We Need Another Dagger John!

Since Mr Coulombe discussed Archbishop 'Dagger John' Hughes in the latest Off the Menu, here's the story of one of my favourite Bishops.

For those not familiar with the man I'm talking about, John Hughes was an Ulster Catholic, born in the hamlet of Annaloghan, near Aughnacloy, in County Tyrone in 1797. Born in the time of the Penal Laws, he observed, as an adult, that he had lived the first five days of his life on terms of "social and civil equality with the most favoured subjects of the British Empire'', that is until his Baptism made him a Catholic, subject to the Penal Laws.

After apprenticing as a gardener he emigrated to the United States in 1817, joining his family who had emigrated the previous year to Pennsylvania. He applied several times, without success, to Mount St Mary's College, a Sulpician seminary, in Emmitsburg, MD. Finally, the Rector, Père Jean Dubois, S.S., hired him as a gardener!

Whilst working at The Mount, he was befriended by Mother Elizabeth Ann Seton (later the first Canonised Saint born in what became the US), Foundress of the Sisters of Charity and of the first Catholic primary school in the US, St Joseph's, also in Emmitsburg.

Mother Seton convinced Père Dubois, to admit the young Hughes as a student. Completing seminary, he was ordained for his home Diocese of Philadelphia by His Bishop, Msgr Henry Conwell in October 1826. He worked in the Diocese of Philadelphia until 1837, first as a curate, then as a missionary on what was then the Frontier, converting several protestants. In 1829, he founded St John's Orphan Asylum.

He became embroiled in the Trusteeship Controversy (See the article in the Catholic Encyclopedia: Trustee System, Part III) and having shown his mettle as a Pastor and an administrator, he was appointed by Pope Gregory XVI as the coadjutor bishop of the Diocese of New York on August 7, 1837. He was consecrated bishop at St. Patrick's Old Cathedral on January 7, 1838, with the title of the titular see of Basilinopolis, by the third Bishop of New York, Msgr Jean Dubois, S.S., his former seminary Rector.

He immediately became involved in the Trusteeship Controversy again as there were several Parishes under the control of their lay trustees that were in rebellion against Msgr Dubois. Drawing upon his experience at St Mary's in New York, Hughes was able to get a referendum passed by the Catholics of the city in 1841 supporting the authority of the bishop. As an amusing aside, Msgr Dubois is buried under the sidewalk at the entrance to the Old St Patrick's Cathedral on Mott Street, which he requested, so that people could "walk on me in death, as they wished to in life", probably a reference to the trustees who rebelled against his authority.

Hughes also became involved in Catholic education. He protested against the standard use of the King James Bible in public schools by the Public School Society, a private organisation which operated the schools of New York City. He claimed that it was an attack on Catholic constitutional rights against double taxation, because Catholics would need to pay taxes for public school and also pay for the parochial school to which they would send their children, to avoid having their children indoctrinated by teachers following the Protestant teachings footnoted in that translation of the Bible. When he failed to secure state support, he founded an independent Catholic school system in New York, as did other Catholic centres. The resulting parochial school systems which became an integral part of the Catholic Church's structure two decades after Hughes died, at the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore (1884). It mandated that all parishes nationwide have a school and that all Catholic children be sent to those schools. (Oh, for the good old days!)

As coadjutor with automatic right of succession to the See, he was appointed Apostolic Administrator of New York in 1839 because of Msgr Dubois' failing health. When the Bishop died in 1842, Hughes became the fourth Bishop of New York.

He became Bishop at a very tense time for the Catholics of the United States. The Nativist movement was growing. The Nativists, who formed the 'Know-Nothing' Party in 1844, were 'patriotic', protestant, native-born Americans who were violently anti-Catholic.

In May and July of that same year, there were violent anti-Catholic riots in Philadelphia and its environs known as the Philadelphia Nativist Riots, also known as the Philadelphia Prayer Riots, the Bible Riots, or the Native American Riots. In the five months prior to the first riots, nativist groups had been spreading false rumours that Catholics were trying to remove the Bible from public schools because of its protestant character, as noted above.

Two of the 13 Churches then in Philadelphia (15%) were burned. Governor Porter, a Democrat (oh, how things have changed!) called out the Pennsylvania Militia to restore order. The troops ended up having to fire on the rioters, killing more than 20 and wounding hundreds.

When the riots threatened to spread to New York, Hughes put armed guards at Catholic churches and, after learning a Nativist rally was scheduled to take place in New York, famously told the Nativist sympathising mayor, Robert H. Morris, that "if a single Catholic Church were burned in New York, the city would become a second Moscow" – a reference to the Fire of Moscow in 1812 when the Russians put the city to the torch, destroying it rather than have it fall into the hands of the Revolution under Napoleon. City leaders took him at his word, and the Nativists were not allowed to conduct their rally.

And, in 1850 he delivered an address entitled "The Decline of Protestantism and Its Causes," in which he announced as the ambition of Catholicism "to convert all Pagan nations, and all Protestant nations. . . . Our mission [is] to convert the world –including the inhabitants of the United States – the people of the cities, and the people of the country, . . . the Legislatures, the Senate, the Cabinet, the President, and all!"

Thus he addressed the immediate problem, with which we are again faced today, AND he addressed the ultimate solution to the problem, the evangelisation and conversion of the country.

We have Bishops today who may be his equal in administration, but where are the Bishops who will protect our Churches and call for the conversion of these United States? We have weak Bishops and Bishops who are traitors to Christ and His Mystical Body, but what we need are more men like Dagger John Hughes!