Leslie Woodcock Tentler

THE CATHOLIC
HISTORICAL REVIEW
VOL. 106

SPRING 2020

NO. 2

Journeys in Church History Essay
A Story of Gifts:
Becoming a Historian of American Catholicism
LESLIE WOODCOCK TENTLER*

N

ot long after Christmas, I was seated next to Nelson Minnich, editor
of this publication, at a Washington dinner party. “How’s the essay
coming?” was practically the first thing he said to me. Now, it’s true that
I’d missed several deadlines for this particular assignment, although my
excuses were impeccable, given that I was finishing a book manuscript and
preparing it for publication. But Nelson had correctly intuited that my
heart wasn’t in this particular assignment. “It’s rather like writing your own
obituary,” I pointed out. “One can view it that way,” he responded. “But I
prefer to think of it as an opportunity to express gratitude for the gifts one
receives over the course of a long career.” Duly chastened, I agreed to meet
the upcoming deadline. That I managed to do so is largely due to Nelson’s
reframing of the project, the valedictory aspects of which were indeed
inhibiting me. So I thank him for his typically gracious counsel. Mine has
in fact been a story of gifts, and it has been good to acknowledge it. This is
perhaps especially true with regard to the gifts that arrived oddly packaged.
I came to the University of Michigan in the fall of 1963 as an exceedingly green but eager freshman. I had no firm ideas about a major,
although I opted with genuine excitement for Sociology 100 as my lone
first-semester elective. The subject had not been taught at my excellent
suburban high school, which was probably part of its attraction. It was also
something of a natural for someone with parents like mine—both of them
* Dr. Tentler is professor emerita of the Catholic University of America. Her email
address is Tentler@cua.edu.

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veterans of the labor movement and long-time political activists. All such
electives, however, required the approval of the honors program’s director,
then a formidable professor of German literature. “Oh no, my dear,” he
said as he drew a thick line through “Sociology 100” on my course election
card. “You belong in History 101”—which in those days was the first half
of Western Civ. Although I would be community organizing with a radical
student group by the following summer and acquiring fluency in rightstalk, I was capable in the moment of nothing but meek assent. History 101
it was. I quickly fell in love with the subject and, after an appropriately
lengthy interval, also with the instructor, a brand-new assistant professor
by the name of Thomas Tentler.
My passion for the history of late medieval and early modern Europe
quickened in subsequent semesters. So did my taste for political activism.
I remember a hurried journey south in the spring of my sophomore year to
participate in civil rights demonstrations in Montgomery, Alabama, then
at the epicenter of the struggle over voting rights. I heard Lyndon Johnson
propose the 1965 Voting Rights Act in a speech before a joint session of
Congress while sitting with fellow marchers on a darkened Montgomery
street that had troopers on horseback at both ends. They too were listening
via transistor radio, and when Johnson said “we shall overcome” in his
inimitable Texas drawl, those hitherto terrifying troopers sagged visibly in
their saddles. The experience, still vivid in memory, helped to shape the
historian I became, not just in terms of my interpretive biases but in a more
immediate sense, as well. Shortly after my return, I enrolled for the following semester in a section of the junior honors seminar devoted to the Renaissance. The class, as it happened, was oversubscribed, which prompted
the presiding professor to query each student as to his or her extracurricular
activities. Upon hearing my account, in which the Montgomery experience
figured, he promptly ejected me from the class and assigned me to an inexplicably under-enrolled section on the U.S. Civil War.
My assent to this second instance of professorial high-handedness was
something less than meek. But as in the case of the earlier instance, this
one proved to be a gift. It was in Professor William Freehling’s splendid
class that I both conceived a passion for American history and learned to
engage historical texts in a genuinely critical way. Revisionist scholarship
was already transforming the study of slavery and the Reconstruction era,
and, fueled by my political passions, I entered into the debate with a lifetransforming zeal. It was also in Freehling’s seminar that I quite literally
found my voice. In previous classes, even in discussion sections, I rarely
spoke, conditioned at least in part by cultural assumptions that equated

