USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The story of the Irish in Boston, together with biographical sketches of representative men and noted women > Part 13
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In 1873 the Italians and Portuguese resident in the North End were organized into a congregation, and a small Baptist meeting-
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house, on North Bennet street, bought, remodelled for Catholic use, and dedicated under the patronage of St. John the Baptist. This is now used by the Portuguese alone. They are under the pastoral charge of the Rev. N. Serpa. His predecessor, the Rev. Henry B. M. Hughes, missionary apostolic, established a parochial school for boys and girls, and placed it in charge of the Sisters of the Third Order of St. Dominic. Father Hughes was a Welsh convert, a man of great missionary enterprise and extraordinary linguistic attain- ments. He died in his native land, whither he had been missioned, about two years ago.
The rapidly increasing Italians were placed under the pastoral charge of the Franciscan Fathers, Father Boniface, now Provincial of the New York and New England Province, being at the head of the mission. The first Italian chapel bears the name of St. Leonard of Port Maurice. Another congregation has recently been organized by Father Francis Tzaboglio, general secretary of the Missionary Society for Italian Immigrants, with its chapel on Beverly street. Father Paroli, of the same society, is in charge of it.
In April, 1875, the Rev. James A. Healy, pastor of St. James' Church, Boston, was made Bishop of Portland, Me. He was suc- ceeded by his brother, the gifted and beloved Father Sherwood Healy, who died the same year. An interesting fact in connection with St. James' parish is that since its creation, in 1852, three of its pastors have become bishops; the third to be chosen for this dignity being the Rt. Rev. Matthew Harkins, who, in 1887, succeeded the late Bishop Hendricken in the diocese of Providence, R.I. During the pastorate of the Rev. Thomas Shahan, now at Arlington, Mass., schools were begun in this parish, -a work which the present rector, the Rev. W. P. McQuaid, is perfecting.
Pope Pius IX. erected Boston into an archdiocese in 1875, with Springfield, Mass., Hartford, Conn., Providence, R.I., Portland, Me., and Burlington, Vt. (the diocese of Manchester, N.H., was not established till 1884), as Suffragan Sees. The pallium was conferred on Archbishop Williams May 2, 1875, by Cardinal M'Closkey, Arch- bishop of New York. Bishop McNeirney, of Albany, celebrated the
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Mass; Bishop De Goesbriand, of Burlington, preached. All the bishops of New York and New England were present, with a multi- tude of priests, and the since celebrated Sanctuary Choir of the Cathedral - trained by Mlle. Gabrielle de la Motte - made its first appearance.
This year is also memorable for the passage of a bill in the Massachusetts Legislature, through the efforts of Senator Flatley and others, by which freedom of worship was guaranteed to the Catholic inmates of the penal, reformatory, and charitable institutions of the city. The first Catholic religious service was held in the chapel of the State Prison, Charlestown, on June 6, 1875, the Rev. William Byrne, pastor of St. Mary's, Charlestown, officiating.
Another notable event of the year was the religious and patri- otic celebration of the centenary of Daniel O'Connell, August 6, the Rev. Robert Fulton, S.J., being the orator at the commemoration at St. James' Church, in the morning, and John Boyle O'Reilly giving the poem, " A Nation's Test," at the festivities of the evening.
In 1876 the Redemptorist Fathers built the splendid Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, familiarly called the Mission Church, on Tremont street, Roxbury. These priests, whose Institute was founded in the last century by St. Alphonsus Liguori, were intro- duced into this country in 1841, by Archbishop Eccleston, of Balti- more, for the German Catholic missions of the United States. The American membership of the Congregation of the Most Holy Re- deemer has always been largely of German extraction, though the ubiquitous Irish race has been fairly represented in the ranks. The present rector of the Mission Church, Boston, the Rev. H. J. McInerney, is an Irishman. During the pastorate of his predeces- sor, the Rev. Joseph Henning, C.SS.R. (now rector of St. Patrick's Church, Toronto, Ont.), the Mission Church began to acquire a more than local celebrity through the remarkable, not to say miraculous, cures wrought at the shrine of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. The case of Miss Grace T. Hanley, daughter of Colonel Hanley, of Bos- ton, in 1883, is perhaps the most notable, and is commemorated by a bronze tablet in the wall of the Blessed Virgin's shrine. The
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Redemptorist Fathers are completing a magnificent parochial school, which will accommodate fifteen hundred pupils, and will be opened this year, with the School Sisters of Notre Dame, from Baltimore, as teachers. Two existing Boston Catholic schools of equal magnitude are St. Mary's, North End, built long ago by the Jesuits, and St. Ste- phen's, in the same section, just completed by the Rev. M. Moran.
