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The Scalabrini Fathers, the Italian Emigrant Church, and Ethnic Nationalism in America

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 June 2018

Peter R. D'Agostino
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Extract

Philip Gleason has observed that the Roman Catholic church in the United States has been an “institutional immigrant” for much of its history. The idea of an “institutional immigrant,” posed in the Singular and distinguished from “the immigrant peoples who comprised the Catholic population,” presupposes a basic if undefined unity to American Catholicism. The nature of that unity has always been a highly contested issue. Gleason's formulation also suggests that the experience of the Catholic church is illuminated by considering its history in light of the processes that have occupied students of immigration—Americanization, generational transition, assimilation, the invention of ethnicity, and the like. The nature of these processes has also given rise to debates as Americans grapple to understand their cultural identity. In short, Gleason's idea lends itself to debate about the normative significance of American Catholicism, American culture, and their relationship to one another. In the interest of enriching this debate, I would suggest that the Roman Catholic church in the United States has also been an institutional emigrant.

Type
Research Article
Information
Religion and American Culture , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , Winter 1997 , pp. 121 - 159
Copyright
Copyright © Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture 1997

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References

Notes

The author thanks Rudolph Vecoli, Steven Avella, and Christopher Kauffman for their suggestions on early drafts of this essay.

1. Gleason, Philip, Keeping the Faith: American Catholicism Fast and Present (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1987), 39–43.Google Scholar For an appraisal of trends in immigration and ethnic history, see Vecoli, Rudolph J., “Ethnicity: A Neglected Dimension of American History,” in The State of American History, ed. Bass, Herbert J. (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1970), 70–88 Google Scholar; Conzen, Kathleen Neils and others, “The Invention of Ethnicity: A Perspective from the U.S.A.,” Journal of American Ethnic History 12 (Fall 1992): 3–41 Google Scholar; and Kazal, Russell A., “Revisiting Assimilation: The Rise, Fall, and Reappraisal of a Concept in American Ethnic History,” American Historical Review 100 (April 1995): 437-71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. On Italian emigration, see Rosoli, Gianfausto, ed., Un Secolo di Emigrazione Italiana, 1876-1976 (Rome: Centro Studi Emigrazione, 1978)Google Scholar; Bezza, B., ed., Gli Italiani fuori d'ltalia (Milan: Franco Angeli, 1983)Google Scholar; Manzotti, Fernando, La polemica sull'emigrazione nell'Italia unità (Milan: Società Editrice Dante Alighieri, 1969)Google Scholar; Ciuffoletti, Zeffiro and Degrinnocenti, Maurizio, eds., L'Emigrazione nella storia d'Italia, 2 vols. (Florence: Vallecchi, 1978)Google Scholar; Dore, Grazia, “Some Social and Historical Aspects of Italian Emigration to America,” Journal of Social History 2 (Winter 1968): 95–122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar On the Italian church abroad, see Rosoli, Gianfausto, “Chiesa e comunita italiane negli Stati Uniti (1880-1940),” Studium 75 (January-February 1979): 25–47 Google Scholar; and Rosoli, Gianfausto, “Chiesa ed emigrati italiani in Brasile, 1880-1940,” Studi Emigrazione 19 (June 1982): 225-51.Google Scholar Rosoli discusses American historiography on religion and immigration from the Italian perspective in his “Religione e immigrazione negli USA: riflessioni sulla storiographia,” Studi Emigrazione 28 (September 1991): 291-303. He mentions the ideological uses of the word “colony” among Italian observers in “La colonizzazione italiana delle Americhe: tra mito e realtà (1880-1914),” Studi Emigrazione 9 (October 1972): 296-376. For a study of Italian migration from an international perspective, see Foerster, Robert F., The Italian Emigration of Our Times (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1919).Google Scholar

