USA > New Jersey > Essex County > Newark > History of St. John's Church, Newark > Part 13
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"Once more I thank you for your presence here this evening, and I assure you that to me one of the most pleasant memories of our Jubilee will be the recollection of your cordial greeting, and the proof you have evinced of the intimate bonds of friendship and good will which unite the laity of the Diocese with their Clergy and Bishop."
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Edward Garrigan, Trustee
CHAPTER XXXV
"A Perpetual and Inviolable Secrecy"
In 1813, a case was tried before the Court of General Sessions in New York City-presided over by the Mayor, DeWitt Clinton, who afterward became Governor of the Empire State, and Recorder Josiah Ogden Hoffman. A man named Phillips and his wife were indicted for a misdemeanor, in receiving stolen goods, the property of James Keating. Before the trial Keating had received restitution; and he was brought into Court to discover the circumstances of the recovery of the property. He showed much unwillingness to answer, and he was threatened with imprisonment. It was his duty, he was admonished, to reveal the whole truth, and the duty of the Magistrate to insist on his revealing it and enforce obedience to the law. He then declared that he had received restitution of his effects from the hands of his Pastor, Rev. Anthony Kohlmann, S. J., Rector of St. Peter's Church, Barclay street, and Administrator of the Diocese. A summons was issued to the Priest to appear at the police office with which he promptly complied. Being questioned touching the persons from whom he received restitution, Father Kohlmann excused himself from making such disclosure, on the ground that his knowledge was gained under the seal of Confession. The case was then sent to the Grand Jury. Before this body the Priest, in respectful terms,
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declined answering. Upon other testimony a formal indictment was drawn against two negroes as princi- pals, and against Phillips and his wife as receivers. The case being called, the Rev. Anthony Kohlmann was cited as a witness. He was sworn and questioned touching the return of the property in question. He entreated to be excused and offered his reasons for declining to answer :
"Were I summoned to give evidence as a private individual (in which capacity I declare most solemnly I know nothing relative to the case before the Court) and to testify from those ordinary sources of information from which the witnesses present have derived theirs, I should not for a moment hesitate, and should even deem it a duty of conscience to declare whatever knowledge I have. * * * But if called upon to testify in quality of a Minister of a Sacrament, in which my God Himself has enjoined on me a perpetual and inviolable secrecy, I must declare to this honorable Court that I cannot, I must not answer any question that has a bearing on the restitution in question ; and that it would be my duty to, prefer instantaneous death or any temporal misfortune rather than disclose the name of the penitent in question. For were I to act otherwise I should be a traitor to my Church, to my Sacred Ministry and to my God. In fine, I should render myself liable to eternal damnation."
After giving a statement of the principles of the Catholic Religion upon which rest the inviolability of the Sacrament of Penance, of which Confession is an essential part, Father Kohlmann went on to declare :
"If I should so far forget my Sacred Ministry and become so abandoned as to reveal, either directly or indirectly, any part of what has been entrusted to me in the sacred Tribunal of Penance, the penalties to which I should thereby subject myself would be these :
"I. I should forever degrade myself in the eye of the Catholic Church, and I hesitate not to say in the eye of every man of sound principle. The world would justly esteem me as a base and unworthy wretch, guilty of the most heinous prevarication a Priest can possibly perpetrate, in breaking through the most sacred laws of his God, of nature and of his Church.
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"2. According to the Canons of the Catholic Church, I should be divested of my sacerdotal character, replaced in the condition of a layman, and forever disabled from exercising any of my ecclesias- tical functions.
"3. Conformably to the same Canons, I should deserve to be lodged in close confinement, shut up between four walls to do pen- ance during the remainder of my life.
"4. Agreeably to the dictates of my conscience, I should render myself guilty, by such a disclosure, of everlasting punishment in the life to come."
