home
* back issues index * author
index * getting back issues
This article was originally
published in Caelum
Et Terra, Summer1993, volume 3 no 3,
and is used here with the author’s permission.
To obtain permission to republish
this article, contact the author by clicking on the author's name link above.
It
is easier to be a Catholic here than in the mixed and busy
push of the towns and cities.
-John
T. Reily in 1885, commenting
on
Conewago, a very early Catholic settlement
near
the Maryland border in Pennsylvania.
From
the nascent community in first century Jerusalem, which held all things in
common (Acts 2:42-47), to efforts of today, Catholics have very often sought to
establish explicitly Catholic communities, communities in which they could live
out the Faith by establishing a way of life that corresponded with the teaching
of the Gospel. And in some
circumstances there was the additional reason that such separate communities
were made necessary by the active hostility and persecution of surrounding
society. In nineteenth-century America
both the desire to live a way of life more in keeping with the Faith as well as
the hostility of the surrounding Protestant society gave the impetus for the
founding of many Catholic communities, and in this article I will describe a
few of them. This is certainly not an
exhaustive account of Catholic colonization in the United States during the
last century, but simply a brief survey and a highlighting of some of the
episodes that seem to me most interesting.
The
original European settlers of North America were, of course, Spanish Catholics,
and those coming later included the Catholic French, and the English Catholics
of Maryland. So in a sense all of their
settlement could be called Catholic colonization. Moreover, these European Catholics evangelized the Native
Americans and in many cases established Catholic communities for them. The French, for example, in order to protect
their Indian converts from the still pagan atmosphere of their homelands, set
up explicitly Catholic Indian villages near Montreal, and in Florida Indians
converted by Spanish priests dwelt in Catholic communities.
In
the English colonies the largest body of Catholics was, of course, the Maryland
settlers. There, too, what might be called
Catholic communities were established for the Native Americans, for the second
Lord Baltimore, Cecilius Calvert, forbade Europeans to settle on lands set
aside for the Indians and gave these new converts Jesuits for their spiritual
ministrations. Maryland, however, had
had a Protestant majority from its beginning, and in time the Protestants
seized control of the colony's government and began persecuting Catholics. After 1688 this policy became permanent, so
some of the Maryland Catholics fled across the border to Pennsylvania and
established a series of settlements centered on Conewago Chapel in Adams
County. Toward the end of the 18th
century these Conewago Catholics spawned the next Catholic community, the settlements
in Cambria County, Pennsylvania.
One
Michael McGuire, a Catholic from the Conewago area, who had been an officer in
the Continental army during the Revolutionary War, founded a settlement in what
is now eastern Cambria County, Pennsylvania, just west of Altoona. In 1799 Fr. Demetrius Gallitzin (1770-1840),
a former Russian nobleman, a convert and one of the first priests ordained in
the United States, visited McGuire's community and decided to buy land for
further Catholic settlement in the area.
His first and main community was Loretto, where he started a school, an
orphanage, a store and a sawmill. Later
other nearby towns were also colonized.
Fr. Gallitzin would buy land from the government and resell it cheaply
to his settlers. He spent all his money
on his colonies and even anticipated his inheritance from Russia and spent it
all before he found out that he would be disinherited under Russian law because
of his Catholic ordination. Cambria
County, in large part because of Fr. Gallitzin's efforts, is one of four
counties in Pennsylvania whose population is over 50% Catholic, and, fittingly,
Fr. Gallitzin's tomb is prominently placed in front of the parish church in
Loretto.
Pennsylvania
was the site of other Catholic settlements also. New Baltimore (originally Harman's Bottom) in Somerset County,
begun about 1826; Silver Lake in Susquehanna County established in 1827;
Neppenoe Valley in Lycoming County in 1836 by German Catholics; and among the
more interesting, St. Mary's in Elk County, begun in 1842 by German Catholics
from Philadelphia and Baltimore. Like
Cambria County, Elk County's population is over half Catholic today, and St.
Mary's is also deservedly well-known as the home of Straub beer.
There
were many other attempted colonies, successful and unsuccessful, especially in
different areas of the mid-west, from Ohio to Minnesota in the north and to
Arkansas in the south. Many of these
communities were founded by German-speaking Catholics from Switzerland, Austria
and Germany, which at that time was divided into a number of independent
states. In western Ohio German
Catholics settled a belt along the Indiana border from Darke County north to
Putnam County. Today this area is still
a region of heavy Catholic population, and the only two counties in Ohio with
populations over 50% Catholic, Mercer and Putnam, are both within this area of
German Catholic settlement.
