CCHA, Historical Studies, 54 (1987), 69-91
The Catholic ‘Restoration’: Pope Pius X,
Archbishop Denis O’Connor
and Popular Catholicism in Toronto
1899-19081
by Mark G. MCGOWAN
University of
Toronto
The first decade of
the twentieth century was a stormy one for the Roman Catholic Church. The
intervening years between the papal denunciation of the “Americanist Heresy”,
in 1899, and the condemnation of Modernism, in 1907, were among the most
controversial in the history of the Church. While the hierarchy barricaded the
Church against its perennial enemies – rationalism, secularism and
anti-clericalism – it battled internal dissent from theological liberals and
cultural accommodationists. In 1899, Leo XIII’s encyclical Testem Benevolentiae
denounced “Americanists” who praised activist individualism and sought compromises
between Catholicism and American society.2 Less than a decade later,
Pope Pius X’s encyclical, Pascendi Gregis, condemned Modernism – a
diverse collection of theological explorations espousing the immanence of God,
“Higher” Biblical criticism, the development of dogma, and the relativity of
divine revelation.3 Combined, these heresies engendered one of the
most vigorous periods of moral and disciplinary consolidation in the Church
since the Council of Trent.
In the rapidly changing world of the
nineteenth century, Popes Pius IX and Leo XIII had sought to regenerate
Catholicism, providing stability and security through policies of Roman
centralization.4 In 1903, however, Pope St. Pius X initiated a
rigorous programme that would eclipse those of his predecessors. His motto, “To
Restore all Things in Christ” – Instaurare Omnia in Christo – was an
appropriate epithet for his efforts to consolidate the orthopraxy and orthodoxy
of the Church by reaffirming doctrinal uniformity, liturgical purity, and
magisterial authority. This “Catholic restoration” tackled such issues as the
reform of the liturgy, the recodification of canon law, Ne Temere prohibitions on
mixed marriages, the pre-eminence of scholastic theology and the eradication
of theological “Modernism”.5 Throughout, Pius hoped to bind the laity
closer to the church, and strengthen both the uniformity of belief and the
purity of pious practices.6
At first glance the activities of the Papal
curia seem remote from those of the everyday religious life in the Archdiocese
of Toronto, at the turn of the century. Toronto’s Catholics considered Testem
Benevolentiae an American problem, if one at all, and they regarded Modernism
as more an evil facing Canadian Protestants than a threat to Canadian
Catholicism. In fact, editors in the Catholic press were hard-pressed to
identify any Canadian Modernists.7 While the “grand” heresies
made for interesting editorializing, it was the Roman legislative actions and
their accompanying spirit of conservatism that had the most significant impact
on Toronto’s Catholics. Denis O’Connor, the Archbishop of Toronto from 1899 to
1908, rigorously applied the disciplinary and liturgical regulations of Leo
XIII and Pius X, creating a period of tension and dissent in Toronto’s Catholic
community. O’Connor was unconditional in his obedience to magisterial authority
especially regarding religious discipline and practice, claiming that one’s
punctilious adherence to Church law assured one’s reception of God’s grace. For
Europeans, the Catholic restoration was seen primarily in terms of orthodoxy,
whereas, in Toronto, which had no visible heretics, the restoration was a
matter of orthopraxy – right practice.
This paper explores two critical features
of the period: the nature of Denis O’Connor’s programme of Catholic
regeneration in Toronto, and the disinclination of many Catholics to embrace
the Archbishop’s regimen. An examination of clerical formation, liturgical
regulation, social prohibitions and marital practices reveals most clearly the
limited success of the Catholic restoration in Toronto. This was due in large
part to the reluctance of the clergy and laity to abandon their familiar
liturgical and social practices, and their reticence to isolate themselves,
socially, from greater participation in the non-Catholic world around them. As
English-speaking Catholics in Toronto became more confident of their active
role in Canadian society and developed a unique sense of their Canadian
identity, the Catholic isolationism suggested by O’Connor and Pius X became
less attractive to them.
I
Denis O’Connor was born February 26, 1841,
the eldest child of a “a well-to-do farmer” from Pickering Township, Ontario.8 At the age of
twelve he entered St. Michael’s College in Toronto, and in 1858 he numbered
among its first graduates. The following year he began his studies for the
priesthood at St. Basil’s Novitiate, after which he completed his training at
the College of Annonay and the College of Feyzin, two Basilian schools in
France. Despite a near-fatal bout with tuberculosis which necessitated his
return to Toronto, he took his final vows for the Basilian order and was
ordained a priest in 1863. In 1870, at age twenty-nine he was appointed rector
of Assumption College, a small struggling Basilian school in Sandwich, Ontario.
