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Bishop John Lancaster Spalding and the Catholic Minority (1877–1908)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Thomas T. McAvoy
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Extract

RomanCatholicism in the United States has produced able leaders among its clergy and laymen during the first decades of the twentieth century, but most of them seem to lack the lustre and verve of the Catholic leaders during the waning decades of the nineteenth century. The lay leadership which produced John Gilmary Shea, William J. Onahan, Henry F. Brownson, Patrick V. Hickey and Henry Spaunhorst had strong backing from such clergymen as James Cardinal Gibbons, John Ireland, John J. Keane, Bernard McQuaid, and Michael A. Corrigan. But the intellectual leader of American Catholicism during the late nineteenth century was John Lancaster Spalding, Bishop of Pepria, and the twentieth century Catholicism has not produced his counterpart.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , January 1950 , pp. 3 - 19
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1950

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References

1 John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) acquired the title of Archbishop when appointed to the titular see of Scythopolis in 1908, but is usually called Bishop to distinguish him from his uncle Archbishop Martin John Spalding of Baltimore. The only real biographical study of Spalding is that of Sister Mary Evangela Henthorne, The Career of Right Reverend John Lancaster Spalding, as President of the Irish Catholic Colonization Association of the U. S., 1879–1892 (Urbana, 1932).Google Scholar Merle Curti's chapter on Spalding in The Social Ideas of American Educators (New York, 1935),Google Scholar while sympathetic does not do full justice to Spalding's progressiveness. The destruction of the Spalding correspondence and papers makes almost impossible a proper biographical treatment of this noted Catholic thinker; yet it is doubtful whether his social philosophy can be fully understood until the genesis of his thought can be traced. Sister Agnes Claire Schroll's The Social Thought of John Lancaster Spalding (Washington, 1944), is a worthy attempt to evaluate his social thought in terms of recent papal encyclicals, but it avoids the obvious differences between the theological reasonings of the encyclicals and the humanistic thought of Spalding.Google Scholar

2 The importance of this cultural nucleus has been suggested in my “The Formation of the Catholic Minority in the United States, 1820–1820,” Review Of Politics (01, 1948), 10:13–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Spalding's desire to care for the newly freed slaves is clearly evident in his letters to his uncle, the Archbishop of Baltimore in the Cathedral Archives of Baltimore.

4 Evidences of this disagreement with his bishop are contained in the correspondence between Bishop McCloskey and Archbishop John B. Purcell of Cincinnati in the Archives of the University of Notre Dame and in the correspondence between Father John Lancaster Spalding and other Kentuckians and Archbishop Martin John Spalding in the Cathedral Archives of Baltimore.

5 Ellis, John Tracy, The Formative Years of the Catholic University of America (Washington, 1946),Google Scholar treats of Spalding's influence in the foundation of the University. His first proposal was to establish it in Cincinnati at the archdiocesan seminary, but when that proposal was not accepted he backed the establishment in Washington.

6 Spalding, J. L., The University (Notre Dame, 1899), p. 19.Google Scholar

7 Spalding, J. L., The Religious Mission of the Irish People and Catholic Colonization (New York, 1880), p. 115.Google Scholar

8 Ibid., p. 14.

9 Ibid., pp. 121–2.

10 Ibid., pp. 126–7.

11 Ibid., p. 132.

12 Ibid., pp. 132–3.

13 Ibid., pp. 136–7.

14 These ideas are very prominent in Archbishop Ireland's volumes, The Church and Modern Society, 2 vols. (Chicago, 1897).Google Scholar

15 In his introduction to his book of verse, God and the Soul (New York, 1901), p. 4,Google Scholar Spalding says: “But once the soul is made conscious of God's immanence, it finds Him everywhere and in all; in prisons, in deserts, as in palaces and in golden fields of undulating grain; in pain and sorrow, as in pleasure and delight.” There are many of these ambiguous phrases in Spalding's essays. Had Spalding saved his papers and correspondence there might be a satisfying explanation for these doubtful sentences.

16 In Religion, Agnosticism and Education (Chicago, 1902), pp. 58–100.Google Scholar

17 Cf. McAvoy, Thomas T., “Americanism and Frontier Catholicism,” in the Review of Politics, 5 (07, 1943), 275–301,CrossRefGoogle Scholar and “Americanism, Fact and Fiction,” in The Catholic Historical Review, 31 (07, 1945), 133–153.Google ScholarKlein, Abbé Felix translated some of Spalding's essays under the title Opportunité (Paris, 1901).Google Scholar

18 Education and the Higher Life (Chicago, 1890), pp. 77–8.Google Scholar

19 “Social Questions,” p. 228,Google Scholar in Religion and Art and Other Essays (Chicago, 1905).Google Scholar

20 “The Basis of Popular Government,” pp. 47–9,Google Scholar in Socialism and Labor and Other Arguments (Chicago, 1902).Google Scholar

21 This is particularly evident in his essay “Religion” in Religion, Agnosticism and Education.

22 Socialism and Labor and Other Arguments, p. 62.Google Scholar

23 Religion, Agnosticism and Education, p. 57.Google Scholar

24 Religion and Art and Other Essays, pp. 214–6.Google Scholar

25 Ibid., pp. 217–8.

26 Ibid., pp. 175–6.

27 Ibid., p. 181.

28 Socialism and Labor and Other Arguments, pp. 27–8.Google Scholar

29 Religion and Art and Other Essays, p. 207.Google Scholar

30 Ibid., The Meaning and Worth of Education,” p. 112.Google Scholar

31 Ibid., p. 121.

32 Means and End of Education (5th ed., Chicago, 1909), p. 178.Google Scholar

33 Religion and Art and Other Essays, p. 124.Google Scholar

34 University Education Considered in its Bearing on the Higher Education of Priests (Baltimore, 1884), pp. 27–30.Google Scholar

35 Means and End of Education, p. 231.Google Scholar

36 Education and the Higher life, p. 197.Google Scholar

37 The early trials of the Catholic University of America are treated in two recent monographs: Ahern, Patrick Henry, The Catholic University of America, 1887–1896. The Rectorship of John J. Keane (Washington, 1948),Google Scholar and Hogan, Peter B., S.S.J., , The Catholic University of America 1896–1903. The Rectorship of Thomas J. Conaty (Washington, 1949).Google Scholar

38 Ryan, John A., Social Doctrine in Action: A Personal History (New York, 1941), p. 33.Google Scholar