3. On June 29, 1908, Pius X issued the apostolic constitution Sapienti consilio, which removed the church in the United States from the jurisdiction of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith in the Vatican. This meant that the United States was no longer regarded as missionary territory by the Vatican. Thereafter, the American church fell under the jurisdiction of the Sacred Consistorial Congregation. American historians have often implied that this juridical change endowed the American church with greater autonomy, but this is not necessarily so. As Gerald P. Fogarty has stated, “this [juridical change] reflected … the pope's reorganization of the Roman Curia rather than the independence of action for the American Church that [Archbishop John] Ireland had thought would result from the Separation from the missionary [Propagation of the Faith] congregation.” See Fogarty, Gerald P., The Vatican and the American Hierarchy from 1870 to 1965 (Stuttgart: Anton Hiersemann, 1982), 204.Google Scholar In fact, the Consistorial Congregation was under the guidance of aggressive Romanizers who sought to influence affairs in national churches throughout the world. On the reactive character of the church and the reorganization of the Roman Curia, see Roger Aubert, “Part Two: Defensive Concentration of Forces,” in The Church in the Industrial Age, vol. 9 of History of the Church, ed. Hubert Jedin and John Dolan (New York: Crossroad, 1981), 381-480. On the missionary mentality and vitality of European Catholic religious institutions, see Josef Metzler, “La Santa Sede e le missioni,” in Storia della Chiesa, vol. 24: Balle Missioni alla Chiese Locali (1846-1965), ed. Josef Metzler (Rome: Paoline, 1990), 19-119; Gianfausto Rosoli, “II movimento di migrazione e i cattolici,” in Storia della Chiesa, vol. 22, part 1: La Chiesa e la Società Industriale (1878-1922), ed. Elio Guerriero and Annibale Zambarbieri (Rome: Paoline, 1990), 497-526; and Gianfausto Rosoli, “Istituti religiosi ed emigrazione in epoca contemporanea,” Studi Emigrazione 28 (June 1992): 287-302.

4. See Peter R. D'Agostino, “Missionaries in Babylon: The Adaptation of Italian Priests to Chicago's Church, 1870-1940” (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1993); Francesconi, Mario, Storia della Congregazione Scalabriniana, 6 vols. (Rome, 1969-82)Google Scholar; and, for a popular history, see Zizzamia, Alba, A Vision Unfolding: The Scalabrinians in North America, 1888-1988 (New York: Center for Migration Studies, 1989).Google Scholar

5. Vecoli, Rudolph J., “Prelates and Peasants: Italian Immigrants and the Catholic Church,” Journal of Social History 2 (Spring 1969): 217-68CrossRefGoogle Scholar; quotes are from 258 and 259. “Cultural resources” include the priests’ consecration of nationalist symbols, rituals, and interpretations of history that legitimatized Fascism within Italian communities. By Fascism, I mean Italian Fascism, not Nazism. Historians of Catholicism have discussed Catholic “antifascism,” but they have generally analyzed only Catholic critiques of Nazism.

6. See Rosoli, “Il movimento,” 510-12; and “Decreto Clericos Pereginos,” Acta Apostolicae Sedis 1 (1909): 692-95, for an elaboration of clerical migration restrictions.

7. On July 7, 1866, Italy withdrew civil recognition of religious corporations, whose goods became State property. See Martina, Giacomo, “La situazione degli istituti religiosi in Italia intorno al 1870,” in Chiesa e religiosità in Italia dopo l'unità (1861-1878). Atti del quarto convegno di storia della chiesa. La Mendola 31 agosto - 5 settembre 1971 (Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 1973), 194–335.Google Scholar Martina estimates that there were 30, 632 male religious in Italy in 1861 and only 7, 191 in 1881. The number of women religious fell from 42, 664 to 27, 172 during the same years. The fate of the “lost” religious is a complex historiographical question. Many became “missionaries” in the Americas. For an example of this type, see D'Agostino, Peter R., “Italian Ethnicity and Religious Priests in the American Church: The Servites, 1870-1940,” Catholic Historical Review 80, no. 4 (October 1994): 714-40.Google Scholar

8. See Schiavo, Giovanni E., Italian-American History, Volume II: The Italian Contribution to the Catholic Church in America (New York: Vigo Press, 1947)Google Scholar; Pellica, Guerrino and Rocca, Giancarlo, eds., Dizionario degli Istituti di Perfezione, 8 vols. (Rome: Paoline, 1974-1988)Google Scholar; Tomasi, Silvano, “L'assistenza religiosa agli italiani in USA e il Prelato per l'Emigrazione Italiana, 1920-1949,” Studi Emigrazione 19 (June 1992): 167-89Google Scholar; and Perotti, Antonio, II Pontificio Collegio per l' Emigrazione Italiana, 1920-1970 (Rome: Pontificio Collegio per l'Emigrazione, 1972).Google Scholar

