Originally printed in La Ripresa dell’Ordine, Gli Agostiniani tra 1850-1920, Congresso dell’Istituto Storico Agostiniano, Roma 15-19 ottobre 2012
I.
When Father John Possidius O’Dwyer died on May 24, 1850, the small band of Augustinians in North America lost not only a respected brother, but their Commissary General, and the president of Villanova College as well. The promising young friar died at the age of 34 after suffering ill health for some years. Though his passing was a tragic loss for the mission, and for the Church at large, – for he had only recently been proposed as the first bishop of the new See of Savannah1 – Fr. O’Dwyer’s death came just as the Province was beginning to experience growth in numbers, greater stability, and the expansion of ministries after decades of uncertainty and recurring setbacks. In the first 50 years following the arrival of Matthew Carr and the start of the mission in 1796, the Augustinians had succeeded in establishing a parish in Philadelphia, administered a second in New York, opened an academy for boys, and founded Villanova College. All of this had been achieved with no more than five friars present at any one time, more often, in fact, with only two or three. But not all of these initiatives were to be of long duration. Their first church, Saint Augustine in Philadelphia, was destroyed by rioters in 1844, the academy was closed due to lack of funds, and the withdrawal from the New York venture was required because of diminishing personnel. Now, at midcentury, just as the future had begun to look more promising, death, too, intervened.
It had been the decision taken in 1841 to purchase the country estate known as Belle Air, on the outskirts of the city of Philadelphia, that was to be providential for the expansion of the mission as well as for the numerical growth of the Augustinian community in subsequent decades. Indeed, the story of Augustinian presence in the United States during the second half of the 19th Century, would be greatly tied to, and identified with, the story of Belle Air and its development. Through some friends, the availability of the 200 acre farm became known to the friars at Saint Augustine’s before the official announcement of its sale was advertised, and arrangements were quickly made by them for its purchase at a very reasonable price. Early in 1843 two lay brothers, John Gallagher and Nicholas Ryan, took up residence on the farm and began to adapt it for the needs of a school and a religious community. The opening Mass and blessing took place in midSeptember with an enrollment of only 7 or 8 students and a faculty of 6, of whom three were Augustinians. Later that month the friars wrote to Rome requesting confirmation of 19 rules which they had drawn up for the establishment of common life at the new foundation, which they placed under the patronage of Saint Thomas of Villanova. They requested, as well, permission to establish a novitiate at the site. Now, at last, they saw the possibility of instituting regular common life, something which until then had been extremely difficult given the small number of friars and the great amount of work asked of them. Prior to this, the friars had served as missionaries and circuit riders in the rapidly growing eastern part of the country, at the service of bishops who had few priests at their disposal. With the establishment of a permanent and more stable community at Villanova there was now the opportunity to live the religious life they wished to see take root in the Church in America.
While the new foundation at Villanova, though small and insecure at its inception, was a sign of progress, hope and, indeed, marked an important step forward for the Augustinian venture in the country, it was not long before a major setback occurred. On May 8, 1844, the original foundation, the church of Saint Augustine in the city of Philadelphia, together with the adjoining house which served as the friary, was burned to the ground by antiCatholic, Nativist, rioters. Saint Augustine’s was one of two churches destroyed in the course of three days of disturbances, together with two schools, a sisters’ convent and some forty or fifty homes. In a note written at the margin of one of the church’s sacramental registers, all of which fortunately survived the destruction, one of the friars wrote tersely: “Ecclesia bellissima nostra combusta est ab Americanis” 2.
If the distress and sorrow caused by the ruin of the mother house were deeply felt, the result was not sufficient to inhibit the resolve of the friars or keep them from moving forward. The superior of the American mission at the time, Fr. Patrick Moriarty, was soon off to Europe to seek funds for the rebuilding of the church. A second friar joined him in this effort shortly after. Those who had been living at Saint Augustine’s now moved to Villanova where, for a while, life and studies continued on with minor modifications made to assure the safety of the students. One evening in February, 1845, however, Father O’Dwyer called them all together to announce that the college would close due, he said, to the strain on personnel following the fire. It remained closed until September, 18463.
