Catholics are part of the growth of the new nation, and the Church works to meet the challenges of ministering to a far-flung flock.

Our Catholic Roots 1492—1865

8. Democracy and Church Organization: 1793-1800
Neither time nor people stood still while Bishop Carroll was putting together the basic institutions of his vast new diocese. The older Catholic communities on the eastern seaboard were continuing to grow in size and numbers, and many Catholics were searching for new opportunities in the West. In the 1790s, going west for most Catholics meant moving to Kentucky. In that new frontier, the church had to start from the very beginning, and to do so very quickly.

Fr. Stephen Badin

Jansenism was one way for some in the church to oppose the Reformation. Jansenists took a firm, unbending position on matters of religious beliefs and practice. Father Stephen Badin's French seminary years were strongly influenced by Jansenism. As a result, this dedicated and hard-working priest often offended the Catholic people he served by condemning their way of life from his very stern moral position.

Catholic Beginnings in the West
Maryland Catholics had started moving across the Alleghenies into Kentucky at the end of the Revolutionary War. But in 1792, when Kentucky became the first western state admitted to the Union, they still had no regularly assigned priest. Carroll recognized their need, and the following year he sent Father Stephen Badin, newly ordained at St. Mary's Seminary, to minister to their communities.

Badin found that about half of the Catholics in Kentucky were living in rural farming communities in the central part of the state. Because there was no visible church authority, these people, like many other Catholic Americans around the country, had taken it upon themselves to buy land in various places for the building of churches. But until Badin's arrival, they had been unsuccessful in finding priests who would stay with them. This energetic young priest did stay, working zealously and worrying constantly that he was not accomplishing enough. His people were grateful for his labors among them and for his giving them access to the sacraments which they had missed intensely since leaving Maryland.

However, the narrow Jansenism of Father Badin's French seminary training had made him very severe and rigid as a pastor and spiritual guide. He strongly condemned his people's habits of dress and such innocent pleasures as dancing and theatre-going. As a result, he found himself somewhat distanced from the people he sought to serve and lead. Furthermore, he found himself very much at odds with his people's democratic ideas about how local church decisions ought to be made.

Ordained only two and a half years, but already feeling overworked and isolated, he pleaded with Carroll to send "a reliable French priest" to help him serve his community of English-speaking Catholics:

...I entreat you, my Lord, to send me at least one whose virtue is known to you. I would willingly decide to send him my horse were it not imprudent to deprive myself of it for I have no other of my own in Kentucky, and I often need it in order to visit the sick, by day and by night. In my present abandonment I am utterly incapable, my lord, of fulfilling the heavy charge of the ministry. I have neither the virtue nor the bodily strength necessary: If I had at least one priest to consult with me, to advise and encourage me! If I walked with a firmer footstep myself, I might with God's grace, guide those whom I ought to direct in the path of salvation...

The people do not always like my principles...The rules of theology are not always followed... A good French priest may save one soul and most likely many another. He will have an opportunity to learn English quickly in Kentucky, and at all events it is not essential to know english in order to celebrate the divine Mysteries, to edify the people, to baptize, to absolve the dying, to direct me, etc. Please, I beg of you, have compassion on me...

The use of English in Catholic liturgy

For the first several centuries after Christ, the Mass and the sacraments were celebrated in each place in the local language, which was usually Greek. Around the fourth century, the church, which more or less extended through the same area as the Roman Empire, adopted Latin, the language of Rome, as its official language. At that time, of course, almost everyone in the empire understood this language. As the modern languages that we know came to replace Latin, many people urged that Latin in the liturgy be abandoned in favor of languages that people could understand, just as Greek had been abandoned earlier in favor of Latin. Missionaries were especially strong advocates of this change, but they were joined by many others, including a number of bishops at the Council of Trent.

However, other arguments prevailed. The Council of Trent did not want to confuse the people by appearing to go along with what the Protestant reformers were already doing. And, in addition, the bishops wanted to reaffirm the universal nature of the Catholic church I by using a single, official language throughout the world. Not until Vatican Council II (1962.65) did the church modify this rule and allow the Mass and the sacraments to be celebrated in the language of each country. At the same time, the Council allowed priests to celebrate Mass facing the people, instead of facing the front wall of the church.

A consequence of the rule that the priest was to celebrate Mass in Latin with his back to the people was that most Catholics did not participate directly in the Mass. Instead, they simply prayed their own private devotions, such as the rosary, and hoped for a decent sermon in their own tongue. This hope was the focal point of many a contest between priest and trustees. Most priests insisted that God's grace, channeled through the sacraments celebrated in Latin, should be enough. On the other hand, the trustees and the people demanded clear sermons that would help them understand Christ's teaching and thus prepare them to receive God's grace.