9. Ignatius Persico, O.F.Mcap., a Neapolitan, was bishop of Savannah from 1870-1874. Charles Greco, the son of Italian immigrants, born in Rodney, Mississippi, was consecrated bishop of Alexandria in 1946. It was not until Sicilian-born Joseph Pernicone was consecrated auxiliary bishop in New York in 1954 that the United States had a hierarch of Italian descent in a see where a substantial Italian ethnic Community lived. See Code, Joseph Bernard, ed., Dictionary of the American Hierarchy (1789-1964) (New York: Joseph F. Wagner, Inc., 1964).Google Scholar

10. See D'Agostino, “Missionaries in Babylon,” 98-155.

11. See Jemolo, Arturo C., Church and State in Italy, 1850-1950, ed. and trans. Moore, David (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1960)Google Scholar; Binchy, D. A., Church and State in Fascist Italy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1941)Google Scholar; and Pollard, John F., The Vatican and Italian Fascism, 1929-32: A Study in Conflict (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12. See Francesconi, Mario, Giovanni Battista Scalabrini: vescovo di Piacenza e degli emigrati (Rome: Città Nuova Editrice, 1985)Google Scholar; and Rosoli, Gianfausto, ed., Scalabrini: tra vecchio e nuovo mondo (Rome: Centro Studi Emigrazione, 1989).Google Scholar

13. Manzotti, La polemica, describes the ideological debates over emigration in modern Italy. See also Perotti, Antonio, “La societa italiana di fronte alle prime migrazioni di massa: Il contributo di Mons. Scalabrini e dei suoi primi collaboratori alla tutela degli emigranti,” Studi Emigrazione 5 (February-June 1968): 1–196 Google Scholar; and Misner, Paul, Social Catholicism in Europe: Front the Onset of Industrialization to the First World War (New York: Crossroad, 1991), 240-46.Google Scholar

14. See Barry, Colman J., O.S.B., The Catholic Church and German Americans (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1953), 131-82Google Scholar; Tomasi, Silvano, “Scalabrini e i vescovi nordamericani,” in Scalabrini, ed. Rosoli, , 459-65Google Scholar; Di-Giovanni, Stephen M., Archbishop Corrigan and the Italian Immigrants (Huntington, Ind.: Our Sunday Visitor, 1994), 66–75 Google Scholar; Francesconi, , Storia, 4:26 Google Scholar; and Edward C. Stibili, “The St. Raphael Society for the Protection of Italian Immigrants, 1887-1923” (Ph.D. diss., University of Notre Dame, 1977).

15. See Francesconi, Storia, 4:22-24. Many of Scalabrini's mature wishes were realized after his death. For example, on August 15, 1912, in Cum omnes catholicos, Pius X (1903-1914) created a section within the Vatican's Consistorial Congregation for emigration of Latin Rite Catholics. In 1966, the Scalabrinians formally acknowledged that their apostolate was for migrants and refugees of different nationalities.

16. Francesconi, , Storia, 1:63–75, 2:3-18Google Scholar; Francesconi, Scalabrini, 1000-1014, quote on 1006.

17. On the liberal and conservative alignments, see Fogarty, The Vatican and the American Hierarchy; and Barry, , The Catholic Church and German Americans, 183-236.Google Scholar

18. Quam Aerumnosa in The Papal Encyclicals: 1878-1903, 5 vols., comp. Claudia Carlen (Wilmington, N.C: McGrath Pub. Co., 1981), 2:191, 192; see also Mormino, Gary Ross, Immigrants on the Hill: Italian-Americans in St. Louis 1882-1982 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986), 150-51Google Scholar; Tomasi, “Scalabrini e i vescovi,” 453-67; and Zizzamia, , A Vision Unfolding, 41–72.Google Scholar These dioceses were under conservative or pastoral bishops: Archbishop Michael A. Corrigan in New York, Bishop Michael Ludden of Syracuse, Archbishop Henry Eider of Cincinnati, Bishop Lawrence S. McMahon of Hartford, Bishop John Hogan of Kansas City, Bishop Matthew Harkins of Providence, and Archbishop James E. Quigley of Chicago. Lack of resources, mismanagement, and corruption inhibited the Society's institutional expansion in several dioceses such as New York and Hartford. See Liptak, Dolores Ann, European Immigrants and the Catholic Church in Connecticut, 1870-1920 (New York: Center for Migration Studies, 1987), 37–42, 96-101.Google Scholar

