Posted on 05/08/2002 6:36:46 AM PDT by neocon
I Know Nothing!
Anti-Catholicism and the Know-Nothings
In the early part of the 19th century a group of Americans who were opposed to the immigration of Irish and German Catholics in the United States formed a secret society officially known as the Order of United Americans. Whenever a member was asked about the group, he would say, "I know nothing." Thus they became known as the "Know-Nothings." They accepted into their group only native-born Protestants who were unrelated to Catholics either by blood or marriage. Their movement to stop the flood of Catholic immigrants is known as nativism.
New Vatican in Ohio?
By 1825 over 100 periodicals were being published in the United States; 75% of them were religious and half of those were anti-Catholic. The nativists produced a vast amount of propaganda against the Catholic Church in the first half of the 19th century. The great number of Catholics, mostly German and Irish, moving to the Midwest caused the Know-Nothings and other nativists to think that the power of the Pope might be transferred there. Many of these anti-Catholic publications stated that Catholics were not patriotic but owed their allegiance solely to the Pope and therefore could never be true Americans. The propaganda became increasingly absurd: some articles predicted that the Pope and a papal army would land on American shores to set up a new Vatican in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Morse code
Samuel Morse, the inventor of the telegraph, learned that a group in Vienna, Austria called the Leopoldine Society to Aid the Missions was making contributions to the bishop of Cincinnati to build churches and schools for the Catholics who were making Ohio their new home. Morse wrote a series of articles calling this a "foreign conspiracy." He urged Protestants to put aside their religious differences and unite against the Catholic schools, the bishops, the Jesuits and the lenient immigration laws which were continuing to allow the Catholics to move into the U.S. Morse dedicated the rest of his life to opposing the Catholic Church.
Another well known Know-Nothing was Lyman Beecher, a seventh generation Puritan preacher. Beecher moved from Boston to be the president of the Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati so that he could educate ministers to protect the western United States from becoming a Catholic country. In one of the nativist magazines of the time, Beecher wrote that he came to Cincinnati "to battle the Pope for the garden spot of the world."
No insurance for Catholics
In 1834 Lyman Beecher returned to Boston to deliver three anti-Catholic sermons in various churches on a single day. He succeeded in rallying the Protestants together and the next day a mob gathered at the Ursuline School in Charlestown, carrying banners which said, "Down with Popery" and "Down with the Cross." Fifty men broke down the doors of the convent and set everything on fire. Although the arsonists were caught, none were found guilty. Mob attacks on Catholic churches in New England soon became so frequent that insurance companies refused to insure Catholic buildings.
Beecher returned to Cincinnati and published his rabble-rousing sermon as a pamphlet called "Plea for the West." He amplified the papal plot envisaged by Morse, maintaining that Catholic schools would win converts who would ally themselves with Catholic immigrants to control the west. Many joined Beecher, allying themselves against the immigrant Catholics.
The nativist presence under the leadership of Lyman Beecher in Cincinnati prompted the bishop of that city to erect a new cathedral which became the tallest building west of the Allegheny River at the time. The cathedral was designed without windows in the lower walls, rather only solid stone some 45 feet high to protect against anyone throwing bombs into the building as had been happening in the New England church burnings.
Maria Monk
A vast network of newspapers, magazines, lecturers and propagandists was set up from Boston to the Mississippi valley. The most infamous of the many propaganda works was Maria Monk’s Awful Disclosures of the Hotel Dieu Nunnery of Montreal published in 1836. This book created a sensation despite the testimony of the Protestant mother of Maria Monk that her daughter had never been in a convent but had been paid a large sum of money by a Protestant minister to sign her name to the fictitious story. The book sold more than 300,000 copies.
Know-Nothing president
In the 1840s the Know-Nothings became more formally organized and became politically active. By 1855 most of the state senators and representatives were affiliated with the Know-Nothings. In 1856 they even nominated a Presidential candidate, Milliard Fillmore. Bigotry against Catholics continued, especially reaching unheard of bitterness in the national elections of 1856 when Abraham Lincoln wrote, "If the Know-Nothings get control, the Declaration of Independence will read: All men are created equal except for Negroes, foreigners and Catholics."
The Catholic response
The Catholics responded to the vicious propaganda campaigns, the terrorism and discrimination with remarkable restraint and a sense of humor. Many of them felt challenged to become better Catholics. Because of these persecutions in the first half of the 19th century, the Catholic Church in the U.S. established a remarkable system of parochial schools and Catholics came together for a healthy and vibrant parish life.
Isn’t this the way it always happens? God works in strange and mysterious ways.
There is so much more to the Church and Faith and Hope and God than occasional attendance at church and lip-service to the moral rules that guide us. And I know that if I died tomorrow or in sixty years, I will still have more to learn. But everything I have learned, everything I believe, brings me closer to the Catholic Church and to God through His Son, Jesus Christ.
God bless.
I've actually had a freeper email me and ask me to leave the Church because of this tale. LOL!
If you’ve been lurking the Neverending Thread the last few days it’s been unbelievable. Restraint and a sense of humor are a requirement. I think some of the posters are descended from the Know-Nothings.
I'm a semi regular there and take breaks from it every now and then. Today someone said the Catholic Church was worse than Hitler because he only martyred Jews. You are wise in staying away from that thread. It will just tick you off.
But since we're on this thread and not TNS I will agree that there quite a few know-nothings. Have you ever tried to reason or argue with a drunk? Well, I did for 13 years and TNS is WORSE than that. After a year on that thread I feel like I need TNS/anon and Valium.
Hey allend, good to hear from you. I think TNS has served its purpose and should be shut down. I should talk since I recently started posting there again but it won’t be for long. It’s the same core group of NC’s with the same lame arguments. Some of them have no other outlet to express their dislike for the Church except TNS and I don’t think we should enable them.
That is how I have felt for a while, we just give them fodder for their own egos. I should have known from that 1st day when posters were saying that Catholics were going to hell that they were entrenched in their hatred of Catholicism but I mistakenly thought that if they knew the truth they would change their minds.
The reality is that they know the truth and this very truth is what they have to fight because if Catholicism is right then they are sooooooo wrong.
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