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PART II - A HISTORY OF CATHOLIC AMERICA
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(Written and
Edited by E. Phillips Mantz and Rev. Michael J. Roach)
Copyright 1975, 1977, C.E.S., So. Hackensack, NJ
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To the North and West,
frontier missions had been coping with "less civilized"
situations. And new centers of Christianity were being
established.
On July 26th of the same
year that Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac founded Detroit-1701-the
first Mass was celebrated there. It commemorated the Feast of St.
Anne, and St. Anne's Church was to serve all of Michigan and
Wisconsin until 1796 when a second parish was born.
The Spaniards came to Texas
via Mexico, establishing Church-dominated missions that were far
more than the chapels and pastoral residences that formed their
nuclei. These were entirely selfsufficient communities, all under
priestly supervision, serving as fortresses of the faith. There
were schools, hospitals, irrigated farms, cattle ranches,
granaries, textile shops, carpenters, tailors, and carefully
planned sentry stands.
As the 17th Century rolled
on into the 18th, a man who has been described as "the most
picturesque missionary pioneer of all North America, explorer,
astronomer, cartographer, mission builder, ranchman, cattle king,
and defender of the frontier," proved also to be a most ubiquitous
traveler. He covered thousands of miles each year in his missions
to the Indians. This Jesuit, Father Eusebio Francisco Kino, who
was born with the Austrian name of Kuehne, left us with an
impressive legacy. Many present-day towns and cities sprang from
his missions. And the still-active Parish of San Xavier, on an
Arizona Indian reservation, worships in what is called by the
National Register of Historic Places one of "the finest surviving
Spanish Colonial churches in the United States." The intricately
carved architecture of the Mission San Xavier del Bac was built
circa 1700 and attributed by some to Father Kino.
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The Franciscan missionary,
Fra Junipero Serra, was a teacher of philosophy within his
province of Majorca, Spain, even before his 1738 ordination. He
gained distinction as a theologian and orator before giving up
"the easy life" to join a band of Franciscans heading for the New
World's southwestern mission field.
In 1767, the Franciscans
replaced the banished Jesuits in Baja California and he was chosen
mission president. The Dominicans were given the peninsula and
Father Serra's band traveled northward with a military expedition,
founding twenty-one coastal missions, starting with San Diego.
Nine of these were started during the fifteen years of Father
Serra's tenure. By the time of his death, thousands of Indians had
been converted and great strides had been made in upgrading their
material well-being. Lush farmland and grazing pastures produced
food and the Franciscan established workshops and furnished other
necessities. It is to one of Father Serra's missions, San Juan
Capistrano, that the swallows return each year.
His thin, frail appearance
belied the spiritual vigor which permitted the gentle Franciscan
to keep firm the grip of Spain on the California mission lands.
The Indians revered him as an ever-constant friend. Reading the
names of his chain of cities along the Camino Real is like the
recitation of a Spanish litany.
" I
presume that your fellow citizens
will not forget the patriotic part which you took in the
accomplishment of their revolution and the establishment of
their government, nor the important assistance which they have
received from a nation in which the Roman Catholic religion is
professed. "
Catholic hearts swelled with
pride at these words from General George Washington at the close
of a war that brought freedom to their chosen land. They had
fought long and hard while distinguishing themselves on the field
of battle. Men and women of all creeds had joined in a common
cause, differences temporarily put aside, to struggle together as
Americans.
A Catholic had helped to
initiate this Revolution when he joined fifty-five other Americans
in the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Charles Carroll
of Carrollton, the richest man in the colonies, had the most to
lose in the bloody battle that was certain to ensue. His
grandfather, the first Charles Carroll, had been Attorney General
of Maryland until losing his commission with the renewal of
anti-Catholicism in 1688. Charles Carroll of Carrollton was a
lawyer whose professional practice was proscribed in Maryland
because of his religion. This idealistic citizen whose death in
1832 at the age of ninety-five made him the last signer to leave
behind his earthly cares, was painfully familiar with man's need
for political and religious freedom.
Most Catholics had been
mistreated in their homelands; the Irish, particularly, resented
the English, and looked forward to a country that promised
religious toleration. The majority Of American Catholics, no
matter what their national origin, joined wholeheartedly in the
Revolution. Very few were Tories.
Exact numbers of Catholic
soldiers have not been recorded, but we do know that thirty-eight
percent of Washington's troops had Irish names. One brave warrior
of another heritage who was known only as "Francesco the Italian"
gave his own life as he protected General Washington from British
bayonets at the Battle of Monmouth.
