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“If There Were One People”: Francis Weninger and the Segregation of American Catholicism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 June 2018

David Komline
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Abstract

This article uses the career of Francis Weninger—an Austrian Jesuit who traversed the United States preaching mostly to German audiences—to trace the development of Roman Catholic approaches to African American missions from the end of the Civil War to the rise of Jim Crow. The study proceeds in two parts, each of which addresses three themes. The first half treats Weninger's work among American Germans, examining the historical context, mission strategy, and revivalistic activity involved in Weninger’s work among his fellow immigrants. The second half details Weninger's evangelistic efforts among African Americans, reversing the order of these themes: first, it describes his activity, then, his strategy and motivation, and, finally, how Weninger's work fits into the broader context of Catholic race relations. The paper shows that the activism of Francis Weninger, the most significant Catholic advocate of missions to African Americans during the key time period in which the American Catholic church adopted an official policy of racial segregation, helped both to stimulate and to define later Roman Catholic initiatives to evangelize African Americans. Weninger modeled his approach to evangelizing African Americans directly on his work among German immigrants, encouraging both groups to establish their own ethnically and racially segregated parishes.

Keywords

CatholicRaceWenigerGermanBlack
Type
Research Article
Information
Religion and American Culture , Volume 27 , Issue 2 , Summer 2017 , pp. 218 - 246
Copyright
Copyright © Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture 2017

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References

Notes

1. Benoit Diary, Peter L., University of Notre Dame Archives, Notre Dame, Ind. Google Scholar

2. For recent examples of brief references to Benoit, see Hochgeschwender, Michael, Wahrheit, Einheit, Ordnung: Die Sklavenfrage und der amerikanische Katholizismus, 1835–1870 (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2006), 32, 218,Google Scholar 476–78; Bennett, James, Religion and the Rise of Jim Crow in New Orleans (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005), 153, 169;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Gleeson, David T., “‘No Disruption of Union’: The Catholic Church in the South and Reconstruction,” in Vale of Tears: New Essays on Religion and Reconstruction, ed. Blum, Edward J. and Scott Poole, W. (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 2005), 182;Google Scholar Oates, Mary J., The Catholic Philanthropic Tradition in America (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), 124–25.Google Scholar References are also scattered throughout MacGregor, Morris J., The Emergence of a Black Catholic Community: St. Augustine's in Washington (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1999).Google Scholar Two general surveys treat Catholic approaches to race in this era: Davis, Cyprian, The History of Black Catholics in the United States (New York: Crossroad, 1995);Google Scholar Ochs, Stephen J., Desegregating the Altar: The Josephites and the Struggle for Black Priests, 1871–1960 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University, 1990).Google Scholar These surveys notwithstanding, few monographs specifically treat this period. For a notable book that focuses on an earlier timeframe, see Hochgeschwender, Wahrheit, Einheit, Ordnung. See also two essays that take antebellum black Catholics as their subjects in Miller, Randall M. and Wakelyn, Jon L., eds., Catholics in the Old South: Essays on Church and Culture (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1999).Google Scholar Books that have focused their attention on later periods include Blatnica, Dorothy Ann, At the Altar of Their God: African American Catholics in Cleveland, 1922–1961 (New York: Garland, 1995);Google Scholar Davis, Nancy, “Integration, the ‘New Negro,’ and Community Building: Black Catholic Life in Four Catholic Churches in Detroit, 1911 to 1945” (Ph.D. diss. University of Michigan, 1996);Google Scholar McGreevy, John T., Parish Boundaries: The Catholic Encounter with Race in the Twentieth-Century Urban North (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998).Google Scholar For one example of a slightly dated ethnography of black Catholics, see McDonogh, Gary W., Black and Catholic in Savannah, Georgia (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1993).Google Scholar The hard-to-find dissertation is Misch, Edward, “The American Bishops and the Negro from the Civil War to the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore, 1865–1884” (Ph.D. diss., Pontifical Gregorian University, 1968).Google Scholar Other works, using Misch's research, have continued his emphasis on bishops when discussing the national church. See, for instance, MacGregor, The Emergence of a Black Catholic Community, 46. For an essay that focuses on how one bishop approached black Americans in this era (though stressing the period after the Third Plenary Council), see Howell, Sharon M., “‘The Consecrated Blizzard of the Northwest’: Archbishop John Ireland and His Relationship with the Black Catholic Community,” in Many Rains Ago: A Historical and Theological Reflection on the Role of the Episcopate in the Evangelization of African American Catholics (Washington, D.C.: National Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1990).Google Scholar

