USA > Indiana > History of the Catholic church in Indiana, Volume I > Part 4
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But the Revolution, which called forth the Declaration of Independence in 1776, constrained the continental congress in 1774 to pronounce in favor of the broadest toleration in religion. In other words the Protestants and Puritans were very willing to obey the king and the parliament in oppressing Catholics, but just as soon as oppression began to be visited upon themselves they were very willing to look to these same Catholics for help against the very power which they themselves obeyed in efforts to crush out both the Catholics and their faith.
From the day of the achievement of the independence of this country-a noble work in which Catholics took a most prominent and decided part-down to our own time, the spirits of William of Orange, of the good Queen Ann and of George III have been cropping out whenever opportunity offered. While the national constitution may declare, that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free (34)
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exercise thereof," yet we know that several of the states have continued to keep alive the proscriptive spirit of the English penal statutes. We also know that both societies and individuals who. have been inoculated with the virus of prejudice and religious big- otry, from time to time, in our day, allow themselves to riot in their day-dream of extirpating the Catholic faith and all profess- ors of the same. The days of know-nothingism, the times of burning Catholic churches and convents, and the more modern but well-recognized cry of the A. P. A., all tell the same story of intolerance, bigotry, false witness and religious rancor.
Speaking along this line of thought in 1790, Archbishop Car- roll said: "Having renounced subjection to England, the Ameri- can states found it necessary to form new constitutions for their future government, and happily a free toleration of religion was. made a fundamental point in all these new constitutions; and in many of them, not only a toleration was decreed, but also a per- fect equality of civil rights for persons of every Christian profes- sion. In some, indeed, the yet unextinguished spirit of prejudice and intolerance excluded Catholics from this equality.
"Many reasons concurred to produce this happy and just article in the new constitutions: (1) Some of the leading characters in the direction of American councils were, by principle, averse to all religious oppression; and having been much acquainted with the manners and doctrines of Roman Catholics, represented strongly the injustice of excluding them from any civil rights. (2) Catholics concurred as generally, and with equal zeal, in repelling that oppression which first produced the hostilities with Great Britain; and it would have been impolitic as well as unjust to deprive them of a common share of advantages purchased with common danger and united exertions. (3) The assistance, or at least the neutrality, of Canada was deemed necessary to the success of the United States; and to give equal rights to Roman Catholics might tend to. dispose the Canadians favorably to the American cause. Lastly, France began to show a disposition to befriend the United States, and it was conceived to be very impolitic to disgust that powerful kingdom by unjust severities against the religion which it professed."
While on the surface the religious liberty feature may have (35)
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been carried out, yet the equality feature, touching civil rights, was not recognized until comparatively recently in several of the states. In New Hampshire, down until 1878, it was required by the con- stitution of that state that every member of the house of representa- tives, and also of the state senate, should be of the Protestant religion. The governor of the state must also be a Protestant. None other than Protestants were eligible to office. In the state of New York, civil rights were accorded to Catholics only as late as 1806; in Massachusetts, in 1821; in Virginia, 1830; in New Jersey, 1844; while, in contrast with these, all the states in which Catholics were the original proprietors, such as Florida, Louisiana, Texas, Indiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Maine, Missouri, Arkansas, Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin and California, solemn treaties guaran- teed both civil rights and the free exercise of religion and perfect liberty of conscience. Without any intention to compare Catho- licity with Protestantism in these respects, the comparison, never- theless, suggests itself -thrusts itself forward, because of the facts.
When the local laws of a state are out of sympathy with the general spirit of the national constitution, the inharmony so strikes the citizen that he inquires and investigates. If he is intelligent and fair-minded, he sees the drift of affairs, and both his sympathy and his sense of justice are appealed to in the interests of the citi- zens who are discriminated against. It is this way that the several states have been compelled to wipe out from their statute books every discriminating and proscriptive law that, from early colonial days, existed against Catholics. It was a slow process, it is true, but if slow it was sure as fate itself. It was bound to come when- ever English power waned in this country.
