore’s work, Adams did

not want endanger the projects about which he was most passionate by offering an unpopular

opinion on an issue he could not hope to influence. It could have been that while there was a

significant black population in Cordele, only a handful were Catholic. That Adams was initially

based in Americus while attending to Cordele undoubtedly had some influence, as the

Franciscans there had learned the necessity of caution in a town that would fight to “keep

segregation by any and all means.”88 Not only would speaking out publicly in favor of civil rights and against segregation jeopardize the Franciscans’ work with African Americans at the

segregated chapel in Americus, it could lead to personal threats and actual violence.89 There is

some evidence that Adams’ own background may have had something to do with his silence on

the topic. It is difficult to ascertain whether or not Adams being a “Southern gentleman of the

old school” extended to old school Southern views of race, but it is clear from his own writings

86 Ahearn letter. The Reverend Don Howell, a Baptist minister and golfing buddy of Adams would later give the eulogy at an ecumenical memorial service for Adams in 1999. 87 Interview with parishioners B, C, F, St. Theresa, Cordele, Georgia, April 2011. 88 James E. Clayton, “The Americus Way – Keep Segregation by Any and All Means: News Analysis,” The Washington Post, 3 November 1963, p. 4. 89 Two cases of racism in Americus drew national attention: the arrest and detention in a stockade of thirty girls for marching and the arrest of four SNCC workers for organizing boycotts who were charged with breaking Georgia’s 1871 Anti-Treason Act, which carried as a possible punishment the death penalty. In response, a group of twenty-five white men and women stepped forward and called for the formation of a biracial commission to end the racial conflicts. They were met by physical, economic, and Ku Klux Klan-led threats and counter demonstrations. Klan threats forced lawyer Warren Fortson to flee Americus due to his role in organizing bi-racial committee and for his defense of two black Civil Rights activists. See Robins, Glenn M. “Americus Movement.” New Georgia Encyclopedia. 03 August 2015. Web. 18 March 2016. 208

and the remembrances of those who knew him that did share the Southern values of courtesy and

propriety. His sermon on the fortieth anniversary of the dedication of St. Theresa’s Church

praised St. Theresa of Lisieux, his parish’s namesake, for putting “more value on not offending

her sister than on her own personal prayers.”90 Although this approach was admirable when

applied to minor irritations during prayer in a cloister and understandable given Catholics’ social

status in Cordele, it left something to be desired. Perhaps Adams himself recognized this, as he

concluded the sermon by praying not only for the growth of the parish in terms of membership

but also for the parishioners’ continued growth of faith, good works, and dedication to neighbor.

As mentioned previously, the two most important events in St. Theresa’s modern history took place in 1968 and 1975. The second of these was the construction of a new rectory and

Adams becoming the formal administrator of the church in 1975. When Adams arrived in 1968, he asked that Bishop Gerard Frey make a joint appraisal of the old Thorpe house that had given

Raynor Dray such problems. They agreed that in view of the age and condition of the house, it was more advisable to build a new rectory rather than remodel the current one. Bishop Frey made a $10,000 donation toward the construction of a new rectory to the St. Theresa building fund.91 In 1974, Bishop Lessard authorized the diocese to make an additional loan of $15,000

for the rectory. With a proper residence, Adams could now live in Cordele and devote his full

attention to the Catholic community there. Although still technically a mission, St. Theresa’s

would have a resident priest for the first time and truly feel like its own parish. Over the next

decade, the rectory would serve the parish in a variety of other ways as well. It became the site

of weekday masses, CCD classes, parish council meetings, and religious instruction.92 Upon the

90 Patrick Adams, O.F.M., Sermon on the Observance of the Dedication of the Church of St. Theresa, 25 April 1971. 91 Patrick Adams, O.F.M., “History of the Church of the Little Flower” 92 Patrick Adams, O.F.M., “History of St. Theresa’s – Cordele,” The Southern Cross 13 November 1986, 9. 209 rectory’s dedication by Bishop Lessard and a number of visiting clergy, the diocese’s chancellor,

Father Daniel Bourke, wrote Adams that he hoped “the dedication [would] be a most successful and most enjoyable occasion and denote the beginning of a new era in the history of Catholicism in Cordele.”93 The next chapter will prove Bourke at least partially correct.

St. Paul’s Parish in Princeton, Kentucky, also thrived in the decade following Vatican II, enjoying the fruits of economic and parish growth during the 1950s and early 1960s. This growth kept Father Thomas Clark very busy, as he was the pastor of St. Paul’s and its three missions and the Catholic chaplain at the state penitentiary in Eddyville. The large area within

St. Paul’s parish boundaries meant that he occasionally made house calls as well. In the only explicit mention of Vatican II documents by a priest at St. Paul’s, Clark referred to “Instruction on the Worship of Eucharistic Mystery,” when requesting permission to celebrate mass in the homes of those too old or infirm to attend mass.94 Bishop Henry Soenneker gave him permission to do so, which added to Clark’s load. His busy schedule led to the rare instance of a priest in one of the churches in this study having to turn down ministerial work. In this case, it was the opportunity to minister to the Catholic population of the Outwood State Mental

Hospital.95

Clark was not the only busy Catholic in Princeton; St. Paul’s laity were active as well.

The Ladies’ Altar Guild was the most active lay group in the parish, founded in 1968 under

Clark’s direction. The parish still had a fairly large debt from the construction of the new school

93 Daniel Bourke to Patrick Adams, 26 May 1975 94 Thomas Clark to Henry Soenneker, 30 June 1967, Diocese of Owensboro Archives. Clark asked in reference to Mrs. Grieshop, an Austrian immigrant, who was 83 years old and lived a fair distance from the church. Mrs. Grieshop was faithful (she and her husband provided the land for the construction of St. Stephen’s Church in Cadiz), but she lived more than 30 miles from Princeton and had not been able to attend mass in 3 years. Clark took communion to her each week. 95 Robert Moore to Henry Soenneker 16 August 1966, Diocese of Owensboro Archives. The work would have required eight to twelve hours a week from Clark, which was impossible at the time. Clark declined because he was too busy, but suggested that the hospital contact the diocese for help. 210 building, and the guild’s primary purpose was to help with the parish’s monetary needs.96 They did so through yearly projects such as a chili luncheon, salad luncheon, bake sales, rummage sales, Christmas Bazaar, and a booth at the Black Patch Festival. None of these events were money spinners by themselves, but the sheer number of them and the tenacity of the women involved allowed the guild to raise $28,000 over 15 years. These funds went to needs directed by St. Paul’s pastors, including interest on parish loans, payments to building fund, stained glass windows, pews, altar, altar cloths, and vestments.97 Here was the empowered laity envisioned by the Second Vatican Council, though they were empowered by need rather than ideology.

As is typically the case in parish life, the men of St. Paul’s were not as active as the women, and the men’s group appropriately receives less mention in parish records and collective memory than the Ladies’ Altar Guild. The men did, however, make some important contributions, particularly with regard to St. Paul’s connection to the larger Princeton community. Larry Osting, husband of one of the most active members of St. Paul’s in its history, Margaret Osting, was the outstanding figure in this regard. Mr. Osting, who distributed

Gulf Oil for forty-five years and ran a service station, wore many civic hats in Princeton. He was the representative to the Kentucky state legislature from the 36th District, Jefferson County, from

1958 through 1960. He was later elected as Princeton’s mayor from 1970 until 1974. At various times, he served as president of the Princeton Chamber of Commerce, was elected as Elk of the

Year by the local Elk’s Lodge, made president of the Kentucky Gasoline Dealers Association, and served as chairman of fund raising for Kosair Crippled Children’s Hospital. Clearly,

96 Some of the impetus for founding the group at this time may have come from a program in which the diocese matched every dollar that St. Paul’s paid on its building debt. St. Mary’s in Franklin also benefitted from this program. See Henry Soenneker to Thomas Clark, 18 August 1967, Diocese of Owensboro Archives. 97 “St. Paul’s Ladies, 1968-1982” from Diocese of Owensboro Archives 211

Osting’s faith was not an impediment to his civic involvement in Princeton, and his reputation benefitted the parish.98

The laity further contributed to the health of the Church at large by contributing three vocations in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Influenced by the sisters who taught at the parish’s school, a young woman entered religious life as an Ursuline at Mount St. Joseph, Maple Mound,

Kentucky. In 1969, a young man from the parish was ordained priest of the Diocese of

Owensboro. A brother joined the sister and priest in the mid-1970s as a young man entered the religious life in a teaching order.99 When taken in sum, the priests’ busy schedule, the work of the laity inside and outside the parish, and the production of vocations indicate a vibrant parish that did not need Vatican II as a motivating factor, although they perhaps benefitted from it nonetheless.

When talking to St. Paul’s parishioners about this period, what they remember most is not

Vatican II but the construction of a new church. The parish’s increased membership in the decade prior meant that it had long since outgrown its downtown church affectionately known as the “little gem.” The parish had considered a new church as early as 1961 when it bought the 12 acres on the south side of Princeton for the new school; the land was large enough to house the school and a new church building. By 1968, with the school built and the parish debt under control, the parish began looking to sell the old church and build a new one. Princeton’s post office, which neighbored the old church, had long been interested in purchasing the land in order to expand its facilities. In a 1970 deal partially brokered by Larry Osting, the parish agreed to sell the little gem to the post office for $65,000.100

98 “LAWRENCE H. ‘Larry’ OSTING—2005,” The Times Leader, Princeton, Kentucky, 16 April 2005. 99 History of St. Paul’s Parish, Diocese of Owensboro Archives. 100 Ibid. 212

Though Father Thomas Clark had been instrumental in building the new school and selling the church property, he would not oversee the construction of the new church. That duty fell to Father Delma Clemmons, who arrived at St. Paul’s in 1971. The move out of the downtown location began in January 1972, with parishioners removing the pews, organ, statues, cornerstone, stained glass windows, altars and tabernacle with the intention of using them either in the new church or another diocesan church. They did so with no timetable for when Bishop

Soenneker would allow them to begin construction. The parish celebrated mass in a temporary chapel in the basement of the school, and would remain there for a little over two years.

Clemmons lived in a trailer in the school yard.101 A successful Building Fund Drive in August

1972 led to Bishop Soenneker giving permission to build the new church.102

Father Clemmons broke ground on the new church in March 1973, and construction took

14 months. The new church was to hold 300 and would cost $150,000, exactly 10 times as much as the old church. As a parishioner would later write, “the scheme of this church was a product of its time the 1970s, when stark simplicity in architecture and design were the mode and watchword.”103 What it lacked in beauty compared to the old church, it made up with modern amenities like a cry room and superior heating and cooling systems. St. Paul’s parishioners participated in the construction of the new church as well, with the Ladies Altar Guild purchasing new pews, and other parishioners doing some of the small work in decorating and installing items from the old church. This was a major help in two ways: it helped keep costs down and it reduced some stress on Father Clemmons. Clemmons had kept up Clark’s mission schedule, including the newly added Church of the Resurrection in Dawson Springs, which meant he spent many days away from Princeton. Clemmons had hoped to have the church

101 Ibid. 102 Program from Dedication of St. Paul Church, 20 April 1974, Diocese of Owensboro Archives. 103 History of St. Paul’s Parish. 213 dedicated on Easter Sunday in 1974, but hail damage in early April required the dedication be pushed back a week.104 Even then the church was not quite ready; Protestant visitors expressed the same impressed reactions with Bishop Soenneker’s dedication that as they had at the dedication of the original church in 1936, but they were confused by the lack of pews. To the relief of the Ladies Altar Guild, those would arrive shortly thereafter. A new rectory on the property would follow a year later, with all costs and furniture paid by Mr. and Mrs. Howard

Day in memory of their still-born child. Mrs. Day picked out and coordinated the furnishings

“down to the china, silver, and tea towels.”105

Looking back at St. Paul’s parish during this period, one can see the possibilities when the pastor and parish worked toward a common goal. As was common in so many parishes, parishioners wanted the priest’s guidance. At the same time, the laity took on leadership roles and financial responsibilities within the parish. The women of the parish did not need Vatican II to enable this. Instead, they already felt a literal ownership of the parish. When they saw a need, they simply addressed it; no new theological motivation was necessary. At a time when St.

Paul’s pastors were stretched thin by their obligations to several missions, this was a godsend.

The parishioners’ activity did not seem to be a function of personality either. They worked well with Clark and Clemmons. Though long-time parishioners are respectful of both, neither are remembered as warmly as some pastors in this study.106

What may be most distinctive about St. Paul’s is that it seemed during this period to almost exist apart from the world. There was no mention of the civil rights movement or racial issues, nor do parishioners remember it as being a major issue of the day. There was almost no mention of Vatican II, though the laity seemed to exemplify the empowered laity and members

104 Jack Vail to Delma Clemmons, 15 April 1974, Diocese of Owensboro Archives. 105 History of St. Paul’s Parish. 106 Interviews. 214 like Larry Osting demonstrated strong relationships with Protestants. The only real impact that parishioners recall were the obvious changes to the liturgy. Mostly St. Paul’s just seemed steady, and they were usually building something.

St. William parish of Durant, Oklahoma, lacked the enthusiasm of the other two non-

Glenmary parishes during the decade following Vatican II. When assessing the status of the parish, pastors offered only mildly positive reviews, such as “Everything is going well enough.

The parish is doing fine...” and “I think we are doing well in a lazy way. I find that people here don’t get excited easily about anything.”107

Much of this apparent apathy likely stemmed from the fact that there was not much for

St. William’s parishioners to get excited about between 1966 and 1975. Durant was the first town in this study to prosper economically thanks to the construction of Lake Texoma during

World War II. The town was still in relatively sound financial shape, but the boom had subsided.

So too had the boom within the parish. Although mass attendance remained good, the parish could not sustain the rate of growth it enjoyed in the immediate post-war years.108 Unlike the other non-Glenmary parishes in Cordele and Princeton, St. William experienced no major events during the late 1960s and early 1970s. It had had a resident pastor and been a canonical parish for decades, and its construction projects had been completed in the 1950s. Having already experienced the excitement of building its membership and physical plant, the parish after

Vatican II turned to the tedious and difficult business of maintenance.

The malaise manifested itself in terms of finances and member enthusiasm. Debt and relatively weak financial support remained a serious issue for the parish. The Diocese of Tulsa paid the majority of the salaries of the Victory Noll sisters who had served the parish for over a

107 Patrick Quirk to Victor Reed, 28 June 1967; Edward Richard to Bernard Ganter, D.D., 25 April 1975; Diocese of Tulsa Archives. 108 Edward Richard to Bernard Ganter, D.D., 25 April 1975; Diocese of Tulsa Archives. 215

decade. By January 1967, this arrangement was no longer feasible, and the sisters left. The

parish had already begun training lay teachers to carry on instruction classes, although this was

only part of what the sisters did. The pastor of St. William’s, Father Martin Hoehn, was hopeful

that the parish would periodically have sisters, brothers, or lay volunteers take part in the

education program.109 Insufficient funds and planning prevented the addition of a second story

to the parish hall that would have housed a meeting room and several CCD classrooms, though

the parish did manage to purchase a house across the street from the church for religious

education use.110 The lack of treasure in the late sixties and early seventies could have been

mitigated by the application of parishioners’ time and talent, but that flagged as well. Attempts

to interest adult parishioners in activities met with little success in the early and mid-1970s. The

pastor at the time, Father Edward Richard, dejectedly wrote that attempts at adult education died

out quickly due to lack of participation. There had briefly been an Activities Club, but the

chairman, Mike Harmon, quit after a few months because people showed no interest in social

activities of any kind. At Richard’s prompting, Parish Council appointed a Ways and Means

committee in Fall 1975. The purpose of it was to bring parishioners together to work for

improvements of the parish. At the first meeting they decided not to undertake any activities

because “’the same people did all the work’”. Adults’ lethargy meant that there were not many

youth activities because volunteers were too few and not competent enough. Richard also

frustrated by apathy of parish council. “I think I understand why the five pastors who preceded

me here have not stayed very long.”111

109 Martin Hoehn to Victor Reed, 10 January 1967; Diocese of Tulsa Archives. 110 Edward Richard to Bernard Ganter, D.D., 14 January 1974; Bernard Ganter, D.D. to Edward Richard, 14 August 1974; Edward Richard to Bernard Ganter, D.D. 29 September 1975; Edward Richard to Bernard Ganter, D.D. 17 November 1975; Diocese of Tulsa Archives. 111 Edward Richard to Bernard Ganter, D.D., 27 January 1977, Diocese of Tulsa Archives. The pastors include Father Martin Hoehn (1965-1967), Father Patrick Quirk (1967-1969), and Father John Lundberg (1969- 1973). 216

Despite this, St. William’s parish was not in dire shape in the decade following Vatican

II, and it was certainly in better shape than it had been before the construction of Lake Texoma.

The lake still brought enough tourists into the area that the assistant to Hoehn, Father Francis

Helderle, was granted permission to say mass at Rock Creek Resort on the Texas side of the lake

on Independence Day and Labor Day Weekends in 1967 to accommodate crowds.112 Four years

later, Father John Lundberg urgently requested permission to appoint extraordinary ministers of

Holy Communion because of the large number of communicants at late mass, especially with the

vacationers in the area.113 The parish’s Newman Club claimed thirty members, a healthy number

considering the miniscule Catholic population of southeastern Oklahoma. Parishioner Clara

White was chosen as Woman of the Year in 1973 by the Business and Professional Women of

Durant, suggesting increased Catholic standing in town.114 And despite his rather gloomy

description of adult parishioners’ enthusiasm, Richard noted that CCD classes were well

attended with a “number of very good children.” The same letter stated that mass attendance

was good on Sundays and confessions up.115

Certainly the parish seemed to pass through the post-Vatican II years more easily than did

the New Breed parishes. Parishioners recall no particular controversies in the years following

the council, and in fact, there are no explicit mentions of such in any archival sources related to the parish, though letters regarding the distribution of the Eucharist under both species and the celebration of evening masses allude to the post-conciliar liturgical changes. The same is true of all of the social upheavals of the 1960s. The only other hint that something momentous within the Catholic Church took place was an increased interest in consciously ecumenical activities. In

112 William C. Garthoeffner to Gerald Hughes, V.G., 9 May 1967 113 John Lundberg to John Quinn, 17 April 1971 114 “St William’s Catholic Church, 1860 – 1973,” unpublished history of the parish, St. William’s Archives, Durant, OK. 115 Edward Richard to Bernard Ganter, D.D., 25 April 1975 217

1967 Victory Noll Sister Paul Marie requested permission for St. William’s Youth Group to join

the “Inter-denominational Youth Fellowship” of Durant, which sponsored socials and

community service. Bishop Victor Reed granted permission because it was a social event. As

part of his permission, Reed commented that permission have been trickier if there had been

worship services because while Catholics could have attended a truly non-denominational service, they would not have been allowed to take an official role.116 Six years later, Lundberg

requested diocesan support to participate in the Ecumenical Religious Education Workshop that

five of the churches in Durant were organizing because he thought it was important to join for

the future of “inter-church exchange.” His problem was that participating required $1,200 from

each church to pay the seven speakers. The parish could not afford the costs, but Lundberg

believed the parish needed to be there. The diocese gave St. William’s $200 because the effort

to act ecumenically “eventually has the effect on social action activities.”117 This was the only

official mention of social action in the parish between 1965 and 1975. There is some evidence,

however, that Lundberg was interested in social action. He earned a doctorate in counseling

psychology, and in the 1980s he ministered at the Chilocco Indian School in Alaska and engaged

in a pastoral care training program at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, D.C.118 How or if

this interest in social concerns manifested is neither recorded in diocesan records nor recalled by

parishioners.

