MISSOURI CATHOLIC CONFERENCE: OCTOBER 1, 2011

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1 MISSOURI CATHOLIC CONFERENCE: OCTOBER 1, 2011 Years past I taught American history at a small Catholic college in Tennessee. Covering the events of the unpleasantries of I referred to it as The War Between the States. Everyone seemed pretty satisfied about that. Tennessee, as a State, left the Union and joined the Confederate States of America. To the West was Arkansas, also a Confederate State. To the South stood Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia all Confederate States. To the East were States which left the Union. To Tennesseans, the war was a War Between the States. Their State was invaded and occupied by an enemy army. But we re in Missouri. Missouri had a star in the Federal flag, but she also had one in the Stars- and- Bars. Missouri had units in the Federal Army and in the Confederate Army. At the Battle at Pea Ridge in Arkansas, as an example, the Missouri 2nd, 3 rd, 7 th, 8 th and 9 th Confederate arrayed against Missouri 24 th and 25 th Federal. By this date, October 1 st,150 years ago, there had been thirteen armed engagements since the firing on Fort Sumter. Five of them took place in Missouri. Only Virginia, at the center of the struggle, had more. Arguably Missouri was the most contentious of all the States. But why? I would like to explore this question from two angles, geography and demography. We will chronicle some of the bloody encounters which brought the Civil War to Missouri. We will explore the reaction of the Catholic Church in America, particularly the hierarchy and compare that to some of the large Protestant denominations. This will be an overview of the conflict and an assessment of the Catholic action or rather inaction. But it will not be, and I apologize to Civil War buffs, reinactors, and descendents of those who fought in the war, it will not be an exposé full of never- before- revealed tid- bits and factoids. With that caveat, let us begin. Missouri s border on the East is defined by one of the great rivers of the world, the Mississippi. It flows from north to south, but in the mid- nineteenth century, it carried culture from south to north. The State s river cities, New Madrid, Cape Girardeau, Sainte Genevieve, Saint Louis, Louisiana and Hannibal had more in

2 common with Memphis and New Orleans than they had with Detroit or Chicago. Linking east to west was only beginning to happen by rail. North- South transportation and communications had been established by canoe, enhanced by flat- boat trade and culminated in a robust steamboat commerce. Missouri s border on the West was defined by Kansas, bleeding Kansas. In no small measure could all the bleeding be blamed on Missourians and, frankly, there was a lot of bleeding on the Missouri side of the border, caused by Kansans. John Potawatomie Brown was only the most infamous of Kansans, but he wasn t alone in attitude and in action. The State is sliced into two unequal halves by one of the great continental rivers, the Missouri. It enters in the northwest at Platte County, meanders its way through the center of the state and exits into the Mississippi between Saint Charles and Saint Louis Counties. To its north the terrain flattens out and resembles Unionist Iowa, to the south Missouri is forested and dominated by an ancient mountain range, the Ozarks, which it shares with Confederate Arkansas. And in its center we find Little Dixie, counties which included most of slaves of the State, ranked First Lafayette, Saline Fifth, Howard Third, Boone Second and Callaway Fourth. So Missouri was an anomaly: it was a Slave State, but only a few Counties had a sizable slave population. Few other States could claim that their geography influenced so much the conflicting loyalties of their people. If geography was influential, demography was fateful. The 1860 census showed Missouri had a population of 1,182,012 citizens and slaves, nearly 115,000 of this latter class, constituting under ten percent of the total. Only 40% of Missourians in 1860 were born here. Fellow Americans had moved here from three slave States, Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia, some 227,000 of them and from three Free states, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, just under 96,000 of them. A very small but very influential group of New Englanders had moved to do business is Saint Louis and they harbored adamant abolitionist sentiments. Foreign- born Missourians numbered over 160,000, the majority, 88,000, from the German States, another 43,000 from Ireland with the rest coming mainly from England, France and Switzerland.

