USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > Hartford > History of the diocese of Hartford > Part 4
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Further evidence of this anti-Catholic spirit that pervaded Connecticut in the early days of our history is found in an enactment of the General Assembly, May, 1724, which made it obligatory upon all members of the Assembly, and all persons who were or would be chosen on the annual days of election to the office of governor, deputy-governor, assistants, secretary, treasurer, and by all justices of the peace, sheriffs and their deputies, to make and take the declaration against "Popery" before they could become eligible to discharge the services belonging to their place, office or trust.3
This act breathes the identical spirit that made Irish Catholics outlaws in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and exposed them to the severest treatment which the hostility of their enemies could devise. This spirit crossed the water with the very framers of these anti-Catholic enactments. Proclaiming loudly and advocating strenuously the principles of religious freedom and equality, their unjust laws against all who differed from them, but particularly against adherents of the Catholic church, gave little evidence of the sincerity of their professions of equality and love of freedom, and have left upon their names the stain of intolerance. Enactinents like the one in question effectually closed to Catholics all the avenues to official dignities, and kept them socially in a condition of inferiority in the estimation of their Protestant brethren. They could not aspire to positions of public trust with-
1 Church Documents of the Prot. Episcopal Ch., Vol. I., p. 208.
2 " Contributions to the Eccles. Hist. of Conn.," p. 338.
3 Pub. Rec. of Conn., 1717-1725. Renunciation of the Pope was an indispensable requirement for all occupying public offices. When the General Assembly of Connecticut in May, 1669, acknowledged their allegiance to King Charles II, they " professed their duty and true allegiance to our Sovereign Lord the King, renouncing the Pope and all otlier foreign princes, states and potentates, and their jurisdiction and authority." The Public Records abound in instances of such renunciations.
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THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN NEW ENGLAND.
out renouncing one of the holiest doctrines of their religion, and denying the existence of a mystery around which cluster all acts of divine worship. Truly this oath of abjuration and the declaration against "Popery " were, as they were intended to be, mighty agencies of proselytism, and may have wrought sad spiritual havoc among the weak in faith. The distinctively Irish Catholic names read on the colonial rosters inclines us to the belief that faith was sacrificed to position and influence, and that the Oath and the Dec- laration were contributing causes.
These obnoxious and un-Christian oaths are herewith appended that the Catholics of this generation may learn with how little of the milk of human kindness the Puritan heart was nourished. They will remind them of the obstacles thrown in the pathway of their co-religionists in the colonial period, and will furnish them with the knowledge of the toleration then enjoyed, and about which so much eloquence has been expended.
" Be it enacted by the Governor, Council and Representatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, that the oaths provided by Act of Parlia- ment instead of the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, the Declaration against popery, and also the oath of Abjuration, agreeable to the form prescribed by a late act of Parlia- ment, passed in the sixth year of his present Majesty's reign, be printed with the acts of this Assembly ; which are as follows :
"I, A. B., do swear that I do from my heart abhor, detest and abjure, as impious and heretical, that damnable doctrine and position, that princes excommunicated or deprived by the Pope, or any authority of the See of Rome, may be deposed, murthered by their subjects, or any other whatsoever. And I do declare, that no foreign prince, person, prelate, state or potentate, hath or ought to have any jurisdiction, power, superi- ority, pre-eminence or authority, ecclesiastical or spiritual, within the realm of Great Britain : So help me God.
"I, A. B., do solemnly and sincerely in the presence of God profess, testifie and declare, that I do believe that in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper there is not any transubstantiation of the elements of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, at or after the consecration thereof of any person whatever ; and that the invocation or adoration of the Virgin Mary or any other Saint, and the sacrifice of the Mass, as they are now used in the Church of Rome, are superstitious and idolatrous. And I do solemnly, in the presence of God, profess, testifie and declare, that I do make this declaration and every part thereof in the plain and ordinary sense of the words read unto me, as they are commonly understood by English Protestants, without any evasion, equivocation, or mental reservation whatsoever, and without any dispensation already granted me for this purpose by the Pope or any authority or person whatsoever, and without any hope of any such dispensation from any authority or person whatsoever, or without thinking that I am or can be acquitted before God or man, or absolved of this declaration or any part thereof, although the Pope or any other person or persons what- soever should dispense with or annul the same, or declare that it was null or void from the beginning."
