The Boston newspaper which I read yesterday was very much like thousands of others which all of us have read in the past several years. Russia, according to the headlines, was threatening the Middle East. British and American diplomats were laying the ground work for delicate negotiations. The economic slump was continuing – the political campaign was underway – there were foreign revolutions and local riots. Editorials assailed governmental secrecy, high taxes, and the views of the Senator from Massachusetts.
This newspaper, in short, was in many ways like yesterday's and tomorrow's and last week's – but with one exception. It was dated one hundred and fifty years ago. It was a fascinating paper to read, this Boston Gazette for 1808. But for all its coverage of political, diplomatic and military news, it apparently missed completely an event of that year which would alter the life of Boston for centuries to come – the establishment of the Boston diocese.
To be sure, there were other important news events of the day. James Madison and Charles Pinckney were nominated for President. A thief broke into the home of Francis Lincoln in Roxbury and made off with a pair of white-topped boots. France was engaged in battle at various times with Spain, with Britain and with the Papal States. President Jefferson, because of British interference with American vessels, had imposed an embargo upon all commerce. This not only tied up the shipping and shipbuilding industries but increased prices in Boston to disturbing levels. Bacon, 12 cents a pound; coffee, 27 cents a pound; and butter, 12 cents a pound. (Those were the happy days before oleo, price-supports and Benson). However, it was business as usual in many of the finer stores. Mr. J. Fowle, at his perfumery and fancy goods store at 17 Newbury Street, advertised all of the latest improved fashions in "artificial and fancy hair work" for the ladies. Also invited, according to the advertisement, were "gentlemen who have had the misfortune to lose their hair, to obtain a perfect substitute and likeness of their former hair, weighing only two ounces."
Most of these fashions, of course, were in time forgotten. The European wars, the political disputes, the crimes and passions of 1808 which seemed so important then – all these in time passed away. But the new diocese established in Boston that year did not pass away. It did not become out of fashion or forgotten or out-moded. It continued to grow in strength and in stature – to exercise a benevolent and wholesome effect upon the entire area as well as on its parishioners – and to continue to this day to be a living, vibrant force for good in the Boston community.
It is not surprising, however, that the Boston Gazette in 1808 overlooked this important development. For although the re-organization of the church in this country which created the Boston diocese had been promulgated by Pope Pius VII on April eighth in that hectic year, 1808, Boston did not find out about it until October. It is not clear why it required so long for the word to come from Bishop Carroll in Baltimore. After all, once the message reached New York, the stage coach trip from New York to Boston required only three days – and trips departed three times a week.
Those were difficult years for the new diocese and Bishop Cheverus. The church collection in 1808 totaled some $253.50. The Baptists were gaining ground in proselytizing the local Indians. The hostile acts of the British government had not only brought the embargo and economic suffering, but had made it difficult for the church to restrain violence on the part of what Bishop Carroll called the "headstrong Irish among us."
Despite these and other difficulties, the little church continued to establish a firm foothold in the town of Boston – population about 25,000. Bishop Cheverus became well-known and highly respected throughout Boston and was close to the town's leading citizens, all of Protestant faith. The people of Boston after all, were not so very different than they are now, if we are to believe this description of those early Bostonians by Timothy Dwight:
"They were distinguished by lively imagination, ardor and sensibility; they admired where graver people would only approve; they applauded or hissed where another audience would be silent; their language was frequently hyperbolic, their pictures highly colored… Boston women practiced accomplishments only that they might be admired; and they were taught from the beginning to regard their dress as a momentous concern."
Politics was not so different in 1808 either – although the Boston Gazette on June sixth reported a duel between Mr. Thomas Lewis and Mr. John McHenry over a political dispute. The match was rifles at fifteen paces – the result was the death of two politicians. Fortunately today we have less drastic measures of expressing our political taste.
In the House of Representatives that summer, Congressmen were asked to pass a resolution that the members should wear only clothes made in the United States. Many members, according to the annals of Congress hotly opposed the resolution – and indicated that their wives would oppose it even more strongly. Congressman Rhea announced that he would disregard the resolution if it were passed, and defied the membership to enforce it upon him. The distinguished Nathaniel Bacon opposed the resolution as discriminatory against bachelors, who were required to purchase all of their own clothes. Congressman Findlay, according to the official reporter, "spoke some time on the subject, but too indistinctly to be well understood." The resolution failed to pass.
But a more significant political event took place in 1808 – one which I think we would do well to recall this evening. Because it took courage in 1808 to establish a diocese in an impoverished, remote and overwhelmingly Protestant community – and that courage has been demonstrated by the diocese and archdiocese of Boston to this day. And it also took courage for a United States Senator from Massachusetts in 1808 to defy political pressures and popular opinion to do what he thought was right – and we also need to be reminded of the need for those same qualities of courage and character in our political leadership today.
