This chapter reviews the growth and development of the Church in the United States as the new country doubled in size with the Louisiana Purchase.
Our Catholic Roots 1492—1865
9.
John Carroll: Churchman and American
Within two years after becoming president, Thomas Jefferson purchased
Louisiana from France for fifteen million dollars. In doing so, he doubled
the territory of the United States in a single stroke. At the same time,
he more than doubled the challenges facing the already overwhelmed Bishop
Carroll. The Diocese of New Orleans, which included all of the Louisiana
Territory, had been cut off from the Diocese of Quebec in 1795. However,
its new bishop had been transferred to Guatemala in 1801, and had not
been replaced. So, now that New Orleans was a part of the United States,
Rome naturally looked to Bishop Carroll to fill the leadership position.
He was appointed administrator in 1805 and continued in that position
until a full-time administrator came to New Orleans in 1812.
With the departure of the French government from New Orleans in 1803, the French and Spanish Catholic population there suddenly found themselves citizens of the United States.
For the first time in their lives they were living under a non-Catholic government. The new American constitution with its freedom-of-religion guarantees was only fourteen years old. Also, their memory was still strong of a long history of official religious intolerance in the British colonies. As a result, many New Orleans Catholics were at first very uneasy. This was especially true for the Ursuline Sisters who had been conducting a school and caring for the sick of New Orleans since 1727.
Such was the anxiety of these French nuns that they addressed an urgent letter to President Jefferson, asking for an official clarification of their status. The president responded with strong and clear assurances that the Constitution and government of the United States:
are a sure guarantee to you...whatever diversity of shade may appear in the religious opinions of our fellow citizens...(your institution's) furtherance of the wholesome purposes of society, by training up its younger members in the way they should go, cannot fail to ensure it the patronage of the government it is under. Be assured that it will meet with all the protection which my office can give it."
The assurances of the president were both sincere and substantial. Nevertheless, many of Jefferson's successors in the presidency would have to struggle hard to remain true to them.
St. Elizabeth Ann Seton
St.
Elizabeth Ann Seton
Mother Elizabeth Bayley Seton's founding of St. Joseph's Academy at Emmitsburg,
Maryland, in 1810 marked the real beginning of an American Catholic commitment
to elementary education.
Elizabeth Bayley had grown up in New York City amidst a happy and prosperous family. Though her mother died when she was very young, Elizabeth received a good education and much affection from her father, who was both a doctor and a professor at Columbia College. He eventually gave his life for the sick poor, dying of yellow fever contracted from Irish immigrants. Her grandfather, who was an Episcopalian priest, had a particularly important influence upon her as she observed him work with the black slaves of New York and become their true friend. From all these good influences, she herself acquired a great sensitivity to the needs of the poor and the sick.
When she was barely twenty, Elizabeth married William Seton, a wealthy young merchant. Even as she gave birth to five children in quick succession and took in her father-in-law's six orphaned children, her concern for the poor did not wane. On the contrary, she founded the Widow's Society of New York to feed, nurse, and sew for poor widows and orphans.
By every standard, her life was full and happy, but then a series of tragedies struck. William lost the family fortune and with it his health. Hoping for his recovery, the family traveled to the warmer climate of Italy and accepted the hospitality of some old friends, the Filicchis. But the change brought no improvement, and William died in a matter of weeks.
Not yet thirty, and responsible for a houseful of children, the new widow remained for some months with the Filicchis in Italy. Through them she came to understand and appreciate the Catholic faith for the first time. So, upon her return to New York, she made the decision to become a Catholic, despite the opposition of her Episcopalian pastor. If the decision brought her spiritual peace and comfort, it brought much pain with it as well.
As she pondered the possibility of fleeing with her children to the friendlier atmosphere of Canada, Father Louis DuBourg suggested an alternative. DuBourg, a Baltimore Sulpician and the future Bishop of New Orleans, recognized Mrs. Seton's special gifts. He urged her to found a school for girls near his seminary in Baltimore. With delight, Mrs. Seton accepted the invitation and packed her family off to Baltimore in 1808. The following year, she moved the school to its permanent location at Enimitsburg, Maryland.
Elizabeth Seton was as wise as she was kind. She believed that the survival of her school was too important to be left to chance. She recognized that if anything happened to her, the school would probably disappear just as quickly as it had come into being. Therefore, she asked Archbishop Carroll's permission to found a religious community of women dedicated to educating the young and caring for the poor. Carroll agreed, accepted her vows and gave her the title "Mother Elizabeth."
Mother Seton soon attracted other dedicated women to join her Sisters of Charity. Together they lived according to the rule written by St. Vincent de Paul for the French Sisters of Charity. She trained the new Sisters as teachers, prepared textbooks for use in their classrooms, and translated religious books from French. In addition, she regularly visited the poor and sick of the neighborhood, and converted many of them to the church. She was able to send three Sisters to take charge of an orphanage in Philadelphia in 1814, and three more to staff a New York orphanage in 1817.
