.^ r s^ ■ m fox 5%- William Penn i T H I : FRIEND OF CATHOLICS. BY MARTIN I. J. GRIFFIN, i'lKSI V(i i:-ri;KSIIlKN-l' (IF TIIK A.MEinCAN CaTHOMi; lIlSTDKHAl. .So( lIvTV nV 1 ' I) I I.Al ii;i,l'H I A , MKMliKi: (IF THK HlSTOltlCAL SOCIFTY OF I'KNNSY I.VANI A. <'ui{Ki:!«i'(iNn!N(; MKMnEi: of the Bikfai.o Histokuai, Si» ikty, AM> OF Tin; I,i.vn.i:as Soi iety of 1-anf Pennsylvania, issued Mar. 6, 1684, says: And in order that each may enjoy that liberty of conscience, which is a natural right belonging to all men, and wl)ich is so comformable to the genius and charac- ter of peaceable people and friends of re- pose, it is established firmly, not only that no one be forced to assist in any public exercise of religion, but also full power is given to each to make freely the public exercise of liis own without meeting with any trouble or interference of any kind; provided that he profess to believe in one eternal God all powerful who is the Crea- tor, Pa'eserver, and Governor of the world, and that he fulfil all the duties of civil society which he is bound to per- form towards his fellow citizens." Note that Penn always speaks of the right to practise one's religion as well as to profess it. One is naturally contained in the other, but in Penn's day it v\as not the profession, but the practices of his creed and that of the Catholics that were punished. It was the Mass that was specially objectionable. As regards Cath- olics, Protestant opinion was aptly sum- marized by Cromwell's order that liberty of conscience should prevail in Ireland, but no Mass. So that if Penn really meant anything just or wise concerning Catholics and liberty of conscience, he meant above all things else concerning them that Mass should be celebrated in his colony. And history proves it so. There were Catholics in Philadelpliia. as early as 168G, and one Peter Debuc, who died in 1693, whose will I have ex- amined, bequeathed £50 to Father Smith— supposed to an alias for Fatiier Harrison, or Harvey, as investigation may show. Now, if half a dozen Catho- lics could be gatliered together in the new city during this time, tiiey surely had Mass celebrated by the Jesuit who visited them when journeying from Maryland to New Y-ork, or on his return. After 1692, until the Revolutionary War, nowhere else in the British Prov- inces was Mass allowed to be publicly celebrated but in Piiiladelphia— or else- wliere in Pennsylvania. Even in Mary- land, founded as it had been by Catholics who welcomed all. Catholics were, as soon as Protestants got the power, op- pressed for their religion, and doubly taxed, and the public exercise of their religion prohibited. Mass could only be l\'i((i(jpm Fenn^ said in one of the private rooms of the manors of the well-to-do Catholics. Penn declared, "the first fundamental of the government of my Province to be, that everyone should have and enjoy the free possession of liis faith and the exer- cises of worship, in such way and man- ner as every such person shall in con- science believe most acceptable to God, and so long as sucli person usetli not his Christian liberty to licentiousness or the destruction of others he shall be protect- ed in the enjoyment of the aforesaid Ciiristian liberty by the civil magistrate." So tlie few Catholics who were here in Penn's time were visited by Priests. They made no special display; they kept to themselves and quietly performed their religious duties. But I judge that at Christmas or New Year's 1707-8, the few who were here made special manifestation of their faith on the occasion of two converts being received into the Cliurch. Now, reception into the Catholic Church implies long and serious consideration and instruction, and in this case means that priests had been here frequently, were publicly known and moved among the citizens; else how did one of such prominence as Lionel Britton come to seek admission to the Catholic Church, whose members must have been very few in 1708, as the high- est estimate made of the Catliolics at the building of St Joseph's Chapel in 1732 is forty! It was this public ceremony of the re- ception of tlie two converts that led Rev. John Talbot, afterwards the first Episco- pal Bishop (by non-juring consecration) to write to tlie secretary of the London Society for tlie Propagating of the Gospel on January 10, 1708; "Arise, O Lord Jesus Clirist, and lielp us and deliver us for thine honor! . . . Tliere's an Inde- pendency at Elizabethtown, Anabaptism at Burlington, and the Popish Mass in Philadelphia. I thouglit tliat the Quakers would be the first to let it in, particularly Mr, Penn, for if he has any religion 'tis that. But thus to tolerate all without control is to have none at all." This is the earliest direct evidence of the cele- bration of Mass in Philadelphia. On February 14, Talbot wrote to Rev. George Keith: "1 saw Mr. Bradford in New York. He tells me that Mass is set up and read publically in Piiiladt'lphia, and several people are tur!ied to it amongst wiiicii Lionel Brittin, the church warden, is one, and his son is another. 