In January, 1847, Father O’Dwyer was appointed Commissary General of the American venture. A temporary chapel was constructed near the ruins of the burned church, several clerical students returned to the Province from studies abroad, and the following year the first candidate to make his novitiate at Villanova was received. At the same time other prospective vocations were arriving, some from Ireland, others from the States. By the time the new church of Saint Augustine was consecrated by Bishop Kenrick on November 5, 1848, spirits were once more high and the future looked promising again. In 1850, just prior to Fr. O’Dwyer’s death, the Province had grown to 13 professed members, nine of whom were priests, with nine lay brothers in various levels of formation4.
The friar who replaced Fr. O’Dwyer as president of Villanova was Fr. William Harnett, the Province’s first nativeborn vocation who, like O’Dwyer, was a man of great talent and humble demeanor to whom were entrusted multiple responsibilities over the course of his religious life. Twice his name had been placed on the terna for bishop, with the commendation that he was “outstanding for learning, piety, and upright life…” 5 Named to the office of Commissary General was once again Fr. Patrick Moriarty, a famous orator, fundraiser, and stalwart friar known for his passionate preaching style and sometimes controversial subject matter.
In the decade of the 1840s the Catholic population in the United States had begun to swell with the arrival of many Irish immigrants. The challenge to find priests to minister to them weighed heavily upon bishops. Their need, coupled with the reputation of friars such as O’Dwyer, Harnett and Moriarty, brought requests to the Augustinians to undertake additional areas of responsibility and accept new missions. Indeed, it was at this point in time that the friars’ activities expanded significantly, both in number and in geographical extension. In 1849 Fr. James O’Donnell had gone to faroff Lawrence, Massachusetts, to work under the bishop of Boston. While his departure from Philadelphia seems to have been occasioned at least partly by dissatisfaction with the work assigned to him until then, his years in Lawrence were extremely productive and laid the groundwork for the Order’s eventual flourishing mission in that city and neighboring areas, as well as the gain of many vocations for the Order. Overall, in the decade of the 1850s five additional parishes and a mission were established by, or entrusted to, the Augustinians in Massachusetts, Philadelphia, New York, and New Jersey6, as the community sought to respond to everincreasing pastoral needs of the Church in America. After the Order’s second foundation in the country came to an end in 1846 – that of Saint Paul’s Parish in Brooklyn – the move to Lawrence and the acceptance of other parishes in the ensuing decade of the ‘50s became the second and more successful and lasting extension of corporate Augustinian presence outside of the greater Philadelphia area7.
II.
In time the expansion effort, important as it was in service to the Church and the overall mission of the friars, put a strain on the human resources available in the Province, and some critical adjustments would have to be made. The personnel situation, combined with a widespread economic decline in the country at middecade, led the friars to make the difficult decision to close the college once more. This time it would remain closed for eight years, from 1857 until the Fall of 1865 and the conclusion of the country’s Civil War. Even during this period, nonetheless, provision was made for the education of friars in formation, as well as for a number of diocesan seminarians, to whom the theological department had been opened in 1853.
One of the young friars who had been ordained only several months previous to the announcement of the college’s closure, was Thomas Galberry. Thomas had emigrated to the United States with his family when he was three years old and grew up in Philadelphia. He entered the novitiate at Villanova where he was already a lay student, was professed in 1853, and ordained in December, 1856. Thomas was destined to become another of the principal figures of this period of the Province’s development and, sadly, like several of the others already mentioned, would disappear much too quickly from the scene through his premature and unexpected death.
As the decade of the ‘50s was drawing to a close, the friars were anticipating the arrival of the Prior General, Paul Micallef, whose visit would be the first ever for the head of the Order not only to the Province, but to the new world. Thus it would be a important sign for the friars in the United States of their relationship to the Order throughout the world, and an encouragement to them in their ministry and especially in planting Augustinian religious life in their corner of the globe. Father Micallef’s journey took him to Cuba, Mexico, Ecuador, Chile and Peru, but it had to be cut short when the pope called him back to Rome to make preparations for the approaching General Chapter of 18598. The friars in the United States would have to wait another twentyfive years before a visit of the Order’s Major Superior in the person of Sebastiano Martinelli.