Other Catholics whose
Revolutionary service was invaluable came from many backgrounds
and served in many ways.
A Polish patriot and
Revolutionary soldier, Casimir Pulaski, was highly recommended to
General Washington when he sailed to this country from Paris in
1777. A year later, this fearless young man, who had organized
America's first cavalry, lay dead on the battlefield of Savannah,
at age thirty-one.
Another Pole, Tadeusz
Kosciuszko, distinguished himself in the American cause almost
from the day of his arrival here in 1776. Noted as the "father of
the Artillery," in 1783 General Washington presented him with a
Congressional vote of thanks, an award of American citizenship, a
pension, and the rank of Brigadier General. Planning to retire, he
returned to Poland, but later served in the Polish-Russian War and
in the Polish Revolution of 1794. When he revisited the United
States in 1797, Congress awarded him a land grant and an increased
pension.
The father of the"American
Navy" was the Irishborn John Barry. A brave sailor who began his
sea-going career at the age of ten and settled in Philadelphia
while still a teenagers Barry was given command of The
Lexington at the outbreak of the War and had soon captured
The Edward, the first ship ever taken by a commissioned
officer of our Navy. He was later on a ship that was captured by
the British but managed to escape.
John Barry commanded the
Revolution's last Naval battle, on March 10, 1783, before going
into his own merchant shipping business in Philadelphia. Eleven
years later, however, he was recalled to duty as senior captain,
then the top ranked post of the newly established United States
Navy. He was popularly known as "Commodore" Barry.
In 1778, the American-French
Treaty of Alliance brought French soldiers to our shores. Each
contingent brought its own priests. Now French names were added to
the rolls of our freedom fighters. The young Marquis de Lafayette,
as well as Count Jean de Rochambeau and Count Francois de Grasse,
are well-known to readers of our country's history. These men were
at General Washington's side through some of the bloodiest of his
battles.
When the British surrender
became a fact with the victory at Yorktown, General Washington
sent an Irish Catholic to the Congress in Philadelphia with this
long awaited announcement. The French Ambassador, who had
mortgaged his private fortune to aid what he believed would be a
certain triumph over evil, felt a need to rejoice in the time
honored manner of his faith. He immediately arranged for a
religious service to be held at St. Mary's Church. The Continental
Congress, the Supreme Executive Council, the Philadelphia
Assembly-representatives of our entire country joined in this Mass
of Thanksgiving and the singing of the Te Deum.
Despite this beautiful
display of unity, the valiant service of a disproportionate share
of Catholics in the battle, and the heartfelt words of General
Washington, at the time the Revolutionary War ended there were
still anti-Catholic laws on the books of seven of the thirteen
original colonies.
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Of Building and
Brotherhood |
But a great missionary
endeavor was on the shoulders of the faithful of this country and
no discriminatory laws could halt this effort.
The Loyalists about 100,000
of them-had fled the country. The colonies and their citizens were
no longer ruled by the political nor the religious hierarchy of
England. On June 9, 1784, four years before George Washington was
elected our first President and New York City became our first
capital, the Reverend John Carroll, a cousin of Charles Carroll of
Carrollton, was named Superior and Prefect Apostolic of the
Thirteen States of America. But it was not until the end of 1789
that an actual See was constituted and the Most Reverend John
Carroll became Bishop of Baltimore. His diocese, encompassing the
entire United States, included some 25,000 Catholics.
Like Charles, John attended
the secret school at Bohemia. Then, in 1748, he was sent to a
school in Flanders administered by English Jesuits. Since his
ordination in 1761 he had earned the respect of all and was
considered an excellent choice for the new post.
Pope Clement XIV abolished
the Society of Jesus in 1773. But Empress Catherine of Russia
would not allow the decree of Jesuit suppression to be published
in her country. Eventually, since the Society was still thriving
there, the newly elected Pope Pius VII issued a bull recognizing
and re-establishing the Russian congregation in 1801. Shortly
thereafter, Bishop John Carroll and his coadjutor, Bishop Leonard
Neale, both former Jesuits, requested and were given permission to
be reinstated in the order and to be associated with the Russian
community, together with twelve other former members.
The Russian Superior told
Bishop Carroll to appoint a Superior for the United States, which
was accomplished in June of 1805. Many former members were
welcomed back to the fold and some Russian Jesuits immigrated to
help establish the fledgling novitiate.
