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| Issues in the Encounter
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| The Church's encounter with American
culture and society focused on three issues in the 1880's and 1890's: ethnic diversity
within the church; Catholic relations with non-Catholics; and the Church's relations with
the American labor movement. In the first case, German priests and laymen, bridling at
what they perceived to be forced Americanization by their Irish American co-religionists,
sought Vatican and European intervention to restructure the church in the United States
along ethnic lines. Archbishops Gibbons, Ireland and Corrigan, fearful of the ethnic
balkanization of the church and its branding as foreign and un-American, resisted that
intervention. In the second case, Gibbons, Keane and Ireland welcomed opportunities to
participate in forums with non-Catholics such as at the World Parliament of Religions at
the Chicago World's Fair of 1893. Bishop McQuaid and others opposed Catholic participation
in such activities as concessions to religious relativism. Finally, some bishops,
concerned about the Knights of Labor's secret ritual and its strike activities, prevented
members of their flocks from joining the Knights of Labor. Their colleagues, convinced
that the Knights were well within rights defined by the church and the nation to defend
workers' interests and fearful that the church would seem indifferent to workers if it
condemned the labor union, backed the organization and won Vatican approval for their
action. |
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