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A CHURCH DIVIDED: ROMAN CATHOLICISM, AMERICANIZATION, AND THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 July 2015

Benjamin Wetzel
Benjamin Wetzel*
Affiliation:
University of Notre Dame
*
email: bwetzel@nd.edu
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Abstract

Standard accounts of American Catholic history generally note in passing that American Catholics supported the Spanish-American War but do not examine what reasons provoked them to do so. At the same time, recent literature on the war itself has described various factors that motivated American support, but few of these studies have noted the central role that religion played in Americans' interpretations of the conflict. This article brings these two historiographies together by showing the importance of the war for the Catholic Church in America as well as the significance of religious belief for how many Americans understood the conflict. In particular, providentialist interpretations of the war held by a large number of Catholics reveal a crucial moment in the church's process of Americanization. Yet more importantly, this article focuses on the significant number of Catholics who steadfastly opposed the war, demonstrating the contested nature of the Americanization process. Ultimately, this article maintains that skepticism concerning the righteousness of the American nation motivated antiwar Catholics' resistance to prevalent American attitudes. By integrating American Catholics into our understanding of the Spanish-American War, this article sheds new light on the development of fin de siècle American Catholicism and on the war itself.

Type
Essays
Information
The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era , Volume 14 , Issue 3 , July 2015 , pp. 348 - 366
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 2015 

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Footnotes

1

In addition to the two anonymous readers for this journal, I would like to thank the following people for their assistance with this article: Philipp Gollner, Rebecca T. McKenna, Margaret Meserve, Wilson D. Miscamble, Mark Noll, Michael Skaggs, and Gary Scott Smith.

References

NOTES

2 “Bishop McQuaid's Patriotic Speech,” Boston Pilot, May 14, 1898, 5.

3 Ibid.; “The Archbishop's Jubilee,” New York Times, May 5, 1898, 12.

4 Kristin L. Hoganson, Fighting for American Manhood: How Gender Politics Provoked the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 1–14. Cf. Bonnie M. Miller, From Liberation to Conquest: The Visual and Popular Cultures of the Spanish-American War of 1898 (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2011).

5 Hoganson, Fighting for American Manhood, 13.

6 Louis A. Pérez Jr., The War of 1898: The United States and Cuba in History and Historiography (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998); and “Incurring a Debt of Gratitude: 1898 and the Moral Sources of United States Hegemony in Cuba,” American Historical Review 104:2 (Apr. 1999): 356–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Pérez, War of 1898, x.

8 Paul T. McCartney, Power and Progress: American National Identity, the War of 1898, and the Rise of American Imperialism (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2006), 11; McCartney, , “Religion, the Spanish-American War, and the Idea of American Mission,” Journal of Church and State 54 (Spring 2012): 257–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 For a notable exception, see Matthew McCullough, The Cross of War: Christian Nationalism and U.S. Expansion in the Spanish-American War (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2014). See also J. Wetzel, Benjamin, “Onward Christian Soldiers: Lyman Abbott's Justification of the Spanish-American War,” Journal of Church & State 54 (Summer 2012): 406–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and S. Hudson, Winthrop, “Protestant Clergy Debate the Nation's Vocation, 1898–1899,” Church History 42:1 (Mar. 1973): 110–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For older, unpublished studies, see William Karraker, “The American Churches and the Spanish-American War” (Ph.D. Diss., University of Chicago, 1940); John Edwin Smylie, “Protestant Churches and America's World Role, 1865–1900: A Study of Christianity, Nationality, and International Relations” (Th.D. Diss., Princeton Theological Seminary, 1959), 389–557; James Berry Leavell, “The Spanish-American War as Reflected in the Southern Baptist Press” (MA Thesis, Baylor University, 1966); Darrel E. Bigham, “American Christian Thinkers and the Function of War, 1861–1920,” (Ph.D. Diss., University of Kansas, 1970), 150–73. On religion and politics in the Progressive Era, see Ian R. Tyrell, Reforming the World: The Creation of America's Moral Empire (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010); Susan K. Harris, God's Arbiters: Americans and the Philippines, 1898–1902 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011); Andrew Preston, Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Faith: Religion in American War and Diplomacy (New York: Knopf, 2012), 175–290.