At the General Chapter, Micallef was reelected Prior General and soon after he appointed Father Patrick Stanton Commissary General for the United States. In fact, Father Stanton had been named to this office temporarily the previous year upon Father Moriarty’s resignation for reasons of health. One of the new American superior’s great concerns and valuable contributions to the development of the province would be the bolstering of the formation program and new initiatives for the education of young friars. Among these was the decision taken in 1863 with the Prior General and the Irish Provincial to form an international house of studies at Ghent, Belgium, for the training of novices and for theological studies. This began in 1865 at which time two Americans were sent to make their novitiate there together with candidates from other countries. Subsequently, the Irish and Americans sent students there for ten years, after which both provinces withdrew. Also in 1865, which was the year of another General Chapter, Father Stanton personally requested the help of newly elected Prior General Giovanni Belluomini, in procuring friars to enhance the program of studies at Villanova College. To his great satisfaction Stanton was accompanied, on his return to the province, by Fathers Pacifico Neno and Filippo Izzo, the former to occupy the office of prefect of studies for many years thereafter, the latter to serve as master of novices as well as professor in the college.
Villanova reopened in September 1865 with Father Ambrose Mullen as president and a faculty of eleven, nine of whom were Augustinians. The following year Father Stanton was relieved of the office of Commissary General and was succeeded by Patrick Moriarty, but the reaction to the latter’s nomination on the part of some friars as well as several bishops, who considered the famed orator a bit too outspoken and controversial, led to his replacement just three months later by Thomas Galberry who was only 33 years old at the time, but who had already demonstrated his skill as an attentive leader and his comportment as a dedicated religious. The first ten years of his ministry up to this point had been spent first at Villanova and then as pastor in northern New York, a post he would continue to hold for four more years while overseeing the province membership and its works. In 1867 he convoked the first province retreat, a practice which continued on annually well into the future. By that time the total number of friars in the province was 44: 20 priests, 15 brothers, 8 clerical students and one novice.
The attraction of a good number of lay brothers to the community at this period and for many years afterward was attributable in part to opportunities provided at Villanova and by the college, not least of which was the farm, which continued to operate even during the years when the college was closed. Many of the brothers were laborers who had immigrated from Ireland and who found the combined life of prayer and manual work attractive and fulfilling. In performing necessary tasks as cooks, carpenters, tailors and farmhands, they contributed greatly to the life of the community and were integral to the mission of the college. An early chronicler of the province, Fr. Thomas Middleton, who served also for a time as President of the college and province secretary, has left interesting personal notes about some of the lay brothers with whom he lived and worked during the second half of the 19th Century, giving hints of the personalities behind lives that were often hidden to many and unremarkable by many people’s standards.
Between the time of the arrival of the first friars in 1796 and the year 1867, thirteen Augustinians who had lived and worked in the province passed away, and one other had left the Order for a diocese. From this point forward, however, the province would experience steady growth.
III.
On January 19, 1874, Thomas Galberry wrote to the Prior General to report on the status of the Province, and, at the same time, to submit his resignation as Commissary General. By this time he had occupied the office for seven years, and with the number of friars increasing perhaps he felt it was time, and possible, for another to take his place. His request, however, was refused. On July 10th of the same year he wrote again, this time, however, asking in the name of all the friars in America, for the formal erection of a province in the United States. In little more than a month, on August 25, 1874, the decree of foundation for the Province of Saint Thomas of Villanova in the United States of America was issued by the Prior General and his Council. Apparently, friars both in America and in Rome had overlooked the fact that the American Province had already been established back in 1796 under the patronage of Our Mother of Good Counsel9.
The first Provincial Chapter was accordingly celebrated at Villanova on December 15, 1874 with 14 voting members. It lasted seven days and elected Thomas Galberry on the first ballot. Chosen as his counsellors were Pacifico Neno, Peter Crane, John Gilmore and Filippo Izzo. The new Province at its inception comprised 56 Augustinians 30 priests, 14 brothers, 11 professed students and 1 novice. Its friaries numbered 14 and its ministries included 20 churches and missions and 1 college. The Order of Saint Augustine in the United States had come of age.