3 So how can we determine from these demographic statistics that Missouri was a Civil War powder keg? Missouri was counted among the Slave States, yet only Lafayette, Saline, Howard, Boone, and Callaway Counties had a sizable slave presence. In Lafayette County, for instance, nearly one in three inhabitants was a slave. The Mississippi River Counties of Saint Louis, Pike and Marion had slaves, as well as Platte and Monroe. But in Saint Louis County, the slave population was barely 2% of the whole. Thus the Particular Institution held little economic value in much of this nominally Slave State. The influx of Slave State newcomers held a two to one advantage over the Free State immigrants. This would bolster the ties to the South generally throughout the State but be countered by the small, vociferous New England group centered in Saint Louis. Speaking of Saint Louis, it was by far the largest city in the State. With the County, it claimed 190,524 residents. It was strategically important as it sat on the Missouri AND the Mississippi Rivers. It was the base for commerce in the great westward movement. And it was the site of the largest Federal arsenal of weapons and ammunition in the Midwest. Saint Louis politics, economics, and culture were heavily influenced by its largest minority, the German immigrants. Many of these were Forty- Eighters. They had left Germany in disgust after failing to bring about a united country there. They had definite views on human dignity, liberty and the social responsibility of a government to its people. Those views had been suppressed in the Old Country and as one historian quipped, 1848 was a great turning point in history when history failed to turn. The Germans of the Revolution of 1848 came to America instead and were not bashful about their views on liberal nationhood. What Nativists and Xenophobes called the Dutch organized into paramilitary units they called Wide Awake Clubs. These were ready to be put into service to defend the Union. The bulk of Irish immigrants to Missouri also settled in Saint Louis. Locally, they tended to favor the side which dominated the argument. Irish settling in the South had strong Confederate leanings; Irish in the North were equally

4 impassioned for the Union. In Saint Louis, loyalties were divided, though there was an economic reason for the Irish to oppose Blacks in general they often competed for the same jobs. The one man who tried hardest to keep this power keg from exploding was sixty- one year old William Selby Harney, a general of the Federal Army, a native Tennessean, wed into a Saint Louis family with Southern ties and a friend of some who spoke openly favoring secession from the Union. Harney believed he could work with Missouri Governor Claiborne Fox Jackson to at least keep the State neutral in the upcoming conflict. Some in Saint Louis and in Washington viewed Harney s policies as weakness and even collusion with the enemy and in May of 1861 he was called to the capital to explain himself. This vacuum gave his opponents an opportunity to strike while he was away. Governor Jackson had ordered an encampment of the State Militia to form on the grounds of Lindell Grove on the western edge of Saint Louis. It was a provocative move. Ostensibly the assembly of over 700 men at arms was called to secure the Arsenal in Saint Louis; for fear that the German paramilitary units might attack it and arm themselves. Actually, it seems more likely that the presence of the State Militia was intended to give Mayor Filley and the Police Commission, both with strong Southern sympathies, greater leverage against those Germans, those Damned Dutch, as Saint Louisans called them. With Harney out of town, command of the Federal troops in Saint Louis fell to Captain Nathaniel Lyon, a critic of the general. Discovering that General Harney had survived his interrogation in Washington and was beginning the journey back to Saint Louis, Lyon wanted strong and swift action when he met with a war council on the night of May 9 th, Earlier that day he had dressed as a woman and drove a wagon reconnoitering the militia encampment named Camp Jackson. Lyon set out a plan to attack Camp Jackson, overwhelming it with Federal troops and German recruits. Only Samuel Glover dissented, arguing that the attack would be illegal and that, regardless the Confederate tenor of the militia, a Federal flag flew over the encampment. Lyon was certain that in that camp were federal weapons which had been taken by Confederates in Baton Rouge and

