Fordham University - Maroon Yearbook (New York, NY)

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University Chapel, built in 1844-45'- enlarged m i )29- 19

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given all their energy and failed. That is, they would have failed had it not been for another divine accident in their lives. I his time they were to be presented with THE problem which faced Coadjutor Bishop Hughes, who, because of Bishop Dubois’ illness, became in fact the real ruler of the diocese of New York in 1842, was first to establish order within the Church, then to win recognition of the rights of the Church by the State, and finally to found educational institutions which would lay the ground for a subsequent flowering of the Catholic religion and culture. New York drew the eyes of all America. If he failed, the progress of the Church in America would be put back indefinitely. If he failed, the faith of thousands w'ould disappear like water in the sands of the desert. And if he won—if he could found his schools and his seminary, then perhaps there was some hope for the future. His diocese comprised an area of fifty-two thousand square miles, with twro hundred thousand souls, served by forty priests and tw'enty churches. The parishes wallowed in debts contracted by lay trustees who resisted episcopal control. The Bishop smashed trustee-ism within five years. Less successful, but equally forthright, was his challenge to the control of all education by the private but state-supported Public School Society, which was managed by the most anti-Catholic elements of Protestant clericalism. In 1844 he forced Know'-Nothing Mayor Robert H. Morris and a subservient City Council to prevent, contrary lo their own wishes, the destruction of Catholic life and property in New York by a Nativist mob. He argued, pleaded, wrrotc and fought against intolerance without, and ignorance and rebellion within. These struggles convinced the Bishop of the need of Catholic schools and colleges. Without a native clergy, trained in an American atmosphere and specifically adjusted to the still turbulent conditions of American life, without a higher level of culture among Catholics he foresaw that each succeeding bishop must fight the same fight over and over again. To educate one generation without training successors to carry on w'as analogous to winning a battle and losing a w'ar. St. John’s College, Fordham. How this happened is part of the story of the great John Hughes and the vicissitudes of his diocese of New' York. He was acutely aware of this need for education when he visited Europe in 1839. One of his chief purposes was to persuade the Leopoldinc Association of Vienna to advance him money for the foundation of a diocesan seminary. He approached the heads of teaching orders concerning the establishment of schools. Father Roothaan, the general of the Jesuits, w'as among those invited to open a school in the New York diocese. 1 Catholic education in New’ York in 1839 consisted of parochial schools conducted by parish priests and lay schoolmasters and a number of excellent private academies like those of Patrick Sarsfield Casserly and Thomas N. Brady. But long before this the Jesuits had made tw'o efforts to establish higher education in the diocese. When Governor Dongan, the Catholic appointee of James II, was forced to flee the fanatical partisans of Leisler in 1688, the tw'o Jesuits. Thomas Harvey and Henry Harrison, w'ho with Charles Gage had conducted a Latin School since 1684, were also compelled to leave New York. Theirs was the first attempt to establish a Catholic, school in New' York. I he curriculum and student body of the Latin School remain unknown, although in all probability the institution resembled that of the school at Newton, Maryland, conducted by the same mission of the English Assistancy which in 1681 had sent two excellent scholars to St. Outer's in Belgium. From 1700 to the American Revolution, Jesuits, in fact all Papists, were banned from New York, as well as other States, by rigorous laws. Catholicism wras so feeble a force during the eighteenth century that even the best professional bigots lacked an audience. It was not until 1806 that the last law against Catholics w'as repealed by the state of New’ York. By that time the liberal principles of the Constitution makers plus the respect w'on by Catholic officers and soldiers of Washington had dissipated some of the mists of suspicion and hate.

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The first Rose Hill Manor House, built in 1692 and according to tradition staff headquarters for a time for Washington anil the Continental Army; demolished in 1896. Unfortunately the Jesuits except as individuals were unable to resume work al ter the war, and there was no other teaching order established in the new country. In 1773 the Society of Jesus had been suppressed by Clement XIV, and its reconstitution was not completely approved until Pius VII s Hull of 1814. In die meantime Jesuits continued to function in Russia and Prussia, where the Papal brief was never published. The Maryland Jesuits were aggregated to the Russian province in 1803, and Robert Molyneux was appointed Superior of the Society of Jesus in the United States. From then on the energies of the Order in Maryland were partly liberated. At this time Catholicism began to grow. In April 1 Hub the See ol Baltimore, occupied by the distinguished American patriot and former Jesuit, John Carroll, was raised to an archbishopric and the suffragan bishoprics of Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Bardstown, Kentucky, were created. New York, which numbered two hundred Catholics in 1785, grew to four hundred in 1787. one thousand in 1790, thirteen hundred in 1800 and fourteen thousand in 1808. Irish immigration accounted for most of the total; French refugees from Santo Domingo and some Germans made up the rest. For all these people there teas one church, St. Peter's, one parish school, one graveyard and several priests. The newly appointed Bishop, Luke Concanen, O.P., postponed his arrival for so long (he never did arrive) that Archbishop Carroll was forced to use his authority to appoint a Vicar General. His choice was an extremely able, energetic, and learned Jesuit of the Maryland Mission, Anthony Kohl-man, later a president of Georgetown and head of the American province. Father Kohlman no sooner assumed the administration of the infant diocese than he established a school for the Catholics of the city and the adjoining territory. In December 1808, assisted by four scholastics, he opened the New York Literary Institution for seventeen pupils in a rented house opposite the unfinished Cathedral on Mulberry Street. By July 1809 l e S(h°°l had moved to larger quarters on Broadway to care for thirty-five Catholic and Protestant boys, among whom were the two sons of former Governor Livingston and of Governor Tompkins. By 1813 20