Bishop Carroll favored a liturgy in English, but the decision belonged to Rome, and Rome was not ready to change. Carroll demanded good preaching and wanted it in English, but the limitations of his foreign-born clergy often made even this impossible.

In time, Father Badin got his wish, as a slow but steady flow of refugee French priests came to Kentucky. Well-educated, sincere, and hard-working, they did much to build up the Catholic community in that state. At the same time, their Jansenist rigidity and their hostility to Americans' democratic ideas about local church government were often the source of conflict.

Badin, who became known as the "Apostle of Kentucky," remained in that state for twenty-six years before moving on to Ohio. He never had more than six other priests at any one time to assist him. Nevertheless, he reached out during those years to serve the sparsely scattered Catholics of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Tennessee. Amidst his travels, he bought for mission purposes the land in South Bend, Indiana, which later became the site of the University of Notre Dame. After sixty years as a frontier missionary, Badin died at the age of eighty-five, and was buried in a chapel at Notre Dame that bears his name.

Outside of Kentucky, Catholics in the West were few, but could be found at old French trading posts and forts such as Detroit, Michigan and Vincennes, Indiana, which had become American frontier towns. For most of these Catholics, an occasional visit by a missionary on horseback was their only formal contact with the church. New Orleans, on the other hand, was the center of a thriving Catholic population, and had become a diocese in its own right in 1793. But it was still a Spanish possession, as was California where Junipero Serra's successors were still building missions and tending to the needs of the Indians. The center of Catholicism in the United States remained along the Atlantic seaboard, although it had moved north from Baltimore to Philadelphia.

Growing Conflict of Authority
The democratic tendencies which so distressed Father Badin and the French priests were not unique to e West. In fact, they were the consequence of two important factors which affected the entire American church:

1. Church authority was weak in most places, and totally absent in many others. This was because a single bishop and a few priests with varying abilities simply could not provide a strong, official church presence to every group of Catholics scattered across the huge nation. Of necessity, the people themselves filled in on the local level. Since they had no real alternatives, Catholics who were serious about their religion had to take personal responsibility for making the church present in their local community. They had to band together and make their own decisions about buying land, building a church, and recruiting a priest from Europe or elsewhere.

2. Most Americans Catholics, including Bishop Carroll, were strong supporters of democracy and favored the application of its principles to local church government. In the recent revolution, they had insisted upon the God-given right of each human being to political self--determination. As a result, it seemed obvious that they would have to honor that right within the church itself. Certainly Bishop Carroll had occasional conflicts with misguided local church trustees. Yet even Carroll continued to favor and to defend for a long time this democratic model of local church government.

Thus, partly by force of circumstance, and partly because of a belief in democracy, the American church took on, for a time, an organizational shape that was very different from the rest of the Catholic Church around the world. Two things made it different:

1. a high degree of local independence from the central authority of a bishop;

2. democratic decision-making processes at the local level, whereby the trustees elected by the parishioners conducted the business and controlled the properties of the parish, while the priest gave his full attention to the spiritual needs of the people.

Within a few decades, however, this pattern would begin to change. The arrival of growing numbers of more tradition-oriented European clergy, combined with the backlash from numerous conflicts between bishops and trustees, moved the American church toward a more European model of organization.

Continued Scarcity of Priests
During this time, Bishop Carroll had the responsibility for providing spiritual guidance and nourishment to his people in a very unsettled situation. His real authority was severely limited by the poverty of his resources. The greatest limitation he faced was in the small numbers of qualified clergy who were willing to accept his authority.

The once-energetic ex-Jesuits were now aged and tired, and thought of little more than their plantations. St. Mary's Seminary would not have its third candidate for ordination until the year 1800. An odd assortment of European priests, many of them expelled from their own dioceses for misconduct, were ceaselessly wandering in and out of the country, often defying or ignoring the bishop's instructions. Some German priests for example, even insisted that Bishop Carroll had no authority over them at all, since he was an American and they were Germans serving German immigrants.

It was the one hundred or so French priests, coming into the United States as refugees during the twenty--six years of Carroll's term as bishop, who enabled the church to limp along on a survival course. As a group, they were well educated, hard working, and sincere in their Christianity. At the same time, their rigid, Jansenist moral outlook and their hostility to democracy did little to win them friends among American Catholics. Language difficulties often reduced their effectiveness still further.

Terms

backlash: a strong reaction against a political or social development

zealous: filled with enthusiasm and devotion towards a goal

succession: the act of following in order, taking the place of the one before.

Questions for Reflection

What were some of the advantages and disadvantages of the way the church in America was organized in its early years?

Why did Father Badin think it unnecessary for his priest-assistant to speak English, even though he would be ministering to an English-speaking community? Do you agree with him?

Compare and contrast the state of the church in Kentucky, Maryland, California, and Louisiana at the time of Jefferson's first inauguration.

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