Archbishop James Whitfield and the history of the Catholic church in the U.S.
James Whitfield was a Sulpician priest from England. He became the fourth bishop to head the entire Catholic church in the U.S. He reigned from 1828 to 1834.
CONTENTS
- Christians in the U.S. are wildly susceptible to manipulation by their leaders
- Christian leaders in the U.S. are prone to abusing their authority to manipulate their people
- Christians who commit Hate Crimes are unlikely to be Prosecuted
1. Early Years
James Whitfield was born in 1770 to a wealthy family in England.
After his father passed away in 1787, James and his mother traveled to Italy in hopes of improving her health. While in Italy, Whitfield worked in commercial business.
In the early 1800’s, the Whitfields were traveling in France. In Lyon, James met Father Ambrose Maréchal, a French priest with the Sulpician Order who was teaching at their seminary in the city.
Maréchal went on to become the third bishop to head the entire Catholic church in the U.S.
Maréchal inspired James Whitfield to enter the priesthood.
Whitfield studied theology at the Sulpician seminary, and then was ordained to the priesthood on July 24, 1809. His mother died soon afterwards.
Whitfield pastored a parish in England. Then in 1817 he accepted an invitation from Archbishop Maréchal to come to the United States. He had a variety of priestly assignments.
2. The Fourth Bishop
In early 1828, Archbishop Maréchal was gravely ill. Pope Leo XII appointed Whitfield as coadjutor archbishop of Baltimore, so as to assist Maréchal.
However on January 29, Maréchal died. With that, Whitfield was consecrated as the fourth archbishop of Baltimore.
3. Pastoral Letter
On October 4, 1829, Whitfield opened the First Provincial Council of Baltimore. It was the first meeting of U.S. Catholic bishops to establish policies for the U.S. Catholic Church.
They wrote a pastoral letter to the Catholics of the nation. They noted the opposition from Protestants, seeing it as misrepresentations that influenced opinions at all levels of society.
One commentator said that the average Protestant of the 1850s had beed educated from birth to hate Catholicism.
Protestants had three main objections to Catholicism:
- Catholicism isn’t Christianity – it is idolatry
- Catholicism isn’t compatible with Democracy
- Catholics behave badly – their standards will be harmful to the nation
4. The Ursuline Convent Riots
1834. Charlestown, Massachusetts.
The Nuns of the Order of Saint Ursula, also known as the Ursulines, had been in town for 16 years.
Among Protestants, there was a reaction against Congregationalism and toward Universalism. The Catholic school, ran by the Ursuline nuns, was a viable alternative.
However, the local environment was not conflict-free. A revivalist preacher got a crowd stirred up. They went out and burned some Catholic houses.
A woman named Rebecca Reed arrived in Boston with wild tales about convent life. She quickly got on the lecture circuit. People wondered what was up at the St. Benedict convent.
Sister Mary John (Elizabeth Harrison) was a nun teaching music at the convent. On the evening of July 28, 1834, she fled the convent. She was escorted by Edward Cutter and John Runey. They were anti-Catholic residents of Charlestown. They delivered her to a sympathetic family that lived nearby.
The next day, Bishop Fenwick came to visit her. He persuaded her to return to the convent.
Rumors began to spread that a woman was being held against her will and even tortured at the convent. The local newspapers began publishing accounts of a “mysterious woman” kept against her will in the convent.
The Aldermen went to the convent to inspect it. The Mother Superior disallowed them, but let Edward Cutter meet Elizabeth Harrison. Harrison assured Cutter she was OK.
But then the problems got worse.
A Presbyterian minister named Lymann Beecher (1775–1863) was the most respected religious voice of his era. That Sunday, he gave anti-Catholic sermons at three different churches in Boston. Some workmen thought of attacking the convent.
On Monday, August 11, the Alderman were allowed to enter the convent. They wrote a report to the press that it was a fine place.
However, that night, a crowd of fifty angry workmen assembled at the convent. They demanded to enter. The Mother Superior said no.
The angry workmen went back to the field. At 11 pm, they returned to the convent. The Mother Superior threatened them with 20,000 Irishmen.
The angry workmen shoved the Mother Superior aside. Even though the convent was occupied, they set it on fire.
The nuns escaped out the back.
Bishop Fenwick sent his priests to the labor camps, telling the workers to not strike back.
On August 12, an attempt was made to burn a Catholic church.
On August 15, the shanties of 35,000 Irish Catholics were burned.
Bishop Ferwick relocated the Ursaline nuns to a different part of Boston. Lay Catholics posted a guard of six around the convent. The nuns re-opened the school but no students were enrolled. The nuns eventually returned to Canada.
The mayor offered $500 for the names of those responsible, and 13 were named.
The trials of the defendants began on December 2, 1834 with the trial of John R. Buzzell, the self-confessed ringleader of the mob. Death threats had been issued against any potential witnesses for the prosecution. Not surprisingly, Buzzell was acquitted.
Of the twelve remaining, eleven were acquitted. The last one, a 16-year old, was given life imprisonment at hard labor. The Catholics petitioned for his release.
The State legislature formed a committee to decide whether to reimburse the Ursalines for their loss. Not surprisingly, the Ursalines received no compensation.
The lesson from all this was that you can attack Catholic property with impunity, because you won’t get punished. There were no moderate voices speaking out on the dangers of violence. Catholics received no redress from the legislature for damages done.
5. Our Observations
Observation 1. Christians in the U.S. are wildly susceptible to manipulation by their leaders
The crowds that heard the inflammatory sermons by the Reverend Lymann Beecher were worked into a frenzy.
They went out as an angry mob and committed Hate Crimes:
- They physically assaulted the Mother Superior of a Convent
- They burned a Convent to the ground, with nuns inside
- They tried to burn a Catholic church
- They burned the shanties of 35,000 Irish Catholics
We wish they were more like the Bereans in the Acts of the Apostles:
Acts 17:11. Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. (NIV translation)
The Bereans did not simply accept whatever was preached. Rather, they investigated everything by exploring the Scriptures themselves.
Observation 2. Christian leaders in the U.S. are prone to abusing their authority to manipulate their people
Christian denominations appoint select individuals to preach the saving message of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the extent of their authority.
That said, in our observation, many Christian leaders use their platform to manipulate their hearers for their own goals.
The leader weaponizes their hearers. This is an abuse of authority.
In this case, the highly respected Presbyterian minister named Lymann Beecher preached three inflammatory sermons that worked his hearers into a frenzy and incited Hate Crimes. This was a profound abuse of authority.
Observation 3. Christians who commit Hate Crimes are unlikely to be Prosecuted
Of the 13 perpetrators named in the Ursuline Convent Riots, only one was found guilty.
Key to the dozen acquittals was the issuing of death threats against any potential witnesses for the prosecution. For those death threats, the perpetrators received zero legal penalty.
HISTORY – U.S. CATHOLIC
MAJOR ERAS:
- The Spanish Missions in New Mexico: 1540 to 1616
- The Spanish Missions in Florida: 1549 to 1763
- The English Missions in the Mid-Atlantic region: beginning in the 1570s
- Catholics and the American Revolutionary War: 1775–1783
- Archbishop John Carroll: 1774-1815
- Archbishop Leonard Neale: 1815-1817
- Archbishop Ambrose Maréchal: 1817 -1828
- Archbishop James Whitfield: 1828 to 1834
- Archbishop Samuel Eccleston: 1834-1851
- Archbishop Francis Kenrick: 1851–1863
SEE ALSO: References, Church History
Unless otherwise noted, all Bible quotations on this page are from the World English Bible and the World Messianic Edition. These translations have no copyright restrictions. They are in the Public Domain.