3. This article will only indirectly address the issue of how blacks reacted to Germans or to segregated worship. Although this information would be extremely illuminating, the sources that would provide it prove elusive. To quote one scholar: “it is very difficult to generalize with any certainty about the attitude of African-Americans at the end of the Civil War toward racially separate houses of worship.” See MacGregor, , The Emergence of a Black Catholic Community, 44.Google Scholar

4. Few sources describe Weninger's early life. The most detailed are Weninger's memoirs, which were prepared for publication but never made it past the page-proof stage. Aside from some microfilm copies, St. Louis University houses the only extant edition of the volume: Francis Xavier Weninger, Erinnerungen aus meinem Leben in Europa und Amerika durch achtzig Jahre, 1805–1885 (Columbus: J. J. Jessing, 1886). The Midwest Jesuit Archives contains eight linear feet of materials on Weninger, including a transcription and translation of his memoirs. For Weninger's arrival in America, see “Schreiben des P. Franz Xav. Weninger, Mitglied der Gesellschaft Jesu in Innsbruck an den hochwürdigen Provinzial, P. dortselbst,” Annalen der Gesellschaft zur Verbreitung des Glaubens 16 (1848): 522–28Google Scholar.

5. Billington, Ray Allen, The Protestant Crusade, 1800–1860: A Study of the Origins of American Nativism (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1938), 241.Google Scholar

6. For information on German Catholic newspapers, see Timpe, Georg, “Hundert Jahre katholischer deutscher Presse,” in Katholisches Deutschtum in den Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika: Ein Querschnitt, ed. Timpe, Georg (Freiburg: Herder & Co., 1937), 4–5.Google Scholar The quote about Henni as the “patriarch of German Catholicism” comes from Rippley, La Vern J., The German-Americans (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1976), 108.Google Scholar

7. For data on immigration, see Barry, Colman J., The Catholic Church and German Americans (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Co., 1953), 4–7.Google Scholar For additional data on newspapers, see Conley, Rory T., Arthur Preuss: Journalist and Voice of German and Conservative Catholics in America, 1871–1934, New German-American Studies 16 (New York: Peter Lang, 1998), 4.Google Scholar

8. The classic source on nativismand anti-Catholicismin this era is Billington, The Protestant Crusade. For more on nativism after the Civil War, and particularly on anti-Catholicism, see Higham, John, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860–1925 (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1995), 28.Google Scholar Heinrich Hahn described how Methodists in Texas threatened Weninger's life on several occasions. See Hahn, Heinrich, Geschichte der katholischen Missionen seit Jesus Christus bis auf die neueste Zeit (Köln, 1863), 336.Google Scholar The story about the attempted murder comes from John Rothensteiner, History of the Archdiocese of St. Louis: In Its Various Stages of Development from a.d. 1673 to a.d. 1928, vol. 2 (St. Louis: Blackwell Wielandy, 1928), 443.

9. Francis Xavier Weninger, Die Heilige Mission, mit allen ihren Predigten, Anreden und Feierlichkeiten (Cincinnati, 1885), 435. All translations from this and other German sources, unless otherwise noted, are the author’s. The standard translation of this phrase, used by people at the time, was “Language keeps faith.” Mine is slightly more literal.

10. Annalen der Glaubensverbreitung 26 (1858), 282–301, as cited and translated by Roemer, Theodore, The Ludwig-Missionsverein and the Church in the United States (1838–1918) (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1933), 95.Google Scholar

11. Weninger relates the story about Lincoln in Francis Xavier Weninger, “P. Franz Xaver Weninger, Missionär der Gesellschaft Jesu, erstattet Bericht an die Central-Direction der Leopoldinen-Stiftung über die von ihmim Jahre 1864 in den Vereinigten Staaten abgehaltenen Missionen,” Berichte der Leopoldinen-Stiftung im Kaiserthume Oesterreich 35 (1865): 32–33. For more on the origins of this story, see Blied, Benjamin J., Catholics and the Civil War (Milwaukee, 1945), 150.Google Scholar As Blied notes, in 1905 the American Catholic Historical Researches carried several articles about Lincoln's alleged Catholic upbringing, each of them debunking it. But the Researches only traced this rumor to 1869, several years after Weninger offered his tale.