1 thouglit that Popery would come in amongst Friends, the Quakers, as soon as any way." [From Doc. Ilis. of P. E. Cliurch of U. S. Church Documents. Conn. Vol. I, p. 37. Jas. Pott, publisher, 1803.] It was this Mass and reception of con- verts that the Episcopalians so promptly reported to London. Penn was tiiere harras?ed with debt and family troubles and battling with "The Hot Church Party" for the retention of his proprietary interest. His enemies and the enemies of his followers were pressing against him that while neither England nor any of the American Colonies gave toleration to Catholics, in Pennsylvania they were not only allowed to live, but were doing an act unlawful in England— publicly cele- brating the Mass and receiving converts. Penn simply wrote to Logan to send a true account of the affair. Unfortunately that account, if sent, has not come to us. Catholics liave failed to remember that though Penn was the Founder, and, with the exception of a brief time, the Gover- nor of the Province, he was not always the controller of its affairs. Nor were his own people always able to direct affairs as lie and they desired. Not only had he and they personal and linancial difficulties to contend against, but re- ligious controversies and Quaker dissen- tions thwarted many good works. But as concerns our questi(;n, Penn and his followers had tiie Established Church party to contend with. They strove to have his rights taken from him in order to have the Church of England established. Religious controversies were rife during r^ord Cornbury's time, and others than Catholics, as few as they were, suffered from the attempts to have the Established Church in England made the Church of 1^ T/!(5 J^Hsna oj~vamoii(is. the Province; for Rev. Francis Makemie, Founder of Presbyterianism in America, on March 28, 1707, wrote to Rev. Benj. Colman: "The penal laws are invading our American sanctuary without the least regard to the Toleration Act, which should justly alarm us all." [Pa. Mag., No. 2. vol. V. 1881, p. 224.] Such were Penu's principles, profes- sions and acts. How did his followers act? Did they do as he proclaimed? Let us take the "History of the United States," one of Sadlier's Excelsior Series of Catholic School Books. This history has been prepared because tlie histories in the Public Schools are "a conspiracy against truth," as regards Catholics and their doings in this country. Yet it coniains the following: "Though William Penn granted re- ligious toleration througliout his own colony, still in maintaining it towards Catholics he was bitterly opposed by his own people." So while Penn is not saddled with the charge of the big histories, the odium is now placed on his followers. A few' sentences prior the people are described as "emigrants, mainly Quak- ers." Yet thei'e is no foundation wliatsoever for this declaration that they bitterly op- posed "tlie maintenance by Penn of re- ligious toleration towards Catholics." Take these facts as proof: Pennsylvania was tiie only colony ex- cept Maryland from which Papists were not excluded from the first hour of their settlement. After 1G92, it was the only colony that did not prohibit the public exercise of the Catholic religion, and for forty years prior to that time our Re- ligion was not free even in Maryland. It was. indeed, a haven from oppression, and a Catholic even from the Catholic- founded colony of Maryland, was con- sidered as having reached an asylum or sanctuary when within Pennsylvania's borders, for in April, 1690, Cap. Goode, writing to Jocob Leisler, of New York, about two, whom he describes as "strangers. Irishmen and Papists," says, "they made their escape tov/ards Penn- sylvania." There is not a sign to show that the Quakers during Penn's time here, or when he was in England, or after his death, at any time "bitterly opposed" Catholics