Book Review: Mrs. Mattingly's Miracle

I purchased this book because of Thomas Babington Macaulay's mention of "the miracles of Prince Hohenlohe" in his review of Leopold von Ranke's History of the Popes, cited here. According to the publisher, Yale University Press:

In 1824 in Washington, D.C., Ann Mattingly, widowed sister of the city's mayor, was miraculously cured of a ravaging cancer. Just days, or perhaps even hours, from her predicted demise, she arose from her sickbed free from agonizing pain and able to enjoy an additional thirty-one years of life. The Mattingly miracle purportedly came through the intervention of a charismatic German cleric, Prince Alexander Hohenlohe, who was credited already with hundreds of cures across Europe and Great Britain. Though nearly forgotten today, Mattingly's astonishing healing became a polarizing event. It heralded a rising tide of anti-Catholicism in the United States that would culminate in violence over the next two decades.

Nancy L. Schultz deftly weaves analysis of this episode in American social and religious history together with the astonishing personal stories of both Ann Mattingly and the healer Prince Hohenlohe, around whom a cult was arising in Europe. Schultz's riveting book brings to light an early episode in the ongoing battle between faith and reason in the United States.

The author, Nancy Lusignan Schultz, also wrote Fire and Roses: The Burning of the Charlestown Convent, 1834 (Free Press, 2000), which certainly describes the violence to come, just ten years after the Mattingly cure.

This book was fascinating to me because of the many ways Catholics in early 19th century America and England shared parallel concerns: How to participate as citizens (after 1829 in England); how to integrate--or not--into their respective cultures; even the controversies between the laity and the clergy and between the "native" and Continental clergy and between the orders (especially the Sulpicians and the Jesuits) seem parallel. Of slightly lesser interest was the situation in Germany, where Prince Hohenlohe lived and practiced his healing ministry, facing the concerns of both religious and secular authorities. 

Like the old Catholic families in England, the laity in the United States of America, via lay trusteeism, were used to be in charge of their parishes. In England, the Catholic laity, especially the landowners and wealthy, controlled the chapels on their estates, and sponsored the clergy to serve Catholics on their estates and nearby. As the hierarchy in both England and America developed, the laity had to adapt to new sources of authority. 

I thought also of the differences between Manning and Newman in England, with Manning like Faber much more willing to embrace Italianate devotion language than Newman and other Oratorians and converts. The same kind of devotional divide occurred in the early nineteenth century in Maryland, Virginia, and the Capital. The Sulpician Archbishop of Baltimore, Ambrose Maréchal, ordered the Jesuit Dubuisson not to be so scrupulous in applying Prince Hohenlohe's precise timeline, accounting for different time zones, but he was ignored (disobeyed).

Schultz points out the differences between not only the Sulpicians and the Jesuits, but between the English-trained Jesuits like Archbishop John Carroll, who'd been educated for a time at the College at St. Omers, preparing to work in the missions in England, and the Jesuits like Father Etienne/Stephen Dubuisson, who'd been prepared for a much more secure ministry (he was in charge of discipline for a time at Georgetown). The former were much more concerned about the possible deleterious effects of a triumphalistic proclamation of this miracle on the status of Catholics in the country, while the latter thought it best to spread the good news and combat any attacks against the miracle.

The family story of Ann Carbery Mattingly, her suffering, the two miraculous cures she received, and the mysteries of her husband's and her son's disappearances from her life is also compelling. I was certainly not as interested in the gender specific analysis Schultz conducted in the later chapters, but the book is vividly written and well documented. 

I've prayed for miracles of healing before and reading this book made me wonder what I would have done if one of those prayers were answered. I would feel great thankfulness and given God great praise, but how would I or the recipient of the healing I'd prayed for feel about telling people about the miracle, encountering skepticism, curiosity, even manipulation or fascination?