12. Barry, The Catholic Church and German Americans, 10.

13. Annalen der Glaubensverbreitung 26 (1858), 282–301, as cited and translated by Roemer, The Ludwig-Missionsverein, 95.

14. Weninger authored a pamphlet describing howthese meetings proceeded: Weninger, Die Heilige Mission, mit allen ihren Predigten, Anreden und Feierlichkeiten. For background on the Catholic revival meeting more generally, see Dolan, Jay P., Catholic Revivalism: The American Experience 1830–1900 (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979).Google Scholar For the estimates about Weninger's preaching, see Henry Hill, Walter, Historical Sketch of the St. Louis University: The Celebration of Its Fiftieth Anniversary or Golden Jubilee on June 24, 1879 (St. Louis: Patrick Fox, 1879), 86.Google Scholar

15. For the Houston mission, see “Bericht des P. Franz X.Weninger, aus der Gesellschaft Jesu, an die Central-Direction der Leopoldinen-Stiftung zu Wien, über die von ihm im Jahre 1876 in den Vereinigten Staaten abgehaltenen Volksmissionen,” Berichte der Leopoldinen-Stiftung im Kaiserthume Oesterreich 47 (1877): 16. For the Minnesota mission, see O’Connell, Marvin R., Pilgrims to the Northland: The Archdiocese of St. Paul, 1840–1962 (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2009), 137.Google Scholar References to Indiana can be found in Alerding, H. J., The Diocese of Fort Wayne (Fort Wayne, Ind.: Archer Printing, 1907), 234–35,Google Scholar 274. The discussion of San Francisco can be found in “Bericht des P. Franz Xaver Weninger, aus der Gesellschaft Jesu, über die von ihm im Jahre 1870 abgehaltenen Missionen,” Berichte der Leopoldinen-Stiffung in Kaiserthump Aesterreich 41 (1871): 4–54.

16. Weninger's discussion of Galveston appears in “Bericht des P. Franz X. Weninger, aus der Gesellschaft Jesu, an die Central-Direction der Leopoldinen-Stiftung zu Wien, über die von ihm im Jahre 1876 in den Vereinigten Staaten abgehaltenen Volksmissionen,” 17. More on the Cleveland diocese can be found in Leonard, Henry B., “Ethnic Conflict and Episcopal Power: The Diocese of Cleveland, 1847–1870,” Catholic Historical Review 62 (1976): 393.Google Scholar For the Blied quote, see Blied, Catholics and the Civil War, 126.

17. Quoted in Barry, The Catholic Church and German Americans, 11.

18. The gulden was the currency of the Austro-Hungarian Empire; the mark was German. Because of the long period of time over which this money was donated, finding a modern equivalent in dollars is impossible. For more on the Ludwig-Missionsverein, see Roemer, The Ludwig-Missionsverein and the Church in the United States (1838–1918), 94. The quote about Weninger being “der Apostel der Deutschen” can be found in “Missionen von Amerika. Nordamerika. Brief des P. Erhard (Wilhelm) Banino, aus dem Orden des hl. Benedikt, von der Abtei St. Vincent in Pennsylvanien in Nordamerika, an einen seiner Freund, J.R.,” Annalen der Verbreitung des Glaubens zum Vortheil der Missionen herausgegeben durch den Ludwig-Missionsverein 33 (1865): 505.Google Scholar

19. Edward Reynolds, D., Jesuits for the Negro (New York: America Press, 1949), 127;Google Scholar “P. Franz Xaver Weninger, S.J.,” Berichte der Leopoldinen-Stiftung im Kaiserthume Oesterreich 59 (1888): 16–18.

20. “Bericht über die von P. X. Weninger S.J. im Jahre 1852 abgehaltenen Volksmissionen unter den Deutschen in den Vereinigten Staaten. (Fortsegung.),” Schlesisches Kirchenblatt 36 (September 1853): 458–60; Blied, Catholics and the Civil War, 55. Another source uses the same language: James F. Connelly, The Visit of Archbishop Gaetano Bedini to the United States of America, June 1853-February 1854 (Rome: Pontifical Gregorian University, 1960), 239.

