Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 2.djvu/270

 BALTIMORE

228

BALTIMORE

Baltimore, Archdiocese of, senior see of the United States of America, established a diocese 6 April, 1789; as an archdiocese 8 April, 1808; em- braeas all that part of the State of Maryland west of the Chesapeake Bay (6,442 sciuare miles) including also the District of Columbia (64 square miles), mak- ing in all 6,502 square miles. The entire population of this area is about 1,273,000. The Catholics, number- ing 255,000, are principally of English, Irish, and German descent. There are also Polish, Lithuanian, Bohemian, and Italian congregations, and six churches exclusively for coloured people, fovir in Baltimore, two in Washington. (See W.4.shington and District of Columbia.)

I. CoLOXiAL Period. — (a) Politico-Religious Be- ginnings. — Catholic Maryland, the first colony in the New World where religious toleration was established, was planned by George Calvert (first Lord Baltimore), a Catholic convert; founded by his son Cecilius Cal- vert (second Lord Baltimore), and named for a Catho- lic queen, Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I of England. Except for the period of Ingle's Rebellion (1645-47) its government was controDed by Catholics from the landing of the first colony under Leonard Calvert (25 March, 1634) until after 1649, when the Assembly passed the famous act of religious tolera- tion. The first three Lords Baltimore, George, Ce- cilius, and Charles, were Catholics. The last three, Benedict Leonard, Charles, and Frederick, were Prot- estants. Puritans who had been given an asylum in Maryland rebelled and seized the government (1652- 58) and Catholics were excluded from the administra- tion of the province and restrained in the exercise of their faith. When Lord Baltimore again obtained control (1658), rehgious liberty was restored until 1692.

Taking advantage of Protestant disturbance in the colony, William of Orange, King of England, de- clared the Proprietary's claim forfeited, made Mary- land a royal province, and sent over Copley, the first royal governor (1692). The Anglican Church was then made the established church of Marj'land. every colonist being taxed for its support. In 1702, re- ligious liberty was extended to all Christians except Catholics. Catholics were forbidden (1704) to in- struct their children in their religion or to send them out of the colony for such instruction (1715). Priests were forbidden to exercise their functions and Catho- lic children could be taken from a Catholic parent. Appealed to by Catholics, Queen Anne intervened and the clergy were permitted to perform their duties in the chapels of private families (9 December, 1704). Thus originated the manor chapels, and the so-called "Priests' Mass-Houses". The apostasy of Benedict Leonard Calvert (1713) was a cruel blow to the persecuted Catholics. In 1716 an oath was exacted of office-holders renouncing their belief in Transub- stantiation. An act disfranchising Catholics fol- lowed (1718). Charles Carroll, father of the Signer, went to France (1752) for the purpose of obtaining a grant of land on the Arkansas River for his perse- cuted bretliren. This plan, however, failed. To exterminate Catholicity an attempt was made to pass a bill confiscating the property of the clergy (3 May, 1754, Lower House Journal in MSS., Mary- land Archives). The missionaries, having received land from the Proprietaries upon the same conditions as the other colonists, divided their time between the care of souls and the cultivation of their mission- supporting farms. The cutting off of these revenues, woiild therefore ha\'e been disastrous to the Church. Fortunately this attempt did not succeed. Such were the political conditions until the time of the Revolu- tion (Archives Maryland Hist. Soc. Baltimore; John- son, Foundations of Marj'land, Baltimore, 1883; Johnston. Religious Liberty in Maryland and Rhode Island, Catholic Truth Society Publications; Browne,

George and Cecilius Calvert, New York, 1890; HaH, The Lords of Baltimore, ibid., 1902).

(b) The First Missionaries. — In the first colony brought over by the Ark and the Dove (25 March, 1634) were three Jesuits, Fathers Andrew White and John Althan, and a lay brother, Thomas Gervase fWliite, Relatio Itineris in Marylandiam, Baltimore ed., 1874; cf. Am. Hist. Review, April, 1907, p. 584; Treacy, Old Catholic Maryland, Swedesboro, N. J., 1889; Hughes, Hist, of S.' J. in N. America, 1907). The following year another priest and lay brother arrived. Fathers Philip Fisher (real name Thomas Copley) and John Knolles landed in 1637. In 1642, the Roman Congregation of the Propaganda, at Lord Baltimore's request, sent to Maryland two secu- lar priests. Fathers Gilmett and Territt. Two Fran- ciscans arrived in 1673, one of whom was Father Mas- sa-us Masseya Santa Barbara, a truly apostolic man. There were not more than six Franciscans at any time on the missions in Marvland. Their missions ceased with the death of Father Haddock in 1720. In 1716 two Scotch Recollects (Franciscans) came to the Eastern Shore of Maryland. The title "Apostle of Maryland" belongs unquestionably to Father An- drew Wliite, S. J., whose zeal was boundless. During Ingle's Rebellion (1645-47) Fathers White and Fi.sher were taken in chains to England where the former died. Father Fisher returned to Maryland in 1648, djang in 1653, leaving the Rev. LawTence Starkey alone on the mission. Fourteen years after the first colony landed nearly all the natives south of what is now Washington had embraced the Faith, living in peaceful happy intercourse with the settlers. Father White said Slass and baptized the princess of the tribe in his wigwam on the Port Tobacco River. A chapel farther do\\'n the stream replaced the wigwam which was in turn succeeded bv St. Thomas's Manor church built in 1798 by the Rev. Charles Sewell, S. J. Such was the glorious result of the wisdom and zeal of the first Jesuit missionaries of Maryland (B. U. Campbell, in V. S. Cath. Hist. Magazine, Baltimore; Calvert Papers, Maryland Hist. Society, 1889-94; Treacy, op. cit.; The Catholic Cabinet, St. Louis, 1843^5; The Religious Cabinet, Baltimore, 1842).

In accordance with Lord Baltimore's instructions, a church was built in the early days at St. Marj''s, the capital of the province. William Bretton and his wife. Temperance, in 1661 deeded the ground for the chapel of St. Ignatius and the cemetery at Newtown. New- town Manor was afterwards purchased by the Jesuits. In 1677 a Catholic college was opened by Father Fos- ter, S.J., and Mr. Thomas Hothersall, a scholastic. In 1697 we find a brick chapel at St. Mary's; frame chap- els at St. Inigoes, Newtown, Port Tobacco, Newport, Father Hobart's chapel (Franciscan) near Newport; one on the Boarman estate, and one at Doncaster in Talbot County. During this period (1634-1700) there were about thirty -five Jesuits in the missions of ilaryland, all of whom ^\^th two or three exceptions were English. They were men of apostolic zeal and disinterestedness. The mission at Bohemia, in Cecil County was founded by Father Mansell (1706), the priests of this mission carrjdng the Faith into Dela- ware. St. Inigoes house was established in 1708 and later a chapel was added. Hickory Mission, from which Baltimore was afterwards attended, was estab- lished in 1720, and St. Joseph's Chapel, Deer Creek (the Rev. John Digges, Jr.), in 1742. We find the Rev. Benedict Neale at Priest's Ford, Harford County, in 1747. St. Ignatius's Church, Hickory, was estab- lished (1792) by the Rev. Sylvester Boarman. About 1755, 900 Catholic Acadian refugees settled in Mary- land, but the Catholics were forbidden to give them hospitality. Many of them lost the Faith, but some of their descendants still preserve the Faith for which their fathers suffered. An unfinished house in Balti- more (north-west corner of Calvert and Fayette