practising their religion. On the contrary, quite the reverse. The complaint to England about the Mass of 1708 amounted to nothing injurious to Catholics. They were here, they came and went, as did otliers. Priests visited them regularly, and the founder of the little chapel of St. Joseph's is tradition- ally related to have come to this city in the garb of a Quaker. Perhaps so. It was that of Friends in truth, and he could be safe at any rate. But after Father Greaton concluded to build a little chapel, and, if we take our Catholic school history as correct, among those who "bitterly opposed" his presence where did he build? Why, of all places in our city, the one he would have avoided if that charge were true — right beside the Quaker Almshouse, back of Walnut Street. That alone is proof of the utmost cordiality and friendship ex- isting between the two peoples, and there are people yet living who remember the passage-way between the two. And when in July, 1734, Governor Patrick Gordon informed iiis Council that a house lately built in Walnut Street had been set apart for the exercise of the Roman Catholic religion, where several persons resorted on Sundays to hear Mass openly celebrated by a Popish priest," and he thought "the public exercise of that re- ligion contrary to the laws of England." on what grounds did the forty or less Catholics maintain their-right to freely and publicly exercise their religion? That they had a right to do so by "the Charter of Privileges granted to this Government by the late honorable pro- prietor." The laws of England were against them but they appealed to the Charter of Penn. Governor Gordon was not a Quaker. It was to a Quaker document Catholics ap- pealed, and they were not molested. To show still further, and perhaps more TT YY iiiiam rervn^ clearly, that this lesson taught our Catho- lic children that Penn's followers bitterly opposed llie religious toleration of Catho- lics, is founded on error, let me cite tlie testimony afforded by a letter in the London Magazine and Mmithltf Clironolo- qer, dated July 7, 1737, and which may be examined at tlie Kidgway liibrary. Charges are made against the Quakers: a correspondent endorses tliem and adds, "■A. small specimen of a notable event which the people of that profession iiave taken towards the propagation of Popery in Pennsylvania. Let the Quakeis deny it if they can. In the town of Philadel- phia is a public Popish chapel where that religion has free and open exercise, and all the superstitious rites of that Churcli are as avowedly performed as those of the Church of England are in the Royal chapel of St. James'; and this chapel is not only open upon fasts and festivals, but is so all day and every clay of the year, and exceedingly frequented at all hours either for public or private devo- tions, though it is fullest at those times when the meeting-house of the men of St. Omers is tlinnest, and vice-versa." And one hundred and fifty years after- wards on tlie same spot is a chapel, not only open on fasts and festivals, but is so all day and every day in the week, and frequented at all hours either for public or private devotions— dear St. Josepli's. ''The men of St. Omers," you will re- member, is intended as a stigma on the Quakers as being "Papists," from the Catholic College of St. Omers, in France, The correspondent continues, '-that these are truths you may be satisfied of by inquiry of any trader or gentleman who has been there within a few years." And we know it was the truth, and it remained the solitary instance, until the Revolution, of a Catholic chapel in all the British Provinces, so much so that Rev. McSparran, writing from Narragansett, R. I., in 1752, to a friend in England, mentions the fact that in Pliiladclpliia there was then a Popish chapel, tlie only one in the British Provinces, At this very time, though the Provincial laws permitted only "Protestants to hold lands for the erection of churches, schools or hospitals," as Dr. Stillee states in his very valuable "Test Laws in Pro- vincial Pennsylvania," yet the title of the ground on which St. Jos<'i)irs Chapel stood, was tiien in the name of Rev. Robert Molyneux, and so recorded, as the recently discovered brief of title now in the MSS. department of the Ameri- can Catholic Historical Society, shows. During all this time the (Quakers were in power, and during this time Catholics freely, publicly and unmolested, had all the public