As Schultz demonstrates, being a wonder worker like Prince Hohenlohe or being recipient of a wondrous healing like Ann Mattingly did not make life any easier for either of them in many ways. He was distrusted, suspected, and certainly mocked--he does not seem to have the most stable character, as he often had to change schools, had some trouble with authority and with debts, and indeed might have enjoyed the celebrity of being a thaumaturgus too much. She still suffered family estrangement and opposition to the religious vocation she thought she might have (long after her husband was dead)--and of course, she still died. 

The eventual death of someone who is saved from death by a miracle always reminds me of C.S. Lewis's poem "Stephen to Lazarus":

But was I the first martyr, who
Gave up no more than life, while you,
Already free among the dead,
Your rags stripped off, your fetters shed,
Surrendered what all other men
Irrevocably keep, and when
Your battered ship at anchor lay
Seemingly safe in the dark bay
No ripple stirs, obediently
Put out a second time to sea
Well knowing that your death (in vain
Died once) must all be died again?

At the beginning of each chapter, Schultz recounts a supernatural episode and the reactions of people in that era, the early to mid-nineteenth century. Curses, strange hauntings, amazing catastrophes, they raise the specter of what reasonable people do when something out of this world seems to occur: will they believe what they saw and heard and experienced or believe what they want to be true in accord with nature and reason?

She emphasizes that Catholics in the new American republic were enjoying the "Era of Good Feeling" after the War of 1812 during the presidency of James Monroe before Mrs. Mattingly's Miracle: they had fit into the community and the government (Mrs. Mattingly's Catholic brother was the mayor of Washington City when she was cured) in spite of the distrust brought over from England that Catholicism and modern liberty did not fit well together. She cites the idea that the exercise of Catholic authority by the Papacy or other superiors could be considered a violation of the Monroe Doctrine as an expression of European colonialism (the Jesuits in Maryland tried to cite that issue when ordered to divest themselves of a plantation and free the slaves!).

Perhaps the saddest note is that both Ann's husband and son may have suffered from a form of ALS--not fatal but debilitating--and may have been misjudged as ne'er do wells in ignorance of the fact they were suffering from a "creeping paralysis". Based on a likely scenario, Schultz also argues that Ann and the other Carberys may have rejected Ann's son John Baptist Carbery Mattingly because he married a mixed-race woman. It's not documented but presumed.

Contents (including the the subheads in each chapter):

Mrs. Mattingly's Miracle: The Prince, the Widow, and the Cure that Shocked Washington City

Prologue: Washington City, 1824

One. Introduction

    Bamberg, Southern Germany, 1821

    Biographical and Archival Research

    "Some Domestic Cause of Grief": A Note about Historiography

    Epigraphs and Adumbrations

    Some Historical Context

Two. The Prince and the Princess

    Bohemia, 1810

    Wurzburg, 1821

    The Prince and the Farmer

Three. From St. Mary's County, Southern Maryland, to the Federal City

    Religious Tensions in Colonial Maryland

    Ann Carbery Mattingly's Early Years, 1784-1803

    The Federal City, 1800-1822

Four. Thaumaturgus and Priest

    Ellwangen, Germany, October 1777

    In the Eyes of His Contemporaries

    Westward over the Ocean

Five. A Capital Miracle

    Western Virginia, 1797

    The Cultural Context

    German Mysticism

    The Seeds of Controversy

    "News of Supernatural Facts"

    The Protestant Response

    "Friend of Truth"

    A Great Deal of Trouble": Dissension within the Catholic Church

    The Body of Evidence

Six. Aftermath

    Washington, DC, 1844    

    Ann Mattingly's Body

    Slavery, Race, and the Mattingly Miracle

    Nemini Cedimus: John Baptist Carbery Mattingly, 1809-1839

    More Hohenlohe Miracles, 1824-1838

    Mrs. Mattingly's Foot

Seven. Conclusion

    The Carberys, the Mattinglys, and Me: Visitation Monastery, Georgetown, April 2006

    "Yield to No One": John Baptist Carbery Mattingly's Secret

    Prince Hohenlohe's Final Years

    The Death of Ann Mattingly

Carbery-Mattingly Family Tree

Notes

Index

(no bibliography--I do wish there was a separate bibliography although the end notes--meaning the reader has to flip to the back of the to find the note and the source cited--are comprehensive)

Fascinating.

