The St. Louis Memorial Year
Garraghan, Gilbert J.
June30, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL 205 THE ST. LOUIS MEMORIAL YEAR By...
...Louis put on a gigantic world's fair to commemo- Almost without exception, every organized attempt in rate the centenary of the secular event-the purchase...
...were the missionary-explorer, Jacques Marquette, and A glamour of daring romance and picturesque his companion, Louis Jolliet, in their memorable depioneering hangs over the beginnings of civilized life scent of the Mississippi, 1673...
...and at the same time nary, working with his own hands on the modest little he borrowed $90.00 from Father Saulnier, the Catheedifice which alone his slender funds permitted him to dral pastor, to meet the expenses of his overseas jourerect...
...His youth, architectural design...
...giving to the former the right bank of the Mississippi Some innocent publicity being needed, the King's grandand to the latter the entire Missouri valley, an amaz- son, the future Count de Chambord, appears at court ing grant of spiritual jurisdiction which the swift ex- decked out in the Indian costume which Father Van pansion of Catholicism in the West was later to render Quickenborne had sent for the occasion...
...And yet this man Indians, to inaugurate the most noteworthy movement of affairs and practical achievement was, almost charon behalf of the American red man ever launched by acteristically, a student and scholar, with published the Catholic Church in the United States...
...When high schools, housed and equipped to meet every he came to St...
...Louis, with an ana and the Floridas in turn exercised spiritual juris206 THE COMMONWEAL June 30, 1926 diction over St...
...Standing, not apart from, but ing thither some time later to conduct the first remidmost the currents of high emprise that were flow- ligious services in the history of the settlement...
...Louis was enriched with its first hospital, and all, the cause of their canonization being now under a new and stately cathedral (the "Old Cathedral" of consideration in Rome : Mother Seton, whose Congre- today) went up under his direction, its consecration gation of the Daughters of Charity Bishop Du Bourg in October, 1834, being a red-letter day in the ecclesiwas instrumental in founding...
...Louis, took Kaw," the future Kansas City, writing thence to over the reins of administration from the aged Kendiocesan headquarters an absorbing record of nascent rick, who died in 1896...
...Hither in which that territory became involved as a result came in 1764 the Sieur Pierre Ligueste Laclede and of the vicissitudes of politics and war reads like a rollwith his stripling helpmate, Auguste Chouteau, laid call of the historic place-names of the new world...
...Louis, advanced in 1847 to the dignity of an archbut the priests, De Smet and his Jesuit associates, diocese, almost up to the level of organized developwent out from St...
...Still again, quite the was the overthrow of their political achievements...
...Eventually, St...
...St...
...The earliest patch of civilized life ever laid out on Missouri race was to men of another blood who entered tri- soil was the Franco-Indian-Jesuit village at the mouth umphantly into their predecessors' astounding labors...
...He established a semi- in securing for a Jesuit college...
...and archdiocesan consecrate him as his coadjutor and successor...
...Louis the colors of Spain and post had evolved into a village with a good conceit of France were furled and the Stars and Stripes were itself, counting its people at some two thousand...
...June30, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL 205 THE ST...
...Louis by the hand- gaining his ends through the silent power of tactful, ful of Catholics in that remote wilderness to send intelligent administration, he brought the diocese of them a priest...
...In 1904 western pioneering was enacted, stood St...
...The same J. Glennon, first as coadjutor of Archbishop Kain and year, 1833, saw Mr...
...Louis, the frontier stage in the develop- modern demand...
...The series of ecclesiastical affiliations miles below its junction with the Missouri...
...He began a Bishop of Montauban and later Archbishop of Besanbrick cathedral to replace the forlorn structure of logs con...
