Delaware to Georgia - Cool Historic Catholics of America

From left to right: the cemetery at Coffee Run, Delaware (site of the Fr. Kenny house), prayer card for the cause of Antonio Cuipa - martyr of La Florida, and Fr. Ignatius Lissner, S.M.A.

All of the following examples of Cool Historic Catholics lived in times of transition. We're going to touch on a little of what life was like for a Catholic living in the British colonies and the early United States, our ancestors who were martyred for their faith in La Florida, and another part of the story of combating racial injustice during the early part of the 20th century.

Delaware - Fr. Patrick Kenny

We're going back to Colonial America!
Your experience as a Catholic living in the American Colonies was highly dependent on in which colony you lived. In only four of the original colonies were Catholics not suppressed, banned, or under civil disabilities by 1785: Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and Delaware. Anti-Catholic sentiment, and restricting laws, didn't loosen in most colonies until the Revolutionary War made the new Americans rather dependent on the Catholic French. (Funny how easy it is to hate a group until you need them.)

Surprisingly, despite this history of being somewhat of a haven for non-Protestants, Delaware had very few people to appear in my search! So we're going to talk about an early priest who is notable not so much by what he did, but by the records he left behind.

In the Records of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia from 1896, there is found a biography, and excerpts from the diary, of Fr. Patrick Kenny.

Fr. Patrick Kenny was born in Ireland in 1763, and arrived at the port of Wilmington, Delaware in the summer of 1804. The heat of American summer was overwhelming, and the priest immediately tried to secure passage back home on the same ship. But a full passenger list thwarted his plans. So he began life as an itinerant priest.

Itinerant priests were very common in the early days of the US. Catholic communities were often sparse and spread far apart from each other. Most were poor farmers and could not afford to support a priest alone. Priests came exclusively from overseas, as the first Catholic seminary in the US was not founded until 1822 - leaving the total number of priests in the dozens to serve thousands spread throughout the land. These priests lived by going from community to community. Most stayed for a time with various Catholic families, and communities paid a small subscription to the priest to come and say mass and perform sacraments for their community. Masses at this time were often performed in homes.

Fr. Kenny regularly attended five stations, and one church, spread between two states (Delaware and Pennsylvania). After a few years of living this essentially homeless life, Fr. Kenny bought a farm, located at Coffee Run, in 1808 from the Jesuits. The order had been under papal suppression since 1773, and were unable to staff their US mission areas (which is a much longer story for another time!) Fr. Kenny decided that the old Jesuit mission could be used as a future center to serve the Catholics of Delaware.

It was at Coffee Run that the first Catholic church was established in Delaware. It was a log mission church built in 1790. The cemetery was established then, and it is all that remains of the original site today due to arson.

His diary gives a real, rough, picture of what life was like for those early priests. They were constantly moving, working in rough conditions, and managing many different communities. Small as the American Catholic community was, they managed to have their fair share of controversies and struggles. Itinerant priests could find themselves stuck in the middle of a fight that both exasperated them and they felt responsibility for settling.  Sickness was frequent, food often short, and the weather hard.

Fr. Kenny died in 1840 at the age of 79 following a stroke, and was buried at Coffee Run - next to the church he had pastored for nearly 40 years.

Florida - Martyrs of La Florida

We tend to think of the American story as starting in 1607 with Jamestown, Virginia, but the American Catholic story in Florida begins much earlier.
A Spanish mission in St. Augustine, Florida was founded in 1565, but the Dominican order attempted to start a mission near Tampa Bay in 1549.

In total there are 54 martyrdom events of La Florida under investigation. Some are for one martyr, others are for multiple martyrs. The specific events under Vatican investigation start with the Dominicans in 1549 and end with the martyrdom of three Apalachee natives killed protecting the Eucharist in 1761.

Although there were diocesan priests serving in La Florida at the time, all of the Proto-martyrs (between 1549 and 1597) were members of three Catholic orders: Dominican, Jesuit, or Franciscan. 1647 marks the date that native Christians began to be martyred, starting in Apalachee.