Bishop John Carroll (SJ) Appointed

As the History Channel website reminds us:

On this day in 1789, Pope Pius VI appoints John Carroll bishop of Baltimore, making him the first Catholic bishop in the United States.

Carroll was born in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, in 1735. His mother came from a wealthy family and had been educated in France. At age 13, Carroll sailed for France in order to complete his own education at St. Omer’s College in French Flanders. At age 18, he joined the Society of Jesus, and after a further 14 years of study in Liege, he received ordination as a priest at age 34. Pope Clement XIV’s decision in 1773 to dissolve the Jesuit order, however, ended Carroll’s European career.

He made an important friend in Benjamin Franklin, demonstrating to that Enlightened Patriot that Roman Catholics (Papists) could be good people, after all:

Three years after Carroll’s return to Maryland, the need to make allies of French Catholics in Canada created an opportunity for him to join a Congressional delegation dispatched to negotiate with the Canadians. Benjamin Franklin served on the same delegation, and although the mission failed, Franklin proved an excellent ally to Carroll. In 1784, Franklin recommended to the papal nuncio in Paris that Carroll assume the position of Superior of Missions in the United States of North America, which removed American Catholics from the authority of the British Catholic hierarchy. In this role, as bishop and ultimately as the first archbishop in the United States (1808), Carroll oversaw the creation of leading Catholic institutions in the new nation, including the nation’s first Catholic university (Georgetown University, founded in 1789) and cathedral (Baltimore Basilica, built in 1806).

On Election Day 2018, it's appropriate to pray Bishop John Carroll's prayer for our country:

We pray, Thee O Almighty and Eternal God! Who through Jesus Christ hast revealed Thy glory to all nations, to preserve the works of Thy mercy, that Thy Church, being spread through the whole world, may continue with unchanging faith in the confession of Thy Name.

We pray Thee, who alone art good and holy, to endow with heavenly knowledge, sincere zeal, and sanctity of life, our chief bishop, Pope N., the Vicar of Our Lord Jesus Christ, in the government of his Church; our own bishop, N., all other bishops, prelates, and pastors of the Church; and especially those who are appointed to exercise amongst us the functions of the holy ministry, and conduct Thy people into the ways of salvation.

We pray Thee O God of might, wisdom, and justice! Through whom authority is rightly administered, laws are enacted, and judgment decreed, assist with Thy Holy Spirit of counsel and fortitude the President of these United States, that his administration may be conducted in righteousness, and be eminently useful to Thy people over whom he presides; by encouraging due respect for virtue and religion; by a faithful execution of the laws in justice and mercy; and by restraining vice and immorality. Let the light of Thy divine wisdom direct the deliberations of Congress, and shine forth in all the proceedings and laws framed for our rule and government, so that they may tend to the preservation of peace, the promotion of national happiness, the increase of industry, sobriety, and useful knowledge; and may perpetuate to us the blessing of equal liberty.

We pray for his excellency, the governor of this state, for the members of the assembly, for all judges, magistrates, and other officers who are appointed to guard our political welfare, that they may be enabled, by Thy powerful protection, to discharge the duties of their respective stations with honesty and ability.

We recommend likewise, to Thy unbounded mercy, all our brethren and fellow citizens throughout the United States, that they may be blessed in the knowledge and sanctified in the observance of Thy most holy law; that they may be preserved in union, and in that peace which the world cannot give; and after enjoying the blessings of this life, be admitted to those which are eternal.

Finally, we pray to Thee, O Lord of mercy, to remember the souls of Thy servants departed who are gone before us with the sign of faith and repose in the sleep of peace; the souls of our parents, relatives, and friends; of those who, when living, were members of this congregation, and particularly of such as are lately deceased; of all benefactors who, by their donations or legacies to this Church, witnessed their zeal for the decency of divine worship and proved their claim to our grateful and charitable remembrance. To these, O Lord, and to all that rest in Christ, grant, we beseech Thee, a place of refreshment, light, and everlasting peace, through the same Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Savior. Amen.