In virtually every regard, pastors at the non-Glenmary parishes in this study enjoyed more

lay support and made the transition from pre-conciliar to post-conciliar church more easily than

116 Sister Paul Marie to William C. Garthoeffner, 8 October 1966; William C. Garthoeffner to Sister Paul Marie, 14 October 1966; Diocese of Tulsa Archives. 117 John Lundberg to Charles Herrington, 31 October 1972; Charles Harrington to William Eichoff, 10 November 1972; Diocese of Tulsa Archives. 118 Undated newpaper article, Diocese of Tulsa archives

218 their counterparts at the Glenmary parishes in Idabel and Franklin. The main reason for this was that these priests were concerned primarily with needs of an actual growing laity rather than implementing an ideal program grounded in some philosophical vision of Vatican II. Take ecumenism, for example. At St. Paul in Princeton, Kentucky, Fr. Thomas Clark mentioned that the elementary school built under his leadership led to a natural ecumenism between children and parents of different Christian traditions. Parishioners at St. Theresa in Cordele, Georgia, remember their pastor, Franciscan Father Patrick Adams being friendly to Catholic and

Protestant alike, which improved the little parish’s standing in the community. Father John

Lundberg in Durant, Oklahoma, believed that working with other churches was the best way to minister to tourists and educate children while short on resources.

Much of the most important work in these parishes had little to do specifically with

Vatican II. Fathers Thomas Clark and Delma Clemons engaged in a massive building program at St. Paul in Princeton, Kentucky, in the years immediately following Vatican II, with Clark overseeing the construction of a parochial school and Clemons gathering the funds and overseeing the construction of a new, bigger church on the south side of the town. Clark was the first resident pastor of St. Paul, and under his tenure it became a canonical parish. Likewise,

Father Adams, OFM, was the first resident priest at St. Theresa in Cordele, Georgia. He too engaged in building during this time, gathering funds for a rectory. His goal was for St. Theresa to eventually become a parish. St. William parish in Durant, Oklahoma, was the most established of these churches, having had a resident priest for decades prior. The pastors here focused on finding a place in the community and ministering to college students at Southeastern

Oklahoma State College and the influx of summer tourists at Lake Texoma. It may not have been an especially noteworthy period in St. William’s history, but the pastors and parishioners 219

worked together so that the parish could do “lazy well,” which was more than could be said of the New Breed parishes.

It is also worth noting that all of the priests at these parishes are still or remained priests

all their lives. They may have had personal struggles, but they remained committed to the

priesthood and seemed comfortable with their vocation.

This is not to say that just because parishioners remember the Vatican II era positively,

everything was perfect. Clemons in Kentucky and Lundberg in Oklahoma in particular had

detractors within their respective parishes, if not significant opposition. Also, simply getting by

without controversy does not necessarily indicate a successful parish. There is no evidence that

parishioners or pastors were deeply concerned with social justice, although there is no strong

evidence that they were not. As Andrew Moore has indicated, getting along with non-Catholics

without controversy was a goal for many Southern Catholics. Father Adams, for example,

admired St. Theresa of Lisieux, his parish’s namesake, for valuing the avoidance of offense over

personal prayer. In the South in the 1960s, taking progressive positions on social justice or race

relations could very likely offend people.

Looking at the three non-Glenmary parishes, it would be inaccurate to ascribe their

success simply to their pastor’s personality. Adams was, in the words of his fellow Franciscans

“a born and bred son of the South.” His warm personality made him a natural fit for Cordele,

where parishioners inevitably recalled that “he loved us” and “never met a stranger.” Clemons,

on the other hand, was not charismatic, yet he managed to lead St. Paul through a large building

project. Lundberg in Oklahoma was an intellectual with a Ph.D. in counseling psychology, and

no other priests from the period elicit strong reaction or memories from the laity. In fact, no

pastors from St. Paul or St. William are recalled with the same affection as Adams. Instead, 220

what bound these men together was an understanding of and desire to serve the laity,

emphasizing continuity over breaks with tradition and privileging local circumstance over

universal issues. They were, in a word, Southern.

It is tempting to suggest a simple dichotomy: Southern priests who were willing to go

along to get along and not worry about challenging parishioners to engage with difficult aspects

of Vatican II thrived, while young, idealistic Glenmary priests from the urban North who

challenged the status quo did not. The problem is that this model does not fit, because of a

Glenmary parish has been mentioned only briefly in this dissertation thus far: St. Christopher in

Claxton, Georgia, a mission of the extremely successful St. Matthew parish in Statesboro, which

Glenmary gladly returned to the diocese in 1966 in accordance with Howard Bishop’s vision for

flourishing parishes. St. Christopher was the parish that grew the most during the immediate post-Vatican II era, that had the most significant impact on social justice in its town, that eventually had the most African-American parishioners, and whose parishioners remember the era and its priest most fondly. Non-Glenmary priests worked in the Southern republican tradition, but they offered little critical examination of the South. Glenmary Father Jim Wilmes brought an outsider’s critical eye with a willingness to embrace the republican Catholic heritage of the rural South.

After an almost 40 year absence, the Catholic Church returned to Claxton in 1954 when

Glenmary priests opened a mission as part of its successful Statesboro parish. Masses were initially celebrated in the American Legion Hall before Savino Gillio-Tos, Italian-born founder of the fruitcake factory and convert to Methodism for lack of a Catholic presence, offered the use of his movie theater until a church could be built.119 Glenmary built St. Christopher Catholic

119 "Saint Christopher Parish, Claxton, Celebrates Golden Jubilee," The Southern Cross, 24 September 2009. 221

Church in 1959, and it subsequently became a canonical parish. Claxton’s Catholic community

remained even smaller than any of the other parishes in this study with roughly 50 members

among the town’s population of 3,000 in 1975.120 The town was the smallest as well. Its

religious climate was also less hospitable to Catholicism. Whereas Idabel’s citizens regarded

Catholics as an oddity, for example, letters of priests serving in Claxton indicate greater hostility,

stating that the greatest obstacle to conversions was social pressure and a “climate . . . more

suitable for the Grand Dragon of the KKK” than a Catholic priest.121

Early Glenmary priests had faced mixed responses. George Mathis, the first resident

pastor of St. Christopher parish, succeeded fairly well in reaching out to Catholics living in the

area, though his assistant pastors received uneven receptions.122 Mathis guided the parish

through the 1964 liturgical changes, but none of his correspondence addresses Vatican II

reforms. Likewise, parishioners have little to say about the council’s impact on the parish.

Mathis encouraged greater lay involvement, bringing a Catholic Action program to the parish in

1962 and six Christian Family Movement (CFM) volunteer families in 1964.123 Like St. Francis

de Sales in Idabel, St. Christopher parish in the 1960s was geographically large, covering 2,000

square miles in three counties. Catholics numbered 120 persons living in 35 households within

Evans, Bryan, and Tattnall Counties or a miniscule .32 percent in a general population of

37,500.124

120 Claxton Mission Information, 1975, GHMA. 121 Mission Coordinator Report, St. Christopher Parish, 5-7 December 1964, GHMA. 122 Assistant pastors under George Mathis included Paul Ackerman (1962-1963), Bob Dalton (1963), Will Steinbacher (1963-1965) and Jim Doell (1965). Later hostility to Ackerman's appointment as pastor indicates his lack of support, though some appreciated his work. Dalton apparently left a favorable impression compared to Ackerman. All but Ackerman were ordained in 1962. See "New Priests," The Catholic Telegraph (Cincinnati), 8 June 1962. 123 George Mathis to James Kelly, 28 September 62, GHMA. 124 George Mathis to James Kelly, 24 July 1962, GHMA. 222

Most significantly, St. Christopher became the first integrated parish in the Diocese of

Savannah. Mathis would later recall the Catholics of Claxton and Pembroke, where Claxton’s

Holy Cross mission was located as being “really quite amazing. Considering the racial climate of

that time period, the majority welcomed with open arms the African Americans who chose to

enter the Church.” Evidently the two parishioners who objected most strenuously to integrated

religious education classes were transplants from New Jersey and Massachusetts, respectively.125

Richard Steinkamp, an affable priest, followed Mathis in 1965. He quickly became heavily involved in the area, broadcasting on the radio, and active in some civic organizations.

He had less luck in joining the ministerial alliance.126 For the first time the Catholic community

in Claxton had a public presence, and Steinkamp became popular inside and outside of St.

Christopher’s. He was so personable that some parishioners thought his talents were wasted in

such a small parish.127 His young assistant pastor, Jim Hite, proved to be even more popular.128

Outgoing and friendly, he won friends and even a few converts in Claxton and its mission in

Glennville. The situation shifted in 1966 when Hite began an affair with the nineteen-year-old daughter of a large parish family. Interestingly, since he enjoyed such goodwill prior to full public disclosure of the affair, twenty-seven parishioners signed a petition requesting that he not be transferred.129 The “Hite situation,” as Glenmarians delicately referred to it, actually divided parishioners rather than uniting them in condemnation. This division minimized Steinkamp’s

125 Vic Sub, “Making a Choice, Finding a Home,” Glenmary Challenge Spring 2008. Accessed online http://www.glenmary.org/site/epage/114970_919.htm, 9 February 2016. 126 Richard Steinkamp to Robert C. Berson, 1 December 1965, GHMA. 127 Roger E. Fluet to Robert C. Berson, 9 September 1966, GHMA. 128 Richard Steinkamp to Robert C. Berson, 3 June 1966, GHMA. Hite joined the Ministerial Alliance and several civic clubs and was popular with high school students. The latter is not surprising in light of later events. 129 A parishioner doing yard work outside the rectory discovered the affair upon hearing "laughter and inappropriate sounds" from a male and female in a bedroom. The parishioner entered the rectory and found Hite and the oldest daughter of the family "fooling around." Hite left the priesthood. The couple married, started a family in Claxton, had their marriage validated in the Church, and child baptized, but did not attend St. Christopher. His in- laws also ceased to attend. See Interview with Parishioner A from St. Christopher, Claxton, GA, March 29, 2011;Harry G. Peck to Robert C. Berson, 18 September 1966; Robert C. Berson to Jim Wilmes, 8 May 1969, GHMA; Jim Wilmes to Kevin Boland, 8 July 1969, Diocese of Savannah Archives, Savannah (hereafter DSA). 223

effectiveness for the remainder of his pastorate, as some cited his easygoing personality as the

reason Hite misbehaved.130 Two years later, Glenmary attempted to replace Steinkamp with Paul

Ackerman, a move which St. Christopher’s parishioners blocked.131

Accepting the verdict of the parish, Glenmary president Bob Berson assigned Father Jim

Wilmes to Claxton in November, 1968. The appointment was understandable; the parish had

endured three traumatic years in addition to the changes of the Second Vatican Council. Wilmes

was known as a “strict,” “old school” priest, and, in his own words “jealously guarded the

teaching authority of the Church.”132 He joined Glenmary in the 1950s three years after

ordination as a priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago. As mentioned in the previous chapter,

Glenmary appointed him associate pastor of St. William Church in Murphy, North Carolina and

director of the Pius XII Pastoral Center at Buck Creek. Though he had not taken part in the

Glenmary novitiate, Wilmes complained that the newly ordained priests, many of them New

Breed, lacked the “Glenmary Spirit.”133 Despite spending 1962-1968 in promotional rather than

pastoral work, Wilmes, at age forty-one, seemed the ideal candidate to restore order to the parish

after Steinkamp’s permissive tenure.134

Whereas Glenmary Fathers Berthiuame, Ackerman, and Barry viewed Vatican II as a means to open up the Church, Wilmes had no particular problems with the pre-conciliar Church.

His sermons and letters mention the Council from time to time, but he rarely offered a direct

130 Robert C. Berson to Richard Steinkamp, 31 March 1968, GHMA. Apparently heeding a parishioner's suggestion that Steinkamp had a natural genius for public relations, Berson assigned him to promotions. Upset with the reassignment, he left Glenmary to become a diocesan priest in Orlando, Florida. 131 Robert C. Berson to Paul Ackerman, 8 February 1968, GHMA. Ackerman, was instead assigned to St. Mary parish, Franklin, Kentucky, where his stormy tenure led parishioners to conclude that he was a radical and unfit priest. He left the priesthood in 1970. 132 Interviews with Parishioners, 1 April 2011 and 24 December 2011. See also Robert C. Berson to Gerard L. Frey, 13 May 1968, DSA. 133 Interview with Glenmary priest 1. 134 Jim Wilmes, born January 31, 1927 was ordained in 1957. See GHMA. "Remembrance—Jim Wilmes," Cincinnati, OH, http://www.glenmary.org/site/epage/111844_919.htm (accessed August 17, 2012). 224

opinion about it. Mostly he regarded it as having ushered in “strange days” for the Church.135 On

the other hand, he believed obedience his first duty to the Church and therefore accepted and

implemented its reforms.

As pastor of St. Christopher, Wilmes emphasized the same program seen in other

Glenmary parishes: education of the laity, social action, ecumenism, liturgical changes, and

openness regarding the priest’s role. He differed from the New Breed in his conception of why

he should follow this course. They believed in furthering the council’s reforms; Wilmes thought

it the means for parish growth. Ackerman and Berthiaume’s vision was intensely personal and

did not allow for the humanity of the laity, the good and ill that contained, and thus did not make

them part of their project in reality, only in theory. Wilmes, while remaining strictly orthodox,

based his vision on the real needs of an imperfect flock. Like many of the pastors in this study,

Wilmes turned his attention first to improving religious education. Glenmary Sisters, the

women’s community Howard Bishop formed to support home mission work, had nominally been

in charge of education, but by 1969 only one sister remained. Sister Lucy, by her own admission,

was spread too thin by her various responsibilities and had little to do with religious education.

Wilmes believed education the primary duty of women religious assigned to a mission parish,

and abruptly asked that Sister Lucy be reassigned to a parish better suited to her interests.136 In

her place he requested members of the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration of LaCrosse,

Wisconsin. He specified assignment of experienced sisters to teach some religious education

135 Jim Wilmes to Robert C. Berson, 22 February 1969, GHMA. 136 Jim Wilmes to Mother Mary Joseph, 31 January 1969; Mother Mary Joseph to Jim Wilmes, 13 February 1969; Jim Wilmes to Mother Mary Joseph 22 February 1969; Jim Wilmes to Robert C. Berson, 22 February 1969; Robert C. Berson to Jim Wilmes, 24 February 1969; GHMA. Wilmes's request and brusque manner caused conflict between the Home Missioners and their sister organization. Mother Mary Joseph, the Glenmary Sisters' superior, believed Wilmes had broken the parish's contract with the sisters. She was so upset that she planned to request that he never be assigned to a ministry with Glenmary Sisters. Glenmary President Bob Berson calmed her, but Wilmes never worked with a Glenmary sister again. 225

classes, work as nurses in the local hospital, and occasionally visit homes.137 Insistence on

“veterans” sprang from his understanding of rural mission work in the South, its difficulty, and a desire for sisters who met his standard of orthodoxy. The Franciscan sisters arrived in 1970 and initially established a strong working relationship with him.138 Despite early success, the

education program never lived up to his hopes. Most parishioners never demonstrated much

enthusiasm for education, especially adults. He and Bob Berson worried that courses taught by

lay people were filled with vagaries and platitudes rather than the teaching of the magisterium.

Still, Wilmes never despaired, instead expressed hope when noting the parish high school

students’ stated desire for more substantial teaching.139

Wilmes viewed social reform crucial to the parish not because Vatican II’s Gaudium et

Spes so urged it, but because the longstanding Glenmary mission aimed at tending to people’s

physical needs as central to its evangelistic mission. He addressed social questions by focusing

on economic needs, especially affordable housing and job creation. When interstate highway

construction bypassed Claxton in the early seventies, he believed it a potential blessing rather

than a death sentence. If the town was to survive, it would have to create jobs in emerging

industries that could last decades. New employees would need homes in Claxton, and he

collaborated with the Office of Economic Opportunity and Genesis Housing, a non-profit

organization dedicated to building low-cost housing, on plans to build a 122-unit complex near

the church.140 The plans never came to full fruition, though 74 units were built, representing a

substantial improvement in the town’s housing. Wilmes viewed these economic projects as a

means to address civil rights concerns. In letters to Glenmary and potential project donors, he

137 Jim Wilmes to Kevin Boland, 19 February 1970, DSA. 138 Sister Ludmila to Gerard L. Frey, 9 December 1971, DSA. 139 Robert C. Berson to Jim Wilmes, 20 February 1974, GHMA. 140 Jim Wilmes, Letter on Behalf of the St. James Mission Guild, 16 October 1974, DSA. 226 stated his belief that racial tensions would lessen if blacks and whites were to live and work together rather than compete for jobs and housing. His approach seemed to work as the parish welcomed its first four African-American members.141 Throughout his time at St. Christopher, he enlisted parishioners’ support by appealing to their civic pride and pocketbooks.142 In addition to economic projects, the parish sponsored charitable ventures such as its successful parishioner-operated rummage center.143

Social action was Wilmes’s preferred avenue for ecumenism as well. In letters and sermons, he often worried about “watering down the faith” and remained adamant that the

Catholic Church offered the only path to Heaven.144 He had little interest in finding theological similarities with local churches, but he was interested in involving them in social action. Despite his reserved approach to ecumenism, he succeeded in encouraging churches and civic groups to work together for common causes in the community. The Franciscan sisters’ arrival in 1970 probably improved ecumenical relations more than any other development. They were immediately popular in the hospital because they would work night and additional emergency shifts, allowing married nurses to tend to their families. They ensured that the hospital always had a nurse on duty, thus allowing it to qualify for Medicare funding. Beyond practical benefits to the hospital, the sisters won over co-workers and patients on the strength of their personalities.

Calm, competent, and usually cheerful, they demystified the Church and women religious in an area unfamiliar with and skeptical of both.145 Their very presence was ecumenical outreach.

Wilmes’s reluctance to do anything that he thought might dilute the faith extended to the liturgy. Despite his traditionalist leanings, he preferred to celebrate mass in English because he

141 Interview with St. Christopher parishioner B, 29 March 2011. 142 Jim Wilmes, Letter on Behalf of the St. James Mission Guild, 16 October 1974. 143 "Claxton's War on Poverty," The Glenmary Challenge, Summer 1970. 144 Jim Wilmes to Robert C. Boland, 16 May 1970, DSA. 145 Jim Wilmes to Kevin Boland, 12 August 1970, DSA. 227

thought it easier to say and elicited more active lay participation. Upon request of some

parishioners, however, he agreed to celebrate occasional masses in Latin.146 Wilmes seemed to

have no interest in making an ideological statement through his celebration of the mass. Instead,

he wholeheartedly agreed with Sacrosanctum Concilium that the mass is the summit and source

of Catholic life. Accordingly, he tried to make it as available as possible to parishioners. In fact,

the one area in which Wilmes was willing to experiment was with the times of masses. He

regularly sought permission of Bishop Gerard Frey of Savannah to binate (that is, offer mass

twice on the same day), provide masses on Saturday night or daily masses at odd hours to

accommodate the schedules of the sisters and his parishioners.147 He retained a belief in the

importance of traditional forms of devotion, especially Eucharistic adoration, and continued to

endorse them even as their popularity declined in the parish.

