USA > Maine > The Catholic church in Maine > Part 21
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This increase of Catholics in Maine can be traced to the im- migration of the Irish and French-Canadians, two racial groups with large family traditions, who constituted the first and second phases of what is known as the second colonization of New England. The Irish, as we know, predominated in the decades prior to the Civil War, and although they con- tinued to arrive during the post-war decades, they were out- numbered by the French-Canadians. The flood of French- Canadians into New England started with the Civil War and the flow continued during the year of Healy's episcopacy. They moved into the mill towns of Maine where they labored for Yankee owners of textile and shoe factories. Some of these immigrants did not come with the intent of establishing permanent residences and hence there was much travelling back and forth across the Maine-Canadian border. This was one reason why Healy found it impossible to estimate the Catholics of his diocese. But the great majority remained, and by the early 1890's there were an estimated 52,986 French- Canadians in Maine.
1 "The Increase of Divorce," Century I (January, 1882), 411-420.
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Not all of them lived in the textile towns. From the start the Madawaskans, numbering 16,000 at the turn of the century, gave some balance between factory and farm life, and after the 1893 depression many of the unemployed drifted to the abandoned Yankee farms. Wherever they went in sufficient numbers, however, they followed a similar pattern of life. The Quebec family and parish life were transferred to Maine's towns and cities - a closely knit community built around their parish church, the presbytery, the parochial school and convent; intent on preserving their language and customs along with their faith, they isolated themselves from the main currents of the town's life and also from the Irish Catholics of the locality. But at the end of the century the two immigrant groups had written new chapters in the history of the diocese of Portland.
The impact of the French-Canadians on the diocese of Port- land is best underscored by recalling the growth of religious congregations under Bishop Healy. Much of this growth derived from parish life. When Healy arrived in Portland there was, as we know, only one group of Sisters in Maine and no group of religious men. The Sisters of Mercy were estab- lished in seven communities by 1900: in Portland, Bangor, Biddeford, Calais, Oldtown, and the two Indian reservations, and, with the exception of these two latter places, these Sisters worked in institutions of what were called Irish parishes. When Healy died there were ten orders or congregations of religious women in Maine. The Sisters of the Congregation of Notre Dame were in Lewiston (1881), the sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary were in Biddeford (1885), the Ursulines were in Waterville (1888) and Augusta (1892), the Sisters of Charity in Lewiston (1888), the Little Sisters of Mary in Wallagrass (1888), the Daughters of Our Lady of Sion in Lewiston (1891), the Sisters of the Presentation in Westbrook (1894), the Sisters of the Holy Family in Van Buren (1894), and the Sisters of the Rosary in St. Luce (1895) and Frenchville (1900). All these were French-speaking groups and all, with one exception, were invited to work in French parishes. The one exception
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was the Notre Dame Sisters who had returned to Maine after their hasty departure under Bacon. They returned to care for the education of the children of St. Joseph's parish in Lewiston at the invitation of Father Wallace and the approval, of course, of Bishop Healy. It could well be that the suggestion came from Healy, for he had a strong attachment to the Notre Dame Sisters. His sisters had been educated at their Montreal aca- demy, and Martha had entered the congregation and had remained a member for ten years; Eliza, too, joined the con- gregation and spent her life with them. It was a wise move, for the Sisters educating the youth of a parish could best bridge the gap between the two major Catholic racial groups of the diocese. They succeeded too, and when St. Joseph's parish was divided in 1894 these Sisters were invited to educate the child- ren of St. Patrick's parish.
