|
CATHOLIC
MISSION
Francis
Xavier
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1480 1500
1520 1540 1560
1580
1600
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║
║ALEX.VI ║
JULIUS II ║L.10║CL.VII ║PAUL
III║PL
IV║PIU.IV║PIU.
V║GR.XIII
║
║
║'12-LAT.V-17║
'37CEE
║'45-TRENT-63║
18 30 YEARS
WAR 48
║
1491 ― St.
IGNATIUS LOYOLA
―
1556
║
║1506
- St. Francis XAVIER
-1552
║
║1540-St.Edmund CAMPION-1581║
║
1552 ―
Matteo RICCI
― 1610
║
║
1593 ― St.
Jean DE
BREBEUF ―
1649
║
║
1474
―
Bartolome DE
LAS CASAS
―
1566
║
║
1527
―
PHILIP II of Spain
―
1598║
║
1478 ― St.
THOMAS
MORE
―
1535
║ '05
GP.Plot
|
HENRY
VII
|
HENRY
VIII
|Edw.6|MARY
I|
ELIZABETH
I |
JAMES
I
|
CHARLES
I
|
145-[85]-1509 1491-[1509]-1547 47-53 1516-[53]-58 1533―[58]―03 1566-[1603]-25 1600-25]-49
║
1489
―
THOMAS
CRANMER
―
1556
║ ║
1573
―
Archbishop
WILLIAM
LAUD
―
1645
║
║ 1527
―
JOHN
DEE
― 1608 ║
║
1483
―
MARTIN
LUTHER
―
1546
║
║ 1575
― JACOB
BOEHME
― 1624
║
║1509
―
JOHN
CALVIN
―
1564║
|
1480 1500
1520 1540 1560
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1640 |
The following is adapted from MacCulloch,
Christianity...
COUNTER-REFORMATION IN A NEW WORLD
The Council of Trent said nothing in its official statements
about the world mission of the renewed Catholic Church, but this mission became
one of the most distinctive features of southern European Catholicism, a project
of taking Christianity to every continent, which made Roman Catholicism Western
Christianity’s largest grouping, and the Spanish and Portuguese languages the
chief modern rivals to English as the mode of Western communication. Trent’s
silence seems all the more surprising since Catholic world mission had been in
operation for over half a century when the council met - this was not like the
council’s silence on the menace of militant Calvinism, which had only emerged as
a real threat just before its last session. Committees are even more prone than
individuals to miss the point in the business in front of them, but it is worth
observing that there was little that Rome could do about mission - at the
beginning of the century, the papacy had signed away control of Catholic
activity. Ignatius Loyola was characteristically more farsighted: it was no
coincidence that Portugal was one of the first kingdoms on which he concentrated
the efforts of his infant Society, founding as early as 1540 a headquarters in
Lisbon and only two years later a Jesuit college for missionary training, set up
with royal encouragement in the university town of Coimbra. A new world mission
based on Portugal would more than compensate for his abortive plans for the Holy
Land.
While the Jesuits rapidly began following up their initial
advantage in Portuguese territories in Africa, Asia and Brazil, they were
comparatively late into the Spanish Empire, since the Spanish Inquisition for a
couple of decades after the Society’s foundation remained suspicious of an
organization whose leader had twice briefly spent time in their prison cells.
The Society only began arriving in the 1560s and 1570s, after more than half a
century in which Franciscan and Dominican missions had been forced to think out
a new theology of mission. Western Catholicism had limited experience to draw
on; the last great ventures had been by the friars in Central Asia during the
thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries (see pp. 272-5). Apart from that not
very fruitful precedent and small beginnings in the Canaries, only the
officially sponsored changes of religion in medieval Lithuania and Spain
provided any reference point.
America presented a complex weave of powers and hierarchies which
the missionaries needed to navigate with care. The Spaniards were very ready to
distinguish between tribal societies and the sophistication of city-based
cultures with recognizable aristocracies like their own. In such urban settings,
they might very willingly strike marriage alliances with members of the local
elites, in a notable contrast with the attitudes of Protestant English colonists
in North America. Maybe Spaniards were simply more secure in their own culture
than Tudor and Stuart Englishmen, who were products of one of Europe’s more
marginal and second-rank monarchies, and conscious that they had failed badly in
their effort at cultural assimilation in their neighbouring island of Ireland.