Through the suppressed
years, the Jesuits had remained a closely knit group and were able
io retain their identity. They had, in fact, opened Georgetown
University in September of 1789 through the efforts of Bishop
Carroll.
When Bishop Carroll had
visited England (where he was consecrated) and France in 1790, he
had arranged for aid in the form of priests, teachers, even some
students, as well as financial support-from the Superior General
of the Society of St. Sulpice in Paris. Within the year, these
dedicated priests had sailed to Maryland and converted the "One
Mile Tavern" on the outskirts of Baltimore into St. Mary's
Seminary, which was the first institution in this country for the
training of American priests.
While the bishop was abroad,
our country's second convent-that of the discaleced Carmelite
Sisters from Antwerp-was established in Maryland. (The Sisters
were mainly American Sisters who had gone earlier to Europe to
join the convent.)
Socially, spiritually,
financially, politically, exciting things were happening
throughout the New World.
In 1787, two Catholics
Thomas FitzSimons and Daniel Carroll, older brother of the bishop
participated in the creation and signing of the Constitution. In
1800, the year after our first president's death at Mt. Vernon,
our capital was moved from its decade long residence in
Philadelphia to Washington, D.C.
During that period,
Demetrius Gallitzin (Father Augustine Smith), son of a Russian
prince, left a life
of privilege in Europe to
minister to Christ's People
in America. The Catholic settlement of Loretto
grew out of his work in western Pennsylvania.
In 1803, the Louisiana
Purchase, at a cost of fifteen million dollars, doubled our
country's land area. At three cents per acre, this 828,000 square
mile real estate deal was the best investment since Manhattan
Island.
When Mother Theresa Farjon,
Superior of the Ursuline Convent in New Orleans, wrote to
President Thomas Jefferson inquiring about the convent's status in
light of the new acquisition, the man some historians have called
anti-Catholic sent this reply:
I
have received, Holy Sisters, the letters you have written to me,
wherein you express anxiety for the property vested in your
institution by the former Government of Louisiana. The principles
of the Constitution and Government of the United States are a sure
guaranty to you that it will be preserved to you sacred and
inviolate, and that your institution will be permitted to govern
itself according to its own voluntary rules, without interference
from the civil authority. Whatever diversity of shade may appear
in the religious opinions of our fellow citizens, the charitable
objects of your institution cannot be indifferent to any, and in
its furtherance of the wholesome purposes of training up its young
members in the way they should go, cannot fail to insure it the
patronage of the government it is under. Be assured it will meet
with all the protection my office can give it.
I
salute you, Holy Sisters, with friendship and respect.
Thomas Jefferson
In 1805, a John Law type
boondoggle, this one promoted by land speculators, Joel Barlow and
William Playfair (truly misnamed), coaxed five hundred Catholic
Frenchmen to the Ohio River Valley. It was within this settlement
that Ohio's first parish was born when Father Edward Fenwick, O.P.,
offered Mass for a group of pioneers who had not seen a priest for
some twelve years.
Father Fenwick and other
Dominican priests built the Church of St. Rose of Lima in
Washington County, Kentucky, in 1806-07. They were also
responsible for their order's first United States novitiate. In
1821, Father Fenwick was consecrated the first Bishop of
Cincinnati.
A previously drafted law
prohibiting the importation of new slaves became effective on
January 1,. 1808. In that same year, after becoming a member of
the Sulpician community, Bishop John DuBois founded Mount St.
Mary's College at Emmitsburg, Maryland, and soon after, Elizabeth
Seton opened St. Joseph's Academy nearby. Much of her future work
would be with Negroes-slaves and freemen.
When Baltimore was erected
as a metropolitan See, also in 1808, Archbishop Carroll was given
four suffragan Sees: Boston, Bardstown, New York, and
Philadelphia. Within less than two decades, he had seen the fold
of his American Church its flock and its shepherds expand
tremendously. In 1790 he had been alone with a handful of
ex-Jesuits. Now there existed eighty Catholic churches, seventy
priests, and approximately seventy thousand faithful, excluding
those of Louisiana.
The supply of priests was
limited and nationally unbalanced in proportion to those clamoring
for their services. Many immigrants, still barely familiar (if at
all) with the new language and yearning for the familiar religious
customs of their mother country, were determined to have a pastor
with whom they could converse in their native tongue. The Irishmen
would at times become impatient with a French or German priest's
halting struggle to preach to them in English. This was a time of
great stress for people who had left lifelong surroundings to
brave a sometimes-hostile New World.
