A reflection on American Catholic experience in pre-civil War America by Fr. Tim Kelly “Since the founding, the United States has received immigrants from around the world who have found opportunity and safe haven in a new land. The labor, values, and beliefs of immigrants from throughout the world have transformed the United States from a loose group of colonies into one of the leading democracies in the world today. From its founding to the present, the United States remains a nation of immigrants grounded in the firm belief that newcomers offer new energy, hope and cultural diversity. Excerpts taken from Strangers No Longer, Together on the Journey of Hope, A Pastoral Letter Concerning Migration From the Catholic Bishops of Mexico and the United States. The issue of immigration sparks off great debate in this part of the world. I only wish that other social issues got people so fired up, like poverty and injustice and war. Although the entire American experience has been based on immigration, and everyone eventually traces their ancestry back to an act of immigration, the history of this country is marked by a series of attempts by one set of settled Americans to stifle the opportunities offered to the next ethnic group that arrives. The English tried to hold on to Boston when the Irish arrived. The Irish resented the arrival of the Italians into the neighborhoods of New York. The Poles had to fight the Irish to get established in Chicago. All the while, black Americans were involved in bitter clashes with many of the new arrivals in our northern cities. The intense rivalry between the Irish and the African-American community brought violence and murder to the streets and dishonor to the Irish community. There is a verse about Boston when it was a Puritan city, which expressed this determination on the part of the controlling faction to stay on top. The two families were relics of old Mayflower domination, the Cabots and the Lodges. “Here’s to dear old Boston, The home of the periwig and the snob, Where the Cabots talk only to the Lodges, And the Lodges talk only to God.” Being against immigration is as old as the United States itself. Some folks join in the general populist outcry to make themselves look patriotic. It appears that the louder you shout, the more patriotic you are. Others genuinely fear that American identity will be diluted in the process, while others simply fear any change. What I find disturbing is that Catholics can join in this outcry, given our history as the butt of the self-same treatment not so long ago. The history of one ethnic group resenting and resisting the next is a pattern in US history. It changed as a new ethnic group posed a greater threat and prosperity clouded the differences between groups. But one feature of the problem remained, that Catholics as a faith, were deeply resented by the people of power and money in this country. The ethnic attacks subsided with time, but the anti-Catholic element in all this history was far more pervasive. Some might say that anti-Catholicism still persists as a constituent of the anti-immigration argument. In this cartoon by Thomas Nast, the ignorant half-animal Irishman is hiding grenades or bombs inside the Thanksgiving goose. The goose is, of course, the Democratic Party, which Nast hated. The Catholic priest, though a little shocked, does not stop the treason. Anti-Catholicism in 19th century America The Nativist Party Anti-Catholicism existed even before the Irish famine of 12845-47. The city of Philadelphia was the hotbed of anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant sentiment. A campaign was led by the Nativist Party to bully foreigners out of the city of brotherly love. This party allied itself with the American Protestant Association in propagating a conspiracy theory: the Pope was planning to take over America. The Irish Catholics were especially to be excluded from the United States, since they were known for their fanatical loyalty to the Roman Pontiff. The Irish lacked any experience of democratic involvement and so they were not to be trusted as US citizens. The Nativists posed as patriots determined to protect the country from ignorant foreigners who might destroy the American way of life, and bring about the restoration of monarchy and religious- i.e. Catholic domination. The Protestant Irish, those sometimes called Scotch-Irish were not to be considered enemies since they were generally Presbyterians and so they knew about the value of democracy. That group, the descendents of settlers who had come over in the 1700’s from Northern Ireland, turned against the Catholic Irish and became more bigoted than the Nativists themselves. Riots in Philadelphia On Friday, May 3, 1844, the Nativists set up a platform in the Third Ward of Kensington, a Philadelphia suburb full of poor Irish. Speakers condemned the Pope and the Irish and against all immigration. The speeches sounded very like the line of some modern-day TV commentators. The theme was that "a set of citizens, German and Irish, wanted to get the Constitution of the United States. into their own hands and sell it to a foreign power." The Nativists returned on May 6, now three thousand strong, and waving American flags. In spite of the arrogance of the speakers and their offensive remarks about the Irish, the locals ignored the intruders and refused to be provoked. The priests had spoken from the altar on the previous Sunday encouraging them not to be drawn into a conflict with the Nativists. But a riot did eventually arise when the Nativists attacked a marketplace called Nanny Goat Market. The Irish had prepared for the confrontation and two Nativists were killed by gunshot. Retaliation followed and the sheriff and his men were obviously biased in favor of the Nativists. In that fracas, a further two Nativists were killed. Nativist papers and handbills claimed their deaths on the “bloody hand of the Pope.” They burned St. Michael's Church and rectory, as well as a convent of the Sisters of Charity. They cheered a falling church steeple, while a fife and drum group played "Boyne Water" an Orange tune that mocks the destruction of Irish culture and the Catholic faith at the battle of the Boyne in 1691. A few nights later, they burned St. Philip Neri church. The Bishop of Philadelphia, Dr. Kenrick was no match for the Nativists, being a man of law and order. He refused to organize the immigrants, telling them that they should trust the Sheriff instead. His confidence in the legal system was misplaced since the Nativists infiltrated the police and the courts. Those who were not convinced were intimidated. On one occasion, when a Catholic church was being attacked, the Sheriff confiscated the rifles of the Catholic defenders and allowed the Nativists to burn the place down. When an official report was finally issued, it blamed the police for being too lenient to the foreigners and not defending the rights of native-born citizens. As the attacks continued in Philadelphia, Nativists threatened New York City. There, however, they faced a different type of man as bishop, the formidable and stern John Hughes. He told the Nativist Mayor of New York that he was organizing Irish volunteers to defend the churches and that, if one Catholic church was burned, "New York would be another Moscow." That evening, in the open space in front of the unfinished St. Patrick’s Cathedral, he reviewed an army of 8,000 Irishmen armed with sticks and knives. The Nativists knew better than to cross "Dagger-John". No churches were burned in New York City. The Nativist party went the way of the Dodo bird. But its phantom skulks the chambers of Congresses and City Halls all over this country since that time. In the 1850’s the Nativists reformed themselves into the Know-Nothing party, shouting its slogan of “No to Rome, Rum and Rebellion.”. The Party itself died out, but Nativist sentiments did not. It may have begun with the elite white Anglo-Saxon Protestant elite afraid of losing their control, but it survived by mutation. It survived in the KKK, in the lynchgangs of the South and even in the ethnic street-gangs of today. You will find heirs of the Nativists in groups that are anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant, and anti-Irish. In this Thomas Nast cartoon, “the American River Ganges”, the United States is being invaded by crocodiles emerging from the sea. These reptiles are actually Catholic bishops coming to take away American liberties and to make Pius IX the King of America. The Irish are up on the hill behind the beach beating good protestants with cudgels.
