USA > Rhode Island > Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. II > Part 69
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+First Bishop of Boston. French emigre, who after residence in England reached Boston in 1796, and was curate with Father Matignon. Consecrated Bishop of Boston, November 1, 1810. Recalled to France as Bishop of Montauban, 1823 ; Archbishop of Bordeaux, 1826 ; Cardinal, 1836; died 1836.
#By appointment of Bishop Carroll, pastor of the Church of the Holy Cross at Boston, 1792-1818. Declined appointment as Bishop of Boston, 1810, urging appointment of Bishop Cheverus.
§ Both Bishop Cheverus and Father Matignon accepted similar invitations to preach from Protestant pulpits in Massachusetts. Of Bishop Cheverus, who was highly esteemed by his contemporarles, William Ellery Channing wrote: "Who among our religious teachers would solicit a comparison between himself and the devoted Cheverus? This good man . . . . lived in the midst of us, devoting his days and his nights and his whole heart to the service of a poor and uneducated congregation. We saw him declining in a great degree the society of the cultivated and refined that he might be the friend of the ignorant and friendless ; leaving the circles of polished life, which he would have adorned, for the meanest hovels; bearing with a father's sympathy the burdens and sorrows of his large spiritual family
faintest indication that he felt his fine mind degraded by his seemingly humble office. .
. and never discovering by the How can we shut our hearts against this proof of the power of the Catholic religion to form good and great men? It . is time that greater justice was done to this anclent and widespread community. The Catholic Church has produced some of the greatest and best men that ever lived." The bells of the Catholic Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston were tolled in 1842 on the occasion of the death of William Ellery Channing, native son of Rhode Island and one of the greatest preachers in the Unitarian movement. * Afterward Civil War general.
ST. BRENDAN'S CHURCH RIVERSIDE
SACRED HEART CONVENT, ELMHURST, PROVIDENCE
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group, mostly factory workers, and for these David Wilkinsont gave a lot of land to be used as a site for a church. The land is part of the site now occupied by St. Mary's Church. The deed granted the land to Bishop Fenwick "in trust for the use and behoof of the Roman Catholics of Pawtucket or all those composing the Roman Catholic con- gregation of Pawtucket, whether resident in the village or its vicinity, said village lying partly in Massachusetts and partly in Rhode Island." A building, the first erected in Rhode Island as a catholic church, was completed in 1829; it was replaced in 1874 by the present church. The people of St. Mary's erected a bronze tablet in 1930 to the memory of David Wilkinson. At Woonsocket, in Union Village, where the road from Providence to Worcester crossed the road from Boston to Hartford, and where the water power of the Blackstone indi- cated the location of a manufacturing city, Father Woodley found ten Catholics. Walter Allent offered his home, now known as the Osborne house, and Mass was celebrated there for the first time in Woonsocket. Priests visited Woonsocket at irregular intervals until 1841, when the hall of the Woonsocket Hotel was hired for weekly services; a wooden church, St. Charles Borromeo's, was erected in 1844. It was destroyed by fire in 1868, a few months before the completion of the present granite Church of St. Charles.
In Providence Father Woodley and his successors celebrated Mass in Mechanics' Hall for several years after 1828; in the "Tin Top Church," at Richmond and Pine streets, in 1835; in the Town House at College and Benefit Streets in 1836 and 1837, until the Church of Saints Peter and Paul was completed. The "Tin Top" church had been built by temporary seceders from the Beneficent Congregational Church, and after reunion was rented to various congregations for specified hours on Sundays. The Town House was occupied rent free by gift of the town. The new church occupied part of the site of the present Cathedral. Other- wise than in Newport, Pawtucket, Woonsocket and Providence, Father Woodley visited Catholics as he found them. Large numbers had come as immigrants to southern New Eng- land to work as laborers on the Blackstone Canal, and on the railroads under construction. Father Woodley visited them in construction camps along the right of way. He was relieved in 1831 to join the Jesuit Order. His immediate successor was Reverend John Corry. Other priests were assigned by Bishop Fenwick to continue the work, the number increasing gradu- ally. The Providence parish was divided in 1841. Masses for the new parish were cele- brated in Franklin's Hall and Masons' Hall until Christmas, 1841, when the first Mass was said in the then new St. Patrick's Church. The church was dedicated July 3, 1842, when the first Pontifical Mass was sung in Providence by Bishop Fenwick. St. Patrick's Church con- tinued in use into the twentieth century; a new building was dedicated in 1917. Among the priests who followed Father Woodley was Father James Fitton, who founded Mt. St. James College, which became Holy Cross College.
