Untitled - Digitizing America

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visits to congregations throughout the diocese
convinced him of the great need foreducation, and
he prepared a missal and a catechism which were
printed and distributed, although some other
American bishops objected to this.
He founded the first Catholic newspaper in the
United States-Ihe United Sfafes Catholic Miscellany,
its main purpose being to combat attacks
upon the Church by anti-Catholic factions of the
press. Except for a few brief periods, it was published
weekly from 1822 until 1861. Most of its
material was compiled, written and edited by the
bishop, who even helped tend the presses. The
bishop's sister, Johanna, a woman of great talent,
did much of the newspaper work. She wanted to
join Mother Seton's Sisters but the bishop needed
her more. A vital part of his writings concerned his
people's duty to be model citizens of their adopted
country. On visiting Washington D.C., in January,
1826, he was invited to address the Congress, the
first Catholic clergyman to be accorded that honor.
Bishop England was considered a radical by
some, but actually his progressive ideas on councils
that would include lay representatives of
parishes as well as priests helped to avert some of
the serious trusteeism problems being experienced
elsewhere. His aid to the poor, the orphans,
and the ill, as well as his establishment of
seminaries and convents, were lauded, but others
of his concerns were not so popular. Slaveowners
blocked his attempts to operate a school for
Negroes.
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But if it was unusual for the lrish bishop of a deepsouthern
diocese to be so broadminded at this
early date, the lrish bishop of a northern diocese-New
York-during a subsequent period
was not less typical in his beliefs. They simply
demonstrated the wide diversity of opinions of
pre-CivilWar Catholics on what was considered a
non-religious issue.
Bishop John Joseph Hughes of New York, who
was consecrated in 1838, the same year in which
Bishop England died, felt that slaves would not be
able to cope with sudden emancipation and that
western colonization would lose some of the faithful
because of a shortage of priests. He condemned
lrish anti-slavery movements as an intrusion
into politics of the United States and urged
Catholic support of the American Constitution,
which at that time proscribed the activities of the
Abolitionists. Of course, the Abolitionists were
also violently anti-Catholic. Before that time, many
had been Nativists.
The Diocese of New York then included all of that
state, plus half of New Jersey-about 5,500
square miles. The entire country was growing at a
fantastic pace, but population growth in New York
City was five times the national rate. City churches
were heavily in debt and trusteeism problems
arose intermittently. Bishop Hughes had inherited
a monumental task.
Even before ascending to the episcopate, he had,
as co-adjutor, toured a number of European cities
soliciting aid. Then, in 1840, he led a campaign for
public support of Catholic schools and thus encountered
the opposition of the New York Public
School Society which eventually brought the demise
of this organization, the complete secularization
of public education, and the promotion of
parochial schools throughout the United States.