The History of Catholic America
Walking With God

Missionary endeavors and reforming crusades spread throughout the country as the Church expanded and her people continued to grow in God's Word.

A well-known temperance crusader was Bishop (later Archbishop) John Ireland of St. Paul, who became a leader of the Catholic Total Abstinence Union and soon gained a nationwide reputation as a great orator.

Disturbed by the plight of immigrants crowded and jobless on the east coast, he organized, with the cooperation of the state government and the western railroads, the Irish Catholic Colonization Association of the United States, Inc., bringing more than four thousand Catholic families to over 400,000 acres of farmland in western Minnesota and just over the border of Nebraska. This organization began in 1879, despite the floundering of three previous colonization attempts in that region. Bishop John Spalding of Peoria was made president of the board of directors, which consisted of thirteen laymen and six bishops - a position he held through 1891.

At the time, Bishop Edward Fitzgerald of Little Rock, Arkansas, had several flourishing colonies and an association committee was formed there in 1881, but this area never attracted the numbers that flocked to Minnesota.

Bishop Ireland was an enthusiastic supporter of the American system at a time when some Catholics were operating as a separate entity within the physical boundaries of the United States. His aims were similar to those of James Cardinal Gibbons in many ways. He acted as an interpreter, through eloquent orations and prolific writings, of political and ecclesiastical policies. Neither Gibbons nor Ireland would support moves to reorganize the American church by forming foreign-speaking enclaves - a plan endorsed by some, especially the Germans, who felt that the hierarchy was too Irish-dominated and was pushing too hard to "Americanize" the immigrants.

This window features Father Marquette and Jolliet exploring the Mississippi in 1673. Marquette died on his second voyage in what is now the city of Marquette, Michigan. Shown above are the Indian tepees and the wampum of friendship which the Indians gave to Father Marquette.

In fact, in 1880 Father William Keegan was appointed vicar general for the English-speaking Catholics of the Diocese of Brooklyn, while Monsignor Michael May was vicar general for the German-speaking people. Bishop John Laughlin had devised this method to avoid clashes between the German and Irish immigrants, who were each intensely loyal to the religious customs and traditions of their homelands.

Bishop Ireland, a colorful character, worked with the gentle Bishop John Keane of Richmond in promoting the establishment of the Catholic University of America, for which the Holy See's approval was received on March 7, 1889. President Harrison attended the formal opening on November 13, 1889.

Bishop Ireland also founded, in his own diocese, the College of St. Thomas (1885) and the St. Paul Seminary (1894). On May 19, 1910, he acted as chief consecrator for six bishops in the chapel of St. Paul Seminary - an unprecedented event.

His reputation as a learned man of great insight led to his serving, on separate occasions, in negotiations with other countries, as official representative of both the United States government and of the Church of Rome.

Father James Gibbons, at the age of thirty-two, was made titular bishop of the nearly fifty thousand square miles of North Carolina, where it was estimated only about seven hundred of the more than one million residents were Catholic. When he attended Rome's first Vatican Council (December, 1869 to July, 1870) he was the youngest of more than seven hundred bishops from all over the world.

Bishop Gibbons attended the Council along with other American bishops including Bishop Fitzgerald of Little Rock. Then Bishop Fitzgerald made a place in history for himself by being one of the two bishops at Vatican Council I to vote against papal infallibility. The other was a bishop from Sicily.

Just two years later, the additional burden of the bishopric of Richmond was added to Bishop Gibbons' North Carolina responsibility, but through the lustrum of his double-tenure great strides were made in both states, as he traveled and visited and inspired the faithful. His book, Faith Of Our Fathers, published in 1876, is a simply and beautifully stated exposition of Catholic teachings, inspiring to Catholics and non-Catholics alike.

As archbishop of Baltimore, to which position he was elevated in 1877, Gibbons became one of the guiding lights of the American Catholic church. On June 30, 1886, in the Baltimore Cathedral, the red biretta of the cardinalate was conferred on him.

His role as an intermediary was an important one. He took steps to control the internal German-lrish conflicts by constantly stressing the oneness of their new nationality and of their faith. He also served to allay the fears of Protestants who believed that Catholics were under a "foreign jurisdiction," at the same time trying to keep Pope Leo XIII constantly aware of these American fears and the operations of this new democracy - a form of government not familiar to Europeans.

Cardinal Gibbons was a great patriot and his last published article included a statement that he was "more and more convinced that the Constitution of the United States is the greatest instrument of government that issued from the hand of man." He was also a great friend of the working man and defended the Knights of Labor, a secretive organization that grew out of the labor movement.

Father John Joseph Keane was a zealous worker who aided in the inauguration of the Catholic Total Abstinence Union of America (1872), the Catholic Young Man's National Union (1875), Carroll Institute (1873), and the Tabernacle Society in Washington.

His devoted service led to his appointment as fifth bishop of Richmond in 1878. His administration could be truly termed "catholic" for he spread his attention to all. Protestant tension was nullified when he lectured to many of its groups; he fought opposition to catechize Blacks, succeeding in winning a number of converts. He was instrumental, with Bishop Ireland, in gaining approval for the Catholic University and became its first rector upon its opening in November, 1889.

His liberal political views and splendid oratory helped quash the ecclesiastical disapproval of the Knights of Labor and aided in the Americanization of Catholic immigrants. His "Americanist" political views were considered a threat to Catholicism by many Europeans and finally his reputation caused the pope to cancel his rectorship and give him a position in Rome. He continued to battle the attacks against him by Europeans, convincing Pope Leo of his honest and pious intentions.

When the governing board of the University requested his aid in 1899, he undertook, with papal approval, a tour of the United States soliciting funds from wealthy Americans. His modest success in this endeavor and his obviously genuine devotion earned his appointment to the archbishop of Dubuque in July, 1900. Here he concentrated on the development of educational institutions and the campaign against alcoholism, organizing an Archdiocesan Total Abstinence Union in 1902.