The territory committed to Father Woodley's care was designated as the diocese of Hartford in 1844, and Reverend William Tyler was appointed as the first Bishop. Bishop Tyler selected the Providence Church of Saints Peter and Paul as his cathedral and thus made Providence the seat of the diocese. During his episcopacy additional land was purchased, and the Cathedral was enlarged to double its original capacity. Bishop Tyler died June 18, 1849. He had, because of failing health, applied for the appointment of a Bishop Coadjutor, and news of the appointment of Reverend Bernard O'Reilly to that office was received in October, 1850. The appointment as Coadjutor carried with it the right of succession, and Father O'Reilly was consecrated as Bishop. Bishop O'Reilly sailed for Europe in December, 1885, and did not return. It is believed that he was lost at sea while a passenger on the steamer "Pacific," which sailed from Liverpool on January 23, 1856, and was not reported afterward. The Vicar General, Very Reverend William O'Reilly, continued as administrator
+Episcopalian ; brother-in-law of Samuel Slater.
#Not a Catholic ; probably a Friend.
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of the diocese for four years while tidings from Bishop O'Reilly were awaited anxiously, and as time passed, sorrowfully. The vacant see was filled by the appointment of Reverend Thomas McFarland as Bishop.
In ten years Bishop McFarland became convinced that his diocese ought to be divided, and after a visit to Rome in 1870, during which the matter was discussed, he made preparations for a division on the state boundary line between Rhode Island and Connecticut. For himself he chose to continue as Bishop of Hartford and removed to the Connecticut city as head of a diocese comprising the state of Connecticut. For the new diocese of Providence, including, besides the state of Rhode Island, part of southeastern Massachusetts, Reverend Thomas F. Hendricken was appointed as Bishop. Bishop Hendricken was consecrated as first Bishop of Providence in the old Cathedral at Providence by Archbishop McCloskey of New York on April 28, 1872. The consecration sermon was preached by the famous Dominican, Reverend Thomas Burke, O. P.
When the diocese of Hartford was created in 1844, there were in Rhode Island five Catholic churches, one each at Newport, Pawtucket, and Woonsocket, and two in Providence. At Cromp- ton in the same year land was bought for the first of the Pawtuxet Valley churches ; the build- ing was completed in 1845 and dedicated as Our Lady of Mount Carmel. The parish continues as St. James of Arctic since 1892; St. James was a mission from Crompton, to which the church was transferred with the change of population centre. The famine years in Ireland were close at hand. and with them an unprecedented migration, almost that of a people. Catholic Irish immigrants poured into industrial New England states. The population of Rhode Island increased thirty-five per cent. in the ten years from 1840 to 1850. The organization of the new Catholic parishes paralleled the extension of manufacturing in location, and kept pace with the increase in population. St. Joseph's parish in Providence was set off from St. Patrick's in 1851, and a slate stone Gothic edifice with brown stone trimmings was completed in 1853. Both this church and the Church of Our Lady of the Isle at Newport, the two the oldest existing Catholic edifices in Rhode Island, were designed by Keely. The exteriors of both are practically unchanged after three-quarters of a century, but the interiors of both have been remodeled. Other parishes organized by Bishop O'Reilly were St. Ann's, at Cranston Print Works; St. Mary's, of Warren, which for a time served both Warren and Bristol ; St. Mary's, of Bristol ; the Church of the Holy Name (afterward Our Lady of Mercy), at East Greenwich; St. Francis, of Wakefield; St. Patrick's, of Harrisville; St. Michael's, of Georgiaville; St. Mary's, the Immaculate Conception, and St. Bernard's, afterward St. Michael's, of Providence. The granite edifice for St. Mary's, on Broadway, Providence, remarkable for both exterior and massive interior architecture, was the second building for the parish of that name, and was completed in 1869. In the Pawtuxet Valley the church at Crompton established a mission at Phenix in 1853, which became the Church of Saints Peter and Paul. For the mission Rock Chapel was purchased from Episcopalians, found too small, sold in 1853 and replaced by pur- chase of an edifice built for Baptists. The latter gave way to a new building in 1892. St. Pat- rick's Church at Valley Falls, completed in 1861, was the last until the Civil War was over. After the war the parishes of St. John at Slatersville, and of St. Edward, St. John and the Assumption in Providence were organized and edifices were erected during the episcopacy of Bishop McFarland.