5 transported up the Mississippi to the Missouri Militia commander, General Daniel Marsh Frost. Glover retorted that if this were true, Lyon should seek a writ of replevin and attempt to convince Frost to return the weapons. The motion was defeated and plans for the attack went forward. A heavy rain prevented a morning assault, but by early afternoon Captain Lyon sent forth nearly 8,000 armed troops and two batteries of cannon to overwhelm General Frost in a nineteenth century version of Shock- And- Awe. The result was a quick, bloodless, surrender, accompanied by General Frost s protest of what he considered an illegal act. But nothing could be done; Lyon s forces were overwhelming. The Missouri militiamen were disarmed and surrounded by Federal troops and German volunteers who had recently been sworn into the Federal army. For some unexplained reason the column of prisoners and guards formed on Olive Street but failed to move to the arsenal at which Captain Lyon intended to house and process his detainees. As the afternoon wore on, a crowd of onlookers assembled showing clear sympathy with the militiamen. Insults were flung at the Federals, especially the Germans. Insults were followed by stones. Some troopers were struck and fell to the ground. The others grew nervous and at one point someone fired a pistol. The Federals responded by firing a volley over the heads of the people. Civilians panicked and ran for cover. More shots rang out. More troopers fell. Captain Blandowski was shot in the leg and fell from his horse, wounded by one of his own men. At this, the troops fired volleys into the fleeing civilians, killing two dozen and wounded many more. Men, women and children lay bleeding on the streets of Saint Louis. On May 10, 1861 the Civil War had come to Missouri. General Harney returned to Saint Louis the next day, appalled at the situation and brokered a deal with the new commander of the Missouri militia, former Governor Sterling Price. In short, the Federal troops would patrol Saint Louis while the rest of the State would be in the hands of the militia. This outraged the Lyon supporters and they persuaded President Lincoln to can Harney once and for all. His immediate replacement was Captain Lyon.

6 Within a month Governor Jackson made one last attempt to restore the Harney- Price compromise. He asked for a meeting with Lyon at Planters House Hotel in Saint Louis. The governor was joined by an aide, Thomas Snead. Lyon, now a Brigadier General, arrived with his aide, Major Horace Conant and a supporter Colonel Frank Blair. The negotiations wore on for hours. Governor Jackson demanded that the German units be disbanded. Lyon seldom spoke but grew more and more angry. Finally, he erupted and declared the meeting over. He lectured the governor on the supremacy of the Federal government over State governments and ended his diatribe with these words: Rather than concede to the State of Missouri for one single instance the right to dictate to my Government in any matter however unimportant he paused for a moment and pointed at each of the attendees, I would see you, and you, and you, and you and every man, woman, and child in the State, dead and buried. To Governor Jackson, Lyon turned and added This means war. He then told the State entourage that they would be escorted out of the city within one hour. With that, General Nathaniel Lyon stormed out of the hotel. The spirits of that Planters House meeting possessed all of Saint Louis. One Sarah Jane Full Hill reflected on an incident which happened at home. Mrs. Hill had a little sister named Phebe who had a dear playmate named Alice. One day Alice suggested that the two play war and that the two of them should be rebels. Phebe stood up and marched over to her own house where she declared to her family that Alice Bobcock was a turncoat and she would play with her no more. And, indeed, Mrs. Hill reports that the two girls did not play together again. All Missouri erupted with incivility. On the 17 th of June Federal troops pushed pro- Confederate State militia out of Booneville. On July 5 th the Federals were bloodied at the Battle of Carthage. And on August 10 th, the Federals were again routed at the Battle of Wilson s Creek near Springfield. Among the dead on that bloody field was General Nathaniel Lyon. And that was followed by the successful Confederate siege of Lexington, Missouri on September 20 th.