Wilmes’s conception of the priest probably revealed him at his most traditional. With his

very hierarchical understanding of the Church, he worked closely with Bishop Frey. Priests and

lay people who knew Wilmes often refer to him as a “priest’s priest.”148 They sometimes say

this warmly and sometimes not. All agreed that he could be single-minded on topics ranging

from the altar servers’ appearance to how clothes would be distributed to those in need. In letters

and personal dealings with parishioners and sisters, he made clear who was boss. His writing

indicates that he never had a crisis of conscience regarding his vocation. He had little patience

for those who did, and his opinion of priests and sisters who questioned traditional rules

governing their lives bordered on contempt.149 As a result, his relationship with the sisters at St.

146 Jim Wilmes to Kevin Boland, 26 March 1969, DSA. 147 Jim Wilmes to Gerard L. Frey, 10 May 1971; Jim Wilmes to Gerard L. Frey 1 June 1971, DSA. 148 Interviews with Glenmary Priests, 21-22 October 2010; Interviews with Parishioners, 29 March, 1 April, and 24 December 2011 149 Jim Wilmes to Robert C. Berson, 9 January 1969; Jim Wilmes to Robert C. Berson, 16 May 1969; Jim Wilmes to Charles Hughes 25 October 1974, GHMA. 228

Christopher soured as the original, older sisters were reassigned, and younger ones arrived who

wanted greater autonomy.150

Despite his insistence that neither the universal Church nor St. Christopher parish was a democracy, Wilmes worked to build consensus and community. He maintained an active parish council through his tenure, and as letters to Glenmary headquarters and the bishop reveal, although he considered himself completely in charge of the parish, he took seriously the council’s advice on a variety of matters.151 His letters and mission appeals further suggest that

several of his projects were designed to create enthusiasm and sense of ownership. Again,

Wilmes pursued consensus building to address matters large and small, internal and external. For

example, the impetus for redecorating the church, a contentious issue in many parishes, came

from the laity. That parishioners thought the current church décor too modern may have helped

to build consensus, but he supported their efforts primarily to “encourage parishioners to take

greater ownership of the parish.”152 He made sure they played a large role in his St. James

Mission Society, the parish’s social action branch. He believed the society would be far more

effective in its social justice work and winning souls, if parishioners demonstrated enthusiastic

leadership in it.153

It is noteworthy that despite Wilmes’s “my way or the highway” approach, he obviously sought to build a ministerial team as the best way to evangelize Claxton and the surrounding area. In keeping with Howard Bishop’s vision for missioners living in community, Wilmes continued to request assistant pastors at a time when many Glenmarians preferred to live alone.

150 Wilmes to Hughes, 25 October 1974, GHMA. 151 Jim Wilmes to Robert C. Berson, 13 March 1972, GHMA. 152 Jim Wilmes to Carl Boehler, 21 February 1971, GHMA. Parishioners did not like the "modern art wallpaper" with its line drawing of Christ and quote from Pope Paul VI. Instead, they wanted to panel the sanctuary and hang a crucifix or risen Christ there. 153 Wilmes to Frey, 10 May 1971, DSA. 229

He generally maintained good relations with them, perhaps their rapid rate of turnover helped.

He regularly requested Glenmary brothers for construction and social justice projects lasting a

few months. Worrying that he could not adequately serve St. Christopher and its far-flung missions, he engaged a retired Maryknoll priest to assist with masses in 1969 and 1970. Most significantly, he actively sought sisters who wanted to live together in community. His desire for multiple sisters was so great that he was willing to build them a convent.

One must be careful not to overstate his congeniality. Wilmes rightly noted that he could have a prickly personality. Many of his working relationships with priests and sisters were short lived, but he continued to pursue them. He did so not because they suited him—they did not— but because he believed a team best served the parish’s needs. His approach apparently worked.

When Glenmary transferred him to Immaculate Conception parish in Hugo, Oklahoma in 1976, several parishioners wrote to Glenmary President Bob Berson requesting that he remain pastor, including a petition more than 50 parishioners signed and a letter from Claxton’s mayor.154

Wilmes attempted to reach out to his parishioners, especially when he knew that he had upset one of them, though he rarely changed his mind.155 He was, however, willing to

communicate with parishioners rather than dismiss them. More often than not, he won

parishioners over to his point of view because he actually knew how to articulate his ideas. The

latter ability prevented him from offending even a handful of people, which in a small parish

meant losing the support or participation of a significant number of parishioners.

Wilmes certainly expected his parishioners to obey as well, but his ideas arose from

parishioners’ needs. He recognized their general conservatism and opposition to radical action

that would cause them to stand out in a small Southern town in the late sixties and early

154 Perry Lee DeLoach to Robert C. Berson, 14 April 1976; Bernice L. Mitchell, Sr. to Robert C. Berson, 21 April 1976, GHMA. 155 Interviews with Parishioners, 1-2 April and 24 December 2011. 230 seventies. When the laity got involved in a project, he accepted that it would be on their terms not his. By doing so he actually embraced Lumen Gentium’s call to understand the Church as the

People of God and succeeded in its implementation.

Conclusion

By 1975, every parish in this study was relatively stable, even if they were not all thriving. All had benefited from an economic boom that brought new Catholics to their respective towns, with Idabel finally having its run of prosperity in the early 1970s. All had a resident priest, and all but St. Theresa’s Church were canonical parishes, though Patrick Adams’s dedication to and residence at the “Church of the Little Flower” meant that there was little distinction to Cordele’s Catholics. Self-sufficiency was no longer the measure of success for these parishes – they were now well-established in their community, if still small and viewed with suspicion by some evangelical Protestants.

These parishes were now ready to engage with questions posed by the modern world, and

Vatican II and realities of life in the South (e.g., the Civil Rights movement and economic and demographic transformation) were the catalysts that forced them to deal with these questions.

The parishes that prospered in the decade following Vatican II, namely the non-Glenmary parishes and St. Christopher’s Parish, grappled with the modern world using an approach that resembled republican Catholicism. This approach was uniquely well-suited because the post- conciliar church looked more like the republican church, with a laity that displayed a relatively high level of autonomy but still desired the leadership of a priest who connected them to traditional authority, an understanding of local realities, and an acceptance of ecumenism and religious pluralism as a fact of life rather than something which must be consciously acted upon.

Consequently, they were able to ride the turbulence of the period without engendering major 231

division between pastor and parishioner or among the parishioners themselves. New Breed

priests, on the other hand, could not comprehend the church as it existed in the rural South. They

wanted an active, engaged laity, but only on their terms. They focused on major political, social, and religious issues rather than the immediate, local needs of their parishioners. They demanded that their parishioners consciously participate in ecumenical activities and be more accepting of other faiths while never understanding that by virtue of living in Southern towns with few Catholics, their parishioners lived ecumenism and had always accepted those of other faiths. For these reasons, Vatican II is the lens that reveals not just that that a resident priest was

vital to a parish or that the priest-parish relationship was important, but that those who hewed

most closely to the republican tradition were best equipped to deal with the context of the

modern South.

But simply engaging in the republican approach to Catholicism was not enough to move past the stage of creating a united and lively spiritual life within the parish. In order for

Catholics to move outside of their walls and begin to have a greater effect in their towns, they had to be willing to deal with social issues and be confident enough to occasionally risk giving offense. A lack of grappling with questions about race and other social issues in the South would keep parishes from moving forward as much after 1975, and we will see examples of both stagnation and success in the next chapter. For example, Wilmes intuitively understood and appreciated the republican approach, but unlike the majority of the priests in the non-Glenmary parishes in this study, he brought an outsider’s eye to the problems facing the parish and the town. In many instances he identified the same problems and expressed the same concerns as the New Breed priests while using republican methods to address them. Consequently he laid the foundation for a strong parish that is now third largest congregation in Evans County.

Chapter Five A Different Kind of Mission 1976-1990

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the Glenmary Research Center published materials intended to support missionaries and pastors in rural areas in their work. By that time, Glenmary had reached a point where it was no longer just starting missions. It was now maintaining parishes, some of which had been around for decades. This demanded new sorts of work other than straightforward evangelization of the South’s unchurched. In order to support that work,

Glenmary’s Third General Chapter ordered a survey of the society’s missions in 1959 and the establishment of the Glenmary Research Department in 1966. The department would eventually grow into the Glenmary Research Center. Its purpose was to “assist individual missioners,

Church leaders and the wider society in identifying, focusing on and addressing mission-related issues, problems and opportunities, drawing upon the social science disciplines, theology

(particularly ecclesiology and missiology), and the lived experiences of missioners and the people whom they serve.”1 Rather than rely on the anecdotal evidence of missioners shared in meetings and internal newsletters, Glenmary would take a systematic approach to its work in the

South. The center’s primary focus between 1966 and 1982 was developing a program of best practices for planning and developing rural parishes in the South and their associated ministries.2

In doing so, Glenmarians acknowledged they were no longer just missionaries; they were pastors. A major reason for this was the influx of Catholics to the South, and the Research

Center allowed the society to quantify this. Its research supported the anecdotal evidence that most of the counties in which the parishes in this study are located experienced significant

1 “Glenmary Research Center – History,” Glenmary.org, http://www.glenmary.org/site/epage/109190_919.htm. Accessed February 13, 2016. 2 Ibid. 232

233

growth in Catholic population between 1952 and 1971, which corresponds with periods of

economic expansion in most of the towns.3 Evidence suggests that that growth slowed in these

counties considerably between 1970 and 1990, suggesting that conversions were less likely to

bring people into local Catholic churches than economic opportunity. Still, during the seventies

and eighties, the Sun Belt experienced the greatest rate of Catholic growth of any region in the

United States. One must be careful not to overstate the size of Catholic migration to the South

between 1950 and 1990; numbers in rural areas remained low compared to areas with historically

large Catholic populations.4

The growing Catholic population was part of a changing South. Better transportation and

communication networks, low taxes, an inviting climate, and hostility toward organized labor

had enticed businesses from the Northeast and Midwest to the South since the end of World War

II. After the most overt forms of segregation and Jim Crow discrimination were made illegal, the

last barrier to economic growth in the South had been removed.5 By seventies and eighties, the

South’s immediate economic future seemed secure as industrial, service and technical jobs flooded to the South. Changing economics led to changing demographics. In addition to middle- class, educated Northerners, greater numbers of ethnic minorities moved to the South. By the

3 Peter L. Halvorson and William M. Newman, Atlas of Religious Change in America, 1952-1971 (Washington: Glenmary Research Center, 1978), 32-33. 4 Peter L. Halvorson and William M. Newman, Atlas of Religious Change in America, 1971-1980 (Atlanta, GA: Glenmary Research Center, 1987), 9; Bernard Quinn, et al., Churches and Church Membership in the United States, 1980: An Enumeration by Region, State, and County, Based On Data Reported by 111 Church Bodies (Atlanta, Ga.: Glenmary Research Center, 1982), 70-71, 122, 128, 224, 228; Martin B. Bradley, et al., Churches and Church Membership in the United States, 1990: An Enumeration by Region, State, and County, Based On Data Reported for 133 Church Groupings (Atlanta, Ga.: Glenmary Research Center, ©1992), 98, 100, 168, 177, 314, 318. 5 Blaine A. Brownell, “Urbanization” in Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, eds. Charles Reagan Wilson and William R. Ferris, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989), 1438. See also James C. Cobb, Industrialization and Southern Society, 1877-1984, paperback ed., New Perspectives on the South (Lexington, Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky, 2004), 53; Randall M. Miller, “The Development of the Modern Urban South: An Historical Overview, in Shades of the Sunbelt: Essays On Ethnicity, Race, and the Urban South, eds. Randall M. Miller and George E. Pozzetta (Boca Raton: Florida Atlantic University Press, 1989), 1-20, and Richard M. Bernard and Bradley Robert Rice, eds., Sunbelt Cities: Politics and Growth Since World War II (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1983). 234

mid-seventies, the exodus of African Americans that had begun in the 1910s reversed, with the

South gaining black migrants from other regions. They were joined by growing numbers of

Latinos.6 Racism remained a problem, but it took on a more civil, coded form with discussion of

segregated private schools and states’ rights taking the place of racial slurs.7 There did,

however, seem to be more freedom to express a diversity of opinions on race, including for

Catholics. In general, life in the South was transforming, but in a calmer manner than had been

the case in the fifties and sixties.

The Catholic Church was calmer as well – if not unified – with the Second Vatican

Council now a decade in the past. As last chapter demonstrates, Vatican II had not been the seismic event in the rural South as it had been in the urban North.8 When problems did occur, they usually had more to do with pastoral interpretation by New Breed priests raised in the northern urban immigrant tradition. But the controversies at the parish level in this study were now largely over. Much of the unrest within Glenmary also calmed, with the wave of men

6 Bernard L. Weinstein and Robert E. Firestine, Regional Growth and Decline in the United States: The Rise of the Sunbelt and the Decline of the Northeast (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1978), 1-5, 10, See also Curtis C. Roseman, “Migration Patterns,” in Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, eds. Wilson and Ferris, 551-552, and and Miller and Pozzetta, Shades of the Sunbelt: Essays on Ethnicity, Race, and the Urban South. 7 See Lee Atwater’s colorful description of this phenomenon as part of Republicans’ “Southern Strategy in Alexander P. Lamis, ed., Southern Politics in the 1990s (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1999), 7-8. See also C Vann Woodward, The Strange Career of Jim Crow, commemorative ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 214; and Dan T. Carter, The Politics of Rage: George Wallace, the Origins of the New Conservatism, and the Transformation of American Politics, 2nd ed. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2000). 8 See Colleen McDannell, The Spirit of Vatican II: A History of Catholic Reform in America (New York, NY: Basic Books, 2011); James J. Hennesey, American Catholics: A History of the Roman Catholic Community in the United States (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), Chapter 21; Charles R. Morris, American Catholic: The Saints and Sinners Who Built America's Most Powerful Church (New York: Vintage Books, 1998), Chapter 12; Patrick W. Carey, Catholics in America: A History, updated ed. (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008), Chapter 9; James M. O'Toole, The Faithful: A History of Catholics in America (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, ©2008), Chapter 4; R. Scott Appleby, “Decline or Relocation?” in Leslie Woodcock Tentler, ed., The Church Confronts Modernity: Catholicism Since 1950 in the United States, Ireland, and Quebec (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2007), 215-217. 235

leaving Glenmary after Vatican II having subsided by 1975, taking many New Breed priests with

it.9

The result was changes that had buffeted the Catholic communities in this study calmed

considerably between 1975 and 1990. The pattern of growth and development that united these

parishes for so long began to break up, and the parishes in this study were able to revert to form

and find their own paths forward. This is not to say that they did not share some challenges in

common with each other, and indeed, the entire American Church: incorporating women into

new roles, lay people who either wanted more autonomy or were disaffected, lack of clergy, ecumenism, and an influx of immigrants. As these small rural parishes dealt with their new circumstances, their paths diverged based on local economic and geographic context, interests of the pastors, and the temperament of their parishioners.

St. Mary – Franklin, Kentucky

The return of Father Robert Healy to St. Mary Franklin in 1975 represented a reprieve from the controversies of the previous eight years. Healy had originally served in Franklin between 1948 and 1954 and overseen the construction of the church then in use. He had gone on to “a history of successful pastorates,” and came to St. Mary Church after completing a three month pastoral institute at the Pontifical North American College in the spring of 1975.10

Thanks to this training and his steady nature, Bishop Henry Soenneker was sure that Healy

would be able to solve the difficulties that plagued Father Gus Guppenberger’s second pastorate

in Franklin.11 Healy had a reputation among his fellow Glenmarians as being a solid missioner

9 Of the 71 men ordained Glenmarians between 1956 and 1965, 32 left the society between the end of the Second Vatican Council in 1965 and 1975. And additional eight left after 1975. Of the 33 men ordained between 1966 and 1975, 20 would eventually leave. The years between 1975 and 1990 saw fewer men ordained (28), but far fewer men left Glenmary as well (9). 10 Robert Berson to Bishop Henry Soenneker, 30 June 1975, DOA. 11 Bishop Henry Soenneker to Robert Berson, 1 July 1975, DOA. 236

who eschewed ostentation. He was generally well-liked by them and St. Mary’s parishioners,

but the missioners who jokingly told him that he was “flashy enough” may have had a point.12

There was no great fanfare for him when he returned despite his having built the church, though

this may have been because most parishioners did not arrive until after he left. His second

tenure does not stand out in the memories of parishioners in the way that the pastors who came

before and after him do. This is not to say that Healy accomplished nothing. Steady and quiet

represented a significant improvement over the most of the preceding decade. While in Franklin,

Healy arranged for the Glenmary building crew to construct additional rest rooms and make

numerous repairs around the church. He joked that it had only taken twenty years to finally get

them to show up.13 Healy also increased the church’s airtime on the local radio station, returning it to the levels it had been in the fifties.14 This was fitting, as Healy himself was a throwback to

the Glenmarians of the 1950s recruited by Howard Bishop.

Glenmary Father Adelbert “Del” Holmes was very much not a throwback, and no other

pastor in this study inspired such love and contempt simultaneously among various groups in his

parish. Before being ordained in 1963, he had been trained as a plasterer in his hometown of

Cleveland, and he loved to landscape and remodel his parish plant as a pastor. Parishioners who

were at St. Mary during the ten years (1978-1988) that he was pastor recall that he smoked,

cursed, drank beer, liked rock and roll, and kept pet dogs and fish.15 Holmes was also a man of

great appetites and emotions – as flashy as Healy was quiet. His emotions sometimes got the

best of him; for example, in 1983, he still owed Glenmary in excess of $2,000 for a personal loan

12 Gus Guppenberger, “Gentleman, Friend, Confidant,” Glenmary Challenge (Summer 2006), 14. 13 Robert Healy to Carl Boehler, 26 September 1975, GHM 14 Robert Healy to Carl Boehler, 16 August 1975, GHM; and Carl Boehler to Robert Healy, 12 October 1976, GHM. 15 Biography of Adelbert Edward Holmes, (ca. 2004), DOA; Interviews with St. Mary’s Parishioners C, F, March 2011. 237

taken out before he arrived in Franklin. Holmes let payments slide in favor of loaning money to

local people in “dire straits” because of greater need.16 This spoke to his compassion and

pastoral inclination, but it also suggests poor judgement at times. Holmes’s compassion and

iconoclasm was refreshing to some, with one parishioner saying that no priest had ever loved the

people of St. Mary the way he did. Others saw him as reckless and just another in a long line of

Glenmary renegades.

Unsurprisingly, given the example of the unpaid loan, the place where this conflict would

take place was finances. There were indications that profligate spending by Holmes was a

problem that concerned Glenmary even before he came to Franklin. His parishes typically had

higher expenditures than most Glenmary parishes, but they typically had higher income as well.

The society worried that while at St. Mary, Holmes might “succumb once again to [his] chronic

tendency to overextend [himself] – ministerially, emotionally, financially.”17 He had evidently

lost “complete control of the financial situation” in one of his previous parishes.18 As a result,

the First Vice-President, the Treasurer, and the Personnel Director of Glenmary visited him

regularly to monitor him and the parish finances over the first several years that he was in

Franklin.