At that time, there was some speculation in the press about the special care that she would probably take in selecting Sisters to conduct the orphanage in her own home town. To this she responded characteristically, observing that the press was talking about "my native city, not knowing that I am a citizen of the world." And in the same vein, she advised her son, "Love your country, yet also all countries." More than anything else, it was this willingness to extend her love and care to everyone, without limit or distinction, that made Mother Seton a great Catholic woman.
Only four years later in 1821, she died at the age of 47. However, her impact upon the educational and charitable work of the American church had only begun. Through her Sisters of Charity, this work continued in an expanding network of schools, hospitals, child-care centers, clinics, mental institutions, and homes for the aged that goes on to this day. In 1975, Pope Paul VI declared Mother Elizabeth Seton a saint. Her feast is celebrated on January 4 each year.
Bishop
John Cheverus
First Bishop of Boston
New
Dioceses
As settlement surged westward after the Louisiana purchase of 1803, Carroll
became ever more convinced of the necessity of dividing the country into
more dioceses. It was obvious to him that no one man could effectively
guide and lead a church that was scattered over half a continent. The
new head of the Office of Propaganda, Cardinal Borgia, asked Carroll to
suggest the location of several new dioceses and to propose candidates
for bishops.
Carroll pondered the issues carefully, and considered the possibility of asking the clergy to elect candidates. However, his frustration over the mediocre coadjutor, Bishop Neale, who had been elected by the clergy, led him to make the decision by himself. So in 1806, he sent his recommendations to Rome. The cardinals found that his proposals made sense, so they brought them to Pius VII, who issued decrees creating four new American dioceses in 1808:
1. the Diocese of Boston, comprising all the New England states, with Father John Cheverus, a French refugee then ministering in New England, as bishop. Three scattered congregations and about a thousand Catholics fell within his jurisdiction.
2. the Diocese of New York, comprising all of New York State plus eastern New Jersey, with Father Richard Concanen, an Irish Dominican then living in Rome, as bishop.
3. the Diocese of Philadelphia, comprising Pennsylvania, Delaware, and western New Jersey, with the Irish-born Franciscan Father Michael Egan as bishop. Sixteen churches and eleven priests served the Catholic faithful within this area.
4. the Diocese of Bardstown (now the Diocese of Louisville), comprising Kentucky, Tennessee, and all the territory north of the Ohio River, with Father Benedict Flaget, a French Sulpician from St. Mary's Seminary faculty, as bishop.
The Diocese of Baltimore retained the rest of its territory, from Maryland and Virginia to the Mississippi River, and was raised to the dignity of archdiocese. Carroll himself was named Archbishop. Meanwhile, the Diocese of New Orleans remained without a bishop, despite the pleas of Carroll, who remained its administrator until 1812.
The city of Rome had been occupied by the troops of the French Emperor Napoleon since early in 1808, and the ports of the papal states had been blockaded by the French for years. So it was more than two years before official copies of the pope's decrees finally reached Archbishop Carroll in August, 1810. In the meantime, New York's Bishop-elect Concanen had already died while waiting to escape through the French blockade of the Roman ports.
With the official documents in hand at last, Carroll was able to proceed with the ordinations of the three new bishops—Cheverus, Egan, and Flaget—between October 28 and November 4, 1810, at Baltimore. Afterwards, the three stayed on for several days with Carroll and his coadjutor, Bishop Neale, to discuss the best means of meeting the needs of their people. Two very familiar questions dominated the agenda at their meeting:
1. How could sufficient numbers of properly trained, obedient clergy be provided for their far-flung flock?
2. How could reasonable uniformity and good order be brought to so scattered a church?
Once the meeting was over, each new bishop set out to face the enormous tasks that lay ahead in his own diocese. Except for their faith in God, they stood essentially alone and unaided. Bishop Cheverus stopped to visit Mother Seton at Emmitsburg and then returned to his missionary work, mainly among New England's Indians. Bishop Flaget was so poor that it was not until May, 1811, that he was able to get enough money for his trip to Kentucky. The kindly Bishop Egan returned to Philadelphia, where endless conflicts with disobedient priests and stubborn trustees brought him to an early grave within four years. Meanwhile, the Diocese of New York remained without a bishop.
Pope Puis VII was held prisoner by Napoleon.
Francis Scott Key, looking toward Fort McHenry during the War of 1812, hoping to "see, by the dawn's early light," the Stars and Stripes still flying.