...Louis was on the way lay and clerical, in early nineteenth-century Catholito becoming a diocesan seat itself, the first step toward cism in the United States he was brought into intimate that culmination being taken with the arrival there on relation$, leaving everywhere the repute of a gentleJanuary 5, 1818, of the Right Reverend Louis William man and a scholar and especially of an apostle, all Valentine Du Bourg, third Bishop of Louisiana and aflame to a quite remarkable measure with zeal for the the Floridas...
...The post, named for St...
...Louis as it commemorates this June the forms of religious, charitable, and educational en- passing of a hundred years of organized Catholic life deavor, and the hand shaping the movement, steady- in the ecclesiastical district of which it is the centre...
...Louis prelate...
...by Rome of Bishop Du Bourg's resignation of his All the social graces, admittedly great, of pre-Revo- American see, also saw the erection of the two dioceses lutionary France, in which environment he received of St...
...of Illinois was attached to Bishop Rosati's jurisdic- Archbishop Kain, an engaging personality, wholetion, the first priests to arrive there having come with heartedly devoted to his episcopal tasks and rememcommissions from the St...
...But the half-century of his episcopate bridged over We revert to the theme on which we began, and magnificently the interval between ecclesiastical cradle- note again St...
...Louis for episcopal see...
...Anson Taylor come down from then, on the latter's death in 1903, as his successor in Chicago to St...
...Louis, to return thence with Father the see of St...
...Louis which he was instrumental Heart, the Sisters of Loretto...
...Only now, the writer demanded his resignation...
...One gets resourcefulness of a spiritual empire-builder...
...Louis...
...Later came Archbishop John Catholicism on the Missouri frontier...
...Louis and New Orleans to replace the previously his education, lived in this courtly prelate...
...He had the United States today is Catholic education of whatstill, like his predecessors, to travel by horseback or ever grade-primary, secondary, collegiate, or universtage, to officiate in log-churches, to deal with Indians...
...He made friends on all sides, that he ruled the destinies of the Church in the new better evidence none of the charm and worth of his diocese were crowded with accomplishment...
...He wrote existing diocese of Louisiana and the Floridas...
...Louis in 1827...
...Cyr, first resident priest of the upstart village that with distinction to this day...
...Quiet, forceful, with almost a genius for Even from the banks of the Columbia in the Pacific business and finance, never much in the public eye but Northwest, appeal was made to St...
...This ceremony marked occupation by the federal exploration, the Lewis and Clark expedition to the government of the upper reaches of the vast territory far side of the Rockies, having for its purpose, which it known as the Louisiana Purchase acquired from nobly served, to lift the veil from the mystery-land Napoleon for the ridiculously low consideration of which had just come to swell our national domains...
...The great Father De Andreis, his vicar-general at St...
...A score the Old Frontier...
...If Du Bourg and, Rosati are names each marking a distinct forward step in organized to conjure with, Kenrick was a dynamic force of which Catholic life, have been vigorously taken in hand and one will not easily overstate the influence...
...The first white Congress, Cardinal Bonzano, a participant in the cere- men known to have passed the site of the city-to-be monies...
...but circumstances made his presence in that city in- In 1821 Bishop Du Bourg withdrew from St...
...the new terri- and whatever other elements of the human kind had tory, having for boundaries the Mississippi and the parts to play in the ever-appealing drama of the Old Rockies, the Louisiana-Arkansas state-line and the Frontier...
...He Du Bourg's coadjutor since 1824, the Right Reverend preached effectively in English, so excellent a judge in Joseph Rosati of the Congregation of the Missions, such matters as Archbishop Carroll witnessing to his began to reside in St...
...15,000,000, in what one may fairly call the most Then, in the wake of Lewis and Clark followed the amazing real-estate transfer in history...
...With both records is bound up a and more of new religious communities of men and wealth of those heartening and inspirational values women came to establish themselves on the banks of which alone make of written history a thing worth the Mississippi...
...Louis...
...New-born works of high theological acumen to his credit...
...Louis's storied past and the rich measure days in the West and the ripened development of the of colorful and appealing incident that enters into its Church...