The nephew of Ignatius Loyola, Martin Garcia de Loyola, symbolizes the
complexity in Spanish America. He led the expedition which in 1572 seized the
last independent Inka ruler in Peru, Tupac Amaru, and executed him in the Inka
capital, Cuzco, but Loyola also eventually married Beatriz, Tupac’s great-niece.
Their politically motivated nuptials were proudly commemorated (and idealized
away from a murky reality) in a portrait which is still one of the most
remarkable features of the Jesuit Church in Cuzco. In it there
stand beside the Spanish newcomers the Inka grandees in their traditional
finery, but also duly equipped with the blazons of European heraldry.
|
The
WEDDING
of LOYOLA
and BEATIRZ
(Intermarriage Encouraged) |
EDMUND
CAMPION,
SJ
[Nav.]
1540-1581
FRANCIS
XAVIER,
SJ
[Nav.] 1506-1552
BARTOLOME de las
CASAS,
OP
[Nav.] 1474-1566
SUBLIMIS
DEI
et aliae
[Nav.] 1537
MATTEO
RICCI,
SJ
[Nav.]
1552–1610
JEAN de
BREBEUF
[Nav.]
1593-1649
JUNIPERO
SERA,
OSFA
[Nav.]
1713-1784
JOHN
CARROLL,
SJ
[Nav.]
1736-1815
Junipero Serra, OFM (1713-1784)
Lower California.
Indian hostility long rendered California unattractive to the Spaniards. Though
missionaries accompanied Viscaino’s explorations in 1596 and 1602, no lasting
mission was established. This became the work of the Jesuits, aided by a
subscribed “Pious Fund” (1697) . In 1697 Father Juan de Salvatierra, with whom
Father Kino cooperated, opened the mission of Loreto. He and his successors,
among whom Father Juan de Ugarte is prominent, founded more than sixteen
[p. 100]
stations before their expulsion in 1768. Then
Franciscans, headed by Fray Junipero Serra, were assigned to take over the
Jesuit missions.
Upper California,
however, became the chief scene of Padre Serra’s labors when Spain decided to
avert Russian expansion by occupying the region to the north (1769-86). Father
Serra went with Don Portola on his first expedition, and on July 16, 1769,
inaugurated the famous California mission system by his foundation at San Diego.
Before his death in 1784, Father Serra founded eight other mission stations: San
Carlos (1770) ; San Antonio and San Gabriel (1771) ; San Luis Obispo (1772) ;
San Juan Capistrano and San Francisco (1776) ; Santa Clara (1777) and San
Buenaventura (1782). Though the Santa Barbara mission had been planned by Father
Serra, it could not be set up until the administration of his successor, Father Lasuen (1784-1803), who saw the establishment of Santa Barbara (1786), La
Purissima (1787), Santa Cruz (1791) , Soledad (1791), San Jose, San Juan
Bautista, San Miguel, San Fernando (1797), and San Luis Rey (1798) . Missions
subsequently founded were Santa Inez (1804), San Rafael (1817), and San
Francisco de Solano (1823) . Of these, only the Santa Barbara Mission has been
continuously in Franciscan hands.
The Indian missions
in California were a triumph of grace and zeal over native inertia, rated by
anthropologists as exceedingly primitive. There are records of the baptism of
over fifty thousand of these Indians and of their incorporation into the life of
the missions. Not only were they instructed in faith and morals, but also taught
how to cultivate the soil and support themselves by local products. The converts
were kept comparatively isolated from the colonists under missionary
supervision; if there were defections from the ideal, they usually arose from
the clash of ecclesiastical and secular jurisdiction. The Franciscans were not
allowed sufficient time to work out their civilizing function and after their
removal the life went out of the missions and the Indians were dispersed.
Transition
began with the Bonapartist invasion of Spain, which cut off supplies, and the
Mexican Revolution, which brought anticlericalism into power. The Mexican
Government sequestered the Pious Fund and took the California missions from
Franciscan control under pretext of confiding them to the secular clergy.
Actually few clerical replacements were provided and much property was taken by
the secular authorities. Government of California by religious under the
discipline of their Order had minimized the disadvantages of its subjection to
the distant see of Sonora. To remedy this in part, Friar Garcia Diego Moreno was
named bishop of both Californias in 1840. His administration was one of
retrenchment, overshadowed by the approach of war with the
[p. 101]
United States. The bishop died in 1846, and his
see remained vacant until after American annexation when Bishop Alemany, O.P.,
inaugurated a new era as Bishop of Monterey in 1850 and Archbishop of San
Francisco in 1853..