Here he earned a reputation as a strict disciplinarian, moral rigorist, and
efficient administrator.9 His notable successes at Assumption prompted
his elevation to the episcopal see of London in 1890.
After the death of Archbishop John Walsh,
in 1899, O’Connor was translated from London to the Archdiocese of Toronto. The
fact that O’Connor was the city’s first Ontario-born Catholic bishop was
indicative of the growing movement among Canadian clergy to nominate Canadian-bom
men to the vacant sees in Canada. Both clergy and laity had expressed
hostility to the continued appointment of Irishmen who had little knowledge of
Canadian culture and local traditions.10 Ironically,
O’Connor was less in touch with the community than his two Irish predecessors,
the popular John Walsh and the vociferous J.J. Lynch. Unlike them, O’Connor
shunned publicity, photographs, and social functions, claiming such things were
incompatible with Christian humility.11 In his obituary
the Catholic Register commented: “There was no smile of welcome. The
whole attitude was that of a person weighted down with a sense of
responsibility, unsought and somewhat dreaded.”12 In fact, O’Connor
had requested that he not be sent to Toronto, but Rome rejected his plea to
stay in London.13
The Catholic community in Toronto that
greeted O’Connor was rapidly changing, ethnically, occupationally, socially
and culturally. Immigration to central Canada was increasing and new arrivals
of eastern and southern European Catholics were pushing the Anglo-Celts out of
their traditional neighbourhoods south of Queen Street. Occupationally,
Catholics were becoming more upwardly mobile, moving out of non- and
semi-skilled jobs that had long been stereotypically theirs. Old associations,
Irish and nationalistic in their orientation, were dying, and new North
American organizations, both religious and patriotic, were on the rise. Even
the sectarian agitation of the Orange Lodge and the Protestant Protective
Association in the 1890s had left Toronto’s Catholics relatively unscathed. In
short, the new Canadian-born Bishop was approaching a community in transition,
gradually embracing the social and economic realities of Canadian society.
At his installation Denis O’Connor set the
tone of his episcopate and reflected a worldwide movement of Catholic
restoration:
The doctrine of the
word, my dear brethren, embraces not simply what we call faith, not merely the
articles of faith, but all those regulations in the Church which maintain its
faith in its freshness and in all its purity. The discipline of the Church my
dear brethren, is an essential part of her teaching, as well as the articles
of faith; and just as a strict compliance with the teaching of Jesus Christ
brings the graces of God upon those who believe, so also ... those who observe
these disciplines of the Church, her regulations in all things, obtain ...
those blessings ...14
O’Connor’s message to the people of his new
diocese was clear: the laws of the Church would be applied scrupulously and he
was counting on the full co-operation of the clergy and the laity to achieve
this objective.
Having recovered from a debilitating
illness shortly after his installation,15 O’Connor set his
agenda for regenerating the Archdiocese. In March 1900 he issued “Regulations
to be Observed to Ensure Uniformity and Good Order.” The circular contained
thirty-four regulations covering four broad areas that would become the
principal battlefields of his episcopate: clerical discipline, liturgical
uniformity, effective catechesis, and adherence to Church law by the laity in
sacramental and social matters. His message to Catholics was unequivocal:
“Exemptions from Church Laws are to be much discouraged.”16 '6 His
programme concentrated on strengthening existing structures; no plans were
made to expand the Church to accommodate a growing Catholic population.17
Immediately after his installation,
O’Connor implemented a programme to educate, improve discipline and enforce his
control over Toronto’s clergy. The Archdiocese had no active seminary, and as a
result most candidates for the priesthood were trained by the Sulpicians at the
Grand Seminaire in Montreal. Although O’Connor was a firm believer in the
rigorous training offered there, he found that younger priests tended to become
undisciplined after leaving the seminary.18 Subsequently, he
instituted biannual meetings of the diocesan clergy, at which all priests ordained
less than four years would be examined on all aspects of their vocation. The
idea was by no means unique; O’Connor was influenced by his own Basilian
training and the recommendations of the Council of Toronto, in 1875.19 In fact,
Archbishop Lynch had attempted to institute a similar programme in 1882, but it
abruptly failed within six months.20
On November 28, 1899, the first examination
of priests was held at the Cathedral. At that time, the curates were required
to present a written sermon on a pre-arranged topic, and then attempt written
and oral examinations on scripture, dogmatic theology, moral theology, church
history, canon law, catechism, and liturgy.21 Senior clergy
presided over each session and junior clergy – ordained more than four years
but less than eight – served as auxiliary examiners. The final evaluations,
however, were made by the more experienced priests, a professional theologian
and O’Connor himself.