Carroll died in Baltimore on December 3, 1815. The Ignatian Spirituality website of Loyola Press has this note about some of his last words:

When he was near death, Archbishop Carroll said, “Of those things that give me most consolation at the present moment, one is that I have always been attached to the practice of devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary; that I have established it among the people under my care, and placed my diocese under her protection.”

Image credit: Statue of Carroll at Georgetown University.

Prayer for Our Nation

At last, Election Day! Voters in the U.S.A. will make our choices on whom to represent us from the local to the federal level. God bless us, everyone! God grant that we make the right decisions.

The first Catholic bishop in the U.S.A. was the Bishop of Baltimore, John Carroll. Carroll and his brother Daniel, who had been one of two Catholic delegates signing the Constitution in 1789 (and his cousin, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the only Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence) had studied on the European Continent. They were Catholics in colonial Maryland in a time when the practice of the Catholic faith was proscribed, including Catholic education, and thus attended St. Omers, the Jesuit college founded in Flanders for English men in recusant England. John Carroll prepared for the priesthood, was ordained, and became a Jesuit in Europe.

On November 10, 1791, Bishop Carroll published a Prayer for Government, in which, for Catholics, he included the Church hierarchy from the Pope through the Bishops and the clergy. Then he looks at the secular government--and note that, since the prayer was composed in November, it ends with prayers for the dead:

We pray, Thee O Almighty and Eternal God! Who through Jesus Christ hast revealed Thy glory to all nations, to preserve the works of Thy mercy, that Thy Church, being spread through the whole world, may continue with unchanging faith in the confession of Thy Name.

We pray Thee, who alone art good and holy, to endow with heavenly knowledge, sincere zeal, and sanctity of life, our chief bishop, Pope N., the Vicar of Our Lord Jesus Christ, in the government of his Church; our own bishop, N., all other bishops, prelates, and pastors of the Church; and especially those who are appointed to exercise amongst us the functions of the holy ministry, and conduct Thy people into the ways of salvation.

We pray Thee O God of might, wisdom, and justice! Through whom authority is rightly administered, laws are enacted, and judgment decreed, assist with Thy Holy Spirit of counsel and fortitude the President of these United States, that his administration may be conducted in righteousness, and be eminently useful to Thy people over whom he presides; by encouraging due respect for virtue and religion; by a faithful execution of the laws in justice and mercy; and by restraining vice and immorality. Let the light of Thy divine wisdom direct the deliberations of Congress, and shine forth in all the proceedings and laws framed for our rule and government, so that they may tend to the preservation of peace, the promotion of national happiness, the increase of industry, sobriety, and useful knowledge; and may perpetuate to us the blessing of equal liberty.

We pray for his excellency, the governor of this state, for the members of the assembly, for all judges, magistrates, and other officers who are appointed to guard our political welfare, that they may be enabled, by Thy powerful protection, to discharge the duties of their respective stations with honesty and ability.

We recommend likewise, to Thy unbounded mercy, all our brethren and fellow citizens throughout the United States, that they may be blessed in the knowledge and sanctified in the observance of Thy most holy law; that they may be preserved in union, and in that peace which the world cannot give; and after enjoying the blessings of this life, be admitted to those which are eternal.

Finally, we pray to Thee, O Lord of mercy, to remember the souls of Thy servants departed who are gone before us with the sign of faith and repose in the sleep of peace; the souls of our parents, relatives, and friends; of those who, when living, were members of this congregation, and particularly of such as are lately deceased; of all benefactors who, by their donations or legacies to this Church, witnessed their zeal for the decency of divine worship and proved their claim to our grateful and charitable remembrance. To these, O Lord, and to all that rest in Christ, grant, we beseech Thee, a place of refreshment, light, and everlasting peace, through the same Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Savior. Amen.