This tendency in the public mind began to show itself, as we have seen, as early as 1774, and doubtless for the reasons assigned in the extract we have made from the writings of Bishop Carroll, wherein it is implied that aside from there being fair-minded men among the colonists there was intelligence enough among the leaders to recognize the fact that the Catholic church, although robbed and outlawed in England and Germany, was nevertheless a great power in the temporal world, and that it would not be wise to continue to proscribe it on the American continent, especially in
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view of the struggle for liberty which the colonists were making against England.
Canada was largely Catholic at the time, and if her co-opera- tion was not to be had, her ill will might be averted by fair treat- ment of Catholics among the colonists. France was Catholic and the colonists were looking to that kingdom for the assistance which they afterward received. Spain, too, was Catholic, and its assistance for the work of colonial independence was extended and accepted, as was that also of Catholic Poland.
Then there were the prominent Catholics in both the army and navy, and high in the councils of the rebels. Charles Carroll of Carrollton signed the Declaration of Independence. Commander Jeremiah O'Brien fought the first naval battle of the Revolution, May 11, 1775, in Machias Bay, Maine, in which he captured two British ships. It was Commodore John Barry who earned the title of " Father of the American Navy," and who was the instructor of his able successors, Murray, Decatur, Dale and Stewart. Beside the Moylans, the Barrys, the O'Briens, the Carrolls and thousands of other Catholics prominent in the Revolutionary struggle, there were also LaFayette, Pulaski, Kosciusko and other foreign Catho- lics who were on the side of liberty. All the Catholics among the colonists were a unit against England and entered the continental army whole-hearted for the cause of liberty. There was not an Arnold to be found amongst them, no, not even a skulker or a coward. So well esteemed were Catholics in the hour of need, that even on the roster of the "Life Guard " of Gen. Washington we find such names as those of Thomas Gillen, Jeremiah Driscoll, S. Daily, Charles Dougherty, William Hennessy, Dennis Mori- arty, James Hughes and others.
When, therefore, Gen. Washington finding in the camp at Boston some preparations to continue the old, silly custom of burning the Pope in effigy, he wrote the following order, bearing ·date November 5, 1775:
"As the commander-in-chief has been apprised of a design formed for the observance of that ridiculous and childish custom of burning the effigy of the Pope, he cannot help expressing his sur- prise that there should be officers and soldiers in the army so void
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of common sense as not to see the impropriety of such a step. * * It 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 our (Catholic) brethren, as to them we are indebted for every late success over the common enemy in Canada."
Many things occurred in Revolutionary times which had a very salutary effect upon bigots generally. Instead of burning the Pope in effigy at Boston, in 1775, three years later, 1778, the entire town council assisted at Catholic funeral services over the body of a French officer, and marched in procession through the streets, the procession being headed by a large cross, and the priests wearing all the regalia of théir office and station as proper for the occasion. But these things were the rare exceptions to the general practice of proscribing both Catholicity and Catholics.
As an everlasting rebuke to the infamy of both the British government and its emissaries in this country stand the charter regulations, the assembly acts and decrees, by which the right to worship God according to the ancient and Catholic form was denied to all professors and adherents of the Catholic faith. The late John B. Dillon, in his work entitled "Oddities of Colonial Legislation," sets forth these infamous enactments against Cath- olics and freedom of conscience, as if to help burn in deeper the disgrace and odium which must forever attach to a people and a nation that could subscribe to or enforce them. We quote extracts from Dillon as follows:
Liberty of Conscience in Georgia-1732-Extract from the charter granted by George II on the 9th of June, 1732, for the province of Georgia:
" We do, by these presents, for us, our heirs and successors, grant, establish and ordain, that forever hereafter there shall be a liberty of conscience allowed in the worship of God to all persons inhabiting, or which shall inhabit, or be resident within our said province, and that all such persons, except papists, shall have a free exercise of religion."
