Boston Priests, 1848-1910

Donna Merwick

Published by Harvard University Press 1973

Boston Priests, 1848-1910

A Study of Social and Intellectual Change

Donna Merwick

https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674421073

Overview
Contents

About this book

Donna Merwick rejects the usual assumption that Boston Catholicism is, definitively, Irish Catholicism. In her penetrating study of three distinct generations of Boston priests in the late nineteenth century, the author shows that Irish Catholicism met with steady opposition. Her account of the struggle of Boston clerics and intellectuals to relate their faith to their experiences in the changing city provides a new interpretation of Boston Catholic culture.

In the 1840s Catholic influence in Boston was minimal and, therefore, accepted. The clergy, like other Bostonians, took pride in the city's history and colonial traditions. In measuring the impact of the massive Irish-Catholic immigration of the 1850s upon this first group of priests, the author traces in part the desperate efforts of Archbishop John J. Williams to maintain Boston's genteel traditions. The character of the clergy changed from the first generation, in which priests wrote novels and radical editorials, to a second generation, in which the influence of European Catholicism was strengthened. Immigrant priests and their Irish parishioners eventually outnumbered the Yankee Catholics, but they nevertheless failed to win genuine leadership in the diocese.

A third group of priests, emerging in the 1890s under the leadership of Cardinal William O'Connell, displaced not only two generations of clergymen, but also two ways of life: one which sought to leave a legacy of admiration for the Boston Protestant heritage, and one which never understood Boston and tried to replace its cultural ways with something Irish, European, and Jansenistic. O'Connell, who had the Progressive's instinct for organization, imposed a kind of intellectual martial law on the clergy which discouraged, even punished, nonconformity. It is only at this point that it becomes reasonable to consider the traditional view that Boston Catholic thought is monolithic.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Preface Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	ix
Introduction. 1866 as Vantage Point Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Chapter I. 1848 to 1866: “Varieties of Religious Experience” Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	12
Chapter II. 1866 to 1880: Polarization Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	60
Chapter III. 1880 to 1890: Drift, and Some Mastery Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	104
Chapter IV. 1890 to 1910: New Sources and Functions of Authority Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	143
INDEX TO ARCHIVAL REFERENCES Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	197
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	199
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	249
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	261

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Copyright year: 1973
Edition: Reprint 2014
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Front matter: 13
- Main content: 276
Keywords: Catholic Church -- Massachusetts -- Boston.; HISTORY / United States / State & Local / New England (CT, MA, ME, NH, RI, VT); RELIGION / History; RELIGION / Christianity / Catholic

eBook

Published: October 1, 2013
ISBN: 9780674421073

Hardcover

Published: February 5, 1973
ISBN: 9780674421066