These oaths had to be taken also by Catholic aliens as a condition of naturalization,1 the taking of which ipso facto separated them from the com- munion of the Catholic church. They are conclusive evidence of the diffi- culties and temptations that beset the Catholic people who came to Connec- ticut in early times. They bear irrefragable testimony to the hostility of the
1 See page 62.
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DIOCESE OF HARTFORD.
colonies to the Catholic church and her sacred doctrines. The spirit of per- secution was rife. Catholics were ostracized and denied the privileges of citizenship, unless, recreant to sacred trusts and teachings, they sacrificed the tenderest and holiest relations in life. I believe that the Catholics who may have taken these oaths, and thus abandoned the church, were inoved thereto more by worldly motives than from a belief in the errancy of the church's doctrines. Aiming at success along commercial and social lines, they made their eternal interests subservient to temporal concerns and be- queathed to their descendants the legacy of a strange faith.
These oaths remained in force until the Revolution, and, if their opera- tion was suspended, it was not from a sense of justice to Catholics, or fromn a conversion to the idea that Catholics had any rights which Puritans were bound to respect. The colonies needed the assistance of their Catholic brethren to successfully resist English oppression; therefore, to demand from them the taking of offensive oaths would be, to say the least, an incongruous proceeding. The Catholics residing in the colonies repaid the harsh and intolerant treatinent, of which they were the victims, by rushing to the defence of the American cause. They gave generously of their strength and wealth to cast off the British yoke, and to achieve the independence of the colonies. They shed their blood and left their bodies on many battlefields as though oblivious of the fact that iniquitous laws were ever enacted against them. Here was true manliness, generosity, nobility of character. Here was manifested a spirit which the stern and narrow Puritan may have admired, but could not imitate.
Though Catholics could become naturalized during the Revolutionary period without being required to apostatize from the faitli of the fathers, it was only in 1818, one hundred and thirty-five years after Governor Dongan's famous decree of toleration, that a liberal Christian spirit triumphed in Con- necticut. In that year the death knell of exclusive religious privileges was sounded, and the union of church and state became a memory. The consti- tution of the State was then adopted by a vote of 13,918 in its favor, and 12, 364 opposed to its ratification. In the Declaration of Rights, article first, section third, it was declared that "The exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship, without discrimination, shall forever be free to all persons in this State, provided that the right hereby declared and established shall not be so construed as to excuse acts of licentiousness, or to justify prac- tices inconsistent with the peace and safety of the State."
And in section four, that "No preference shall be given by law to any Christian sect or mode of worship."
Section first of article seventh is an elaboration of tliese ideas and reads in part thus : "It being the duty of all inen to worship the Supreme Being, the Great Creator or Preserver of the Universe, and their right to render that worship in the mode mnost consistent with the dictates of their consciences, 110 person shall by law be compelled to join or support, nor be classed with, or associated to, any congregation, churchi, or religious association."
The Constitution of this State is an utter repudiation of tlie goveril-
1
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THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN NEW ENGLAND.
mental system of the Puritans, a rejection of the policy that united church and state ; it was a splendid step forward in the march of human progress. It was the recognition of a principle as old as the race, but ignored by some of the founders of the New England colonies, namely, that every individual has an inalienable right to worship God as his conscience dictates. It was, further- more, an official rebuke to the legislation which compelled Catholics to forswear allegiance to their faith in order to acquire the privileges of citizenship.
CHAPTER V. "POPĘ DAY."