Over the years of his very
productive episcopate, Bishop Carroll constantly had to cope with
nationalistic turmoil within the Church.
At St. Mary's Parish in
Philadelphia, the German born Catholics were dissatisfied with the
ministrations of the English-speaking priests. And so they
organized the first "national" parish-legally incorporating
themselves and engaging, without the bishop's authority, a
wandering German-born priest.
Although most Catholics
viewed such internal strife with horror, similar happenings were
not infrequent over the ensuing years as more immigrants flocked
to our shores and population shifts occurred in great tides.
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But The Church
Kept Building |
In the same year that
British flames consumed our capital, 1814, three Sisters of
Charity of Emmitsburg were engaged in the founding, in
Philadelphia, of this country's first Catholic institution for
homeless children, St. Joseph's Orphanage.
And the first free school
for Negroes in the South was begun in Georgetown by Father John
McElroy, S.J. in 1818. Father McElroy later founded Boston
College. Each Sunday afternoon Negro children would be tutored in
reading, writing, arithmetic, and Christian doctrine. A number of
previous attempts, in other times and places, had been foiled by
ardent racists. However, historian Carter G. Woodson states in
The Education Of The Negro Prior to 1861:
Most interest in the cause in Maryland was manifested near the
cities of Georgetown and Baltimore. Long active in the cause of
elevating the colored people, the influence of the revolutionary
movement was hardly necessary to arouse the Catholics to
discharge their duty of enlightening the blacks. Whenever they
had the opportunity to give slaves religious instruction, they
generally taught the unfortunates everything that would broaden
their horizon and help them to understand life. The
Abolitionists and Protestants were also in the field, but the
work of the early Fathers in Georgetown made it, by the time of
its incorporation into the District of Columbia, a center
sending out teachers to carry on the instruction of Negroes. So
liberal were the white people of this town that colored children
were sent to school there with white boys and girls who raised
no objection.
Right into the early 1820's,
Long Island lacked a resident priest. Since only eight priests,
under Bishop John Connolly, served the diocese an area comprised
of the entire state of New York plus part of New Jersey it is
understandable that the faithful of this out-mission seldom had a
priestly visit and usually had to row across the river to attend
Mass in the old St. Patrick's Cathedral on Mott Street or St.
Peter's Church on Barclay Street.
On New Year's Day of 1822,
the Catholics of Brooklyn held their first meeting at the home of
Peter Turner to plan a church and the initiation of a building
fund.
Much of the funding for the
developing Church in America was to come from European missionary
societies. The Ludwig Mission Society of Munich and the Leopoldine
Foundation of Vienna provided for the German immigrant in
particular. The Society for the Propagation of the Faith, then
based in Lyons and Paris, took a more general interest but
occasionally displayed partiality toward dioceses with larger
French populations or with French bishops. It is clear that the
Church in America could never have come to prosperity without the
critical aid of these mission-minded groups.
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In April of 1825, Father
John Farnan came from Utica, New York, where two years earlier he
had been suspended from a pastorate, to serve as Brooklyn's first
pastor. His reinstatement and subsequent assignment to St. James
in Brooklyn came only after the death of Bishop Connolly, who had
suspended him. He was an inspiring and hard-working priest with
great charisma, but he got embroiled in politics and militant
Irish freedom organizations and was even charged with "being drunk
at vespers" before Bishop John DuBois suspended him in 1829.
Father Farnan had become a
popular hero by this time and within two years he rallied enough
support to begin his own church building. The ensuing public
battle brought headaches and embarrassment to the hierarchy, but
the church was never quite finished by the Farnan faction. It was
used only once-to bury the suspended priest's brother-and in the
mid-thirties the mortgage holder foreclosed and began leasing the
building to private businesses. In a sudden move, Bishop John
Hughes bought the structure in 1840 and had it completed as
Brooklyn's third Catholic church The Church of the Assumption of
the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Catholic Sisters earned the
gratitude of city officials in Philadelphia and Baltimore when
their dedicated labors provided inestimable hours of free nursing
care to the victims of cholera epidemics in 1832. Many a pious
soul was felled at the side of her patient by the dread disease.
In 1833, the Village of
Chicago was incorporated and its first parish St. Mary's was
founded. At least half of the total population of two or three
hundred was Catholic, being mainly of French and Jesuit-converted
Indian origin. Only a few years earlier, Chicago had consisted of
seven rustic cabins nestled in a wilderness on the border of Lake
Michigan. Its inhabitants, trappers and traders, daily
intermingled with Indian natives in the forests. By the time St.