Holmes continued his ambitious spending while in Franklin. In 1979, the parish

remodeled the religious education building. This was a sensible plan supported by Glenmary

President Robert Berson because the building had sat idle for lack of renovations since the parish

purchased it earlier in the decade, but Holmes began the updates at roughly the same time that he

16 Edward Gorny to Del Holmes, 9 November 1983, GHMA; and Frank Ruff to Edward Gorny, 18 November 1983, GHMA. 17 Jim Ploeger to Robert Berson, 17 April 1980, GHMA; and Robert Berson to Del Holmes, 14 August 1979, GHMA. 18 Memo: Jim Ploeger to Bob Berson, Dennis Holly, Nick Scheller. 5 November 1981. GHMA. 238

had the basement of the church, including the kitchen, remodeled as well.19 Taking on both

projects at the same time strained St. Mary’s finances. While still dealing with the debt created

by these projects, and purchasing the religious education building in the first place, the heating

systems for the church, rectory, and education building all failed at rough the same time over the

winter of 1980-1981, necessitating replacement. This resulted in the parish paying several bills late during the middle of 1981.20 The last major addition to the parish’s physical plant came in

1981 with the purchase of another house adjacent to the property. In this case, neither Holmes nor Glenmary nor the parishioners of St. Mary’s thought the purchase was a good idea, but

Holmes was instructed to obtain it by Bishop Soenneker because the price was so favorable. As a Glenmarian, he was bound to obey the orders of the local bishop. Holmes defended the purchase to parishioners who thought another purchase was too much by telling them that the building would soon be necessary at the current rate of growth.21 If St. Mary’s did not buy it

now, the church would have to pay an exorbitant amount for it later.22 By 1982, the parish plant

included four main buildings as well as a trailer and garage on the property, which made it the

largest of the parishes in this study, and it seemed as though there was constant renovation of at

least one of them.

Building projects were not the only ways in which St. Mary’s spending increased under

Holmes. Operating costs dramatically increased, with new office equipment such as a

photocopier. The copier was needed because the amount of printed material disseminated by the

19 Memo: Robert Berson to Carl Boehler, 15 October 1979, GHMA; and Robert Berson to Del Holmes, 3 December 1979, GHMA. 20 Ploeger to Berson, Holly, and Scheller, 5 November 1981. 21 The parish experienced a significant jump in membership in 1981 from 257 members to 310. Holmes attributed this to lapsed Catholics returning to the parish, which might indicate some enthusiasm for Holmes’s projects. The increase was short-lived, however, and membership returned to previous levels within two years before finally rebounding back to approximately 300 in 1990. See Report of the Spiritual and Material Progress of St. Mary’s Church, 1981, DOA. 22 Berson to Holmes, 3 December 1979; Ploeger to Berson, Holly, and Scheller, 5 November 1981, GHMA; St. Mary Parish Bulletin, 11 November 1982, GHMA. 239

parish increased exponentially. In addition to the usual diocesan appeals and parish bulletins,

which to that point, had usually been a page or two, Holmes now published a weekly newsletter

that ran as long as a dozen pages to be mailed to the home of every family registered with the

church. The operating costs of the parish also now included a full-time maintenance man and a

large subsidy to its mission, Christ the King, in Scottsville, Kentucky. Holmes developed a

reputation for generosity, providing a free lunch or money to those who came to the church

asking for help. A pinball machine and pool table showed up at the youth center as well.23

The question, then, was how to pay for all of this? Donations and a “special fund”

covered some of the expenses. St. Mary’s bookkeeping never made the source of these funds

clear, though it is possible that some of it came from Holmes’s contacts or Holmes himself.24

The majority of the burden, however, fell to the parishioners, and it was here that the newsletter

played an important role. Over the years that it was published, the newsletter had regular

mentions of ecumenical happenings, social justice issues, mentions of papal activities and

statements, and Catholic news from around the world. No other parish in this study ever had a

sustained attempt like this to connect them to the larger Catholic world. But the newsletter did

not ignore local events either, mentioning parish events and highlighting children who were

involved in various organizations and events in the community. Holmes also occasionally

provided his own pastoral reflection. The main feature of the newsletter, though, was an

unrelenting focus on the parish’s finances. The newsletter was very transparent about how

money was being spent and as explicit as possible without actually giving names with regard to

how much each family gave. This included providing constant statistics demonstrating how

23 Robert Berson to Del Holmes, 9 May 1979, GHMA; Ploeger to Berson, 17 April 1980; Anonymous Member of St. Mary Parish to Bishop Henry Soenneker, 29 July 1981, DOA; Ploeger to Berson, Holly, and Scheller, 5 November 1981; Memo: James Ploeger to Robert Berson, Dennis Holly, Nick Scheller, 4 May 1983. GHMA. 24 Ploeger to Berson, 17 April 1980. 240 many parishioners were giving and how much. The newsletters constantly exhorted parishioners to do more and give more. Over the course of four years, the tone of the newsletter often seemed defensive on issues of giving and spending and eventually lapsed into passive aggressive hectoring, going so far as to wonder why Catholics could not be as generous as the members of a small Baptist church 8 miles outside of Franklin. On some level, Holmes’s plan worked.

Parishioners’ financial support of St. Mary’s increased every year from 1979 to 1983. Holmes attributed this to parishioners being more generous because they saw things being done. Despite the increased giving, St. Mary consistently ran about a $1000 shortfall of its operating budget each month during this period. Franklin’s Catholics were prosperous by the standards of most areas Glenmary served, but this was not sustainable over the long term.25

The pace of spending concerned Glenmary, who did not want to see a repeat of Holmes’s mistakes in other parishes. They monitored his financial records regularly, expressing particular concern over the delinquent bills in the summer of 1981 and the amount of the parish’s “non- essential” expenditures in 1983. In both cases, Holmes was able to rectify the situation to

Glenmary’s satisfaction, though Glenmary did decide to continue to monitor parish finances after

Holmes’s initial probationary period ended in 1983. Throughout this time, Bob Berson urged prudence in all spending.26

Glenmary could live with the financial situation of St. Mary’s, but many of the parishioners could not. Virtually all parishioners believed that the spending was a problem, and

“many responsible men” voiced their concern about the financial condition of the church. In a

25 See St. Mary Parish Newsletters, 1979-1983, GHMA. 26 Berson to Holmes, 9 May 1979; Berson to Holmes, 14 August 1979. GHMA; Berson to Holmes, 3 December 1979; Ploeger to Berson, 17 April 1980; Jim Ploeger to Robert Berson, 30 December 1980, GMHA; Jim Ploeger to Berson, Holly, and Scheller, 5 November 1981; Jim Ploeger to Del Holmes, 15 April 1983, GHMA; Ploeger to Berson, Holly, and Scheller, 4 May 1983; Gorny to Holmes, 9 November 1983; Ruff to Gorny, 18 November 1983. 241

1981 letter to Bishop Soenneker, a parishioner complained about the “wild spending” at St. Mary and that in “every newsletter, and some sermons, all we hear is money, money, money. It gets sickening.” Interestingly, office expenses and “frequent free lunches” struck most people as the cause the parish’s financial issues far more than did the cost of purchasing, renovating, and maintaining multiple buildings. As with most of the complaints to the chancery from Franklin over the years, the letter was anonymous because the author did not know if the bishop “would be with us or not.” 27

If the complaints about Holmes had been limited to only issues of money, one could pin the anger on that. The venom and scope of the complaint indicated that there was something more at work. The 1981 letter to Soenneker stated that Holmes had not celebrated daily Mass in over a year, and that he did not say the Mass the way it was written on Sunday, taking the

Eucharist after the parishioners and making “a big show of it.” “What the hell,” the author asked, “does he think a priest’s job is supposed to be?” The letter went on to ask “who is this jerk of a priest” about the priest forty-five miles away in Morgantown, Kentucky, who allegedly made up his own consecration and allowed non-Catholics to receive the Eucharist. By this point it was clear that this was not just about money; the author of the letter thought that some priests were trying to hijack or subvert the true purpose of the Catholic Church. For the author, Holmes was another in a line of “Glenmary rebels” that had begun in the 1960s and needed “to be retrained or go find a job in the world.” The author’s frustration was understandable; by

Holmes’s own recollection, seven of the priests who had served at St. Mary’s had left the priesthood, and two more should. At this point, the author had lost all charity with Glenmary

27 Anonymous Member of St. Mary Parish to Bishop Henry Soenneker, 29 July 1981, DOA; Interviews with St. Mary Parishioners B-F, March 2011. At the time, St. Mary was generally only able to pay the interest on its debt. 242 and even the bishop, telling Soenneker that he had been “told time and time again” of the problems,” but that he lacked “the backbone to do anything about it.” 28

The interesting thing about Holmes is, that despite sharing some superficial personality traits with New Breed (especially Raymond Berthiuame, in the year before he left Idabel), he was actually a fairly traditional priest. He constantly stressed the necessity of attending the Mass and offering time, talent and treasure to the Church. Holmes opposed abortion and contraception and held an orthodox view of the family that was in keeping with statements offered throughout

Pope John Paul II’s papacy.29 Like Berthiaume, he did stop saying daily mass because he said

“there [was] normally not someone present for daily Mass and… he [found] it very difficult to offer Mass alone.” He did, however, pray the office of the readings every day and normally said the morning and evening prayers from the Office of the Hours. Holmes also offered the sacrament of reconciliation on Friday evenings and recommended such traditional practices as devotion to the Sacred Heart or praying the rosary in times of trouble or doubt. 30

Holmes also oversaw the largest and most ambitious program in a parish in this study at any time between 1939 and 1990. In the early 1980s, he put a great deal of effort in getting the men of the parish to found a Knights of Columbus council at the parish. It was the only council in any of these parishes. After some initial excitement, attendance dropped off, and eventually the council was disbanded.31 The Ladies’ Guild, not surprisingly, was more active than the

Knights. Throughout the 1980s, the guild was responsible for organizing small events and hospitality, welcoming new parishioners, and the little things required to make a parish

28 Anonymous to Henry Soenneker, 29 July 1981. 29 See St. Mary Parish Newsletters, 1979-1983, GHMA; St. Mary Parish Bulletins, 1983-1987, GHMA. 30 Dennis Holly, Visitation Report, 26-27 March 1981. GHMA. 31 See St. Mary Parish Newsletters, 1979-1983, GHMA; St. Mary Parish Bulletins, 1983-1987, GHMA. 243

function.32 On Holmes’s watch, the parish organized a “Fall Festival,” a tent revival, and a

parish library.33 The parish council played a major role in organizing and assisting “the pastor

with his mission of teaching, sanctifying, and governing the parish.” The council divided its

responsibilities divided between “pastoral council” and financial council. The major

achievement of the financial committee was to put together a debt reduction plan that allowed

the parish to pay back a $68,000 debt in three years, which may have lessened the tensions that

some had with Holmes.34 The parish had also become a greater part of the community,

supporting children involved in 4-H and the Boy Scouts. Like so many other priests in this

study, Holmes believed that one of the greatest needs among parishioners, regardless of age, was

better education. Holmes devoted a fair amount of his budget to education endeavors, and

enlisted the help of Sisters Noreen Ellison and Jackie Riggio, who worked with the Glenmary

Research Center, to develop religious education. The sisters visited regularly throughout the

eighties, offering help in developing pedagogy and curriculum and planning parish events.35 The

result was that, whatever divisions may have remained, St. Mary was a very active church by the

standards of the rural South. As such there was a large contingent of parishioners who adored

Holmes for the work and emotional investment he put into the parish. He was especially popular

with younger parishioners who felt like he was one of their own. It was no surprise, then, that

parish membership increased throughout his time. By the 1980s St. Mary was in no way a

mission; it was a fully-developed parish.

Despite this impressive program, Holmes had little chance of winning over his detractors, which remained a sizable portion of the parish. But, despite their fears, the parish was not really

32 See Records of St. Mary’s Lady Guild, St. Mary’s Archivse, Franklin, KY. 33 See St. Mary Parish Newsletters, 1979-1983, GHMA; St. Mary Parish Bulletins, 1983-1985, GHMA. 34 Joann P. Bradford, “Laity Doing Their Part at St. Mary’s, Franklin,” The Western Kentucky Catholic, September 1991. 35 Noreen Ellison and Jackie Riggio, Field Service Reports, October 1983-May 1987, GMHA. 244

in bad shape. By 1980, Catholics made up the fourth largest religious group in Simpson County.

There were roughly 250 Catholics registered with the parish at that time, and the number grew to

approximately 300 by 1990. Baptist and Methodist membership of course dwarfed St. Mary’s

numbers, but there were significantly more Catholics than Presbyterians, Lutherans, or

Episcopalians in Franklin.36 As early as 1981, Holmes thought the parish was in good enough

shape that it could be given back to the diocese in the next five years. He believed St. Mary was

his hardest assignment precisely because was it much larger than the average Glenmary parish

and had so many activities.37 Even the internal divisions within the parish were indicative of

stability; dissent could occur because the church’s existence was not in question. If a parishioner became too upset, they could go to mass in Bowling Green or to the Benedictine fathers in South

Union if need be. When Holmes left Franklin due to a heart attack in 1988, he handed over a parish that was larger and more active than it had been when he arrived.

What frustrated Glenmarians and parishioners alike is that the situation could have been

so much better. The parish did grow, and throughout its history it has had fiercely committed

and devout parishioners and sincere priests. What it often lacked from the late 1960s through the

late 1980s was a shared understanding of the mission of the parish and who would guide that

mission. To be sure, there were parishioners who supported Glenmary throughout this time, but

there were those poisoned by their experience with the New Breed priests and further upset by

Holmes’s actions. This lack of common cause did not prevent the creation of a large church –

demographic and economic changes were too supportive. But it did keep the parish from looking

outward and being the force in the community it could have been.

St. Christopher – Claxton, Georgia

36 Religious Census of Simpson County, 1980, GHMA. 37 Dennis Holly, Visitation Report, 26-27 March 1981. GHMA. 245

No parish in this study paid more attention to race or evangelizing African Americans

than St. Christopher in Claxton, Georgia, and its missions in Pembroke (Holy Cross) and

Glenville (St. Jude). This was due in part to circumstance; the black population of the counties

in which St. Christopher and it missions were located made up 31 percent of the total population

– a far larger percentage than in any town in this study other than Cordele.38 As noted

previously, the “black apostolate” had been important to the parish since its founding, and it

became the first integrated church in the Diocese of Savannah in 1961. That focus continued

during Father Jim Wilmes’s eight years in Claxton and expanded while Father Bill Smith was

pastor from 1976 to 1986. Often described by his fellow Glenmarians as having a gentle nature,

Smith was noted for “particular love for the African-American communities in his mission counties.”39 In fact, this had been one of the reasons he became a Glenmarian. Born in 1922 in

Chicago, he had been introduced to the society by Howard Bishop and exchanged

correspondence with the Glenmary founder on the topic of African-American evangelization.

Excited by the prospect of working with blacks in the South, Smith joined the Home Missioners

after being ordained in 1947.40

Smith’s evangelization of African Americans took many forms. One was simple outreach – meeting and socializing with blacks in Claxton, Pembroke, and Glenville. This was

not the heroic action that it once would have been, but it still represented an important symbolic

action in the Deep South.41 Smith also used a grant from Glenmary’s “Mission Projects” fund to

help an African-American parishioner start a business and wanted assistance from Glenmary

38 St. Chrisopher Parish Report, November 1978, GHMA. According to the 1980 census, African Americans made up 65 percent of Cordele’s population. 39 Dominic Duggins, “The Passsing of a ‘Gentle Giant,’” Glenmary Challenge (Autumn 2007), 14. 40 Bill Smith to Bishop Raymond Lessard, 3 March 1986, DSA 41 Rita H. DeLorme, “Glenmary Father William Smith’s Gentle Nature was Key to His Missionary Success,” Southern Cross, 17 May 2007, 3. 246

Father John Rausch in starting a cooperative in Pembroke to help open two or three black

businesses.42 The Franciscan sisters working at St. Christopher aided him in this work,

especially Sister Janet Fischer, who was interested in ministering to marginalized people.43

Their actions had the support of the Catholics in Claxton and Pembroke, and Smith noted with

pride that St. Christopher was a “mixed” parish with people of multiple ethnic backgrounds

participating.44 Smith and the parish provided moral support for the “Backroads Ministry”

Project Glenmary implemented in the nearby mostly black community in Manassas.45 After leaving Claxton in 1986, Smith would take a sabbatical year for studies, focusing on Black

Catholic studies. After this he returned to southern Georgia to attempt a project aimed specifically at evangelizing rural blacks.46 All of this took place with the support of Bishop

Raymond Lessard, who believed racism was the number one underlying problem in the

diocese.47

How one regards the success of Smith’s work with African Americans depends on the

measure used. On the one hand, St. Christopher and its missions remained the only integrated

churches in their respective counties into the 1980s. Smith is remembered with affection by the

42 Bill Smith to Robert Berson, 3 November 1979, GHMA. 43 Bill Smith, 1980 Report on Sisters living at St. Christopher, DSA. 44 Bill Smith to Grace, 22 December 1983, GHMA. 45 Glenmary developed the “Backroads Ministry” program to proclaim the Gospel to people living in remote, impoverished rural areas. The program would initially consist of two men, at least one of whom would be an able-bodied Glenmary brother, who would live simply in the communities they served. The men would be self- supporting, and their work would initially focus more on service than evangelization, satisfying material needs before spiritual ones. Their work usually revolved around home construction and repairs. Eventually the missioners hoped to begin praying with people of the community before introducing them to the Catholic Church. This project began in the predominantly black town of Manassas, Georgia, inside the parish boundaries of St. Christopher in 1977. Among the Glenmarians who worked there were Brothers Tom Kelly, Ralph Riehle, and Curt Kedley, and Associate Terence McNamara. Although their work was much appreciated, there is no evidence in their correspondence with the Diocese of Savannah that they ever won any conversions. The model for the program would change in 1987, when Father Charles Hughes moved from Idabel to take over the program. 46 Smith to Lessard, 3 March 1986; Bishop Raymond Lessard to Bill Smith, 19 May 1988, DSA. Glenamary underwrote the costs for this experiment. 47 Meeting of Bishop Lessard and Diocesan Leaders/Staff with Major Superiors of Religious Communities Ministering in the Diocese of Savannah, 26-27 November 1984, DSA. 247

African-American members of St. Christopher and Holy Cross, and he unquestionably developed strong relations with the black communities in each town. On the other hand, he won more friends than converts. When Smith left St. Claxton in 1986, St. Christopher only had six black members out of 125 total (roughly 5 percent).48 In fact, there were twice many Hispanics in the

parish as African Americans, though they had heretofore hardly been mentioned in parish

correspondence. There had also been two Filipino families in the parish in the early eighties,

though at least one of them had left by 1986.49 Both Bishop Lessard and Glenmary president

Father Frank Ruff correctly believed that the greatest growth among minority groups in the

coming years would be among Hispanics.50

Consequently, the years between 1986 and 1990 demonstrated a new focus on Hispanic outreach at St. Christopher and Holy Cross while maintaining strong relations with black

Catholics and black communities within the parish boundaries. Ruff appointed Father Ed

Haggerty as Smith’s replacement in 1986. Haggerty was also from Chicago and a veteran missioner. He had been pastor in Mt. Pleasant, Texas, from 1975 to 1985, during which time the parish “transformed from entirely Anglo to 60 percent Hispanic.”51 Haggerty’s experiences

there allowed him to pick up enough Spanish to minister in that language. Ruff and Lessard

hoped that he would do some regional Hispanic ministry for Glenmary as more Hispanics were

moving into the area, and none of the Glenmarians then in Georgia spoke Spanish. Father Tom

Kirkendoll, who is African American, became Haggerty’s associate pastor in 1987. Ruff

assigned Kirkendoll to Claxton to gain “more experience with Black Catholics. Tom grew up in

a Black parish in Milwaukee, but has been living and worshipping primarily in predominantly

48 There is no evidence that the Backroads Ministry produced any converts. 49 Bill Smith, St. Christopher Parish Profile, 16 March 1986, GHMA; Dominic Duggins, “The Passsing of a ‘Gentle Giant.’” 50 Frank Ruff to Bishop Raymond Lessard, 25 August 1988, DSA. 51 Frank Ruff to Bishop Raymond Lessard, 10 May 1986, DSA. 248 white communities for the past ten years. After his ordination, he will concentrate on evangelization within the Black community.”52 Kirkendoll’s kind disposition won him the admiration of many locals, but he was only able to stay in Claxton for two years before being recalled to Cincinnati to strengthen the vocations team. Father Steve Pawelk, who had previously spend a summer in in Claxton as a seminarian replaced him. Pawelk also had a particular interest in black ministry.53 The “Gathering of Hope” meeting in September 1989 was indicative of Glenmary’s outreach to minorities at the time. The purpose of the gathering was to create a “safe and sacred” space for people who ordinarily did not have a forum to voice the difficulties that they were experiencing, whether economic or racial. Most of the discussion dealt with trials faced by African Americans, but there was a growing awareness of challenges and racism facing Hispanics in Georgia.54

The Gathering of Hope meeting addressed the other major problem facing Glenmary and the people of Evans County, one that was often intertwined with race: poverty. Twenty-nine percent of the county’s population lived below poverty standards defined by the 1980 census, and only 22 percent had completed high school.55 Twenty-two percent of housing in the county was considered substandard, and access to healthcare was limited. Reflective of Reagan-era cutbacks and rearrangements of Great Society programs, St. Christopher Church took an approach of traditional charity rather than economic justice when addressing these hardships.56

52 Frank Ruff to Bishop Raymond Lessard, 24 June 1987, DSA. Kirkendoll is the only African-American priest to serve in any of these parish in this study between 1939 and 1990. Born to Baptist parents, he converted to Catholicism. In high school he wanted to be a missionary but not to leave the United States, so his guidance counselor put him in touch with Glenmary. See “A Celebration of 200 Years of Ministry,” Glenmary Challenge (Winter 2007), 16. 53 Frank Ruff to Bishop Raymond Lessard, 5 May 1989, DSA. 54 Minutes of “Gathering in Hope” Meeting, 16 September 1989, GHMA. 55 Bill Smith, St. Christopher Parish Report, November 1978, GHMA. See https://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/data/threshld/thresh80.html for the scale. 56 The Office of Economic Opportunity, which had been a popular collaborator for Glenmarians, transferred to the Office of Community Services in Health and Human Services. 249

One of Smith’s first actions upon arriving in Claxton was to request money from the Apostolic

Programs Fund to help support a daycare in Pembroke used by some parishioners. The daycare

served thirty children from low income families, regardless of race.57 During the eighties, the sisters living at the parish led what were called “correlative field ministries” intended to support the mentally disabled, poor, the sick and infirm at hospitals and nursing homes.58 The brothers

who participated in the Backroads Ministry in Manassas performed home repair and building

projects for minimal costs for families at risk. The sisters and several parishioners were also

involved in the Clothes Basket, a thrift store whose proceeds went to support the field ministries.