HE spirit of hostility to Catholics that prevailed throughout Connecticut previous to the Revolution was in no way more clearly demonstrated than in the ridiculous celebration of "Pope Day," as it was designated, on the 5th of November. The celebration was intended to perpetuate the memory of the conspiracy known as the Gunpowder Plot. Catholics were accused of the crime of plotting to blow np King James I. and the houses of Parliament in 1605. Impartial history, however, has absolved them from the responsibility of the crime. The conspiracy was planned by Minister Cecil, a Protestant, and discovered by Lord Montagle, a Catholic peer. King James had been baptized in the Catholic church and received Confirmation from the hands of a Catholic bishop. He surrendered, at least outwardly, his religion at the bidding of the laws of Scotland, but he in wardly retained his love and attach- ment for the ancient faith. He spoke of the Roman church as the "mother church," and of the pope as " the chief bishop of all the western churches." This unconcealed regard for the Catholic church was offensive to his minis- ters, particularly to Cecil, who resolved upon a plan that would turn the king against his Catholic subjects, and perhaps alienate him from the church. Of the heinous Gunpowder Plot one author says that " he (Cecil) was either him- self the author or, at least, the main conductor."1 Another calls it "a neat device of the Secretary."2 " Cecil engaged some Papists in this desperate Plot," says another, "in order to divert the King from making any advances towards Popery, to which he seemed inclinable, in the minister's opinion." 3 Another Protestant authority wrote "that this design was first hammered in the forge of Cecil, who intended to have produced it in the time of Elizabeth : that by his secret emissaries he enlisted some hot-headed inen, who, ignorant whence the design first came, heartily engaged in it." The few Catholics who were seduced into the plot were apostates and were known as such. Of them a Protestant writer says : "There were a few wicked and desperate wretches, whom many Protestants termed Papists, although the priests and true Catho- lics knew them not as such ; nor can any Protestant say that any one of them was such as the law terms popish recusants ; and if any of them were Catho-
1 Politicians' Catechism.
3 Stowe & Echard.
2 The author of the Political Grammar.
4Short View of Hist. Eng., by Higgons.
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DIOCESE OF HARTFORD.
lics, or so died, they were known Protestants not long before."' Cecil, then, and not Catholics, was the prime instigator of the dastardly Gunpowder Plot, notwithstanding that the Anglican church thanked God for the king's escape "from the secret contrivances and hellish malice of popish conspirators." However, the plot was charged against the Catholics ; that was sufficient ; the consequences hoped for would naturally follow. The 5th of November became a gala day. What with processions, bonfires, the ringing of bells, denunciatory harangues and other appropriate features, the day was given up to unlimited abuse of the pope and of Catholics in general. The spirit of the celebration crossed the sea and received a cordial welcome in the English colonies of New England. The 5th of November became as sacred to the Englishman of the colonies as to his brethren at hiome, and the day was annually observed with ceremonies as grotesque as they were offensive.
"Let's always remember The fifth of November,"
. was their refrain, and the name "Pope Day " was substituted in New Eng- land for "Gunpowder Plot." Guy Fawkes was set aside for the pope, whose effigy was carried in procession through the streets with another effigy of the devil amid the derisive shouts and laughter and curses of the fanatical inob. Money was demanded from every house on the route of the procession, and if refused, windows were broken, doors smashed in and other damage done to property. The money collected in this manner was spent for liquor.
" Don't you hear my little bell2 Go clink, clink, clink ? Please give me a little money To buy my Pope some drink,"
was sung by one of the leaders as a preliminary to the collection. When the boisterous mob became surfeited with noise and strong drink, the effigies were taken to a public square and committed to the flames. The chief offender in this annual absurdity in Connecticut was New London. For many years the rougher element there celebrated the 5th of November. The town authorities strove to abolish the custom. On December 27, 1768, the following vote was passed at a town meeting :
" Whereas, the custom that has of late years prevailed in this town of carrying about the Pope, in celebration of the 5th of November, has been attended with very bad consequences, and pregnant with mischief and much disorder, which therefore to prevent for the future, voted that every person or persons that shall be in any way connected in making or carrying about the same, or shall knowingly suffer the same to be made in their possessions, shall forfeit fifteen shillings to the town treasury of New London, to be recovered by the selectmen of said town for the use aforesaid."