Mary's Parish was one year old, Chicago was placed in the
jurisdiction of the new Diocese of Vincennes. That year, Bishop
Simon Brute visited the city and was amazed at its swift expansion
and delighted by its unexpected ecumenism:
Of this place the growth has been surprising, even in the west,
a wonder amidst its wonders. From a few scattered houses near
the fort it is become, in two or three years, a place of great
promise. Its seffiers sanguinely hope to see it rank as the
Cincinnati of the North. Here the Catholics have a neat little
church.
Americans, Irish, French, and Germans meet at a common altar,
assembled from the most distant parts of this vast republic or
come from the shores of Europe to those of our lakes. Reverend
Mr. St. Cyr is their pastor. They already have their choir
supported by some of the musicians of the garrison. Many of the
officers and a number of the most respectable Protestants
attend. The bishop on his arrival in the diocese had been
invited by the Protestants as well as the Catholics of this
place to fix his residence among them and felt his gratitude
revived by the kind reception he now received.
At least at this point in
time, a beautiful example of brotherhood prevailed in Chicago.
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Of Poison Pens
And Politics |
"Not
only do they assail us and our institutions in a style of
vituperation and offense, misrepresent our tenets, vilify our
practices, repeat the hundred-times-refuted calumnies of the days
of angry and bitter contention in other lands, but they have even
denounced you and us as enemies to the liberties of the republic,
and have openly proclaimed the fancied necessity of obstructing
our progress, and of using their best efforts to extirpate our
religion."
In issuing this
warning, in 1829, regarding the Protestant press, the Bishops of
the First Provincial Council of Baltimore were not exaggerating.
Unfortunately, Chicago's ecumenism was not typical of the nation
and violence and bloodshed would soon erupt. In fact, the
anti-Catholicism that already existed, spawned and nurtured on the
English homesoil, was aggravated by some of this Council's
decrees. In addition to their condemnation of the press, the
bishops castigated the King James Bible and urged all parishes to
organize parochial schools. To the Protestants, these were more
proofs of the papists' "subjection to a foreign power." Even some
highly respected luminaries, such as Samuel F.B. Morse, artist and
inventor of the telegraph, espoused the belief that there was a
papal plot to subvert our democracy. In 1834 he wrote Foreign
Conspiracy Against The Liberties of The United States a
collection of his anonymous letters first published in The New
York Observer.
On August 11, 1834,
the mounting tension between Yankees and Irish, Congregationalists
and Catholics, in Charlestown, Massachusetts, fanned by the
impassioned preaching of Reverend Lyman Beecher, climaxed in the
mob burning of an Ursuline convent and girls' school. The men who
were later tried for arson were acquitted and even considered by
many as local heroes.
And from the January,
1836, publication of Maria Monk's Awful Disclosures Of The
Hotel Dieu Nunnery of Montreal, through the end of the decade,
by which time the book was generally considered a lucrative hoax,
hatred and bigotry were well fueled.
Within the next two
decades, a number of publications were founded, many by Protestant
ministers, aligning Protestantism with Americanism. Public debates
a few ending in riots kept both sides constantly informed and
inflamed.
When ninety-four
Protestant ministers organized the American Protestant Association
in Philadelphia, the constitution included these declarations:
The
objects of its formation, and for the attainment of which its
efforts shall be directed, are:
The
union and encouragement of Protestant ministers of the gospel,
to give to their several congregations instruction on the
differences between Protestantism and Popery.
The circulation of books and tracts adapted to give information
on the various errors of Popery in their history, tendency, and
design.
To awaken the attention of the community to the dangers which
threaten the liberties, and the public and domestic
institutions, of these United States from the assaults of
Romanism.
Although many other
factors had pitted Americans against "aliens" for several years,
the A.P.A.tainted sermons that rang from Philadelphia pulpits
and friction over Protestant oriented public schools contributed
to the violence that tore apart "The City of Brotherly Love" in
1844.
The riots began in early
May when a Nativist lost his life in a Kensington confrontation.
Subsequently, two Catholic churches were burned to the ground by
cheering mobs, as were dozens of Irish Catholic homes, and the
city was placed under martial law. A week of murder and
destruction left hundreds of homeless refugees and a scar that
would take years to heal.