7 Let us turn our attention to the Christian congregations and consider how their actions and inactions influenced the conflict. Of particular interest will be the Catholic Church in Missouri. There are two issues which confronted Christian congregations in America: the preservation of the Union and the future of slavery as an American institution. Strange as it sounds today, Catholic doctrine did not condemn the institution of slavery. Pope Gregory XVI had condemned slave trading in an 1839 apostolic letter, but slavery itself was not seen as intrinsically evil. Catholic slave owners had moral responsibilities to care for their slaves physically and spiritually. Francis Patrick Kenrick wrote on the subject in 1841, emphasizing the need to obey the law and to protect property rights. One gets the impression that a Catholic view of slavery was not so much one human being owning another human being as much as one human being owning the perpetual service of another human being. It was not uncommon for Catholic slave owners to manumit their slaves in their wills. Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney, himself a Catholic, manumitted his slaves though he had presided over the fatal decision of the Dred Scott case. By the early 1860 s, it is estimated that there were some 100,000 Black Catholics in America, free and slave. John Tracy Ellis, in his 1955 classic, American Catholicism, quotes one contemporary Catholic writer: We leave Catholics, as men and American citizens, to avail themselves of such lawful and constitutional means of protection and defense as their own good sense, their charity, and their consciences may suggest and approve. We have no political course to propose, or political cause to promote. When war came, Francis Patrick Kenrick was Archbishop of Baltimore, a city with considerable Southern sympathies, a city under martial law after Federal troops had been fired on in the earliest days of the war. Archbishop Kenrick kept a low profile regarding his Union loyalties, but he did not interfere with his diocesan newspaper, The Catholic Mirror, when its editor, Courtney Jenkins, steered a clearly Confederate course. Kenrick merely told a friend, The Catholic Mirror does not reflect my sentiments or views I avoid

8 interposing not to give annoyance. I have had nothing to do with the controversies that have recently filled its columns. The Archbishop of Baltimore did not even confront the priests of the cathedral household. Since 1791 it had been the custom of the cathedral to read a petition for the preservation of the Union, written by America s first bishop, John Carroll. When the priests refused to read the petition at Mass, the Archbishop read it himself. The reaction of the congregation was unpleasant. Many stormed out of the cathedral while others who stayed caused noise, hoping to drown out the offending prayer. In New York Bishop John Hughes disagreed openly with his diocesan editor, James A. McMaster, but the Federal government solved the dispute when McMaster was arrested and imprisoned without trial for six weeks and his paper closed down. In New Orleans, the Catholic editor there, Father Napoleon Perché, was put under house arrest and his newspaper seized. Two other Catholic newspapers took vigorous stands, The Boston Pilot and The Catholic Telegraph in Cincinnati. Neither of them were harassed however as they took pro- Union positions. Most interesting was the competing diplomatic tours of two American bishops. Bishop John Hughes of New York was sent by the Federal government first to France to meet with Emperor Napoleon III to try to persuade him to remain neutral in the war and then later to Rome for an audience with Pope Pius IX. The American Minister to the Papal States, at that time we did not have diplomatic relations with the Vatican, tried to embellish the relationship the federal government had with Catholics in America by pointing out what important assistance Bishop Hughes was rendering to his government. Pope Pius IX, ever wily and clever at turning a phrase responded It is a source of regret, to thousands of good men, that the Government of the United States cannot, in any appropriate way, testify to its appreciation of such services. Nor was the Pope taken in by Confederate advances. The CSA sent Bishop Patrick Lynch of Charleston, South Carolina, to meet with the Roman Pontiff. He was