Notwithstanding this vote the celebration was of annual occurrence, with few exceptions, for thirteen years after; and it was finally discontinued only
1 Prot. Plea for Priests, 1621.
2 J. G. Shea, in "U. S. Cath. Hist. Mag.," January, 1888 ; Caulkins' "Hist. of New London."
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THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN NEW ENGLAND.
when Washington, with characteristic liberality, issued a general order con- demning and forbidding the absurd custom in the army. His order is dated November 5th, and shows how much the Father of his Country towered above many of his fellows :
"As the Commander-in-Chief has been apprized of a design formed for the obser- vance of the ridiculous and childish custom of burning the effigy of the Pope, he cannot help expressing his surprise that there should be officers and soldiers in this army so void of common sense as not to see the impropriety of such a step at this juncture ; at a time when we are soliciting, and have really obtained the friendship and alliance of the people of Canada, whom we ought to consider as brethren embarked in the same cause- the defence of the liberty of America. At this juncture and under such circumstances, to be insulting their religion, is so monstrous as not to be suffered or excused ; indeed, instead of offering the most remote insult, it is our duty to address public thanks to these our brethren, as to them we are indebted for every late happy success over the common enemy in Canada."1
The colonies were then fighting valiantly for independence. Catholics and Protestants stood side by side in that struggle. Moreover, a powerful Catholic nation had sent money, ships and men to aid the revolutionary patriots to throw off the English yoke. Washington rose equal to the occa- sion and realized how utterly incongruous were such celebrations, and how offensive it would be to his Catholic allies.
The order of the Commander-in-Chief sounded the knell of Pope Day. It passed out of existence and soon became a memory. In New London the custom of annual processions was adhered to, but the traitor Benedict Arnold was substituted for the Pope, and publicly burned in effigy on the 6th of September, the anniversary of his sacking the city.
CHAPTER VI.
THE CONNECTICUT "OBSERVER " AND THE KNOW-NOTHINGS.
HOUGH the provisions of the State Constitution concerning religion were redolent of true progress, the spirit of bigotry still moved on apace. Not infrequently it showed itself in high places. It was nourished and strengthened by jealousy. It could not look with favor upon the spectacle of men worshiping God in accordance with the dictates of conscience. In the first quarter of the present century the signs indicated that Catholicity had come to stay. The descendants of the Puritans looked askance upon its develop- ment, and with characteristic illiberality forebode dire evils to the State. By cruel insinuations and by open accusations expressly manufactured for the purpose, they sought to influence the lowest passions of the human breast against their Catholic fellow-citizens. The Connecticut Observer was the self- appointed mouthpiece of this opposition, the chief offender in this crusade against a respectable body of persons, whose only offence was their profession of the Catholic religion. It was an active member of that class, so numerous in the early days, who apprehended grave dangers to the republic from the
1 Washington's Works, Vol. III., p. 144.
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DIOCESE OF HARTFORD.
introduction of the Catholic faith. In July, 1829, it gave vent to the feelings that were consuming it as follows :
" Romanism in Connecticut .- We understand that a Roman Catholic press has just arrived in this city ; whether sent by the institution propaganda de fide, or not, we are unable to say. How will it read in history, that in 1829, Hartford, in the State of Con- necticut, was made the centre of a Roman Catholic mission ?"
Bishop Fenwick was on a missionary trip to Hartford when this appeared, and in the initial number of the Catholic Press, picked up the gauntlet which the Rev. Mr. Hooker had thrown into the arena.