Within a short time Fr. Galberry began an official visitation of the houses of the Province, and during his return trip to Villanova, became aware, very indirectly, that he had been named bishop of Hartford, Connecticut. On arriving home and finding the official documents of appointment, he realized that the news received during his journey had been neither a rumor nor an error. After prayerfully considering what had befallen him, he wrote to Rome at the beginning of May asking to be absolved of the nomination, a decision that met with the disapproval of the Prior General who directed him to accept the appointment. It was not until the following January that communication reached the bishopelect from Propaganda Fide that his reasons for declining were insufficient. He subsequently resigned the offices of Prior Provincial and President of Villanova, and in March, 1876, was ordained the fourth bishop of Hartford. Unfortunately he would occupy that position for only two and a half years before his sudden death on October 10, 1878 at the age of 45. With his death, plans he was making for the introduction of the Order into the Diocese of Hartford came to an end10 .
With Galberry’s necessary resignation from the office of Prior Provincial, Father Patrick Stanton filled out his term, and the following Provincial Chapter chose Fr. Pacifico Neno as its second elected major superior on July 19, 1878. Father Neno, as mentioned previously, had come to the United States thirteen years earlier in order to strengthen Augustinian presence at Villanova College. From the time of his arrival until his departure in 1881 he served the college as prefect of studies, and was also at various times professor of dogma, moral theology, canon law, and ecclesiastical history. On weekends he was engaged in pastoral work. For three years, from September, 1869 until June, 1872 he also served as Master of Novices, during which time he became a naturalized citizen of the United States, evidence, presumably, of his intention to remain permanently in his adopted country. When Father Galberry had been elected provincial, Neno became his first counselor, and when the bishop was taken ill in New York, Neno rushed to his side and was present at his death. He later gave the eulogy at the funeral in the unfinished cathedral whose construction Galberry himself had begun.
A year and a half after assuming leadership as Prior Provincial, Father Neno wrote to the Prior General submitting his resignation11 . He wanted, he wrote, to devote more of his time and energy to study and teaching. Prior General Belluomini reluctantly accepted his request and appointed Father Peter Crane commissary general in his place, but exactly one month later he wrote to Neno reversing his decision, after learning how unhappy the members of the province were at the provincial’s resignation12. Pacifico Neno would continue on as Prior Provincial for another eleven months while continuing as a member of the faculty and regent, but his preference for teaching and scholarship would become even more seriously limited by the next turn his life would take. On January 10, 1881, he received a letter informing him of his appointment by Pope Leo XIII as Commissary General of the Augustinian Order. Less than three weeks later he left for Rome, ending his sixteen year ministry in the American Province.
Thus the first two friars elected to serve as Priors Provincial in the United States were compelled to resign before their terms had ended. One served for little over a year before becoming bishop, the second after two and half years when appointed head of the Order. While circumstances that occasioned these resignations could be considered on the one hand highly complementary, in that they recognized the qualities of leadership each possessed, the loss to the Province in both cases was significant. It may not be an exaggeration to apply to Father Neno himself, mutatis mutandis, sentiments he conveyed in a letter to the Prior General regarding his friend and colleague, Bishop Galberry, days following his confrere’s death,
I had the greatest consolation in seeing the devotion, the affection and the profound sorrow expressed in the faces and actions of his priests, who immediately on hearing of his illness hurried to his bedside. They truly loved him as a father, and they venerated him as a saint and they esteemed him as the most zealous, active and benevolent bishop they had known. They could not think otherwise of him whose life, public and private, his generous charity, his impartiality and justice, his constant labors, and his work in the diocese will render his name in perennial memory and benediction13 .
Unfortunately, and tragically, for the Order and the Church, both the bishop and the Prior the General died while still in the prime of life, Galberry at 45, Neno at 56.
Once again Father Patrick Stanton was called upon to fill out the unexpired term of office of the Prior Provincial, just as he had done at the resignation of Father Galberry. Father Neno had named Stanton his vicar before departing for Rome and three months later sent the appointment for him to continue on as rector provincial until the regularly scheduled chapter of 1882.
IV.
The next two decades leading into the 20th Century would continue to witness a steady expansion of the province in terms of both members and apostolic works. Under the leadership of four provincials, only one of whom would serve more than a single fouryear term, new missions of the province were undertaken, leading on the one hand to growth, and on the other to some serious tension and discord. One event in particular brought embarrassing notoriety to the province, both within and outside the Order, and required the direct intervention of the Prior General and his Council for resolution.