The Rev. P. F. Lyndon, V.G., died April 18, 1878. He had been Vicar-General under both Bishops Fitzpatrick and Williams, and administrator of the diocese while the latter was attending the Vatican Council, 1869-70. His most important pastoral charges were SS. Peter and Paul's, South Boston, and St. Joseph's, West End. He enlarged St. Joseph's Church, and provided the rectory. He also built the Gate of Heaven Church, South Boston.
Father Lyndon's successor as Vicar-General was the Very Rev. William Byrne, then rector of St. Mary's, Charlestown.
Father Byrne was born in Dunsany, County Meath, Ireland, about fifty-four years ago. He made his classical studies chiefly in Ireland. He came to New York City in 1857 and after a short res- idence there, convinced of his vocation to the priesthood, repaired for his ecclesiastical studies to Mt. St. Mary's College, Emmettsburg, Md. He was ordained priest for the diocese of Boston in 1864. For some years preceding his ordination, and for a year thereafter, he was pro- fessor of mathematics and philosophy in the college. In 1865 he was recalled to Boston, and appointed successively, as heretofore stated, Chancellor, pastor of St. Mary's, Charlestown, and Vicar- General. In 1880 Father Byrne was prevailed upon to accept the presidency of his old-time Alma Mater, Mt. St. Mary's, Emmettsburg. This institution was in serious financial difficulties; it needed at its head a man of a hard-working, self-sacrificing disposition, clear judg- ment, and business ability, qualities which were already conspicuous in Father Byrne. After three years of his administration, the college found itself again in a prosperous condition, and Father Byrne re- turned to Boston, being succeeded at Mt. St. Mary's by another priest of the archdiocese of Boston, the Rev. Edward P. Allen. Father Byrne's success in freeing Mt. St. Mary's from its difficulties won
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for him the grateful consideration of the whole Church in America ; for that venerable college has had a most important and honorable part in her history. Over eighty years in existence, so many of its sons have been called to the honors of the Episcopate, that it is popu- larly named the " Mother of Bishops." There is not a diocese in the land that is not, or has not been at some time, represented in its seminary.
A few months after his return from Mt. St. Mary's, Father Byrne succeeded the Rev. William J. Daly (who died in Rome, De- cember, 1883) in the pastorate of St. Joseph's Church, West End, Boston.
Besides his distinctive work as Vicar-General of a great arch- diocese and rector of a populous city parish, Father Byrne has found time for much special service in the promotion of popular education and temperance reform. He founded, a few years ago, the Boston Temperance Missions. Associated with him was a band of prominent priests of the archdiocese, who went from church to church, on the invitation of the pastor, giving, for four successive evenings at each church, instructions on the causes of intemperance, its spiritual and temporal evils, and its remedies. These missions were highly successful, and set an example which has been followed in other dioceses.
Father Byrne was administrator of the archdiocese of Boston during Archbishop Williams' visits to Rome in 1883 and 1887. He represented the Archbishop in Rome at the Golden Jubilee of Pope Leo XIII., and was the recipient of distinguished favor and consideration from the Sovereign Pontiff. Returning from Rome, he visited his native Ireland. Here the fame of his efforts for Irish nationalism had preceded him, and he received from the leaders of the Irish Parliamentary Party, and Irishmen generally, an enthusiastic welcome. He was an honored guest at the St. Patrick's day banquet of 1888, in London, and made an impressive speech in response to the toast "The Irish in America." The following Easter he cele- brated Mass before an immense congregation in his old parish church at Dunsany, County Meath. Bishop Nulty, of Meath, gave
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a banquet in his honor, at which all the priests of the diocese were present, and at which the patriotic bishop praised in the warmest terms Father Byrne's eminent services to the Catholic faith and Irish nationalism. On his return to Boston the May following, the parish- ioners of St. Joseph's testified, by a memorable reception, their devo- tion to their cherished pastor.
