The History of Catholic America
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 by 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 was well respected 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 bill recognizing and re-establishing the Russian congregation in 1801. Neither Bishop Carroll nor Bishop Neale were "reinstated" in the Jesuit order. They explicitly decided that it was in the best interests of all concerned - the Jesuits as well as the Church at large - that they not do so. Apparently, a religious may become a bishop, but a bishop who wishes to become a religious must give up his see. Carroll in particular did work hard to arrange the affiliation with the Jesuits in the Russian Empire, but he was never personally able to benefit from it.

The Jesuit superior in Russia 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 years of suppression, the Jesuits had remained a closely-knit group and were able to 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, 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 discalced Carmelite Sisters from Antwerp - was established in Maryland. (The sisters were mainly American sisters who had gone to Europe earlier 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, son of a Russian prince, left a life of privilege in Europe to minister to Christ's people in America under his new name, Father Augustine Smith. The Catholic settlement of Loreto 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 who always championed religious freedom 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 or 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 ensure 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."

In 1805, 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.

In this window George Washington recognizes the patriotism and important assistance of Catholics in the accomplishment of the Revolution and the establishment of our Government. Upper window shows original Stars and Stripes flag entwined with the Colonialflag, and the great tree grown from the acorn at the base

Father Fenwick and other Dominican priests built the Church of St. Rose of Lima in Washington County, Kentucky, in 1806-1807. 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, Father (later 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 Black Americans - both slaves and freemen.

When Baltimore was erected as a metropolitan See 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 were 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 Irish 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 bishops 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.