The closing argument on behalf of Father Kohl- mann was made by William Sampson, one of the Irish refugees following the Rebellion of 1798. Another Irish exile, Thomas Addis Emmett, who was to have appeared in the case for the Priest, was pre- vented by an important engagement in another Court. Both were Protestants.
Mr. Gardiner, attorney for the prosecution, held "that punishment cannot take place if witnesses are exempt from testifying to their knowledge of crimes. And by consequence that a tenet which makes it a religious duty to conceal this knowledge, thus neces- sary to the public safety, however it may be seriously believed by its professors, is inconsistent with the public welfare."
Special interest attaches to the decision of the Court, which was given by Mayor DeWitt Clinton :
"The question is whether a Roman Catholic Church Priest shall be compelled to disclose what he has received in Confession, in violation of his conscience, of his clerical engagements and of the Canons of his Church, and with a certainty of being stripped of his sacred functions and cut off from religious communion and social inter- course with the denomination to which he belongs. There can be no doubt that the witness does consider that his answering on this occasion would be such a high-handed offense against religion that it would expose him to punishment in a future state, and it must be conceded by all that it would subject him to privations and disgrace in this world. It is true that he would not be obnoxious
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to criminal punishment, but the reason why he is excused where he would be liable to such punishment applies with greater force to this case, where his sufferings would be aggravated by the compunctious visitings of a wounded conscience and the gloomy perspective of a dreadful hereafter. Although he would not lose an estate, or conpromit of a civil right, yet he would be deprived of his only means of support and subsistence, and although he would not confess a crime or acknowledge his infamy, yet he would act an offense against high Heaven, and seal his disgrace in the presence of his assembled friends, and to the affliction of a bereaved Church and a weeping congregation. It cannot, therefore, for a moment be believed that the just and mild principles of the Common Law would place the witness in such a dreadful predicament, in such a horrible dilemma, between perjury and false swearing. If he tells the truth, he violates his ecclesiastical oath; if he prevaricates, he violates his judicial oath. Whether he lies or whether he testifies the truth, he is wicked, and it is impossible for him to act without acting against the laws of rectitude and the light of conscience. The only course is for the Court to declare that he shall not testify or act at all. And a Court prescribing a different course must be governed by feelings and views very different from those which enter into the composition of a just and enlightened tribunal, that looks with a propitious eye upon the religious feelings of mankind, and which dispenses with an equal hand the universal and immutable elements
of justice. * * * But THIS IS A GREAT CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTION which must not be decided by the maxims of the Common Law, but by the principles of our Government. Let us now look at it upon more elevated ground-upon the ground of the Constitution, of the social compact, and of Civil and Religious Liberty. Religion is an affair between God and man, and not between man and man. The laws which regulate it must emanate from the Supreme Being, not from human institutions. It is essential to the free exercise of a religion that its ordinances should be administered-that its cere- monies as well as its essentials should be protected. The Sacraments of a religion are its most important elements. We have but two in the Protestant Church-Baptism and the Lord's Supper-and they are considered the seals of the covenant of grace. Suppose that a decision of this Court, or a law of the State should prevent the administration of one or both of these Sacraments, would not the Constitution be violated and the freedom of religion be infringed? Secrecy is of the essence of Penance. The sinner will not confess, nor will the Priest receive his confession, if the veil of secrecy is removed. To decide that the minister shall promulgate what he
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receives in Confession is to declare that there shall be no Penance, and this important branch of the Roman Catholic religion would be thus annihilated. It has been contended that the provision of the Constitution which speaks of practices inconsistent with the peace or safety of the State excludes this case from the protection of the Constitution and authorizes this tribunal to coerce the witness. In order to sustain this position it must be clearly made out that the concealment observed in the Sacrament of Penance is a practice inconsistent with the peace and safety of the State. The language of the Constitution is emphatic and striking. It speaks of acts of licentiousness, of practices inconsistent with the tranquility and safety of the State. It has reference to something actually, not negatively, injurious-to acts committed, not to acts omitted; offenses of a deep dye and of an extensively injurious nature. It would be stretching it on the rack to say that it can possibly contemplate the forbearance of a Roman Catholic Priest to testify what he has received in Confession, or that it could ever consider the safety of the community involved in this question. To assert this as the genuine meaning of the Constitution would be TO MOCK THE UNDERSTANDING AND TO RENDER THE LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE A MERE ILLUSION. It would be to destroy the enacting clause of the proviso and to render the exception broader than the rule, to subvert all the principles of sound reasoning and overthrow all the convic- tions of common sense. Although we differ from the witness and his brethren in our religious creed, yet we have no reason to question the purity of their motives or to impeach their good conduct as citizens. They are protected by the laws and Constitution of this country in the full and free exercise of their religion, and this Court can never countenance or authorize the application of insult to their Faith or of torture to their conscience."