Carroll
|
JOHN
CARROLL
first
Bishop of Baltimore
1736-1815
Bishop
John Carroll
|
The following is adapted from the Oxford Dictionary of
the Christian Church
ARCHBISHOP
of Baltimore and first bishop of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in the USA. A native of
Upper Marlborough, Maryland, he was educated at St-Omer in Flanders. He entered
the Jesuit novitiate in 1753, was ordained priest in 1769, and during the next
four years taught philosophy and theology at St-Omer and Liège. After the
suppression of the Jesuits in 1773 he returned to Maryland in 1774, where he led
the life of a missionary, and actively supported the movement for political
independence.
In
1776 he took part in the embassy of B. Franklin to Canada, and, partly through
Franklin’s influence, was appointed by the Pope in 1784 Superior of the
Missions, a step which made the Church in the USA independent of the Vicars
Apostolic in England. The priests of Maryland having petitioned Pius VI in 1788
for a bishop for the USA, Carroll was appointed in 1789. In 1790 he was
consecrated in the chapel of Lulworth Castle, Dorset, to the see of Baltimore.
Here he did a great work in consolidating the RC Church. In 1808 he was made
an archbishop, and his huge diocese was divided into four sees.
T. O’B. Hanley, SJ (ed.),
The John Carroll Papers (3 vols., Notre Dame, Ind., and London [1976]).
P. Guilday, The Life and Times of John Carroll (New York, 1922), incl.
full bibl.; A. M. Melville, John Carroll of Baltimore (ibid.
[1955]). J. Hennesey, SJ, ‘An Eighteenth Century Bishop: John Carroll of
Baltimore’,
Archivum
Historiae Pontificiae, 16 (1978), pp.
171–204. T. W. Spalding, ‘John Carroll: Corrigenda and Addenda’, Catholic
Historical Review, 71 (1985), pp. 505–18. Polgár,
1 (1990), pp. 462 f. A. M. Melville in NCE
3 (1967), pp. 151–4; T. W. Spalding in ANB
4 (1999), pp. 461–3, both s.v.
THE PASTORAL LETTER OF 1792
(This Pastoral Letter is the first document of this nature in the history of
this Church in the United States. It was written shortly after the close of the
first National Synod of Baltimore (Nov. 7-10, 1791).
John, by Divine permission and with the approbation of the Holy See, Bishop of
Baltimore: To my dearly beloved Brethren, the members of the Catholic Church in
this Diocese, Health and Blessing, Grace to you and peace from God our Father,
and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
The
great extent of my diocese and the necessity of ordering many things concerning
its government at the beginning of my episcopacy, have not yet permitted me, my
dear brethren, to enjoy the consolation, for which I most earnestly pray, of
seeing you all, and of leaving with you, according to the nature of my duty,
some words of exhortation, by which you may be strengthened in faith and
encouraged in the exercises of a Christian life Esteeming myself as a debtor to
all, and knowing the rigorous account which I must render for your souls, to the
Shepherd of Shepherds, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, I shall have cause to
tremble, while I leave anything undone, by which religion and true piety may be
promoted, and the means of salvation multiplied for you.
In
compliance with the obligation, resulting from the relation in which I stand to
you, my endeavours have been turned towards obtaining and applying, for the
preservation and extension of faith and for the sanctification of souls, means
calculated to produce lasting effects, not only on the present, but on future
generations. I thought that Almighty God would make the ministers of His
sanctuary, and myself particularly, accountable to Him, if we did not avail
ourselves of the liberty enjoyed under our equitable government and just laws,
to attempt establishments, in which you, dear brethren, may find permanent
resources suited to your greatest exigencies.
Knowing, therefore, that the principles instilled in the course of a Christian
education, are generally preserved through life, and that a young man according
to his way, even when he is old, he will not depart from it,2 I have considered
the virtuous and Christian instruction of youth as a principal object of
pastoral solicitude. Now who can contribute so much to lighten this burden,
which weighs so heavy on the shoulders of the pastors of souls and who can have
so great an interest and special duty in the forming of youthful minds to habits
of virtue and religion, as their parents themselves? Especially while their
children retain their native docility, and their hearts are uncorrupted by vice.
How many motives of reason and religion require, that parents should be
unwearied in their endeavours, to inspire in them the love and fear of God;
docility and submission to His doctrines, and a careful attention to fulfill His
commandments? Fathers—bring up your children in the discipline and correction of
the Lord.3 If all, to whom God has given sons and daughters, were assiduous in
the discharge of this important obligation, a foundation would be laid for, and
great progress made in, the work of establishing a prevailing purity of manners.