Note also the insistence on "equal liberty"; Bishop Carroll (later called Archbishop Carroll) was a staunch defender of religious liberty and particularly the freedom of Catholics to practice their faith in the new United States of America. As the website for the Archdiocese of Baltimore describes his efforts:

When a cousin, Charles Henry Wharton, wrote a work to justify his conversion to the Protestant Episcopal Church suggesting that Roman Catholicism was inimical to a free society, Carroll felt compelled to publish in 1785 a 115-page rebuttal, An Address to the Roman Catholics of the United States of America, his most ambitious literary effort. In it he argues that "America may come to exhibit a proof to the world, by general and equal toleration, by giving a free circulation to fair argument, is the most effectual method to bring all denominations of Christians to an unity of faith" (140). . . . In 1785 he fought a bill that would have laid a tax for the support of clergymen in Maryland. To at least two American newspapers he sent essays demanding equal rights for Roman Catholics.

A facsimile of An Address to the Roman Catholics of the United States of America may be found here, although you must be prepared to read each "f" as an "s"!

Just remember that Catholics have had to answer these charges of being members of a Church that's "inimical to a free society" through the centuries. Think of Paul Blanshard in the 1940's and 1950's. Eleanor Roosevelt feared Catholic influence on education, etc, etc. 

And religious liberty must always be defended. Recently, the Chair of the Commission on Civil Rights said that "religious liberty" is just a code for discrimination (“The phrases ‘religious liberty’ and ‘religious freedom’ will stand for nothing except hypocrisy so long as they remain code words for discrimination, intolerance, racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, Christian supremacy, or any form of intolerance,” he [Martin Castro] wrote.) Anyone who believes that might act upon it. Eternal vigilance!

The End of the Fortnight for Freedom

Three years ago, I reviewed a book by Russell Shaw on this blog:

American Church: The Remarkable Rise, Meteoric Fall, and Uncertain Future of Catholicism in America surveys recent history as a personal memoir, analyses the efforts of late nineteenth and early twentieth century Church leaders to chart a path for Catholics in America, and provides some ideas to strengthen Catholic culture in America, ideas which build on movements and efforts already in place. The first several pages of this book presented some confusion as evidently Ignatius Press had changed the title of the book sometime after the text was printed and bound. The original title was "The Gibbons Legacy" and therefore the Foreword by Archbishop Chaput and the Introduction kept mentioning that title. . . . 

I presume Ignatius and Shaw changed the title because of concern no one knows who "Gibbons" was--James Cardinal Gibbons, the ninth Archbishop of Baltimore (from 1877 to 1921). . . . Shaw's book traces the path of assimilation of Catholics in American culture--and as that culture became more and more secularized, then Catholics on that path became more and more secularized. Then he addresses, often from personal experiences, the effects of the implementation of the "spirit of Vatican II", changes in Catholic higher education, reform movements in the episcopacy--and he uses his personal recollections well, without falling into the trap of becoming anecdotal. . . .

Overall, the story Shaw tells is sad--how the Church lost its influence on American culture because it tried to assimilate too much into American culture. Shaw's hope for the restoration of that influence is in the development of a Catholic subculture, which I think exists--EWTN, Catholic bloggers, the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars, the youthful pro-life movement--and I think will remain small. Primarily, I think Shaw is correct that it is the formation of the laity, as inspired by the documents of the Second Vatican Council that is most important--instead of pursuing "ministries" inside the Church, we should be working to influence our culture--exactly through the sub-culture Shaw outlines. Perhaps the institutional Church should not aspire to the great influence of former days as it may come at the same cost of assimilation or accommodation. Thought-provoking, to say the least.

Now he has followed up on that book with Catholics in America: Religious Identity and Cultural Assimilation from John Carroll to Flannery O'Connor and he writes about this new book for The Catholic World Report (adapted from the Introduction):

A collection of fifteen profiles of prominent individuals, it can be read simply as a set of introductions to people who in various ways made significant contributions to American Catholicism and American society. But a more complex rationale is also at work—the hope to stimulate an overdue dialogue on an urgent matter: Can we really be fully Catholic while also being fully American in American secular terms?