19. See Garroni, Maria Susanna, “Italian Parishes in a Burgeoning City: Buffalo, 1890-1920,” Studi Emigrazione 28 (September 1991): 351-58Google Scholar; Charles Shanabruch, Chicago's Catholics: The Evolution of an American Identity (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981), 110-12, 122-26; and Kantowicz, Edward R., Corporation Sole: Cardinal Mundelein and Chicago Catholicism (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983).Google Scholar

20. This data was compiled from three sources: the 1892-1940 editions of the annual Official Catholic Directory (New York: P. J. Kennedy); issues of New World from 1892-1940; and Ordination Book at the Archives of the Archdiocese of Chicago (hereafter AAC), Chicago. In 1910, the Pious Society in North America was divided into an Eastern (St. Charles Borromeo) and Western (St. John the Baptist) Province. In 1919, these provinces were combined only to be divided again into two Regions in 1924.

21. See Official Catholic Directory; Archives of the St. John the Baptist Province (hereafter SJB), Oak Park, Illinois. Of the thirty-five priests whose provinces of birth I have discovered, they came from Sicily (3), Apulia (1), Piedmont (5), Umbria (3), Veneto (9), Trentino-Alto Adige (5), Liguria (1), Tuscany (1), and Lombardy (7). There were probably more than sixty-five priests working for the Pious Society, considering the extensive number of wandering “externs” the Pious Society “hired” to work in their churches. The porous boundaries of the Society during this period were unheard of for a proper religious order.

22. See Pitkin, Thomas Monroe and Cordasco, Francesco, The Black Hand: A Charter in Ethnic Crime (Totowa, N.J.: Littlefield, Adams, 1977)Google Scholar; Nelli, Humbert S., The Business of Crime: Italians and Syndicate Crime in the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976), 69–100 Google Scholar; Higham, John, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860-1925 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1988)Google Scholar; and Duggan, Christopher, Fascism and the Mafia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 1–94.Google Scholar The quote is from Ross, Edward Alsworth, “Italians in America,” Century Magazine 88 (July 1914): 444.Google Scholar

23. New World, March 29, 1913, 1; January 19, 1915, 1.

24. Debates about the “Italian Problem” pervaded American Catholic life from 1880 to 1940. See Browne, Henry J., “The Italian Problem’ in the Catholic Church of the United States, 1880-1900,” Historical Records and Studies 35 (1946): 46–72.Google Scholar

25. New World, February 25, 1911, 2.

26. See “Lettere da Chicago di un Missionario Bonomelliano (1912-1913),” Studi Emigrazione 1 (1964-65): 68-74; Vecoli, Rudolph J., “The Italian Immigrants in the United States Labor Movement from 1880 to 1929,” in Gli Italiani Fuori D'Italia, ed. Bezza, Bruno (Milan: F. Angeli, 1983), 257–306 Google Scholar; and Amberg, Mary Agnes, Madonna Center: Pioneer Catholic Social Settlement (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1976).Google Scholar Scalabrini pastors cooperated with the activities sponsored by the Center, but records indicate they did not work in any capacity at the Center. See “The Madonna Center Records, 1865-1964,” Marquette University Archives, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

27. Giacomo Gambera, “Memorie,” Center for Migration Studies (hereafter CMS), New York. His attitudes toward feasts and southern Italian ethnic leaders were shared by other priests and Italian consuls in the United States.