10 Harris, God's Arbiters, 3–37; Tyrell, Reforming the World, 1–10.

11 Religious motivation does not factor, for example, in Robert L. Beisner, Twelve Against Empire: The Anti-Imperialists, 1898–1900 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968).

12 Julius Pratt, Expansionists of 1898: The Acquisition of Hawaii and the Spanish Islands (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1936), 287–88; Karraker, “American Churches,” 113; Frank T. Reuter, Catholic Influence on American Colonial Policies, 1898–1904 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1967); Thomas E. Wangler, “American Catholics and the Spanish-American War” in Catholics in America: 1776–1976, ed. Robert Trisco (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1976), 251–52; James Hennesey, American Catholics: A History of the Roman Catholic Community in the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981), 205; Harvey Rosenfeld, Diary of a Dirty Little War: The Spanish-American War of 1898 (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2000); Wright, Scott, “The Northwestern Chronicle and the Spanish-American War: American Catholic Attitudes Regarding the ‘Splendid Little War,’” American Catholic Studies 116:4 (2005): 55–68Google Scholar; James M. O'Toole, The Faithful: A History of Catholics in America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), 141–42. Exceptions include Francis Coghlan, “The Impact of the Spanish American War on the Catholic Church in the United States of America,” (MA Thesis, University of Notre Dame, 1956), 1–31; Bigham, “American Christian Thinkers,” 154, 169–70; and David Noel Doyle, Irish Americans, Native Rights and National Empires: The Structure, Divisions and Attitudes of the Catholic Minority in the Decade of Expansion, 1890–1901 (New York: Arno Press, 1976), 165–223.

13 Hennesey, American Catholics, 205.

14 McCullough, The Cross of War, 46–59.

15 Preston, Sword of the Spirit, 216–18.

16 Ibid., 217.

17 Roger Finke and Rodney Stark, The Churching of America, 1776–2005: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy, 2nd ed. (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2005), 121.

18 See Gleason, Philip, “Coming to Terms with American Catholic History,” Societas 3 (Autumn 1973): 283–312Google Scholar. Wilson D. Miscamble has suggested that Catholics' views on foreign policy be considered a “barometer” of their Americanization in “Catholics and American Foreign Policy from McKinley to McCarthy: A Historiographical Survey,” Diplomatic History 4 (Summer 1980): 225Google Scholar.

19 Indeed, anti-Catholic sentiments were sometimes intertwined with anti-Irish views. See Matthew Frye Jacobson, Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998), 70.

20 Ray Allen Billington, The Protestant Crusade, 1800–1860 (New York: Macmillan, 1938); Jenny Franchot, Roads to Rome: The Antebellum Protestant Encounter with Catholicism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994).

21 Michaelsen, Robert, “Common School, Common Religion?: A Case Study in Church-State Relations, Cincinnati, 1869–1870,” Church History 38 (Jun. 1969): 201–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mark W. Summers, Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion: The Making of a President, 1884 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000); Josiah Strong, Our Country: Its Possible Future and its Present Crisis (New York: Baker & Taylor, 1885); Donald L. Kinzer, An Episode in Anti-Catholicism: The American Protective Association (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1964).

22 For this notion of how national circumstances influence religious beliefs, I am indebted to Mark A. Noll, America's God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).

23 James Michael Reardon, The Catholic Church in the Diocese of St. Paul (St. Paul: North Central Pub. Co., 1952), 173; “At Point of War,” Northwestern Chronicle [hereafter NWC], April 1, 1898, 8; “Mr. M'Kinley's Latest,” NWC, April 15, 1898, 4; The Maine Inquiry Report,” NWC, April 1, 1898, 4; Territorial Expansion of the United States,” NWC, June 17, 1898, 4; “A Question of Conquest,” NWC, May 20, 1898, 4; “Editorial Notes,” Catholic World 67 (August 1898): 725Google Scholar. See also “Editorial Notes,” Catholic World 67 (June 1898): 426Google Scholar.