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loquaciousness in females with foolishness—or worse, aggression. But I
was so talkative, indeed so combative, in Freehling’s seminar that I was
often sick to my stomach after class was over, fearful that I had talked too
much or been less than acceptably deferential to my male fellow students.
Throughout my college years, I should note, I experienced nothing but
respect and support from the Michigan history faculty, all but one of whom
were men. For me, the enemy lay within and the Freehling seminar
marked the outset of a long internal struggle.
Michigan history honors students, then as now, devote their senior year
to researching and writing a senior thesis. Thoroughly committed by this
time to politically relevant scholarship, I chose as my subject the racial
dimensions of the United Auto Workers’ campaign to organize the enormous Ford Rouge complex in 1940 and 1941. Roughly 10 percent of Rouge
workers were African-American, all of whom had ample reason to distrust
the labor movement when it came to protecting workers like them. How,
then, did the union strive to ensure that, in the event of a strike, black workers would honor the picket line? The thesis introduced me to archival
research, by which I was immediately entranced, and also to its frustrations—given that the archives in question consisted of the mostly unorganized papers of the UAW’s local 600, which happened to be voluminous.
Still, I was supremely happy rifling through those documents at local 600’s
headquarters—happy enough to ensure that I would follow through on my
still-tentative plans to apply to history graduate programs and aim for an
academic career. That my completed thesis won a prize seemed to validate
aspirations that I still could not help but regard as audacious.
Against all advice, I decided to stay at Michigan for my graduate studies. I was romantically involved with someone already enrolled in a Michigan graduate program, which helps to explain this almost certainly unwise
decision. But my choice had more fundamentally to do with an almost
crippling lack of self-confidence, a problem with which I was wrestling but
had far from overcome. And yet even this unwise decision brought major
gifts in its wake. The first, in order of time, was my introduction to the field
of urban history in the person of Sam Bass Warner, Jr., a recent addition
to the Michigan faculty. I can still remember my excitement at learning in
Warner’s seminar about new—to me—sources of evidence like city directories and manuscript census schedules, and their applicability to research
into the history of everyday life. A second gift, received primarily from my
fellow graduate students, was exposure to the then-radical notion that
gender should be a critical variable in our reconstruction of the past.
Michigan’s climate was hardly unique in this regard. But the university’s

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tradition of student activism meant that interest in women’s history and
related gender issues was unusually strong in my graduate school cohort.
The best gift of all was eventual marriage to fellow historian Tom Tentler,
most unlikely to have come about had I left Ann Arbor.
The next several years were so eventful that even in memory they retain
something of a frenetic quality. Between 1973 and 1979, I finished my
degree, took my first academic job, gave birth to three children, and published my first book. I also became a Catholic, which partly explains a subsequent reorientation of my research agenda. Coming of professional age
in the mid-1970s, I was something of a pioneer in terms of the academy:
my generation of female PhDs was the first to seek university teaching jobs
in significant numbers. Many of us did not survive professionally—hence
the dearth, until quite recently, of senior female faculty in a great many
fields. My own experience suggests why this was so. Marriage to a fellow
academic, especially one with tenure, radically limited my employment
prospects. I was supremely fortunate to find a tenure-track job within commuting distance of Ann Arbor. Had I been consigned to adjuncting, as
might easily have happened, I would almost certainly have gone into
another line of work. The demands of child-care were often overwhelming.
I remember years of chronic exhaustion, accompanied by deep anxiety
about my children’s well-being. Convinced that I had to be home for
dinner every single night, I refused in those early years to attend any conference that would have taken me away from Ann Arbor. Bad for my professional prospects, to say the least. But I will concede—this is meant as
encouragement for today’s young scholars—that having children did teach
me to work with laser-like concentration. Prior to the birth of my first
child, I hadn’t realized how leisurely the rhythms of my graduate-school
existence had been.
Despite the innumerable obstacles, I managed to publish my revised
dissertation, which appeared in 1979 as Wage-Earning Women: Industrial
Work and Family Life in the United States, 1900–1930.1 Born of my interests
in labor history and the nascent field of women’s history, the book analyzed
women’s employment in the broader context of working-class life. What
did employment—I looked specifically at factory and retail work—mean
for women’s understanding of the possibilities open to their sex, given a
sex-segregated labor market, persistently low female wages, and the fantasizing about romance and marriage that typically dominated workroom
1. Published in New York by Oxford University Press.

