USA > Maine > The Catholic church in Maine > Part 24
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His talents were in creative writing. In a regular feature of the Catholic World, "Authentic Sketches of Living Catholic Authors," he is described as "a writer with a future." This was in the first issue of 1897 and by then his short stories were appearing regularly in Harper's Weekly, Scribner's Magazine, Harper's Monthly, and the Catholic World. Like so many young writers he was at the time planning a novel on American life. It was never written. His talents responded to the de- mands of the short story, and in this he excelled. He was also a conversationalist of unusual charm, "one of the best five
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talkers" among Elizabeth Jordan's wide acquaintances. This second talent has its charm but pays rather poorly, and it contributed no doubt to his habitual straitened financial status until his untimely and tragic death shortly before the Christ- mas of 1911.
His contribution to scholarship will be found in the Catholic Encyclopedia, for he was one of the makers of this model of reference works, hailed at the time as the "greatest triumph of Christian science in the English tongue." In The Catholic Encyclopedia and Its Makers A'Becket has the first place alpha- betically. His contribution was by no means slight, for about sixty articles were written by him. There is, however, one strange feature about these articles; the subject of all of them begins with the first letter of the alphabet and they range from "Abbe" to "Asser, John," as if he refused to write on a topic that did not begin with the first letter of the alphabet. This, however, is an unlikely explanation. More probably he tired of the exacting demands of research before the second volume went to press. Nine volumes were published before his death. If he had maintained a similar pace with the articles listed under the other letters he easily would have had top honors among the contributors.
As a New Englander he was assigned the biographical sketch- es of two Vermont converts: Frances Allen and George Allen. George Allen, of Milton, Vermont, was a nationally known professor of Greek and ancient languages at the University of Pennsylvania for years and was one of the many whom William Henry Hoyt had attracted to the Church. He, too, had been an Episcopalian minister and had been succeeded as rector of St. Albans' church by William Hoyt. A'Becket does not do the professor justice in his brief sketch, but that could be blamed on lack of available sources. What he writes about Frances Allen, Ethan Allen's daughter, can not be forgiven a person who came from Maine. He credits her with being "the first woman of New England birth" to become a nun. She was not.
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Esther Wheelwright of Wells, Maine, has that distinction. As a small child she was captured during an Indian raid on the town in the summer of 1703, and some years later when Father Bigot was visiting the Abenaki at their village on the Kennebec's headwaters he recognized her as a New Englander. She had been adopted by a chief and had forgotten her moth- er's language. With considerable pressure from Governor Vau- dreuil, Bigot was able to purchase the girl from the chief, brought her to Quebec where she became the protégé of the governor and attended the Ursuline convent school with the governor's daughter. News of her finding and her new life in Quebec reached her family and they entreated her to return. She declined, and in time became a member of the Order of St. Ursula. In 1760 she was elected Superior of the convent, the first Superior elected after the conquest of New France by the English. By this election she became the head of the oldest educational institution for women in North America. A'Becket, a native of Maine, should have known about Esther Wheel- wright.
A'Becket's death was sad. It came at time when he was enjoying life more than usual for he was what he would call prosperous due to a windfall. The evening he died he had dined with one of his best friends, Joseph E. Willard. Notable persons gravitated to A'Becket, and Willard is a good example. He was a descendant (9th generation) of one of the founders of Concord, Massachusetts, his father was owner of the popu- lar Willard Hotel in Washington, and Willard was considered the richest man in Virginia. When Wilson was elected Presi- dent he appointed Willard minister to Spain and there he re- mained during Wilson's two terms; he was the last American minister and the first American ambassador to Spain. The two, Willard and A'Becket, spent the evening together and A'Becket retired to his hotel room. He died that night in bed, suffocated by gas from a defective stove. He had remained deeply religious and in a kindly way prompted his Catholic friends to attend to their religious duties. His funeral was on
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Christmas Eve, 1911, in New York's St. Francis Xavier's church. The church was familiar to him for it was attached to Xavier College where he had taught young men the power of rhetoric.