Concerning Jesuits in Massachusetts -- 1647-It is ordered and enacted by authority of this court, that no Jesuit or spiritual or ecclesiastical person (as they are termed) ordained by the. authority of the Pope or see of Rome, shall hence- forth at any time repair to or come within this jurisdiction; and if any person shall give just cause of suspicion that he is one of such society or order, he shall be brought before some of the magistrates, and, if he cannot free himself of such suspicion, he shall be committed to prison or bound over to the next court of assistants, to be tried and proceeded with, by banishment or otherwise, as the
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court shall see cause. And if any person so banished be taken the second time within this jurisdiction, upon lawful trial and conviction, he shall be put to death; provided, this law shall not extend to any such Jesuit, spiritual or ecclesi- astical person, as shall be cast upon our shores by shipwreck or other accident, so' as he continue no longer than till he may have opportunity of passage for his- departure * *
Liberty of Conscience in Massachusetts-1696-The William and Mary charter for Massachusetts bay in New England, granted on the 3d of October, in the seventh year of their reign, has the following among its provisions:
" We do, by these presents, grant, establish and ordain, that forever here- after there shall be a liberty of conscience allowed in the worship of God to all Christians (except papists) inhabiting, or which shall inhabit or be resident within our said province or territory."
An Act against Jesuits and Popish Priests in New York, passed July 31, 1700 .- Be it enacted by his excellency, the governor, council and representatives con- vened in general assembly, and it is hereby enacted by the authority of the same, that all and every Jesuit and seminary priest, missionary, or other spiritual or ecclesiastical person, made or ordained by any authority, power or jurisdiction , derived, challenged or pretended from the Pope or see of Rome, now residing within this province, or any part thereof, shall depart from and out of the same at or before the first day of November next, in the present year, seventeen hundred.
And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that all and every Jesuit, seminary priest, missionary, or other spiritual or ecclesiastical person, made or ordained by any authority, power or jurisdiction, derived, challenged or pre- tended from the Pope or see of Rome, or that shall profess himself, or otherwise appear to be such, by preaching and teaching of others to say any popish prayers, by celebrating masses, granting of absolutions, or using any other of the Romish ceremonies and rites of worship, by what name, title or degree soever, such person shall be called or known, who shall continue, abide, remain, or come into this province, or any part thereof, after the first day of November aforesaid, shall be deemed and accounted an incendiary and disturber of the public peace and safety, and an enemy to the true Christian religion, and shall be adjudged to suffer perpetual imprisonment; and if any person, being so sentenced, and actually imprisoned, shall break prison and make his escape, and be afterward retaken, he shall suffer such pains of death, penalties and forfeitures as in cases of felony. -[Laws of New York (published according to act of general assembly, 1752) PP. 37,38.]
Freedom of Conscience in New Jersey, 1698 .- That no person or persons * * shall at any time be any way molested, punished or disturbed, * * * Provided, this shall not extend to any of the Romish religion, * * *
In good Queen Ann's instructions to Lord Cornbury, New Jersey, 1702, is found the following:
You are to permit a liberty of conscience to all persons (except papists), so they may be contented with a quiet and peaceable enjoyment of the same * * * Liberty of Conscience in New Hampshire, 1680 .- Charles II, commissioning John Cutts president of the council for the province of New Hampshire, among
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other things, charges him that, " for the greater ease and satisfaction of our said loving subjects, in matters of religion, we hereby will, require and command, that liberty of conscience shall be allowed unto all Protestants, and that such especially as shall be conformable to the rites of the Church of England shall be particularly countenanced and encouraged." -- [Laws of New Hampshire, P. 4.]
In Virginia, 1641, the assembly enacted "that no popish recusant should at any time hereafter exercise the place or places of secret counselors, registers, commissioners, surveyors or sheriffs or any other public place, but be utterly disabled for the same." *
From such a state of morals and conscience touching liberty of thought and act as obtained among the early settlers and their descendants, and without further reference to laws that now cause men to blush for humanity's sake, it can be seen at a glance, how difficult was the work which the priests of the Catholic church were called upon to perform. The minds of the people were depraved; the eccentricities of old age or the results of disease were often called witchcraft, which was punished by death; it was thought to be a sacred duty to either banish a Catholic priest, or kill him if he persisted in remaining in the habitations of some of the early colonists.