The blunt and frequently humiliating
criticisms of the examiners alienated many of the younger priests from
O’Connor. In 1904, for example, the prepared sermons on “The Immaculate
Conception” exposed the weaknesses of the younger clergy in dogmatic theology,
organization and defining terminology. Typically, examiners chastised one
fellow for excessive verbosity: “This sermon covers ten and a half pages before
we reach the Immaculate Conception. Such a portico would lead one to look for
an edifice of far vaster proportions than the one we have here.”22 Results on some
scripture exams were worse; in 1902 the class average was a meagre 61.1 %.23 At other times,
however, the priests proved equal to the task; in 1903, the candidates shone in
Church history, scripture and sermons.24
The whole exercise is illustrative of the manner
in which O’Connor played his accustomed role of schoolmaster while serving as
Archbishop. The priests involved left no record describing their reaction to
this experience, but given the letters of O’Connor himself, the examinations
did not reverse his growing unpopularity among the clergy. In a letter to Cardinal
Gotti, Prefect of the Propaganda Fide, he wrote: “I am not well regarded by one
third of the clergy, and the others are not all zealous friends.”25
O'Connor’s rigor led to more noticeable fissures
with his priests. In 1903, for example, Father Lancelot Minehan of St. Peter’s
Parish mobilized parishioners to protest O'Connor’s failure to provide a
salary for Minehan’s brother, the “alleged” assistant pastor. Finally the
Apostolic Delegate resolved the matter, reprimanding the Minehans for
“unpriestly conduct,” and ordering O’Connor to pay the salary.26 Similar disagreements
erupted between O’Connor and other priests for their support of parish socials
and leniency in mixed marriages, two practices which O’Connor vehemently
opposed .27 A debate with Father John Fraser over his promotion of weekly reception
of the Eucharist proved embarrassing for the Archbishop, who preached monthly
Communion. Ironically, Pius X later endorsed a position going beyond that of
Fraser and Father Hugh Canning, the Diocesan director of Religious Education,
by recommending daily communion, thus leaving O’Connor disconcerted in his
position.28
A substantial gulf existed between O’Connor
and much of the clergy, primarily due to the fact that many of the priests were
products of a changing Catholic environment in North America. Unlike O’Connor,
who was raised and educated in the closed world of French Basilian seminaries,
which were permeated with suspicion of the modem world and fierce
ultramontanism,29 Toronto’s priests were more likely to be North American by birth and
Canadian-trained. In 1890 well over half of the diocesan priests were
foreign-bom, mostly Irish, and only one in ten was from the Toronto area. During
the O’Connor years the number of Canadian-born priests equalled the Irish-born,
and by 1910 had surpassed them. Moreover, by that point over forty per cent of
the serving clergy were born in the archdiocese.30 This indigenous
clergy had been raised and educated as a minority in a Protestant province, and
as such realized that compromise was needed in order to ensure the survival of
the Catholic minority. Doctrinaire stances on marital, social, and religious
practices would only isolate and potentially damage the Catholic community.
Such a position was foreign to O’Connor's isolationist stance. Perhaps this
rugged autonomy, more than anything else, soured his relations with many of his
fellow priests.
II
Despite recurring friction with the clergy,
O’Connor strictly applied all liturgical directives from Rome, believing that
impurities in the liturgy were an affront to God. In 1895, for example, the
Congregation on Sacred Rites had issued a decree to the Italian bishops,
calling for the elimination of musical performances which were inappropriate to
the liturgy.31 The decree, however, had little effect on liturgies outside of Europe.
In 1903, however, one of Pius X’s first acts as pope was to issue a Motu Proprio standardizing
liturgical music throughout the Church by reinstating Gregorian chant and
prohibiting what were considered profane classical compositions. Other
interdictions were placed on performances by orchestras and most soloists, and
on singing in the vernacular. In addition, women were banned from choirs and
other musical roles on grounds that singers held a real liturgical office and
“women, as being incapable of exercising such office, cannot be admitted to
any part of the choir or of the musical chapel.”32
The musical traditions of the Archdiocese
of Toronto were antithetical to the Motu Proprio. Compositions by Mozart, Haydn,
