USA > New Jersey > Essex County > Newark > History of St. John's Church, Newark > Part 8
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15
What President Wilson so vehemently desired to see accomplished, our Catholic Colleges and High Schools have been doing. Not only is this true of Seton Hall College and other Catholic Colleges and Schools of New Jersey, but of our educational system throughout the United States. The Jesuits especially have been pursuing this method of educa- tion during the three hundred years of their existence. President Wilson reasoned most precisely on the lines of the famous Ratio Studiorum. Our Catholic educational institutions have been doing what he so anxiously hopes Princeton and all the other Colleges and Universities may do, and far more have we been doing : we have been educating not only the minds of our boys, but we have been educating their hearts. We have been educating the boy as God made him, with all his powers and faculties. We have been drawing out all the good that is in him, and striving to correct all the evil-to make him a scholar and a cultured gentleman.
The author knows that many of our Catholics, who
99
HISTORY OF ST. JOHN'S CHURCH
have great social pretensions, sacrifice everything else to this craze for social distinction, and send their boys to the Colleges where, as President Wilson says, "no one has been educated for several decades." In these Colleges, which have great newspaper notoriety for football and boat races, and sometimes for scandalous rowdyism, these Catholic boys have been put through a course of spiritual starvation, in an atmosphere charged with agnosticism, or at least with indiffer- entism. If some have survived without losing their Catholic Faith and Practice, many have lost both, or at least come out such weaklings in Religion, as to be on the verge of failure on what counts for Eternal Life, for as the Gospel has put it: "This is Eternal Life, that they may know Thee the only true God and Jesus Christ Whom Thou hast sent."
In choosing a College for their sons, no parent should choose a College whose atmosphere is malarial-a College where there is no exercise for the pupils and where the diet is a starvation diet; and yet, do not Catholics who send their sons to non- Catholic Colleges place them in an atmosphere full of spiritual malaria? They place them in a College where there is utterly no spiritual exercises, no Sacraments, no Prayer, no careful guidance of the soul, and they submit them to a course of absolute spiritual starvation. The friendships and asso- ciations formed are also usually, at least, un-Catholic, if not anti-Catholic; and, if a young man falls in love it must be with what he knows and sees, and a mixed marriage is often the result of un-Catholic education. It is not difficult to see the final outcome of all this. In two or three generations, if there be any faith left in such families, and any hope for their eternal
100
HISTORY OF ST. JOHN'S CHURCH
salvation, it will be through some miracle of God's grace in spite of their own efforts to have destroyed their faith and hope of eternal life.
Catholics have nothing to gain by going out from the Catholic Faith and Practice-nothing to gain by going to Colleges where by their own admission "no one has been educated for several decades." The Rev. Thomas J. Mccluskey, S. J., President of St. Francis Xavier College, New York, emphasized the facts above given in a talk at the breakfast of the Xavier Alumini Sodality after the Communion Mass, on Sunday, June 7th, 1908, and added: "There is not one of these Colleges, whose Philosophy can compare with the solid and true system given in our Jesuit Colleges and Universities. We do not experiment on the boy. We know what we intend to teach, and we teach it. We know our conclusions in Philosophy, and we have defended them before the world for three hundred years and upon our system has been placed the approval of the Church, 'the pillar and the ground of truth.' Our principles are these which must save the Republic-the permanency of marriage, the sanctity of the home, the forbidding of divorce, the formation of character in the youth committed to our charge. These are the long and lasting things that count for success for the individual, and permanency for the State. You, Gentlemen of this Sodality, all of you graduates of Colleges and Universities, ought to be a unit on these fundamental principles. I know there are some of you who had not the opportunity of a Catholic Education. That your faith has survived in spite of your training is an evidence of what God had done in the home before you went out into the malarial atmosphere of
101
HISTORY OF ST. JOHN'S CHURCH
your non-Catholic College. Look back to your own Colleges, where you were educated, and see if you have not suffered in your faith and practice by the years you were there. These years, certainly, did nothing to strengthen your faith and practice. I am glad you are here with us in this Alumni Sodality; but, as you love your children, do not expose them to the same danger to which you were exposed, and send them where they will not be educated in mind and heart, as they would be in a Catholic College."