The same habits of obedience to the will of God; the same principles of a
reverential love and fear of Him; and of continual respect for His Holy Name;
the same practices of morning and evening prayer; and of the frequentation of
the sacraments; the same dread of cursing and swearing; of fraud and duplicity;
of lewdness and drunkenness; the same respectful and dutiful behaviour to their
fathers and mothers; in a word, the remembrance and influence of the parental
counsels and examples received in their youth, would continue with them during
life. And if ever the frailty of nature, or worldly seduction, should cause them
to offend God, they would be brought back again to His service and to true
repentance by the efficacy of the religious instruction received in their early
age. Wherefore, fathers and mothers, be mindful of the words of the Apostles,
and bring up your children in the discipline and correction of the Lord. In
doing this, you not only render an acceptable service to God, and acquit
yourselves of a most important duty, but you labour for the preservation and
increase of true religion, for the benefit of our common country, whose welfare
depends on the morals of its citizens, and for your own happiness here as well
as hereafter; since you may be assured of finding, in those sons and daughters
whom you shall train up to virtue and piety, by your instructions and examples,
support and consolation in sickness and old age. They will remember with
gratitude, and repay with religious duty, your solicitude for them in their
infancy and youth.
These being the advantages of a religious education, I was solicitous for the
attainment of a blessing so desirable to that precious portion of my flock, the
growing generation. A school has been instituted at George-Town, which will
continue to be under the superintendence and government of some of my reverend
brethren, that is, of men devoted by principle and profession to instruct all,
who resort to them, in useful learning, and those of our own religion, in its
principles and duties. I earnestly wish, dear brethren, that as many of you, as
are able, would send your sons to this school of letters and virtue. I know and
lament, that the expense will be too great for many families, and that their
children must be deprived of the immediate benefit of this institution; but,
indirectly, they will receive it; at least, it may be reasonably expected, that
some after being educated at George-Town, and having returned into their own
neighbourhood, will become, in their turn, the instructors of the youths who
cannot be sent from home; and, by pursuing the same system of uniting much
attention to religion with a solicitude for other improvements, the general
result will be a great increase of piety, the necessary consequence of a careful
instruction in the principles of faith, and Christian morality.
The
school, dear brethren, if aided by your benevolence, and favoured with your
confidence, will be the foundation of an additional advantage to true religion
in this our country. Many amongst us you have experienced in convenience and
disadvantage from the want of spiritual assistance in your greatest necessities,
in sickness, in troubles of conscience, and counsels and offices of the
ministers of religion. It is notorious to you all, that the present clergymen
are insufficient for the exigencies of the faithful; and that they will be more
and more so, as the population of our country increases so rapidly; unless, by
the providence of our good and merciful God, a constant supply of zealous and
able pastors can be formed amongst ourselves; that is, of men accustomed to our
climate, and acquainted with the tempers, manners, and government of the people,
to whom they are to dispense the ministry of salvation. Now, may we not
reasonably hope, that one of the effects of a virtuous course of education will
be the preparing of the minds of some, whom providence may select, to receive
and cherish a call from God to an ecclesiastical state?
Should such be the designs of infinite mercy on this portion of His flock, all
of us, dear brethren, will have new cause to return God thanks for having
conducted to our assistance a number of learned and exemplary clergymen, devoted
by choice, and formed by experience to the important function of training young
Ecclesiastics to all the duties of the ministry. This essential service is
already begun by these my respectable brethren. An ecclesiastical seminary,
under their immediate direction, and episcopal superintendence, has entered on
the important function of raising pastors for your future consolation and
improvement; and I cannot forbear recommending their undertaking to your
patronage, and what a benefit will they confer on this and future generations,
who shall contribute to endow it with some portion of those goods, which
themselves have received from a benevolent providence, and for the use of which
they must account to Him, from whom they received them? What a consolation will
it be to them in this life, and a source of happiness in the next, if, through
their benefactions, the seminary be enabled not only to support its directors
and professors, but likewise some young men, candidates for holy orders, whose
virtues and abilities may be far superior to their worldly fortunes? By
endowments, such as I now recommend, great services have been rendered to
religion and morality. If donations for objects of piety have ever been
excessive, as some have pretended, the particular one now recommended to your
charity, and the temper of our times and laws, leave no cause to apprehend the
renewal of such an abuse.