Latin is the language of the Catholic Church for ritual and ceremony, thus to preserve uni- formity in the universal church. The Gospels and Epistles are read,* prayers are said, lessons are taught, and sermons are preached in the vernacular for understanding by the people. Bishop Hendricken was confronted almost immediately after his consecration by the problem of pro- viding for immigrants who did not speak and understand English. Bishop McFarland's effort to solve the problem by attaching as pastors or curates to existing parishes priests who spoke
*After reading in Latin as part of the Mass.
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other modern languages than English and by requiring novices to learn other languages as prep- aration for the priesthood, had not proved entirely satisfactory. Separate churches were requested, and the requests were granted by Bishop Hendricken and his successors under cir- cumstances in which sufficient numbers warranted it. French parishes were established as St. Charles Borromeo in Providence, St. Jean Baptiste at Woodlawn in Pawtucket, Notre Dame de Sacre Coeur in Central Falls, Precious Blood in Woonsocket, St. James at Manville, St. Jean Baptiste at Arctic, and St. John's in Warren. The Church of the Holy Rosary in Providence was established for Portuguese. Other new parishes founded by Bishop Hen- dricken were the Holy Name. St. Thomas and St. Teresa, in Providence; Sacred Heart and St. Joseph, in Pawtucket ; St. Joseph, in Newport ; Sacred Heart, in East Providence ; St. Joseph, at Pascoag ; Immaculate Conception, in Westerly ; St. Joseph, at Ashton. Bishop Hen- dricken built the present episcopal residence on Fenner Street in Providence.
Because the Cathedral, although enlarged by Bishop Tyler, was inadequate, Bishop Hen- dricken continued the policy of his predecessors of buying adjoining land, and undertook con- struction of a new edifice. Purposing to maintain the original location, on the principal city street and also almost central as the city developed, a procathedral for temporary occupation was erected on Broad Street. The old Cathedral was razed after use for the last time on May 5, 1878, forty years after its completion. The present Cathedral, the largest religious edifice in Rhode Island, was designed by Keely, architect of many churches, including the brownstone church at Newport and old St. Joseph's in Providence. Except the cornerstone, which is of Kilkenny marble, the structure is of brownstone, 198x136 feet, occupying a city block, which imposed limitations on the dimensions. With two massive towers, it rises majestically, fronting upon a broad open plaza. Its own height, plus the elevation of the hill on which it stands, makes the Cathedral a conspicuous landmark. Bishop Hendricken collected funds as the work progressed, avoiding indebtedness, and had carried the project forward almost to completion when he died, June II, 1886. The solemn requiem for Bishop Hendricken was the first cere- mony conducted in the new Cathedral, which was his sepulchre; he was buried in the crypt in the Cathedral. Reverend Matthew Harkins was consecrated as Bishop of Providence in the Cathedral, April 14, 1887. To him had fallen the task of raising one-fifth of the half-million of dollars which the work had cost. The Cathedral was opened for regular services in November, 1887, and was consecrated June 30, 1889.