Carroll's
Accomplishments
Throughout the 1790s and early 1800s, Rome and other parts of Italy were
occupied by foreign troops. The blockade of Italian ports frequently isolated
the Pope from the rest of the church. When Pius VII (1800-23) became pope,
the longstanding contest between France and England for world domination
was reaching its most intense phase. Despite the pope's best diplomatic
efforts, Napoleon attacked the papal states, occupied Rome, and later
held the pope prisoner for five years (1809-14). During his time of captivity,
Pius VII refused to exercise his papal authority, rightly claiming that
he was not free to act without Napoleon's interference.
The consequences of the pope's long isolation and eventual captivity were extremely harmful to the new church in the United States. Important decisions were often delayed for years, or based on incorrect or outdated information. More than one diocese went for years without the leadership of a bishop.
Since the presidency of George Washington, the United States had been struggling to avoid getting caught up in the continuing conflict between France and Britain. By 1812, a number of factors had caused many Americans to conclude that neutrality was impossible, and that the nation should choose a side and fight for its rights.
When Napoleon promised to honor the neutrality of American ships while the British persisted in their practice of seizing American ships and impressing their crews, the decision was made. President James Madison declared war on Britain. This posed a problem for American Catholics and their bishops, because Britain was the ally of the pope, and was fighting for the restoration of the papal states. On the other hand, Napoleon, America's new ally, was the pope's enemy and jailor.
With his usual diplomacy and sensitivity to the delicate position of American Catholics in a Protestant land, Archbishop Carroll skillfully walked a public tightrope. He led the bishops in issuing a national pastoral letter reaffirming allegiance to the pope and praying for his liberation. And when Pius VII was freed as a result of British victories in Europe, Carroll and the other American bishops presided at official celebrations in their churches.
At
the same time, despite their private feelings, the bishops supported President
Madison's decision for war with Britain as a matter of justice: the rights
of American ships and American sailors had to be protected. Carroll praised
the president from his cathedral pulpit. He ordered Catholics to participate
in a day of fasting and prayer in support of the war effort, and joined
in the official celebrations at the war's end. His fellow bishops followed
his lead.
Bishop Flaget prayed over the military forces in the West, and Bishop Cheverus even pushed a wheelbarrow in the hurried construction of defense fortifications in Boston.
It is a tribute to Carroll's statesmanship that, as American Protestants first rejoiced at the impending destruction of the papacy by Napoleon, and later mourned the pope's restoration by the British, little of their hostility was carried over to American Catholics. Somehow, American Catholics were perceived by other Americans as different from European Catholics: true democrats and loyal Americans. Anti-Catholic prejudice and discrimination were still around, but their tone had been softened and their strength was eroding. It is a shame that the new waves of Catholic immigrants who were about to descend upon the nation in the post-war period would frighten Protestant Americans all over again into a renewal of their anti-Catholic hatreds.
Archbishop
John Carroll
priest and patriot
Advanced in years and wearied by nearly four decades of American church leadership, Carroll survived the end of the War of 1812 by only a few months. He had begun his public service with a diplomatic mission to Canada during the revolution, and had brought his service to a close with the diplomatic task of leading his church through a controversial war. Many of his dreams remained unrealized, but his accomplishments were vast and beyond question:
1. He had welcomed the constitutional separation of church and state, and it had benefited his people immensely.
2. He had favored a more democratic organizational style for the American church. The European- trained clergy had opposed him in this and many trustees had made it seem less attractive; nevertheless, Carroll had continued to struggle to make it work.
3. He had succeeded brilliantly in casting American Catholics in the role of loyal Americans, despite their allegiance to a foreign pope who was hated by the Protestant majority.
4. He had worked very hard to provide his people with priests who were well trained in America, understood American ways, and could preach and pray well in the American tongue. Complete success had eluded him here, but by his death, thirty well-educated priests had been ordained from St. Mary's Seminary in Baltimore.
5. He had recognized that education was the ultimate key to a strong church. As a consequence, he laid the foundations for a vast national system of educational institutions, including a seminary, a college, and many elementary schools and high schools.
Revered as a national spiritual leader, Archbishop Carroll was invited to preside at the laying of the cornerstone for the Washington Monument in the nation's capital. However, ill health prevented his accepting. Then, just weeks away from his eightieth birthday, John Carroll received the Sacrament of the Sick on November 23, and returned to his Creator on December 3, 1815.
Terms
archdiocese: the diocese of an archbishop
blockade: closing off a specific area of land or water to prevent entrance or exit of traffic.
Questions for Reflection
How did St. Elizabeth Ann Seton become involved in education? What impact did she have on Catholic Education in the United States?
What two questions dominated the discussions of America's bishops as they met in Baltimore after the ordinations of 1810? To what extent were these new questions?
What complications faced the American bishops as a result of the War of 1812?
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