9 received in audience as a bishop of the Church but his diplomatic credentials were not recognized. Bishops Hughes and Lynch kept up a vigorous correspondence with each other during the war, each arguing for their respective positions. Yet when they met in 1866 at the Second Baltimore Council, they met as friends. Their correspondence was eventually published in a New York newspaper and Americans marveled at the even temperament with which the discussion had unfolded. These bishops had merely applied to themselves what they set out for their flock. As tensions boiled over the questions of slavery and secession in 1858, the Ninth Provincial Council of Baltimore declared that Catholic Americans should be free on all questions of polity and civil order, within the limits of the doctrine and law of Christ. For American Protestants, congregations split asunder under the debate about slavery and secession and the discord in their ranks contributed to the general discord of the country. Let us consider the three largest bodies, the Presbyterians, the Methodists and the Baptists. Presbyterians split after the firing on Fort Sumter. The national body had hammered out a position as early as 1849, declaring that slavery was an issue for legislatures not churches. Widespread abolitionist dissent to the official position expressed itself in various forms and was openly advocated at the New Albany Indiana Seminary until that body was brought back into obedience in When in May, 1861 the General Assembly met to make a mild statement of loyalty to the Union, Southern commissioners bolted to Augusta, Georgia and broke into schism, putting forth a biblical defense of slavery. This formalized what had already been taking place since By that time some 15,000 Presbyterians had left the congregation and formed their own body, the Presbyterian Church of the United States. The Methodist Episcopal Church was guided by the spirit of John Wesley who placed heavy restrictions on slave- owning. However, at the church wished to spread southward, this discipline became so relaxed that by 1843, more than

10 1,500 Methodist ministers owned slaves and some 25,000 of the flock held more than 208,000 slaves. These statistics did not sit well with other Methodists. The General Conference of 1836 declared slavery to be an evil but then condemned abolitionism for its violence. This pleased no one. In 1841 and in 1842 anti- slavery Methodists began their own secession, first in Michigan and then in New York. In 1844 slave- holding Bishop James Andrew of Georgia became a lighting rod when at the General Conference of that year he was told to stop functioning as a bishop. The vote was 111 to 69. The southern delegation suggested that the two bodies part ways but maintain charitable and fraternal ties. The motion passed and The Methodist Episcopal Church, South was born. Almost immediately, northern delegates had a change of mind and declared the separation unconstititutional and expressed outrage at the separation. In 1848 the General Conference was a brawl when the Southern fraternal delegation was not recognized and questions of property ownership spilled into the courts. Fraternal relations would not return to the Methodists until an1872 reconciliation. In the intervening years, bitterness ruled the day for Methodists as is expressed in an 1864 article found in Methodist Magazine. We must take the moral, the sacred, the holy right of our struggle up before the throne of God. We must accustom ourselves to dwell before the divine throne, clothed in the smoke of our battles. We have a right to plead and to expect that God will let his angels encamp about our army; then he will make our cause his own nay, it is his already! American Baptists lacked the national organization of the Presbyterians and Methodists, so their split came more in the form of denominational clusterings. In 1845 some 293 delegates from nine states met to form the Southern Baptist Convention. The Convention was chartered under the laws of Georgia. This was an ecclesiastical innovation for a Christian body that abhorred hierarchies and authority. The question of slavery was never a topic for discussion in the Southern Baptist Convention and that proved helpful for congregational growth

11 as membership doubled in the next fifteen years to nearly 650,000. Counter to this development was The American Baptist Missionary Union, which forbad membership to slave owners. By war s end, vitriol and vengeance burned on both sides, digging deeply into the nation s psyche and dominating the national tenor throughout the Reconstruction Era and for decades to come. African- Americans, freed of slavery, remained objects of prejudice and mistreatment for a century. Hear the words of Robert Lewis Dabney, Southern Presbyterian theologian, reflecting on the abolitionists whom he claimed caused the war. I don t forgive! What! Forgive those people, who have invaded our country, burned our cities, destroyed our homes, slain our young men, and spread desolation and ruin over our land! No, I do not forgive them! Not much gentler was Henry Ward Beecher, a prominent Protestant minister and no friend of the Catholics in America. He declared I charge the whole guilt of this war upon the ambitious, educated, plotting political leaders of the South. A day will come when God will reveal judgment and arraign these mighty miscreants, and every maimed and wounded sufferer, and every bereaved heart in all the wide regions of this land, will rise up and come before the Lord to lay upon these chief culprits of modern history their awful witness. And then these guiltiest and most remorseless traitors, these high and cultured men with might and wisdom shall be whirled aloft and plunged downward forever and ever in an endless retribution. Sydney E. Ahlstrom makes these observations in his 1972 A Religious History of the American People: When the cannons roared in Charleston harbor, therefore, two divinely authorized crusades were set in motion, each of them absolutizing a given social and political order. The pulpits resounded with a vehemence and absence of restraint never equaled in American history. Recognizing the churches large role in dividing the nation, may we return to Calhoun s famous last words with the advantages that he lacked? Was not the snapping of ecclesiastical cords to which he referred in 1850 more than a useful

