Frontiers of Faith: Bringing Catholicism to the West in the Early Republic

3. "Presumptuous Renegades" Controlling Priests and Congregations

49 chapter 3 “Presumptuous Renegades” Controlling Priests and Congregations Father John Baptist causse wielded substantial authority and fulfilled the many roles expected of a frontier priest. he also used his position for personal gain. in sowing dissension and defying his bishop, the immigrant cleric typified a pattern of behavior that would plague church officials in the early republic. Given the national shortage of trained priests, the church’s inchoate structure, and the overwhelming problems of a rapid expansion in the urban East and especially into the trans-Appalachian West, American congregations attracted a large number of inept, misguided, or combative clergy from the 1780s through the 1820s. these were not necessarily men of heretical bent, but they tested the limits of episcopal authority, encouraged factions within their congregations to cement their own positions, and otherwise caused public controversies that damaged the integrity and reputation of American catholicism. Responding to these problem priests, however, reinforced the central authority of the church and entrenched its traditional European ways. crisis discouraged innovations or adoption of American models of organization. crisis fostered reliance on what was familiar, tested, and conservative. “Presumptuous renegades,” clerical imposters , and deserters temporarily slowed the growth of catholicism, but in curbing these rogue individuals, church officials strengthened hierarchical control. other denominations similarly attempted to 50 Frontiers of Faith centralize authority and limit the latitude of clergymen, both itinerant and settled. like Protestantism in the early republic and the West, American catholicism was undergoing centralization and authoritarian cohesion rather than declension or democratization.1 Arriving in Philadelphia from Mainz, Germany, in 1785, after six years’ experience in a French parish, Father John causse seemed an answer to Bishop carroll’s repeated prayers for help in his burgeoning diocese. Despite causse’s unintelligible English and his reported proclivity for “roving,” carroll sent him to the mission at lancaster, Pennsylvania. the brief stay in Philadelphia, the bishop believed, had helped the immigrant German to become “better settled ” and sufficiently proficient in English to be of service in rural America. Eventually carroll appointed him as assistant at the conewago , Pennsylvania, mission. Yet causse did not stay at his post; there were complaints that he traveled to the western reaches of the state without permission. in the autumn of 1790, causse attended the bedside of a dying priest, Father theodore Brouwers, who had established a parish in Westmoreland county, two hundred miles west of conewago. on hand for a month before Brouwers’s death, causse allegedly refused him the comfort of last rites until the Dutch priest bequeathed his mission and private estate to the priests at conewago. this brazen attempt to commandeer the congregation and its pastor’s lands ran afoul of the local county registrar, whose protests prevented causse from taking complete control of the situation. Still, he did not give up. When Brouwers finally died, causse sent to conewago for horses to transport back east the frontier priest’s belongings. Meanwhile , he remained in the parish until he had persuaded the skeptical parishioners to entrust him to withdraw Brouwers’s savings of $1,146 from a Philadelphia bank. the executors of Brouwers’s will had reason to be suspicious, but causse insisted that he had to go to Philadelphia on other business in any case, and that he would never return to provide the sacraments if they would not trust him. causse received their authority, returned east to conewago to spend the winter, and then withdrew the money in Philadelphia in the spring of 1791. tempted by the sudden access to cash, causse spent the money on himself—oddly enough, to purchase and manage a traveling theatrical production called “Jerusalem.” For abandoning his duties, misappropriating parish funds, prac- “Presumptuous Renegades” 51 ticing deceit, and humiliating the church in the public eye, carroll suspended causse from exercising any sacerdotal functions. causse’s response was to sow dissension among his fellow disgruntled German catholics in Baltimore, proceeding almost “to set up a schismatical church, using the pretence that the Germans” were being neglected by the Anglo-American episcopacy. in early 1792, when causse began telling his coconspirators he belonged to a religious order and “did not need episcopal authorization to act as a pastor of souls,” carroll finally excommunicated the belligerent man.2 A year later the somewhat humbled priest wrote to carroll asking for forgiveness: “if after absolution you would allow me to go behind in the Back parts of the...