Weber, Gounod, Dvorak, Farmer and Millard were used frequently in all the
city’s Catholic churches. On feast days, the Catholic press praised the
“splendour” and “pomp and ceremony” of masses celebrated with a full orchestra
and a mixed choir.33 Before Christmas, 1895, for example, notices
of all masses appeared in the Catholic Register, suggesting a
competition for the ears of local parishioners. The two major rivals seemed to
be Our Lady of Lourdes Church with Glionna’s Orchestra playing Dvorak’s Mass,
and St. Paul’s Parish, featuring the Neopolitana Orchestra and Farmer’s Mass in
B Flat.34 In addition to feast days, popular music was included frequently in
weekly and special liturgies. A wedding celebrated at Our Lady of Lourdes, for
instance, included a soloist’s rendition of the popular tune, “A Dream In
Paradise.”35 The fact that Gregorian chant was used regularly in only three
parishes, prior to 1903, is evidence of the strength of popular music in the
diocese.36
Eager to purify the sacred liturgy and obey
the magisterium, O’Connor lost little time in applying the new regulations to
the letter. In 1904 he issued a circular demanding that: “All profane music, particularly
if it savors of theatrical motives, variations and reminiscences, is absolutely
forbidden.37 Press reports of musical liturgies abruptly stopped as the city’s
churches struggled to conform to the new rules. In addition, women were forced
from all choirs. At St. Mary’s, for example, the children’s choir that had won
the praise of the Register the previous Christmas was purged of its girls.38 At St. Basil’s,
once considered to have the finest liturgical celebrations in the city, the
choir was reduced to half its strength when the women were forced to leave.39
O’Connor's actions won immediate praise
from his fellow bishops and an obedient Catholic press. Moreover, Toronto,
along with Cincinnati, Newport and New York, was one of the few dioceses in North
America to strictly apply Pius’s directives.40 In 1904, the
Archbishop built on his growing reputation by creating the Choral and Athletic
Society at the Cathedral, and hiring a music director to teach and conduct
Gregorian chant. Local newspapers which had described some liturgical music as
“flippant” and “a medley of sounds and disjointed words without sense and
without reverence,” lauded O’Connor’s scrupulosity.41 By 1908, the Catholic
Register beamed, “Toronto is par excellence the musical centre of Canada on
general claims.”42
The restoration of Gregorian chant,
however, met with some resistance at the parish level. In 1908, a journalist
admitted that, “the period of transition is not yet passed, and in a few
instances the initial stage of change is not yet attained.”43 At Easter in 1905,
for example, St. Mary’s Parish continued its use of the forbidden music,
featuring compositions by Mercadante and Lembiilotte.44 Mary Hoskin, in
her History of St. Basil’s Parish, remarks that the loss of women from
the choirs was lamented by both the choir leaders and the congregation.45 Those lay persons
who actively resisted the liturgical changes by writing letters of protest to
local Catholic newspapers, however, became recipients of harsh condemnation
from editors sympathetic to the Motu Proprio.46
In the long-term, O’Connor's attempt to
standardize liturgical music to the letter of the Motu Proprio failed. When
O’Connor resigned the see in 1908, there was no uniformity; some parishes used
the Gregorian exclusively, others sought a mixture between the plainchant and
popular compositions. By 1909, Archbishop McEvay witnessed such a mixture at
the Cathedral. Other parishes, such as St. Vincent de Paul’s in Parkdale,
continued to use the “prohibited” masses by Mozart.47 Finally, in 1909,
the American hierarchy convinced the Vatican to permit female participation in
liturgical music, on condition that they be separate from the men and
positioned well away from the altar.48
The most cutting indictment of failure came
in a letter addressed to Archbishop Neil McNeil in 1919, complaining of the
lack of congregational singing in the city parishes:
... it makes the
evening service more attractive especially to non-catholics [sic] in
some parishes priests take no interest in it whatever, hymn cards are not given
out, and in St. Francis and some other parishes it has never been started; Pope
Pius X [sic] reforms in church music are a dead letter in this city; we
usually have a very poor performance of high mass by a lot of untrained
usually schreechy [sic] sopranos or mixed choir, instead of uniformity
of a boy or male choir.49
Such testimony clearly indicated the eventual
success of clerical and lay opposition to O’Connor’s musical restoration.
