At Peace with All Their Neighbors: Catholics and Catholicism in the National Capital, 1787-1860In 1790, two events marked important points in the development of two young American institutions—Congress decided that the new nation's seat of government would be on the banks of the Potomac, and John Carroll of Maryland was consecrated as America's first Catholic bishop. This coincidence of events signalled the unexpectedly important role that Maryland's Catholics, many of them by then fifth- and sixth-generation Americans, were to play in the growth and early government of the national capital. In this book, William W. Warner explores how Maryland's Catholics drew upon their long-standing traditions—advocacy of separation of church and state, a sense of civic duty, and a determination "to live at peace with all their neighbors," in Bishop Carroll's phrase—to take a leading role in the early government, financing, and building of the new capital. Beginning with brief histories of the area's first Catholic churches and the establishment of Georgetown College, At Peace with All Their Neighbors explains the many reasons behind the Protestant majority's acceptance of Catholicism in the national capital in an age often marked by religious intolerance. Shortly after the capital moved from Philadelphia in 1800, Catholics held the principal positions in the city government and were also major landowners, property investors, and bankers. In the decade before the 1844 riots over religious education erupted in Philadelphia, the municipal government of Georgetown gave public funds for a Catholic school and Congress granted land in Washington for a Catholic orphanage. The book closes with a remarkable account of how the Washington community, Protestants and Catholics alike, withstood the concentrated efforts of the virulently anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic American nativists and the Know-Nothing Party in the last two decades before the Civil War. This chronicle of Washington's Catholic community and its major contributions to the growth of the nations's capital will be of value for everyone interested in the history of Washington, D.C., Catholic history, and the history of religious toleration in America. |
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... meetings at Whitemarsh , Maryland , in 1783 , which gave the American Catholic church its first framework of incorporation and hierarchical administration . But barely had the meetings at Whitemarsh begun when James Talbot , the vicar ...
... meetings that would eventually produce a " Constitution of the Clergy " were not yet concluded . The applications for new missions from north , south , and west continued to pour in . So , too , did uninvited priests from abroad who ...
... meetings of the Maryland Province . ) 8 In reality the search for the clergy - faculty , which John Carroll himself conducted , was anything but so . Understandably , Carroll took some pride in the native Marylanders like himself who ...
... meeting house in central Alexandria for $ 900 , notifying Archbishop Carroll after the fact and asking that it " receive the title of St. Mary's . " 28 Much the same may have happened to the " chapel in Georgetown . " From Harbaugh's ...
... meeting of the clergy at St. Thomas Manor had recommended the transfer of Neale to the Jesuit manor at Whitemarsh . Neale thought this assignment would be the subject of further deliberations , but Carroll evidently moved very quickly ...
Contents
3 | |
15 | |
33 | |
For Nation and Town | 55 |
The Church | 79 |
A Church So Crowded | 81 |
St Patricks St Peters St Marys and More | 100 |
The Nations Capital | 121 |
Daniel Carroll of Duddington | 166 |
The Passing Storm | 189 |
Time of Wonder Time of Trial | 191 |
A Final Test | 213 |
Acknowledgments | 231 |
Abbreviations | 233 |
Notes | 234 |
Bibliography | 289 |