Bishop Harkins carried forward the work of founding new parishes to meet the needs of increasing congregations. The new parishes in Rhode Island included St. Adalbert's, St. Ann's, St. Anthony's, St. Agnes', St. Bartholomew's, Blessed Sacrament, Holy Ghost, St. Hedwig's, St. George's, Our Lady of Lourdes, St. Raymond's, St. Sebastian's, all in Providence; Our Lady of Good Help, Mapleville ; Holy Trinity, St. Matthew's and St. Joseph's, Central Falls ; St. Matthew's and St. Paul's, Cranston ; St. Brendan's, St. Margaret's, and St. Francis Xavier, in East Providence ; St. Brigid's, St. Rocco's, Our Lady of Grace, in Johnston : St. Ambrose's, Albion; St. Lawrence's, Centredale; Our Lady of Presentation, Marieville; St. Cecilia's, St. Edward's, St. Leo's, Our Lady of Consolation, Pawtucket ; St. Aloysius, St. Anne's, Holy Fam- ily, Our Lady of Victories, Sacred Heart, St. Joseph's, St. Stanislaus, Woonsocket; Holy Angels, Barrington ; St. Elizabeth's and Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Bristol; St. Casimir's, Warren ; Our Lady of Czentichowa, Quidnick ; Our Lady of Good Counsel, Phenix ; St. Bene- dict's, Conimicut ; St. Mark's, Jamestown; St. Augustine's, Newport; St. Andrew's, Block Island ; St. Anthony's, Portsmouth ; St. Philomena's, Narragansett Pier; St. Bernard's, Wick- ford. The new churches included French, Italian, Polish, Portuguese and Lithuanian, besides others for English-speaking Catholics. For many of these new parishes, permanent edifices of brick or stone were constructed, these including among others, St. Ann's, Blessed Sacrament, and Holy Ghost of Providence, and Holy Trinity of Central Falls. New buildings were dedi- cated for St. Charles Borromeo's and Holy Name, Providence; St. Joseph's, Pascoag; St.
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John's, Arctic; St. Joseph's, Natick, as part of a program for replacing older with modern, fire- proof edifices. These extensions in Rhode Island were part of a diocesan work, which included similar developments in southeastern Massachusetts.
By 1904 the diocese had attained proportions which warranted division; the diocese of Fall River, including the Massachusetts territory, was set off from the diocese of Providence, and Reverend William Stang was consecrated as the first Bishop at the Providence Cathedral on May 8, 1904. Rev. Austin Dowling,* rector of the Cathedral, was consecrated there as first Bishop of Des Moines, Iowa, April 25, 1912. With the new organization the Diocese of Provi- dence had become coterminous with the state of Rhode Island. The weight of years rested heavily upon Bishop Harkins as his labors neared completion, and in 1915 Very Reverend Thomas F. Doran, who had been Vicar General, was appointed as Auxiliary Bishop. Bishop Doran died within a year, on January 3, 1916. Reverend Daniel M. Lowney was consecrated as Auxiliary Bishop, October 23, 1917, and died in August, 1918. Reverend William A. Hickey was consecrated as Bishop Coadjutor, with right of succession, on April 10, 1919, and on the same day became active administrator of the diocese. Bishop Harkins died May 25, 1921. In the period from 1828 to 1920 the membership of the Catholic Church in Rhode Island had increased from less than 5000 to 275,000, and in 1920 included half the population of the state of Rhode Island.