" The Catholic Press," said the Bishop, "had not yet issued its first number, when the above article was read in the Connecticut Observer of this day (July II, 1829). The editors take this early opportunity to thank the gentleman conducting that paper for the notice he has been pleased to take of the arrival of their Press ; and at the same time beg leave to answer the question sub- joined, viz .: 'How will it read in history, that in 1829, Hartford, in the State of Connecticut, was made the centre of a Roman Catholic mission ?' The editors of the Press assure him that it will read exceedingly well. They have it likewise in their power to state, that the Propaganda at Rome are in no inanner concerned in their Press-that the same was purchased with American money, and will be under the control of American talent." The Bishop then paid his compliments to the Rev. Editor of the Observer for his use of an offensive epithet thus : "What does the gentleman mean by the word Romanism ? Is it intended for a sneer ? If so, we shall let the matter rest with the gentleman's own sense of propriety. Or did he really believe that the word truly designated our religious profession ? If so, he may with great propriety say to himself in the language of Sallust : jam pridem amis- simus vera vocabula rerum." The Bishop's gentle answer turned not away the wrath of the Observer. It continued its offensive tirades, each article surpassing its predecessor in virulence. To the sapient Observer, Catholicity was synonymous with unpardonable error, gross ignorance and disloyalty. Its one object was the elimination of the church from Connecticut life. To this end were its energies directed, but with what success is now evident. Like all things human, the Observer has passed from existence, while the institu- tion it assailed still maintains its youthful vigor, glorious in the record of its achievements, and flourishing like the proverbial sweet bay tree.1
The anti-Catholic and un-American crusade conducted by the Connecticut Observer was continued with more or less acerbity by individuals and organ- izations, who cheated themselves into the belief that they had been invested
1 The following card was placarded in public places in Hartford on January 13, 1831: TO THE PUBLIC.
Be it known unto you far and near, that all Catholics, and all persons in favor of the Catholic Church are a set of vile imposters, liars, villians, and cowardly cut-throats. (Beware of false Doctrine).
I bid defiance to that villian-the Pope.
"A TRUE AMERICAN."
-The Catholic Press, January 22, 1831.
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THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN NEW ENGLAND.
with a mission to hamper the progress of Catholicity in the State. One organization in particular, very properly called the Know-Nothings' 1 were vio- lent enemies of Catholics and the Catholic church. Their platform was, "No quarter to Catholics ; " their slogan, "None but Americans on guard. to-night." One of their objects was to prevent Catholic citizens from holding office, and they sought to frame a law that foreign-born citizens should reside twenty-one years in the country before being invested with the privilege of franchise. The insensate rage of their predecessors against Catholics carried them to the extreme of burning churches and other Catholic buildings in Philadelphia and a convent in Charlestown, Massachusetts.2 Their hatred was particularly directed against defenceless women, Catholic nuns, those angels of mercy, whose tender ininistrations have soothed the final moments of thousands of Catholics and Protestants alike, and who have always commanded the profound respect and veneration of inen worthy of the
1 The Know-Nothings were the successors of the Native American party of 1844. Its ritual, was entitled "The Know-Nothing Ritual, or Constitution of the Grand Coun- cil of the United States. Adopted unanimously, June 17, 1856, the anniversary of the Battle of Bunker's Hill."
Article I. was as follows : " This organization shall be known by the nanie and title of the Grand Council of the United States of North America, and its jurisdiction and power shall extend to all the districts and territories of the United States of North America."
Article II. A person to become a member of any subordinate council must be twenty- one years of age ; he must believe in the existence of a Supreme Being as the Creator and Preserver of the universe ; he must bea native-born citizen, a Protestant, born of Protes- tant parents, reared under Protestant influence and not united in marriage with a Roman Catholic "
The objects of the organization were: " To resist the insidious policy of the Church of Rome and other foreign influence against the institutions of our country by placing in all offices in the gift of the people, or by appointment, none but native-born Protestant citizens."
THE OATH.
" You, and each of you, of your own free will and accord, in the presence of Almighty God and these witnesses, your right hand resting on this Holy Bible and cross, and your left hand raised toward heaven in token of your sincerity, do solemnly promise and swear that you will not make known to any person or persons any of the signs, secrets, mys- teries or objects of this organization ; . . . that you will in all things, political or social, comply with the will of the majority. . . You furthermore promise and declare that you will not vote, nor join your influence, for any man for any office in the gift of the people, unless he be an American-born citizen, in favor of Americans' born ruling Amer- ica, nor if he be a Roman Catholic ; and that you will not, under any circumstances, expose the name of any member of this order, nor reveal the existence of such an organi- zation. To all the foregoing you bind yourself under the no-less penalty than that of being expelled from this order, and of having your name posted and circulated through- out all the different Councils of the United States as a perjurer and as a traitor to God and your country, as a being unfit to be employed and trusted, countenanced or sup- ported in any business transaction, as a person unworthy of the confidence of all good men, and as one at whom the finger of scorn should ever be pointed. So help you, God."
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