Transatlantic Anti-Catholicism

Transcription

1 Transatlantic Anti-Catholicism

2 PALGRAVE MACMILLAN TRANSNATIONAL HISTORY SERIES Akira Iriye (Harvard University) and Rana Mitter (University of Oxford) Series Editors This distinguished series seeks to: develop scholarship on the transnational connections of societies and peoples in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; provide a forum in which work on transnational history from different periods, subjects, and regions of the world can be brought together in fruitful connection; and explore the theoretical and methodological links between transnational and other related approaches such as comparative history and world history. Editorial board: Thomas Bender University Professor of the Humanities, Professor of History, and Director of the International Center for Advanced Studies, New York University Jane Carruthers Professor of History, University of South Africa Mariano Plotkin Professor, Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero, Buenos Aires, and member of the National Council of Scientific and Technological Research, Argentina Pierre- Yves Saunier Researcher at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France Ian Tyrrell Professor of History, University of New South Wales Published by Palgrave Macmillan: THE NATION, PSYCHOLOGY AND INTERNATIONAL POLITICS, By Glenda Sluga COMPETING VISIONS OF WORLD ORDER: GLOBAL MOMENTS AND MOVEMENTS, 1880s 1930s Edited by Sebastian Conrad and Dominic Sachsenmaier PAN-ASIANISM AND JAPAN S WAR, By Eri Hotta WOMEN, GENDER, AND POSTWAR RECONCILIATION BETWEEN NATIONS By Erika Kuhlman 1968 IN EUROPE: A HISTORY OF PROTEST AND ACTIVISM, Edited by Martin Klimke and Joachim Scharloth THE CHINESE IN BRITAIN, 1800 PRESENT: ECONOMY, TRANSNATIONALISM, IDENTITY By Gregor Benton and Terence Gomez THE IDEA OF HUMANITY IN A GLOBAL ERA Bruce Mazlish TRANSATLANTIC ANTI-CATHOLICISM: FRANCE AND THE UNITED STATES IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY By Timothy Verhoeven TELEGRAPHIC IMPERIALISM: CRISIS AND PANIC IN THE INDIAN EMPIRE, C D. K. Lahiri-Choudhury (forthcoming) EUROPEAN HISTORY IN AN INTERCONNECTED WORLD By Matthias Middell, Michael Geyer, and Michel Espagne (forthcoming) COSMOPOLITAN THOUGHT ZONES: INTELLECTUAL EXCHANGE BETWEEN SOUTH ASIA AND EUROPE, Edited by Kris Manjapra and Sugata Bose (forthcoming) IRISH TERRORISM IN THE ATLANTIC COMMUNITY, By Jonathan Gantt (forthcoming)

3 Transatlantic Anti-Catholicism France and the United States in the Nineteenth Century Timothy Verhoeven

4 TRANSATLANTIC ANTI-CATHOLICISM Copyright Timothy Verhoeven, Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition All rights reserved. First published in 2010 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN in the United States a division of St. Martin s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number , of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN ISBN (ebook) DOI / Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress. A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: May

5 Contents Series Editors Foreword Acknowledgments vii ix Introduction: Father Hyacinthe in America 1 1 The Transatlantic Case against Catholicism 19 2 Catholicism, Slavery, and the Family The Mortara Affair 57 3 Natural or Unnatural? Doctors and the Vow of Celibacy 75 4 Neither Male nor Female The Jesuit as Androgyne The Captivity of Sister Barbara Ubryk 129 Conclusion: Father Hyacinthe and the Vatican Council 159 Notes 177 Selected Bibliography 211 Index 225 v

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7 Series Editors Foreword One of the pleasures of studying transnational history is the discovery of manifold, yet hitherto little-suspected, connections across national boundaries. Timothy Verhoeven s research on nineteenthcentury anti-catholicism has yielded ample evidence to show constant engagements and mutual influences among American and French opponents of the Catholic Church. As his book notes, anti-catholicism has many roots, but the negative responses to the church in the United States and France in the nineteenth century suggests some shared political and intellectual foundations. In both, the principle of separation of church and state was emphasized as a way to ensure national independence and to reduce, if not eliminate altogether, influences of potentially subversive religious organizations, especially the Catholic Church. In particular, the church s rule of celibacy was condemned as scientifically unsound, harmful to both individuals and to society, and even conducive to national decay. Such an argument was buttressed by medical research that seemed to point to dire consequences of enforced sexual abstention. That two countries as different in many ways as the United States and France should have shared such opinions and movements points to the existence of strong Transatlantic connections. Historians have mostly examined these connections in relation to reform movements such as those that aimed at the emancipation of slaves, the disenfranchisement of women, or world peace. In the Palgrave Macmillan Transnational History Series, we have published a study of Irish terrorism as a transnational movement, spreading from Ireland to continental Europe and to North America, but Verhoeven s book offers the first scholarly treatment of anti-catholic ideas and activities as a Transatlantic phenomenon. Among the fascinating details offered by the book is its discussion of the question of celibacy. In a sense, there was a transnational discourse on sexuality in which there was constructed a sharp distinction between male and female beings, but in which their sexual relations (normally as married couples) were considered normal, even normative. The Catholic vow of celibacy, therefore, was considered by its opponents unnatural and subversive of both natural order and social order. vii

8 viii Series Editors Foreword The nineteenth century is typically put in the context of the birth of the modern nation state, a phenomenon that suggests bounded national identities and interests. Yet the borders were never exclusionary, and there was virtually complete freedom of movement of ideas, particularly those that contributed to strengthening transnational connections. At the same time, however, anti-catholicism was also anti-universalism in that the Catholic Church s authority extended throughout the world. As the author demonstrates, the Catholics, especially Jesuits, were seen by their opponents as enemies to the independent nation. The Jesuit priest was frequently depicted not only as straddling the divide between man and woman, but also as existing in the fringes of the national community, as someone who did not fit into the emerging modern state, or, even worse, as an agitator among the mobs who were potentially subversive of the state. Thus anti-catholicism had both transnational and national undertones. To understand the complex engagement between transnationalism and nationalism is another objective of transnational history, and this book serves that objective admirably. AKIRA IRIYE RANA MITTER

9 Acknowledgments Many people contributed to the research and writing of this book. I would first like to thank Dr. David Goodman and Professor Charles Sowerwine at the University of Melbourne, Australia, for their advice and expertise in the drafting of the book. Earlier versions of chapters were read by Dr. Susan Foley and Emeritus Professor Colin Nettelbeck, and both made important contributions. An Embassy of France in Australia travelling fellowship awarded by the Australian Academy of the Humanities allowed important archival work to be carried out in France and in Switzerland. I was also the fortunate recipient of a short-term fellowship from the Library Company in Philadelphia, and wish to express my gratitude to all the staff for their ideas and assistance. The Library Company s rich collection of medical textbooks was a particularly valuable resource. My parents, Martin and Wallis, have been a welcome and ongoing source of support. I would also like to thank my wife, Jana, for her unstinting enthusiasm and encouragement, as well as her great help in producing the final version of the manuscript. Finally I dedicate this book to Mark and Luise who, I hope, will enjoy reading it one day. ix