The Chapter of 1882 opened in midJuly, 15 months after Pacifico Neno’s resignation, and elected fortyone year old Irishborn Fr. Christopher Mc Evoy as Prior Provincial. One week later the new superior addressed a letter to all priors, urging them to take seriously their responsibility to maintain discipline in their communities and to lead by good example. Within several months he would write again, announcing the death of Prior General, Giovanni Belluomiini. It was during Mc Evoy’s term of office that the construction of the prominent church of Saint Thomas of Villanova on the college campus was begun in March 1883, and that the nearby parish of Our Mother of Good Counsel in Bryn Mawr was founded.
The following Chapter of 1886 met at Villanova on July 13th with Fr. Patrick Stanton as president. Unfortunately it was the Chapter that would become a blemish on the province and a source of shame and scandal both inside and outside the Order. Elected on the first ballot was Fr. John Gilmore by a margin of one vote. When a number of capitulars complained of irregularities, suspecting that Fr. Gilmore must have voted for himself, an appeal was made to Prior General Neno who, after a preliminary examination of the grievances, ordered, in December of that year, the establishment of a commission to investigate the Acts and proceedings of the Chapter. After receiving the commission’s findings, the Prior General declared the Chapter null and void and appointed the former provincial, Christopher Mc Evoy, Rector Provincial on April 9, 1887. All office holders appointed by Fr. Gilmore were to submit their resignations and the definitory of Fr. Mc Evoy’s first administration was to appoint new priors. The difficulties were not to end there, however, as some loyalists to Gilmore wished to appeal the decision and, in defiance of the Rector Provincial, sailed to Rome, hoping to persuade the Prior General of their position. Instead, they received a severe reprimand and were sent home. McEvoy, understandably assumed office in less than optimal circumstances, and throughout his new term experienced division in the ranks and the hurt feelings of a segment of the province which lingered on. At the subsequent General Chapter of 1889 he resigned from office. A note written in his own hand, dated October 7th of that year, said simply, “I hereby freely and for peace renounce the Provincialate of America. C. A. McEvoy, O.S.A.”
Father James Waldron was appointed Rector Provincial by the Prior General to fill out the remaining years of Father McEvoy’s term. At the illfated Chapter of 1886 Waldron had been elected first definitor. Curiously, he was the cousin of Father Patrick Stanton, who had been accused of spearheading the campaign in favor of Father Gilmore, and who was one of those who traveled to Rome to plead his cause. Perhaps Father Neno was hoping, by his choice of Waldron, to pacify those who continued to feel disenfranchised by his earlier decision regarding Gilmore and his camp. Moreover, Waldron enjoyed a good reputation in the Province. He had been a member of the Province’s first Chapter that elected Thomas Galberry. For the fifteen years previous to this appointment he had served as pastor in upstate New York, and earlier as sometime prior and procurator at Villanova and pastor of several other parishes. Before McEvoy left for the General Chapter in August, from which he would return a friar in the ranks, he had appointed Waldron his vicar provincial, though he was not then a member of his definitory. At the next Provincial Chapter which met from July 21 to 24, 1890 with 20 voting members, Waldron received 9 votes on the first ballot and eleven on the second, electing him in his own right. The Chapter named Father Christopher McEvoy president of the college, prior of the community and pastor.
Father Waldron served the Province as Prior Provincial until July, 1894. As three of the six definitors elected to his Council were staunch supporters of Father Gilmore, his term of office was not always an easy one. Nonetheless, he carried out his duties with determined leadership and conscientiousness. In 1893 Villanova College celebrated its Golden Jubilee, which was a high point of the Provincial’s term. He made visitation of the province each year and reinstituted the practice of general yearly province retreats, a tradition which would remain for many years thereafter. He conducted his final visitation in June, 1894, and then welcomed Father Sebastiano Martinelli to the United States, for the first visitation ever to be made of the Province by the Prior General.
V.
A deadlocked Chapter chose thirtyfive year old Father Charles Mary Driscoll to succeed Father Waldron as Prior Provincial in July, 1894. Election occurred on the seventh ballot by one vote14. Father Driscoll served as Prior Provincial until 1898. During his term Patrick Ryan, Archbishop of Philadelphia, contacted the province concerning a matter of great concern, namely, the care of Italian immigrants in the Archdiocese. Ryan had been trying, without success, to obtain Italian religious to care for the new arrivals who were entering the Archdiocese in the tens of thousands during the closing years of the 19th Century. This urgent need would eventually result in a new Augustinian presence in the United States, independent of the American Province.