Hintlol
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CHAPTER XXXVI The Rapid Progress of Catholicity
Pope Pius IX., of blessed memory, erected New York into an Archiepiscopal Diocese, July 19th, 1850, with Boston, Hartford, Albany and Buffalo as Suff- ragan Sees. When the Dioceses of Albany and Buffalo were created in 1847, the Diocese of New York had one hundred and twenty-four priests, and in 1853, when Brooklyn and Newark were created Sees, New York Archdiocese had one hundred and thirteen priests. Archbishop Hughes received the Pallium from Pope Pius IX. on April 3d, 1851; and it was on October 30th, 1853, that the great Archbishop, (on the occa- sion of the Consecration of Right Rev. John Loughlin, Bishop of Brooklyn, the Right Rev. James Roosevelt Bayley, Bishop of Newark, and the Right Rev. Louis de Goesbriand, Bishop of Burlington, Vt.), in the course of the Consecration Sermon, compared the rapid progress made by the Church with its humble beginning. Said he: "Many of you remember when there was no Bishop in New York, and no great motive for a Bishop coming here. * * What were the Catholics at that time? It was, I believe, in 1816, through the greater part of New Jersey, and the whole of New York there were supposed to be from 10,000 to 16,000 poor and scattered foreigners; yet they were too many to be neglected. How many were the Priests to assist and support the Bishop? Only three. Time
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passed on. What was then so insignificant a Bishopric is now a Metropolitan See; and however unworthy the occupant of that See, he will not on that account restrain an expression of his pride, at least his great religious joy, at perceiving within the past seven years four illustrious Sees, offshoots from the primitive one established in New York in 1808. There has been a similar change in the Diocese of Boston, so that there are now nine Bishops in a region where about six years ago there were but two." When Bishop Dubois took possession of his See in Novem- ber, 1826, there were only eight churches, eighteen Priests and 185,000 souls in the Diocese. In New York city alone there were only three churches.
The Catholic Directory for 1852 shows that there were 77 churches, 7 chapels and about 60 stations in the Archdiocese of New York, with 102 clergymen on missions and 20 otherwise employed; 1 seminary, 30 clerical students, 3 literary institutions for young men, 5 literary institutions for young ladies, 1 hospital and 4 orphan asylums. The Catholic population was 270,000. When the New York Diocese was created it extended over 50,000 square miles* ; but in 1847, by the erection of Albany and Buffalo into Sees, the area of the New York Diocese was reduced to about 8,000 square miles. The 41,896 square miles composing the original area of the Albany and Buffalo Sees have since been divided, and where only two Dioceses were then, there are now five-the Sees of Rochester, Ogdensburg and Syracuse having been created.
In 1852 the Albany See had 82 churches with 10 in progress, 62 Priests on missions, 50 stations visited by Clergymen, 12 ecclesiastical students, 4 institutions under the Sisters of Charity, and a Catholic popula- *The New Jersey part of the original Diocese is excluded in these figures.
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tion of 80,000. The late Cardinal McCloskey was then Bishop of Albany.