In addition to the field ministries, the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration were

usually responsible for coordinating St. Christopher’s religious education program. Every pastor

in this study, at virtually all times, believed that a great need, if not the greatest need, in his

parish was for better education. They all wanted well-trained teachers, engaged parents who

made sure their children attended class, and adults who wanted to learn more about their faith.

Almost none of them ever achieved this standard. In fact, St. Christopher appears to be the only

parish in this study in which the pastor was satisfied, and even ecstatic, about the quality of the

parish’s religious education program. Bill Smith was consistently positive in his statements

about the efforts of sisters and his appreciation of their work, especially Sister Marcella Anibas

and Sister Dorothy Rieper. Anibas served as the Religious Education Coordinator for the 1980-

1981 school year. She had improved children’s education by getting parents more involved in

the weekly CCD program, got adult education “off the ground” with special programs, and

organized vacation bible school. Smith especially appreciated efforts aimed at teenagers and her

communication skills. The parish lost Anibas after only a year to her society’s request. In her

57 Bill Smith to Carl Boehler, 23 August 1976, GHMA. 58 General Mission Plan for Glenmary Territory in Diocese of Savannah, 5 November 1984, DSA. 250 place came Rieper with excellent credentials. Smith praised her work in essentially the same way as Anibas, and acknowledged that the progress being made in educating the laity was mostly due to the work of the sisters.59

In addition to its excellent catechetical work, the pastoral team at St. Christopher was notable for its size and how smoothly it operated. At its largest in the early eighties, there were seven members of the team: Father Smith, four Franciscan sisters, and two brothers operating the

Backgrounds Ministry in Manassas. This was a large team for such a small parish, especially when considering that its fellow Glenmary parishes in Franklin (more than twice as big) and

Idabel (roughly the same size) rarely had more than two religious, and often only had one. All engaged in ministry that gave St. Christopher an outsized influence in the community: religious education directory for the parish; activities director for a local nursing home; director of pastoral ministry at the Evans County Hospital; and outreach to marginalized people. The size of the pastoral team would decrease throughout the eighties until only Sister Janet Fisher, who had arrived with Sister Macella in 1980, was left.60 The group seemed to function fairly smoothly as well, often eating weekly meals together. Smith’s correspondence with the diocese and

Glenmary regularly praised the sisters for their hard work in difficult ministries and for how well they communicated and worked with him. As have seen, such a good working relationship between a pastor and sisters working in a parish could not be assumed.

The Glenmarians at St. Christopher also enjoyed great support from their local bishop.

Bishop Lessard demonstrated concerned about rural areas and was adamant that Glenmarians and other religious in rural areas see themselves as part of the Savannah diocese and participate

59 Bill Smith to Robert Berson, 16 June 1980, GHMA; Smith, 1980 Report on Sisters living at St. Christopher; Bill Smith, Application for Renewal of Funding for Religious Education Coordinator, 4 January 1982, GHMA. 60 Smith, 1980 Report on Sisters living at St. Christopher. Fisher still served St. Christopher in 2011. 251 in diocesan activities and programs. Congregational churches surrounded the Catholics of rural

Georgia, and the bishop emphasized the need to demonstrate a connection to the universal church to help parishioners “realize that the Catholic Church is not a congregational church.”61

Not everything went so well in Claxton. Bill Smith found the laity here very friendly and supportive of the pastoral team but somewhat lacking in initiative and community. St.

Christopher had no lay organizations outside of the parish and finance councils, and the parish council was less structured here than any other parish examined in this work. It had three elected officials and was otherwise open to any parishioner who wanted to attend. Although welcoming,

Smith wished for more lay involvement in outreach and ecumenism. Nevertheless, lack of initiative among the Catholics of Claxton should not be mistaken for a lack of participation.

Parish membership was small, potentially precluding the need for lay organizations. The average attendance at parish council meeting was twenty, far greater than the other parishes discussed here. Of the 50 to 60 who regularly attended the Sunday Mass, half were attending some sort of religious education class. A handful also attended daily mass, which was better than many parishes in this study, and they participated in the Clothes Basket program. The laity in Claxton may not have taken the lead as they did in some parishes, but they were still active.62

The far greater challenge facing St. Christopher and its missions was a lack of local money. The parish consistently ran a deficit, with the greatest expenses being the religious education program and automobile upkeep. Both demonstrated the difficulty of having such a large pastoral team in such a small parish. The salary of the Religious Education Coordinator constituted over 80 percent of the budget apportioned for education. The only way St.

Christopher could afford the coordinator was thanks to subsidies from the diocese, Catholic

61 Meeting of Bishop Lessard and Diocesan Leaders/Staff with Major Superiors of Religious Communities Ministering in the Diocese of Savannah, November 26-27, 1984, DSA. 62 Bill Smith, St. Christopher Parish Profile, 16 March 1986, GHMA. 252

Extension Society, and Glenmary. All told, the parish was receiving approximately $11,000 in

assistance as the eighties began, with roughly $8,400 coming from Glenmary. Consequently,

even though Smith was happy with the sisters and their progress, by 1982 his goal was to

cultivate and train a layperson to become the coordinator.63 This did not work as a long-term solution, and eventually Fischer took over religious education. Smith continued to fret about how the parish could afford to pay the salary of Sister Janet without dipping into special reserve funds when the Clothes Basket operation was not making what it typically made and the parish needed to make repairs to two cars. “At the very time when the parish regular income is the best it has ever been it looks like we are about to be strapped the worst we ever were. I’m not panicking, but is a bit scarey. [sic]”64 Due in part to financial concerns and in part to society

needs elsewhere, all of the Franciscan sisters except Fischer would leave by 1990. Some of their

pastoral work would be taken over by sisters working with Glenmary who visited Claxton

quarterly.65 The decrease in the pastoral team led to a decrease in the cost to keep up several

cars. In a parish that covered 1,119 square miles, car maintenance, and even fuel, was a serious

concern. The financial strains continued after Smith left, with Bishop Lessard noting that

parish’s finances were behind and it had not yet paid its chancery tax or property insurance

premium in April 1990.66 In a small church in a rural, impoverished area, financial troubles were less a commentary on the generosity or enthusiasm of parishioners than on the general context in which they lived. All of the parishes in this study relied on outside financial support, often from institutions based in the North, like the Catholic Extension Society. And St.

Christopher, although neither big nor wealthy, had a significant impact on Claxton.

63 Bill Smith, Application for Renewal of Funding for Religious Education Coordinator; Finances of South Georgia District, February 1979, DSA. 64 Bill Smith to Carl Boehler, 7 October 1985, 22 October 1985, 25 October 1985; GHMA 65 See Pastoral Service Reports, Claxton, 1982-1993; GHMA. 66 Bishop Raymond Lessard to Ed Haggerty, 17 April 1990, DSA. 253

St. Francis de Sales – Idabel

As mentioned in the previous chapter, Idabel, Oklahoma, was the last town in this study to experience an economic and population boom. After losing thousands of people in the 1950s and an additional 4,500 in the 1960s, McCurtain County’s population rebounded dramatically from 21,146 in 1970 to a little more than 32,000 in 1977.67 The 51 percent jump came thanks to the construction of Weyerhaeuser lumber and paper mills and a Holly Creek Fryers Chicken

Plant around Idabel, Broken Bow, and Valliant.68 Each of these industries would play a not insignificant role in the parish in the decades to come. The increase in the general population led to an increase in Catholic families with 60 active and 50 lapsed families inside the parish boundaries by 1978. The benefit of this, besides simply adding more people the church, was that many of these transplants were the same sorts of middle managers and technical employees found in every other parish in this study. The result was a parish that was more financially stable, with parish subsidy from the Diocese of Tulsa dropping from $200 per month in 1974-75 to $50 per month in 1977-1978. The negative impact was that the managers and engineers tended to turn over every few years, so the parish population did as well. It is noteworthy that the 1978 parish report indicated that church membership grew due to people moving in for these higher level jobs rather than the conversion of locals who tended to work in less skilled positions because it indicates that local evangelization had less impact on the parish than economic opportunity – and they knew it.69

Father George Hutchinson oversaw the early years of St. Francis de Sales’s transformation. He replaced Raymond Berthiuame in late 1971 and immediately improved

67 Frank Schenk, Commentary and Statistics of St. Francs de Sales Parish, 1 May 1978, DTA. 68 These were also the communities where most of the Catholics in McCurtain County lived. Growth in Valliant would lead to the creation of a short-lived mission (Good Shepherd) there in 1984. See Bishop Eusebius Beltran to Frank Schenk, 11 March 1983, DTA. 69 Frank Schenk, Commentary and Statistics of St. Francs de Sales Parish, 1 May 1978. 254 relations with parishioners by working with them rather than dictating to them. Although

Berthiaume’s experience was no doubt instructive in this regard, Hutchinson also recognized that he had to work with the laity to accomplish anything, especially in light of the fact that the only parish employee besides him was a part-time cleaning woman.70 Huthinson’s tenure in Idabel proved more fruitful than Berthiuame’s – though it scarcely could have been worse, and the parish established its first parish council and purchased and renovated a house for educational and social use. Unfortunately, terminal cancer limited Hutchinson’s time in the parish to less than three years. By September 1974 he wrote that his physical and mental energy were “at a low ebb. The result is that the parish is suffering from a lack of leadership, and so is nowhere near as developed as it should be.”71 Despite his disappointment, the parish life of St. Francis de

Sales made clear improvements during his short time there.

Father Frank Schenk returned to Idabel as Hutchinson’s replacement in 1974, having spent the years since he left Idabel the first time in Colombia, South America, as part of

Glenmary effort to start a home missioner society there. Schenk had always been a very practical missioner, focusing on the day-to-day realities of Catholic life in the rural South. He demonstrated this during his first tenure with questions about liturgy that dealt with the proper way to celebrate the new order of the Mass, rather than probing its theological underpinnings.

That practicality continued during his second assignment to Idabel. Thanks to the growing population, about 120 people attended Mass every Sunday in 1978. The parish plant was designed to accommodate a smaller congregation, and it became difficult to fit everyone in the church or provide adequate social and educational facilities for them. Under Schenk’s guidance, the parish was able to address the latter problem because it was becoming more financially

70 George Hutchinson, Response to Diocesan-Parish Wage and Salary Study, 22 April 1974, DTA. 71 George Hutchinson to Charles Hughes, 26 September 1974, GHMA. 255

independent.72 The combination of parishioners’ contributions, along with funding provided by

the Diocese of Tulsa, Glenmary, and the Catholic Extension Society allowed St. Francis de Sales

to construct a large parish hall with a kitchen, bathrooms, and accordion dividers to make six

CCD classrooms. Nursery rooms in the back of the hall could accommodate overnight visitors.73

Beyond the immediate concerns of his parish, Schenk also addressed the problems facing local

teenagers, regardless of religion. Idabel’s isolated location close to the borders of three states

made it attractive to the drug traffickers of the 1970s and 1980s who replaced the moonshiners of

the 1950s, and drug usage increased significantly among McCurtain County’s young people.

The increasing availability of pornography to them worried Schenk as well. Consequently he

worked with the Idabel Ministerial Alliance and other ecumenical and civic groups and requested

funds from Glenmary’s Apostolic Projects Fund to address these problems.74

While Schenk’s practicality remained the same, it was guided by his experiences in South

America. His command of Spanish was useful in reaching out to the young Hispanics who

worked at the local chicken processing plants. The project most indicative of this was his 1976

request for Apostolic Project Funds to teach people to begin self-help gardens. Though sustenance gardens were certainly true to Howard Bishop’s vision of the self-sustaining rural church, Schenk’s idea seems to have developed from his time in Columbia. Schenk used the funds provided by Glenmary to purchase a rototiller and a half ton truck. The garden idea did not catch on, and the tiller didn’t get a lot of use, but the truck hauled a lot of compost and was used

72 Frank Schenk, Commentary and Statistics of St. Francs de Sales Parish, 1 May 1978. 73 St. Frances de Sales Parish Directory, 1993, GHMA. 74 Frank Schenk, Application for Apostolic Fund, 20 January 1979, GHMA; Advertisement, McCurtain County Gazette, ca. January 1979, GHMA; Sister Elizabeth Daugherty, “Growth in the rural Church,” Eastern Oklahoma Catholic, 17 May 1981, GHMA; Noreen Ellison and Jackie Riggio, Pastoral Services Report, 1981-1990, GHMA. 256

by seminarians visiting in the summer to do housing repair work for African Americans and for

picnics for Vietnamese children.75

The Vietnamese children enjoying those picnics were part of the one of the most unique episodes in any of the parishes in the study, in which in only two months the size of St. Francis de Sales parish tripled with virtually no lasting impact on the parish. In 1975 the Holly Creek

Fryers Chicken processing plant brought in almost 350 Vietnamese refugees from Ft. Chaffee,

Arkansas, to work in the plant. The refugees include men, women, and children, and families shared trailers across the highway from the plant. Approximately 95 percent of them were devout Catholics, mostly from North Vietnam. With typical understatement, Schenk wrote that this was “good but it creates pastoral problems.”76

The problems appeared on many fronts. Schenk and other members of the Diocese of

Tulsa feared that the plant would exploit the refugees. After meeting the managers of the plant

and Ft. Chaffee’s chief of USCC Migration and Refugee Servicse, Schenk wrote that “It would

seem that the company is not going to treat them as many migrants and the Appalachian coal

miners have been treated in times past – as a captive group. This of course bears watching.”77

Another problem was how to fulfill the spiritual and sacramental needs of the refugees. Schenk

initially offered mass for them at noon on Sunday in the plant’s cafeteria. This was

unsatisfactory as only two of the refugees spoke passable English. Schenk requested a

Vietnamese priest, Fr. Pham Van Co, to help. Unfortunately Co could not drive, so he had to

take a bus almost 200 miles from Muskogee to come to Idabel. Ultimately he settled in Idabel

75 Frank Schenk to Carl Boehler, 29 October 1976, GHMA. 76 Frank Schenk to Robert Berson, 6 November 1975, GHMA. 77 Ibid. 257

for the duration of the refugees’ stay in the area.78 Co had a reputation with a few of the

diocesan priests of being dictatorial, but he and Schenk seemed to have a civil working

relationship.79 The final challenge facing Schenk was that the Bishop of the Diocese of Tulsa,

Bernard Ganter, did not want the refugees to live in a “colony.” Instead, he wanted them

“Americanized” and integrated into the community.80 Glenmary President Robert Berson agreed

and requested that Schenk enlist the help of St. Francis de Sales’s parishioners to make the

Vietnamese feel at home. Berson also believed the first priority of helping the refugees was to

teach them English, and was open to funding an education project.81

This last hurdle was never cleared, and the refugees never fully joined the parish or

community. Of the 350 Vietnamese who arrived in 1975, only 60 remained in area in 1979, and

all were gone by the 1980s. As Schenk would note, “their influence in the parish [was] very

minimal because of language and cultural difficulties.”82 Dissatisfaction with working at the plant, the lack of economic opportunities elsewhere in the area, and a fairly inhospitable environment meant that the refugees often left as soon as they had the money, usually to join

Vietnamese communities in urban areas. When asked about the sudden influx and departure of

Vietnamese Catholics, long-time member of the parish understandably remember it as more as a bit of trivia rather than a significant moment the life of the parish. Even though there were three

times as many Vietnamese Catholics than all other Catholics combined living inside the parish

boundaries, the refugees were never really part of the parish. It was an extreme example that

78 Father Co also celebrated mass at St. William in Durant on occasion for Vietnamese students at Southeastern Oklahoma State University. 79 Schenk to Berson, 6 November 1975; Frank Schenk to Robert Berson, 4 December 1975, GHMA; Kevin James, “I Was a Stranger,” Glenmary Challenge (Spring 1976), 5-6. 80 Schenk to Berson, 6 November 1975. 81 Robert Berson to Frank Schenk, 16 December 1975, GHMA; Robert Berson to Frank Schenk, 23 April 1976, GHMA. 82 Frank Schenk to Robert Berson, 30 August 1976; GHMA. 258 presaged future challenges of combining groups with different languages, traditions, and socio- economic statuses into a single parish.

Although practical, Schenk could speak on broader issues. Like so many older

Glenmarians, Schenk wrote a monthly newspaper column for the local newspaper addressing social and spiritual issues. The most noteworthy of these was written in January 1980, just days after protests to complain that police were not investigating the murder of a black teenager near a private, white nightclub that resulted in a race riot that left six dead and made national headlines.

Schenk did not address the riot directly in his column, but there was no mistaking his meaning.