28. Asst. Chancellor to Franch, June 30, 1925, F16, AAC; Annual Parish Reports of Holy Guardian Angel, AAC.

29. See Orsi, Robert A., The Madonna of 115th Street: Faith and Community in Italian Harlem, 1880-1950 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), 60.Google Scholar

30. In this sense, the Scalabrinians and all priests working in ethnic parishes were still ethnic leaders, even if at times ineffectual. They may be classified as what John Higham calls “received leaders” with “the leader deriving from preceding structures of authority a traditional claim upon the group.” Higham, John, “Leadership,” in Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups, ed. Thernstrom, Stephan and others (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1980), 642-47.Google Scholar

31. Gambera to Vicentini, December 15, 1914, CMS, Scalabrini Fathers in North America, Personal Papers, 069. On Italica Gens, see Tomasi, Silvano, “Fede e patria: the ‘Italica Gens’ in the United States and Canada, 1908-1936,” Studi Emigrazione 23 (September 1991): 319-41Google Scholar; on the Pontifical College, see Perotti, Il Pontificio Collegio, 18-24.

32. See Dalpiaz, Gino, “ A Conversation or Meditation on What History Teaches Us Concerning the Reinstatement of the Religious Vows in the Scalabrinian Congregation,” Scalabrinians: Pastoral Experiences & Spirituality 7- 8 (1984): 86 Google Scholar; Silvano M. Tomasi, “The Pastoral Action of Bishop John Baptist Scalabrini and His Missionaries among Immigrants in the Americas, 1887-1987,” 27, citing Chenuil to Prelate for Italian Emigration, CMS Occasional Papers: Pastoral Series, no 2; and Francesconi, Storia, 4:82-83, 127-28.

33. For the 1922 report, see Gino Pucci, Brevi cenni sull'Opera degli Scalabrini nel Nord America (an unpaginated manuscript), Archivio del Prelato per l'Emigrazione Italiana, CMS; for Cimino's comments, see Dalpiaz, “A Conversation,” 98-110, quotes on 100 and 106-8; on the 1924 recommendation, see Francesconi, Storia, 5:6-7, 33.

34. The secretaries of the Consistorial Congregation who ran the Pious Society were Cardinals Gaetano De Lai (1924-1928), Carlo Perosi (1928-1930), Raffaello Carlo Rossi, O.C.D., (1930-1948), and Adeodato G. Piazza, O.C.D., (1948-1951), although it was primarily Cardinal Rossi who governed the Scalabrinians. See note 3.

35. For Cicognani's comments, see Dalpiaz, “A Conversation,” 112, 118, 116; for Rossi's, see Valentino and Vito Bondani, Paternüà di Servizio: Raffaello Carlo Card. Rossi e gli Scalabriniani (Rome: Postulazione Generale, O.C. D., 1981), 57-69, quote on 65; Domenico Mondrone, “A Profile of the Servant of God; Card. Raphael Charles Rossi, O.C.D.,” SJB, Box 31, Folder B-a, D. A.

36. Rossi, Pro-memorial, April 27, 1926, cited in Bondani, Paternità, 73-74, 126-27, 219-26, quote on 74; Francesconi, , Storia, 5:59–81 Google Scholar; D'Agostino, “Missionaries in Babylon,” 231-36.

37. Beniamino Franch, SJB, Box 20. A, Folder 10; Humilitas: The Province of St. John the Baptist Commemorates the Missionary Fathers ofSt. Charles 75th Anniversary (N.p., n.d.), 27-30; Canestrini, Chicago, to Cicognani, October 12, 1924, Archives of the Scalabrini General House, Rome (hereafter GS), IL 60 03; Anonymous, to Franch, Melrose Park, January 25, 1932, SJB, Box 20. A, Folder 10.

38. See Visita Apostolica, September 1924, GS IL 60 03; Franch, Melrose Park, to Cardinal Carlo Perosi, Rome, November 21, 1929, SJB, Box 26, Folder B; Ettore Ansaldi, Melrose Park, to Padre, January 26, 1938, GS, IL 60 03; Dalpiaz, “A Conversation,” 124, cites letter from Ugo Cavicchi.

39. Carlo Fani, Chicago, to De Lai, Rome, December 19, 1924; Fani, Chicago, to Cicognani, Rome, December 19, 1924, GS, IL 47 03. For a parish by parish analysis, see D'Agostino, “Missionaries in Babylon,” 242-60.

40. Perosi, Rome, to Franch, Melrose Park, April 5, 1929; Franch, Melrose Park, to Fani, Chicago, May 9, 1929; Franch, Melrose Park, to Perosi, Rome, May 30, 1929, SJB, Box 30, Folder B-a; Franch, Melrose Park, to Perosi, Rome, July 22, 1929, SJB, Box 30, Folder B-a.