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life? It was quite possible, I concluded, for paid employment to be both a
transformative experience for a young woman, causing her to seek and
achieve a far greater independence in her social life than her mother had
enjoyed, and one that prompted her to see her natural destiny as marriage
and non-employed motherhood. It was time, in short, to reassess the persistent notion that paid employment was an unambiguous force for
women’s emancipation. The book sold surprisingly well—it was controversial in its argument, which made it a natural for teaching, and fed a growing hunger for texts on American women’s history. Indeed, it has to date
outsold any of my subsequent offerings in American Catholic history.
I made scant mention of religion in Wage-Earning Women, although
probably a majority of my subjects were Catholic, given that my sources
dealt mainly with New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Chicago, and a
significant minority were Jewish. Nothing in my graduate training had prepared me to think of religion as a significant category of analysis, much less
a subject of interest in its own right. But by 1979 I had converted to the
Catholicism with which I had flirted in adolescence, and that development—let me be frank—made it easier for me to grasp religion’s salience
for the kind of history I wished to do. I had hoped in Wage-Earning
Women to probe the nature of family and community life in the urban
working-class—to write “labor” history in the broadest and most generous
sense. My sources, however, rich though they were, mostly told me about
life on the job. How might I construct a fuller picture of the contexts in
which my subjects lived and made their choices? Religion was obviously a
piece of the puzzle, given that I was dealing with the United States, where
religious institutions have historically played a central role in many working-class communities. This was evident on my frequent forays into
Detroit, about which I was then teaching a course along with several colleagues. The city was still a bastion of organized labor, but its churches and
synagogues vastly outnumbered its union halls.
It was in conjunction with one of those Detroit forays that I stumbled
onto my next research project, which led in turn to what can only be called
a reorientation of my career. Visiting a magnificent, if gently decaying,
Polish church near the city center, I was engaged by its historicallyinformed pastor in a long conversation about the church’s origins. (Since
the church in question was located just two blocks from another enormous
Polish church, I was already curious. Could this now-mostly-empty piece
of urban wilderness have ever been so densely populated as to have supported two Catholic churches in such close proximity?) The church I was
visiting, as I learned, had been born in schism in the 1880s, the result of a

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bitter dispute in the neighboring congregation over a priest who had been
summarily dismissed—for ample cause, in all likelihood—by the local
bishop. The ensuing conflict had been episodically violent: a young man
was fatally shot, two priests were assaulted by female parishioners and
forcibly prevented from saying Mass, and women were prominent too in
confrontations with the police. Knowing almost nothing at this juncture
about the history of American Catholicism, I was both stunned—could
Catholics really be capable of such behavior?—and hungry to learn more.
A bit of digging confirmed the pastor’s account and prompted me to
a fuller investigation, during which I began to explore the existing literature on American Catholic history. I soon discovered that the conflict
which had drawn my interest was anything but an aberration. Catholics
were in fact capable of extreme behavior when it came to defending what
they typically described as their rights in the church. Those putative rights
nearly always centered on two issues: the ownership of parish properties
and the hiring and dismissal of parish clergy. (My schismatic Detroit congregation vested ownership of its church and school in an elected board of
lay trustees, who at least in theory both hired the pastor and defined the
reach of his authority.) No bishop, needless to say, was willing to cede
either “right” to the laity—hence the bitter and protracted nature of the
conflicts that sometimes resulted. Earlier generations of Catholic historians had had little to say about such conflicts. It was otherwise with my contemporaries in the field, who were frequently partisans of the “new” social
history. Eager to understand lay experience and perspectives, they saw in
such breaches of the usual order a means of exploring communal values and
the assumptions that undergirded life in the immigrant enclaves. Since
little work had yet been done on parish rebellions among the Poles, my
research made a modest contribution to this particular mode of reassessing
the Catholic past.
It was in the course of my “Polish” research that I first visited the
archives of the Archdiocese of Detroit, which were then in what might
charitably be called a primitive state. The archives were open only one day
a week, tended by a devoted but decidedly part-time archivist, and had
space for a single researcher. I could reserve that single seat in advance, but
in the event of a priest’s needing to use the archives, I would have to surrender it. (Would a woman religious have similarly outranked me? I never
did find out.) The archivist, Father—later Bishop—Leonard Blair, was
kindness itself on the days we shared his miniscule workroom, and he
clearly hoped to persuade his superiors to take the archives more seriously.
But research under these conditions was exceedingly difficult and I was