24 Gary Gerstle, American Crucible: Race and Nation in the Twentieth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 9.

25 “All at a Word,” Northwestern Chronicle, April 22, 1898, 4; “Proving Their Patriotism” Pilot, April 30, 1898, 8; “Archbishop Ryan of Philadelphia on the War,” Pilot, May 21, 1898, 1. The papacy remained officially neutral, but the Vatican's Apostolic Delegate to the United States, Sebastian Martinelli, held pro-American feelings. On neutrality, see, “The Attitude of the Pope,” New York Times, May 10, 1898, 2. On Martinelli's views, see “Mgr. Martinelli's Stand,” New York Times, April 18, 1898, 1; and “Church in Puerto Rico,” New York Times, August 4, 1898, 1.

26 Rooney, John Jerome, “A Catholic Soldier,” Catholic World 67 (August 1898): 702Google Scholar; “Notes and Remarks,” Ave Maria, July 9, 1898, 53.

27 San Francisco Call, April 16, 1898; San Francisco Monitor, April 23, 1898, quoted in V. Edmund McDevitt, The First California's Chaplain: The Story of the Heroic Chaplain of the First California Volunteers During the Spanish-American War (Fresno: Academy Library Guild, 1965), 59; “Patriotism and Religion,” Boston Pilot, July 9, 1898, 1; Ibid.; “Bishop Durier's Remarkable Pastoral,” St. Louis Review, October 6, 1898, 5.

28 John Tracy Ellis, The Life of James Cardinal Gibbons: Archbishop of Baltimore, 1834–1921 (Milwaukee: Bruce Pub. Co., 1952), 2:86–91.

29 Americanism was a movement with American Catholicism that sought greater independence from Roman control, expressed fewer reservations about the separation of church and state, and promoted a more liberal theology. On Americanism, see Jay P. Dolan, In Search of an American Catholicism: A History of Religion and Culture in Tension (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 71–126; R. Scott Appleby, Church and Age Unite! The Modernist Impulse in American Catholicism (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992); Robert D. Cross, The Emergence of Liberal Catholicism in America (Chicago: Quadrangle, 1968); and Thomas T. McAvoy, The Great Crisis in American Catholic History, 1895–1900 (Chicago: Regnery, 1957).

30 Offner, John, “Washington Mission: Archbishop Ireland on the Eve of the Spanish-American War,” Catholic Historical Review 73 (Oct. 1987): 562–75Google Scholar; Thomas E. Cusack, “Archbishop John Ireland and the Spanish-American War: Peacemaker or Bungler?” (MA Thesis, University of Notre Dame, 1974); Farrell, John T., “Archbishop Ireland and Manifest Destiny,” Catholic Historical Review 33 (Oct. 1947): 269–301Google Scholar; and Moynihan, Humphrey, “Archbishop Ireland and the Spanish-American War: Some Original Data,” Ireland American Review 5 (1942–43): 98–118Google Scholar.

31 However, John Ireland differentiated himself from other pro-war advocates by his respect and praise for Spain (a stance not typical of other Catholics enthusiastic about the war). See “Defends Spain,” NWC, July 15, 1898, 8. Moreover, in private, Ireland substantially qualified his support for the war although he did not abandon his providential reasoning. In a May 2 letter to Denis J. O'Connell, Ireland acknowledged, “I do not, I confess, like our present war” while also affirming, “Of course now, I am for war – for the Stars and Stripes. I am all right – as an American.” On May 11, he told O'Connell that his “sympathies are largely with Spain; but the fact is, she is beaten.” Yet, on June 18, he wrote to O'Connell—in the context of discussing his hope that American influence and Americanism would continue to grow around the world—that “Providence overrules wars—and this war is Providence's opportunity to make a new world.” Quotations from Farrell, “Archbishop Ireland,” 292, 295, 301. This article focuses on the public Ireland because his private ruminations were known only to a tiny group.