12 illustration for his oration? Were not these church divisions demonstrations that the nation s conscience was already in twain? Mr. Ahlstrom then speculated that the division of the churches was not only the sign of general division but actually an agent that helped to bring about the national division. This is a significant indictment that not only were American Christians unable to stem the rending of their country over the twin issues of secession and slavery but that their disunity helped to bring it about and to intensify that national disunity. Under this withering assault, the placid attitude of the Archbishop of Saint Louis looks perfectly wise and prudent. So let us turn our discussion of the Civil War in Missouri by turning our attention to the other Kenrick brother, Peter Richard, the one whose neutrality has caused him to be the object of general distain. After the Lincoln election of 1860 and the flurry of wild talk about secession, Archbishop Peter Richard Kenrick penned a circular to his priests urging them to increase their prayers for peace and to inculcate the necessity of cherishing feelings of mutual charity and forbearance and avoiding all causes of unnecessary excitement of the laity. But the excitement of the laity was thrust upon the Archbishop early on when General Daniel Frost, the Missouri Militia commander, himself a prominent Catholic, wanted to use church bells to assemble the militiamen. Archbishop Kenrick intervened and forbad such use of church bells. After the bloody encounter of May 10 th, the Archbishop issued a pastoral letter calling on all Saint Louisans to practice moderation and avoid vindictiveness. Unionist Frank Blair tried to maneuver the Jesuits to send Father Pierre de Smet to the Arsenal to act as chaplain. Kenrick intervened recognizing Father de Smet s popularity as well as Union sympathies would be used by Blair to recruit Catholics into the army. The Archbishop also refused to fly the Federal flag from church steeples, which infuriated Secretary of State Seward. Archbishop Kenrick did not preach for the first two years of the war, for fear that some would parse his words and find justification for one side or the other.

13 When Father John O Sullivan came into conflict with the Federal authorities in Saint Louis, the Archbishop arranged for him to be transferred over to the diocese of Alton. On the other hand, the sudden absence of Father John Bannon from his parish at Saint John the Evangelist came as a total surprise. Father Bannon had been installed as pastor at the time of the 1860 election. Many of his flock had Southern sympathies and left Saint Louis to join Sterling Price. Father Bannon had been badly shaken by the events of May 10 th. He had served as chaplain for the Missouri militia at Lindell Grove and witnessed the Federal assault and the carnage that followed. In January 1862, Father John Bannon stole away deep in the night to join his parishioners fighting for Sterling Price. He sent a letter explaining himself to Archbishop Kenrick who received the letter but never opened it. As much as we can only guess at Archbishop Peter Richard Kenrick s attitude regarding slavery or secession, we have no doubts about his respect for the Constitution. In the waning hours of the Civil War, Missouri came under the political influence of a group of radicals nicknamed The Charcoals. They won the election of 1864 by such a margin that they emancipated the slaves of Missouri, rewrote the State Constitution and added a provision under the inspiration of Charles Drake that required each voter, clergy, lawyer and officeholder to swear an oath that he had not sympathized with the Confederacy in any way. Archbishop Kenrick refused to take the oath and as a sign of solidarity with their Archbishop every priest in Missouri refused. Two priests were targeted for state action, Father John J. Hogan of Chillicothe and young Father John Cummings of Louisiana in Pike County. Father Hogan played to the theatrics of the moment. When the sheriff sent a deputy to arrest the priest, he put on a cassock and surplice, complete with stole and biretta and walked to the jail house carrying a large bible. Catholics of the area rose in protest and Father Hogan was released on bond and not harassed again. Father Cummings was not so lucky. The circuit court judge in Pike County found him guilty of violating the Drake Constitution and sentenced him to six months in