Other objects, besides those already mentioned, claim our common solicitude. It
will be of little use to prepare ministers for the work of the ministry, if
afterwards they cannot be employed, for want of necessary maintenance, in the
laborious discharge of pastoral functions. Whilst the offices of our religion
were performed only in two of the United States, and even in them, the number of
Catholics was much less than at present, fewer labourers were wanted; and there
were funds sufficient for their subsistence, independent of any contributions
from the justice or the charity of the respective congregations. But our holy
faith being now spread through other States, and the number of Catholics being
much increased in those, where it existed before, it is become absolutely
necessary to recur to the means of supporting public worship and instruction,
which are prescribed not only by natural equity, but likewise by the positive
ordinances of divine wisdom, both in the Jewish and gospel dispensations. Know
you not, says St. Paul,4 that they who work in the holy place . . . and they
that serve the altar, partake with the altar? So also the Lord ordained that
they who preach the gospel, should live by the Gospel.
In
obedience to this divine ordinance, primitive Christians, when they went to the
celebration of the sacred offices of religion, presented their offerings on the
altar of the Lord, signifying by this act, that they were not intended so much
for their pastors, as consecrated to God Himself. And, indeed, the Church
regarded them in this light; and decreed in her canons, that the religious
oblations of the faithful should be employed, first, for the maintenance of the
ministers of the sanctuary; which being provided for, the remainder should be
applied towards the relief of the poor, and the building and repairing of
churches and places of worship, necessary for public convenience, and the decent
ordering of divine service.
God
has made it our duty to join in the solemn rites of sacrifice and prayer, and in
receiving the sacraments instituted for our benefit and the improvement of our
souls in piety and grace. The administration of these requires men set apart for
and consecrated to so sacred a function; men not assuming of themselves, but
receiving their authority from God, through His church, and their succession
from the Apostles, through the Bishops, by whom they are ordained. Now it is
evident, that since these are acts of religion, He requires likewise, that all
should use the necessary means for acquitting themselves of that obligation; and
consequently, that each one bear his proportion of common and necessary expense
for the support of public worship. This duty has been insisted on so little
amongst us, as long as the assistance of the faithful was unnecessary for the
maintenance of their pastors, that many will often do without pastors; of course
they become remiss in their religious duties, and finally regardless of them.
Their offspring, uninstructed and ignorant of the principles of faith, are led
astray by false doctrines, and seduced by corrupt examples. Hence, likewise,
churches for the celebration of divine service, and the great Eucharistic
sacrifice of the law of grace, are not built at all, or are suffered to fall
into decay.
They are without chalices, without the decent and necessary furniture of the
altars, without vestments suited to the different services of the Church, in a
word, without those sacred utensils, which its ordinances require, and which
contribute to impress the mind with a becoming sense of the majesty of religion,
and conciliate respect for its august ceremonies. Hence, finally, results the
great evil, and the source of many disorders, that, by failing to make provision
for the necessary support of pastors, and the maintenance of public worship, you
fail likewise of fulfilling the obligation of being present at Mass on every
Sunday and holiday; you lose the opportunity of receiving necessary and salutary
instruction; and, finally, an habitual disregard for the sanctification of the
Lord's day, and for the exercise of prayer and religion becomes prevalent.
