By John Francis Maguire, 1868
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CHAPTER XVIII.
The Catholic Church--The Irish--The Church not afraid of Freedom--A Contrast--Who the Persecutors were--The American Constitution--Washington's Reply to the Catholics--The First Church in New York--Boston in 1790--Universality of the Church--Early Missions--Two Great Orders--Mrs. Seton--Mrs. Seton founds her Order--Early Difficulties and Privations--Irish Sisters
TO their countrymen throughout the world the spiritual condition of the Irish in America cannot be otherwise than a matter of the deepest interest, inasmuch as their material progress in the New World must of necessity, and to a considerable extent, depend on the moral and religious influence brought to bear upon them and their children. The great mass of the Irish in the United States, as in Ireland, are of the Catholic faith: therefore, in order to ascertain what is the spiritual condition of the Irish in America, what the spiritual provision for them, we must enquire as to the position and prospects of the Catholic Church in that country.
But first, before doing so, it is necessary to refer to statements which have been made by some, and relied on by others, as to the alleged falling away of the Irish from the faith of their fathers. Were this statement true, it should be a matter of regret to every Irishman worthy of that name; for nothing could be more calamitous to the race, or more damaging to the honour of their country, than the loss of that which maintains over the Irish heart the most salutary of all influences. Happily for the Irish in America, these statements are the result of exaggerated alarm, or reckless invention.
It has been confidently stated that the moment the Irish touch the free soil of America they lose the old faith--that there is something in the very nature of Republican institutions fatal to the Church of Rome. Admitting, as a fact which cannot he denied, and which Catholics are themselves the first to proclaim, that there have been some, even considerable, falling off from the Church, and no little indifferentism, it must be acknowledged that there has been less of both than, from the circumstances of the country, might have been reasonably expected; and that the same Irish, whose alleged defection en masse has been the theme of ungenerous triumph to those whose 'wish was father to the thought,' have done more to develop the Church, and extend her dominion throughout the wide continent of North America, than even the most devoted of the children of any other of the various races who, with them, are merged in the great American nation. This much may be freely conceded to them, even by those who are most sensitively and justly proud of what their own nationality has done to promote the glory of the Universal Church. Fortified by suffering and trial at home, and inheritors of memories which intensify devotion rather than weaken fidelity, the Irish brought with them a strong faith, the power to resist as well as the courage to persevere, and that generosity of spirit which has ever prompted mankind to make large sacrifices for the promotion of their religious belief.
Those who foolishly think, or pretend to think, that there is something in Republican institutions fatal to the extension and influence of the Catholic Church, must be ignorant of, or wilfully ignore, the evidence of history, or what is going on in the world at the present day; or must have conceived the most erroneous impressions concerning the actual position of the Church in the United States. Not only, throughout her long and chequered history, has the Church flourished under Republican governments, and that at this moment among her faithful subjects are to be found the most strenuous supporters of Republican institutions, as in America and the Catholic Cantons of Switzerland; but it is one of the striking characteristics of the Church--conceded to her even by her enemies--that she has the marvellous faculty of adapting herself to every form of government,, and to every description of human institution. Instinctively conservative--that is, of those great principles which lie at the root of all civil government, and are reverenced in every well-ordered state of society--she fully appreciates the blessings of liberty, and flourishes in vigour under the very freest form of national constitution. In every region she is readily acclimated--in every soil she takes firm hold; nay, even where she is trampled upon and persecuted, the sweeter is the odour she gives forth.
Her progress in the United States has not been over a path bestrewn with roses; but not only are the persecutions and sufferings of other days the glory of the present hour, but they have given her strength to meet with fortitude, and endure with undiminished confidence, those spasmodic outbursts of violence which are born of the mad frenzy of the moment. Under the wise guidance of able and sagacious prelates, no less patriots than churchmen--devoted to the greatness and renown of the noble country of their birth or of their adoption--the Catholic Church is not only adapting herself to the genius of the American people, and in complete harmony with her institutions, but, so far as her influence extends, is one of the most efficient means of maintaining social order and promoting public contentment. And we shall see how, in the moment of the gravest peril that ever overtook a people or tried a Church, when others waved the torch and rang the tocsin peal, she retained her holy serenity in the midst of strife; and while sounds of hate and fury reverberated through so-called temples of religion, she calmly preached her mission of peace on earth, to men of good will.
That there has been falling away, is true--that there is indifference, no one can doubt; but the falling away is not what exaggeration has represented it to be, and is moreover largely compensated by the most valuable acquisitions; and the spirit of indifferentism, which is the form of religious disease most prevalent in the United States, is steadily yielding to the zeal of the Church, and its fuller and more perfect organisation.
To appreciate rightly what has been accomplished, we must look back; and in order to understand what the Church had to contend with, what obstacles she had to surmount, what she had to create and build up, it is essential that a sketch--for anything more formal would be impossible, and indeed out of place, in this volume--should be given of her position before and at the period when the emigration from Europe began seriously to influence the population of the United States.