When the masses were called upon to enforce the behests of corrupt kings and queens they in time became corrupt and brutal themselves, holding, as they did, to the divine right of kings to rule both body and soul as they willed. Ignorance and the lowest order of superstition prevailed, and to-day we are still feeling the effects of such. We can see the people still wearing the brand that was burned into the hearts and souls of their ancestors. |
How to efface that brand; how to educate the heart and the
* It should be understood that John B. Dillon, from whom we quote the above, while not a Catholic, was a painstaking and accurate historian, whose veracity, as such, has never been called in question. He was for many years a well-known and highly respected citizen of the city of Indianapolis.
t The case of Father Weinzoepfel, of Indiana, referred to in Chapter IV of this book, where prosecution meant persecution, is an illustration of the evil effects of the growth of bigotry and intolerance as developed from the seeds sown by Eng- land's agents among the colonists. The masses of the non-Catholic people were taught to hate both the Catholic church and her priests. That hatred grew strong from what it fed upon, ignorance, and the year 1843 in Indiana witnessed not the burning of churches and convents as at Charlestown and Philadelphia, but a trumped up, perjured, proceeding against a priest with a view to destroy him and also additionally inflame the people against Catholicity.
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head; how to bring these benighted people to a knowledge of the truth, was the work, in part, not only of the missionaries to the Indians, but also of those missionaries who, when the red man was fading from view, had to deal with the very men who murdered and robbed the aborigines. That was the work needful to be done in pre-Revolution days, and it was the work which the early mis- sionaries in the western wilderness had to do, and which their suc- cessors down to this day have to do in the fulfillment of their mission.
With the effect still felt of laws either imported from England or enacted by the several colonial and provincial assemblies against the Catholic religion, and with prejudice in the heart against its pure teachings, what but almost insurmountable difficulties con- fronted even the zealous priests who ministered to scattered human- ity in the Northwest territory, or in the early days of Indiana!
With Catholicity tabooed in the east and south, and wherever the British were in the ascendant, proscribed and maligned; with few priests to minister to those of the faithful scattered over thou- sands of miles of territory; with every inducement, including natural inclination, to give up both the faith and practice of the church, the task of laboring to revive in these parts the spirit of the Cath- olic religion, even as late as the beginning of the nineteenth cen- tury, must have been of no avail unless aided by supernatural power.
That that power was present aiding the priests of the Catholic church is evidenced by the church's triumph and by the promise: " Behold I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world." It is also manifest from the fact that while there yet obtains among non-Catholics a degree of ignorance and prejudice, there is nevertheless a modicum of enlightenment which begets inquiry. And when this stage is reached the teachers of the ancient faith know that fact and reason, aided by grace, will give them the victory. "Seek and you shall find,"' to their minds, is. still a truth being realized every day.
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CHAPTER III.
EARLY PASTORS-PAPAL BULL CREATING DIOCESE OF VINCENNES- CONSECRATION AND INSTALLATION OF BISHOP BRUTE-HIS FIRST PASTORAL LETTER.
Po OST or Fort Vincennes, or, as we now know it, the city of Vincennes, Ind., from which the diocese of Vincennes was given its name, was itself so-styled, according to Dr. R. H. Clarke, "from a gallant French officer who was murdered there in 1736, in the same massacre, side by side, with the martyred Father Senat."
The post, or fort, was built in 1702, and a Jesuit priest, who accompanied the French soldiers, who formed the expedition to that point, offered up the first mass that was celebrated on the Wabash river, or, perhaps, in Indiana. At least it was the first. mass of which there is any evidence remaining, although itinerant priests are said to have performed their sacred functions at or near the place now called Vincennes as early as the year 1660, and at what is now Fort Wayne, Ind., in the year 1676, or four years before La Salle came.
