Untitled - Digitizing America

Fighting The Good Fight
n addition to the onslaught of lrish, other
nationalities contributed to the constant proliferation
of American parishes. Most of Rhode lsland's
first Catholics were lrish immigrants who worked
in the iron foundries and cotton mills. A Catholic
priest had not even visited the tiny colony until
several cl"nplains accompanied the French who
landed at Newport during the Revolutionary War.
As industry grew, however, French Canadians
flocked over the border, swelling Rhode lsland's
Catholic population, which would remain in the
care of the Bishop of Hartford, Connecticut, until
the Diocese of Providence was erected in 1872.
ln 1837, Reverend Mathias Loras was consecrated
Bishop of Dubuque with jurisdiclion over
lowa, Minnesota, and part of Dakota. ln 1843,
Minnesota and Wisconsin became dioceses and
the State of lllinois was incorporated in the Diocese
of Chicago.
The Gold Rush of 1848 brought boom times to the
west coast, and in '1853 the dioceses of Santa Fe
and San Francisco were constituted, completing
the tans-American span.
ln 1855, the Reverend David W. Bacon, who had
been first pastor of the Farnan-built and Hughesadapted
Church of the Assumption in Brooklyn,
was appointed first bishop of the new See of Portland,
Maine. His entire dioces*which included
allof Maine and New Hampshire--held only eight
churches with six priests. Here, and elsewhere,
missionary priests were toiling amongst people
who were poor, even destitute. The Redemptorists,
the Oblates of Mary lmmaculate, the
Passionists, had joined the Jesuits, the Franciscans,
the Dominicans, the Vincentians.
The hardships of parishioners took many forms.
Untilworking hours were reduced, in 1835, to an
average of ten hours daily, factory workers were
forced to slave fourteen of each twenty-four hours,
except Sunday, for a weekly paycheck of six dollars.
Even women and children-many of them
under the age of twelv+shared these hours. Yet
there was still money to contribute to the building
of houses of worship and learning for their
families. And there was still time for many of the
faithfulto lend their physical aid to the erection of
these edifices.
The missionaries, too (and secular priests were
also missioners), set an example of pious devotion,
traveling hundreds of miles, often on foot.
One Jesuit priest of Maryland, whose biography
could almost be termed typical of the times, was
said to have "solved the high cost of living by
reducing his annual personal expenses to
twenty-six dollars by living on corn and bacon
which he raised himself, his only indulgence being
smoking tobacco which he also raised."
And so, when the First Plenary Council convened
in Baltimore in 1852, it could review the past decades
with gratitude and gird itself for the future.
lnspired by the sight of this solemn procession into
the cathedral of men who had struggled and were
still working against various odds across the vast
country, the American Catholic Church could look
back with pride on a tremendous and unprecedented
achievement. Each devoted member of
the faithful-bishops, priests, brothers, sisters,
laity-had been "fighting the good fight" within the
confines of his own mission. Now, viewed as a
whole, the enormity of the accomplishment could
be appreciateG-the blending of so many cultures
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