Other attempts at reforming the devotional
and church-related activities of the laity met with similar resistance, and
occasionally with outright defiance. O’Connor disapproved of church picnics,
processions, parish excursions, entertainments and semi-philanthropies, regarding
such activities as denigrating to the truths of the Church. Picnics in his mind
were the playgrounds of political hacks who used the church for their own
purposes.50 He categorically objected to his own participation in them and
recommended that his flock do the same. While his ban on religious processions
kept Catholics off the street, his disfavour of picnics was ignored. Local
parishes continued to hold these community gatherings successfully. The House
of Providence Annual Picnic, for example, was the highlight of the spring; in
1903 alone, it netted $3,700 for the city’s poor, and by 1907 the crowds at the
event numbered in excess of 10,000 people.51
O’Connor's policy on public devotions and
socials crumbled after his resignation; the picnics continued as they always
had and the processions resumed. In 1909, within a year of O’Connor's
departure, the Holy Name Society – the largest male Catholic fraternity in the
city – resumed its annual parade. By 1913, over 10,000 Holy Name Society
members marched openly through the streets of the city, without molestation
from non-Catholics and free from ecclesiastical censure.52
The success and survival of picnics and
processions, despite O'Connor’s hostility, demonstrates the importance with
which these religious and social gatherings were held by the laity. A minority
in a Protestant city, Catholics had few social activities in which they could
rally together and celebrate their common faith and Celtic heritage. As public
expressions of faith, charity and recreation, these processions, picnics, teas
and euchres were far too important to the Catholic community to be eradicated
by O’Connor’s rigorism. Such restrictions effectively prohibited Catholic women
from participating in any parochial or charitable activity outside of their
attendance at Sunday Mass or membership in a parish sodality. In addition, the
loss of socials meant serious financial strains on parishes and institutions,
which otherwise would have to resort to frequent special collections during the
Mass to cover debts.53
Attempts by O’Connor to regulate other
parochial activities, such as religious fraternal associations, created unrest
among the laity. When the Knights of Columbus, a rapidly growing American
Catholic fraternal association, requested permission to establish a council in
Toronto, O’Connor flatly refused. Although the society was gaining thousands of
members elsewhere in the province, he felt “that there were all too many
societies already, and one more would only tend to weaken all.” Even a special
plea from their State Chaplain, Father Michael F. Fallon, future bishop of
London, did not change O’Connor’s mind.54
However, O’Connor’s policy had a short
life. The laymen of the city requested that the Supreme Knight, Edward Hearn,
approach O’Connor’s successor for approval to initiate a Toronto Council. By
February 1909, Archbishop McEvay granted the Knights permission to establish in
the Archdiocese, on the condition that he, not the Knight’s council, appoint
the chaplain.55 In March 1909, McEvay’s secretary was appointed chaplain and the
Knights were formally established in Toronto, thus overturning O'Connor's
earlier ruling. Within a decade, the Toronto Council, over 600 strong, was the
largest in Ontario.56
The whole episode illustrates how O’Connor
had seriously miscalculated the need for new fraternal associations in
Toronto. Old societies, such as the Irish Catholic Benevolent Union and the
Emerald Benefit Association, had an Irish nationalist agenda that was
anachronistic to new generations of Catholics by the turn of the century. By
1900, the Emerald’s were moribund, and the I.C.B.U. was recruiting women to
increase its membership.57 O’Connor had assumed that the restoration of
these societies merely required restrictions on competing societies. He failed
to recognize that third- and fourth-generation Irish Catholics in Toronto had a
more developed sense of their Canadian identity – forged in part by their common
language and shared environment with non-Catholics – which undermined the
applicability of the old Irish associations.
In addition to restrictions placed on lay
men, O’Connor's Catholic restoration engendered a conservative atmosphere with
regard to women’s proper sphere. The dramatic change in women’s reporting at The
Catholic Register was a case in point. Beginning in 1897, the paper
featured a column entitled, “The Domain of Woman” by “Teresa” – a pseudonym for
a local woman whose real identity remains a mystery. “Teresa” offered Catholic
women an alternative from what she termed “namby pamby” women’s columns that
more reflected the small minds of their authors than of their readers.58 One would never
find recipes for wild turkey surprise or beauty secrets in Teresa’s essays.
Instead, she offered hard-hitting commentary on urban poverty, the plight of
working-class women, animal rights, the Spanish-American War, idle women of
wealth, status seekers, euthanasia, and women’s equality of opportunity with
men.59 She encouraged women to seek careers in the liberal professions and
medicine, asserting that such women, “will undoubtedly succeed in dissipating
the fallacy that woman is inferior to man in intellectual capacity.60 Although Teresa
took issue with the radical feminists on the issues of abortion and motherhood,
she stood outside the boundaries of what many Catholic leaders considered
women’s proper sphere.61
“The Domain of Woman” vanished from the
pages of The Catholic Register three weeks after O’Connor’s
installation. There is no direct proof that O’Connor pulled the plug on Teresa,
although it is evident that he censored the Catholic press on issues which he
deemed important to the maintenance of Catholic discipline.62 His policy on
women, for example, was clear: the defeminization of choirs, prohibition of
women canvassing for charity door-to-door, and the reinforcement of women’s
“home sphere.”63 Teresa’s column – a distinct threat to this policy – was eventually
replaced by ‘The Home Circle,” which concentrated upon issues relevant to women
and girls in the home: the mastication of food, hospitality, being a good wife,
hints on good breeding, recipes, sewing, and techniques for catching men.64 “The Home Circle”
rather than Teresa’s column outlined the parameters of the women’s domain in
O’Connor’s Toronto.
