Catholic social, economic, and political treatment, 1865-1895

Catholics in America:

During the period in American history just before the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, the United States was experiencing great change in its social, political and economic arenas, due mostly to the continuing expansion westward beyond the Mississippi River. This new territory was already inhabited by thousands of Catholics, mainly of Mexican descent, but much of the territory was completely unsettled and wild and was peopled by Native American Indian tribes. With new immigrants coming into the United States "at a rate of some two million every ten years from countries such as Ireland, France, Spain, Italy and Central Europe, the Catholic population exploded and was to serve as the basis for much social and political trouble in the future" (Evanston 45).

The majority of immigrants that flocked into the Unites States before and during the Civil War (1861 to 1865) were for the most part poor and uneducated, having suffered terribly from discrimination and bigotry in their countries of origin. Circa 1865, these immigrants were mostly Irish; in fact, "Irish immigration was the main cause for the increase in the Catholic population from about half a million in 1860 to over three million after the Civil War" (Thomas 56), making Catholicism the largest denomination in the U.S. Another wave of immigrants, from about 1865 to 1890, brought German Catholics in numbers about equal to that of the Irish immigrants. The third wave, from about 1890 to 1900, came from Italy and Eastern Europe and due to their inability to speak English, most of them were forced to live in extreme poverty within the major cities like Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia and New York City.

In addition, these Catholics were faced with other problems, such as extreme prejudice, bigotry and religious discrimination which highly affected their overall social, political and economic lives. One special group, although not of the Catholic faith, was the European Jewish immigrants, "refugees who were... desperately eager to become Americans, although... they retained and nurtured much of their traditional culture" (Carnes 641) which inevitably led to this group being harassed and ridiculed for their religious differences. This is a good symbol of how Catholics were also ridiculed for their religious beliefs, especially in the eyes of the Protestants living in the Unites States, especially along the Eastern Seaboard. In essence, "the Protestant majority treated 'new' immigrants as underlings, tried to keep them out of the best jobs (even despite having superior artistic skills), and discouraged their efforts to climb the social ladder" (Carnes 643).

Anti-Catholic bigotry, although lessened by the bravery and sacrifices of certain Catholic patriots during the American Revolution, surfaced from about 1830 to the Civil War and then periodically into the late 1890's. As the number of Catholics increased in the U.S., the English-speaking Protestant majority became afraid the of Catholic immigrants. The Irish Catholics that poured into the cities in the East were the hardest hit, for they took on hard jobs and were forced economically to live in squalor and poverty. Rumors then began to spread that the Catholic immigrants were conspiring to take over the U.S., and eventually, anti-Catholic sentiments developed into a political party called the "Know Nothing Party." As Mark C. Carnes points out, "many...Americans concluded wrongly... that the new immigrants were incapable of becoming good citizens and should be kept out" (642) which only led to increased the bigotry and hatred toward the Catholics.

Immigrant men from these various ethnic groups were greatly affected by all of this discrimination in the areas of social acceptance, economic gain and political standing. As laborers, they worked hard and long with little pay. In places called "sweatshops," the immigrants worked under horrible and unhealthy conditions, and if they attempted to join a union for protection, they were often fired or even killed. By 1886, "a union known as the Knights of Labor had grown to 700,000 members, many of whom were Catholic" (Evanston 89). When some bishops attempted to get the Knights condemned by the Vatican, Cardinal James Gibbons of Baltimore wrote to Pope Leo XIII and then journeyed to Rome on the Knight's behalf. Not too long after this fateful trip, the Pope wrote his encyclical Rerum Novarum which strongly asserted worker's rights to fair and equal wages and decent working conditions. However, Cardinal Gibbons, even after this encyclical by the Pope, "took a dim view of strikes (by the Catholic immigrants)" and any "concrete action by American Catholics was slow in coming, (due to) the conservatism of the clergy and the parochial concerns of the lay leaders" (Carnes 654).

The Catholic church responded in other ways to the crucial needs of immigrant Catholics in the United States, especially in the area of social reform and support. Mother Frances Cabrini, an Italian immigrant, founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart in order to teach Italians in the parochial schools run by the Catholic church, to care for the thousands of homeless children that had been forced to live in the streets because of the deaths of their parents from hatred, and to place nurses in hospitals. Such organizations as the Saint Vincent de Paul Society made it possible for Catholics to help each other through social change and reform in the way of providing clothes, food and shelter for the needy. According to the president of this benevolent society, one of the greatest threats to all immigrant Catholics was alcoholism which he described as "the great evil...the source of the misery for at least three-fourths of the families we are called upon to visit and relieve" (Carnes 653).

Fortunately, during the 1890's, the "Know Nothings" ceased to be a powerful anti-

Catholic force. The Catholic church had, by this time, also organized itself well within the American institutions which had a profound effect on the social, economic and political status of all Catholic immigrants in the United States. But the emergence of ethnic churches caused even more problems, mainly because most priests and bishops in the U.S. were Irish and had been part of the first huge wave of Catholic immigrants. Some ethnic groups, particularly the German Catholics, wanted to practice their religion exactly as they had done in Germany in order to preserve their culture and their language in the new lands of America. As a result, the Germans frequently resented the Irish priests and the hierarchy which inspired them to establish German parishes with their own pastors. This, however, "caused much unrest and even mob violence in many Eastern cities, especially New York City, where many Catholic immigrants clashed with Irish Catholics over their differences in religious dogma" (Evanston 156).