41. See Franch, Melrose Park, to Rossi, Rome, September 29, 1931; Rossi, Rome, to Franch, Melrose Park, November 10, 1931; Rossi, Rome, to Franch, Melrose Park, January 14, 1932; Franch, Melrose Park, to Rossi, Rome, January 16, 1932; Franch, Melrose Park, to Msgr. Paolo Marella, February 16, 1932; Franch, Melrose Park, to Rossi, Rome, May 27, 1932; Eugene N. Malato, Chicago, to Franch, Melrose Park, June 11, 1932, SJB, Box 30, Folder B-a; and New World, March 18, 1932, 9.

42. See Cicognani, to Mundelein, Chicago, June 15, 1933; Chancellor, to Mundelein, Chicago, July 3, 1933; and Mundelein, Chicago, to Cicognani, July 3, 1933, AAC, Chancery Correspondence, Box 19, Folder 8. In several cases, recalled priests called upon the assistance of the apostolic delegate or the Italian consular authorities in their efforts to get money and permission to return to the United States.

43. The Italian case reveals that Archbishop Mundelein's effectiveness as a consolidating bishop was clearly limited and, at times, downright counterproductive. For another qualification of the image of the “consolidating bishop,” see O'Toole, James M., “The Role of Bishops in American Catholic History: Myth and Reality in the Case of Cardinal William O'Connell,” Catholic Historical Review 72 (October 1991): 595–615.Google Scholar

44. Kantowicz, Corporation Sole, 40, 67, makes extensive use of parish records. The extremely low rates of giving among Italians can, in part, be explained by falsification of parish records and unreported money sent to religious corporations in Italy. Parish financial records must be interpreted within the context of pastoral resistance to episcopal centralizing initiatives. Even today, pastors have acknowledged that they manicure financial reports to diocesan offices, not necessarily to hide money for personal gain but to create illusions of need or stability among diocesan staff. See, for example, Reese, Thomas J., S.J., Archbishop: Inside the Power Structure of the American Catholic Church (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1989), 166.Google Scholar

45. See Nelli, Humbert S., The Italians in Chicago, 1880-1930: A Study in Ethnic Mobility (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), 173-74Google Scholar; and Schiavo, Giovanni E., The Italians in Chicago: A Study in Americanization (Chicago: Italian American Publishing Co., 1928), 57–58.Google Scholar

46. The Catholic Church Extension Society, founded by Father Francis C. Kelley in 1905, raised funds nationally for mission territories in the United States. The Extension Society gave O'Brien resources from which he could support Italian religious corporations. See Franch, Melrose Park, to Tirondola, Piacenza, March 6, 1935; Tirondola, Piacenza, to Franch, Melrose Park, March 20, 1935; Rossi, Rome, to Franch, Melrose Park, April 4, 1935; Franch, Melrose Park, to Rossi, Rome, April 12, 1935; Rossi, Rome, to Franch, Melrose Park, May 4, 1935; Pierini, Chicago, to Rossi, Rome, August 15, 1936, SJB, Box 22, Folder E; Franch, Melrose Park, to Fathers in Chicago, April 15, 1936, SJB, Box 22, Folder B; Franch, Melrose Park, to Rossi, Rome, January 14, 1936; Bishop O'Brien, Chicago, to Franch, Melrose Park, September 21, 1936, SJB, Box 22, Folder C; Franch, Melrose Park, to Rossi, Rome, June 8, 1937, SJB, Box 22, Folder E; and Francesconi, Storia, 5:108-11.

47. New World, March 21, 1908, 3; Gambera, “Memorie,” unpaginated. See also Humbert S. Nelli, “The Role of the ‘Colonial’ Press in the Italian-American Community of Chicago” (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1965), 38-41, 84-88; New World, June 25, 1904, 11-12; Maurice R. Marchello Papers, Immigration History Research Center, St. Paul, Minnesota, (hereafter IHRC), Box 4, Folder 33; Bollettino Parrocchiale della Chiesa di Sant'Antonio (August 1936): 6-7; Maurice R. Marchello, “The Need for an ItaloAmerican ‘Risorgimento’ in Chicago Politics,” La Tribuna Italiana Transatlantica, January 27, 1934; and Schiavo, Giovanni E., ed., Italian-American Who's Who, 2 vols. (New York: Vigo Press, 1936), 2:231-32.Google Scholar