5. CHARLES EUGENE WOODMAN
The town of Saco has become a familiar place in these bio- graphical sketches of Maine converts. Dr. Greene was con- verted while practicing medicine in this community and Bishop Young lived there as a boy and returned to publish the Maine Democrat. Charles Eugene Woodman was born in this town on November 1, 1852.
The Woodman's and the Haley's, his mother's family name, were from old New England families. Charles' father, Colonel Andrew J. Woodman, was the sixth generation in descent from Edward Woodman who arrived in the Bay Colony in 1635. On his father's side, then, Charles had over two centuries of traditions moulding his character. One of the family's prides was its share in the series of wars that shaped the course of local and national history during the colonial and national periods. His father's military rank, however, did not derive from bearing arms in any of the major wars; he was an officer in the local regiment of volunteers so common in New England towns. Young Charles inherited the military tradition and took considerable pride in listing his affilation with martial societies. He informed the editor of the American Catholic Who's Who of 1911 that he was a member of the Society of Colonial Wars, Sons of the American Revolution, and the So- ciety of the War of 1812. And from another source, from one who was well acquainted with him, we are told that "to the end of his life, he continued to be a loyal and distinguished member of the society of the Sons of the American Revolution." His father had drilled him well.
Charles received an education that developed his sharp and inquisitive mind. From the local schools he went to Monson
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Academy and thence to Trinity College in Hartford, Connec- ticut. This would indicate that his parents had reared him in the Episcopalian church. He was at college during the years 1869-1873, and during his senior year he was editor of the college periodical, Trinity Tablet. This he considered a posi- tion of merit and listed it as one of his achievements. On graduation from Trinity (1873), at the age of twenty-one, he entered the General Theological Seminary in New York. The Episcopalian ministry was his goal.
In and outside the seminary there was talk and serious dis- cussion of John Henry Newman and the Oxford movement, of a similar trend among a group of American clergymen, and of the new Catholic congregation, the Paulists, which had been started by a group of converts under the leadership of Father Isaac Hecker and Father Augustine F. Hewit. Woodman began to question his present position and the questioning brought him into the Catholic Church. He could be called a Newman convert, and one of his prized possessions was a volume of Horae Diurnae, used, autographed and presented to him by the great convert Cardinal. He became a Catholic on July 4, 1875. The day, we can be sure, was no accident. Charles Eu- gene Woodman was an American out of generations of Amer- icans; by the grace of God he was now a Catholic, but he would be an American Catholic. Before the year 1875 had elapsed he was accepted in person by Father Hewit into the Paulist congregation.
This year must have been crowded with soul disturbing problems and painful decisions, and also with extraordinary graces. At the June graduation he received a Master's degree from Amherst. The year of this degree varies, in one source the year 1875 is given and in another 1877, but the former is more probable. By 1877 he was in California studying for the priesthood. This degree was usually given two years after the Bachelor's and at this time did not require residence. His studies at the General Theological Seminary would satisfy whatever requirements were in demand, and the application
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for the degree indicates that during the early part of the year Woodman had not abandoned his goal of the Episcopalian ministry. We miss the letters and entries in a diary (all his personal papers were lost) that would post us on his doubts, his queries, his advisers, the reactions of professors and friends to the first open manifestation of his Romeward interests. We only know that his conversion ended a romance.
We are told that he was at this time in love and that the young lady discarded him, "the estrangement coming almost directly upon his conversion to the Catholic Faith." It is very probable he was not considering the priesthood at the time of his conversion and this decision came shortly after his con- version and the end of the romance. He applied for admission to the Paulists before the year was over. His sincerity must have been overwhelmingly obvious, for he was accepted not- withstanding his very recent conversion.
The founding fathers of the Paulists saw in this young Maine Yankee a priest of great promise, but feared he would suc- cumb to tuberculosis before the promise could be realized. He was sent to San Francisco to ward off the threat. The Paulists had no house in San Francisco and it would seem that Woodman studied theology privately and at his leisure in the home of a friend of Father Hecker. Not all his time (he was away less than four years ) was spent with the books; he spent some of the months of 1877 and 1878 visiting Central America and Panama, at this time part of Colombia. The change of climate restored his health. In the summer of 1879 he asked to be ordained. Archbishop Jose Sadoc Alemany of San Fran- cisco conferred the sacrament on July 13. Now a priest he returned without delay to New York. There is no evidence that he returned to Saco.