III
Of all the aspects of the Catholic
restoration, however, O’Connor’s attempt to standardize marriages in the
Archdiocese was by far the most important. Writing to the Propaganda Fide he
lamented:
Let me say that
when I first arrived in the Diocese little respect was shown the sacrament of
marriage. The publication of banns was generally reduced to one, frequently to
none, yet the publication is very necessary because of the frequent change of
abode of the inhabitants, – The ceremony of the marriage rarely took place at a
mass, and frequently in the evening as Protestants do, the ceremony took place
not unfrequently [sic] before a P.M. [Protestant Minister] when both
parties were Catholic, and more frequently when only one was Catholic ...65
O’Connor strictly applied the canon law; three
calls for banns, ceremonies before noon and a nuptial Mass for all Catholic
weddings were made mandatory. However, the enforcement of these directives
varied. In many parishes up to a third of couples were dispensed from
announced banns.66
On the other side of the marriage question,
unions between Catholics and Protestants were common in Toronto, and were the
boldest evidence of integration between the two groups. While none of
O'Connor’s predecessors approved of mixed marriages, most agreed that
dispensations were a necessary evil to keep young Catholics from abandoning the
Church. Archbishop Walsh, for example, petitioned Rome for more faculties to
dispense mixed marriages on grounds that, given the Protestant majority all
around him, far greater evils could befall Catholic youth in the city if he
denied them a Catholic marriage.67 During Walsh’s episcopate mixed marriages
increased from one per every twenty Catholic marriages in 1890 to one in every
five.68 By the time O’Connor arrived mixed marriage dispensations were granted
liberally in the city, although they varied in frequency according to parish.69
O’Connor viewed the flexible Archdiocesan
policies towards mixed marriages as “deplorable,” citing such unions as the
primary sources of leakage from the Catholic Church. In 1900, when asked by the
Propaganda Fide in Rome if there was danger of Protestant proselytism in
Toronto, O’Connor responded that while none formally existed, there were more
subtle ways to account for the loss of Catholic faithful: “In this Diocese the
advance of evil is due to mixed marriages, which in my judgment have been
tolerated to [sic] readily.”70 He regarded the
secular press, public schools and non-Catholic associations as the first steps
to mixed marriage and loss of Catholics to the Church. Blaming the laxity of
the clergy and indifference of the laity, he complained to Rome that before his
arrival, “the asking of a dispensation seems to have been sufficient reason for
granting it.”71 His views were shared by a number of priests and journalists, one of
whom commented, “A mixed marriage is as bleak as a windswept moor, and as
joyous as a funeral.”72
O’Connor’s attack on mixed marriages was
decisive. In his “Regulations” of 1900, he rigorously applied the canons on
marriage, demanding that all applications for dispensations be sent, in
writing, to him with the “fee” enclosed. Moreover, “agreements” would have to
be signed by the Protestant parties, promising that they would not impede the
practice of Catholicism of their spouse or their prospective children. In
addition, he doubled the fee for mixed marriage from five to ten dollars,
adding a small economic deterrent to seeking a dispensation. Unlike Walsh,
O’Connor never waved payment of fees on grounds of “in pauperes” – the
inability of the applicants to pay.73 He even suggested
that Catholics might segregate themselves from Protestants by moving into
tight-knit urban villages around the city’s churches.74 He thought that closed
Catholic settlements would eliminate the inter-denominational contact that
facilitated mixed marriages and other sources of loss to the Church.
His strict enforcement of the canon law
brought dramatic results in the city parishes. By the end of 1899, his first
year in office, O'Connor reduced the numbers of dispensed mixed marriages to 5%
of all Church marriages, the same level as in 1890. By 1907 O'Connor had
reduced this figure to 2.5%. It is little wonder that his biographer, the
Reverend Francis O’Brien, claimed that by the end of O’Connor’s episcopate: “.
. . a dispensation Mixtae Religionis was almost unheard of. The plan had
succeeded; mixed marriages could be abolished.”75
A more careful examination of the reaction
of the laity to O’Connor’s policy and its long-term significance, however,
exposes the superficiality of O'Brien’s assessment. Although there was no
violent reaction to the Archbishop’s strict application of marriage laws, there
was active disobedience by the laity. Marriage dispensations from O’Connor’s
successors reveal that some couples opted to leave the Church rather than not
marry at all. Later they were reconciled to the Church, and their Ne Temere marriages
dispensed.76 Some took their case to The Catholic Register, but the
conservative editor, P.F. Cronin, was unsympathetic.77 Others, with the
aid of sympathetic priests, appealed to the Apostolic Delegate to overturn
decisions made by O’Connor. In this way Father James Cruise and Frederick
Rohleder, pastors to the wealthy Catholics of Our Lady of Lourdes Church and
St. Michael's Cathedral respectively, incurred the wrath of O’Connor. In 1904,
this intensified when Donatus Sbaretti, the Delegate, granted several appeals.78
The combination of Sbaretti’s interference
and the ground swell of lay opposition outraged O’Connor, and he attempted to
resign his see. Writing to the propaganda he complained bitterly:
From the first [I]
called attention to the sanctity of marriage ... by discouraging mixed
marriages unless for very grave reasons. These increase because, in my opinion,
of the interference of the Delegate, who instead of sustaining me, grants
dispensations without consulting me and without my knowledge. Naturally I know
the state of the diocese better than he, and I am better able to Judge how a
dispensation will affect not only the parties concerned but on Catholics in
general.79
He also complained of private correspondences
between the Delegate and his priests, containing disparaging comments regarding
his person. The Delegate retorted that his few interventions were intended to
save the parties in question from leaving the Church. Rome rejected O’Connor's
resignation in 1904 and also a later attempt in 1905, reassuring him that his
vigilance was appreciated.80 Not surprisingly, Rome’s encouragement came
in advance of the Ne Temere decree, Pius X’s own regulations on mixed marriage.