48. See Cannistraro and Rosoli, “Fascist Emigration Policy,” 675-92. Enzo Santarelli estimated that, between 1928 and 1929, the Italian govemment opened 70 new consulates and appointed 120 new Fascist career consuls. See Santarelli, Enzo, Storia del movimento del regime fascista, 2 vols. (Rome: Riuniti, 1967), 1:481 Google Scholar; Annuario Diplomatico del Regno D'ltalia, 1937 (Rome: Ministero delgli Affari Esteri, 1937); Cannistraro, and Rosoli, , Emigrazione, Chiesa, e fascismo, 9–43 Google Scholar; Binchy, , Church and State in Fascist Italy, 1–632.Google Scholar

49. De Martino, Washington, D.C., to Mussolini, Rome, May 2, 1926, Archivio Storico Diplomatico, Ministero degli Affari Esteri, Affari Politici (hereafter MAEAP), Rome, b. 1602; see also De Martino, Washington, D.C., to Mussolini, Rome, October 18, 1928, MAEAP, b. 1605; De Martino, Washington, D.C., to Mussolini, Rome, January 16, 1929, MAEAP, b. 1608; De Martino, Washington, D.C., to Dino Grandi, Rome, October 30, 1929, MAEAP, b. 1608.

50. Caetani, Washington, D.C., to Mussolini, Rome, May 25, 1923, MAEAP, b. 1598; see also De Martino, Washington, D.C., to Ministero degli Affari Esteri (hereafter MAE), Maren 2, 1928, MAEAP, b. 1607.

51. Rosso, Washington, D.C., to MAE, April 10, 1935, MAEAP, b. 26.

52. Roberto Morozzo della Rocca, La fede e la guerra: cappellani militari e preti-soldati (1915-1919) (Rome: Studium, 1980), shows how Italian priests who were soldiers and chaplains in World War I gave nationalism a religious significance and were more likely to become Fascist supporters in the 1920's.

53. See Italian Embassy in Washington, D.C., to MAE, February 25, 1941, MAEAP, b. 78, which reprints a February 17, 1941, letter from the Chicago consul general. This letter compares the Scalabrinians favorably to other emigrant priests. On Cardinal Rossi, see Cannistraro, and Rosoli, , Emigrazione Chiesa e Fascismo, 109-46Google Scholar; and Rosoli, Gianfausto, “Santa Sede e propaganda fascista all'estero tra i figli degli emigrati italiani,” Storia Contemporanea 17 (April 1986): 293–315.Google Scholar

54. Diggins, John Patrick, Mussolini and Fascism: The View from America (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1972), 289–302 Google Scholar, quote on 302; Chicago Italian American Chamber of Commerce, November 1935; Foreign Language Newspaper Files, SCUC, Box 22, II.D.10; and Bulletin of the Italo-American National Union, January 1936, SCUC, Box 22, III.H; Our Lady of Pompeii Messenger 2 (January 15, 1936); 2 (February 1, 1936).

55. See De Martino, Washington, D.C., to Consuls, August 8, 1932, MAEAP, b. 13; and Pamphlet, “Serata della Lingua Italiana,” 1939, CMS, 037, Records of Our Lady of Pompeii, New York, Series II, Box 14, Folder 187. Part of the records relating to consular activity in Scalabrini parish schools in Chicago are found in the folders for this New York parish.

56. See Castruccio, to Pastors, Chicago, March 5, 1934, CMS, 037, Series II, Box 15, Folder 186; and Pomante, to Pastors, Chicago, May 22, 1935, CMS, 037, Our Lady of Pompei Records, New York, Series II, Box 15, Folder 186.

57. Language, history, and geography texts can be found at the IHRC; “Program for Course,” 1935, CMS, 037, Records of Our Lady of Pompeii, New York, Series II, Box 15, Folder 187.

58. See Foreign Language Newspaper Files, Box 22, II.B.2.f., Bulletin Italo-American National Union, July 1936, SCUC; on night school, see Bollettino Parrocchiale della Chiesa di Sant'Antonio 2 (October 1, 1935); 3 (June 1936).