As it stands, many Catholics take for granted their assimilation into the values and behavior patterns of the surrounding society. But for a significant remnant of believing, practicing Catholics, it’s a different story. Finding themselves increasingly alienated from the secular society, they are deeply concerned to know what to do about it. They may find some help in this book.

Several themes are at work here. For example: Archbishop Carroll and Cardinal Gibbons—the assimilation option as it has been accepted and promoted by leaders of the Church in the United States; St. Elizabeth Seton, Father McGivney, and Al Smith—anti-Catholicism and the Catholic response; Archbishop Hughes and St. Frances Xavier Cabrini—the immigrant experience; Cardinal Spellman—hyper-patriotism as an assimilation mode; Dorothy Day, Archbishop Sheen, Flannery O’Connor—the ambiguities of American culture; Orestes Brownson and Isaac Hecker—the feasibility of evangelization; John Kennedy and John Courtney Murray—resolving the tension between church and state.

It’s important to say this is not an unpatriotic book. “My country, right or wrong”—words linked to the American naval hero Stephen Decatur and later repeated, with disastrous results, by Cardinal Spellman—expresses an unassailably correct sentiment, provided the sentiment is understood to be: “No matter how foolishly or unjustly my country may act, it’s still my country.” But acknowledgment of national filiation does not excuse patriotic citizens from criticizing their country when it acts foolishly or unjustly, and trying their best to get the country to stop doing that. Criticism in these circumstances is an expression of patriotism—indeed, one far more useful than blind acquiescence.

I always think of "love of country" or patriotism as being like the love I have for my parents. I know they were not perfect parents or people (my father has been dead six years and my mother is in a nursing home) but I also know they gave me life, loved me, and raised me and I love them. 

Happy Independence Day! By the way, my parents met on the 4th of July on a blind date and there were fireworks because it was love at first sight!

The Old is New Again: Anti-Catholicism in England and the U.S.A.

Again, I was listening to a podcast from a wonderful interview series on BBC 4, "Beyond Belief": three experts join the host, Ernie Rea, to discuss a religious issue. They do so reasonably, without ad hominem attacks, and with conviction--at the least the episodes I've listened to. They don't talk over each other and there's a good give and take without shouting or anger. On this episode from 2010, Father Marcus Holden, Sister Gemma Simmonds, and Francis Davis discussed the upcoming papal visit and the history of English Catholicism. The three guests agree and disagree, but the latter without much acrimony. Each episode also includes a brief interview offering another perspective, and the choice in this episode was to talk to a Catholic convert. One of the questions for the convert was, you do know that you're out of step with much of current society if you really believe what the Church teaches about marriage and family life? Thus implying that the goal of life is to be in step with current culture; the host also noted that if there is any anti-Catholicism it is because of what Catholics believe about marriage and family life (and of course the sexual abuse crisis).

In the same vein, David Carlin writes for The Catholic Thing about "The Old Charge Resurfaces: Catholics Are Un-American", noting that for some, the only good Catholic is a bad Catholic, especially if he or she is a politician or public figure:

In other words, political liberals have no objection to Catholic politicians if the Catholic politicians in question deviate from the Catholic faith in a politically liberal direction. Their membership in the Catholic Church can be overlooked as long as the Catholic politicians are supporters of such splendid liberal causes as abortion rights and same-sex marriage and gender-neutral bathrooms. Thus former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is okay, and so is Vice President Joe Biden.

In fact they are more than just okay. They are positively desirable from a liberal point of view. For by approving of Pelosi, Biden, and their ilk, liberals are able to deny the charge that they are anti-Catholic. They are tolerant. And pluralistic. And open-minded.

But let a genuine Catholic come along (Rick Santorum is a prime recent instance), and liberals show their true colors. The thing they despise about such politicians is that they actually believe in the doctrines, in particular the moral doctrines, of the Catholic Church. They believe that abortion is homicide; that homosexual behavior is unnatural; that same-sex marriage is absurd; and that sex outside of marriage is wrong.

