THE SECOND FOUNDER

Cardinal Giovanni Maria Mastai Ferretti took the name of Pius IX upon his election as Pope on June 16, 1846. Until his death in 1878, he guided the Catholic Church during one of the most turbulent periods of European history. Among his many accomplishments was the founding of the Pontifical North American College, which opened in 1859. The idea for a national seminary to train Americans in Rome first came from Archbishop Gaetano Bedini following his visit to the United States in 1853. The Catholic Church in America impressed the Vatican visitor – at least he considered the laity impressive. His report about some of the clergy was less than complimentary. He was shocked at the enormous diocesan and parochial debts, and what he termed “too much selfishness and too great a spirit of independence” among the priests. The debts were the natural result of the poverty of American Catholics, the majority having been European immigrants who arrived in the United States impoverished. The poor quality of some priests was caused by much the same reason: most were themselves penniless immigrants, sometimes poorly educated, and a few came to America seeking to escape their stern bishops or the law. A better crop of priests was required to serve the growing Church in America, and Bedini knew how to provide them. The Archbishop made two recommendations upon his return to Rome: that diplomatic relations between the Holy See and the United States be established; and that an American seminary be founded in the Eternal City. The establishment of a seminary for Americans was mentioned by the Pope himself, soon after Bedini’s return. On New Year’s Day, 1855, he wrote John Hughes, Archbishop of New York: In order that you may be able to provide more easily for the needs of your dioceses, and have diligent and industrious laborers to assist you in cultivating the vineyard of the Lord, We strongly desire. . . that after mutual consultation and collaboration [among the American bishops], you should set up, here in this venerable City of Ours, your own College for clerics from your own nation. For you, in your wisdom, are well aware what great advantages would accrue to your dioceses from such an institution. On July 19, 1858, the Church’s missionary authority, the Congregation de Propaganda Fide, while discussing the decisions of the Ninth Provincial Council of Baltimore, considered Bedini’s proposal for an American seminary, writing in its report: One of the greatest works of Catholic wisdom of the successors of Saint Peter is the foundation in Rome of many Pontifical colleges which were built here and still prosper in goodly number with the most noble end of welcoming young men from diverse nations more or less infected with error, and here instructing them in true doctrine, forming in them all virtues, then sending them as priests to their countries to work all their lives to preserve Catholics in the faith and to lead back those in error to the ways of truth and justice. Another reason for the establishment of an American College in Rome was the concern Propaganda had about the unity of the American bishops among themselves and with the Holy See. A national college in Rome could provide one more link between the Successor of Saint Peter in Rome and the successors of the apostles in the United States. The Pope, however, had greater concerns about the well-being of the Universal Church, and greater confidence in the Americans than did either Bedini or the Propaganda officials. He saw the United States of America as a land of great promise, in which the ancient Catholic Church could flourish. And it was the Church in America that the Pope was betting on for the future of the Universal Church. The Church in Europe had been under attack for centuries, and nearly destroyed by various kings, governments and revolutions. It was to America, whose first President, George Washington, was one of Pius’ heroes, in which the Church could find her sea legs once again and preach the Gospel freely, even as she was being attacked throughout Europe. In America, the land of immigrants, a standardized Roman training of her priests would prove useful in forming a unified Catholic Church to meet the challenges of the future.