THE MOTHER CHURCH.
When the _Visiter_ entered life, it was still doubtful which side of the
slavery question the Roman church would take. O'Connell was in the
zenith of his power and popularity, was decidedly anti-slavery, and
members of Catholic churches chose sides according to personal feeling,
as did those of other churches. It was not until 1852, that
abolitionists began to feel the alliance between Romanism and slavery;
but from that time, to be a member of the Roman church was to be a
friend of "Southern interests."
In Pittsburg there was great harmony between Catholics and Protestants,
for the Protestant-Irish, by which Western Pennsylvania was so largely
settled, were generally refugees driven from Ireland for their
connection with the Union, or Robert Emmet rebellion. Our pastor, Rev.
John Black, escaped in the night, and he and the only Catholic priest in
Pittsburg, Father McGuire, were intimate friends.
The Bishop of the diocese, R.R. O'Conner, was, I think, a priest of the
Capponsacchi order, one of those men by whose existence the Creator
renders a reason for the continuance of the race. After the days of
which I write, there was an excitement in Pittsburg about Miss Tiernan,
a beautiful, accomplished girl, who became a nun, and was said to have
mysteriously disappeared. When the Bishop resigned his office and became
a member of an austere order of monks, there were not lacking those who
charged the act to remorse for his connection with her unexplained
death; but I doubt not, that whatever that connection was, it did honor
to his manhood, however it may have affected his priesthood.
In the days of his Episcopal honors, he was a favorite with all sorts
and conditions of men, and when he published a letter condemning our
infant-system of public schools, and demanding a division of the school
fund, he produced a profound sensation. I think this letter appeared in
'49. It was the morning of one of the days of the week I spent regularly
at the office. I found Mr. Riddle waiting to ask what I proposed to do
about it. I stated, without hesitation, that I would oppose it to the
best of my ability, when he replied:
"I took it for granted that you would have consulted Mr. White
(conductor of the _Gazette_), and we feel that we cannot afford to lose
our Catholic patronage by taking issue with the Bishop, and that it will
not be necessary. You, as a pupil of Dr. Black, ought to be able to
answer Bishop O'Conner's arguments, and we will leave him to you. The
religious press will, of course, be a unit against him, and the secular
press need not fear to leave the case in your hands."
The two papers for which he spoke, were the two great Whig dailies of
the western part of the State. The other daily was the _Democratic
Post_, conducted by a Catholic, and virtually the Bishop's organ; and to
meet this attack on the very foundations of civil liberty, the
_Visitor_, a weekly, was the only representative of the secular press.
The Whig papers might have taken a different course, had it been known
at first that Bishop O'Conner's letter was only a part of a concerted
attack, and that all over the Union the Bishops had published similar
letters. But this was before the days of telegraphy, and we were weeks
learning the length and breadth of the movement.
Bishop O'Conner replied very courteously to my strictures on his letter,
and we maintained the controversy for some length of time. Having all
the right on my side, I must have been a dolt not to make it apparent;
and the friends of the Bishop must have felt that he gained nothing,
else they would not have been so angry; but he was courteous until he
dropped the subject.
My Catholic patrons gradually withdrew their advertisements and
subscriptions. Thousands of Protestants were rejoiced at what they
called my triumph, and borrowed the _Visiter_ to read my articles. Very
many bought copies, but I think I did not gain one subscriber or
advertiser by that labor in defense of a common cause. Nay, I lost
Protestant as well as Catholic support, for business men did not care to
be known to Catholic customers as a patron of a paper which had
strenuously opposed the policy of the church. That experience and a
close observation for many years have taught me that the secular papers
of the United States, with a few exceptions, are almost as much under
the control of the Pontiff as the press of Austria. Nor is it the
secular press alone which is thus controlled. There are religions
papers who throw "sops to Cerebus," as an offset to teachings demanded
by Protestant readers. These "sops" are paid for indirectly by
patronage, which would be withdrawn whenever the Bishop took alarm at an
article in that same paper.
Protestants do not carry their religion either into political or
business relations, and so there is no offset to the religious,
political and business concentration of Romanism.
There was no other outbreak between me and my Catholic neighbors until
the dedication of the Pittsburg cathedral, when my report gave serious
offense, and caused Bishop O'Conner to make a very bitter personal
attack on me. He did not know how truly the offensive features of my
report were the result of ignorance; but thought me irreverent,
blasphemous. I had never before been inside a Catholic church; never
seen a Catholic ceremonial; did not know the name of a single vestment;
was overwhelmed with astonishment, and thought my readers as ignorant as
I; so tried to give a description which would enable them to see what I
had seen, hear what I had heard.
Every bishop and priest and member of any religions brotherhood in this
country and Canada was said to be present. Some of the things they wore
looked like long night-gowns, some short ones; some like cradle quilts,
some like larger quilts. There were many kinds of patch-work and
embroidery; some of the men wore skirts and looked very funny. Quite a
number wore something on their heads which looked like three pieces of
pasteboard, the shape of a large flat-iron, and fastened together at the
right angles and points. They formed into procession and started around
the outside of the building. I thought of going "around and about"
Jerusalem, and the movement had a meaning; but they walked into a fence
corner, swung a censor, turned and walked into another corner, and then
back into the house, without compassing the building. I said there was
nothing to prevent bad spirits coming in at that side.
I copied the Bishop's angry reply, plead my ignorance and that of
Protestants in general for all that seemed irreverent, and called upon
him for explanations. What did it all mean? What was the spiritual
significance of those externals? I ignored his evident anger; had no
reason to be other than personally respectful to him, yet my second
article irritated him more than the first.
I had stated that the men in the procession were the most
villainous-looking set I had ever seen; that every head and face save
those of the Bishops of Orleans and Pittsburg, were more or less stamped
by sensuality and low cunning. In Bishop O'Conner's reply, he said I had
gone to look for handsome men. I answered that I had, and that it was
right to do so. The Church, in her works of art, had labored to
represent Christ and his apostles as perfectly-formed men--men with
spiritual faces. She had never represented any of her saints as a
wine-bibber, a gross beef-eater, or a narrow-headed, crafty, cringing
creature. These living men could not be the rightful successors of those
whose statues and pictures adorned that cathedral. Archbishop Hughes, in
his sermon on that occasion, had argued that all the forms of the
church had a holy significance. What was that significance? Moreover, in
the days of John there were seven churches. Whatever had the Church of
Rome done with the other six owned on the Isle of Patmos by him who
stood in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks?
For two months every issue of the _Visiter_ copied and replied to one of
the Bishop's articles, but never could bring him to the point of
explaining any portion of that great mystery. But the discussion marked
me as the subject of a hatred I had not deemed possible, and I have
seldom, if ever, met a Catholic so obscure that he did not recognize my
name as that of an enemy. So bitter was the feeling, that when my only
baby came great fears were felt lest she should be abducted; but this I
knew never could be done with Bishop O'Conner's consent.