Therefore they are not merely in error, but are despicable from the liberal/progressive point of view, for these Catholic beliefs contradict fundamental articles of the liberal faith. But what political liberals despise is not so much the individual politicians as the religion they represent. In the final accounting, they despise that obnoxious thing, Catholicism.

According to the liberal definition of Americanism, Catholics – that is, Catholics who actually believe in their religion – are not, and cannot be, good Americans. This used to be a charge made openly, but is now made in more indirect fashion. For to be a good American, in the current liberal dispensation, you have to be a believer in moral relativism and sexual freedom.

When Anti-Catholicism was based upon religious beliefs, Protestants objected to Catholic worship, the sacraments, and doctrine--and the fear of disloyalty reinforced by the legacy of the Gunpowder Plot. David Carlin also discusses the history of anti-Catholicism in England and then in the British Colonies and the United States of America in his article. Thus, he concludes: "The old Protestant consensus is gone, and with it the old reflexive anti-Catholicism. But once again, after a lapse of less than a century, and now on shifting grounds, Catholicism is charged with being an un-American religion."

Illustration: one of Thomas Nast's anti-Catholic cartoons, attacking Catholic influence in education. Please note that Nast had been baptized Catholic!

Eugenics in America: The Catholic Response

After posting excerpts from Amity Shlaes' review of two new books on the Eugenics movement in the United States in the early twentieth century, I wondered about the Catholic Church's response to the legislative efforts. There was a response of course, and a 2013 book from the University of Chicago Press describes it:

During the first half of the twentieth century, supporters of the eugenics movement offered an image of a racially transformed America by curtailing the reproduction of “unfit” members of society. Through institutionalization, compulsory sterilization, the restriction of immigration and marriages, and other methods, eugenicists promised to improve the population—a policy agenda that was embraced by many leading intellectuals and public figures. But Catholic activists and thinkers across the United States opposed many of these measures, asserting that “every man, even a lunatic, is an image of God, not a mere animal."

In An Image of God, Sharon Leon examines the efforts of American Catholics to thwart eugenic policies, illuminating the ways in which Catholic thought transformed the public conversation about individual rights, the role of the state, and the intersections of race, community, and family. Through an examination of the broader questions raised in this debate, Leon casts new light on major issues that remain central in American political life today: the institution of marriage, the role of government, and the separation of church and state. This is essential reading in the history of religion, science, politics, and human rights.

The author, Sharon M. Leon, is director of public projects at the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media and research associate professor of history at George Mason University.

This blog by attorney and author Ed Mannino provides an overview and review of Professor Leon's book:

While the Catholic Church supported positive eugenics initiatives, including encouraging married couples to have more children, and enactment of legislation providing for social welfare programs, it vigorously opposed negative eugenic proposals, including compulsory sterilization and restrictions on immigration from certain countries. This opposition was based on two separate grounds, only one of which was based on Catholic doctrine. In the words of Professor Leon, Catholic opposition centered first on attacking eugenic science as not being “rigorous,” as having its roots in concealed “ethnic, racial and class prejudices,” and as ignoring the the importance of environmental and other factors in the development of an individual’s character. A second, religious objection argued that the state could not “violate the bodily integrity of an innocent individual, regardless of the supposed biological improvements that will result.”

Professor Leon concludes that “Asserting their rights as citizens to participate in the public debate about the importance of environment and heredity and about the proper role of the state and the responsibility of the individual, Catholics transformed public discourse.”

In the public debate, Catholics developed the points that genetic makeup does not dictate the inheritance of mental defects in children, and that environmental factors play an important role in individual development. In addition, the Catholic hierarchy and lay groups such as the Knights of Columbus lobbied for the passage of legislative initiatives promoting both social and economic justice. Moreover, Catholics opposed legislation banning mixed-race marriages, and the view that the “white race” was somehow superior.

Read the rest there.

Yet Another Charles Carroll

The Carroll family of Maryland is recognized because Charles Carroll of Carrollton was the only Catholic and the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence. His family used descriptions to distinguish between the different generations of Charles Carrolls: Charles Carroll the Settler, Charles Carroll of Annapolis, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, and Charles Carroll of Homewood.

