A letter writer in this week’s Tablet, newspaper of the Brooklyn-Queens diocese, makes the point that while much was made of Pope John Paul II’s Polish heritage when he visited New York, not as much is being said about Benedict XVI’s German background. "Unfortunately, since the German community has not been contacted, the pope’s Bavarian background will go unnoticed," wrote Debbie Krauland of Flushing.Pope Benedict will visit St. Joseph’s Parish in Manhattan’s Yorkville section, which was founded by German immigrants and still has a ministry to German-Americans. He’ll take part in an ecumenical prayer service there but, as The Associated Press reported, just 10 parishioners were invited, leading to disappointment.
The role of German immigrants in shaping the Catholic Church in New York is often overlooked, and German-American parades and other social activities get scant news coverage. With that in mind, here is some background leading up to the first visit of a German-born pope to the United States, pieced together from history books, news dispatches, 19th-century news accounts and St. Joseph Parish’s Web site.
By the 1830s, tens of thousands of German immigrants had settled in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, where they eventually established Most Holy Redeemer Parish on Third Street. Like the Irish, who also lived in crowded tenements in the same area, they were extremely poor. They came, as a history of St. Joseph's Parish puts it, to "escape civil unrest, persecution and the repeated failure of the potato crop."
According to historian Jay P. Dolan, a parish was especially vital to the German immigrants, whose social lives turned around voluntary associations based in the church. It was also extremely important to the German Catholics to worship in their own language, rather than English, and they battled at times with church officials for that right.
Helped along by elevated train lines on Second and Third avenues, German immigrants moved on up to Yorkville and, after overflowing one parish, got the archdiocese to open a new one, St. Joseph’s, originally an orphanage established by Most Holy Redeemer. The church opened in 1874, and then a larger one was completed in 1895, the current structure on East 87th Street.
Dolan writes that while the Irish immigrants in New York loved simplicity in their worship, the Germans took pleasure in pomp and organ music, beautiful churches with bell towers, processions and celebrations of feast days.
According to the historian Ronald H. Bayor, there was a major rivalry during the 19th century between German and Irish immigrants for control of the Catholic Church, which the Irish led. It came to a head in the 1890s over "Cahenslyism," a campaign spearheaded by Peter Paul Cahensly to create separate parishes and schools for German-Americans. Cahensly also contended that each nationality should have its own priests and bishops.
Cahenslyism sparked a controversy over whether immigrants should assimilate or retain their culture. Opponents said it opened the American church to charges that it was controlled by foreign powers. Supporters said the church was losing European immigrants in droves because it wasn't attuned to their culture.
Ultimately, with some prodding from Rome, U.S. church leaders rejected Cahenslyism by deciding it was acceptable for Catholics to attend public schools, so long as the children got religious instruction at church or home. (Before that, it was common for priests to preach that it was a mortal sin to send Catholic children to public schools.)
Nonetheless, German-Americans had an important role in shaping the Catholic Church in America and in setting the table for a debate about assimilation that is still relevant as a new generation of immigrants arrives.
So the German birthday song children will sing to the Bavarian-born pope in his visit to New York has been a long time coming.
Photo: St. Joseph's Church in Yorkville.