21. For Weninger's travels in 1861, see Xavier Weninger, Francis, “Missionsbericht des Hochw. P. Franz Xaver Weninger uber das Jahr 1861,” Katholische Blätter aus Tirol 29 (October 20, 1862): 681–85.Google Scholar His quote about applying sensible caution concerning where to go is found on page 681. In 1862 he spent considerable time in Iowa; see “Missionsbericht aus Iowa” 26 (November 12, 1862): 149. For his travels in 1864, see Xavier Weninger, Francis, “Missionen von Amerika,” Annalen der Verbreitung des Glaubens zum Vortheil der Missionen Herausgegeben durch den Ludwig-Missionsverein 33 (1865): 141–51.Google Scholar For Weninger's comments on the politics of the war at its beginning, see Francis Xavier Weninger, “Missionsbericht des Hochw. P. Franz Xaver Weninger uber das Jahr 1861,” Katholische Blätter aus Tirol 29 (October 20, 1862): 675–82. For his comments from the end, see Weninger, “Missionen von Amerika,” 138–41.

22. Weninger was the only Jesuit to defend emancipation openly during the Civil War. McGreevy, John, Catholicism and American Freedom: A History (New York: W.W. Norton, 2003), 78;Google Scholar Blied, Catholics and the Civil War, 127–28; Hochgeschwender, Wahrheit, Einheit, Ordnung, 367. For more on German radicals, especially in Cincinnati, see Honeck, Mischa, We Are the Revolutionists: German-Speaking Immigrants and American Abolitionists after 1848 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2011), 78–81.Google Scholar

23. Lackner, Joseph H., “St. Ann's Colored Church and School, Cincinnati, the Indian and Negro Collection for the United States, and Reverend Francis Xavier Weninger, S.J.,” U.S. Catholic Historian 7 (1988): 145–56.Google Scholar Lackner helpfully summarizes material in the Archives of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, telling the story of Weninger's work with St. Ann’s, but lacks a broader picture of Weninger's activity. Weninger told his own narrative of his work with St. Ann's several different times; his most detailed recounting appeared in “Bericht des Missionärs P. Franz Xaver Weninger über die von ihm im Jahre 1873 in den Vereinigten Staaten Nordamerika's abgehaltenen Missionen,” Berichte der Leopoldinen-Stiftung im Kaiserthume Oesterreich 44 (1874): 4–39. For an older historical account of these events, see “Die Katholische Negerkirche in Cincinnati: Eine Deutsche Gründung,” Der Deutsche Pionier: Erinnerungen aus dem Pionier-Leben der Deutschen in Amerika 18 (1887): 311–12.

24. In terms of buying power today, this sum represents approximately $55,000. “Schreiben des P. Franz Xaver Weninger, aus der Gesellschaft Jesu, Missionärs in den Vereinigten Staaten Nordamerika’s, aus Cincinnati vom 27. Februar 1868, an den hochwürdigsten Herrn Centraldirektor des Leopoldinen-Vereins,” Berichte der Lepoldinen-Stiftung im Kaiserthume Oesterreich 38 (1868): 3.

25. Reports from Weninger's California trip rarely mention St. Ann's or African Americans: Weninger, “Bericht des P. Franz Xaver Weninger, aus der Gesellschaft Jesu, über die von ihm im Jahre 1870 abgehaltenen Missionen,” 4–54; Weninger, “Bericht über die von dem Missionär Franz Xaver Weninger, P., aus der Gesellschaft Jesu, im Jahre 1871 abgehaltenen Missionen, wie er theils von ihm selbst verfasst worden, theils im Monitor von San Francisco erschienen ist,” Berichte der Leopoldinen-Stiftung im Kaiserthume Oesterreich 42 (1872): 3–49.Google Scholar Weninger first reports his broadened campaign in “Bericht des Missionärs P. Franz Xaver Weninger über die von ihm im Jahre 1873 in den Vereinigten Staaten Nordamerika's abgehaltenen Missionen,” 18. The anecdote from Rock Island can be found in “Missions-Bericht über die von Weninger, P. Franz X., aus der Gesellschaft Jesu, in den Vereinigten Staaten Nordamerikas im Jahre 1875 abgehaltenen Missionen,” Berichte der Leopoldinen-Stiftung im Kaiserthume Oesterreich 46 (1876): 36.Google Scholar Weninger asks Europeans for money in Franz Xavier Weninger, “Einladung an die Mitglieder des Central-Vereins, sich dem Peter Claver-Vereine anzuschließen,” Berichte der Leopoldinen-Stiftung im Kaiserthume Oesterreich 47 (1877): 49–54. He thanks them for sending money in “Bericht des Franz Xaver Weninger, P. über die von ihm im Jahre 1874 in den Vereinigten Staaten Nordamerika's abgehaltenen Mission,” Berichte der Leopoldinen-Stiftung im Kaiserthume Oesterreich 45 (1875): 19–20.Google Scholar

