Dialogue on the Frontier: Catholic and Protestant Relations 1793-1883 (review)

The Kent State University Press, following its superb tradition of publishing significant works on various aspects of Ohio history, has recently issued Margaret DePalma's doctoral dissertation on Catholic and Protestant relations in Ohio. DePalma places the frontier of the United States in Kentucky and Ohio, where it certainly was located at the beginning of the period covered in this study.

The first and introductory chapter focuses on the tenure of John Carroll as the first bishop of Baltimore and gives a good sense of the strength of anti-Catholicism in the United States. Since DePalma does not offer a rationale for this virulent anti-Catholicism, she seems to imply that it was simply ignorant and irrational bigotry. It might have been helpful to note that its roots go back to 1570, when Pius V excommunicated Queen Elizabeth I of England and attempted to depose her by releasing all of her subjects from obedience to her. Since Pius V had, in effect, decreed that it was no longer possible to be a faithful subject both of the queen and of the pope, every Roman Catholic in England was ipso facto suspected of treasonable tendencies. That suspicion was exported to the English colonies in America and became an enduring ingredient of American life.

The second chapter focuses on the twenty-six years which Stephen Theodore Badin, the first priest ordained in the United States, spent as a missionary in Kentucky. Badin's generally courteous contacts with Protestants are detailed. In fact, the curmudgeonly and somewhat Jansenistic priest often seemed to get along with Protestants better than he did with the Catholic laity. In a letter to John Carroll about the help he had received from some Protestants toward building a church, he said: "If all the Catholics are not my friends, I am amply compensated by the friendship of many non-Catholics of respectability."

The third chapter focuses on the ten-year tenure of Edward Dominic Fenwick as the first bishop of Cincinnati. Fenwick met non-Catholics as equals and refrained from language that might have given offense. His gentle and kind personality earned him the respect and even the admiration of many Protestants.

And the final three chapters focus on the fifty-year tenure of John Baptist Purcell as the second bishop and the first archbishop of Cincinnati. A somewhat mercurial Irishman, Purcell was not quite as gentle as Fenwick, but also nowhere near as curmudgeonly as Badin. During his tenure, the Catholic Church in Ohio grew rapidly, due primarily to the immigration of many Catholics from Europe into Ohio. The use of the Bible in the public schools and the allocation of tax moneys paid by Catholics to support the largely Protestant public schools were frequent subjects of vigorous debate. Eventually the Catholic Church in Ohio developed its own school system and went its separate way.

Although DePalma seems to feel that the Protestant-Catholic dialogue on the frontier had a unique cast, her material actually shows that it was quite similar to the dialogue in other parts of the country. A translation of her "dissertationese" into a more user-friendly style would have made her work more accessible to a larger audience. Her bibliography shows some confusion about the distinction between primary sources and secondary sources. (Two of this reviewer's articles are listed as primary sources!) But her work is well researched and provides a wealth of useful information about Catholic-Protestant relations on the early frontier.