Father Byrne has a faculty of terse and lucid expression both in speaking and writing. He contributed to the great " Memorial His- tory of Boston," published by Messrs. J. R. Osgood & Co., the chap- ter on "The Roman Catholic Church in Boston." During the latest phases of the school excitement in Boston he has several times been called upon to explain, in the secular press, the Catholic doctrine on certain controverted points, notably the much-misrepresented question of indulgences; and many misunderstandings have been cleared up, and much bad feeling dissipated, by his prudent, courteous, and clear manifestation of the Faith. By their invitation, he prepared a paper which was read before a meeting of the Universalist ministers of Bos- ton, last November, entitled " Aids to Practical Piety."
On May 10, 1879, St. Mary's Church, Charlestown, celebrated its fiftieth anniversary. Archbishop Williams celebrated the Pontifi- cal High Mass, and Bishop O'Reilly, of Springfield, preached. At a further celebration, the following day, the Rev. Richard J. Barry, now rector of St. Cecilia's, Back Bay, Boston, and the Very Rev. J. J. Power, V. G., of the diocese of Springfield, Mass., made ad- dresses.
The ranks of the priesthood in New England have received many accessions from old St. Mary's, Charlestown. This was the parish church of the Rt. Rev. Lawrence S. McMahon, now Bishop of Hartford, Conn., who used to serve Mass at its altar in his boy- hood. The present esteemed rector of the church, the Rev. John W. McMahon, is a brother of the bishop. Another old-time parish- ioner of St. Mary's is the Very Rev. John J. Power, Vicar-General of the diocese of Springfield, Mass.
On Feb. 20, 1880, the nuns of the Sacred Heart, a teaching order, devoted mainly to the higher education of girls, were intro-
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duced into Boston, and located their academy at Chester square. This order, founded in France, in 1800, came first to America in 1818, and has been marvellously popular and successful. Like all the other orders in this country, it has been largely recruited from among ladies of Irish birth or descent. Among them we may mention two nieces and a grandniece of the beloved Irish novelist and poet, Gerald Griffin; and in the Boston convent, a relative of the illustrious Irish patriot, Theobald Wolfe Tone. The new con- vent on Chester square was built in 1886. It is in charge of Madame Sarah T. Randall. The academy has an attendance of nearly one hundred pupils.
In the fall of 1884, the great work of the episcopate of Arch- bishop Williams, St. John's Ecclesiastical Seminary, Brighton, was completed. The seminary, a plain, substantial stone building, has beautiful grounds covering twenty-eight acres.
As it now stands it has accommodations for one hundred students. Later, a new wing will be erected for the students of philosophy. Then the theological students will have the exclusive use of the present building. The course includes two years' philos- ophy, with natural science, and four years' theology. The seminary is open primarily to candidates for the priesthood from the various dioceses of New England; but the candidates from other dioceses can also be received.
A word here of the very remarkable man who is president of the seminary. The Very Rev. John B. Hogan, S.S., D.D., is a native of Ireland, but received his ecclesiastical training and lived the greater part of his priestly life in the seminary of St. Sulpice, Paris. He re- fused bishoprics in his native land and in France, preferring to devote himself unreservedly to the great work of his order, - the training of priests for God's Church. When, at the request of Archbishop Williams, Father Hogan was sent by the Superior of the Sulpicians to found the Boston Seminary, there was sorrow throughout France. The well-known Irishman, Mr. J. P. Leonard, long resident in Paris, and a friend of the distinguished priest, wrote thus of him to the "Pilot " in July, 1885 : -
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For a quarter of a century as one of the Directors of St. Sulpice, Father Hogan was the friend and spiritual adviser of thousands of students who are now on the mission in different parts of France.
Nothing can equal their respect and affection for him. I have heard their feel- ings warmly expressed in Brittany, in Normandy, in the Orleanses, and the Bour- bones, in hospitals, and ambulances, and even on the field of battle. This will explain the outburst of sorrow, when the news of his departure became known.
Father Hogan is regretted not only by the clergy, who all knew and appreci- ated him, but in the higher circles of Parisian society, though he lived almost exclusively in the seminary, holding little intercourse with the lay world. Once, however, much against his will, he was forced to leave it, and this was during the terrible Commune, when his conduct was truly heroic, saving, perhaps, the semi- nary, and certainly many most important documents, from destruction. From his prison cell on the conciergerie, quite close to that formerly occupied by the unfor- tunate Marie Antoinette, he defied and browbeat the miserable imitators of her persecutors, narrowly escaping the fate of the Archbishop of Paris and the other hostages.
