The Ordeal of Abram J. Ryan, 1860-63

Abram J. Ryan was a young priest of the Congregation of the Mission during the Union's crisis of early 1861. His thoughts mirrored the struggle of Missouri, his home state, as it sought to negotiate its way through the ordeal. When war came, Ryan poetically expressed his sympathy for the Southern cause. Within fifteen months, he had left the Vincentians for an Illinois parish. Although tradition attributes his departure to his Southern views, recent biographers have identified a problem with authority. Vincentian superiors considered Ryan and his classmates troublesome because of their sense of liberty and independence that caused a disregard of Vincentian rules. In December 1863, Ryan departed his parish under mysterious circumstances. Some accounts alleged his involvement with a woman, while others claimed that the affair was manufactured to discredit him. Vincentian authorities put credence in Ryan's "scandalous fall," which was one of similar lapses by his classmates.