USA > Indiana > History of the Catholic church in Indiana, Volume I > Part 3
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Brandon Hill, continues Bishop Healy, in his work entitled "Ireland's Ancient Schools and Scholars," rises over the ocean to the height of 3, 127 feet at the northwestern corner of the barony of Corcaguiny to the south of the bay of Tralee (Ireland). The entire promontory of Corcaguiny is one range of bare and lofty hills, at the extremity of which Mount Brandon rises as a huge detached cone overlooking the western ocean.
It was a daring thought to build his cell and oratory on the bare summit of this lone mountain, which is frequently covered with clouds and nearly always swept by the breezes that rise from the Atlantic ocean. But on a clear day the spectacle from its summit is one of sublime and unapproachable grandeur. All the bold hills and headlands from Arran to Kenmare, that go out to meet the waves, are visible from its summit. The rocky islets of the Skelligs and the Maherees are the sentinels that guard its base. Inland, the spectator can cast his gaze over half of the south of Ireland - mountain and valley. lake and stream, and plain and town, stretching far away to the east and south.
But the eye ever turns seaward to the grand panorama pre- sented by the ultimate ocean. No other such sea view can be had in the British islands; and St. Brendan, while dwelling on the mountain summit, saw it in all its varying moods -- at early morning, when the glory of the sun was first diffused over its wide reaches; at midnight, when the stars that swept round the pole fear to dip themselves in the baths of the ocean; at even-above all, at even - when the setting sun went to his home beyond the sea, and the
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line of light along the glowing west seemed a road of living gold to the "Fortunate Islands," where, supposedly, the sorrows of earth never enter, and peace and beauty forever dwell.
It was a dim tradition of man's lost paradise floating down the stream of time, for with curious unanimity the poets and sages of both Greece and Rome spoke of these Islands of the Blessed as located somewhere in the western ocean. The same idea, from earliest times, has taken strong hold of the Celtic imagination, and reveals itself in many strange tales which were extremely popu- lar, especially with the peasantry of the western coast.
To this day the existence of O'Brazil, an enchanted land of beauty, which is seen sometimes on the blue rim of the ocean, is very confidently believed in by the fishermen of the western coast. It is seen from Arran once every seven years, as St. Bren- dan saw it in olden times, like a fairy city on the horizon's verge-
And often now, amid the purple haze That evening breathed on the horizon's rim, Methought, as there I sought my wished-for home, I could descry, amid the water's green, Full many a diamond shrine and golden dome, And crystal palaces of dazzling sheen.
St. Brendan resolved to seek out in the far western sea a land which, for want of a better name, was spoken of by him among his brethren as the Promised Land, the Blessed Islands-a land known only in the legends, but which the saint and the scholars of his time figured out as of necessity having an actual existence. He therefore fasted with his brother-monks for forty days, and then, choosing fourteen of them to be his companions on his adventur- ous voyage, he made ready his ship, and, strengthened by the encouraging endorsement of his undertaking by St. Enda and others, he embarked .* .
For seven years he sailed the western wave and touched the eastern shores of this continent, not by accident, but through intent, his chief purpose being to confirm his calculations that there was land to the far west, and by discovering that land dis-
* See manuscript copies of his Seven Years' Voyages in the Atlantic Ocean, and Cardinal Moran's Latin Life of St. Brendan.
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prove the erroneous notion then held by even some of the learned of Europe and still accepted by the masses in the time of Colum- bus, a thousand years later, that the earth was flat, and that beyond the then unknown islands of the eastern Atlantic, the ultima thule, nothing existed but an interminable ocean, covered with cold fogs-the home of tempests and terrors and terrible sea monsters.
The return of St. Brendan, after seven years of voyaging, and the accounts which he gave of his discoveries, coupled with his re-enforced conclusion that the earth was a sphere and that the then debated and almost execrated doctrine of the antipodes was not only tenable, but a fact, caused to be noised abroad through- out Ireland, and also on the continent, particularly among the clergy and the scholars of that day, the fame of his voyages, his discoveries, and the proofs they afforded of his previous teachings against the false idea that the earth was flat, and that the con- demned antipodal doctrine was nevertheless true. Baldwin's "Prehistoric Nations," p. 401, as quoted by Dillon, says that an Irish scholar, on being summoned before Pope Zachary, in 748, charged with heresy on the subject of the antipodes, admitted the charge by declaring " that the Irish were accustomed to communi- cate with a trans-Atlantic world."