The Diocese of Buffalo in 1852 had 7 churches (mostly frame), 58 Priests, 1 ecclesiastical seminary under the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, 1 college, 2 female academies, 3 orphan asylums.
There were only 15 resident Priests in the New Jersey part of the Archdiocese of New York in 1852. They were Rev. John Curoe, St. Paul's (evi- dently a misnomer of the Almanac), St. Peter's, Belle- ville; Rev. John Callan, Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, Boonton, and St. Mary's, Dover (church not dedi- cated) ; Rev. Bernard J. McQuaid, St. Vincent de Paul, Madison, and St. Mary's, Morristown; Rev. Patrick Moran, St. John's Newark; Rev. Louis D. Senez, St. Patrick's, Newark ; Rev. N. Balleis, O. S. B., St. Mary's, Newark; Rev. John Rogers, St. Peter's, New Brunswick-visited occasionally by a German Priest from St. Francis, New York city ; Rev. Thomas Quinn, Paterson-also visited occasionally by a German Priest from St. Francis; Rev. Patrick McCarthy, Perth Amboy and Rahway; Rev. James McDonough, St. Bernard's, Somerville and Plainfield -a German Priest likewise visited Somerville occa- sionally from St. Nicholas', New York; Rev. John Scollard, St. Paul's, Princeton, and he visited Cran- berry, Mercer County, once a month; Rev. Isaac P. Howell, St. Mary's, Elizabethtown, Essex County- visited also once a month by a German Priest from St. Nicholas'; Rev. Anthony Cauvin, Our Lady of Mercy, West Hoboken, and English neighborhood; Rev. John Kelly, St. Peter's, Jersey City ; Rev. M. Madden, Red Bank and South Amboy; Macopin (German) was visited once a month by a Priest from the Church of
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the Most Holy Redeemer, New York; and Stony Hill was attended every month by a Priest from the Church of St. Nicholas', New York.
According to the Official Catholic Directory for 1908, the Catholic population of New York State, with the section of New Jersey originally part of the Diocese of New York, is now approximately 3,500,000, with 1 Archbishop, 9 Bishops, 1 Mitred Abbott, 1,942 Churches, 330 chapels, 219 stations without Churches, 2,535 Priests, 11 Theological Seminaries, about 300,000 young people under Catholic instruc- tion, and about 700 Parochial Schools, besides Colleges and other institutions of learning.
The See of Newark has 1 Bishop; 1 Mitred Abbot; 232 Secular Priests; 75 Priests of Religious Orders; 156 Churches with resident Priests; 26 Mission Churches; 15 Stations; 1 Seminary for Secular Clergy; 44 Clerical Students; 3 Seminaries for Religious Orders with 30 students; 4 Colleges and Academies for boys; 19 Academies for young ladies ; 107 Parishes with Parochial Schools-about 49,000 pupils; 8 Orphan Asylums with 1,155 orphans; 4 Industrial and Reform Schools, with 840 inmates; 2 Protectories for boys-174 inmates; 8 Hospitals; 2 Homes for the Aged; 3 other Charitable Institutions. The number of young people under Catholic care is about 55,000 and the Catholic population is stated at about 360,000.
The religious communities of men in the Diocese are Benedictine Fathers (St. Mary's Abbey)-St. Mary's Church and Abbey, St. Benedict's College, St. Benedict's Church, Newark, and St. Henry's Church, Elizabeth; Carmelite Fathers ( American Province)- Englewood; Dominican Fathers (Eastern Province)
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-Newark; Franciscan Fathers (Paterson, N. J.)- Butler and Paterson; Franciscan Fathers (Syra- cuse)-Hoboken; Jesuit Fathers (the New York- Maryland Province)-St. Peter's Church and College, Jersey City; Passionist Fathers (West Hoboken)- West Hoboken; Fathers of the Pious Society of Mis- sions, Newark; Alexian Brothers (Chicago, Ill.)- Alexian Hospital, Elizabeth; Christian Brothers (Ammendale, Md.)-St. Patrick's Pro-Cathedral School, Newark, Jersey City, Paterson and Orange.