102
+ John Connolly
4
CHAPTER XXVI
St. John's Eldest Daughter
St. Mary's, for Catholics of German nationality, was the second Parish established in the Town of Newark. The late Rev. Nicholas Balleis, O. S. B., who celebrated the Golden Jubilee of his ordination of the Priesthood on December 6th, 1881, was the first Pastor. In 1841, while an Assistant at St. Nicholas Church, Second street, New York, Bishop Dubois assigned him to minister unto the spiritual wants of the Catholics of German nationality in Newark and vicinity; and the same year Father Balleis organized St. Mary's Parish-the eldest daughter of old St. John's. Next to the congregation of St. Anthony of Padua, at Macopin (now Echo Lake), Morris County, which had been settled by Catholics from Prussia and Baden, St. Mary's is the oldest German Catholic Congregation in this State. Twenty-seven years ago, in writing up the Golden Jubilee of Father Balleis which was cele- brated in St. Mary's with imposing pomp and cere- mony, the author, then Newark correspondent of the New York Freeman's Journal, furnished that paper with a historical sketch of the progress of Catholicity in the Parishes of St. Mary and St. Anthony of Padua, and he laid especial stress upon the noble evidence of living faith which the Catholic settlers of Macopin
103
HISTORY OF ST. JOHN'S CHURCH
had made manifest-holding steadfast to the tenets of Holy Mother Church for sixty years, although dur- ing that period they only had the ministrations of a Priest very infrequently-sometimes once or twice a year, and it is related that for a period of thirty years they had not seen a Priest. Those Catholic laymen built a structure in which they assembled on Sundays and Holy Days to recite the Rosary, engage in Spiritual Reading and impart instructions in the Christian Doctrine. The building was also used for secular educational purposes.
When he first came and for several months after his advent, Father Balleis used to assemble the scattered Germans of Newark and vicinity twice a month in old St. John's Church and preach to them in their mother tongue. This he was able to do, through the kind permission of Father Moran. Towards the close of the year 1841, the number of German families had increased to seventy, and Father Balleis was enabled to purchase a plot of ground on Grand street (now Howard street), corner of Court street, and begin the erection of a frame Church edifice. The structure was thirty feet by fifty feet. A small parochial residence was also erected. Mass was first celebrated in the building on January 31st, 1842; but the Church was not solemnly dedicated until late in the Fall. Bishop Hughes officiated at the solemn and imposing ceremonies.
Soon after the completion of the building, a school was opened in the basement, with some forty pupils in attendance-one of the first Catholic schools in the State. The congregation growing with surprising rapidity, and the property on Howard street being too small to have a larger edifice erected thereon,
104
HISTORY OF ST. JOHN'S CHURCH
Father Balleis bought the site of the present Church on High street, corner of William, in the Summer of 1846, and immediately took steps to have the tempo- rary church edifice moved thither-a distance of nearly half a mile. There was scarcely a building the whole distance from the old site of the edifice to the new site at that time. The Church edifice was moved along on rollers; but scarcely had the con- tractor proceeded half way than he refused to carry out the terms of the contract because it would entail serious financial loss, and the Church "on rollers" was abandoned by him-left in the middle of the street. Father Balleis, however, was not dismayed. He arranged with another contractor; and, although the edifice was nearly a month on its journey from Howard to High streets, he managed to have the Angelus Bell daily tolled; and he celebrated Mass on Sundays.
Know-Nothingism ran mad in 1854; and St. Mary's struggling Parish underwent a severe trial. The . Church as so many others, reared by the alms of poor laborers, was marked out as a victim for the vengeance of impiety. On September 5th, 1854, (according to Shea's admirable history, "The Catholic Church in the United States"), St. Mary's was demolished in broad daylight by an Orange lodge from New York, on the pretext that a pistol had been fired on their procession from a window of the Church. "The Orangemen were parading in commemoration of the Battle of the Boyne and King William, their patron saint. They threw stones into the windows, fired shots at the structure, and some forced an entrance into the Church and demolished statuary, pictures and other articles." The claim of the Orangemen that
.