Tradition among the early Irish monks and scholars, and allusions by the Annalists,* invest the voyage and discoveries of St. Brendan with about equal shares of fact and fancy. The rea- son why the fact part was not more prominently set forth at the time, was not merely that the compass and the art of navigation, as we now understand them, were then unknown-thereby render- ing it impossible to give precise location of discovered countries, distances and the like exact information-but rather was it that anything tending to disprove the settled yet erroneous belief of the common people that the earth was an extended flat plain, and that the sun actually rose through a great opening in the east and descended through a like vast hole in the western ocean, would also serve to unsettle, if not completely destroy, the religious faith
*See Annals of Clonmacnois and of Ulster.
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of the people. To the minds of many religious teachers nothing, however worthy, could compensate for so great an evil.
Rather than openly, and without prospect of good, contradict the appareni fact, evidenced to the people daily by their sense of sight, that the sun rose and actually moved across the vault of heaven, and the scriptural fact that Joshua commanded that same sun to stand still in its course on a certain occasion, these mon- astic scholars, who preceded Galileo and Copernicus by centuries, fearing for the religious faith of the masses, spoke in whispers and behind closed doors of their scientific and practical belief in the rotundity of the earth, its revolution on its axis, and the evidences of such gained in part by the voyages and discoveries of St. Bren- dan and others. It is such considerations as these that account for the fact that much greater publicity was not given to the dis- covery of America by St. Brendan in the sixth century.
It can, therefore, be asserted as a truth that we do not have to wait until Columbus' day for a Catholic discoverer of this conti- nent. That first discoverer was not in the person of a Norseman, but, rather, in that of a pious Irish monk, who received both his secular and religious training and instructions from persons taught by St. Patrick himself, nearly one hundred years before.
Investigation which has recently been undertaken by some of the best scholars of Ireland, and which is backed by liberal patrons, will, it is hoped, bring into clearer light the truth of the claim, that St. Brendan the Navigator, an Irish monk and holy bishop, the founder of the see of Clonfert, Ireland, was the first discoverer of the American continent.
The subsequent discovery of the shores of this continent by the Norsemen in the year 1001 led to no practical results; it was reserved for Christopher Columbus, the renowned Genoese and ·devout Catholic,* to be, as he himself believed he was, the Provi-
*The term Catholic need not be, and it is not here, used in any boastful sense as characterizing Christopher Columbus as the recognized practical discoverer of this continent. It would be needless, and, to a degree, senseless, to thus employ or emphasize it; for, as late as the day of Columbus, 1492, Christianity was known under no other form than the Catholic form. It was not until a quarter of a cen- tury later, 1517, that what is now known as Protestant Christianity had its origin with Martin Luther, in Germany.
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dential instrument employed to the great end that this continent be brought within the elevating and civilizing influences of the Christian religion.
As far as subsequent practical results are concerned, no one can deny that Christopher Columbus was the real discoverer of America. The notable year of his great discovery, 1492, saw a whole continent added to the map of the world, and also the begin- ning of bright prospects for spreading the gospel of the Man-God in the newly discovered region.
It will not deprive the great Christopher Columbus of any just credit that may be due to him on account of his discovery of the western continent to here record the facts, not generally known, that, from a period long before the time of St. Brendan, in the sixth century, down almost to our own time, the religious orders in the Catholic church were the preservers of all kinds of knowledge and letters, both sacred and profane. The monasteries were the archives in which were stored the rich fruits of their labors and studies. There was intercommunication between monks of differ- ent monasteries not only in the same country but also between those of different countries, even between those of the west and those of the far east. St. Brendan was in communication with all the Irish monasteries, as well as with many outside; and represent- atives of these ancient schools going abroad to establish other schools or to' teach in those already in existence brought with them the story of St. Brendan's seven years' voyage and his dis- coveries and experiences. Hence in every monastery in Europe was recorded the voyage of the saint and the extent to which he had been able to demonstrate the rotundity of the earth, its diurnal and annual motions, and the physical facts deduced therefrom which at the time had weight in determining the teaching as to the antipodes.