32 “America and the War,” Boston Pilot, July 16, 1898, 4; “For Humanity,” NWC, May 6, 1898, 8.

33 “M'Kinley Points Way of Destiny,” Chicago Tribune, October 19, 1898, 1–2; John Ireland, War and Peace: Address of the Most Rev. John Ireland, at the Peace Jubilee, Chicago, October 18th, 1898 (n.p., 1898?),  [1].

34 Ireland, War and Peace, [4]. Harry S. Stout has traced this idea in the context of the Civil War in Upon the Altar of the Nation: A Moral History of the American Civil War (New York: Viking, 2006).

35 Ibid., [7]–[8]; Ibid., [11].

36 “A Bray from a Pulpit,” NWC, May 13, 1898, 4; “Editorial Notes,” Catholic World 67 (May 1898): 279Google Scholar; “Editorial Notes,” Catholic World 67 (August 1898): 715Google Scholar; “Mgr. Gross on Spain,” NWC, June 3, 1898, 1; “Snubbed by Spain,” NWC, June 3, 1898, 1; “Spain Violates Catholicism,” New York Times, May 2, 1898, 12.

37 “At Point of War,” 8; “All at a Word,” 4.

38 Albert J. Beveridge, “The March of the Flag” in The Meaning of the Times: And Other Speeches (Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1908), 47–48; cf. “Spirit of the Soldier,” Boston Globe, May 2, 1898, 2; “Santiago,” Outlook, July 9, 1898, 610; “A Day of Thanksgiving,” New York Times, July 7, 1898, 1. On McKinley's religion, see Preston, Sword of the Spirit, 155–59.

39 Philip Gleason, “The Crisis of Americanization” in Contemporary Catholicism in the United States, ed. Philip Gleason (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1969), 16; Gleason, “American Identity and Americanization” in Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups, ed. Stephan Thernstrom (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980), 32. Gleason is referring specifically to the early national period, but his descriptions would seem to hold true for any period of American history.

40 Gleason, “American Identity and Americanization,” 35. Although Philip Gleason does not mention Leo XIII, Leo ultimately wanted to see the papacy regain its temporal power. See Vincent Viaene, “Introduction” in The Papacy and the New World Order: Vatican Diplomacy, Catholic Opinion and International Politics at the Time of Leo XIII, 1878–1903, ed. Vincent Viaene (Leuven, Belgium: Leuven University Press, 2005), 10.

41 George P. Marks III, comp. and ed., The Black Press Views American Imperialism (1898–1900) (New York: Ayer, 1971), 51.

42 Ibid., 51–99.

43 “The Week,” The Nation, March 3, 1898, 157–58; Sara Norton and M. A. DeWolfe Howe, eds., Letters of Charles Eliot Norton (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1913), 2:268–69; Charles Fanning, Finley Peter Dunne and Mr. Dooley: The Chicago Years (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1978), 185–99; Finley Peter Dunne, Mr. Dooley in Peace and War (Boston: Small, Maynard, & Co., 1914), 42. On Richard Hobson, see Dunne, Mr. Dooley in the Hearts of His Countrymen (Boston: Small, Maynard, & Co., 1899), 216–21.

44 Norton and Howe, eds., Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, 2:266. Fears of imperialism probably also motivated Norton. See Norton and Howe, eds., Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, 2:270, 2:272–73.

45 Michael Wreszin, Oswald Garrison Villard: Pacifist at War (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1965), 4, 19–21.

46 My research has not led me to conclude that secular opponents of the war cooperated in any meaningful way with Catholic opponents of the war; the two groups seemed to be operating on parallel tracks.

47 “Indiscreet Priest Removed,” NWC, March 4, 1898, 8; “Amerika ist unser Vaterland, sei es durch Geburt oder freier Wahl.” My translation, with assistance from Philipp Gollner. “Editorielles,” Katholische Rundschau, April 28, 1898, 4; “Editorielles,” Katholische Rundschau, April 14, 1898, 4.