Charles Woodman never enjoyed robust health; to the end of his long life of seventy-two, forty-five of them as a priest, he was frail and frequently ill. But he had inherited a physi- cal toughness akin to the rough texture of the soil and coastline of Maine. He did not allow infirmity to interfere with work,
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and in his new life he found every opportunity for his many astounding gifts. He was not a person of one talent. A list of his activities and achievements is sufficient evidence.
He became an orator of recognized reputation and was sought for on the occasions that are rated important. He was knighted in 1894 by Spain for his work among the Spanish in New York; he was pastor of the crowded Paulist church in New York; he was assistant at the observatory at Catholic University during the years 1892-1894, and when Charles War- ren Stoddard became ill he substituted as lecturer in literature. In 1900 he was named assistant astronomer at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, aiding the official astronomer who was another Paulist, Father George M. Searle. He travelled quite widely, on official scientific expeditions and for other reasons. In 1911 his health compelled him to return to Cali- fornia but not to retire; for twelve years (his health declining) he was lecturer and chaplain at the University of California. The loss of his personal papers has been attributed to the San Francisco earthquake, but it is difficult to see why they should have been in that city in 1906; some other calamity during or after 1911 must be blamed. If they had survived we would know and appreciate him better.
He found time to write, too. He is credited with five titles, although some of them must be classified as pamphlets. His first publication appeared in 1887 and was called Bridal Wreath; it was the ritual for the solemnization of holy matrimony in Latin and in English. About the same time he prepared the Manual of Prayers, a book of devotions that contained trans- lations of the Latin hymns and prayers in the Roman missal and breviary. His wide interests will be found in other titles: Civil and Religious Liberty (1890), Poets and Poetry of Ireland (1892), and Perpetual Ecclesiastical Calendar (1906).
His visits to Maine probably were not frequent, and one known incident would indicate that the Catholics of Maine had not followed closely the career of this noted convert from Saco. On Sunday, August 1, 1909, Charles McCarthy attended,
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as was his custom, the nine o'clock Mass at the Sacred Heart church. A visiting priest preached on cheerfulness, and Mc- Carthy was impressed by the man's words and delivery. On inquiry he learned the visitor was a Father Woodman, a Paulist. In the course of the sermon the priest remarked that though he was of Puritan ancestry he had no use for the gloomy teach- ing of the old Puritans which was contrary to the Scriptures. Father Woodman had returned to his native soil thirty years after his ordination and had thought it appropriate to remind his listeners that joy and cheer were a Christian heritage. There is every indication in McCarthy's entry in his diary that this was the first time he had seen and heard of Charles E. Woodman and that he was unaware that Woodman was a na- tive of Saco.
He was back again in Portland eight years later, and this meant a trip across the country for he was now living on the campus of the University of California, outside San Francisco. On two successive Sundays, both of them chilly and raining, June 10 and 17, 1917, he again preached at the Sacred Heart church. Charles McCarthy was in the congregation and again was pleased with the talks, - "an excellent sermon" and "a very good sermon," he wrote in his dairy. McCarthy knew Woodman was a Paulist from San Francisco and, he thought, "a convert." But there was no indication he was a native of Saco. He does, however, add a personal touch about Father Woodman: "He has a good crop of whiskers." The convert- priest was now sixty-five years old, and the whiskers gave him a pointed Yankee appearance.
Woodman died December 6, 1924, in San Francisco, far from the town of his birth. Saco had seen little of him since his college days, and although he may have been forgotten he himself had never forgotten the many good lessons he had learned in his father's home in that town. When the first Catho- lic parish in Saco was established in the summer of 1916, a fine old home next to parish church was purchased for the parish rectory. It was the Woodman house.