1697 to 1707 were particularly bloody. Many massacres, brutal attacks, and destruction of many missions. This period includes the lead martyr for the causes of the Martyrs of La Florida - Antonio Cuipa. He was an Apalachee layman particularly devoted to St. Joseph who would die tied to a cross in an English led raid in 1704.

Reasons for attacks on missions and Christians varied. Sometimes it was neighboring tribes who objected to the new religion for a variety of reasons, but many were due to slave raids. Growing English presence in the north led to a growing demand for slave labor. Tribes raiding each other for slaves to sell were frequent.

When the Catholic Church investigates martyrdom events, she requires all documents to be sealed during the investigation. I'm looking forward to learning more from the historical sources when they become available as this case moves forward. I encourage you to see the website for the martyrdom cause as they go into as much detail as is available for each of the 54 martyrdom events.

Georgia - Fr. Ignatius Lissner, S.M.A.

This is the story of a French born Catholic priest who would be a game changer for black Catholics in the US.

Ignatius was born in the Alsace region of France in 1867. His father was the descendant of Polish Jews, and he had converted to Catholicism. Out of the nine children in Ignatius' family, five would grow up to enter Church service. Ignatius was drawn to the priesthood early. He entered minor seminary and would continue his theology studies at the major seminary in Leon. He was ordained in 1891 at the age of 24.

Fr. Lissner was ordained a member of the Society of African Missions - a missionary society dedicated to serving the people of Africa and people of African descent throughout the world. His first assignment was in Whydah in the Kingdom of Dahomey (now Benin). Much of the documentation from this period has been lost. We know he stayed in Whydah about five years, he began traveling through the US and Canada raising funds for the Society in 1897, and was assigned to Egypt in 1899. In 1901, he would be sent back to the United States.

At this time the United States was classified as a mission territory by the Catholic Church (it would remain so until 1908.) There was slowly growing infrastructure to support the immigrant Catholic population, but Fr. Lissner quickly noticed the lack of care for African-American Catholics. The Holy See decided to take action by instructing the Bishop of Savannah-Atlanta to use the Society of African Missions to provide the needed pastoral care. The bishop called up Fr. Lissner.

In 1915 a bill came before the Georgia legislature that would have made the education of black children by white teachers illegal. The Catholic schools in Savannah at the time were served by Franciscan sisters - who were all white. To avoid closing the schools, Fr. Lissner proposed a new religious congregation of black sisters to the Bishop. This would become Handmaids of the Most Pure Heart of Mary. Under the leadership of Elizabeth Barbara Williams, who took the name Mother Theodore, the order was open to Catholic women regardless of race. However the bill that inspired their founding did not pass, and after struggling to survive in Georgia, the sisters relocated to New York where they found a home in Harlem.

At this time there was no seminary in the United States that would accept a black candidate. Fr. Lissner saw establishing a black clergy as part of his mission. With funds from St. Mother Katherine Drexel, S.B.S., a property was purchased in New Jersey, and St. Anthony's Mission was established in 1921. Fr. Lissner recruited six black candidates, all of whom graduated and were ordained. However, they experienced so much prejudice and hate in their congregations - all of them ended up serving outside of the United States. Those same forces led to the seminary's closure in 1927.

 As the Society expanded to the West Coast, it became apparent the work serving the blacks of America could not be staffed by Europeans alone. Fr. Lissner began working on establishing a fully functioning region of the Society of African Mission in the US. A novitiate and seminary were constructed in New Jersey in 1938, and the Society in the United States was moved to the status of a full province in 1941. Fr. Lissner was the first provincial superior.
World War II caused recruitment to be nearly impossible due to the draft, and travel restrictions made the work of a missionary society difficult even within the US. Fr. Lissner saw the Society through the challenges of WWII, including the burning down of the seminary in 1943.

Fr. Lissner retired as provincial superior in 1946 due to age and illness. He died in Teaneck, New Jersey on August 7, 1948.

Make sure to check back on the series announcement post for links to the other installments of the series, and a refresher on the criteria I used to create this list.