“Cardinal James Gibbons was born in Baltimore in 1834 to Irish parents. Three years later they brought the family to Ireland where they settled in Ballinrobe. He spent his formative years there and recalled them vividly to the end of his life” Second Reading Fr Kevin Hegarty
As winter looms, thoughts turn towards death. For the Catholic Church, November is the official month of remembrance for the deceased. Last Wednesday, two Northern businessmen, Joe McGuiggan and Hugh O’Donnell, launched Ireland’s first online memorial site. It offers families and friends of loved ones the opportunity to record memories of loved ones. It can be visited at www.inlovingmemory.ie.
Recently, also, the London Times published a book, ‘Great Irish Lives’, a selection of obituaries published in the newspaper from 1820 to the current year. The English quality newspapers are noted for the range and excellence of their obituaries. Those printed in ‘The Times’ are regarded as the most authoritative.
The obituaries in ‘Great Irish Lives’ provide an informative and sometimes entertaining insight into Irish people who have made history in the last two centuries. Given the background of ‘The Times’ as the voice of the English establishment, it is not surprising that some of the evaluations, particularly of Irish political leaders, are jaundiced by elegantly-expressed prejudice.
This is especially evident in the account of the life of Daniel O’Connell. The prejudice would not have worried him unduly. He is reputed to have said that if he found himself praised by ‘The Times’ of London he would have to examine his conscience.
Mayo receives a fair showing in the book. There are seven entries on people who were either born in Mayo or have significant connections with it; Michael Davitt, the Land League founder; Lord MacDonnell of Swinford, who, after a distinguished career as a civil servant in India, returned to Ireland in 1903 to draw up the Wyndham Land Act, which finally settled the land question; George Moore, the acerbic novelist who won an international reputation; Margaret Burke Sheridan, the opera singer who enthralled La Scala in Milan in the 1920s; and Seán McBride, the Nobel and Lenin peace-prize recipient.
Charles J Haughey’s birth in Castlebar is also recorded, though his fleeting connection with the county is hardly the source of pride it once was when he was accorded the accolade of Mayo Person of the Year.
The book also contains an obituary of Cardinal James Gibbons, the most influential Catholic leader in the US in the late 19th and early 20th century. I was aware of his contribution to American history but not, until I read his entry, did I know of his association with Mayo.
He was born in Baltimore in 1834 to Irish parents. Three years later they brought the family to Ireland where they settled in Ballinrobe. He spent his formative years there and recalled them vividly to the end of his life. As Cardinal, he paid a private visit to the parish, where he stayed with the parish priest. The holiday may have been somewhat fraught. The parish priest, who had an aversion to tobacco, was an early advocate of the smoking ban. So the Cardinal, who was addicted to cigars, had to resort to smoking in his bedroom.
From a local hedge schoolmaster, he acquired a love of the classics. Archbishop MacHale of Tuam confirmed him. He witnessed the horror of the famine, during which his father died of fever.
The Gibbons family returned to the US in 1853, where James found employment in a shop in New Orleans. By 1857 he was pursuing studies for the priesthood in Maryland. He was ordained for the diocese of Baltimore in 1861.
He rose rapidly through the Church ranks. After a spell as secretary to the Archbishop of Baltimore, he was appointed as Bishop of North Carolina in 1868 at the age of 34. He was transferred to Richmond in Virginia in 1872. Five years later he was installed as Archbishop of Baltimore, the oldest diocese in the US. The appointment was prestigious, as the diocese then contained Washington, the national capital. In 1886 he became a Cardinal, the second American bishop to attain the honour.
Why is Gibbons a significant figure in American history? Why did Theodore Roosevelt, a former US president, call him in 1917 ‘the most respected and venerated citizen of our country’?
The late 19th century was a critical time in the history of the American Catholic Church. By 1880 there were more than six million Catholics in the country. Forty years earlier there was only one tenth as many. This phenomenal growth, due mainly to emigration from Europe, brought great challenges for the Church leadership. They had to provide churches and schools for the rapidly expanding congregation. There were ethnic tensions, especially between Irish and German Catholics.
How would the Church associate itself with the American system of government and with other religious groups in a pluralist society? What social policy would the Church evolve to take account of industrial life and the emerging trade union movement?
Conservative Church leaders were suspicious of the American Constitution and the mores of US life. They saw the development of trade unions as a threat to their authority. They wanted Catholics to withdraw from the public forum and consolidate their strength in a cosy cocoon, free from engagement with the impulses of US society.
Cardinal Gibbons was more open. He was a man of principle and a diplomat. He was an ecumenist before his time. Rejoicing in the vision of the American constitution, he wanted Catholics to take part in the political system. He believed in the separation of Church and state, believing it gave both institutions the freedom to pursue their ideals. He encouraged Catholics to take part in public life and believed their involvement in the Labour Movement was a positive example of such discourse.
After much controversy, his view prevailed. He explained Catholicism to America and America to Catholicism. As an American historian has written, ‘he kept the door open to the future’. As a policy, expressed in a pithy sentence, it continues to have relevance for Church leaders today.