In
this matter, I recommend earnestly to you, my dear brethren, not to be too
indulgent to yourselves, in forming principles, which indeed may satisfy an
erroneous conscience, and suit your attachment to your case, and your worldly
interest; but cannot afford you a reasonable assurance of having fulfilled your
necessary and essential duty to Almighty God. Every inconvenience is not
sufficient to exempt you from the obligation from attending at Mass on Sundays
and other days prescribed by the Church. The obstacle must be grievous and
weighty, amounting almost to an impossibility, moral or physical. Has such an
obstacle or inconvenience existed with respect to all those, who hear Mass,
perhaps not more than once a month, or seldomer? Are there not congregations,
where now divine service is performed only once a month, which are fully
competent to the expense of keeping a clergyman to reside amidst them, and to
administer to them continually in all holy things? To offer every day for them,
and in the presence of some at least of them the great sacrifice of the law of
grace? To teach, to admonish and reprove them? To instruct their children and
servants in the doctrines and exercises of religion? And thus to make lighter
the burden, which rests on parents and heads of families? To watch perpetually
over the morals of all, and prevent the contagion of error or evil example? To
be ready, and have at hand, to administer to all, in times of sickness, the
spiritual succours committed to his dispensation? I cannot, dear brethren,
enumerate the advantages, which will result from so desirable a situation, as
that of having constantly amongst you, your pastor and spiritual guide; and I
exhort you with great earnestness to use much industry, and with thankfulness to
Almighty God, for the temporal blessings received from His hand, generously to
devote a part of them to the obtaining a benefit, from which such important
consequences will be derived. The sacrifice of property, which you make, for a
purpose so useful and religious, is a kind of restitution to Him, Who first gave
it to you; and, besides being an act of the virtue of religion, because it is
suggested by the desire of encouraging and supporting divine worship, it is
moreover an act of exalted charity towards the poor and ignorant, who will be
enabled to obtain essential instruction and relief in all their spiritual
necessities, through the means and contributions of the rich and middle classes
of life; and these will thus become partakers in the merit and rewards promised
in these words of the prophet Daniel, that they that instruct many to justice,
[shall shine] as stars for all eternity.5
I
will venture to add, that even with respect to this world, you will find it to
be no loss to concur towards the regular support of the ministry, and services
of religion. Habits of temperance and frugality are generally the effects of
evangelical instruction. The lessons and duty of industry are frequently
inculcated by virtuous and careful pastors. Your children and servants will be
admonished perpetually to shun idleness, dishonesty, dissipations, and that
train of expense which always follows them. These, by their effect on domestic
economy, will make abundant compensation for the charges in support of religion.
Besides, you have a divine promise, that God will use a more special providence
for your subsistence, when you make it your first care, to fulfill His holy law:
Seek first the kingdom of God, and His justice, and all these things shall be
added unto you.6
Amongst all obstructions to the due celebration of divine service, and the
regular attendance on the sacred functions of religion, this backwardness of the
faithful to contribute for its support is one of the greatest, as was generally
agreed and represented by my venerable brethren, the clergy of the Diocese, in a
synod held some months ago. When I convoked them, I formed some statutes of
general concern, which will be communicated to you, and amongst them are the
following, relative to the matter, of which I have just now treated, and
enforcing the same observations:
Statutes of the Diocesan Synod, held at Baltimore, from the 7th to the 10th day
of November, 1791.
Statute V.
That the Holy Eucharistic Sacrifice may be celebrated with all reverence and
becoming respect, and that the faithful may be excited more and more to a lively
devotion towards this singular pledge of divine mercy, it is decreed, that the
congregations be reminded frequently, how disrespectful it is, that anything
used for the Holy Sacrifice should be of the meanest materials, or not kept
cleanly and entire, and that suitable vessels and utensils for the altar, as
chalices, ciboriums, and cruets; decent vestments and linen for the ministry of
the altar, was candles and wine fit for Mass be not provided. Let the Christian
people be told, with how minute attention God Himself was pleased to ordain
everything relating to His service in the Jewish law and temple. How much more
care therefore should Christians use, for the decency of divine worship, since
they possess, not the shadow of future blessings, as the Jews, but the substance
and reality of them! Let them be admonished likewise of the offerings made by
primitive Christians at the time of Mass; and let them know that such must be
very regardless of the honour of God, as refuse or neglect to contribute for
those things, without which the functions of religion seem to lose their dignity
and authority; and the devotion and veneration for the Blessed Eucharist is
greatly diminished.
VI. It
is decreed, therefore, that in every congregation, two or three persons of
approved virtue and respectability be chosen by the congregation, or appointed
by the pastor, to be Church-wardens or guardians; and that the persons so
appointed, on Sundays and other festivals, after the reading of the 1st gospel
at Mass, or after the sermon, shall collect the offerings of the faithful.
VII. The
offerings, according to the practice of the church, are to be divided into three
parts; so that one be applied to the maintenance of the pastor, another to the
relief of the poor; and a third to the procuring of all things requisite for
divine worship, and for building and repairing the church. But if provision be
made otherwise for the maintenance of the pastor and the poor, all offerings are
to be appropriated to the fabric of the church, or to furnishing it with proper
utensils and ornaments for the more dignified celebration of divine worship.
VIII. The
offerings made by the faithful, to render God propitious to themselves or
others, through the efficacy of the Holy Sacrifice of Mass, should be accepted
by the ministers of the altar in such manner, as to afford no room for
suspicions of avarice or simony; let them be contented, therefore, with such an
acknowledgment of their services as cannot be burdensome to the bestowers of it;
nor yet so insignificant, as to render the priestly ministry despicable in the
opinion of inconsiderate men.