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A PERIOD OF EXPANSION: 1900-1924
M ANY Catholics of Maine must have thought that Rome was unduly slow in naming Bishop Healy's successor. The fall came and passed and they were still without a spiritual leader. There were, of course, rumors, and the administrator of the diocese, Monsignor Michael C. O'Brien, was linked with many of them. The rumors ceased January 17: "Appointment of Very Rev. M. C. O'Brien as bishop of Portland announced this morning. Everybody here is pleased with his appointment."1 At last Portland had one of its own priests as bishop; this was good news. There was, however, one flaw in the appointment; it did not come from Rome. Rumors and speculations now increased tenfold and continued until Rome finally appointed on April 22, 1901, the Rector of the American College of Rome, Monsignor William H. O'Connell, as the third Bishop of Port- land.
There has been some reluctance to tell the story of this appointment. There is no denying that Maine Catholics were disappointed when one of their own diocesan priests was not selected as their spiritual leader. The first bishop of the diocese of Manchester was a priest brought up and educated in that city; the second bishop of Burlington (there was no native priest when the first bishop was selected) was born in Bur- lington. The Catholics of Maine would have had one of their own diocesan priests as their third bishop if there had been
1 From the diary of Charles McCarthy, Jr. under the date of January 17, 1901.
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sufficient agreement among the clergy and laity. In submitting the list of three candidates to Rome, the bishops of the New England Province had accepted the names of those suggested by the diocesan consultors, although the order of preference had, it seems, been altered. All three on the list were Maine priests. The historian of the archdiocese of Boston in the sec- tion on Cardinal O'Connell tells us why Rome did not follow, as is customary, the suggestions of the New England bishops:
But strong opposition to all those candidates developed in a consider- able section of the Maine clergy, as was attested by numerous letters to the Apostolic Delegate and to Archbishop Williams.
The Cardinal himself makes a reference to this lack of unity among the Maine clergy and laity in his autobiography. To- wards the end of Bishop Healy's regime, he writes:
the differences between the French-speaking and English-speaking Catholics began to be very much accentuated, and by his tact and prudence he was able to prevent at least any disagreeable demonstra- tions among them. ... The French Canadians, conscious of the growth of their numbers in the State and Diocese, felt that they had a growing right to representation in the Hierarchy of New England. Their method of representation evidently did not impress Leo XIII and his advisers and they decided that the spiritual care of the Catholics of Maine would be better protected by one who was not involved in the local situation. It would be another fifty years before Rome selected a native son of Maine for the Portland see.
1. THE START OF A NEW CENTURY
Rome had selected a bishop who knew little of Maine and the Catholics there. "When I took possession [of the see]," he tells us in his autobiography, "I knew just one person in all Maine, good Father Michael McDonough, who died only a few days ago (April 28, 1933)." Outside of the clergy of the state, few Catholics had heard of him. Monsignor O'Connell, however, was far from being an unknown at that time, and his late career as archbishop of Boston and a Prince of the
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Church made him one of the best known of American church- men. His autobiography, his published sermons, addresses and letters, the history of the archdiocese of Boston, and the recent biography by Dorothy G. Wyman supply the reader with ample sources of information on his very active life.
The Catholics of Maine soon gathered information on their new bishop. He was young, only forty-two, and a native of Lowell, Massachusetts, where he was born December 8, 1859, the youngest child in a family of eleven. His father and moth- er, John and Bridget (Farley) O'Connell, had escaped from their depressed homeland in 1848. Arriving in Montreal, they migrated to upper New York where they remained until 1853 and then moved on to the textile town of Lowell. His early education was received in the local public schools and in 1881 he was graduated from Boston College. His seminary studies had been made in Rome with residence in the American Col- lege, a gift to the American hierarchy from Pius IX in 1859 and received in the name of the hierarchy by Bishop Bacon, Portland's first bishop. Already O'Connell's talents in music were appreciated; he was the seminarian director of the col- lege choir and found time to compose "Juravit Dominus" dur- ing these years. Ordained in 1884, he spent ten years as a curate, first at Medford and then in Boston, before returning to Rome in 1895 as the new Rector of the American College. His appointment to this post came somewhat unexpectedly and after sharp differences of preferences for the best candi- date. His administration of the college won approval (Leo XIII made him a Monsignor in 1897), and he was a prominent Roman ecclesiastic when the impasse over the Portland see arose. His name was submitted by the same person who sug- gested him for the rectorship: Cardinal Satolli, his former professor at Propaganda. Cardinal Satolli consecrated him bishop on May 19, 1901, in the Corsini chapel of St. John La- teran.