Referencing Martin Luther King, Jr., and especially Mahatma Gandhi, Schenk demanded that the people of McCurtain County had a moral obligation to oppose injustice and intolerance with non-violent action rather than passively accept wrongs in the world as “the way things are.”83

Because he avoided saying anything about the riot explicitly, Schenk’s column could be seen as part of the long tradition of Catholics in the rural South avoiding the subject of race. Within the context of the riot, however, it was one of the most powerful statements on race to come out of the churches in this study, demanding that the local population acknowledge racial tensions and inequalities. The column was as strong as anything any socially conscious New Breed priest said

– and Schenk definitely did not belong to that cohort. There are many possible reasons why he felt he could challenge the people of McCurtain County to do better on race. Perhaps he felt the freedom to write the column because of the parish’s stability and the good relations he had developed with local ministers on the anti-pornography and anti-drug campaigns. Perhaps due to his love of Columbia, he felt a strong connection with the local non-white population. Perhaps he simply felt the situation demanded it. Whatever the reason, Schenk demanded people take

83 Frank Schenk, “Pastor’s Corner, McCurtain Sunday Gazette, 24 January 1980. 259

action but had the prudence to avoid singling any group as racist, especially his own

parishioners.

In 1983, Schenk once again left Idabel for Colombia, and Glenmary appointed Father

Charles Hughes as his successor. Like so many Glenmarians, Hughes hailed from a northern

city – Brooklyn in this case. Unlike most of them, Hughes spent the majority of his time as a

priest as an academic – with a doctorate in theology – and an administrator – most notably as

Glenmary president in the early 1970s. Despite little time in the field, an intellectual bent that

superficially resembled members of the New Breed, and being hard of hearing Hughes turned

out to be fantastic fit for St. Francis de Sales. Schenk wrote Bishop Eusebius Beltran that

Hughes’s arrival would “be a gain for the parish and the diocese. He is a simple liver [sic],

challenging capitalist values in today’s America.”84

Schenk was right – Hughes lived simply and had a gentle nature. Parishioners revered

him, and every long-time parishioner who knew him in Idabel began their description of him by

saying that he was “a very spiritual man.”85 Like Schenk, Hughes often spoke of gardening in

his correspondence with the diocese. Unlike Schenk, the spiritual nourishment provided by

humble physical labor seemed more important than combating the physical hunger of those in

need. The same was true of the crucifixes that he made for parishioners.

Hughes developed an excellent rapport with the non-Catholics of Idabel too. When the

First Baptist congregation of Idabel built a large new church directly across the street from the

St. Francis de Sales, the Catholic parish was the only church to place an ad in the local paper

congratulating them. Hughes and a few members of the parish were also the only non-Baptists to attend the dedication. This show of fellowship made a very positive impression on the

84 Frank Schenk to Bishop Eusebius Beltran, 30 August 1983, DTA. 85 Interviews with St. Francis de Sales Parishioners A-H, July 2010, January 2011. 260

Baptists who had previously demonstrated little interest in ecumenism. Hughes also held an open house to explain Catholic teaching that resulted in good attendance with four Protestant ministers among the listeners. Afterward, Hughes wrote to Bishop Eusebius Beltran that “we are coming to the point where they are beginning to realize that we as Catholics also believe in

Jesus. That is a breakthrough for some of them… When and if they come to realize what we really have by way of prayer, theology, sacraments, etc. they will be amazed.”86

The only real problem during Hughes’s time in Idabel was that he was not able to stay long enough. He was hard of hearing when he arrived in Idabel, and three years later the problem “was unbearable.”87 He could manage when he could read lips, but answering the phone had become nearly impossible. In 1987 Hughes requested a transfer to Manasssas,

Georgia to participate in the Backroads Ministry being conducted in coordination with St.

Christopher parish in Claxton. His rationale was that most of the people with whom he would be working in a poor, black community would not require him to use the phone. He also hoped that being relieved of pastoral responsibilities would allow him to do creative spiritual writing.

Father Patrick O’Donnell, a veteran Glenmarian who had designed St. Mary’s Church in

Franklin in the early 1950s and whose primary responsibility between 1949 and 1980 was as editor of the Glenmary Challenge magazine, replaced Hughes. O’Donnell’s commitment to the pro-life movement and welcoming Hispanics into the parish defined his time in Idabel. With regard to the former, he spoke out against abortion regularly in public forums, lent his considerable artistic talents to creating pro-life materials and memorials dedicated to the unborn lost to abortion, and, in what appears to be the only instance of this happening in any of the

86 Charles Hughes to Bishop Eusebius Beltran, 4 November 1986, DTA. 87 Frank Ruff to Bishop Eusebius Beltran, 24 June 1987, DTA. 261

parishes in this study, had an editorial written by his bishop published in the local paper.88

O’Donnell committed even more time to Hispanic outreach. Hispanics had moved into the

parish boundaries as new jobs became available in the early seventies, but most of them were

young, single Mexican men who rarely attended mass. O’Donnell attempted to rectify this by

having special services on the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe and social events on Epiphany

and incorporating Spanish hymns, processions, and banners into worship. His goal was to have a

dozen Mexican families active in the parish by 1990.89

O’Donnell’s work in this area at times frustrated both his bishop, Eusebius Beltran, and

his parishioners. Beltran took issue with O’Donnell bringing in two Mexican sisters in 1989 to

minister to Hispanic families in parish and perform outreach and catechesis without clearing it

with the diocese first. The sisters were bi-lingual and had teaching experience and a “generous background in common domestic Mexican piety.”90 O’Donnell intended for them to work 60

percent of time with Spanish speakers, and 40% of the time with English speaking parishioners.

O’Donnell, Glenmary, and the diocese all believed this was a worthwhile endeavor, but they did

not all agree as to whether or not it was practical to add two parish workers to a parish that had

an annual income of only $30,000. Questions also remained about how much they should be

paid if they came to Idabel, what accommodations should be made for them, and who would pay

for all of this. Here, as with the construction of the church Franklin in the 1950s, O’Donnell

made his move before figuring out the financial details. The parish rejected the house he

proposed to purchase for the sisters as too expensive. Bishop Beltran also thought that the

proposed budget for the sisters ($40,000 a year) was too much, as did Glenmary. O’Donnell and

88 “Abortion is a Dreadful Moral Crime,” McCurtain Sunday Gazette, 12 February 1989. 89 Patrick O’Donnell to Bishop Eusebius Beltran, 20 July 1988, DTA; Bishop Eusebius Beltran to Patrick O’Donnell, 14 November 1989, DTA. 90 Patrick O’Donnell, Application for Original Funding for Parish Worker, 16 February 1990, DTA. 262

the parish managed to revise budget down to $30,000, but Beltran remained nervous, telling the

Glenmarian that “…No pastor or parish can incur any indebtedness without my specific written

permission.”91 Still, the sisters managed to stay for a few years. Some English-speaking

parishioners were aggravated by O’Donnell’s work as well. His increased efforts at outreach to

the Hispanic community did not seem to be bearing much immediate fruit, as the parish only had

15 Hispanic members in 1992, far short of the dozen families O’Donnell had hoped for by 1990.

They were further frustrated by the considerable expense of bringing in two sisters who did

relatively little work with the great majority of the parish. They felt ignored at times, with one

member going so far as to write Bishop Beltran that “the morale in our parish is dead!” and

request the parish be removed from Glenmary care and returned to the diocese.92 Interviews

with long-term parishioners indicate that the letter overstated the mood of the parish.93 St.

Francis de Sales would eventually be the church home for a sizable number of Hispanics, though that seems to have as much to do with demographic trends as it does with O’Donnell’s work.

In one of his last letters from Idabel, Frank Schenk wrote that “the people here have

developed a good parish spirit.”94 It is easy to attribute the successes and failures of a parish to

its pastors, but Idabel in particular demonstrates the necessity the laity’s cooperation. The priests

who followed Raymond Berthiuame at St. Francis de Sales understood this, and their ability to

engage with parishioners, combined with growth due to new economic opportunities in the area,

led to a successful fifteen years in the parish, including a vocation to the priesthood.95 The

91 Beltran to O’Donnell, 14 November 1989; Patrick O’Donnell, Application for Original Funding for Parish Worker; Eusebius Beltran to Bernard Jewitt, 19 March 1990, DTA; Eusebius Beltran to Patrick O’Donnell, 19 March 1990, DTA; Patrick O’Donnell to Eusebius Beltran, 22 March 1990, DTA; Bernard Jewitt to Eusebius Beltran, 21 April 1990, DTA. 92 Anonymous Parishioner to Eusebius Beltran, 12 February 1990, DTA. 93 Interviews with St. Francis de Sales Parishioners A-H, July 2010, January 2011. 94 Schenk to Beltran, 30 August 1983. 95 See “History,” in St. Francis de Sales Parish Directory (Cleveland, TN: The National Directory Sercice for Catholic Parishes, 1993), GHMA. Joe Townsend was a convert from the local Southern Baptist church. He 263

pastors, especially Hutchinson, Schenk, and Hughes, were especially adept at addressing the

daily concerns of their parishioners. Catholics in Idabel seemed less interested in cultural or

theological debates than how to raise moral, Catholic children. Pastoral Service reports from the

1980s indicated a strong interest in guidance on how to support children’s faith and education.

Parishioners also wanted direction in how to grow spiritually and make a difference in their

community. In a 1981 article on the growth of the rural church in the Eastern Oklahoma

Catholic, Schenk offered a mission statement for St. Francis and all of the parishes in this study:

“I see two important roles for the church in a rural area. It sustains the faith of people and gives

them an opportunity to give a public image of what a Church should be. For both of these, the

people should not have to stand alone.”96 It is no surprise that the laity of St. Francis de Sales

were so active between 1975 and 1990 – they had always felt a sense of ownership of the church.

The parish remained the most isolated and arguably the poorest of the parishes in this study, but

it survived thanks to a dedicated laity.

St. Paul – Princeton, Kentucky

After the excitement of building a new church in 1974 and a new rectory in 1975, the

published history of St. Paul Church in Princeton summarizes the next five years in one sentence:

“During the rest of the 1970s the parish remained stable overall.”97 This sentence could apply to

the first five years of the 1980s as well. At times, it seemed like the greatest challenge facing the

parish was the weather, with a lightning strike destroying the church’s air conditioning in 1978

initially wanted to be a Glenmary priest before being ordained a priest of the Diocese of Tulsa in 1988. He also attended St. William in Durant as a student at Southeastern Oklahoma State University. He was the second vocation from to come from St. Francis de Sales. The first was Joseph Propps from Broken Bown, who was also a convert and briefly attended Southeastern. Propps was ordained as a priest of the Diocese of Oklahoma City-Tulsa in 1967 and served as the first chancellor of the Diocese of Tulsa and on the faculty of the Pontifical North American College. 96 Sister Elizabeth Daugherty, “Growth in the rural Church,” Eastern Oklahoma Catholic, 17 May 1981. 97 Anthony Blackwell, St. Paul Church, 1973-1998, 25th Anniversary, Princeton, Kentucky, A History, (Princeton: privately printed, 1998), no page numbers. 264 and a storm blowing off a portion of the school’s roof in 1981. This did not mean that there was no work to be done. As pastor of St. Paul, Resurrection Church in Dawson Spring, and chaplain of the Kentucky State Penitentiary in Eddyville, Father Delma Clemons had all of the work he could handle.

Clemons was an interesting figure. Despite leading the parish through multiple successful building projects, he never seemed to be an especially cherished pastor. This may have stemmed from the fact that no priest in this study seemed more willing to wrestle with his own flaws than Clemons. In letters to Bishop Henry Soenneker and his parishioners, Clemons regularly acknowledged his weaknesses and self-doubt and asked them to do the same regarding themselves.98 When discussing his time at St. Paul with Soenneker shortly before being reassigned in 1981, Clemons indicated that he saw himself in the past as being insecure, superior, impatient, and demanding of parishioners. He thought that Princeton had “been good for me.

Generally the people here have been understanding, supportive, and cooperative and put with my foolishness patiently awaiting my growth in wisdom and grace.”99 This sort of self-reflection, while potentially beneficial, was not always endearing, but Clemons time at St. Paul was evidence that a charismatic personality was not always necessary to be an effective pastor.

The elementary school, as always, remained the key feature of the parish, but changing times meant that it began to face real problems for the first time in the 1970s. The first of these came in 1973, when the Sisters of Mount St. Joseph announced that they would no longer staff the school. Word of the sisters’ removal initially reached Princeton through rumor, and the diocese remained quiet on the matter. Clemons was livid. He believed that, despite being small and distant from Owensboro, the parish deserved consideration and communication from the

98 Delma Clemons to Parishioners of St. Paul Parish, Christmas 1975, DOA; Delma Clemons to Bishop Henry Soenneker, 4 September 1979, DOA. 99 Delma Clemons to Bishop Henry Soenneker, (ca. May-June 1981), DOA. 265 diocese. Interestingly, his letter to Bishop Soenneker on the issue was one of the few instances of the pastor of one of the parishes in this study expressing a sense of being treated unfairly due to size and location. Clemons argued that the school was “the greatest and best work of service of a missionary nature the Church is presently doing or can do in the foreseeable future in this area of the Diocese.” Part of the rationale for the sisters’ leaving was allegedly that all the school did was “tutor Protestants.” Clemons claimed that this was not all the school did, but demanded to know “what’s bad about tutoring protestants. [sic]” The sisters assigned to the school influence “several Protestant children who attend[ed] St. Paul School” which “[broke] down prejudice toward the Catholic Church in this area.” The sisters also trained the laity to play a greater role in catechesis, especially. Clemons closed his letter by telling Soenneker that keeping the school open was more important than building a new church, though he believed the parish had the financial resources to do both. The letter demonstrated the importance of the school, Clemons’s care for his parish, and his self-described demanding and impatient manner.100

The diocese and the Ursuline Sisters of Mount St. Joseph took a more pragmatic approach. Almost a decade after Vatican II, the order had fewer sisters to send to parochial schools. In an effort to compensate for this, St. Paul school managed to hire a teacher for grades

4-6, which meant there would only be a need for one sister. Sister Annalita, the superior of the order, was unwilling to send a sister by herself to be in charge of a tiny class in a rural area. She also clearly did not appreciate the pressure from Clemons and the parish school board for a teacher.101 Although her position was entirely reasonable, Clemons had a point: St. Paul School

100 Delma Clemons to Bishop Henry Soenneker, 27 April 1973, DOA. 101 Sister Annalita to Delma Clemons, 3 August 1973, DOA. 266

was going to suffer because it was small and rural. The school survived with non-religious

teachers and by dropping the seventh and eighth grades.

The setback seemed to inspire greater support for the school, and enrollment jumped

from 53 students the last year the sisters taught in Princeton to 70 the following year. Enrollment

would remain around 70 students for the remainder of the decade, and actually peaked in the

1978-79 school year with 79 students after the school dropped the sixth grade. The distribution

of sex was roughly equal; there usually more boys than girls, though this could fluctuate.102 St.

Paul parish subsidized a large portion of the operating budget for the school, though rising costs

did result in a tuition increase in 1976. Tuition for Catholic students increased from $15 to $25

per month for the first child, and each additional child would pay $5 per month. For non-

Catholics, the tuition increase from $18 to $30 per month for the first child, with each additional

child paying $5 per month.103 The increase in tuition and additional grants allowed the school to

remain open and improve its library and media collection significantly.104

Despite steady enrollment, some problems were evident even in the 1970s. The claim

that the school was primarily educating Protestants was true; the number of Catholics attending the school steadily diminished and the number of Protestants attending steadily rose over the last several years of the school’s existence. There is no clear evidence that non-Catholic parents

were doing this to avoid sending their children to the integrated public schools, though

documents from the early 1980s indicate that there were never more than a few black students at

the school, which was common in private Christian schools in the South at the time.105 The

102 St. Paul School Enrollment Records, 1971-1985, DOA. 103 Herb Schueler to Raymond Hill, 12 August 1976, DOA. 104 St. Paul Library Records, 1975-1983, DOA. 105 It was not uncommon for white Southern parents to send their children to all-white private schools (often Christian) during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s to avoid public schools integrated as a result of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling Brown v. Board of Education. See J. Todd Moye, Let the People Decide: Black Freedom and 267

more likely reason is that St. Paul school offered an excellent kindergarten under the guidance of

Carmen Richardville. Richardville joined the teaching staff in 1960 and taught various grades

before the kindergarten program was begun under her direction in 1963. She was appointed

Principal in 1976. Throughout the seventies and eighties, the kindergarten class was the biggest

in the school, and it often accounted for half the school’s enrollment.106

Although the school survived the 1970s, a feasibility study conducted in 1986 by the

diocese led to the decision to close St. Paul school. The school’s enrollment had shrunk by a

little more than 21 percent in the eighties, but declining Catholic enrollment and the prospect of

large financial outlays to comply with state requirements were the circumstances that truly

prompted the closing.107 Unlike in 1973, the parish did not fight the suggested closure. Both the

school board and the parish council thought it was better to use parish resources to “establish a

program for total Catholic education within the parish.”108 This entailed presenting non-school

Catholic education and increasing staff and resources to make education more readily available

to children and adults, and placing more of the onus for catechesis on parents. Bishop John

McRaith commended the parish for the “very sensitive way [it] proceeded with a most difficult

decision.”109

Though the closing of the school was the harshest blow dealt to St. Paul during the

decade, it was far from the only one. The Ladies Guild, which had been quite successful and

vibrant in the early seventies, became defunct in 1982. No reason was given for the decision in

the history they wrote on the occasion of their ending, but they seemed quite happy with work

White Resistance Movements in Sunflower County, Mississippi, 1945-1986 (Chapel Hill, NC: UNC Press Books, 2004) 243. 106 St. Paul School Enrollment Records, 1971-1985, DOA; Interviews with St. Paul’s Parishioners E, F. 107 “ St. Paul Parish, Princeton,” The Roman Catholic Diocese of Owensboro, Kentucky. (Paducah, KY: Turner Publishing Company, 1995), 161; St Paul School to Close,” The Caldwell County Times, 13 February 1986. 108 “Catholic School closing at end of this year’s term,” The Princeton Leader, 12 February 1986. 109 Bishop John J. McRaith to Frank Roof, 6 January 1986, DOA. 268

they accomplished over fourteen years.110 On September 29, 1988, teenage vandals broke into

the church, sprayed the walls and carpet with spray paint, pored an acid and bleach mixture on

the altar and some pews, and stole vestments and sacramental wine. The attack was shocking,

but the parish managed to quickly repair the damage. The biggest challenge, however, came in

the same year as the school closure, with the splitting of the parish into St. Paul in Princeton and

St. Mark in Eddyville. Bishop McRaith made the split in fulfillment of Bishop Soenneker’s

dream to have at least one parish in each county in the diocese. This was the third time that St.

Paul parish had been split following the founding of parishes in Marion and Dawson Springs. As

with each previous time, the division cut the parish’s resources. An unnamed priest cited in the

history stated that the split cost St. Paul 45 percent of its membership and 55 percent of its

income.111

These setbacks were not the end of the parish, however. Under the guidance of Clemons, the men of the parish formed a St. Vincent de Paul Society in 1979. The group initially consisted of ten active members and two associate members, and grew to fourteen actives and seven associates in 1987. Clemons had a difficult time convincing the men to get involved in social justice projects; they preferred providing immediate charity and little follow up. Clemons initially handled all the requests for aid, of which there were relatively few: food; help on utility bills; aid to travelers, many of whom were going to visit inmates in the state penitentiary; and sick and elderly shut-ins who were lonely and need of spiritual rather than financial support.112

Under the guidance of Father Frank Roof, who replaced Clemons in 1981, the scope of the

group’s work expanded from helping parishioners to addressing needs in the larger community

110 Summary of the Ladies Guild of St. Paul, DOA. 111 Blackwell. 112 Delma Clemons to Henry Soenneker, 2 May 1980, DOA; “History of St. Paul St. Vincent de Paul Society,” (ca. early 1987), DOA. 269 and from simple charity to social causes. Pleased with the impact they had, more men joined and contributed financially to the society. Because help was given regardless of race or religion,

“good ecumenical relations… resulted.”113 Father Roof saw the St. Vincent de Paul Society as a vital part of St. Paul’s commitment to service, which itself was one of the three phases he believed made up a healthy parish.114 The other two were doctrine and community, and to fulfill these, Roof proposed a program of daily mass, religious and sacramental education for all age groups, and social activities. Two Ursuline sisters, Sister Mary Leon Riney and Sister Margaret

Ann Aull, arrived in 1986 to help Roof implement his plans for education and a youth group.