There is sorrow, too, among his own countrymen, for he was true to them and to his native land. Poor, suffering Ireland ever held the first place in his heart. In her dark hours, and they were many, he defended and served her, as many here know well, and none better than his old friend and constant admirer, J. P. LEONARD.
A pleasant incident in the history of the seminary was the assembling within its walls, January, 1888, of the priests of the arch- diocese, in witness of their affection and devotion for the founder, Archbishop Williams. Besides the testimonial to the Archbishop himself, his portrait-bust in bronze, the work of the sculptor, Mr. John Donoghue, was presented by the priests to the seminary. The projector of both testimonials was the Rev. Arthur J. Teeling, of Newburyport, Mass.
The development of the Parochial School System in Boston has also to be noted. We have seen its beginnings under Bishop Chev- erus and the Abbé Matignon. In this field, Boston Catholics, and indeed New England Catholics as a body, have had to work against difficulties not experienced in the same degree by their fellow-relig- ionists in other parts of the United States. Here the general preju- dice against the Catholic Church has been special and intense against the Catholic schools. Protestant ignorance or misunderstanding of the real point at issue, must account for this; for the principle of
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religion in education, which the Church has ever maintained, and which Catholics, as far as possible, carry out, was the very corner- stone of the New England public-school system. Up to 1859 the public schools of Boston, though professedly non-sectarian, and only used by the Catholics as such in absence of Catholic schools, were practically Protestant. Though more nearly conformed to the non- sectarian profession to-day, the Catholic children, who still form at least half the attendance, are by no means secured against assaults on their faith; and Catholic parents, who in any event prefer a relig- ous education to the best possible merely secular system, are building up steadily, at great personal sacrifice, their own schools.
The decree of the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore in 1884, which emphasized the mind of the Church and the indispensable duty of American Catholics in regard to the establishment of parochial schools, naturally gave a great impetus to school building. Some of the largest and best in Boston have been erected since that date.
Catholic activity in this direction excited the wrath of certain Protestants to such a degree that a bill ostensibly for " the inspection of private schools," but actually intended for the embarrassment, or even repression, of Catholic schools, was introduced into the Massa- chusetts Legislature, in January, 1888.
This bill was framed on the majority report of the joint special committee of the Massachusetts Legislature of 1887, on the employ- ment and schooling of children. Its supporters professed to be moved by a fear that the education given in private schools was not equal to that given in the public schools; and that the welfare of the children and the safety of the Commonwealth would be en- dangered if the private schools, to whose foundation and maintenance the State has contributed nothing, were not compelled to open their doors and submit teachers and pupils to the inspection and exami- nation of officials for the most part hostile to their very existence.
Opposed to this bill was the able minority report of the same committee, presented by Representative Michael J. McEttrick. Said report protested against the proposed State inspection as an in- terference with the natural right of parents and the constitutional
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right of American citizens. On these lines the bill was fought in five successive hearings before the Committee on Education of the Massachusetts Legislature, and all the bigots and cranks in Boston and its neighborhood, led by the Rev. Joseph Cook and the Rev. A. A. Miner, D.D., advocated the bill. Ranged with the Catholics in opposition to it were such men as President Eliot, of Harvard University; Col. Thomas Wentworth Higginson, of Cambridge; the Rev. Edward Everett Hale, and Gen. Francis Walker. Charles F. Donnelly, Esq., represented the Catholic schools with con- spicuous ability and dignity. The bill was defeated, and the dis- cussion had the good effect of concentrating national attention on the well-defined attitude of the Catholics on the education question, and of bringing out strongly the fact that many thoughtful Protestants share the Catholic conviction of the necessity of religion in edu- cation.
In the wake of the State Inspection Bill came the now historic episode in the school controversy, - the calumnious definition of the Catholic doctrine of indulgences by Master Charles B. Travis, of the English High School, Boston, before his history class, in which there were a number of Catholic pupils. Master Travis asserted that the Catholic doctrine of indulgences means a permission to commit sin, sometimes bought with money, and illustrated the asser- tion by the further statement that in a Catholic country a murderer brought before a judge would be liberated by showing his indulgence papers.