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The monks of the convent of La Rabida, who took such deep interest in Christopher Columbus, and championed his cause before Queen Isabella, of Spain, knew well the prospects of success which were before him in his undertaking to find an all-water pass- age to the East Indies-to discover a new country. They knew, as Columbus knew, that land was to the far west-the land that
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St. Brendan saw. many centuries before. The Columbuses, the Cabots, the Vespuccis, and all the men of that period, 1492 to. 1520, who became famous through their voyages and discoveries- every one of them must have heard of the Irish navigator and learned from the sages of the monasteries the story of his seven years of seafaring. The astronomers and mathematicians among the monks, and even those of the laity, were a unit as to the doc- trine of the antipodes. The learned everywhere questioned and scouted the false notion that the earth was an extended plain with an impassable ocean hemming it in on one side, while fastnesses and mountains hedged it on the other. They knew and accurately demonstrated that it was a globe many generations before circum- navigation was an accomplished fact.
When, therefore, Isabella gave up her jewels and had them sold to aid Columbus in his preparations, she had assurances far beyond those which day-dreamers are accustomed to give. The scholars among the monks had given her proofs as to the prospects of success, and they reminded her of the stories, which for centuries had been told of St. Brendan. The same arguments that were used to induce Isabella to give up her trinkets were those which comforted Columbus with the hope of finding a new land. The only difference was that he was able to do the calculating himself, while she had some one to do it for her. In any case, neither Co- lumbus nor Isabella was much in the dark. Brendan had set up a beacon light on the other shore. He had indicated the direction in which to sail-he had staked out the way. Even if centuries had elapsed since Brendan's day, the story of his voyage and dis- covery was ever new. True, it had to be told in whispers and withheld from the ignorant lest they sink back into savagery and barbarism; but the facts were recorded in the monasteries and the majority of the monks were acquainted with them.
No matter what other motives may have been ascribed to Columbus as impelling him in his voyages-whether it was to determine the existence of an all-water route to India, or an itch for the possible discovery of other islands west of the Canaries with a view to please the Spanish sovereigns-Ferdinand and Isabella- it is certain that he had for a long time previously been convinced (28)
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that Asia or other lands inhabited by other people lay to the west- ward; and he felt a Providential impulse which, even in his fifty- sixth year, urged him-compelled him-to go thither over a track- less ocean, that, through his practical pathfinding, the religion of Christ might be brought to the people of that distant region. He himself in his letters tells us, in substance, that paving the way for the Christian missionary was the primary object he had in view in making the hazardous voyages, which no other man of his imnme- diate day dared undertake.
In keeping with the idea of Columbus, the Spanish explorers of the newly-found continent were always accompanied by priests of the Catholic church. These holy men often baptized whole companies of savages, preparing them for life beyond the cruel grave into which the military authorities but too often hurled them.
These brave leaders of the religious orders, Franciscans, Dominicans and Jesuits as they were, christianized the Indians, established missions and taught the natives the rudiments of agri- culture. They taught them to read and write, too-arts which the red men enjoyed through Catholic labor and liberality more than a hundred years before the Puritan had established himself upon the shores of New England. From the Atlantic coast across the coun- try to Mexico and to the Pacific, through what are now the states of Florida, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi, these holy and zeal- ous missionaries proceeded, cross in hand, often ending their untold trials and sufferings by death at the hands of the savage Indians, whom they labored so incessantly to save. For upwards of a hun- dred years after the discovery by Columbus the south and west were the vast territory explored, christianized and bettered by the Spanish missionaries only.
Following the good work thus accomplished in the south and. west, missionaries of the Jesuit and Recollect orders from France, about 1602, began their noble work at the mouth of the St. Law- rence river. They pressed forward, doing a vast amount of good and everywhere winning the hearts of the Indian tribes along the great lakes, across to the upper Mississippi and down that mighty stream to the gulf of Mexico.