105
HISTORY OF ST. JOHN'S CHURCH
their procession had been fired upon was devoid of truth-had no foundation in fact, as all the indepen- dent newspapers admitted and as the judicial investi- gation proved. The New York Tribune said: "It is worthy of remark that while five or six Catholic Churches in this country have been destroyed or ruined by an excited populace, not a single Protestant Church can be pointed out which Catholics have even thought of attacking." "The Orange procession was armed, and in firing on the spectators killed one man and seriously wounded others; but even this could not provoke any breach of peace on the part of the Catholics." While the spoliation and desecration was going on with vandalic fury, the Rev. Charles Geyer- stranger, O. S. B., whose services Father Balleis had been fortunate in securing during the previous year, forced his way fearlessly through the godless crowd to the altar and saved the Blessed Sacrament from profanation. The lives of both Fathers had been threatened, and the horror-stricken parishioners, having still fresh in their minds the abominable out- rage perpetrated a few months before on the person of Father Bapst,* of the Society of Jesus, at Ellsworth, Maine, by similar miscreants, were greatly alarmed for the safety of their beloved priests; but no violence was done them. Not only were the Orangemen armed with firearms, but some carried hatchets. One of the vandals chopped off the head of a Statue of the Blessed Virgin in the Sanctuary, and also the hands just above the wrist. Retributive justice fol- lowed. Six months afterwards, that miscreant lost one of his hands-the very hand which wielded the hatchet was caught in the machinery of a mill where
* Father Bapst was murdered and disemboweled.
106
HISTORY OF ST. JOHN'S CHURCH
he was employed; "blood poisoning set in, and the unfortunate man died a raving maniac."* Another of the miscreants lived in Newark for years and his feet gradually turned outward until the toes of each foot pointed in opposite directions.
The disfigured Statue of the Blessed Virgin which the Orange mob desecrated is enshrined in glass on the Epistle side of St. Mary's Church, just outside the Sanctuary railing. The head of the Statue had been lost for several years. It was found in St. Vincent's Archabbey, near Latrobe, Westmoreland County, Pa., and there treasured by the present Father Abbot of St. Mary's, the Right Rev. Hilary Pfraengle, O. S. B., until it was restored by him to St. Mary's. In front of the shrine where the dis- figured Statue stands is a card inscribed :
THE STATUTE OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN
together with St. Mary's Church, corner High and William Streets, Newark, N. J., was demolished by a mob of Orange rioters from New York
on the 5th day of September, 1854.
Frederick A. Morton, No. 42 Park street, who is one of the author's highly respected Presbyterian neighbors, said the other day that he saw the attack made by the Orangemen upon St. Mary's Church He was then attending the Wesleyan Institute, now known as the Newark Academy on High street, oppo- site the Church. "When the Orangemen began the attack, firing upon the Church, the scholars made a rush to get out; but the doors were immediately locked-we were all locked in-from the windows of
*Newark correspondent of the New York Freeman's Journal.
107
HISTORY OF ST. JOHN'S CHURCH
the school we watched the mob and saw what was going on. The Orangemen discharged their firearms and hurled stones and other missles at the white Cross on the apex of the Church, but they could not get it down. The Cross, as I remember, escaped all injury. It was never hit by either bullet or missle. The next day, with other school companions, I entered the Church, and shall never forget the ‘abomi- nation of desolation' which met our view. The Statue of the Virgin was laying on the floor in the centre aisle in front of the Sanctuary and in front of the main altar, and the right side appeared as if it had been chopped with a hatchet. The interior of the Church was wrecked. Even the organ was torn to pieces-the pipes were twisted in all directions."
108
CHAPTER XXVII
Orangemen Not Loyal Citizens
Orangemen take a most solemn oath to uphold the Protestant British Crown; and yet, because their dark lantern society is a menace to good government, they have no recognition either in England or Scotland. Orange lodges will not be permitted to be organized in Great Britian; in fact they are absolutely forbid- den. When the present King of England visited Canada and the United States in 1860, the Orange- men of Ontario made great preparations to receive him. In every city which the Prince was to visit, they erected arches under which he was to pass. The Duke of Newcastle, in whose charge His Royal Highness was, refused to permit him to recognize the Orange- men, directly or indirectly; and there was "a great howl," but not by Rome! There were threats of rebellion-even revolution-heard on all sides, made by the "loyal" Orangemen. How could the Duke con- sistently permit the heir apparent to the British throne to countenance in Canada an infamous society which was proscribed in England and Scotland by the British government?