Bishop Healy introduced priests and brothers of religious orders and congregations to help in the work of education and care of the parishes. To Lewiston came the Dominicans and the Marist Brothers, to Van Buren the Marist Fathers, and to Bangor the Christian Brothers. All but the latter, who taught the boys of St. Mary's parish in Bangor, worked in French parishes of the diocese. Indeed, the location of these Sisters and Brothers and priests tell us where the French-Canadians located in large numbers. Lewiston, one will notice, attracted many of these religious and this city is a good example of the sudden growth of the French-Canadians in a Maine com- munity. In the fall of 1871, when Father Peter Hevey was assigned to St. Peter and Paul's the parish was only a year old. Prior to that all Catholics of Lewiston were members of St. Joseph's parish where a curate was assigned to care for the French-speaking parishioners. Hevey found only a hand- ful of them attending an abandoned Catholic chapel which served as the church of the new parish, although it is estimated that there were more than a thousand French-Canadians in Lewiston. Within ten years he had a parish of 5,000. The Dominicans were invited to take charge of this large parish
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in 1881 and it became the model parish, with the Daughters of Sion educating the young girls, the Marist Brothers the young boys, and the Sisters of Charity conducting a hospital and orphanage. And, as we have noted, the Notre Dame Sisters had schools in the parish of St. Joseph's and St. Patrick's. The strength, the vitality, the variety of Catholic life could not escape the observing eyes of natives living in or visiting Lewiston.
It was under Healy, too, and again with the support of the French-Canadians that the Catholics of Maine finally realized their dreams of a Catholic college. It was fitting that this college was established in the same town where the Holy Cross Fathers had planned their abortive college and not too far from the town where Bishop Fenwick had long ago started his Holy Cross. The Marist Fathers were selected to open the college and in preparation for this task they were given charge of St. Bruno's parish in Van Buren in 1884. This town was in fact the second choice as the site of a college. Frenchville, a more central location for the Madawaskans, was first desired, but the pastor there was unwilling to cede the parish to the Marists. When Father John Richer, pastor of St. Bruno's, agreed to accept another parish, Van Buren became the site of St. Mary's College. In 1886 the college, with both classical courses leading to the A.B. degree and commercial courses, welcomed its first students.
St. Mary's was not, despite its location, intended exclusively for the French-Canadians. It did draw in large part from the Madawaska area and the student body was predominantly French, but a survey of both the faculty and the student rolls make it clear that Bishop Healy hoped that the classroom and the campus would be the means by which the bonds of a com- mon faith would unify the children of the French-Canadians and the Irish immigrants. The presence of Irish names on the faculty and in administrative posts was no accident. Father Lawrence Fahey was a member of the first faculty, Father Thomas Maher taught there from 1888 to 1912, and Father John
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Collins (1898-1901) and Father J. Dunne (1902-1905) were presidents of the college. Since Boston College and Holy Cross were well established institutions by this time, St. Mary's did not attract many from the other New England states. New Brunswick became the best recruiting area outside of Maine. And the roster of students always carried a core of Celtic names such as Costigan, Cunningham, Curran, Doyle, Duggan, Dono- van, Fahey, Foley, Kelleher, Mahoney, Murphy, Mclaughlin, O'Donnell, O'Connell, Reilly and Ryan. One of their students, John B. Peterson, became the fourth bishop of Manchester, and another, George P. Johnson, the present Vicar-General of the diocese of Portland; other graduates moved into education, law, medicine and politics to give the Catholics of Maine an educated laity and respected leaders.1
Yet, we might note in passing, the first Catholic native of Maine to be elected governor of a New England state did not attend college and had little formal education. Emery J. San Souci, born of French-Canadian parents in Saco on July 24, 1857, a few years after Bishop Bacon was installed, has that distinction. After serving two terms as lieutenant-gover- nor, he was elected governor of Rhode Island in 1920 by the largest plurality a candidate had received in this state and thereby became the first Franco-American to be elected a New England governor. He was not, however, the first Catho- lic, for he had in his rise to political office been befriended by Aram Pothier, a native of Quebec, who had preceded and followed San Souci in the office of governor. When Pothier was first elected in 1908 (he was elected five times and died in office) New England Catholics had their first elected governor.