XXIII.
The number of Catholics having increased, and being dispersed through the
different States, and at great distances from each other, it is become necessary
to have likewise a greater number of spiritual labourers; but these cannot be
brought from foreign countries or maintained, unless the faithful concur towards
bearing that expense, as they are bound by the law of God, and according to the
testimony of St. Paul, who says, if we have sown unto you spiritual things, is
it a great matter if we reap your carnal things?7 The faithful therefore are to
be reminded often of this duty, with which, if they neglect to comply, they will
omit, through their own fault, hearing Mass on Sundays and festivals, and
receiving the Sacraments at those seasons, in which they need them most, the
seasons of sickness, of Easter; and when through the prevalence of sinful
passions, or long habits of vice a speedy reconciliation with God becomes
indispensably necessary. Wherefore, as long as they refuse to contribute for the
ministry of salvation, according to the measure of worldly fortune given to them
by a beneficent God, and thus violate the divine and ecclesiastical laws, they
are to know that they are in a state of sin, unworthy of obtaining forgiveness
in the tribunal of confession; and that they will be answerable to God, not only
for their own non- compliance with duties so sacred, but likewise for the
ignorance and vices of the poor people, who remain destitute of Christian
instruction on account of the sordid avarice of those, who are more favoured
with the gifts of fortune. To begin then, in this Diocese, that which is
practised in other Christian countries, the preceding regulations were formed,
relative to the oblations of the faithful; and others will be added hereafter."
I
trust, that you, my dear brethren, will consider these statutes with the same
candour and in the same spirit in which they were formed. It was not in the
spirit of avarice, but of real solicitude for the preservation of faith, and for
your increase in godliness and heavenly knowledge. They were suggested by the
desire of seeing you assisted, with the same means of salvation, as your
Catholic brethren in all other countries; and with the hope, that you would use
the same endeavours as they to appropriate to yourselves the blessings of a
regular instruction, and uninterrupted ministration of divine worship. To
accomplish this salutary purpose more effectually, and render more certain the
subsistence of the ministers of religion, they are directed to require at
marriages, burials and funeral services, a certain very moderate compensation,
to which they, whom God has blessed with abundance, may add according to their
benevolence; and which my reverend brethren are hereby charged not to require
from those, to whom, on account of their great poverty, any compensation would
be burdensome.
On
this occasion, I cannot forbear mentioning an abuse, or rather a prevalent
neglect and indifference with respect to your departed parents and relations.
When death has removed them from your sight, you seem to forget that doctrine of
your divine religion which ought to call forth all your tenderness: I mean the
doctrine, that it is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that
they may be loosed from sins.8 How different is your behaviour, when such events
happen, from that of your Catholic brethren all over the world? Their
sensibility is not confined to the unprofitable tears and lamentations of a few
days, their faith follows their deceased friends into the mansions of another
life, and enkindles all their charity. They procure prayers and sacrifices to be
offered to God for the repose of their souls. The exercises of charity to the
poor, and all the works of mercy and religion are employed for their relief, as
long as there remains a reasonable ground to fear, that they may want it. Thus
St. Augustine testified his sensibility, after the death of his holy mother
Monica; thus, as Tertullian, St. Cyprian, and other primitive fathers teach us,
children expressed their duty and veneration for their parents; and surviving
Christian spouses for them, to whom they had been united by the ties and duties
of a virtuous marriage.
When it pleases God to call your friends out of this world, do you, my dear
brethren, give such proofs of your affection for them? You attend them to the
grave; you shed over it a few tears; and there is the term of your care and
solicitude. If a charitable priest offer up to the throne of mercy, for their
sake, the blood of the lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, he
does it, generally unsolicited and unthanked by you. You make no sacrifices of
interest or enjoyments to charity and religion, that the deceased may find
speedy mercy, and an anticipated enjoyment of everlasting bliss. I earnestly
beseech you, to deserve no longer this reproach on your charity and sensibility.
Follow your departed brethren into the regions of eternity, with your prayers,
and all the assistance, which is suggested by the principles of faith and piety.
Let the great sacrifice of propitiation be offered for all, who die in the unity
of the Catholic Church, and in due submission to her wholesome precepts. Where
it is possible, let a funeral service be performed: and I recommend it strongly
to the pastors of all congregations, and to the faithful themselves, to promote
the forming of pious associations, whose special object shall be, to bestow on
the dead, and especially on those who die poor and friendless, the best offices
of religion, that is, to procure for them a decent interment, accompanied with
the prayers and sacred rites ordained by the church.