Other new parishes, organized mostly during Bishop Hickey's administration, are: St. Augustine's. St. Casimir's, St. Pius, and Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Providence; St. Anthony's and St. Teresa's, Pawtucket ; St. Basil's, Central Falls; St. Joan of Arc, Cumber- land ; St. Anthony's, Woonsocket ; St. Phillip's (a mission), Greenville; St. Mary's, Cranston ; Little Flower of Jesus, Nasonville; St. Catharine's, Apponaug; St. Christopher's, Tiverton; Jesus Savior, Newport ; Our Lady of Loretto, East Providence; Sacred Heart, Natick; St. Anthony's, Riverpoint ; St. Catharine's, Little Compton; Holy Ghost, North Tiverton. The 110 Catholic churches, except a few small missions, are filled repeatedly on Sundays by successive congregations of worshippers, sometimes as many as six Masses being said on hourly schedule from six o'clock or earlier in the morning until noon, to accommodate 350,000 Catholics. Besides the churches, chapels in charitable and other institutions are maintained by Catholics. On feast days on which Catholics attend Mass as well as on Sundays churches open as early as five . o'clock to accommodate those whose attendance later is inconvenient because of occupation. The Catholic churches vary in size from the massive Cathedral, with eight times the floor area of the First Baptist Church, and other large churches in cities and compact population centres, to mission chapels built as part of the program inaugurated by Bishop Harkins of locating churches so conveniently that no Catholic may have a valid reason for not attending Mass on Sunday. The small churches are invariably temporary structures with provision for enlarge- ment and permanent construction, the latter to be undertaken as soon as the growth of the parish warrants it. The modern type of city or compact town Catholic church tends to large size, although the problem of providing for increasing attendance of parishioners in growing parishes is solved by provision for more Masses or by division of parishes and the construction of new churches. The architecture is usually Gothic or Roman, and in permanent edifices varies from the early stone structures designed by Keely through the era of red brick with granite or limestone trimmings to the modern vogue of cream brick, cement or beautifully matched stone. The staid type of ecclesiastical architecture of the nineties has given way noticeably to beauty of design in classical basilica or Gothic temple recalling the finest traditions of mediaeval art.
Questions involving (1) interpretation of the statute under the provisions of which parish corporations within the Catholic Church are organized in Rhode Island, and (2) the purpose for which parish funds may be appropriated were carried to the Supreme Court of Rhode Island in 1928. The immediate causes alleged for controversy were the methods employed by
*Archbishop of St. Paul, Minnesota; died November 29, 1930.
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Bishop Hickey to assure an equitable distribution of the burdens of supporting diocesan and general undertakings, including Catholic high schools, a diocesan newspaper, and the National Catholic Welfare Council. The opposition to the Bishop's policy was among a group styling themselves Franco-Americans, claiming to represent Catholics of French Canadian origin and alleging a patriotic purpose of preserving French Canadian solidarity in the United States, and particularly the French language. The nationalistic movement was not new ; Bishop McFarland had dealt with the language aspect of it by training priests as bi-linguists, and Bishop Hen- dricken had organized separate parishes on nationalistic or language bases. Neither was Bishop Hickey's plan to allocate to parishes irreducible quotas of funds to be raised for diocesan pur- poses new or novel. In the support of the Rhode Island Catholic Orphan Asylum, the first dio- cesan charitable institution, voluntary gifts, occasional church collections, and annual fairs and picnics had been found unsatisfactory : Bishop Harkins sought a solution of the problem of adequate support in an assessment levied upon parishes, to be met by payment from parish funds if necessary. Again, in an instance in which a parish had been divided, the Bishop had not hesitated to apply the rule of apportioning property which in public administration is applied when new municipalities are created by the division of older ones ; the statute providing for dis- memberment redistributes public property. It has happened that the location of a new boundary line has placed so much more property in one than in the other of the municipalities affected that one has been ordered to assess a special tax to reimburse the other. The state of West Vir- ginia, years after the Civil War, paid a claim presented by the commonwealth of Virginia for public property acquired by the new state when it was created within the territory of the Old Dominion. Bishop Harkins created a new parish by setting off a part of an older parish, and apportioned to the new parish part of the fund accumulated in the older parish before the division. The justice of the action must appeal to one who recognizes the right to an accounting and a division of partnership assets after dissolution. The state court to which a test case was carried found technical, legal and equitable reasons for sustaining the Bishop .*
The assertion that the opposition to Bishop Hickey's plan was nationalistic rests upon statements made in public meetings and editorials printed in a public newspaper published by one of the leading spirits in the Franco-American movement. The nationalistic or linguistic issue had arisen several times earlier. The Church of St. Anne in Woonsocket objected in 1914 to the appointment of Marist Fathers from Belgium as pastor and curates ; the objection was nationalistic rather than linguistic, inasmuch as the Belgian priests spoke French. Bishop Harkins yielded, gave St. Anne's Church a French pastor, and placed the Church of St. Charles Borromeo in Providence in charge of the Belgians. Again in 1922, there had been widespread opposition, most emphatic among Franco-Americans, to a new school statute, which transferred from town and city school committees to the State Board of Education the function of approv- ing private and parochial schools for attendance. The reasons for opposition urged at public hearings were principally belief and opinion that the statute had been aimed at suppression of the teaching of the French language. The legislation was made an issue in the political cam- paign of 1922, and agitation was continued until the function of approving schools was restored to school committees.