One
village within this range of Catholic colonization is Delphos, Ohio, partly in
Allen County and partly in Van Wert County. The colony at Delphos was begun in
1836 when a German priest, Fr. John Bredeick sent his brother Frederick to
America to establish a German Catholic community. Frederick Bredeick purchased 92 acres for the future Delphos in
an area that was already being settled by planned German Catholic
communities. The first group of 42
people left Germany in August of 1842 and began clearing land for the future
town the next spring. Fr. Bredeick, who
was himself unable to leave Germany until 1844, had sent a second group of
colonists in 1843, and he himself finally arrived the next year with a third
group. Although from an early date
non-Catholics have lived in Delphos, even today the Catholic high school, St.
John's, is larger than the public high school.
Much
of the southern part of this territory, centering in Mercer County, was
colonized under the direction of a remarkable German priest, Fr. Francis
Brunner. Like Fr. Gallitzin in
Pennsylvania, Fr. Brunner was accused of being dictatorial in his methods and
in the control of his settlers. But one
can say on their behalf that such dedicated priests laid foundations that have
lasted. If the Faith is dying in Mercer
County, Ohio, and Cambria County, Pennsylvania, it is due to the problems in
the larger Church and in the society, not to anything lacking in their
founders' efforts or vision.
Another
German community established in the mid-west was quite a bit different from
Delphos, Ohio. This is St. Nazianz,
Wisconsin, in Manitowoc County. This
community was planned and established by Fr. Ambrose Oschwald (1801-1873) in
1854. If people found the rule of Fr.
Gallitzin or Fr. Brunner oppressive what would they have thought of Fr.
Oschwald's community? St. Nazianz was organized
as kind of membership community, with a constitution called the Statutes
consisting of 29 sections. It included
such as the following:
Section
8. Immorality and intemperance shall in
no way be
tolerated.
Section
9. The public morality shall be guarded
by the Ephorate,
which shall consist of twelve elders
and the priest of the place.
Section
10. The Ephorate in its quality as
Senate shall at the
same
time constitute the board of elders, which, together with
the
priest, shall manage the public affairs.
Section
11. Such persons as act contrary to the
rules and public
morality
shall be warned three times by the Ephorate, and if
without
effect, shall be excluded from the association.
Section
15. The mode of living will be in
common as much as
possible.
Section
18. Swearing, cursing, quarrelling,
fighting, suing,
cheating, unchasteness and rudeness,
contrary to a Christian
life, will not be tolerated, over
which the Ephorate shall guard
carefully.
Section
20. Each member shall be assigned a
position in the
parish for which he shall be found
suited.
Section
28. The priest of the place is
president of the
Ephorate. The president of the Senate holds the position of
Mayor. The president and senators are elected by
the parish.
At first glance some of these rules might seem
oppressive indeed, but I think that most of them would have been bearable in
the context of an intentional Christian community. The rules also contained a strong purpose for social justice,
including the following:
Section
6. The care of the poor, invalids,
orphans and others in
need shall be provided for, so that
the poor shall receive the
same care as the rich.
Section
7. Aid shall be given to one another in
the obtaining of
the most necessary things according
to the instructions of the
elders. No one shall suffer innocently.
Each one shall receive
aid when in trouble as soon as
possible.
Section
22. Suppression and oppression will not
be tolerated.
Unlike many 19th-century European immigrants, Fr.
Oschwald's intentions were not primarily economic. He frequently told his flock, "We did not come to America to
become rich, but to save our souls."
After
Fr. Oschwald's death in 1873, some dissident members of the community initiated
a lawsuit to get some of the community's money and start a separate
association. Over ten years later the
legal battles were settled, with the rebel members getting only a small portion
of what they had originally demanded.
Toward the turn of the century membership in the original Association
had dwindled, and the inhabitants, with the aid of the bishop of the diocese,
invited the Salvatorian Order (S.D.S.) to take over the parish. The Salvatorians founded a seminary there and
still remain.
In
general the German Catholic immigrants and colonists were better off
financially and better organized than were the Irish, and than the later
arrivals, such as Italians and Slavs.