The Charles Carroll born today, March 22, in 1723 called himself Charles Carroll, Barrister. He was a distant Anglican cousin of the great Maryland Carrolls. His father--you guessed it--Charles Carroll, a surgeon had left Ireland in 1715 and renounced Catholicism to become an Anglican. As the website for Mount Clare Museum House notes:

At that time Maryland was a Protestant colony and Roman Catholics were not allowed to hold public office or have public worship services. Dr. Carroll wanted to be able to own land and participate in political activities. He settled in Annapolis where he practiced medicine and engaged in land speculation. In 1722, Dr. Carroll married Dorothy Blake of Talbot County on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. On Sunday, March 22, 1723, their first son, Charles, was born. Dr. and Mrs. Carroll had two other children, John Henry and Mary Clare.

Dr. Charles Carroll was also ambitious for his son:

Dr. Carroll wished Charles be educated abroad, so at the age of 10, Charles, with his father, left Annapolis for England. The voyage was difficult, forcing them ashore in Portugal. Because the trip was so traumatic for young "Charlie", Dr. Carroll left him with the Reverend Edward Jones at English House in West Lisbon, Portugal, where he stayed until he was 16. He then went to England to attend Eton and later entered the University of Cambridge. After 12 years of study abroad, Charles returned to Annapolis in 1746. He enjoyed the sophisticated social life of Annapolis, at the same time applying himself to learning the management of the farms and mills on the Patapsco. Dr. Carroll felt Charles should have further education in order to advance in the world, so at the age of 28, Charles set sail for England where he studied law at the Inns of Court and resided in the Middle Temple in London.

Charles, now a Barrister-at-Law, returned home three months before his father's death in 1755, well prepared to assume the duties commensurate with his large inheritance. At the age of 32 he was one of the wealthiest members of the Maryland aristocracy. He was elected to fill his father's seat as the Delegate from Anne Arundel County to the Lower House of the Assembly. As there were four Carrolls of the same name living in Annapolis at that time, Charles designated himself in 1766 as "Charles Carroll, Barrister". (my emphasis)

Charles Carroll, Barrister died 60 years and one day old on March 23, 1783. As Ronald Hoffman, author of Princes of Ireland, Planters of Maryland: A Carroll Saga, 1500-1782, notes, Charles Carroll, Barrister's father's choice to convert was one that the other Charles Carrolls, from the Settler, through of Annapolis, to of Carrollton and of Homewood, refused to make, even though the Settler had come to Maryland in 1688 hoping to take advantage of the religious tolerance of Catholic Maryland. Bad timing, since the Glorious Revolution of 1688 wiped out that tolerance and religious freedom. Fortunately, Maryland officials never really enforced the penal laws against Catholics in Maryland with any regularity. Charles Carroll of Carrollton studied for many years on the Continent and in England in an effort to prepare him for life in Anglican Maryland, as Hoffman notes in this paper for the American Antiquarian Society.

Charles Carroll, Barrister and his Catholic cousins did cooperate in the revolutionary cause--but it's Charles Carroll of Carrollton we remember.

Happy Birthday, John Carroll!

Russell Shaw writes about the life and career of John Carroll in the December 23, 2013 issue of Our Sunday Visitor newsweekly:

A member of a wealthy and respected Catholic family, with excellent contacts among America’s political and social elite, Archbishop Carroll proved notably adept at building bridges with the non-Catholic world in a career spanning more than three decades. “A gentleman of learning and abilities,” John Adams, who was to be second president of the United States, said of the young priest in 1776, the year of American independence.

Along with persuading Protestants that Catholics also had a place in America, John Carroll was to tackle the mammoth task of building the infrastructure of the Church from scratch. And in this, too, he proved remarkably successful.

He was born Jan. 8, 1735, at his parents’ plantation in southern Maryland, the fourth of seven children. His older brother, Daniel, was to be one of only five men who signed both the Articles of Confederation and the U.S. Constitution. His cousin and lifelong friend, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, was the only Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence and the first U.S. senator from Maryland.

Read the rest here.