Bishop Hickey's plan for Catholic high schools,¡ to be maintained as diocesan instead of parochial institutions, was received coldly by pronounced nationalists, who interpreted it as a new movement to weaken French ; the project was supported so enthusiastically otherwise that the results of the drive for funds surpassed Bishop Hickey's fondest expectations. When the Bishop observed that the opposition had been successful to the extent that a few parishes had neglected the raising of the quotas suggested in the first instance as equitable, he ordered the quotas paid from parish funds. For the support of the "Providence Visitor," the Diocesan
*Enos vs. Church of St. John the Baptist, 187 Mass. 40. Chapter XXXIV.
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weekly newspaper, and for the raising of the parish quotas for the support of the National Catholic Welfare Council, assessments were levied upon parish funds. The nationalistic and linguistic objection to the "Visitor" was that it was printed in English. To the Welfare Council opposition had been aroused because its work emphasized the importance of acquaintance with the principles of American government and with the English language for better citizenship, its publications including a pamphlet in question and answer form dealing with general infor- mation about the American political system.
The three assessments-( I) for high schools, (2) for the "Visitor," and (3) for the Wel- fare Council-were made the basis for ten bills in equity filed against the trustees constituting the legal corporation in each of ten parishes. The bills alleged that the payments by parish corporations on order of the Bishop were "ultra vires and illegal for the purposes for which said payments were directed," and prayed for an accounting and restitution. The respondents named in each bill were the five members of the parish corporation as organized under the statute of 1869-that is, the Bishop, the Vicar General, the pastor, and two laymen. The com- plainants alleged that they were, in each instance, members in good standing of the parish. The question reached eventually in the pleading was the right to appropriate parish funds for pur- poses that "did not concern the immediate interests of the local parish corporation, but were for the advancement of the Roman Catholic Church in general." The Supreme Court ruled that a question as to the court's jurisdiction to entertain a suit in equity, in view of the provision by the Catholic Church of a procedure for adjudicating issues arising in internal administration, had not been properly raised in the pleading .* Interpreting section three of the statute of 1869, which reads: "Such body corporate [the parish corporation] shall have powers to receive and hold, by gift, grant or purchase, all property, real or personal, that may be conveyed thereto for the purpose of maintaining religious worship according to the doctrine, discipline and ritual of the Roman Catholic Church, and for the support of the educational or charitable institutions of that church," the court held that the words "that church" refer to the Roman Catholic Church in general and not exclusively to the particular parish church held by the corporation, thus : "The natural meaning of the paragraph is that the uses to which the general funds and property of the local parish corporation may be put are such as are connected with the Roman Catholic Church in general. The uses of corporate funds naturally will be made largely for the main- tenance and advancement of the particular corporation, but a construction of the language of the act as so confining the uses of the funds and preventing their employment in part, at least, if properly authorized, for the advancement of the general policies of the Roman Catholic Church, for the carrying out of which the several respondent corporations exist, is too narrow."
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