The territory, which subsequently comprised the Vincennes diocese, was then within the jurisdiction of the bishop of Quebec, Canada, who in 1770 he sent his newly-appointed vicar-general, in the person of Father Gibault, to visit the Illinois territory, and Vincennes, particularly, and look after the spiritual wants of the French and Indian Catholics of that section. Father Gibault continued his occasional visits for several years, zealously exerting himself to keep alive the faith of the people.
In 1778, at a critical period in the history of the country, he made one of his periodical visits, and remained two weeks, during (42)
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which time he, having previously consulted with Gen. George Rogers Clark, induced the Catholics, who constituted almost the whole population, to declare in favor of the United States, as against England. In fact, he himself administered the oath of allegiance to them in the rude, unfinished church of St. Francis Xavier, which subsequently became the cathedral church of the diocese .* In 1785 he became the resident pastor, but was recalled three years after, leaving the church to be guarded by a Mr. Mallet, who continued to care for the property until the arrival, in 1792, of Father Flaget with authority, not from the bishop of Quebec, but from Bishop Carroll, of Baltimore, who had been appointed bishop in 1790.
"THE PATRIOT PRIEST OF THE WEST."
Here it is proper to speak of Very Rev. Father Gibault, for of all the men who, in' early days in Indiana, made history in the performance of duty, surely he was the most prominent.
His character was such that, notwithstanding his name and that of his mother, Mary St. Jean, he was always regarded even by the English as an Irishman by descent. He was generous, impulsive, devoted to duty and to friends, and was brave in a higher sense than the mere physical.
He was born at Montreal, Canada, April 7, 1737; was ordained priest at Quebec, March 19, 1768, and died early in 1804, after devoting thirty-six years of his life to the church and to humanity and liberty. Some say he died at New Madrid, while others say he died in Canada and that his burial place is known there. He was too much of an American to die in Canada.
After ordination he at once entered upon his missionary labors, having been sent by Bishop Briand, of Quebec, with powers as his vicar-general, to bestir the faith of the French and Indian Catho- lics in the Northwest Territory and to regulate the temporalities of the various mission stations.
The church records at Quebec show letters from Father Gibault to Bishop Briand, evidencing that his first mission, 1768,
* Indiana thereby became subject to the commonwealth of Virginia, which publicly thanked Fra. Gibault.
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was at Michilimachinac, now in the state of Michigan; his second, also 1768, was Kaskaskia, now in the state of Illinois, and his- third was Vincennes, Indiana, which place he visited in 1770. His authority extended from Mackinac in the north, to the Ohio river in the south, and west to the Mississippi and beyond. During six years of hard work he visited all the missions, and in 1775 returned to Canada for a short rest.
This rest was indeed short, for, in 1776, we find him back again at his labors, beginning at Mackinac, passing on to Detroit and reaching Kaskaskia in the fall of that year, where he contin- ued to have his headquarters.
In this connection it will not be necessary to follow him in detail on the mission in his very large parish of thousands of miles. in extent. What we deem happiest to mention here is the great fact that, were it not for Father Gibault, the states of Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota-all carved out of the Northwest Territory-might not to-day be smiling beneath the folds of the starry banner.
It was Father Gibault who, in 1778, enthused the people of Vincennes and actually administered to them the oath of allegiance to the government of the United States. This was the year before Gen. Clark captured the post from Gov. Hamilton. in 1779. Clark's bloodless capture of Kaskaskia was also arranged for by Father Gibault in 1778, and he even went farther in aid of the American cause, for he furnished two companies of the Catholic men of his parish, under the commands of Capts. McCay and Charleville, to aid Gen. Clark in the capture of Vincennes. In fact, Father Gibault had paved the way for the Americans by explain- ing to the people of his missions the issues which caused the war between England and the Americans, and he further seasoned his explanations by telling his Catholic adherents the story of British penal laws and persecutions looking to the extirpation of the Catholic religion.
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