His return to America was unhurried; there were college affairs demanding attention and ordering. More than five
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weeks after his consecration he was back in Boston; his ex- pected arrival on June 14 was "unavoidably delayed," the Pilot told its readers. He later wired that he had secured passage on the steamer Commonwealth, departing from Liverpool on June 20. He arrived in Boston on June 28. On July 4, while the city's church bells were ringing and the air was filled with exploding firecrackers, he was installed as the Bishop of Port- land. Monsignor O'Brien read an address of welcome and led the clergy to Bishop O'Connell to pledge their loyalty and obedience. The bells and firecrackers were an established Independence day tradition and in no way part of a planned welcome to the new bishop. In a talk on the first anniversary of his installation the bishop referred to the happy coincidence of the date, but many people in Maine wondered if it were entirely undesigned. After the ceremony Monsignor O'Brien returned to Bangor and to his parishioners of St. Mary's who loved him dearly; four month later they were mourning his death.
Bishop O'Connell's stay in Maine was brief, - less than five years. Most of the fifth year was spent on a papal mission to the Emperor of Japan; when he returned to America after this mission via Rome he was no longer the Bishop of Portland. The Holy Father had rewarded him for a mission ably per- formed by appointing him the coadjutor archbishop with the right to succeed Archbishop Williams of Boston. He was in Maine, then, about four years and this was hardly time enough for the people of Maine to get well acquainted with him. He was different from his predecessors and the Catholics adjusted slowly to his unfamiliar ways and preferences. The installation on the Fourth of July was a hint of others to follow. His en- tourage was unexpected: an Italian valet, an Italian coachman, an Italian music master; a winter visit to Florida was some- thing new, although Bishop Healy had accustomed them to the idea that a bishop should travel. His association with high society and the political figures of the city and state was care- fully considered.
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Actually he was sought after. When President Mckinley died Bishop O'Connell was invited, although only in the city a little more than a month, to give the formal oration at the official memorial service in the City Hall; when President Roosevelt visited Portland a year later he expressly requested to see only one clergyman: the Catholic Bishop of Portland; the governor and staff attended the memorial Mass for Leo XIII in the cathedral; he was invited to be a member of the exclusive Cumberland Club and accepted. His biographer sus- pects it was part of a Republican strategy to wean the Catholic voters from the Democratic ranks, and if so it was unlikely that the bishop was unaware of their designs. And it was in- deed something new to see the Catholic bishop, a son of an Irish immigrant, courted by the social leaders of the state. He was quite at home in their parlors and club rooms and they soon discovered he was a many-talented person, with a European outlook and culture, a lover of music, well-read, a good conversationalist, diplomatic when the occasion demand- ed and outspoken when it did not. If any came with the idea of patronizing, he or she thought differently after being in- troduced to him. He was breaking down an isolation between the Catholics and the Protestants, and the Catholics must have been secretly pleased that they had a bishop who could do it.1
The bishop himself reviewed the achievements and progress made during his episcopacy in his farewell pastoral to the diocese and farewell address to Portland. Both are published in the second volume of Sermons and Addresses. The bishopric was "no sinecure," he wrote. The work required in such a vast diocese of different nationalities was demanding: "Five years of such work are equal to many times that term in a Diocese less varied, less extensive, and less laborious." Later,
1 The Catholics themselves were partially responsible for their isolated position. Catholic priests had been invited to open the legislature with a prayer, but Bishop Bacon had con- sistently advised them to decline. Some pastors, it is true, had accepted despite the bishop's directions, but Protestants naturally concluded from the refusals that the Catholics preferred to remain outlanders. Not until the last year of his life did Bacon reverse his policy and then he allowed Father Michael O'Brien of Augusta to appear in cassock and surplice and on his knees to offer a simple "invocation to Heaven to bless our assembled legislators." Not until this isolation had disappeared could Catholics influence contemporary society and Bishop O'Connell realized this.
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