The conclusion aimed at and to be drawn from an amplification
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of what is merely hinted at here is, that America is Catholic by discovery, by exploration, to a degree by defense and by the har- mony that exists between our political institutions and the genius of the church. The four corners of not only the country but the continent itself, bear the marks of Catholicity. Our oldest Amer- ican cities, the chief rivers of the country, and many of its great natural features bear the names of saints-men and women whose lives have been made glorious and illustrious by the practice of those virtues which the church proposes to her children everywhere and in every age. The Catholic church and her children are, therefore, no strangers in this "Land of the Free." The Catho- licity of the church, implying universality even as to place, pre- cludes its being an exotic anywhere, but more especially in this country-a land which it has reclaimed from the wastes of oblivion and from the nothingness of ignorance.
The pioneer forerunners or reclaimers, not to mention St. Brendan, Columbus or Amerigo Vespucci, were Ponce de Leon, the discoverer of what is now the state of Florida; Balboa, the discoverer of the Pacific ocean; De Soto, who discovered the lower Mississippi and first raised the cross in the country to the west of it, and Father Marquette, who discovered and explored the upper Mississippi; LaSalle, who, as a navigator and explorer, conquered the inland seas of America and opened them to a commerce which to-day is the wonder of the commercial world; Verazzani, who first entered New York bay, was as reliant upon the crucifix as upon the helin of his ship; Cortez, who opened the way to the civilization of our adjoining republic, Mexico, and the planting of the faith upon its soil; and Cartier and Champlain, whose names are associated with Canadian civilization, the one having named its great river after St. Lawrence, and the other, after discovering Lake Ontario and the territory so named, was subsequently himself honored by having the beautiful lake Champlain named after him. And thus, in the lives and works of such men and their numerous coreligion - ·ists, the Catholic faith and civilization were planted on these shores.
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CHAPTER II.
OBSTACLES TO THE SPREAD OF CATHOLICITY IN THE UNITED STATES -BRITISH PENAL LAWS FOLLOW CATHOLICS TO AMERICA- 1
CATHOLICS VS. PROTESTANTS FOR LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE.
FROM what has been outlined in the preceding pages-where it has been shown that to the Catholic church and her children are due the honor and credit of discovering, exploring and chris- tianizing this country, and even to a degree developing and defending it-one would conclude that the proscription of the Catholic religion in this land would be about the very last thing to be thought of by the colonists and early settlers or their descendants. But disappoint- ments follow, as a shadow the substance, in the wake of all human affairs, and it was so with the Catholic church in these early days, even in respect to its spirituality. It was proscribed by putting in force on this side of the Atlantic the infamous penal statutes with which England attempted the extirpation of Catholicity on British soil and in Ireland.
Lord Baltimore established civil with religious liberty in Mary- land in 1634. Our own Bancroft, the historian, says of it: "The Roman Catholics, who were oppressed by the laws of England, were sure to find a peaceful asylum in the quiet harbors of the Chesapeake, and there, too, Protestants were sheltered from Prot- estant intolerance." The first notable instance of protection for Protestants in Maryland was the reception of the Virginia Pur- itans, who were expelled from that colony in 1642; and a promi- nent instance of the bad faith and intolerance of the Puritans them- selves was the rebellion of these very men, heading a mob against the authority of Lord Baltimore and the Catholics just two years later.
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On the restoration of peace and order in 1664 by Gov. Cal- vert, who had arrived with a body of troops, the very first thing done by the general assembly, which was Catholic, was the passage of the Toleration act-"an act," says McSherry, " that must for- ever render memorable the founders and people of Maryland."
The bad faith shown by both Protestants and Puritans was not enough to prevent the great Catholic majority and the Catholic authorities from exhibiting their love for justice, the rights of con- science and humanity, in the passage of the act referred to, the words of which are as follows:
WHEREAS, The enforcing of conscience in matters of religion, hath fre- quently fallen out to be of dangerous consequence in those commonwealths where it has been practiced, and for the more quiet and peaceable government of this province, and the better to preserve mutual love and unity amongst the inhabit- ants; therefore, be it enacted, that no person whatsoever within this province, or the islands, ports, harbors, creeks or havens thereunto belonging, professing to believe in Jesus Christ, shall from henceforth be anyways troubled or molested, or discontenanced for, or in respect of, his or her religion, nor in the free exercise thereof within this province or the islands thereunto belonging, nor any way com- pelled to the belief or exercise of any other religion against his or her consent.