26. The “intolerable” position of black Catholics is discussed in MacGregor, The Emergence of a Black Catholic Community, 73. Weninger reported on his letter to the Archbishop of Baltimore in “Bericht des hochwürdigen Herrn P. Weninger, Franz X., aus der Gesellschaft Jesu, über die von ihm in den Vereinigten Staaten von Nordamerika im Jahre 1883 abgehaltenen Volksmissionen,” Berichte der Leopoldinen-Stiftung im Kaiserthume Oesterreich 54 (1884): 8–9.Google Scholar The Philadelphia meeting was reported in “Editorial Notices,” Catholic Record 10 (July 1876): 189.

27. Weninger, “Einladung an die Mitglieder des Central-Vereins, sich dem Peter Claver-Vereine anzuschließen,” 49–54.

28. “Bericht des hochwürdigen Herrn P. Franz X. Weninger, aus der Gesellschaft Jesu, über die von ihm in den Vereinigten Staaten von Nordamerika im Jahre 1883 abgehaltenen Volksmissionen,” 8–9. Weninger lists all these events in chronological order, but does not provide dates. I arrived at these dates using contextual clues and the dates provided by Lackner, “St. Ann's Colored Church and School, Cincinnati, the Indian and Negro Collection for the United States, and Reverend Francis Xavier Weninger, S.J.,” 153–54. For a letter in which Weninger passionately encourages Purcell to take up a collection in his province, see Weninger to Purcell, 187?, University of Notre Dame Archives II-5-d –A.L.S.

29. “Bericht des hochwürdigen Herrn P. Franz X. Weninger, aus der Gesellschaft Jesu, über die von ihm in den Vereinigten Staaten von Nordamerika im Jahre 1883 abgehaltenen Volksmissionen,” 9.

30. For a general overview of these events, see Lackner, “St. Ann's Colored Church and School, Cincinnati, the Indian and Negro Collection for the United States, and Reverend Francis Xavier Weninger, S.J.,” 153–55. Weninger discusses the letter sent to Rome in “Bericht des hochwürdigen Herrn P. Franz X. Weninger, aus der Gesellschaft Jesu, über die von ihm in den Vereinigten Staaten von Nordamerika im Jahre 1883 abgehaltenen Volksmissionen,” 10. For Weninger's account of the papal blessing, see “Bericht des hochwürdigen Herrn P. Weninger, Franz X. S.J. über die im Jahre 1882 abgehaltenen Volksmissionen,” Berichte der Leopoldinen- Stiftung im Kaiserthume Oesterreich 52 (1882): 8–14.Google Scholar

31. Dolan, Catholic Revivalism, 146.

32. For more on Weninger's campaign for Peter Claver's canonization, see Patrick J. Hayes, “Jesuit Saint Making: The Case of St. Peter Claver's Cause in Nineteenth-Century America,” American Catholic Studies 117 (2006): 1–32.

33. “Bericht des P. Franciscus Xav. Weninger, Priesters der Gesellschaft Jesu, über die von ihm im Jahre 1868 in den Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika abgehaltenen Missionen,” Berichte der Leopoldinen-Stiftung im Kaiserthume Oesterreich 39 (1869): 23; “Bericht des Missionärs P. Franz Xaver Weninger über die von ihm im Jahre 1873 in den Vereinigten Staaten Nordamerika's abgehaltenen Missionen,” 20.

34. “Bericht des hochwürdigen Herrn P. Franz X. Weninger, aus der Gesellschaft Jesu, über die von ihm in den Vereinigten Staaten von Nordamerika im Jahre 1883 abgehaltenen Volksmissionen,” 4; “Bericht des Missionärs P. Franz Xaver Weninger über die von ihm im Jahre 1873 in den Vereinigten Staaten Nordamerika's abgehaltenen Missionen,” 33.