In the long-term, O’Connor's vigilant
restoration of Catholic marriage reaped few rewards. After his resignation from
the see in 1908, the level of dispensations multiplied. The number of mixed
marriages rose from a low of 2.45% in 1907, under O’Connor, to 13.95% under
Archbishop McEvay in 1910. During the episcopate of Neil McNeil, from 1912 to
1934, the levels reached an all-time high: in 1913 nearly one in eight
marriages were mixed; by 1915 over one in four; and in 1920 one in three.81 This rapid increase
clearly demonstrates the failure of O’Connor's programme to outlive him and
underscores the high levels of integration experienced by young Catholics and
Protestants in Toronto.
IV
The mixed marriage problem proved to be
O’Connor's undoing. He was frustrated by the interference of the Apostolic
Delegate, crippled by the minimal support given him by his priests, and
embittered by what he described as “un esprit critique de mes activité [sic] soumis ... trop
commun parmi les laïcs.”82 In 1907, his third letter of resignation was
finally accepted, and on May 4, 1908, he terminated his episcopal duties in
Toronto, becoming titular Archbishop of Laodicea. O’Connor spent his final
years in prayer and meditation at St. Basil’s Novitiate in Toronto, where he
died 30 June 1911. In his final days he lived the monastic life to which he was
suited; he read no newspapers and had few contacts with the outside world. In
his obituary, The Catholic Register praised him, but could not refrain
from making unfortunate comparisons between him and his dynamic and affable
successor, Fergus McEvay, who had died the previous May.83
In retrospect, O’Connor’s episcopate in
Toronto was a one-man demonstration of the “restoration” of Pius X as applied
to a diocese. When combined with O’Connor’s personal rigorism and unfailing
legalism, papal regulations assumed a vitality not witnessed since the days of
Bishop Armand de Charbonnel. Having no identifiable “Modernists” or
“Americanists” in the city, O’Connor’s integralism,8484, if it can be
referred to as such, concentrated on keeping Catholics disciplined in their
faith and devotions, and segregated from non-Catholic influences. His version
of the “restoration” – clerical formation, liturgical regulation, obedience of
the laity on social matters, and strict marital regulations – were all designed
to retain the integrity and isolation of Catholicism in Toronto, thereby halting
acculturation and apostasy.
Interestingly enough, O’Connor's programme
reveals as much about the Catholics of Toronto as it does about ecclesiastical
policy. O’Connor’s restoration disturbed the laity on two fronts. Within the
Church, his restrictions on mixed choirs, fraternal associations, religious
parades and parish picnics seriously curtailed some of the laity’s only means
of religious and social participation outside of the Mass. Such lay
demonstrations of their faith and community were too firmly entrenched to be
uprooted in a flurry of legalism. During O’Connor’s rule, resistance was mostly
passive, though less subtle demonstrations of dissent occurred. In the long
term, the laity rejected much of O’Connor’s programme, although use of
Gregorian chant was retained by many parishes for some parts of the liturgy.
Outside of the Church and its organizations
O’Connor had even less effect. He did not set any precedents in restricting
dispensations for mixed marriage, nor did he alter the social intercourse
between Catholics and Protestants in the city. Life in an urban Protestant
environment had altered the ghettoized mentality of many Catholics. While
Church officials sought to isolate the faithful from the evils of modern
society, the laity were content to marry Protestants, and carry on their
everyday life in a non-Catholic world. Offered the choices of a pluralistic and
voluntarist society, young Catholics were more willing to ignore church law in
favour of their nonCatholic friends and lovers. Moreover, English-speaking
Catholics were coming to terms with Canada, and were exuding a new confidence
in their role as Catholic leaders outside Quebec, and as full partners in the
building of a strong, English-speaking, and Christian nation.85 In the end,
O’Connor, the brilliant schoolmaster, found that he could not rule the
Archdiocese like an academy.
Even the lukewarm response of the clergy to
the restoration raises some serious questions. Given the fact that priests were
increasingly Canadian-born and educated, many realized the need for more
flexibility when dealing with a Catholic minority in a Protestant land.
