Untitled - Digitizing America

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ln 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 sub' sequent 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 lrish 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 supportto begin his own church building. The ensuing puUic batUe brought headaches and embarrassrnent to the hierarchy, but the church was never quile finished by the Farnan faction. lt 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 b private businesses. ln a sudden move, Bishop John Hughes boughtthe structure in 1 840 and had it completed as Brooklyn's third Catholic church-The Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Mrgin 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. ln 183X!, the Village of Chicago was incorporated and its first parish-.St. Mary's-was founded. At least half of the total population of trivo or three hundred was Catholic, being mainly of Frencfr and Jesuit-converted lndian orQin. Onty a few years earlier, Chicago had consisted of seven rustic cab ins nestled in a wilderness on the border of Lake Michigan. lts 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. lts settlers sanguinely hope to see it rank as the Cincinnati of the North. Here the Catholics have a neat little church. Americans, lrish, 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. 19
of Poison Pens And Politics 6t ot only do they assail us and our institutions in a style of vituperation and offense, misrepresent our tenets, vilify our practices, repeat the hundredtimes-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 etforts to extirpate our religion." ln 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. ln fact, the anti-Catholicism that already existed, spawned and nurtured on the English homesoil, was aggravated by some of this Council's decrees. ln 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. ln 1834 he wrole Foreign Conspiracy Against The Liberties of The United Sfafes, a collection of his anonymous letters first published in The New York Obseruer. 20 On August 11, 1834, the mounting tension between Yankees and lrish, 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'sAwful 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 wellfueled. 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 dlfferences between Protestantism and Popery.
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Page 20 and 21: On June 9, 7937,TheWeekly Independe
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Page 24 and 25: among the contributors to the first
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Page 30 and 31: h- , ,, r'' In Memory of the Willia
Page 32 and 33: ffi ":===#:i=r. :&. SILVER MEMORIAL
Page 34 and 35: JUBILEE BENEFACTORS Timothy Boyer J
Page 36 and 37: BUSINESS SPONSORS Purcell Tire and
Page 38 and 39: I\TRODUCTION This is a record ol th
Page 40 and 41: Courage Does Not Prevail nother lta
Page 42 and 43: And so it seems likely that the fir
Page 44 and 45: of lndian missions before joining L
Page 46 and 47: sent to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in
Page 48 and 49: missionary pioneer of all North Ame
Page 50 and 51: Founded in 1649 as a Cathol ic co!
Page 52 and 53: Like Charles, John attended the sec
Page 54 and 55: sta:-s - ---' :' :: -3r, acauisitio
Page 58 and 59: The circulation of books and tracts
Page 60 and 61: Fighting The Good Fight n addition
Page 62 and 63: States War Department to support ln
Page 64 and 65: During this period more than two hu
Page 66 and 67: fifteen years after the Civil War,
Page 68 and 69: defended the Knights of Labor, a se
Page 70 and 71: This window features Father Marquet
Page 72 and 73: Mother Drexel's missions began with
Page 74 and 75: Now a great movement began for conv
Page 76 and 77: Changing Amertca he 1950's brought
Page 78 and 79: addressed his Afro-American Unity o
Page 80 and 81: perience of the unity and universal
Page 82 and 83: Emphasis here is on the signing of
Page 84 and 85: nothing remains the same, and that
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Untitled - Digitizing America

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