48 Doyle, Irish Americans, 165–223; Dorothy Dohen, Nationalism and American Catholicism (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1967), 144–47, 158–60.

49 Rory T. Conley, Arthur Preuss: Journalist and Voice of German and Conservative Catholics in America, 1871–1934 (New York: Peter Lang, 1998), 9–18.

50 Ibid., 28–29; A. K., “A Gloomy View,” St. Louis Review, May 5, 1898, 7; “Topics of the Day,” St. Louis Review, August 4, 1898, 2.

51 Britt, J. Gabriel, “Hypocrisy Versus Truth,” The Globe 32 (Dec. 1898), 423Google Scholar; John W. Cavanaugh, Daniel E. Hudson, C.S.C.: A Memoir (1934; Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria Press, 1960), 3–17; “Untitled,” Ave Maria, June 25, 1898, 820–21.

52 George T. Angell, “Newspaper Lies About the War,” St. Louis Review, July 28, 1898, 6; “Untitled,” Ave Maria, July 23, 1898, 719.

53 For an insightful analysis of how sacred and secular were often blended in American history, see Richard M. Gamble, The War for Righteousness: Progressive Christianity, the Great War, and the Rise of the Messianic Nation (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2003).

54 “Untitled,” Ave Maria, August 20, 1898, 244–45; “Untitled,” Indiana Catholic Record, August 11, 1898, 4.

55 “Untitled,” Ave Maria, July 2, 1898, 23.

56 Arthur Preuss, “Hyper-Patriotism?” St. Louis Review, May 19, 1898, 4–5; “Topics of the Day,” St. Louis Review, April 21, 1898, 6; C. CH. “Patriotism vs. Breeding,” St. Louis Review, April 14, 1898, 5.

57 “Notes and Remarks,” Ave Maria, July 23, 1898, 116; “Exchange Comment,” St. Louis Review, July 16, 1898, 5.

58 “Prayers of Two Nations,” St. Louis Review, May 12, 1898, 3; Thorne, William Henry, “Our American-Spanish War,” The Globe 30 (June 1898): 153–54Google Scholar. It should also be noted that in the same article William Henry Thorne characterized the Cubans as “half-breed rebels,” and that this racism may also have motivated his opposition to American intervention.

59 F.A.M., “Spain and the Catholic Church,” St. Louis Review, July 21, 1898, 2–3.

60 “Notes and Remarks,” Ave Maria, July 9, 1898, 53; “Untitled,” Ave Maria, May 21, 1898, 658–59.

61 Bertrand Wilberforce to D. E. Hudson, April 29, 1898, D. E. Hudson Papers, University of Notre Dame Archives; H. Leuchar to Hudson, May 8, 1898, Hudson Papers; “E i più accorti e sensati lo fanno ancora, perchè non mirano di buon occhio l'espansione armata della preponderanza della grande Repubblica del Nord negli affari interni dei popoli del continente latino-americano.” “Brasile. Nostra Corrispondenza,” La Civiltá Cattolica 17:3, July 16, 1898, 252Google Scholar. Thanks to Joshua McIntire for translation assistance.

62 Qtd. in Frederick J. Zwierlein, The Life and Letters of Bishop McQuaid (Rochester, NY: Art Print Shop, 1927), 3:175.

63 “The Catholic Church and the Flag,” New York Times, May 6, 1898, 6.

64 Moran, Katherine D., “Catholicism and the Making of the U.S. Pacific,” Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 12:4 (Oct. 2013): 453CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

65 Michael Williams, American Catholics in the War: National Catholic War Council: 1917–1921 (New York: Macmillan, 1921); John Tracy Ellis, American Catholicism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956).

66 Stark and Finke, Churching of America, 122.

67 Reuben Parsons to Hudson, April 26, 1898, Hudson Papers.