On April 18, 1896, Sebastiano Martinelli, Prior General of the Order, now in his second term, was appointed Apostolic Delegate to the United States. The provincial, Charles Mary Driscoll was a good friend of Martinelli with whom he had returned to the United States from Rome when the Archbishop arrived to take up his mission on behalf of the Holy See. As regards the Order in America, Archbishop Martinelli had a unique role to play during the six years he served as Apostolic Delegate, traveling across the country for occasions great and small, but everywhere bringing awareness of the name Augustinian. His role in the establishment of the missionary effort of the Italian Augustinians in the United States, which developed eventually into the Italian ViceProvince, needs to be underscored in the written record of the Order’s contribution to the story of the immigrant Church in America. While not a direct participant in the life or ministry of the Order in the United States, the presence and service of this friar to the American Church during this period of our history was unique and noteworthy.
It was Martinelli who, at last, was able to come to the Archdiocese’s aid by arranging to have friars from Italy minister to the Italian immigrants in Philadelphia. In November, 1897, three friars were appointed to establish a parish in the heart of the Italian ghetto: Frs. Guglielmo Repetti and Angelo Caruso, and Brother Bernardino Falconi. From the original foundation which they established, the parish of Buon Consiglio, the Italian ViceProvince of Philadelphia would eventually be erected in December, 1925.
The story of the Italian Mission is one marked by extraordinary growth and service among the mostly poor population from Italy’s southern provinces, but by hardship and trials as well, including the public defection of several friars, which caused not only scandal to the faithful, but the longlasting contempt of a subsequent Archbishop, the one who would eventually suppress the parish in 1933. The death of the first pastor, Fr. Repetti, at the age of 27, just 18 months after the start of the Mission was a great blow to parishioners and friars alike, as well as to Archbishop Ryan. The arrival of other religious over the course of the ensuing decades, however, brought stability and expansion to the mission. In the first two decades of its existence twentyfour friars would work in the mission eighteen of them Italian, four Maltese, one Spaniard and one Irishman. Up until 1925 they remained under the direct jurisdiction of the Prior General, but from 1909 he was represented by a Commissary General who was alternately the American Provincial and one of the Italian friars. The first Italian to hold the position was Fr. Tommaso Terlizzi who occupied the office until 1921, after which he returned to Italy. In 1912 Buon Consiglio Parish opened a mission church, Saint Nicholas of Tolentino which, in due time, not only became a separate parish, but the replacement for the original foundation when it was suppressed by Archbishop Dougherty in 193315 .
Significant ministry among immigrants on the part of the friars in America was not limited to Philadelphia nor to the Italians. From 1886 until his death in 1925, Fr. James T. O’Reilly was, in effect, pastor of the entire city of Lawrence, Massachusetts, which received wave after wave of immigrant groups, Irish, Germans, Portuguese and Lebanese among them, most of them Catholic but diverse in their culture, language and even rites. O’Reilly sought to provide pastoral ministry to them all, establishing churches to care for their specific needs. In response to his request for a friar to minister to the Italian community, Fr. Mariano Milanese of the Order’s Congregation of San Giovanni a Carbonara, arrived in Lawrence in 1902 to tend to his fellow countrymen settling in a heavily Irish section of the city. Milanese’s efforts gradually developed into a separate national parish for Italianspeaking, the Church of Holy Rosary, which would be served by both friars of the American Province and of the Italian Mission. Likewise, Fr. Filippo Izzo, who had arrived at Villanova with Pacifico Neno to serve at the college, soon showed his preference for parochial ministry, and was sent to care for the Italianspeaking in the Augustinian Parish of Mechanicville in upstate New York.
VI.
In June, 1898, Father John Fedigan succeeded Father Driscoll as Prior Provincial. The new superior was a friar with great vision and resolve, but in at least one project a vocal minority of province members actively sought to undermine his initiatives. The Chapter of 1898, at which Prior General Martinelli was present, approved a plan for expansion and new buildings at Villanova. A committee was appointed to work with the Provincial and his Council in carrying out the plan, which opponents criticized as “too extensive and too expensive”, terming it “Fedigan’s Folly”. Nonetheless, the Provincial was determined, and in 1901 was able to see the friars relocate to a new monastery and the College students to a new residence. A note entered into the Provincial Register on January 24th of that year stated succinctly and matteroffactly, “Membership of the Province, January 24, 1901 just 100”16 .