These two events of 1808 were unrelated – except that both involved the economic distress in Massachusetts caused by President Jefferson's embargo. They involved different issues and different personalities – they required different kinds of courage – but a Senator from Massachusetts who examines the year 1808, as I have examined it this week, cannot overlook that notable act of political courage.
The Senator involved in 1808, of course, was young John Quincy Adams. And he demonstrated his courage by fighting not against but for Jefferson's embargo on American shipping. Throughout New England, fishing vessels were tied up – the shipping trade was destroyed - shipyards were idle – seamen were unemployed – and merchants and farmers found their export outlets closed. The leaders of Adams's own Federalist Party insisted that the embargo was an attempt by Jefferson to ruin New England prosperity; to provoke England to war; and to aid the French. Even the opposition party refused to defend the bill of their own President.
Hating Thomas Jefferson and his embargo was one thing – but feelings toward a Massachusetts Senator who had supported it were even more bitter. One of Boston's leading citizens refused to attend a dinner at which Adams would be present, declaring: "I would not sit at the same table with that renegade." The Northampton Hampshire Gazette called him a party scavenger and an apostate. And a New York Federalist Congressman, who had disliked the independence of John Quincy Adams's father some years earlier, declared: "I wish to God that the noble house of Braintree had been put in a hole – and a deep one too – twenty years ago."
And when, on the embargo issue, the Federalist Party recaptured both Houses of the Massachusetts legislature, that body in May of 1808 – just 150 years ago this month – immediately elected Adams's successor – nine months in advance – and passed a resolution instructing him to vote for repeal of the embargo. John Quincy Adams did not miss the point of their rebuff – nor could he follow their resolutions. And so he resigned his cherished seat in the Senate. He wanted to retain, he said, "the sole and exclusive control of my own sense of right. I will only add, that, far from regretting any one of those acts for which I have suffered, I would do them over again at the hazard of ten times as much slander, unpopularity and displacement."
Perhaps an entry in his diary at this time is of particular interest to us tonight. He was accosted in Boston, he wrote, by a politically minded preacher who assailed his position in what the young statesman regarded to be a "rude and indecent manner." "I told him," the diary went on, "that in consideration of his age I should only remark that he had one lesson yet to learn… Christian charity."
I think of the courage of John Quincy Adams tonight because this is a time for courage – courage in our political leaders and courage in our churchmen. Massachusetts has been blessed with a long history of courageous public servants – including not only the family of Adams, but Winthrop and Webster, Standish and Sumner, Otis and Andrew, Bradford and Quincy and all the rest.
In the same way, this diocese-archdiocese has been uniquely fortunate in the leadership with which it has been blessed for 150 years – John Cheverus, the first Bishop of Boston, who nurtured the growth of a little Catholic community in the midst of the Puritan stronghold of America – Bishop Benedict Joseph Fenwick, who welcomed the ingathering of the immigrants of every land, defended his parishioners against the Nativist movement of the 1830s and 40s, and who demonstrated the courage of which we speak during the Borad Street and Montgomery Guardhouse raids of 1837 and the burning of the Charlestown Convent in 1834 – Bishop John Bernard Fitzpatrick, under whose leadership in the mid-nineteenth century the activities and growth of the church reached tremendous proportions, despite a bloody civil war, and despite the Know-nothing movement of the 1850s, which in 1855 controlled the Massachusetts legislature and, among other acts, established a special committee on inspection of nunneries and convents – Archbishop John J. Williams, who overcame the APA movement of the 1890s and earlier battles over the school question to found the modern archdiocese we salute tonight – His Eminence William Cardinal O'Connell, who led his church through two world wars and a series of political and interfaith crises – and finally, that distinguished leader to whom this state and nation will always be indebted, Archbishop Richard J. Cushing.
I think it is significant that only six men have presided over this diocese in 150 years. And I think it is significant that the last of these six is one of Boston's own sons. There are some here tonight, I am sure, who remember when he carried water to railway construction gangs as a youthful South Boston schoolboy. There are some who remember with regret, when they look at the present Red Sox infield, that Richard Cushing was an outstanding baseball player in high school – but was more interested in debating and in the church. We remember with appreciation his service as director of the Boston branch of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, a work that has always been close to his heart. And we remember with pride and with pleasure that day in 1944 when he became the youngest man to reach the position of Archbishop anywhere in the world.
Here is a clergyman of courage whom I feel John Quincy Adams would salute – for he is a clergyman who has learned that "one lesson" perhaps better than all the rest – the lesson of Christian charity. For the works of Archbishop Cushing, his progress against sometimes overwhelming odds, his tireless faith in his city and his people, are reflected everywhere in this diocese – in schools and hospitals, in homes for the aged and in the retarded, in our colleges and churches, and in the attitudes and the policies of our citizens of every faith.
I said that we stand in need today of men with the courage of a John Quincy Adams and an Archbishop Cushing – and I say that because today we are engaged in a struggle for the preservation of Christian civilization.