35. “Bericht des Missionärs P. Franz Xaver Weninger über die von ihm im Jahre 1873 in den Vereinigten Staaten Nordamerika's abgehaltenen Missionen,” 33–34. For similar rhetoric, ten years later, see “Bericht des hochwürdigen Herrn P. Franz X. Weninger, aus der Gesellschaft Jesu, über die von ihm in den Vereinigten Staaten von Nordamerika im Jahre 1883 abgehaltenen Volksmissionen,” 4–5. The “fanaticism” quote comes from Annalen der Glaubensverbreitung 56 (1888): 150–60, as cited in Roemer, The Ludwig-Missionsverein, 100–01.

36. Example language appears in “Bericht des P. Franz X. Weninger, aus der Gesellschaft Jesu, an die Central-Direction der Leopoldinen- Stiftung zu Wien, über die von ihm im Jahre 1876 in den Vereinigten Staaten abgehaltenen Volksmissionen,” 52–53; Weninger discusses organization in “Bericht des Missionärs P. Franz Xaver Weninger über die von ihm im Jahre 1873 in den Vereinigten Staaten Nordamerika's abgehaltenen Missionen,” 21. By the mid-1870s, at least some other German Catholics were making arguments along the lines of those that Weninger used. See Kulas, John S., Der Wanderer of St. Paul, The First Decade, 1867–1877: A Mirror of the German-Catholic Immigrant Experience in Minnesota, New German- American Studies 9 (New York: Peter Lang, 1996), 46.Google Scholar

37. “Missionen von Amerika. Nordamerika. Brief des P. Erhard (Wilhelm) Banino, aus demOrden des hl. Benedikt, von derAbtei St. Vincent in Pennsylvanien in Nordamerika, an einen seiner Freund, J.R.” 505.

38. “P. Franz Xaver Weninger, Missionär aus der Gesellschaft Jesu in den Vereinigten Staaten, übersendet der Central-Direction der Leopoldin- Stiftung mit nachstehendem Schreiben von Cincinnati im Mai 1866 seinen Missionsbericht über die von ihm im Jahre 1865 in den Vereinigten Staaten von Nordamerika abgehalten Missionen,” Berichte der Leopoldinen-Stiftung im Kaiserthume Oesterreich 36 (1866): 7.

39. Two letters from Spalding to Purcell indicate his response to Weninger. Spalding to Purcell, July 21, 1866, University of Notre Dame Archives II-5-c –A.L.S. and Spalding to Purcell, July 29, 1866, University of Notre Dame Archives II-5-c –A.L.S. For Weninger's letter, see Weninger to Spalding, Mishawaka, September 26, 1866, Archives at the Diocese of Baltimore, 36A-W-28. For Weninger's letter to Europe, see “Bericht des P. Franz Xaver Weninger, aus der Gesellschaft Jesu, Missionärs in den Vereinigten Staaten von Nordamerika, über seine im Jahre 1866 daselbst abgehaltenen Missionen,” Berichte der Leopoldinen-Stiftung im Kaiserthume Oesterreich 37 (1867): 3–33.

40. For more on Spalding and the Second Plenary Council, see Ochs, Desegregating the Altar, 38–42. For information on Catholic slaves before the war, see McNally, Michael J., “A Peculiar Institution: Catholic Parish Life and the Pastoral Mission to the Blacks in the Southeast, 1850–1980,” U.S. Catholic Historian 5 (January 1, 1986): 73–74.Google Scholar

41. Ochs, Desegregating the Altar, 42; Davis, The History of Black Catholics in the United States, 120. For a contemporary report, see “Second Plenary Council of Baltimore,” Catholic World 9 (July 1869), 509.

42. Reynolds, Jesuits for the Negro, 55, 62; Gillard, John T., Catholic Church and the American Negro (Baltimore: St. Joseph's Society Press, 1929), 39.Google Scholar

43. Oetgen, Jerome, “Origins of the Benedictine Order in Georgia,” Georgia Historical Quarterly 7 (1969): 165–83Google Scholar.

44. Ochs, Desegregating the Altar, 62.

45. For more on Burke, see Davis, , The History of Black Catholics in the United States, 201. Gillard contains statistics as well as recommendations; see Gillard, Catholic Church and the American Negro, 42, 67–78.Google Scholar For the Josephites, see “Parishes and Schools | The Society of Saint Joseph of the Sacred Heart.” http://www.josephite.org/about-us/parishes-andschools/ (accessed March 28, 2016).