The Irish were fleeing from persecution and famine and many of the
eastern Europeans and Italians were very poor and were exploited on their
arrival in the United States. But the
Germans were more likely to be prosperous farmers or craftsmen, usually
prepared their settlements well in advance and sent over agents to check out
conditions and buy land. However, there was one organized attempt to settle
Irish Catholics in farming communities away from the big cities of the east
coast. This was the Irish Catholic
Colonization Association.
The
Irish Catholic Colonization Association was founded in 1879 and ceased
functioning in 1891. Its purpose was to
settle Irish Catholics in the rural south and west and move them out of urban
slums. With the backing of bishops John
Ireland of St. Paul, Minnesota, and John Spalding of Peoria, Illinois, the
Association bought 8,000 acres in Minnesota and 25,000 acres in Nebraska,
although only a few families were actually settled on the land; only 150
families, for example, colonized the Nebraska tract. The Association also attempted to sponsor a colony in Arkansas,
St. Patrick's, but legal difficulties in purchasing the land hindered its easy
development, though some families did settle there. It is interesting to note, though, that some of those immigrating
to Arkansas were from Kentucky, Missouri and Pennsylvania, that is, they
already lived in rural areas and were not as much in need of escaping the
cities as many other Irish.
Colonizing
efforts by Catholics in the 19th century should be viewed in the context of
other such enterprises, for 19th-century America was full of attempts to found
planned communities, some with more long-lasting results than others. Everyone is aware of the Mormons founding of
Salt Lake City, but before setting out into the wilderness they had had another
community at Nauvoo, Illinois, from which they were driven out by hostile
mobs. Other 19th-century communities in
the U.S. included New Harmony, Indiana, Zoar, Ohio, Oneida, New York, Brook
Farm in Massachusetts and the Shaker communities. Some of these were religious and others secular utopian or
socialist.
For
a member of a group which claims to know the most important truths the appeal
of a community is obvious. The nexus of
community in the United States is mainly negative, that is, the country is
founded on freedom and limited government.
But freedom leaves room for action based on numerous and contradictory
desires, whether for money, sexual pleasure, or for one sort of religion or
another. With Americans having so many
differing ideals there is not much of a place for cohesive community here. But for those with a religious or even a
political creed that rises above such disparate and dissipative desires, there
is naturally a longing for a life based on that creed, i.e., for a community
explicitly founded on what its adherents believe to be true, rather than on the
somewhat boring ideal of every man pursuing happiness in a thousand different
ways. American society from the
beginning has put religion in an inferior place by making it a wholly private
and individual affairs. Whatever
religion a man wanted, that was fine, so long as he did not attempt to intrude
upon others. But in so saying, this
perennial American creed proclaimed that in what was really important for the
nation as a whole, religion, or at least any particular religion, would play no
part. This can hardly be acceptable for
anyone who really believes, so to escape such banality communities are
founded. As Catholics we have additional
reasons: the knowledge that our Faith
is true and a long history of dealing with a multitude of political
arrangements and of establishing communities of many kinds.
The
American government, moreover, expects its citizens to play by the rules. In the fall of 1789 Father John Carroll,
shortly to become the first Catholic bishop in English-speaking North America,
and four important Catholic laymen, including Charles and Daniel Carroll,
addressed a letter of congratulations to President George Washington. A few months later Washington replied by
letter in a conciliatory manner. But
our first President's reply included the following sentence:
As
mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to
allow,
that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of
the Community are equally entitled to
the protection of civil
Government.
Though no doubt meant in a generous sense,
perhaps today we can see the mailed fist under the velvet glove here more
clearly than could our brethren the Carrolls.
For it appears more and more to be the case that in order to be
considered "worthy members of the Community" we must keep our mouths
shut about abortion, homosexual conduct, secular sex education, and a host of
other evils. Otherwise we are apt to
have "the protection of civil Government" removed from us. As the culture of the United States decays
further, and intolerance of Catholic moral teaching increases, harassment of
our universities, schools, even our festivals, increases. What are we to do? Before the Revolution the Carrolls had comtemplated emigration to
French Louisiana to escape the anti-Catholics laws of the English colonies.
Where can we flee to, what community can we establish? But if our first love is the welfare and
future glory of Christ's true Church, then the establishment of communities,
even in the United States, can be a labor of that love, even if precarious
political conditions threaten to make that labor of love lost. Anyway, we have no choice but to work and
nourish the Mystical Body, as best we can, while leaving the outcome all to
God.
home
* back issues index * author
index * getting back issues