At the end of the century the Catholic Church in Maine was healthy, strong, and promising. Washington Gladden had correctly observed the influence of the Catholic Church on family life but it is doubtful if he appreciated how much this family life was fostered by the generous services of the fourteen groups of religious women and men who were laboring in the
1 In 1926 the college suspended classes and St. Mary's continued as a high school.
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cities and towns of Maine at the century's end. And they were in Maine because the Irish and French-Canadian immigrants sought them for themselves and their children and because Bishop Healy brought them to their parishes. This was one of his major achievements.
The division of the diocese and the invitation to the Marist Fathers to open a college in Maine mark the emergence of Bishop Healy as an influential figure in the New England hierarchy. The decision to have a college was a risky venture and one avoided by other New England bishops. There were at the time only two Catholic colleges in New England, Holy Cross in the Springfield diocese and Boston College in the Boston archdiocese. Healy's experiment was followed by his friend, Bishop Bradley, who invited the Benedictines to open St. Anselm's in 1893, a move that further limited the recruiting grounds for St. Mary's. But it was the appointment of Bradley as the first bishop of Manchester that indicated the influence of Healy in filling the new and vacant sees of the New England metropolitan. It is quite obvious that Williams and his suffra- gans accepted the suggestion of Healy for the Manchester dio- cese, and Rome did too. Perhaps it was not surprising that he had the decisive say in this instance. But when one looks back at the appointments of New England bishops during Healy's twenty-five years it looks as if he had an important voice in the selection of all of them. And the explanation for this in- fluence is at hand: he was and he remained a trusted friend and adviser of Archbishop Williams who, as metropolitan, presided over the selection of candidates for his suffragan sees.
Healy's influence resulted in a unique situation. When in 1875 he was appointed bishop of Portland, the second alumnus of the college to be raised to the hierarchy, he was the only Holy Cross alumnus among the New England bishops.1 Eight- een years later, when Holy Cross celebrated its golden jubilee, the original Boston diocese had become an archdiocese with
1 Peter J. Baltes, a student with Healy, had been consecrated the second bishop of Alton (now Springfield), Illinois in 1870.
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six suffragan sees: Hartford, Burlington, Portland, Providence, Springfield, and Manchester. In five of these suffragan sees the bishop was a Holy Cross alumnus and in the sixth, Burling- ton, another Holy Cross alumnus was coadjutor bishop with the right of succession. Only Boston was without a Holy Cross alumnus.
These consecration ceremonies became reunion affairs after a while. The first was in Hartford when Lawrence McMahon was consecrated May 8, 1879. He had been a student at Holy Cross at the time of the fire and his first assignment as a priest was as an assistant at the Boston cathedral in 1860 when Healy was Bishop Fitzpatrick's secretary and chancellor. Healy preached at McMahon's consecration; as he was now the Catholic orator of New England the new bishops sought him for the occasion. In 1884 he preached at Bradley's conse- cration. Three years later when his closest friend among the hierarchy, Matthew Harkins, was consecrated bishop of Pro- vidence, Bishop McMahon was one of the consecrators and Healy was in the pulpit.1 Harkins, much younger than Healy, had attended Holy Cross during the Civil War, but his position as theological adviser to Williams at the Third Plenary Council and his post as pastor of St. James' in Boston, brought him in contact with Healy and they soon discovered that they enjoyed each other's company and ideas. They became frequent travelling companions.
One must not conclude from this that Healy was the bishop maker of New England. He was not. Archbishop Williams had the controlling voice in metropolitan affairs. But Williams respected his judgments and his preferences found support among the suffragans who approved of the list of candidates submitted to Rome for vacant sees. Four of the five suffragans were intimate friends: McMahon of Hartford, O'Reilly of
1 Healy's health was poor in 1892 and he did not preach at the consecration of two other Holy Cross alumni raised to the episcopacy during this year: John S. Michaud, appointed coadjutor with the right of succession to the elderly Bishop de Goesbriand of Burlington and Thomas D. Beaven, named the successor of Patrick T. O'Reilly of Springfield. The latter's death was a shock to Healy, and the eulogy he preached at the funeral was a strain. Con- cerned about a possible sudden death, Healy revised his will and named an administrator of the diocese in 1892.