46. Vann Woodward, C., The Strange Career of Jim Crow, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1966), 22.Google Scholar For summaries of Woodward's argument and its critics, see Rabinowitz, Howard N., Black Relations in the Urban South, 1865–1890 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), 330–33;Google Scholar Cell, John W., The Highest Stage of White Supremacy: The Origins of Segregation in South Africa and the American South (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 82–102;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Rabinowitz, Howard N., “More Than the Woodward Thesis: Assessing the Strange Career of Jim Crow,” Journal of American History 75 (1988): 842–56;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Vann Woodward, C., “Strange Career Critics: Long May They Persevere,” Journal of American History 75 (1988): 857–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

47. Stowell, Daniel, Rebuilding Zion: The Religious Reconstruction of the South, 1863–1877 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 80–89,Google Scholar identifies five stages in the “black exodus” from the white churches that occurred between 1866 and 1870. For more on segregation in the churches in general, see Dvorak, Katherine L., An African American Exodus: The Segregation of the Southern Churches (Brooklyn: Carlson, 1991);Google Scholar Montgomery, William E., Under Their Own Vine and Fig Tree: The African-American Church in the South, 1865–1900 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1993);Google Scholar Eighmy, John Lee, Churches in Cultural Captivity: A History of the Social Attitudes of Southern Baptists (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1972), 30–32;Google Scholar Morrow, Ralph E., Northern Methodism and Reconstruction (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1956), 125–27,Google Scholar 133–34; Hildebrand, Reginald F., The Times Were Strange and Stirring: Methodist Preachers and the Crisis of Emancipation (Durham: University of North Carolina Press, 1995), 110–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For additional case studies, some of which nuance these broader generalizations, see Israel, Charles A., “From Biracial to Segregated Churches: Black and White Protestants in Houston, Texas, 1840–1870,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly 101 (April 1998): 428–58;Google Scholar Beckham, Christopher, “The Paradox of Religious Segregation: White and Black Baptists in Western Kentucky, 1855–1900,” Register of the Kentucky Historical Society 97 (July 1, 1999): 305–22;Google Scholar Thompson, Ernest Trice, “Black Presbyterians, Education, and Evangelism after the Civil War,” Journal of Presbyterian History 51 (Summer 1973): 174–98,Google Scholar esp. 175.

48. Bennett, Religion and the Rise of Jim Crow in New Orleans, 3.

49. Thus, scholars need to revise their understandings of the timing of Catholic outreach to blacks as well. Weninger's efforts represented a truly national, and even international, Catholic mission to blacks that culminated, rather than began, with the Third Plenary Council in 1884. It is thus incorrect to insist that “not until 1884, at the Third Plenary Council, did Catholics begin a national effort directed at black Americans,” as does Bennett, Religion and the Rise of Jim Crow in New Orleans, 147.

50. For scholars who have noted parallels between ethnically and racially segregated parishes, see Dolan, Jay P., The American Catholic Experience (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992), 365;Google Scholar MacGregor, The Emergence of a Black Catholic Community, 48–49; McNally, Michael J., “A Peculiar Institution: Catholic Parish Life and the Pastoral Mission to the Blacks in the Southeast, 1850–1980,” U.S. Catholic Historian 5 (January 1, 1986): 74–75.Google Scholar For Hochgeschwender's denial, see Hochgeschwender, Wahrheit, Einheit, Ordnung, 473.

51. Bennett, Religion and the Rise of Jim Crow in New Orleans, 150. It is important to point out that in significant ways, blacks and Germans remained unequal for Weninger. Weninger rarely, if ever, acknowledged a crucial difference between the place of African Americans and Germans in the American Roman Catholic church: there were German priests and bishops, but the first African American priest was not ordained until 1886. See Ochs, Desegregating the Altar, 64.

52. Prominent “whiteness studies” include Roediger, David R., The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class (New York: Verso, 1999);Google Scholar Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White (New York: Routledge, 1995). For a response, see McGreevy, Parish Boundaries, 3–4.

53. I would like to thank Mark A. Noll, Robert E. Sullivan, and Edward J. Blum, in addition to anonymous readers for Religion and American Culture, for their feedback on earlier drafts of this article.