14 prison or a fine. Father Cummings insisted on prison even as his appeal made its way to the State Supreme Court. When that Court sided with the lower court ruling, the case was then sent to the United States Supreme Court. Archbishop Kenrick continued to support Father Cummings who was served by a first- rate team of lawyers. On January 14,1867 the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the State of Missouri and ruled the Drake provision and oath unconstitutional, not that it violated the separation of Church and State. Rather the oath was retroactive and penalized by legislative act a citizen for past behavior. Nonetheless, the private opinions of Peter Richard Kenrick on the two burning issues of the day, slavery and secession, went to his grave, while his courageous stand on this constitutional issue, and his support of Father Cummings, spoke eloquently of the civic nature, and civil nature, of this man. In the end, as we survey the Civil War in Missouri and particularly what the Catholic Church had to say, or not say, about the greatest conflict in our nation s history, we ask ourselves the question: how do we Catholics unite a divided nation? Can the Civil War teach us anything? These questions will be addressed more firmly in the break- out sessions later at this conference, I am sure. But I would like to venture a few observations at least. First, let us reaffirm Archbishop Kenrick s plea for civility in our public discourse. It is a long standing tradition for Catholics to respectfully disagree with each other and to seek accommodation. In the Acts of the Apostles the crisis of the Hellenists and Hebrews was solved by creating the office of the diaconate. Polycarp of Smyrna agreed to disagree with the Pope over the date to celebrate Easter. Thomists and Nominalists taught side by side at the same medieval universities. Kenrick- Glennon Seminary is even now shepherded by a Jesuit. Wonders never cease. As America balkanizes into Red States and Blue States, Red counties and Blue counties, Red families and Blue families, the Catholic tradition of civility and accord would be all the more helpful to us today.

15 The question is begged: what kind of a war would a civil war be if the opponents treated each other civilly? A cynic might quip that there is no way to know; it s never been tried. Well, let s try. Rather than rush to arms, fly off the handle or go nuclear at every disagreement, let s try to follow the counsel of Archbishop Kenrick which he gave Saint Louisans after the May 10 th blood bath. He called for a generous sacrifice of every feeling incompatible with that spirit of brotherhood with which all men, and especially the inhabitants of the same city, should be animated. Such putting aside hatreds and animosities would be, in his words, more efficacious in restoring public tranquility and maintaining order than the promptings of vindictiveness which will surely increase and aggravate evil. It is intriguing to think that we are free agents, not shackled to irresistible forces of history, not geography nor demography. It is intriguing to think that we can use our reason and our charitable disposition to address the great issues of the day without resorting to violent words in the pulpit or violent acts in the street. Was there no way to redress the injustice of American slavery than to sacrifice 650,000 American soldiers and then condemn millions of African- Americans, so called freedmen, to a century of discrimination and mistreatment? Maybe, just maybe, civil discourse could have found a way. If opponents honored the human dignity of each other, they may have discovered the human dignity of the object of their argument, the slaves of America. Maybe, just maybe. And that lesson may be transferable to our own time and place. There is an age- honored Catholic axiom that may guide us. In necessitas, unitas. In non necessitas, diversitas. In utrusque, caritas. While one may question who decides what is necessary or unnecessary, what requires unity or allows diversity, the issue is trumped by the final injunction in utrusque, caritas. In all things, charity. And here the Catholic community can be of greatest service to our nation torn in strife. Applied caritas. After all, it is acts of civility which actualizes the highest ideal of a society civility tempering civil strife, civility creating civilization.

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