Ironically, now that school was closed, the parish once again had Ursuline sisters to lead religious education.115 The parish got a further boost the next year with the arrival of Father

Patrick Bittel. Bittel had done some formation work in the parish in 1981 as a seminarian, and he was well liked in the parish and by the community at large. Parishioners mention in particular his pastoral nature and ability to see both sides of an issue. Bittel saw the 1988 vandalization of the church as an opportunity to refurbish it, and did landscaping on the grounds himself.116

The steadiness that typified other parishes during between 1975 and 1990 was always the case in Princeton. The parish saw few controversies or divisions over the years, but it never experienced explosive growth either. The most notable feature of this parish was its school, a rare thing in a town and parish this small in the South. For 48 years it was the key part of this parish’s identity. Delma Clemons was right when arguing for its value: it was a fantastic conduit for ecumenical relations, and something for Princeton Catholics to rally around. What is particularly interesting about the Catholics of Princeton is that when hardships arrived, they did

113 “History of St. Paul St. Vincent de Paul Society,” (ca. early 1987), DOA. 114 Frank Roof, “Pastor’s Perspective,” 1982 St. Paul Catholic Church Directory. DOA. From American bishops’ statement on parish life. 115 “Two Ursulines to being pastoral work in Princeton,” The Western Kentucky Catholic (August 1986). 116 Blackwell. 270 not fold. When the school was threatened in the 1970s, enrollment actually increased. The school held on through the dedication of the parish and faculty, like Carmen Richardville, for thirteen more years. When time came to let the school go, the parish did so gracefully. And even after losing a great source of pride, the parishioners of St. Paul did not lose spirit or a desire to reach out to Princeton. St. Vincent de Paul Society may not have allowed them to reach out on the same scale, but they were still able to help. When teenagers vandalized the church in

1988, the parish saw it as a chance to make things new. The episode serves as a characterization of the parish as a whole. Ultimately, St. Paul entered the 1990s as a vital part of Princeton and with a priest popular among Catholics and non-Catholics alike.

St. Theresa – Cordele, Georgia

Franciscan Father Patrick Adams’s long tenure at St. Theresa in Cordele, Georgia at times felt like a throwback to the nineteenth century Catholicism described by Andrew H. M.

Stern and James M. Woods.117 Many connections to the past came in the person of Adams himself. Descriptions of him rarely failed to describe him as gentlemanly son of the South. His gracious nature may account for the fact that the most common correspondence between Cordele and the chancery offices in Savannah between 1975 and 1990 were thank you notes from Adams for the bishop’s visits or some other consideration given by the diocese. The notes were always handwritten notes written in a very stylized script and extremely courteous. As a navy chaplain,

Adams was part of the South’s traditional military tradition and participated in Memorial Day masses at site of notorious Civil War prison camp at Andersonville in late 1970s and throughout

117 See Andrew H. M. Stern, Southern Crucifix, Southern Cross: Catholic-Protestant Relations in the Old South (Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 2012) and James M. Woods, A History of the Catholic Church in the American South, 1513-1900 (Gainesville, FL: The University of Florida Press, 2011). 271

1980s.118 Adams himself was interested in the past, and he wrote many histories of the parish,

including ones cited in this study.119 It is unsurprising that a Franciscan would emphasize the

1540 mass celebrated by Franciscans accompanying the de Soto expedition. In addition to

celebrating role of Franciscans in Georgia, highlighting this fact served as a subtle reminder that

Catholics were the first Christians in the area. Adams brought it up regularly and went so far as

to make it the theme of the parish’s float in community-wide religious celebration and parade.120

Like the Catholics described in Sterns’ and Wood’s work, as well the early twentieth

century Catholics described by Andrew Moore, Adams placed a heavy emphasis on getting along

with non-Catholic neighbors. This could be a boon to the Catholics of Cordele, as Adams was

extremely well-liked by Protestants and Protestant ministers. At the same time, in an era of racial tension and social divisions, Adams’s reluctance to address controversial issues stands out. This was especially true in his Andersonville homilies. In his 1978 sermon, Adams acknowledged the cruelties perpetrated at prison which “gave birth to an unfortunate tradition of bitterness and desire for revenge.”121 At the same time, he sought to mitigate the camp’s hateful reputation and hoped that it was now “a sanctuary of peace and a monument to understanding, compassion and our shared brotherhood.” Adams urged compassion, saying the dead would urge those to forget the hate and “perpetuate the spirit of caring, of sharing and of brotherly affection that did flourish among these men in spite of their torment. He, like all of us, would prefer to be remembered for our few virtues rather than for our many faults.” This is an admirable statement of empathy for all affected by the war, but never did his homily touch on the reasons for war or that

118 The 1977 mass was the first one celebrated at the camp since the end of the Civil War. Patrick Adams, O.F.M. to Bishop Raymond Lessard, 2 June 1978, DSA; Bishop Raymond Lessard to Patrick Adams, O.F.M., 6 May 1980, DSA; Patrick Adams, O.F.M. to Bishop Raymond Lessard, 11 June 1980, DSA. 119 For example, Patrick Adams, O.F.M., “History of Saint Theresa’s – Cordele,” The Southern Cross, 11 November 1986. 120 Patrick Adams, O.F.M to Bishop Raymond Lessard, 5 May 1989, DSA. 121 Patrick Adams, O.F.M., Memorial Day Homily at Andersonville National Prison, 29 May 1978, DSA. 272

Andersonville never would have taken on its hellish nature had the South not balked at the

Union’s insistence that all prisoners be treated the same for exchange purposes, regardless of

race.122 In fact, there is no mention of anyone of color in any archival documents from Cordele

between 1975 and 1990, though there were a few non-white families in the parish during

Adams’s tenure. In a town that’s population was 65 percent black, this seems like a missed

opportunity.

St. Theresa parish was not, however, entirely old fashioned or backward looking.

Cordele’s Catholics saw many signs of modern life and development in the 1970s and 1980s.

In a state that was the birthplace of the modern Ku Klux Klan and where Tom Watson’s anti-

Catholic ravings had shaped state law, it would have been unimaginable in the first three decades

of the twentieth century that a Catholic priest in a small town could have such strong

relationships with ministers of other denominations, no matter how kind or courteous he was.

But Adams was not merely tolerated by Cordele’s Protestants; he was beloved by many of them,

especially the pastors of the First Baptist and Episcopalian churches. Some of this was due to

larger demographic changes and the stability of St. Theresa’s over the years. Some of it was due

to the fact that Adams became formal administrator of the church and moved to Cordele full-

time in 1975. Having its own pastor was a significant improvement from the past, and it allowed

Adams to get to know people in the community outside of his parish. Another improvement was

that by the late seventies, the Diocese of Savannah considered St. Theresa’s a “self-supporting

rural parish,” meaning that it had enough parishioners with sufficient funds to take care of its

needs without being heavily subsidized by the diocese.123 This was not a phrase or

circumstance that often applied to Southern rural parishes before last few decades of the

122 Pettijohn, Don. “African Americans at Andersonville.” February 2006. Accessed January 31, 2016. http://www.nps.gov/ande/learn/historyculture/african_americans.htm. 123 Gerard Murphy to Patrick Adams, O.F.M., 9 February 1977, DSA. 273

twentieth century. That St. Theresa was now self-supporting indicates that it was growing. The construction of a parish hall in 1986 further testified to this. The rectory had been the center for

weekday Masses, classes, meeting, and instructions since its construction in 1975, but it was

inadequate for the task. After four years of planning and getting finances in order, construction

took less than three months. The building included four classrooms, kitchen, and hall.124 The

parish was not large by 1990, but it was healthy, stable, and involved in the community.

Given the small numbers and the parish’s relative isolation, stability was a good thing,

but too much stability could eventually lead to staleness. There were some signs of this near the

end of Adams’s time in Cordele. This not to say parishioners disliked him by the end, and

relations outside the parish remained as strong as ever, but twenty-four years was by far the

longest time that any pastor stayed at any parish in this study and would be a long time for any

pastor at one parish. St. Theresa’s parishioners still revered him twenty years after he left, but

they acknowledge that at some point, ideas and enthusiasm run out. The Parish Council of

Catholic Women offers an example of this. There had been no women’s group in the parish

when Adams arrived in Cordele, and the creation of Women’s Council had been one of Adams’s

first goals. The parish only had eighty members at the time, and it took two years for enough

women to become interested in starting a council. The group enjoyed a number of successes

over the years, but enthusiasm was practically nil by the late eighties. This was no one’s fault; it

was the result of the passage of time, changing parish demographics, and a loss of zeal for the

group. Many original members had died or moved. All but two of the women under the age of

60 had a job, leaving them little time to participate. There were thirteen women in the parish

between the ages of 60 and 88 who did not work, but most of them had lost interest in coming to

124 Adams, O.F.M., “History of Saint Theresa’s – Cordele.”

274 meetings. Only 2 officers came to last handful of meetings before the group disbanded in the mid-eighties, and no one wanted to replace them. At Bishop Raymond Lessard’s request, Adams tried to re-institute the group in 1988 but could not inspire sufficient excitement. This did not mean, however, that women were no longer active in parish life. They had neither the time nor the desire to attend meetings, but they were committed to supporting parish activities as needed.

Adams was actually quite happy with their level of involvement, even if it was not as part of a women’s group.125 The group’s status served as an appropriate coda for Adams’s time in

Cordele: some of the enthusiasm was gone, but a solid parish with committed members remained. Adams would ultimately retire to Florida when the Franciscans left the Diocese of

Savannah in 1992 after fifty years of service.

Durant – St. William Parish

The apathy that characterized St. William parish in Durant during the decade following

Vatican II continued until 1977. Father Edward Richard repeatedly complained in the mid- seventies about the laity’s lack of excitement about anything and divisions among them, but he seemed unable to do anything to address them.126 Richard’s strong belief in the necessity of obedience and the value of the church’s authority that did not permit questions, may provide insight as to why he was unable to inspire action among the laity.127 This was especially true among the young families that had been moving into the parish, usually to work at Southeastern

Oklahoma State University. Frustration between pastor and parish came to a head in 1977 with six members of the parish council being removed from the council without notice. One of the ousted parish council members, Mike Harmon, provided the view of at least some of St.

125 Patrick Adams, O.F.M. to Bishop Raymond Lessard, 28 October 1988, DSA. 126 Edward Richard to Bishop Bernard Ganter, 25 April 1975, DTA; Edward Richard to Bishop Bernard Ganter, 27 January 1977, DTA. 127 Edward Richard to the editors of the Eastern Oklahoma Catholic, 3 March 1977, DTA. 275

William’s parishioners in a letter to Richard and Bishop Bernard Ganter. Harmon wrote that the parish council was just as concerned with apathy in the parish as Richard. In order to address the problem, the council had met with the pastor earlier in the month to adopt a written constitution in order to become “a more effective council in assisting [him]” and was attempting to make a special effort in improving CCD, adding adult education, and creating programs for youth and adults. Harmon claimed that Richard opposed the adoption of the written constitution because he deemed it unnecessary and had not supported the council’s plans for revised programming.

Harmon believed the root of the problem was that the council had opposed the pastor’s proposal to spend $1,200 to build a chain-link fence around the church property as a bad use of funds, and pastor had dismissed them out of anger.128 There is no record of the bishop’s response to

Harmon’s letter, but it was clear that the pastor and some portion of the parish were unsatisfied with each other. In a letter to Bishop Ganter around this time, Richard indicated that he was frustrated with life in Durant in general, stating “there is not only incompetence but prejudice on the part of the city officials.”129 Consequently, Richard was reassigned to St. Francis Medical

Center in Tulsa as a chaplain in June 1977.

The parish saw an immediate turn around with the appointment of Father Kenneth King as the new pastor. King had been ordained a priest for 20 years and served at a number of rural parishes in the diocese, including those in southeastern Oklahoma, during this time.130 Perhaps because of this experience, King seemed to connect very quickly with the majority of the parish, despite its relative diversity. The 85 active families in the parish were primarily white and rural with some Hispanics and Vietnamese families, and family incomes generally fell “in the low to

128 Mike Harmon to Edward Richard and Bishop Bernard Ganter, 24 January 1977, DTA. 129 Ed Richard to Bishop Bernard Ganter, 7 April 1977, DTA. The letter indicates that Richard also had health problems that contributed to his reassignment 130 “New Pastor at Durant’s St. Williams [sic] Catholic Church,” Durant Democrat (ca. June 1977) 276

middle bracket with the majority being low.” The majority of resident Catholic students at the

university were Vietnamese. Lay leaders and Father King were “trying to strengthen the parish

through encouragement of more active participation of members by initiating innovative

programs and activities.” These activities emphasized family life and adult education. The

parish used Paulist Total Religious Education, “with emphasis on adults carrying out their

responsibilities to educate their children throughout the month.”131 King introduced the Cursillo

movement to the parish as well, which quickly became popular among young families. In terms

of sacred space, the sanctuary needed to be renovated in keeping with the new liturgy as well.

This burst of activity and cooperation with the laity revitalized Durant’s Catholic community,

with one couple writing to new Bishop Eusebius Beltran that “Father King was sent to the

Durant parish by God. He lifted up a parish that was down and inspired the parishioners. [We]

love the man like a brother and owe much to his good guidance.”132

The spiritual excitement around the parish led to and benefited from greater building

plans around the parish. In 1978 and 1979 the parish divested itself of two pieces of property in

Durant and the property in Caddo, Oklahoma, where the parish’s mission had closed in 1971.

The proceeds from these sales, combined with a loan from another parish in the diocese went to

renovating the sanctuary; major repairs to the church, religious education, and parish hall; and the construction of a garage and maintenance facility.133 Out of enthusiasm and in an effort to

keep costs down, parishioners began work on the renovations of the church and sanctuary before

the contractor arrived. The bishop was impressed by the final result, writing to King that he was

131 Mike Harmon to Bernard Jewitt, 10 March 1978, DTA. 132 Michael and Susan Williams to Eusebius Beltran, August 1979, DTA. 133 Consulters of the Diocese of Tulsa to Bishop Eusebius Beltran, 17 August 1978, DTA; Bishop Eusebius Beltran to Kenneth King, 11 April 1979, DTA; Bishop Eusebius Beltran to Kenneth King, 9 May 1979, DTA; Dennis Dorney to Kenneth King, 17 September 1979, DTA; Charles Murray to Dennis Dorney, 13 September 1979, DTA; Memo from Dennis Dorney to the Consulters, 24 October 1979, DTA. 277

“delighted to see the great improvements that you and your people have made in the church. [He felt] the renovation job was well done and that your church is both impressive and liturgically proper.”134

The fervor created by King’s work with the parish won him support for a cause that had not been a major part of the parish prior to his arrival: social justice and mercy. Some of this was due simply to the fact that historically, many St. William’s members were not all that far from needing aid themselves. King got the laity interested in the topic and questioning the absolute merits of capitalism through small but vivid examples. When arrived in Durant, King contacted the local newspaper to let them know that he was building his own coffin to combat the high costs and “paganism” associated with modern funerals. King linked opposition to consumerism with a Godly life, arguing that emphasis should be on celebrating “transition to a deeper and higher life,” rather that celebrating and preserving the body that is dead and that a fancy funeral could not make up for what someone did in life.135 Five years later, King covered a parishioner’s trash route while the parishioner was sick in 1982, driving the truck and picking up trash for 200 customers. He did this, he said, out of Christian charity and to demonstrate the value of humble, manual labor.136 These examples seem to have inspired his parishioners to take a greater interest in economic issues as moral and spiritual issues.

Unsurprisingly, not everyone in this parish was happy with King’s emphasis on young families and progressive ideas. Parishioners calling themselves the “The Golden Age Group in

Durant” wrote to the diocese that they were uncomfortable with “modern” trends at St.

William’s, especially the Cursillo movement. The authors appreciated that “most of the young

134 Bishop Eusebius Beltran to Kenneth King, 19 June 1979, DTA. 135 Carl Hill, “Catholic Priest Building Own Coffin to Help Beat High Cost of Dying,” Durant Democrat (ca. June 1977). 136 Mike Harmon, “City Priest Practices the Faith by Helping a Friend in Need,” Durant Democrat (ca. 1982). 278

marrieds with children have joined the Cursillo Movement here and are utterly dedicated; they

are an affectionate, loving clique in our church,” but felt that King was “neglecting” older adults.

Subsequently, older members of the parish attended mass less, “and seldom if ever are missed.”

Older members, they believed, should be revered for praying “hard year after year to keep our

church alive and to pay for church buildings,” but young people “couldn’t care less.” They were

also bothered by the renovations and décor of the remodeled church, which lack missals and

statues and instead had a “crudely done” banner of naked man and naked woman behind the

altar. Far from sharing Bishop Beltan’s delight at the changes, the authors state that long-time parishioners were ashamed and missed the warmth of the old church. These older member felt helpless because the parish council was comprised entirely of Cursillo members, so older members were “defeated before [they] start.”137

Despite the discomfort of these older members, the early 1980s saw greater levels of lay

involvement than ever, culminating in the double ordination of two parishioners to the permanent

diaconate on April 6, 1984. One was Mike Harmon, who had arrived at the parish in 1972 and

was the Director of Continuing Education at the university. The other was Albert Miller, a

lifelong member of St. William who worked for North Texas Construction Company in

Sherman, Texas. They were the first deacons to come from a parish south of I-40 in the Diocese of Tulsa, and it is a measure of the exceptional lay involvement in Durant that two men were ordained at the same time from such as small parish. As Harmon said at the time, “the church looks at Deacons as ministers in their own right, and not merely as a stopgap measure to counter the existing shortage of priests….Deacons are such good catalysts for getting others in the parish

137 “The Golden Age Group in Durant” to the Diocese of Tulsa, 19 November 1979, DTA. 279

involved in service. Someone sitting in a pew may said [sic] to himself, ‘That guy is married and

has a family. If he can give his time and talents to the church, so can I.’”138

St. William’s interest in social ministry continued and expanded when Father Paul

Donovan arrived in Durant in 1984. Like King, Donovan was a native Oklahoman having been

born in Seminole (a town smaller than Durant) and graduated from the University of Oklahoma.

He was ordained in 1958. In the four years prior to his arrival, he served as a missionary in

Nigeria. He believed that his time in Africa benefited him as a priest and led him to see his own

culture differently and understand it better – it made him more pastoral and had a “broadening”

effect.139 Before that, Donovan taught at St. Francis seminary in Oklahoma City, served as

rector of Holy Family Cathedral in Tulsa for 8 years, and was director education for Diocese of

Tulsa from 1973-1977.140 Throughout his entire priesthood, Donovan demonstrated a keen

interest in social justice. During the 1970s he wrote articles dealing with economic issues for the

Eastern Oklahoma Catholic, and as “a recognized authority on church/labor issues,” he gave

lectures in Tulsa on Catholic involvement in American politics and church teaching on social

justice issues since Rerum Novarum such as minimum wage, maximum hours, organized labor,

and immigration while serving in Durant.141 Donovan’s writing and lectures evinced an interest

in social justice typically connected to the post-Vatican II era, but they always called back to much older teachings and traditions. After his time in Africa, poverty became an even more pressing issue to him.