In the Fall of his first year in office Father Fedigan also succeeded in procuring from the Archbishop of New York a long sought after presence in that Archdiocese, a parish and school on Staten Island, and in December he began negotiations to open a mission in Havana, Cuba. The plans materialized quickly and two friars, one the future bishop of San Juan, Puerto Rico, Father William Jones, were able to undertake their journey within a short time. The Colegio San Agustin, a bilingual secondary school, was inaugurated, and in February, 1903, the friars moved to the parish of El Cristo in the city of Havana. From here the work of the friars would grow to include other parishes, a clinic, school and, in 1945, the University of Santo Tomas de Villanueva.
Father Fedigan made it clear to the Province that he would not seek, nor accept, a second term in office. The disappointment which he experienced in the vigorous opposition of some friars in the plans for expansion at Villanova and, in fact, the attempts to undermine his legitimate authority in this regard, had taken their toll. At the Chapter of 1902 Father Martin J. Geraghty was elected to succeed him. At this time the Province counted 83 solemnly professed members and 19 communities 17 . Father Geraghty had begun preaching parish missions in 1894 and through this ministry he made the acquaintance of pastors and members of the hierarchy outside the confines of what was then the expanse of the American Province. In this way, midway through his first term of office the province received an invitation to establish a community in Chicago and thus the first foundation west of the Allegheny mountains was made in 1905. Father James Green was selected to undertake the venture and within months construction began on a friary, school and church dedicated to Saint Rita. In 1909 three additional parishes, Saint Clare, Saint Nicholas of Tolentine, and Saint Gall, were opened in the same area of Chicago and entrusted to the Order. The latter two, however, were returned to the Archdiocese in 1916. In 1920 the parish of Saint Augustine was founded in Detroit.
This first decade of the 20th Century saw a quick succession of new missions undertaken. In addition to the expansion into the Midwest, new parishes were founded by the friars also in the Bronx, New York, – Saint Nicholas of Tolentine – serving a heavily Irish immigrant population, and Saint Rita of Cascia in Philadelphia, ministering to a mixed population, but with a strong Italian component. Though not the first church established under the patronage of Saint Rita in the United States, it was to become quickly the principal center of devotion to the most recently canonized member of the Order and would be designated as her National Shrine.
In February, 1914, the Province issued a statistical table for use at the upcoming Provincial Chapter to be celebrated that year: it listed 222 members and 22 houses, including 106 candidates at various levels of formation, 101 priests and 15 professed lay brothers. Nineteen clerics were studying abroad, all of them in Italy. The works of the Province had extended to 22 parishes, many with schools, the college at Villanova, an academy, a high school, and a mission band. At the June Chapter Father Nicholas J. Murphy was elected Prior Provincial. A former pastor and chaplain, founder and zealous promoter of the Pious Union of Our Lady of Good Counsel in the United States, he served as leader of the Province for not quite three years until his death in 1917 at the age of 61. During his brief term of office he obtained from the Bishop of Brooklyn, New York18, permission for the Province to open a foundation in his diocese, the parish of St. Nicholas of Tolentine, and began a search for property in Washington, DC for a house of studies in the environs of Catholic University19. Though he was not personally able to see this latter initiative through to completion, the decision to establish a community in the nation’s capital would prove to be most advantageous for the Province over many decades. At Father Murphy’s death, Charles Mary Driscoll completed his term, and in 1918 the next Provincial Chapter elected 43 year old Nicholas J. Vasey.
Father Vasey assumed leadership of the American Augusti nians at a time of great opportunity for both the Catholic Church and the Order in the United States. The great wave of new immigrants which had reached its peak some years earlier presented an increase also in calls for more and more services on the part of the men and women religious. Invitations from bishops were not lacking and the prospects for expansion outside the east coast where the greatest concentration of friars was to be found appealed to Father Vasey and his Council. At the Chapter which elected him to office a proposal was made, approved and forwarded to Rome, for the foundation of a new province in the Midwestern section of the country. After the necessary particulars regarding houses and the number of friars available for the new province were requested by the General Curia the matter seems to have come to a halt and would not be taken up again for another 25 years. Nonetheless, expansion continued both in the east and the midwest and, in the early years of the 1920s extended also to the west coast of the country, laying seeds for a third American province that would come into its own four decades later.