The wound was reopened
with a Nativist 4th of July parade that ended with a cannon
attack on men guarding St. Philip Neri Church and an invasion by
the militia, five thousand strong, some of whom barged into
crowds with their guns blazing. This time, thirteen lives were
wasted and at least fifty were injured.
When New York
anti-Catholics threatened similar action a few days later,
Bishop John Hughes stationed fully-armed men around each of his
churches, which proved a successful deterrent.
In that same year, the
Native American party whose name indicated its membership
discrimination and its political allegiance-won the New York
elections. The following year, the Nativists took control of the
Boston legislature.
As Native American crimes
grew, however, many members of the party, horrified at the
violence, began to withdraw their support. By 1847, the
Nativists had disappeared from the national scene.
The lull was short-lived.
In 1849, the Order of the Star Spangled Banner was founded in
New York by Charles B. Allen. Within half a decade, this
originally inconsequential group had been reorganized by James
W. Barker, also of New York, and a local, district, state, and
national framework was erected that was both elaborate and
effective. When the "foreign vote" put Franklin Pierce in the
White House, members of the Order vigorously renewed their vows:
The object of this
organization shall be to protect every American citizen in the
legal and proper exercise of all his civil and religious
rights and privileges;. to resist the insidious policy of the
Church of Rome, and all other foreign influence against our
republican institutions in all lawful ways; to place in all
offices of honor, trust, or profit, in the gift of the people,
or by appointment, none but native-born Protestant citizens,
and to protect, preserve and uphold the Union of these states
and the Constitution of the same.
Members were pledged to
secrecy about their meetings, rituals, and purposes. Their
cover-up answers of "I don't know" led to their being dubbed the
"Know-Nothings," though officially they became the American
party.
By 1854 they were ready to
launch a full-fledged surprise attack. In that year's elections,
dumbfounded pollworkers found numerous vote getters, many
winning electoral seats, whose names were not even on the
ballot. The greatest victory came in Massachusetts, where the
governor, all state officers, and the entire state Senate were
of the American party. The state House of Representatives was
composed of one Whig, one Free Soiler, and 376 Know Nothings. In
the next year, these Nativists equalled, and in some areas
topped, their previous victories.
In western regions, where
populations were more scattered and the people were mostly
hardworking farmers, they had become accustomed to the few
"foreigners" in their midst and had no fears of a "papal
invasion." But there were many reasons for the success of the
American party in the more densely populated and immigrant
choked East.
The many years long exodus
from famine stricken and politically pressured Ireland to the
"welcoming" shores of America had caused a proliferation of
"shanty-towns" in and around our coastal cities. Most of the
Irish chose to remain where they landed, in the commuter
communities rather than again risk the terrible disasters
inflicted on them by the farmlands of their mother country.
While on one hand they were filling the alms houses and costing
the taxpayers money, those employed were willing to take less
for their labors than the natives and so posed threats to their
livelihoods.
By 1850, Roman
Catholics-to date a maligned minority-had increased mainly
through immigration to numbers exceeding that of any other
denominational million. Then, in the ensuing decade, that figure
doubled. "Armies of the Vatican!"
Add to this Pope Pius IX's
unfortunate timing in a move to quell trusteeism, an internal
problem that the Know-Nothings also tried to turn to their
advantage. Monsignor Gaetano Bedini was sent from Rome in 1853
as a papal representative to tour the country and help restore
peace to troubled parishes. Everywhere he went, this symbol of
"foreign intervention" sparked controversy and riots, actually
contributing to the Nativists' cause.
The Know Nothings felt
confident of a presidential victory in 1856 and seemed to be
imbued with political insanity as the hot and heavy campaigns
built to a crescendo. On Election Day, 1855, in Louisville,
Kentucky, they attacked and set ablaze Catholic residences. As
families fled from their burning homes, they were shot. Various
newspaper estimates counted twenty-five to one hundred dead.
The presidential contest
evoked other fistfights and shootings, but the newly organized
Republican party and the growing concerns of a new threat the
slavery issue helped to divide and weaken the Nativists. The
election of James Buchanan did not quelI the struggle, but it
soon would be eclipsed by the rumblings of secession.
Happily, these historical
facts reflect the headlines of their day. Though the occurrences
were typical of similar ones in other locations, they did not
seriously impede the progress of Mother Church in the New World,
and there were still communities where Protestants and Catholics
lived in harmony.
GO TO PART III PROPAGATORS OF THE FAITH
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