The free soil of the United States, hallowed by the civilized influences of Catholic Missionaries and sanctified by the blood of patriots is no place for Orangeism. How can an Orangeman be a good Ameri- can citizen? How can he take the oath of allegiance
109
HISTORY OF ST. JOHN'S CHURCH
to the State and Nation without stultifying himself- perjuring himself? Should he become an American citizen so far as outward appearances go and continue in affiliation with his Orange lodge, is he not a hypo- crite? With the words of his mouth he professes fealty to American institutions, but in his heart there is war against them because of his hidebound oath of fealty to the dynasty of an alien power which he professes to renounce but continues to support. "But should not Orangemen be protected in their civil rights," the author has been asked? No class should be privileged to abuse civil rights by performing a very uncivil act. To insult others, the purpose of Orangemen in their parades, should not be counte- nanced for a moment. As well might we close our eyes to the abuses of civil rights by Anarchists in the name of Liberty! As well might Americans applaud the Orangemen who on the early morning of July 4th, 1862, raised a Palmetto flag over an arch on the bridge spanning the Rideau Canal at Ottawa, Canada -under which several American citizens were obliged to pass on their way to take a train for Ogdensburg, New York, to participate in the Fourth of July cele- bration ! Was not this a gross insult to American man- hood-especially when our country was involved in the throes of Civil War?
110
Br
J. DUBou
CHAPTER XXVIII
St. Patrick's Parish
The second spiritual offspring of St. John's was St. Patrick's, now the Pro-Cathedral. It will be recalled that Bishop Hughes had informed the congregation of St. John's of the purpose of Father Moran to secure land for another Church in a central part of the town, but for prudent reasons the location was not then designated. On October 26th, 1846, the executors of General Thomas Ward sold at public auction the lots on the corner of Washington and Nesbitt streets (now Central avenue) where St. Patrick's Pro-Cathedral now stands. Father Moran appointed Bernard Kearney, Anslem J. Fromaget, George Dougherty (grandfather of Dr. George O'Gorman), Nicholas Moore and Dr. James Elliott, a committee to attend the sale. They were instructed by their Pastor to bid separately for the lots. Because of the antagonism to Catholics in those days, Father Moran believed if it were known that the property was wanted for a site for a Catholic Church he would not be able to secure it. Several lots needed for the Church were bought by Mr. Norris, a Protestant of wealth who lived in Washington Place, the owner and occupant of the residence now occupied by Hon. James Smith, Jr., former United States Senator; but when he was afterwards visited by Rev. Father Moran, who explained the circumstances, he transferred the
111
HISTORY OF ST. JOHN'S CHURCH
lots to the Priest at the price he had paid for them and besides, he made a large donation, expressing regret that he had not been advised of the intention of those whom he had outbid.
Father Moran entered into a contract with a promi- nent builder to erect a Church edifice according to plans furnished. The Pastor of St. John's was the architect. He had the plans already drawn, and determined to exercise daily supervision of the work while in progress. The foundation was laid, and nearly finished, much lumber and brick were on hand, and in the course of a few days the ceremony of laying the corner stone was to be performed by Bishop Hughes. Late one night, however, Father Moran received word that the contractor had run away from town and that he was very much indebted for lumber, brick and wages for the workmen. The Pastor and the people of old St. John's Church had to pay all bills-a very large sum for that time-and the building of the Church was stopped for more than a year. Bishop Hughes sent the Rev. Louis Dominic Senez to be Father Moran's Assistant, and the energetic young priest undertook to finish the work on St. Patrick's. The Assistant Priest of St. John's electrified everybody. The people contributed with remarkable generosity, and work on the Church progressed. The corner stone was laid by Bishop Hughes, September 17th, 1848. The day was stormy -the fury of the elements had burst forth; and because of the storm, the collection taken up was small, for the drenched people had hurried away after the sermon. The congregation of St. John's, however, to whom Father Senez made a fervent appeal on the following Sunday, contributed a large sum of money
112
HISTORY OF ST. JOHN'S CHURCH
for the new edifice. St. Patrick's was dedicated March 17th, 1850, Bishop Hughes officiating. He was attended by Fathers Moran, Senez and Balleis, O. S. B., besides two priests from Brooklyn. The Bishop preached in the morning, and the Rev. Father Deluynes, S. J., preached in the afternoon.