The communities of religious women are Sisters of St. Benedict (Ridgley, Md.) ; Sisters of St. Benedict (Elizabeth) ; Sisters of Charity (Convent Station)- Motherhouse, Academy and Preparatory School, Con- vent Station; Cathedral, St. Joseph's, St. Michael's, St. James, St. Aloysius, St. Rose of Lima, St. Antoninus, St. Bridget, St. Columba, Sacred Heart Schools, St. Mary's and St. Vincent's Acade- mies, Newark; Arlington, Belleville, Bloomfield, Chatham, Dover, East Orange; (3) Elizabeth; Engle- wood, Hackensack, Harrison, Hoboken, St. Aloysius Academy and nine Schools, St. Michael's Orphan Asylum, Jersey City; Kearny, Madison, Montclair, Morristown, Orange, Passaic; Academy, Orphan Asylum, Hospitals and five Schools in Paterson; Plainfield; House of Providence, Ridgewood; Orphan Asylum, Industrial and Our Lady's Schools, South Orange; Summit, Union Hill and West Hoboken. The Sisters of Christian Charity, of Wilkes-Barre, Pa., teach in St. Augustine's School, Newark, St. Michael's School, Elizabeth, and St. Nicholas' School, Jersey City; Sisters of St. Francis (Mt. Loretto, Staten Island)-Orange; Sisters of Charity (Gray Nuns of Montreal, Canada )-Hospital at Morristown;
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Dominican Sisters of the Perpetual Rosary-West Hoboken; Sisters of St. Dominic (Jersey City)- Motherhouse, Academy, St. John's, St. Boniface's and St. Paul's Schools, Jersey City; St. Ann's School, Newark, Boonton, Dover, Caldwell, Orange, (2) Rahway and West Hoboken; Sisters of St. Dominic (New York city)-Academy, Elizabeth, Newark, Paterson, Passaic and Weehawken; Sisters of St. Dominic (Contemplation)-Newark; Sisters of St. Francis (Syracuse, N. Y.)-St. James Hospital, Newark, and Hoboken; Sisters of the Poor of St. Francis (Hartwell, Ohio)-St. Michael's Hospital, Newark; hospitals in Hoboken and Jersey City; Missionary Sisters of St. Francis (Peekskill) - Butler, Paterson, Union Hill, West New York and Shady Side; Sisters of the Good Shepherd (New York Province)-Newark; Sisters of St. Joseph, of Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia-St. John's Parochial School, Newark, Bayonne and Orange; School Sisters of Notre Dame (Baltimore)-St. Peter's Asylum and School, Newark, and Fort Lee, Irvington and Short Hills; Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace (Jersey City)-Novitiate, St. Peter's Orphan Asylum, Home for Girls, St. Mary's Home, Home for the Blind, School for the Blind, Jersey City; Engle- wood; Little Sisters of the Poor, Newark and Pater- son ; Felician Sisters O. S. F., (Doyle, New York), Newark, Jersey City, Bayonne and Passaic; Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother (Rome, Italy)-Denville; Pallotin Sisters of Charity, Newark; Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart (New York)-Orphan Asylum, Arlington; Newark; Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate Conception (Rome, Italy)-Jersey City and West Hoboken; Baptistine Sisters (Italy),
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St. Lucy's, Newark; and the Bernardine Sisters- St. Stephen's Paterson.
The See of Trenton was created July 15th, 1881. It comprises fourteen Counties : Atlantic, Burlington, Camden, Cape May, Cumberland, Gloucester, Hunter- don, Mercer, Middlesex, Monmouth, Ocean, Salem, Somerset and Warren-an area of 5,756 square miles. The Right Rev. Michael Joseph O'Farrell, D. D., was Consecrated the first Bishop November 1st, 1881. He was a most zealous worker and labored with Apostolic ardor in cherishing, fostering and conserving the seeds sown by the illustrious Bishop Bayley and his successor, the late Most Rev. Michael A. Corrigan. Bishop O'Farrell died April 2d, 1894, and was suc- ceeded by the Right Rev. James A. McFaul, D. D., LL. D., who was consecrated in St. Mary's Cathedral October 18th, 1894.