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Springfield, Harkins of Providence, and Bradley of Manches- ter. One incident illustrates Healy's influence. In 1891 Arch- bishop Williams thought it was time to ask Rome for a coadjutor and he thought the one elected should have the right to succeed him. Healy's preference (Bishop Harkins) was not among those recommended to Rome, and it is quite obvious that he did not consider those on the list sufficiently qualified for the important office. He suggested that an auxiliary bishop be requested at this time; the suggestion was seconded by Mc- Mahon and O'Reilly and accepted by Williams. That decision postponed the problem of succession, a decision that cleared the way unintentionally for his own successor in Portland to become archbishop of Boston.
Bishop Healy's sphere of influence was restricted to New England. His attitudes and views on current social problems were more akin to the Corrigan-McQuaid group in the hierachy, although his friend, Bishop Harkins, was no admirer of the Bishop of Rochester. Healy did take a strong and vocal posi- tion on the Knights of Labor and his name is associated with the small minority of the bishops who approved of the action of the Canadian hierarchy and favored an explicit condemna- tion of the American Knights. Fortunately the saner view of Cardinal Gibbons prevailed. But Maine was no industrial state, the Knights there were a small group, and Healy had no first hand experience and acquaintance with the current labor problems. He was in no position to be a spokesman for labor problems, and his position on the Knights appears to have been dictated more by his over-cautious attitudes toward secret societies, another of the acute problems of this period, than any lack of sympathy for the struggling workers. Healy, however, could speak as an expert on one national problem and had the opportunity to do so. He did not use the opportun- ity; indeed, at times he avoided it. Had he done so he would have ranked among the great bishops of America. The problem, of course, was the American negro, and his opportun- ity was unique since he was the only member of the hierarchy
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of African ancestry and he knew from personal experiences the shame and sham of discrimination based on pigment of the skin.
At the Third Plenary Council at Baltimore in 1884 the hierarchy did consider and give directives on the negro prob- lem. They could hardly do otherwise, since Pius IX had called their attention to the neglect of the negro by persuading Father Herbert Vaughan of England to dedicate his congrega- tion, the St. Joseph's Society for Foreign Missions, to the task of evangelizing the emancipated slaves of the United States. The Council accepted the recommendations of the special subcommittee on Negroes and Indians, of which Bishop Healy was a member. Bishops, priests, and laity were alerted to this grave problem, and on the practical level bishops were urged to build churches for negros wherever possible and where this was not practical to provide a suitable place for the negro in the parish church. It was an acceptance of the system of segregation that was devised outside the council chambers.
A strong voice would not have altered the accepted system but it would have corrected, if sufficiently repeated, the con- science of American Catholics and would have disturbed the conscience of the nation. Bishop Augustin Verot, S.S., of St. Augustine, wanted the Vatican Council to correct the con- sciences of Catholics on the evils of racism. He was a witness of these evils and he had urged the council to consider and to condemn the theories contrary to the unity of the human race and asked for explicit condemnation of the racist errors wide- spread in America and elsewhere. He was dead when the Third Plenary Council convened at Baltimore. It was the golden opportunity for James A. Healy. It can not be said that he accepted it then or thereafter. He did prohibit segregation within his diocese, but there were only a handful of colored Catholics in Maine, about three hundred.
Outside his diocese he avoided association with Catholic Negro organizations and declined to encourage their efforts to establish a national organization. A Congress of Colored Cath-
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olics was held in Washington in 1889, in Cincinnati in 1890, and in Philadelphia two years later. After these three futile attempts the project was abandoned. Although Cardinal Gib- bons presided and spoke at the first one and the Archbishops of Cincinnati and Philadelphia sponsored the other two, Bishop Healy declined invitations to address them. Once he expressed his doubts about conventions held along strictly racial lines. It was not a compelling reason; they could not hold conventions on any other lines, and there was not any opposition to the French, the Germans and the Irish having their national organ- izations and conventions along rigid "racial" lines. Indeed, the Catholic European immigrants had conditioned the American Catholic to accept without question the segregation system. They had demanded a type of segregation for themselves, thereby isolating themselves from the other Catholics of their communities by their own national parishes, their own societies, their own congresses and conventions.