138 Larry Marcy, “Local Catholic Church Slates First-Ever Deacon Ordination,” Durant Daily Democrat, (ca. April 1984). 139 Melissa Miller, “Assignment, Africa: Something of Value,” Durant Daily Democrat, (ca. 1984). 140 “New Pastor Arrives at Catholic Church,” Durant Daily Democrat, 27 September 1984. 141 David Jones, “Church Has Important Role in Labor, Social Issues,” Eastern Oklahoma Catholic (ca. 1980s). 280

Parish programs during Donovan’s seven years at St. William indicate strong interests in

social outreach, education, and scripture study. The parish participated in Meals on Wheels and

made monthly nursing home visits. Sister Mary Maloney, who served as pastoral associate from

1981 to 1983 founded the Loaves & Fishes Program in Durant. It was the first food pantry in

Durant and eventually became an ecumenical ministry to the needy of the town. Ecumenism

was, by this time, a regular feature of parish life, especially in relation to youth activities.

Religious education was provided for young people and adults, and the parish offered multiple

opportunities for scripture study, including Scripture with Sandwich ($2.00 for lunch and

scripture study) and a women’s scripture study on Tuesday mornings with child care if needed.

Of interest to older members were traditional devotions and daily mass.142 Donovan also continued the renovations of the church begun by King. The parish installed new stained glass windows depicting the seven sacraments during the 1980s. Father Joe Townsend, who had converted to Catholicism as part of St. Francis de Sales parish in Idabel and attended

Southeastern Oklahoma State University in Durant, conducted the dedication service.

Interest in social justice defined the years between 1975 and 1990 at St. William. The parish had been in tough shape in 1977, but native priests who developed a rapport with parishioners, a young, empowered laity, and building projects revived the parish. King and

Donovan were relatively progressive by local standards with a serious interest in social justice, and they provided purpose for the parish. Given the lack of any mention of Vatican II as impetus for their interest in social outreach by priest or laity, it seems less a function of post-conciliar liberalism than it was the result of a vibrant, maturing parish that was confident of its standing

142 “Getting to Know… St. William Catholic Church,” Pamphlet published at St. William between 1984 and 1992, DTA. 281

and ready to look outward. At its founding, the Catholics of Durant would have been more

likely to need charity than offer it. Now they had the resources and desire to help others.

Conclusion

The defining feature of Catholicism in the rural South between 1975 and 1990 was

stability. By this time, all of the churches in this study had been around for multiple decades.

The arrival of new jobs and economic opportunity had taken place in all of these parishes,

usually decades prior. Many of these newcomers were middle class, which contributed to the

financial stability of the parish as well. The increased number of Catholics meant there was little

danger of parishes disappearing the way the initial Catholic communities had in many of these

towns in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The parish experienced some

demographic stability as well. The period between 1975 and 1990 came after the economic

boom but before the massive influx of Hispanic Catholics that would transform all of these

parishes in the last decade of the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-first.

Within Glenmary, many of the New Breed priests had left, and although some disputes over the

nature of Catholic identity remained, the tumult created by their interpretation of the Second

Vatican Council had subsided by this time. There is also no evidence that weekly attendance of

the Mass tapered off in any of these parishes; this may have something to do with the conscious

choice it took to remain Catholic in the rural South. If one was inclined to be Catholic, one was

inclined to go to mass.143

By the late seventies, the parishes in this study were stable enough and had been around

long enough that they had developed mature communities with distinctly Catholic identities.

The communities incorporated a diverse population that included people of varying socio-

143 It should also be noted that because the interviews used in this studied were conducted with long-time parishioners, this is a self-selecting sample of practicing Catholics. 282

economic status, age, length of parish membership, and race. Unsurprisingly, the parishes in this

study handled combining these groups with varying levels of success. Economic and social

classes tended not to be a source of tension. Certainly the overall economic status of each of the

parishes had improved over the years as middle class transplants arrived, but none of the

churches was particularly wealthy. Divisions between old and young and between long-time parishioners and newcomers tended to be more contentious. In places like Franklin and Durant where these types of divisions were seen, young people were more likely to side with priest and he with them as they injected vibrancy into the parish. Older parishioners who had contributed to the survival and stability of the parish understandably wanted their contributions appreciated.

When it came to the subject of race, there was less division within parishes than between them. The Glenmary parishes, especially in Claxton and Idabel, were far more proactive in outreach to non-whites than their diocesan counterparts. The most obvious and important example is the work of Glenmarians with African Americans in Claxton, where evangelization of blacks was a major point of emphasis. As mentioned previously though, there were actually more Hispanic Catholics at St. Christopher, and by the end of the 1980s, Glenmary would begin intentionally working with Spanish-speaking Catholics by assigning Father Ed Haggarty as pastor. At roughly the same time, Father Pat O’Donnell began a program intended to make

Hispanics living in McCurtain County feel welcome at St. Francis de Sales. Father Frank

Schenk had already begun informal outreach to this community more than a decade earlier. To these prominent groups, one could add the Filipino families in Claxton, the large, if short lived,

Vietnamese settlement in Idabel, and a small group of Vietnamese students attending

Southeastern Oklahoma State University in Durant. Glenmary parishes seemed to anticipate the demographic diversification that was coming; the diocesan parishes seemed oddly quiet on the 283

matter. Some of this was matter of demographics, as there were few non-white Catholics in

either Kentucky parish at this time. On the other hand, this does not explain why the issue of

race never comes up in the correspondence of Patrick Adams; Cordele had by far the largest

African-American population of any town in this study, and considering the Diocese of

Savannah originally brought the Franciscans to southwest Georgia in part to work with blacks, his silence is notable. The other reason why the Glenmary parishes may have been so interested

in the race was due to its Yankee priests’ interest in and willingness to engage the topic. In fact,

all of the Glenmarians who served in the parishes in this chapter between 1975 and 1990, with

the exception of Del Holmes, made definitive statements regarding their particular interest in the

“racial apostolate,” and the only African-American priest in this study, Tom Kirkendoll, served in Claxton.

Incorporating such a diverse group of people into a rural parish community required the work of many people, not just a lone pastor. It is no coincidence that five of the six parishes in this chapter benefited from the work of religious sisters. Over half of them employed sisters full time, and the Glenmary parishes benefited from the Pastoral Service Program in which sisters visited regularly throughout the year. In each case, the sisters conducted vital pastoral outreach to the poor, infirm, and marginalized, and in each case they were well-liked and much appreciated. Several of the parishes profited from heavy lay involvement, especially the

Oklahoma churches. As the number of priests available to rural areas decreased after Vatican II, support of the religious and laity became vital.

Combining varied groups into a community with a distinctly Catholic identity was a challenge for all of the pastors and pastoral teams. A major reason for this is that the laity had competing ideas of what it meant to be Catholic. For many young parishioners, the vibrancy and 284 enthusiasm created by Kenneth King’s promotion of Cursillo or Del Holmes’s ability to convey his love for them as a peer was a key part of their faith. Older parishioners distrusted that emotion and modern approach and preferred a more reserved priest and church building. It is in this conception of what Catholicism should be that one sees a divide caused by Vatican II, and it is no accident that many of the most successful pastors in this chapter were men ordained long before the council, but who could mobilize both the young as well as the old.

That mobilization would be important in attending to the other requirement of rural parishes in the intensification stage: outreach to the larger community. A key component of this was ecumenism, and it was here that most of the parishes excelled. Most of these parishes had engaged in ecumenical activity long before 1975. Before Vatican II, this work had been implicit because Catholics had to cooperate with non-Catholics out of necessity. In the post-conciliar

Church, this work was now explicit because the council provided the framework and the parishes were stable and established enough to be taken seriously in their towns. Good relations with smaller churches was not new, but Catholic churches in the seventies and eighties began to cultivate good relationships with big denominations, most notably Baptists. It was here that priests like Patrick Adams at St. Theresa and Charlie Hughes at St. Francis de Sales excelled.

Outreach could also take the form of supporting those on the margins of the community without conversion as the primary goal. Certainly much of the work that the Glenmary parishes did with non-white communities was done in hopes of winning conversions or participation in the parish, but this was not the only reason for that work. Bill Smith developed great relations with African Americans living in the counties served by his parishes without winning many converts, and the Glenmary brothers who manned the Backroads Ministry located in his parishes boundaries provided low-cost home and repair work to the large black community of Manassas, 285

Georgia. Frank Schenk did the best he could to advocate for better treatment of the Vietnamese refugees living within his parish boundaries knowing full well that they were unlikely to ever become an integral part of St. Francis de Sales. Glenmary’s ministry to Hispanics was done knowing that it might take years to see the fruits of it labor.

Outreach could take a variety of other forms. In Princeton, the parish school was an invaluable tool in integrating St. Paul into the town’s life until it closed in 1986. During the eighties, the parish’s St. Vincent de Paul Society provided aid to those in need in the larger community and the state penitentiary in Eddyville. St. William under the guidance of Fathers

Kenneth King and Paul Donovan had the most developed program of social action, earning it the cooperation of other locals churches, coverage in the local newspaper, and the appreciation of those in need in Durant.

One area in which no parish seemed to have much success was in evangelizing the unchurched. Many of the parishes had a handful of people join the church most years, though this was often the result of intermarriage. Both the numbers provided by the Glenmary research center and parishioners’ recollections indicate relatively few conversions. Instead, what these parishes succeeded in doing was establishing the Catholic Church as part of the larger community. Thanks to time and increasing involvement with community, Catholics were not seen as foreign or dangerous as they had once upon a time. There were still questions, especially among some evangelical churches, as to whether Catholics were really part of the Body of

Christ, but there was little question that they were part of the town.

It was not just the parishes that had grown up by this time; Glenmary had matured as well. The priests who remained were almost entirely from northern cities and towns larger than the ones in which they labored in the South, but they now had enough accumulated experience to 286 understand how to serve Southern Catholics in a way that expanded on Howard Bishop’s initial vision. It may have helped that many of the men who still belonged to Glenmary were veterans who had known Howard Bishop. Their experiences in the parishes in this study and elsewhere, combined with the demographic data compiled by the Glenmary Research Center allowed

Glenmary to publish material designed to support rural missions. The materials were not intended just for Glenmarians; the society now had something to offer those interested in

Catholic rural ministry anywhere in the country. One of the best of these materials, The Small

Rural Parish by Father Bernard Quinn, used the wealth of information made available to him by

Glenmary’s work to detail the unique features of rural ministry. Their rural nature, he believed, was their defining characteristic, and it required different approaches than those used in the urban enclaves usually home to Catholicism in the United States. The most significant of these was the communal nature of rural work. Unlike urban communities, a high percentage of the population in rural areas knew each other personally and professionally. As Quinn put it, “the people who you know also know one another.”144 This meant that people were assured of place in the community, but also pressured to conform to its standards. In this context, only a mature community – one that was not worried about survival and could act as a unit, even if there were some internal divisions – could participate in the larger community’s concerns. A very large, urban parish, could be divided into several sub-parishes and still manage to reach out because they would not have to rely on the entire parish to ensure their success. As well, in an urban environment, the parish divisions would not have meant much to the community – the soup kitchen would still function whether or not the Ladies’ Guild supported (spiritually or otherwise) their work. This was not so in the rural parish; internal divisions meant that vital support was

144 Bernard Quinn, The Small Rural Parish (New York: Parish Project, National Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1980), 21. 287 lacking for even the smallest works, and internal divisions would be marked by the entire community, Catholic or otherwise. St. Mary in Franklin, for example, did not reach out to the town as much as St. William in Durant despite being much larger. This was because the latter was able to maintain a unified parish spirit in spite of some internal divisions.

Because Quinn intended for The Small Rural to be used as a guide for missionaries and pastors in rural areas all over the country, he excised the particulars of being a rural parish in the

South and focused on things that priests and parishes could control and plan for. Consequently, his book did not fully provide a sense of how southern circumstances influenced these parishes.

The most glaring of these was the importance of the economy to Southern parishes. Catholicism in the South grew because of the growth of the post-World War II southern economy, and it remained stable because that economy was stable. While many of the parishes discussed here still relied on outside subsidies to make ends meet, they had enough funds to engage in pastoral ministry projects inside the parish and out. Race, of course, was an important part of the

Southern context. Parishes and pastors had to decide what they believed was the appropriate level of outreach to non-whites at a time when most Catholics in the South were still white. This included navigating the ramifications of the African-American civil rights movement of the

1950s and 1960s and the migration of Hispanics into the South that followed the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965 and was just beginning to reach the rural South as this study ends. Finally, as discussed previously, Vatican II was not the story of Catholicism in the South as it had been in the North, though some subtle divisions could be seen within the laity as time went on. More importantly, Vatican II no longer seemed to be the story of Glenmary, with many of those who took the most progressive view of the council leaving the society. The council mattered to those who stayed, but the day-to-day issues facing people living in their parish 288 boundaries seemed to matter more. Whatever the context, the connection between priests and an active laity remained key in parishes where despite modern advances in communication, the universal Church could still feel far away. Most of the parishes discussed here were fortunate to experience strong cooperation between pastor and parish in the 1980s, resulting in their maturation.

Epilogue

In a 1984 meeting with the major superiors of religious communities ministering in the

Diocese of Savannah, Bishop Raymond Lessard urged them to demonstrate the connection

between the people they served and the diocese in order to help them “realize that the Catholic

Church is not a congregational church.”1 His concern was entirely understandable. The Catholic parishes served by non-secular priests felt almost congregational at times, and this was true of

the other rural parishes in this study as well. This intense focus on the local and separation from

the larger church demanded a day-to-day approach that was certainly influenced by its

congregationalist neighbors.

This approach to Catholicism required an active laity. The laity took responsibility for the well-being of their parishes in a variety of ways that mirrored the practice of their Protestant neighbors. In Idabel, the laity created the Catholic community, requested a priest, and one of their own designed the church. In Princeton, they supported the parochial school for decades, sometimes without much outside support, as it educated Catholic and Protestant children, improving ecumenical relations. Even the conflicts between pastor and parish demonstrate an active laity, with many parishioners refusing to be passive when they thought a priest who would only be with them for a short while was leading the church down the wrong path. There was in each location in this study a strong sense of ownership of the parish by the laity, harkening back to the republican Catholicism of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The actions of the laity, interpreted by Lessard as “congregationalist,” were the way that the people of these parishes knew how to be Catholic. The animating force of much of twentieth-century

1 Meeting of Bishop Lessard and Diocesan Leaders/Staff with Major Superiors of Religious Communities Ministering in the Diocese of Savannah, 26-27 November 1984, DSA.

289

290

Catholicism, especially after Vatican II, has been social justice, often on a large scale and

focused on events such as the Cold War and the Civil Rights Movement, and guidance was looked for from the Second Vatican Council or the chancery or Rome. But social justice, at its

most basic, is a concern for one’s neighbor. The entire thrust of parish growth in these six

parishes has been to be a better neighbor through the establishment of a strong parish within a

community. In this respect, they were no different than their urban, Northern neighbors, but their

daily lives were dominated by hyper-local context they found themselves in, which was not

dictated by the parish, but a reality of the South.

Central to growing Catholicism in these towns was the permanent presence of a priest.

Catholicism never took off in the South in the nineteenth century due to the lack priests. It was

fine for the laity to build a church and pray together, but what separated them from Protestants if

they did not have access to the sacraments, education in the distinctive beliefs of the Catholic

Church, or a connection to the universal church? The pastor served all of these roles, though

credit must also be given to the sisters, whose presence also marked the churches as distinctly

Catholic, who worked in these parishes, often directing catechesis. The laity wanted a priest who

would lead them, teach them, and connect them to the larger church. They would not, however,

be led just anywhere, and priests who sought to create their own programs for the parish without

regard for the laity’s wishes and local realities faltered. This is why the New Breed priests from

the North struggled so much. The priests who understood the republican nature of the church in

the rural South, either by inclination or training, thrived.

Together, the priest and laity brought Catholicism into the local arena. The priest

(whether New Breed or republican-leaning) established good relations with the non-Catholics in

their communities. Priests were the face of Catholicism in a still hostile area. Most priests, 291 regardless of whether they were Glenmarian, Franciscan, or secular, participated in civic organizations and town events. Priests in rural Southern towns were usually part of ecumenical groups as well. Glenmary sought ecumenical cooperation, albeit informal, even before Vatican

II, and although it sometimes took them a while to win over their fellow pastors, they were generally successful in this regard. Non-Glenmarians also developed excellent ecumenical relationships, though they seemed to focus on this more after Vatican II. As a result, Catholic

Churches became a regular, if not big, part of public life in their towns. The priest was usually the focal point of this, and he was sometimes more popular outside of the church than inside, especially among the New Breed Priests.

Catholic laity who were active in their communities improved the reputation of

Catholicism. Ora O’Reilly of Durant, in one of the few episodes which demonstrate concern with larger issues in the world, whole-heartedly joined America’s Cold War campaign to assert the importance of religion, and she won the support of non-Catholics in the town. Others became heavily involved in the civic and business lives of their communities, like Ross Dugan in

Idabel. As Catholics received more institutional support in the form of grants from Northern institutions, such as the Catholic Extension Society, and more bodies in the form of migration to the South, the parishes were able to implement improvements that impressed the communities.

Finally, non-Catholics’ opinions of Catholics improved simply because they realized that they actually knew Catholics, and they were all right. The Catholics who arrived from the North and

Midwest beginning in the 1950s were better off financially, better educated, and often shared the social, economic, and political conservatism of their neighbors. This does not mean that suspicion of Catholicism in the rural South ended by 1990; far from it. What it does mean is that although many evangelical Protestants still wondered if Catholics could be good Christians, there 292

was no doubt that they could be good neighbors – in essence, what all Catholics everywhere and

always were being called to do.

Several works over the last decade, most notably Peter R. D'Agostino’s Rome in

America, have correctly placed “American Catholicism” within the larger context of the

international Church, examining the challenges facing Catholics in the United States who

struggled to reconcile their religious beliefs with fitting into their new home. The Catholics in the

towns in this study very much wanted to be part of the universal church, but they did this through

participation in a parish that functioned almost solely on the local level. They viewed the national and international events that shaped their lives and faith through a local lens rather than the reverse. In doing so, they could be full members of their church and their towns. Thus,

Vatican II was not a seismic international event that changed what it meant to be Catholic. The overwhelming memory of the council is that the liturgy was now celebrated in English, which was welcomed because it made Catholics seem less foreign to their neighbors. Reflections on the Civil Rights movement, to the extent that they exist, were not prompted by far away happenings in Selma or Birmingham, but the by the African-American parishioner sitting in the pews of these churches (often the first or only integrated church in town) and the poor in the

Backwoods Ministry.

The people of these parishes were inspired by the sense of the place they inhabited. It would be valuable for future studies to see if this is the case in other rural areas in the United

States and other countries. And obviously local context mattered to Catholics in New York,

Boston, and Chicago. The difference in the urban North in the twentieth century was that their parishes were long established, had a strong supporting culture, and had played a part in the making of cities whose importance was on a global, not county, scale. For Catholics in the rural 293

South, their small parishes had been built or revived in their lifetimes, possibly by their parents; the culture did not support them; and, while fortunes often improved for their towns in the mid- twentieth century, their regions were still flirting with poverty-level statistics, instead of playing a pivotal role in global economies. The parishes in the urban North could not help but be concerned about national and international affairs in a Catholic way. For the parishes in Franklin,

Princeton, Statesboro, Claxton, Cordele, Idabel, and Durant, their town was their world. And they brought the Catholic Church to it. Bibliography

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