Rigidity and legalism, in their experience, would only make Catholics more
amenable to other choices offered in a pluralistic society. The fact that
picnics, parades, forbidden music, and mixed marriages took place under the
eyes of local clergy, despite O’Connor, indicates the degree of empathy between
pastor and parishioners. In this light, perhaps, Nadia Eid’s notion of a clerical
class is inappropriate when referring to English-speaking priests, who retained
more affinity to their roots when Catholics were a minority, as was the case in
Toronto.86
Undoubtedly, the O’Connor years provide
both challenges and hidden dangers to the historian. In the hands of some
theological conservatives, O’Connor may well approach sainthood – a martyr in a
secular world – whereas to the theological liberal, he will be little more than
a reactionary martinet. The historian, however, must be careful to avoid such
simplistic conclusions, given the context of the Catholic restoration and the
maturation of a Canadian identity among Toronto’s Catholics. If anything,
O’Connor was a seasoned teacher who, when caught in the vortex of cultural
change and ecclesiastical reform, ended as a casualty of both. A deeply
spiritual and humble man, he was aware of his shortcomings, warning Rome from
the beginning that he was not the man for Toronto. In the end his own words
testify to this: “I am sorry to state that all my anticipations concerning my
position must have been fully realized.”87
Appendix A
English-speaking Catholic Secular Clergy
Archdiocese of Toronto
1890-1940
Birthplace 1890 1895 1900 1905 1910 1915 1920 1930 1940
Toronto 3 4 3 5 7 11 18 31 42
5.8 6.8 5.0 8.2 9.6 12.9 18.2 25.4 30.7
Archdiocese 6 10 13 17 24 30 32 42 43
13.5 16.9 21.7 27.8 32.9 35.3 32.3 34.4 31.4
All Other 7 10 8 7 10 1 2 13 12 8
Canadian 13.5 16.9 13.3 11..5 13.7 14.1 13.1 9.8 5.8
Total Cdn 16 24 24 29 41 53 63 85 93
30.8 40.7 40.0 47.5 6.2 62.3 63.6 69.6 67.9
Ireland 28 29 30 27 25 22 24 19 15
53.9 49.2 50.0 44.3 34.2 25.9 24.3 15.6 10.9
Other 7 4 6 5 7 8 9 10 12
13.4 6.7 10.0 8.2 9.6 9.4 9.1 8.2 8.
Unknown 1 2 0 0 0 2 3 8 17
1.9 3.4 2.4 3.0 6.6 12.4
Total 52 59 60 61 73 85 99 122 137
Sources: Archives of the
Archdiocese of Toronto, Priests Files; Father Edward Kelly Papers; Sadlier's
Catholic Almanac and Ordo, 1890-1895; Hoffman’s Catholic Almanac, 1896-1900; The Official
Catholic Directory, Almanac and Clergy List Quarterly, (Milwaukee: M. H.
Wiltzius, 1901-1911); The Official Catholic Directory (New York: P.J.
Kenedy and Sons, 1912-13, 1921); The Ontario Catholic Year Book and
Directory (Toronto: Newman Club, 1914-1940).
Appendix B
Decline of Catholic Fraternal Associations
Association Number of
Members
1895 1900 1905 1910 1915 1920
Emerald Benefit
Association 262 200 --- --- --- ---
Irish Catholic
Benevolent Union 376 267 407* 259 197 ---
Knights of
St. John 322 380* 199
46 183 ---
Sources: Detailed
Report of the Inspector of Insurance and Friendly Societies (Toronto: Queen’s
and King’s Printer, 1895 through 1920).
* denotes the
first inclusion of ladies auxiliaries
Note: above figures are
for Ontario only
Appendix C
Mixed Marriages
in the Archdiocese of Toronto, 1890-1920
Year Total Married* Mixed/DC Percentage
1890 175 10 5.71
1895 160 22 13.75
1896 114 24 21.05
1897 143 29 20.28
1898 153 22 14.38
1899 145 8 5.52
1900 151 6 3.97
1901 131 8 6.11
1902 179 12 6.70
1903 216 16 7.41
1904 222 13 5.86
1905 228 15 6.58
1906 205 6 2.93
1907 245 6 2.45
1908@ 248 20 8.06
1909 310 37 11.94
1910 337 47 13.95
1911 365 47 12.88
1912 419 74 17.66
1913 453 74 16.36
1914 417 52 12.47
1915 405 87 21.48
1916 454 111 24.45
1920 640 199 31.09
*city parishes
only
@ O’Connor
granted only 3 before his resignation in May 1908
Source: Archives of the Archdiocese of Toronto, Marriage Registers, 1890-1920; Dispensation Stub Books, 1890-1920.