...another centenary, that of the ecclesiastical event of It was amid this human environment of adventurthe founding of the Catholic diocese of St...
...Louis archfield on a borrowed horse in 1837, the future capital diocese of today...
...Finally, at the laying out of Laclede's tradingploration, discovery, and pioneer settlement, such an post, an entire square was dedicated to church puratmosphere of the heroic as remains to this day almost poses, Louis Sebastian Meurin, last surviving eightthe outstanding and arresting element in the story of eenth-century Jesuit in the Mississippi valley, repairthe American West...
...He founded a Latin academy, which a year ney...
...ing thus through the valley of the Mississippi through- Slowly, but surely, Catholicism on the west side of out the French regime, was a limestone bluff that rose the Mississippi began to shape itself into something like on the west bank of the mid-Mississippi some fifteen organized life...
...Louis beginnings Cathedral with the Papal Legate to the Eucharistic are largely ecclesiastical in character...
...Louis and the vast hinterland that With these and a host of other historic personalities, lay to the west...
...And so one may well observe with sympathetic and more complete expression of Catholic life in all interest St...
...Louis ventures to affirm, do we begin to envisage the great- in May, 1826, on his way to Europe, he left whatness that was in this man...
...The response came in the early 'forties, St...
...Like a delightful picture of the generous temper of this Alexander VI apportioning the new world between distinguished churchman in a letter from his pen Spain and Portugal, he divided the vast upper reaches which recounts the efforts he made to interest the of his diocese between the Lazarists and the Jesuits, court of Charles X in his Jesuit friends of Missouri...
...In a material way the Church of western America which he found on his arrival...
...Abraham Lincoln went up from New Salem to Spring- Nevertheless, a few lines are due the St...
...Louis torical associations thrown around St...
...panding growth, which has marked the history of the The pioneer bishops of St...
...His canonical see was New Orleans, glory of God's House...
...The names of the to set foot on the terrain of the future metropolis were Gallic pathfinders who set up for the Grand Monarque three Canadian priests who there said Mass on Dean overseas empire in mid-continental North America cember 8, 1698, the earliest recorded religious services may be said to have been writ in water, so complete in the history of the locality...
...For sheer pushed forward to a successful issue: a new theological intellectual greatness he probably overtopped all his seminary of imposing proportions and distinguished contemporaries in the America hierarchy...
...Passing through St...
...Rosati saw only a single new diocese, that history...
...a trading-post to command the Missouri River sees of Quebec, Santiago di Cuba, Havana, and Louisifur-trade...
...When much this may show of impressiveness and worth...
...The twenty-three years even then was beginning to fight its way forward to that have elapsed have witnessed the tradition of exits present estate of the fourth city of the world...
...Bishop letters prolifically and with exquisite touch...
...Louis see ; some fifteen were set up in attaches to its ecclesiastical counterpart, which is the Kenrick's time...
...Here Du Bourg had already achieved distinction, having opposition to him developed, the betrayal of his conbeen president of Saint Mary's College, Baltimore, fidence by a clerical adventurer depressed him, and he and also of Georgetown College, and diocesan ad- came to the conclusion that the interests of religion ministrator at New Orleans...
...In 1833 bered for not a few noteworthy projects initiated or Father Benedict Roux reached the "mouth of the completed during his incumbency at St...
...Again, the first whites in the basin of the Mississippi...
...Louis...
...Important enterprises, arresting figures...
...His resignation of the see of New Orleans havlater blossomed into a college, forerunner and nucleus ing been accepted by the Holy See, he was named of the St...
...settlements, some of them destined to assume metro- Heroic beginnings lend themselves more temptingly politan proportions, were receiving first aid from the to the chronicler than current achievement, however shabby little episcopal residence in St...
...It was the very boldness of his designs of Catholicism in the trans-Mississippi West...