A Catholic pupil earnestly objected to this infamous calumny of Catholic doctrine; whereupon the professor replied that he would hold to his opinion, though the pupil was free to hold his own.
The incident was made public, but the teacher's name and the name of the school were charitably withheld, in the hope that the case would be promptly investigated, and the offender brought, at least, to an apology; but within a few days the lie was reiterated in the most insulting manner. Thereupon the Rev. Theodore A. Metcalf, rector of the Gate of Heaven Church, South Boston, to whose parish the pupil above mentioned belonged, made a formal complaint to the
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Boston School Committee. Master Travis, called to account, de- fended himself on the plea that he followed this foot-note in his text- book, " Swinton's Outlines of History."1 Later, the Committee on Text-Books, composed of three Protestants and two Catholics, the Rev. Dr. Duryea, G. B. Swasey, E. C. Carrigan, Judge J. D. Fallon, and Dr. J. G. Blake, in their annual revision of text-books, pro- nounced the book inaccurate not only on Catholic matters, but in other respects, and ordered it dropped. In this decision the Committee on High Schools, Dr. J. G. Blake, chairman, to whom Father Metcalf's complaint was referred, concurred, censured the action of Master Travis, and recommended his transfer to some other office in the High School than that for which he had shown himself so grossly unfitted. The School Committee accepted the report and adopted the recommendations. Chroniclers of this episode should note, however, that Father Metcalf never asked either for the exclusion of " Swinton's Outlines " from the school nor the exclusion of Master Travis from the professorship of history, nor uttered one word of attack of the public-school system ; but simply appealed, in exercise of his citizen- right, to the School Committee to take measures to prevent the rep- etition by a teacher of statements inconsistent with non-sectarian teaching.
This decision furnished to the anti-Catholic leaders a pretext for the incitement of the prejudices and ignorant fears which, in an earlier stage of Boston's history, had found expression in church- wrecking and convent-burning. Sunday after Sunday, Music Hall, Tremont Temple, and certain other Protestant places of worship rang with abuse and defamation of all things Catholic. It is true that the more refined and educated non-Catholic element had no part in this assault on their fellow-citizens of a different faith, and that so eminent a Protestant historian as Professor Fisher, of Yale College, publicly denounced as an atrocious scandal the assertion
1 " These indulgences were, in the early ages of the church, remissions of the penances imposed upon persons whose sins had brought scandal on the community. But in process of time they were represented as actual pardons of guilt, and the purchaser of indulgences was said to be delivered from all his sins."
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that the Catholic Church ever taught that the forgiveness of sins can be bought with money. A Protestant association, called the Evan- gelical Alliance, formally petitioned the Boston School Committee for the restoration of "Swinton's Outlines " and the reinstatement of Master Travis. The petition was denied. Then the religious issue was introduced into the campaign preceding the municipal elections of Dec. II, 1888. A peculiar element in this campaign was . the interference of a secret society known as the Committee of One Hundred, pledged to make aggressive war on the Catholics.
In Boston, women have the right to vote for members of the School Committee. The Protestant women, excited by the frenzied appeals of ministers and politicians to save the schools, and Ameri- can institutions generally, " from the Jesuits," etc., voted in great numbers. Some Catholic women also voted, believing that the emer- gency justified them in overcoming their natural aversion to entering the field of political action. But the majority of the Catholic women felt that, in the long run, they were better serving the cause of justice by abstaining from the suffrage. The election resulted in the defeat of every candidate of the Catholic faith, or supposed to be favorable to equitable dealing with Catholics. The Catholic membership of the School Committee was reduced to eight, and this in a city whose population is more than half Catholic.
In the spring of 1889 another bill for the State inspection of private schools was introduced into the Massachusetts Legislature. The bill was framed by the Rev. Samuel L. Gracey, of Salem, and most actively pushed by representatives of the Committee of One Hundred. The bill of the preceding year was conciliation itself in comparison with this, which, however, had the merit of throwing off all hypocrisy, and being, what it has been justly styled, an Anti- Catholic School Bill. It was aimed directly at the rights of Catho- lic parents and citizens, and, if carried into effect, would deprive these of freedom of conscience, and even of freedom of speech. This is the bill, as introduced before the Committee on Educa- tion : -
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