As Bishop Healy neared the end of his life he must have realized that the significance of his career had escaped Ameri- can Catholics. That significance was writ large for all to see: a young man of partial Negro descent, born legally a slave, the first graduate of the first Catholic college of New England, friend and confidant of Bishop Fitzpatrick and Archbishop Williams, repected pastor of the largest Irish parish in Boston, raised to the rank of a bishop by Rome. Every phase of his career was an open denial of any inferiority on the score of blood. It was so obvious that it is possible Bishop Healy declined to push the point himself. The evidence, however, inclines one to conclude that Bishop Healy wanted his racial ancestry forgotten. A biography was discouraged, for that would entail search of the family records; the information he supplied editors of the standard biographical works of his day either omitted reference to his parents or merely listed them as Michael M. and Eliza (Clark) Healy, or he referred to his mother as the scion of an aristocratic family or from Santo Domingo. By the time he died Catholics had forgotten the
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significance of his career. An event that took place in a parish not far from his alma mater three years after his death under- scored how much Catholics had forgotten the lesson of his career. A total abstinence society was established in this parish whereby worthy men could by mutual assistance avoid the dangers of modern drinking. A constitution was framed. The second article restricted membership to "white Catholics." Bishop Healy and his brothers would have been excluded from this Catholic parish society.
Yet Bishop Healy did not avoid coming to grips with a public issue when it involved discrimination against the Catholics of his diocese, and his long struggle to modify the policy of the Maine State Reform School for Catholic inmates is a good example of this. Public abuse and odium did not alter his course. The regulation of state penal and charitable institutions in New England during the last quarter of the nineteenth century had derived from the period when Catholics were not a factor in drafting legislation: the chaplains were Protestants, the religious services were legally non-sectarian, and attendance by all inmates was compulsory on the score of discipline. This was obviously unfair to Catholics who in the course of events became inmates of these institutions. Healy was pastor of St. James' when the first successful step to modify this policy in Massachusetts was achieved; in the summer of 1874 Catholic inmates of Boston's municipal institutions were allowed regu- lar Catholic services and a law regulating state penal institutions was enacted during the next year extending this freedom to state penal institutions. But even so, Catholics could be forced, if the institutional authorities so decided, to attend the non- Catholic services. Not until 1879 was this regulation extended to state charitable and reformatory institutions and again with the proviso that the local authority could compel attend- ance of all inmates at a general religious instructions program, if discipline so demanded. It frequently was found necessary. Not until 1883 were Catholics declared immune from this com-
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pulsion. Slowly and reluctantly did the elders of Massachusetts allow tampering with their traditional methods. In Maine, as Bishop Healy discovered, the reluctance was more trenchant.
In Maine the attempt to undermine state institutions (as it appeared to many of the natives ) centered on the Maine State Reform School. In 1879, the year that both penal and charitable institutions in Massachusetts were opened to Catholic priests to attend to the religious needs of the Catholic inmates, permis- sion was granted for a Mass every month in the Reform School. This concession followed the appointment of Charles McCarthy, Jr. as one of the trustees of the institution, and the appointment of McCarthy followed one of those curious events in Maine's political history: the election of a Democratic gov- ernor. At that, Alonzo Garcelon was an ex-Republican who had found the Republican Reconstruction policy more than he could take. With the help of the Greenback Party the popular vote was so divided that no candidate had a majority and the election was decided by the legislature and in favor of Garcelon. McCarthy did not want the post as is clear from his correspondence. But it set a precedent for other governors to follow, and this could be safely done for one Catholic on the board was no threat to the traditional policy. The con- cession, too, was soon negated. Non-Catholics were compelled to attend the Mass; one superintendent insisted on overhearing the confessions of the inmates. In protest Healy refused to allow a priest to visit the institution.
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