...Men, seeing the 'temporary miscar- Du Bourg died at Besancon in December, 1833, and riage of some of his plans, called him a dreamer, as in an almost unmarked grave in the crypt of the grim though all things worth while have not a dream be- old Cathedral lie the remains of the first great builder hind them...
...Both recgration steadily pouring in during the middle decades ords grip the attention and stir the blood, as being of the last century, the Catholic population of the alike chapters in the always absorbing chronicle of West went forward by leaps and bounds...
...Louis were remarkably archdiocese, grow to a climax...
...He brought to Missouri founder of the Western Jesuits, to clear the title to the Lazarists, the Jesuits, the Society of the Sacred the property in St...
...The fifteen years capacity in this respect...
...Mother Duchesne, of astical history of the West...
...Louis University of today...
...At the very gateway to so-called Upper Canadian frontier, was erected by Rome into a Louisiana, the stage on which this great drama of diocese, with St...
...Kenrick...
...LOUIS MEMORIAL YEAR By GILBERT J. GARRAGHAN N O more dramatic moment in the history of these indirect compliment to another king of France, Louis United States is on record than that which is XV, prospered from the beginning, doing in 1769 a chronicled for March 10, 1804, when before business of $8o,ooo in furs...
...sweep of territory between the Mississippi and the June 30, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL 207 Continental Divide, since organized into some seven- ing it, insuring its success, was that of Peter Richard teen dioceses, was looking to him for ministerial aid...
...The out...
...and the Lazarist, years that Bishop Rosati was at St...
...Louis...
...Everywhere the drift was to a fuller while...
...a cathedral of Byzantine style passed in Ireland, was brimful of promise, and he was and Cyclopean construction, vast in contour and superbbut thirty-five when Bishop Rosati picked him out to ly finished in marble and mosaic...
...Details escaped him, was not to lose altogether by the retirement of its but he worked in the large with all the vision and one-time ecclesiastical head into France...
...The earliest hisconsecration on June 29 of the superb new St...
...sity-more successfully organized than in St...
...the shabby little Government House at Main and When the Americans arrived in 1804, the tradingWalnut Streets in St...
...Louis, not to the whites, but to the ment on which it stands today...
...the pioneer period to penetrate the wilderness that lay In this month the city will lay itself out to signalize toward the setting sun started from here...
...Louis, which he has continued to occupy St...
...First raised over the western moiety of the Mississippi val- was staged that greatest of all the epics of American ley...
...the Religious of the Sacred Heart, one of the earliest It was still sowing, not harvest-time, during the recruits he secured for his diocese...
...Louis, the ous pioneering that the Catholicism of the transcommemoration being planned to center around the Mississippi West came into being...
...Louis of around their undeniably first-class achievements in ex- today...
...The first important im- ever money he had with him, some three hundred petus to the growth of Catholicism west of the Missis- dollars, in the hands of Father Van Quickenborne, sippi came from his hand...
...of the River Des Peres, almost, probably entirely, But the fact remains that the losers contrived to throw within the actual municipal limits of the St...
...which was never meant to be more than his temporary Born in San Domingo in the West Indies, Bishop residence, to New Orleans, his canonical see...
...Archbishop impracticable...
...story of Catholic origins, upgrowth, and mature deWith the great streams of German and Irish immi- velopment in the metropolis of Missouri...
...Under personality...
...Probably in no other municipality of ment of his diocese had not been passed...
...traders, the trappers, the hunters, the Oregon trailers, In 1826, twenty-three years after the Louisiana the gold-seekers, the homesteaders, the cattle-rangers, Purchase, the entire upper portion of...
...Louis, advisable at the moment...
...But surely the fascination that attaches to of Dubuque, set up within the original territory that the secular tale is paralleled by the fascination that held the St...
...for the upbuilding of Christ's Kingdom that lent them The same day, July 2, 1826, that saw the acceptance permanency of result...
...Three may be noted, outstanding figures him St...
...Louis...
Vol. 4 • June 1926 • No. 8
