Priests, politics, patriotism

...Brilliant, dynamic, opinionated, fearless, controversial, sometimes wrong-headed, unswervingly loyal to both country and church, called "the consecrated blizzard of the Northwest," Archbishop John Ireland fought many a battle from which the church in America benefits today...

...Reflection on his career gives us perspective on the current discussion of priests and politics...

...When he lay iying in his eighties, the president of the United States wrote to him, and it is worth remembering that it was at a time when presidents wrote their own letters — "I don't know whether you will be able to read this, but at least I hope that whoever does read it, will tell you that I have written...

...if asked or if the question had arisen, he would probably have thought public office belonged to them...

...He wanted an educated laity which could take full part in the affairs of the nation...

...Largely because of his efforts (although the actual action in Rome was taken by Cardinal Gibbons with whom he was often hand in glove) the Vatican was persuaded not to condemn the Knights of Labor (predecessor of today's unions) at a time when working men's associations were being condemned in Europe...

...There was a strong body of opinion in Rome that, in a state which was not by definition Catholic, Catholics should hold themselves aloof — to the detriment of both church and state — as in France, for example...

...He was more than once in trouble in Rome, but it is hard to think of a bishop today who has such towering influence there and in the rest of the world...

...This country owes you very much . . . you have been one of the greatest influences for good in our American life...

...What brought him the most enemies and probably cost him the cardinal's hat was his central position in the long effort to prevent the church in America and, as his biographer put it, "the Republic itself" from becoming a loosely-knit aggregation of nationalities each preserving "its racial characteristics and mother tongue...

...The question in his time was whether they should be involved in the affairs of the nation at all...

...He was an international celebrity...

...Without organization they had no means of securing the just rights of the workers...

...We forget that education for everyone has been far from the norm in so-called Catholic countries...

...He fought for the establishment of Catholic University so that the diocesan clergy might have access to graduate education in theology and philosophy, and that a high standard of scholarship be established as a norm for the Catholics in America...

...The Knights were not condemned and the condemnation in Canada was rescinded...

...Archbishop Ireland held that as citizens priests had responsibilities as well as rights and wefe blessed in having them...

...He was unabashedly partisan because he saw party politics as an extension of responsible citizenship...

...Meet your negro brother as your equal at banquets and social gatherings...

...In a time when it was almost an article of faith to hold that the best government was that in which the Catholic church was the established or favored church, he was unabashedly sure that the healthiest climate for the church was a democracy like our own in which the church was free of civil interference...

...It was not Archbishop Ireland's fault that John Courtney Murray, S.J., had to be defended against similar accusations in the 1950s and that Robert Drinan, S. J., must leave office in the '80s...

...Throw down at once the barriers which close out the negro merely on account of his color from hotel, theater and railway carriage...

...He was a champion of universal education and believed that the state had the right to establish schools and compel the attendance of children at some school, and he praised the offering of gratuitous instruction to all irrespective of condition of life...

...He was almost alone in his insistence on the rights of blacks and preached on that subject not only in Minnesota where it was hardly a burning question, but in Washington, where it was...

...But the virus of the idea lingered...

...En route home he gave two lectures on board ship on "The Duty of Capital and Labor.'' On arrival in New York he told a press conference how he was going to vote in the forthcoming presidential election: "In giving my vote for the candidates of the Republican party, I am satisfied in my own conscience that I serve the best interest of the country at home and abroad, that I contribute to the maintenance of the country's material prosperity and of peace and good will...

...You are one of our really great American figures...

...That struggle is, as we know, not yet over — and there are reasons for it — but in Ireland's time the effort of proponents of national groups to live independently of American bishops was posited on the idea that democratic institutions were hostile to Catholicism — an idea hotly denied by John Ireland...

...There is but one solution . . . and it is to obliterate absolutely all color line . . . Open up to the negro as to the white man the political offices of the country, making but one test, that of mental and moral fitness...

...Abigail McCarthy / August 1980: 425...

...He was accused of the heresy of "Americanism" and beat back the accusation...

...He justified the right of the churchman to take part in political controversy whenever questions of moral issue, social order, the prosperity of the people, the integrity of the nation and the honor of the community were involved...

...He established the first seminary with a faculty of diocesan clergy...

...Give him in one word . . . equal rights and equal privileges, political, civil, and social...

...He would have been astounded to know how long it took before his vision became at least partial reality...

...If the Knights were to be condemned, they said, the church would forfeit its right to be considered the friend of the workingman and of all who seek justice for him...

...Ushers Commonweal: 424 in Catholic churches in that city were still trying to relegate blacks to back pews and galleries sixty years later, alas...

...that I aid the country in bringing about the safest and most honorable solutions of the complex problems which confront it . . I trust no further doubts will be expressed as to how I intend to vote...

...No church is a fit temple of God where a man because of his color is made to occupy a corner," he said there in 1890...

...It would probably never have occurred to him that priests should run for office...

...It is hard to imagine what the ramifications of that one political act — for it was a political act — have been for life in this country...

...The highest representatives of Church and State, the world's aristocracy of rank and intellect have hung upon his lips whether he has spoken in private conference or at a great public demonstration such as the recent centenary at Orleans...

...For that his orthodoxy was questioned...

...It is ironic that he was anathema to the Jesuits of his time...

...A plea on behalf of organized labor was presented in Rome in the form of a memorial which Ireland and Bishop Keane of Dubuque helped Gibbons write...

...And the workers of America, unlike the workers of Europe, were not lost to the church...

...Kings and Presidents have paid him court...

...During one of his visits to Europe — almost a triumphal progress from Rome and Milan through Paris, Brussels, and Orleans to London — he was welcomed by the following in a London paper: We find the ideality of Dante combined with the eloquence and political energy of Savanorola . . . Rome, Paris, London and Brussels have tendered him the homage of their deepest respect and admiration...

...But the struggle of his life — and the one most relevant to the struggles in the church today — was for what we today might call the enculturation of the church in America...

...It goes without saying that although his dream was never fully realized, it showed his vision...

...He insisted that it could not flourish as a missionary extension of the church in Europe, dependent forever on foreign bishops administering national parishes and parochial schools, dependent on missionary religious orders for higher education...

...But he was very clear that priests had an obligation to be involved in questions of justice...

...He insisted that the church take part in the life of the age — that the priest must live in the present, "unregretful of the past...