Catholics in America: During the Term Paper

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However, Cardinal Gibbons, even after this encyclical by the Pope, "took a dim view of strikes (by the Catholic immigrants)" and any "concrete action by American Catholics was slow in coming, (due to) the conservatism of the clergy and the parochial concerns of the lay leaders" (Carnes 654).

The Catholic church responded in other ways to the crucial needs of immigrant Catholics in the United States, especially in the area of social reform and support. Mother Frances Cabrini, an Italian immigrant, founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart in order to teach Italians in the parochial schools run by the Catholic church, to care for the thousands of homeless children that had been forced to live in the streets because of the deaths of their parents from hatred, and to place nurses in hospitals. Such organizations as the Saint Vincent de Paul Society made it possible for Catholics to help each other through social change and reform in the way of providing clothes, food and shelter for the needy. According to the president of this benevolent society, one of the greatest threats to all immigrant Catholics was alcoholism which he described as "the great evil...the source of the misery for at least three-fourths of the families we are called upon to visit and relieve" (Carnes 653).

Fortunately, during the 1890's, the "Know Nothings" ceased to be a powerful anti-

Catholic force. The Catholic church had, by this time, also organized itself well within the American institutions which had a profound effect on the social, economic and political status of all Catholic immigrants in the United States. But the emergence of ethnic churches caused even more problems, mainly because most priests and bishops in the U.S. were Irish and had been part of the first huge wave of Catholic immigrants. Some ethnic groups, particularly the German Catholics, wanted to practice their religion exactly as they had done in Germany in order to preserve their culture and their language in the new lands of America.

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As a result, the Germans frequently resented the Irish priests and the hierarchy which inspired them to establish German parishes with their own pastors. This, however, "caused much unrest and even mob violence in many Eastern cities, especially New York City, where many Catholic immigrants clashed with Irish Catholics over their differences in religious dogma" (Evanston 156).

One group usually not considered with Catholic immigrants were the African blacks that had immigrated to the United States before, during and after the Civil War and even those that were living in the U.S. As slaves during this four-year conflict. At the time, the Catholic church argued that there were no condemnations of slavery in the Holy Bible which placed the slaves and the freed black in a very precarious position. Thus, African Catholics faced massive social, economic and political discrimination. For example, Augustus Tolton, the first black priest ordained in the United Sates, "was refused admission to any American seminary which forced him to flee to Rome for his training and ordination in 1886" (Thomas 176). By 1895, the black laity of the Catholic church were very outspoken on racism and insisted it was contrary to Catholic doctrine. Their voices were some of the earliest to call for a social justice conscience within the Catholic church.

In conclusion, James Hennesey sums up the entire situation of immigrant Catholics in America between 1865 and 1895 with the observation that the "resentment of foreign immigrants was a major factor in the renewed wave of anti-Catholicism and led to some of the most atrocious behavior ever recorded in U.S. history in the way that Catholic immigrants were treated socially, economically and politically in a country that was suppose to be fair and equal" (183)......

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