59. See D'Agostino, “Missionaries in Babylon,” 368-72. There was not a peep of Catholic antifascism in Chicago's church.

60. Carosi, Chicago, to Suvich, Washington, D.C., October 14, 1936, Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Rome (hereafter ACS), Ministero Cultura Popolare, Nuclei Propaganda Italiana airEstero, b. 451; Fontana, Chicago, to Rosso, Washington, D.C., May 10, 1937, ACS, Ministero Cultura Popolare, Nuclei Propaganda Italiana all'Estero, b. 449; see also New World, December 18, 1931, 17; February 5, 1932, 1.

61. Mundelein, to Castruccio, Chicago, September 5, 1935, AAC, Chancery Correspondence, Box 29, Folder 5; New World, October 9, 1925, 3; Salvemini, , Italian Fascist Activities, 147 Google Scholar; Embassy, Washington, D.C., to MAE, December 30, 1936, MAEAP, b. 32.

62. Fontana quoted by Suvich, Washington, D.C., to MAE, April 14, 1938, MAEAP, b. 52; MAE, to Embassy at Holy See, Rome, January 3, 1939, MAEAP, b. 52. Mundelein’s highly publicized speech of May 18, 1937, in which he called Hitler “an Austrian paperhanger and a poor one at that,” did not grow out of a principled position that democracy was a favorable form of government for all European nations. It was triggered by the Nazi persecution of the church. See Keefe, Thomas M., “The Mundelein Affair: A Reappraisal,” Records of the American Catholic Historical Society 89 (1978): 74–84 Google Scholar; and Kantowicz, , Corporation Sole, 224-25Google Scholar. Neither Keefe nor Kantowicz mention Italian Fascism in their work on Mundelein.

63. Armando Pierini, C.S., interviewed by author, Northlake, Illinois, May 27, 1992.

64. See Francesconi, Storia, vol. 6; and Favero, Luigi, “Statistical Information on the First Part of the Questionnaire on Seminaries and Formation,” Scalabrinians: Pastoral Experiences & Spirituality 7-8 (1984): 166-85.Google Scholar

65. See Zizzamia, , A Vision Unfolding, 99–131.Google Scholar In Chicago, the Scalabrinians have recently withdrawn from several of their historic Italian parishes. This reappropriation of resources and redefinition of the Scalabrini mission has proven painful for Italian Americans. See Ambrosia, John, “The End of an Era: Scalabrinians Part with Two Parishes,” Fra Noi 31 (September 1992): 1, 26.Google Scholar

66. See Tessarolo, Giulivo, ed., The Church's Magna Charta for Migrants (New York: Society of Saint Paul, 1963), 77–78 Google Scholar; and Zizzamia, , A Vision Unfolding, 99–131.Google Scholar

67. See David J. O'Brien, “American Catholic Historiography: A Post-Conciliar Evaluation/’ Church History 37, no. 1 (1968): 89-90.

68. The “Americanist” viewpoint in Catholic social history is most forcefully articulated in Dolan, Jay P., The American Catholic Experience: A History from Colonial Times to the Present (Garden City, N.Y.: Image Books, 1985).Google Scholar

69. See Shanabruch, Chicago's Catholics; Kantowicz, Corporation Sole; Avella, Steven M., This Confident Church: Catholic Leadership and Life in Chicago, 1940-1965 (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992)Google Scholar; and Skerrett, Ellen, Kantowicz, Edward R., and Avella, Steven M., Catholicism, Chicago Style (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1993).Google Scholar On the intellectual dimension, see the classic work by Ellis, John Tracy, “American Catholics and the Intellectual Life,” Thought 30 (1955): 351-88.Google Scholar

70. Vecoli, “Prelates and Peasants.” Male religious corporations have been studied by Kauffman, Christopher J., Tradition and Transformation in Catholic Culture: The Priests of Saint Sulpice in the United States from 1791 to the Present (New York: Macmillan, 1988)Google Scholar; McDonough, Peter, Men Astutely Trained: A History of the Jesuits in the American Century (New York: Free Press, 1992)Google Scholar; and Ochs, Stephen J., Desegregating the Altar: The Josephites and the Struggle for Black Priests, 1871-1960 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1990).Google Scholar