I say this not because I believe Christianity is a weapon in the present world struggle, but because I believe religion itself is at the root of the struggle, not in terms of the physical organizations of Christianity versus those of Atheism, but in terms of Good versus Evil, right versus wrong, in terms of "the stern encounter" of which Cardinal Newman so prophetically wrote:
"Then will come the stern encounter when two real and living principles, simple, entire, and consistent, one in the church and the other out of it, at length rush upon one another contending not for names and words or half views, but for elementary notions and distinctive moral characteristics."
Cardinal Newman spoke of this conflict as yet to come. Doubtless its climax is yet to come, but in essence the conflict has been going on for 2,000 years. It has not been limited to one nation or to form of government. The issues, the slogans, the battle flags, the battlefields and the personalities have been different. But basically it has been the same encounter of opposing principles, a struggle more comprehensive, more deep-rooted and even more violent than the political and military battles which go on today.
It is easy to envision the struggle as being wholly physical – of men and arms – of stockpiles, strategic materials and nuclear weapons – of air bases and bombers, of industrial potential and military achievements. This is the material struggle, and the central problem here is to be equal to the sacrifices necessary for ultimate survival and victory.
But of far deeper significance is "the stern encounter," the very nearly silent struggle, with no din to be heard in the streets of the world, and with weapons far more subtle and far more damaging than cannons and shells. The encounter of which I speak makes no more noise than the inner process of disintegration which over a period of several hundred years may hollow from within some great tree of the forest, until it is left standing an empty shell, the easy victim of a winter gale.
We can barely hear the stern encounter, and thus too often we forget it. Our minds, like the headlines of our newspapers, are intent upon the present and future conflicts of armed might, and upon the brutal, physical side of that ominous war upon which we have bestowed the strange epithet "cold." We tend to forget the moral and spiritual issues which inhere in the fateful encounter of which the physical war is but one manifestation. We tend to forget those ideals and faiths and philosophical needs which drive men far more intensely than military and economic objectives.
This is not to say that we have overlooked religion. Too often we have utilized it as a weapon, broadcast it as propaganda, shouted it as a battle cry. But in "the stern encounter," in the moral struggle, religion is not simply a weapon – it is the essence of the struggle itself.
The Communist rulers do not fear the phraseology of religion, or the ceremonies and churches and denominational organizations. On the contrary, they leave no stone unturned in seeking to turn these aspects of religion to their own advantage – to use the trappings of religion in order to cement the obedience of their people. What they fear is the profound consequences of a religion that is lived and not merely acknowledged. They fear especially man's response to spiritual and ethical stimuli, not merely material. A society which seeks to make the worship of the State the ultimate objective of life cannot permit a higher loyalty, a faith in God, a belief in a religion that elevates the individual, acknowledges his true value and teaches him devotion and responsibility to something beyond the here and the now. In short, there is room in a totalitarian system for churches – but there is no room for God. The claim of the State must be total, and no other loyalty, no other philosophy of life, can be tolerated.
Is this not simply an indication of the weakness of the communist position? If the ultimate struggle is indeed a moral encounter, then are we not certain of eventual victory?
At first glance it might seem inevitable that in a struggle where the issue is the supremacy of the moral order, we must be victorious. That it is not inevitable is due to the steady attrition in our faith and belief, a disease from which we in the West are suffering heavily. The communists have substituted dialectal materialism for faith in God; we on our part have substituted too often cynicism and indifference. We have too often permitted the communists to choose the ground for the struggle. We have pointed with pride to the great outpourings of our factories and assumed that we have proved the superiority of our system. We forget that the essence of the struggle is not material, but spiritual and ethical.
We have too often, in our foreign policy, in order to compete with the power doctrines of the Soviets, ourselves practiced what Jacques Maritain called "moderate machiavellianism." But as Maritain pointed out, in the showdown, this pale and attenuated version "is inevitably destined to be vanquished by absolute and virulent machiavellianism" as practiced by the communists.
So we cannot separate our lives into compartments, either as individuals or as a nation. We cannot, on the one hand, run with the tide, and on the other, hold fast to our basic spiritual principles. If our nation recognizes the spiritual and moral elements of the "stern encounter," and directs our policies to emphasize this phase of the struggle – if we refuse those compromises which have cost us so heavily – which have blurred the nature of the encounter between our enemies and ourselves – then we shall find our way easier, and our success more certain.
One of the great men in the history of this diocese, John Boyle O'Reilly, once wrote these words:
"The world is large, when its weary leagues two loving hearts divide;
But the world is small, when your enemy is loose on the other side."
The world is small tonight – and our enemy is loose in it. But with the role of Archbishop Cushing and his predecessors as our inspiration, with the preservation of our religious liberties for another 150 years as our goals, we can face an uncertain future with hope, with confidence, and with determination that our cause will prevail.
Source: Papers of John F. Kennedy. Pre-Presidential Papers. Senate Files, Box 901, "150th Anniversary of Archbishopric of Boston, Mass., 14 May 1958." John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.