exercises of their religion as to-day, and nowhere is there a trace of a cause for instilling in the minds of our children that Penn's followers "bitterly opposed" them. Everywhere throughout the Province the friendship existing between Quakers and "Papists" was known. Even the street ballads prove this, as witness the following lines from "A Poor Man's Ad- vice to His Neighbor. A Ballad. New York, 1774: '•I've Papists known, riglit honest men, Alas! what shame and pity! Ah! how unlike the vartus I'enn, To drive them from our city." And seventy years before that from Maryland came the report to the Loudon Society for Propacjating the Gospel. ' 'Pop- ish priests and Quakers equally obstruct a good progress." [First Report 1703.] Not only had Penn and his people in England to suffer as "Papists," but in this country even, down to the heat of the Revolutionary War, Catholic titles, opprobiously applied, were used to stig- matize the Quakers. The bigot, John Adams, who on October 9th, 1774, ac- companied AVashington to Vespeis, could at once write his wife about "the poor wretches fingering their beads, chanting I.,atin, not one word of which they understood, their Pater Nosters and Ave Marias— iheir holy water, their crossing themselves perpetually — every- thing to charm and bewitch the simple and ignorant"— could also on September 8th, 177G, write : "We have been obliged to humble the pride of some Jesuits who call themselves Quakers." the Friend of Catholics. Many additional facts on tlie same line of consideration which I am present- ing might be offered if my time or your patience permitted. Nor do I enter upon the civil disabili- ties under which Catholics were, though not by name, debarred from public office, had any been aspiring or deemed wortiiy of official distinction. This has been fully and accurately shown by Dr. Stille in his rpcent Paper before the Pennsyl- vania Historical Society. The very pro- duction of so learned and historically ac- curate an Essay proves tlie opportuneness of our Society, as it was an encourage- ment to our members. The spectacle is at this time presented of a Protestant showing the civil disabilities Penn al lowed (and for a time sanctioned to be imposed upon Catholics), and tluis lessen- ing his reputation as a fr-end to civil Liberty while I, a Catholic strive to prove him to my fellow Catholics as one who did not oppress Catholics in their religious rights. But if historical research be now again directed to William Penn, let ire be just in our judgment. He was a man pro- claiming a principle the world was not then disposed to receive, and we must be careful not to judge his acts by the spirit of to-day. Civil and religious liberty is now the professed and statute declared principle, but we Catiiolics know, never- theless, that in both do we suffer because of our faith. Pennsylvania alone tolerated tlie Mass?, thougli many thought it a "scandal" and idolatrous. To-day, thougli our State's Constitution declares every man's conscience to be unmolested, yet puljlicof- flcials, not Quakers, consider tlie Mass a scandal and deny it to our bretli- ren in faith, thougli unfortunate they be. Can we be harsh in judgment even if, in ont instance only, it sliall be proven he used but the commonplace language of the time, though to our modern ears it sounds so harslily? Yet officers of our municip il institutions rigiit in tlie city of Penn— the American Sanctuary, as one hundred and eiglity years ago it was called — deride llie claim ot Catholics to equal and exact justice. Not only is tlie Cromwellian order of "No Mass" given, but a basei- crime than CromwelTs is committed, and Catholics are forced to attend a religimis worship hostile to their faith— and Catholics rebuke Penn's followers that he once, if at all, simply spoke unkindly, while this deed of infa- my against men's consciences awakens but little concern among us. No follow- er of Penn now ])erpetrates this crime; "the hot Church" party and lenegades to our failh, and not "the men of St. Oraers," live again to-day, right in the City of Penn, once the only home of our faith in the English Provinces. i£ii>r*t^£Z^^'W^ [Copy of Signature of the firet known riiiladelphia Convert to Catholicity.] ::;aol I: . -li 'v:'''M LIBRARY OF CONGRESS lllllllliiilillillllllllllllililllll 014 434 192 2 ^ LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 014 434 192 2 Conservation Resources Lig-Free® Type I Ph 8.5, Buffered