An unpleasant event occurred when St. Patrick's was nearly completed. Painters were engaged in pointing and painting the outside walls. One morn- ing a workman who was somewhat under the influence of liquor insisted upon ascending a ladder to work. He had succeeded in getting four or five steps upward when the Pastor seized the ladder, and the man either jumped or fell off and sprained his ankle. Legal pro- ceedings were instituted against Father Senez; the Grand Jury found a Bill for grievous assault, and at the trial the Judge imposed a fine of $250.00 and costs. At this period it was not difficult to create bad feeling against a Priest. The public mind had been poisoned by the circulation of vile literature made up of false- hoods about the Catholic Church doctrines. The most improbable stories were generally believed; indeed, it would seem as if the wish to believe falsehood was father to the thought.
The Church having been dedicated, Father Senez became the first Pastor. He established a Sunday School and a Day School; organized societies for adults, and laid the foundation of what has become one of the chief glories of the Diocese of Newark- St. Mary's Orphan Asylum at Vailsburg. The Pastor had four rooms fitted up for his own residence in the dormitory of the school. In the Winter of 1851-2, he had beds put into the dormitory, gathered in about a dozen orphan children who had no one to properly
113
HISTORY OF ST. JOHN'S CHURCH
care for them, and ere long the number of orphans increased to twenty-three. They were gathered from both parishes-nearly half the number being from St. John's. These orphans were clothed and fed and cared for by a few charitable young women. In the Winter of 1852, small-pox was epidemic in Newark, and broke out among the orphans. Four of the little ones were stricken with the loathsome disease. Dur- ing the day they were attended by some of the young women (school teachers) ; but Father Senez would not permit any of the teachers to sit up at night. He himself performed the duties of nurse during the nocturnal hours. All the patients recovered. The pupils of the Day Schools on the floors beneath were not vaccinated. Afterwards, when the Diocese of Newark was erected and the Sisters of Charity were brought into this vineyard the orphans were taken to the home of the Sisters at the corner of Washington and Bleecker streets. Subsequently St. Mary's Orphan Asylum was permanently established at Vailsburg and all orphans were taken there. St. Patrick's Parish extended North to Woodside, South to Waverly, and West from Broad street to the Orange Mountains, excepting the Parish limits of St. Mary's (German) Church. In 1852, Father Senez built St. John's, Orange, and established a Day School. The Rev. John Hogan was then his Assistant at St. Patrick's, and the Pastor and the Assistant said Mass in Orange on alternate Sundays. The Church was a frame structure, large enough for the resident Catholics of the village. In its erection, the Priests were assisted financially by a devoted and liberal member of St. Patrick's who resided in Orange-a sea captain named Ward. When the building was
114
HISTORY OF ST. JOHN'S CHURCH
finished and surmounted by the Cross, the Pastor remarked to Captain Ward that "the building would remind him of his ship; the Cross his ship's pennant; and watching this and his compass he might hope to escape storm and shipwreck."
His Holiness, Pope Pius IX. of blessed memory, erected the Diocese of Newark, comprising the entire State of New Jersey, a Suffragan See of New York in 1853, and appointed the Right Rev. James Roose- velt Bayley its first Bishop. He was consecrated by Mgr. Bedini, Apostolic Nuncio to Brazil, on October 30th-the imposing ceremonies taking place in St. Patrick's Cathedral, Mott street, New York. The first Ordinary of the See of Newark selected St. Patrick's for his Cathedral Church. He appointed Father Senez Pastor of St. John's, Orange-the Rev. Bernard J. McQuaid succeeding Father Senez as Pastor of the Pro-Cathedral, and Father Hogan was appointed first Pastor of St. Peter's Church, Belle- ville. After the Civil War began Father McQuaid was appointed President of Seton Hall College, and the Rev. George Hobart Doane was appointed Pastor of St. Patrick's, and in turn he was succeeded by the present zealous Rector, Rev. Isaac P. Whelan, who was formerly an Assistant Priest in old St. John's.
Mgr. Joseph M. Flynn relates this interesting story in which the present Rector of the Pro-Cathedral figures : "At the outbreak of fanaticism, stirred up by native Americans and Know-Nothings, St. Mary's (Elizabethtown) did not escape attention. The infuriated rabble marched toward the Church with the avowed intention of sacking and destroying it. With the open Bible-the Book of all books which embalms sentiments of peace and good will toward
1.15
HISTORY OF ST. JOHN'S CHURCH
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.