So long as England retained her power in her American colonies, persecution and proscription were the lot of her Catholic subjects. It was the same at both sides of the Atlantic--cruel laws and degrading disabilities. If anything, her colonial governors and legislators outdid in violence and malignity the policy of the mother country; for, strange as it must appear, and however dishonouring to our human nature, it is nevertheless the fact, that those who fled from persecution, who braved the stormy ocean in frail vessels, to escape from the tyranny of a sect or a government, became relentless in their persecution of others who, like themselves, had hoped to find a peaceful home and a safe asylum in a new and happy country. The Puritans of New England outdid, in their fierce intolerance, those whose milder tyranny had compelled them to seek relief in exile. The contrast offered by the different policy pursued by Catholic and Puritan colonists should put to shame those who are so lavish in their accusations of Catholic persecution. When the Catholics had power or influence, they proclaimed the broadest toleration, the fullest liberty to every sect of Christians; while, on the contrary, not only were Catholics in a special degree the objects of persecution in every colony, and by every governor or legislature, but the zealots who persecuted them did not refrain from persecuting people of other denominations. We may refer to the conduct of the Catholic settlers of Maryland, and of the Catholics during the only time they ever possessed any influence in the State of New York, and contrast their enlightened policy with the laws against Quakers and Catholics--the latter of which laws were not erased from the statute-book until after America had accomplished her independence.
The code of the New England colonies was conceived in the most ferocious spirit, and was enforced with relentless severity. A single extract from the law passed at Plymouth on the 14th of October 1657, will be sufficient to display the mild and Christian policy of those who themselves had suffered for conscience' sake:--
And it is further enacted, that if any Quaker or Quakers shall presume, after they have once suffered what the law requireth, to come into this jurisdiction, every such male Quaker shall, for the first offence, have one of his ears cut off, and be kept at work in the house of correction till he can be sent away at his own charge; and for the second offence, shall have the other ear cut off, &c., and be kept at the house of correction as aforesaid. And every woman Quaker that hath suffered the law here, that shall presume to come into this jurisdiction, shall be severely whipt, and kept at the house of correction till she be sent away at her own charge, and so also for her coming again she shall be alike used as aforesaid. And for every Quaker, he or she, that shall a third time herein again offend, they shall have their tongues bored through with a hot iron, and kept at the house of correction till they be sent away at their own charge.
The offence thus fiendishly punished was the mere coming of any of these harmless people within the jurisdiction of those ardent worshippers of human freedom and religious liberty. It were hard to say whether the Puritan was more ferociously in earnest in his persecution of Quakers and Catholics than in his extermination of witches --for a profound belief in witchcraft was one of the most striking evidences of his enlightenment and good sense.
Bancroft, the historian of America, thus describes the state of things in the Catholic colony of Baltimore:--
Yet the happiness of the colony was enviable. The persecuted and the unhappy thronged to the domains of the benevolent prince. If Baltimore was, in one sense, a monarch--like Miltiades at Chersonnesus, and other founders of colonies of old--his monarchy was tolerable to the exile who sought for freedom and repose. Numerous ships found employment in his harbours. The white labourer rose rapidly to the condition of a free proprietor; the female emigrant was sure to improve her condition, and the cheerful charities of home gathered round her in the New World. ..........
Emigrants arrived from every clime; and the colonial legislature extended its sympathies to many nations, as well as to many sects. From France came Huguenots; from Germany, from Holland, from Sweden, from Finland, I believe from Piedmont, the children of misfortune sought protection under the tolerant sceptre of the Roman Catholic. Bohemia itself, the country of Jerome and of Huss, sent forth their sons, who at once were made citizens of Maryland with equal franchises. The empire of justice and humanity, according to the light of those days, had been complete but for the sufferings of the people called Quakers. Yet they were not persecuted for their religious worship, which was held publicly, and without interruption. 'The truth was received with reverence and gladness;' and with secret satisfaction George Fox relates that members of the legislature and the council, persons of quality, and justices of the peace, were present at a large and very heavenly meeting.
This was in 1668, but in a few years after the arrival of William Penn, the Quakers had full justice done to them, In Catholic Maryland there had been no ear-cropping, no boring of tongues with hot pokers--such exhibitions of brotherly love and mercy were reserved for the Puritans of Plymouth.
'The apologist of Lord Baltimore,' says Bancroft, 'could assert that his government, in conformity with his strict and repeated injunctions, had never given disturbance to any person in Maryland for matter of religion; that the colonists enjoyed freedom of conscience, not less than freedom of person and estate, as amply as ever any people in any place in the world. The disfranchised friends of prelacy from Massachusetts and the Puritan from Virginia were welcomed to equal liberty of conscience and political rights in the Roman Catholic province of Maryland.' These halcyon days did not long continue; for when the Protestants got the upper hand in Maryland, they persecuted the Catholics, who had extended toleration and liberty to all!
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