It was only five years after the passage of this memorable act when, opportunity offering, the Puritians, with aid from England, repealed the Toleration act, and substituted for it a decree deny- ing the protection of the law to Catholics and denouncing their faith and practices. *
It was in 1692 that a Protestant governor was given the place of Gov. Calvert, and the Anglican church and the penal code were established by law in Catholic Maryland. In 1704 a law was passed which, if the writer is not at fault in memory, was entitled " A law to prevent the increase of Popery." That law, together with kindred enactments, is thus summarized by the late John O'Kane Murray:
1. Catholic bishops and priests were forbidden to say mass, or in any way exercise their ministry.
2. Catholics were deprived of the elective franchise unless they renounced their faith.
3. Catholics were forbidden to teach.
* Oddities of Colonial Legislation .- Dillon-p. 39.
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4. Catholics were obliged to support the established ( Anglican ) church.
5. Catholics were forced to pay a double tax.
6. It was strongly recommended that "children were to be taken from the pernicious influence of popish parents."
7. A Catholic child, by becoming a Protestant, could exact his share of property from his parents, "as though they were dead ."
8. Catholic emigrants were forbidden to enter Maryland.
Except as to permission being granted to Catholics to assist at mass privately in their own homes, all these infamous laws- blotches upon the fair fame of Catholic Maryland-remained in force for full seventy years, or until the Revolution, when opportunity was offered that Catholics might redress their wrongs by aiding in patriotically and completely wresting the colonies from the control of brutal England.
Proscription of Catholics in New York found its full expres- sion in the assembly convoked in 1691, when it was decreed that all acts of the assembly of 1683, and those previous thereto favor- ing or tolerating Catholicity, were null and void. So well did the spirit of oppression and intolerance assert itself, that in 1696 only seven Catholic families could be found on the whole of Manhattan island. A colonial act of the year 1700 decreed that: (1) Any Catholic clergyman found within the limits of the colony of New York after November 1, 1700, should be "deemed an incendiary, an enemy of the Christian religion, and shall be adjudged to suffer perpetual imprisonment." (2) If a Catholic priest escaped from prison, and was retaken, he was to suffer death. (3) Any one harboring a priest was liable to be fined $1, 000, and to stand three - days on the pillory.
The following year, 1701, a law was passed by the same delectable authority in New York excluding Catholics from office and depriving them of the right to vote. In 1702 good Queen Ann granted liberty of conscience to all the inhabitants of New York, "Papists excepted." This was followed in 1718 by acts of the British parliament, having force in this country as well as in England, that for the apprehension of a Popish bishop, priest or Jesuit, $500 were offered as a reward, the conditions being that he be prosecuted until convicted of saying mass, or exercising any other function of a Popish bishop or priest. (2) "Any Popish
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bishop, priest or Jesuit" found saying mass or exercising any other part of his office was to be perpetually imprisoned. (3) Any Catholic convicted of keeping school, or educating youth, was to be perpetually imprisoned. (4) Any person sending his child abroad to be educated in the Catholic faith should be fined $500. (5) No Catholic could acquire title to lands.
The same spirit found sway in Virginia, the Carolinas, in Georgia, and throughout New England. It were safer.to be a wolf or a bear in nearly any community in this country previous to the Revolution than to be a Catholic.
If it be asked why this should be so, the answer is that the power and hateful dominion of England were back of it. From the days of lecherous Harry, but more particularly since William III, down to George III, when liberty became a mockery, the Catholics within the power of these monarchs were treated as if wild beasts, without rights, feelings or conscience. It was not enough to reduce them to the level of " hewers of wood and draw- ers of water," but they must be extirpated. Such was England's decree and such was the purpose of English bigots on the Amer- ican continent and among the early colonists, and such it is among England's emissaries in this country to-day.
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