The work so happily begun and promoted by his predecessors, is being successfully prosecuted by Bishop McFaul. Catholicity in his See is keeping pace with its progress throughout the United States. In the Diocese of Trenton there are 152 Secular Priests; 23 Priests of religious orders; 110 Churches with resident Priests; 3 Churches in course of erection; 40 Mission Churches; 97 stations; 372 religious women including novices and postulants; 1 college of religious order with 40 students; 6 academies for young ladies, with 350 pupils; Parishes with Parochial Schools, 40-pupils, 11,629; Sunday Schools, 150; Sunday school teachers, 945; Sunday school pupils, 20,469; orphan asylums, 2, with 300 orphans; hospitals, 3; the number of patients treated during the year 1907, was 5,268; Day nursery, 1- number of children, 65; homes for aged, 2-inmates
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during the year, 80; baptisms, 6,282 ; marriages, 1,708; burials, 2,296; Catholic population about 132,277. There are twelve Religious Communities of women- including the Sisters of St. Joseph, the Sisters of Charity, Gray Nuns, Dominican Sisters of the Per- petual Rosary, Sisters of St. Dominic, School Sisters of Notre Dame, Sisters of Mercy, Mission Helpers, Sisters of St. Francis, Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis and Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity. Of the religious communities of men, there are Dominican Fathers, Franciscans (Minor Con- ventuals), Priests of the Congregation of the Mission, Fathers of the Pious Missions, Brothers of the Sacred Heart Novitiate, Fathers of the Holy Ghost, and Brothers of the Christian Schools.
The Official Catholic Directory for 1852 gives a "summary of Catholicity in the United States." The table of figures is so arranged as to exhibit at a glance the statistics of each Diocese and also of each Ecclesiastical Province. There were then 6 Arch- bishops, 26 Bishops, 1385 Priests, 1411 Churches and 681 other Stations-distributed among 34 Dioceses and 2 Vicariates-Apostolic. "During the past year there was an accession of 1 Archbishop, 1 Bishop and 114 Priests." The Catholic population, exclusive of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, the Sees of Boston, Galveston and St. Paul and the Indian Territory, for which no figures were quoted, numbered 1,600,000; but estimating, as the compiler of the Directory did, the following populations: St. Louis Archdiocese, 90,000; See of Boston, 250,000; that of Galveston, 35,000; that of St. Paul, 2,500; and that of the Indian Territory, 2,500; the total number of Catholics in the United States fifty-seven years ago
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approximated 1,980,000. The number of Ecclesias- tical Institutions, according to the Directory, was 34; Clerical Students, 421; Male Religious Institutions, 49; Literary Institutions for Young Men, 47; Female Religious Institutions, 87; Female Academies, 100; Charitable Institutions, 113. When we compare these statistics with the following summary taken from the Official Catholic Directory for 1908-what a grand object lesson of the growth of Catholicity! What marvellous progress will another half a century bring forth :
There were in the United States on January 1st, 1908, 13 Archbishops; 90 Bishops; 11,496 Secular Clergy, 4,069 Regular Clergy-a total of 15,655; 8,408 Churches with resident Priests, 4,105 Missions with Churches-total Churches, 12,513; 84 Seminaries with 5,609 students; 200 Colleges for boys; 697 Acade- mies for girls ; 4,443 Parishes with schools, and 1,136,- 906 children in attendance; 272 Orphan Asylums, with 42,597 orphans; 1,054 Charitable Institutions; total Catholic children in Catholic institutions, 1,310,300; Catholic population, as recently stated by Bishop McFaul, of the See of Trenton, 17,000,000.
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