Of the significant growth experienced during Father Vasey’s tenure of office, particularly notable is the attention he gave to bolstering the formation program of the province. The plan, initiated by Father Murphy, to open a house in Washington, D. C. was carried forward and brought to completion with the purchase of a house in October, 1919, for the use of friars pursuing advanced degrees in preparation for the teaching apostolate. The following year an additional property was procured for the erection of a professorium for theological students. Two years thereafter a house of postulants was opened in New York City, and in 1925 the novitiate was moved from Villanova to a country site in upstate in New York. Each of these initiatives continued to serve the American friars for decades into the future, welcoming and preparing future generations for membership in the Order and for service to the Church.
To call the expansion of Augustinian presence and ministry in the United States during the period covered in this paper – from the mid19th Century to the start of the 1920s – anything less than ‘noteworthy’ would be to seriously contradict what history itself demonstrates. The mission had grown over the course of 71 years from 14 members and two foundations, to 292 members and 32 houses, spread over five States, the District of Columbia, and the province’s first overseas mission in Cuba 20. It had given to the service of the Church two bishops, and to the Order at large one of its most valued and respected Priors General. At the General Chapter of 1920 Father Charles Mary Driscoll was elected fourth Assistant General for the Englishspeaking provinces of the Order. As such, he was the first Americanborn friar to serve as a member of the General Curia, a sign, no doubt, of the regard in which he was held personally, but perhaps of the standing of the American Province as well.
The seeds which had been sown in 1796 by a few hands had taken root and flourished in good time – surely not without hardship, struggle and disappointments – but to the lasting credit of many friars whose dedication and zeal had contributed significantly to the growth of the Church and the birth of the Order in a new land.
MICHAEL DI GREGORIO, OSA
1 Some have claimed that the appointment had already been made before his death.
2 A.J. ENNIS, No Easy Road, The Early Years of the Augustinians in the United States, 17961874, New York, 1993, p. 293.
3 Ibid., p. 295.
4 These were Fathers James O’Donnell, Michael Gallagher, Thomas Kyle, William Harnett, Patrick Moriarty, Edward Mullen, George Meagher, Patrick Stanton, and John O’Dwyer; and Brothers Thomas McDonald, Philip Shea, Nicholas O’Brien, Sylvester Hogan, James O’Brien, Joseph Whittendale, John Gallagher, Dominic Byrne, Edward Stack and Kieran Phelan. Mark Crane, Ambrose Mullen, and Charles Egan were students, the latter two professed.
5 A.J. ENNIS, cit., p. 403.
6 St. Denis 1853, Andover 1853, Chestnut Hill and Atlantic City 1855, Lansingburgh & Waterford 1858.
7 Frs. Nicholas and James O’Donnell labored at Saint Paul’s together for five years, beginning in 1839. James left in 1844 and Nicholas in 1846.
8 J. Gavigan, Los Agustinos desde la revolución francesa hasta los tiempos modernos, Roma 1999, p. 97.
9 A.J. ENNIS, The Founding of the Augustinians in the United States, in «Analecta Augustiniana» 41 (1978), pp. 305307.
10 R.J. WELSH, Joseph A. Coleman, O.S.A. in Men of Heart, vol. 2, Villanova 1986, p. 119.
11 Letter of January 3, 1880.
12 Augustinian General Archives, Rome Dd 264, p. 5 and Dd 246, p. III.
13 Letter of October 19, 1878 in Augustinian General Archives, Cartella
14 Men of Heart, p. 226.
15 The full story of the Italian Mission of the Augustinians in the United States remains to be told.
16 Prov. Register, vol. 2.
17 An entry in the Provincial Register for Monday, July 14, the opening day of Chapter makes precise: “at this date the Province numbers 113 75 priests, 20 clerics (4 in sol. vows, 7 simple, 9 novices) and 18 laics”: Prov. Register, vol. 2.
18 Letter of consent from Bishop McDonnell dated August 3, 1916.
19 Provincial Council decision dated November 13, 1916.
20 Statistics of the 1922 Catalogus of the Province: priests 148; clerics 56; brothers and oblates 18; postulants 70.