In
this, my address to you, my dear brethren, I have been chiefly solicitous to
recommend to your attention those things which will be of general advantage to
the preservation and increase of true religion. I have no doubt, but that your
immediate pastors will give you caution frequently against the prevailing and
most dangerous vices; and will instruct you, how to walk in the observance of
all Christian duties. I shall only add this my earnest request, that to the
exercise of the sublimest virtues, faith, hope and charity, you will join a
fervent and well regulated devotion to the Holy Mother of our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ; that you will place great confidence in Her intercession; and have
recourse to Her in all your necessities. Having chosen Her the special patroness
of this Diocese, you are placed, of course, under Her powerful protection; and
it becomes your duty to be careful to deserve its continuance by a zealous
imitation of Her virtues, and reliance on Her motherly superintendence.
The
Sunday immediately following the feast of Her glorious assumption into heaven;
or the feast itself, whenever it happens to fall on a Sunday, is to be
celebrated as a principal solemnity of this Diocese; on which we are to unite
with one heart, and in one earnest supplication to the father of all mercies,
and the giver of every good gift, through the intercession of the Blessed
Virgin, that He may be graciously pleased to preserve, increase, and diffuse a
sincere and well-grounded attachment to the principles of our holy religion; to
advert from us the seduction of error and pestilential infidelity; to awake and
renew in us the spirit of solid piety, and of watchfulness over our unruly
passions; to animate us to the fulfilling of all the commandments; to pour down
on our country blessings spiritual and temporal; and to receive our grateful and
humble thanks for the innumerable favours, which we continually receive from a
bountiful providence.
That these acts of religion may be more acceptable, by being offered with
purified hearts, I earnestly exhort and recommend to all, who shall join in the
celebration of this great festival, to expiate their offences by sincere
compunction in the sacrament of penance, and to enrich their souls by those
abundant graces, which are annexed to a worthy participation of Christ's body
and blood. I have solicited, for your sake, my dear brethren, from the Holy See,
special spiritual favours, for this solemnity; and have no doubt, but the
fatherly solicitude, which his holiness, the vicar of Jesus Christ, has always
shown hitherto for your improvement in every Christian virtue, will induce him
to grant the favours requested; of which in due time you shall receive proper
notice.
What may not be hoped, if to other means of salvation, such as are always to be
found in the salutary institutions of the Church, you will add, every year, this
likewise, that is now suggested? If you recur to God, the fountain of mercy and
grace, through the intercession of the Queen of Angels? If you honour Her
greatest festival with peculiar and fervent exercises of piety, and with a
determined will of making the precepts of the gospel the rule of your lives? The
Church bears Her this honourable testimony, that it is often owing to Her
patronage, that nations preserve or recover the integrity of Christian faith and
morality. Let this be exemplified in our own country. Walk worthy of the
vocation in which you are called.9 Give no cause of its being said of any one of
you: thou, that makest the boast of the law, by transgression of the law
dishonourest God.10 On the contrary, endeavour continually, that you may declare
His virtues, who has called you out of the darkness into His marvellous light;11
that they, among whom is your conversation -- considering you by your good
works, may give glory to God in the day of visitation. For this cause I bow my
knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, .... that He would grant you
according to the riches of His glory that Christ may dwell by faith in your
hearts; that being rooted and founded in charity, you may be able to know also
the charity of Christ, which surpasseth knowledge, that you may be filled unto
all the fullness of God. Now to Him, who is able to do all things more
abundantly than we desire or understand .... to Him be glory in the church, and
in Christ Jesus unto all generations, world without end. Amen.
John, Bishop of Baltimore.
Baltimore, May 28, 1792.
Endnotes
1
Vol. IX., pp. 297-299.
2
Prov. xxii. 6.
3
Ephes vi. 4.
4 1
Cor. ix. 13, 14.
5
Chap. xii. 3.
6
Matt. vi. 33.
7 1
Cor. ix. 11.
8 2
Mac. xii. 46.
9
Eph. iv. 1.
10
Rom. ii. 23.
11
1 Peter ii. 9.
Taken from "The National Pastorals of the American Hierarchy", edited by Rev.
Peter Guilday, Ph.D. and published by the National Catholic Welfare Council,
1923.
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