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grateful that my project was of limited duration. Did historians of American Catholicism regularly confront such obstacles, I wondered. And what
about the linguistic demands of the field? It had not been difficult to cope
with the relatively few Polish-language documents relevant to my project,
given that I had studied Russian in high school and college; a semester’s
worth of Polish classes brought me up to speed. But researching the polyglot Catholic past would presumably require a greater linguistic facility
than I thought I possessed.
My “Polish” research was hampered by more than limits on archival
access. I had three young children at home—a daughter and twin sons—
and a heavy teaching load. Finding time for research was hard and I was
experiencing symptoms of acute emotional exhaustion. My socially-conservative department chair proved in this instance to be a gift, if an ironic
one. Open about his conviction that the mothers of young children should
not be employed, he readily agreed to my teaching a reduced load after the
birth of the twins and was willing to grant me an unpaid leave for a subsequent academic year, when my husband’s sabbatical took us to England.
We were poor as proverbial church mice during that sabbatical year, but it
was a life-saver. London is where I took Polish classes and turned my mass
of “Polish” research into a journal article.2 It was also where our family life
re-gained a measure of serenity. I include these domestic details for a
reason, although some may object to their presence in what is supposed to
be a form of intellectual biography. To ignore them would be to collude
with a powerful bias in our national culture, which is faithfully reflected in
the various professions—that parenthood is a private choice, the consequences of which should be borne by the choosers alone. No need, then,
for the various professions to accommodate parents at the outset of their
careers by modifying expectations as to productivity or extending time to
tenure. The University of Michigan, at a branch of which I was then teaching, did eventually embrace the latter reform some twenty years after my
children were born.
I returned from the year abroad with new energy, although my research
agenda appeared to have run aground. My “Polish” research had indeed
provided new insight into the life of a working-class population that mainstream labor historians had tended to neglect, if only because relatively few
Polish-Americans in the past have been prominent labor activists. But, for
2. Leslie Woodcock Tentler, “Who is the Church? Conflict in a Polish Immigrant
Parish in Late Nineteenth-Century Detroit,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 25:2
(April 1983).

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the reasons cited above, further research on American Catholicism seemed
impractical. Then I received an unexpected phone call. The caller was Father
Blair, late of the archdiocesan archives and now secretary to the archbishop,
who conveyed surprising news. The archdiocese had hired a full-time professional archivist and space had been designated at the chancery for a commodious reading room, which would be open to researchers a full five days
a week. The archbishop, moreover, wanted to commission a professionallyresearched history of the archdiocese to commemorate its upcoming sesquicentennial. The writer of this history would have full access to the archives,
Father Blair assured me, and be free of ecclesiastical vetting—there would
be a “no censorship” clause in the contract and the completed manuscript
was to be published by a university press rather than the archdiocese itself.
Would I be interested in applying for the job?
Of course I said yes. But in retrospect, there were good career-linked
reasons not to. At least among Americanists, diocesan history was—then,
as now—barely recognized as an acceptable professional genre. As for ecclesiastical sponsorship in any form, it was and is definitely beyond the bounds
of professional propriety. By committing myself to the Detroit project,
moreover, I risked being permanently identified as a historian of American
Catholicism rather than a labor historian or a historian of immigration—
never mind that I would still be dealing with many of the same human subjects—and American Catholic history at that juncture was hardly describable as a genuine sub-field. It boasted no prestigious journals, its
practitioners seldom featured at major professional conferences, and the
jobs available to specialists were—save at certain Catholic colleges—close to
non-existent. At this point in my career, however, my connections to the
profession were sufficiently tenuous that all I could see in Father Blair’s offer
was intellectual salvation—three whole years away from teaching, an archive
within commuting distance, the chance to write a second book. I did not
expect to move from my current academic job, where my superiors were in
fact supportive of the project, less because of the Catholic angle than its
Detroit connections, which were thought to be good for public relations.
Thus began three of the happiest years of my entire professional life.
Save for the antebellum decades, the Detroit archives were wonderfully
rich, as were those of its principal teaching order. At least some of the
missing documents from the diocese’s early years, moreover, had been long
ago rescued by an enterprising archivist at Notre Dame, and I had the
funds to travel there. True, the archdiocesan archives had been organized
according to episcopal priorities, which are not necessarily those of the
researcher. But I had sufficient time in the archives to satisfy my own pri-

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orities and to accumulate—slowly, painstakingly—a fair amount of information about both the laity and the local clergy, in addition to seemingly
endless details about what is best described as ecclesiastical housekeeping.
In the end, I read almost everything. I compiled a collective biography of
the diocese’s priests between the mid-nineteenth and the mid-twentieth
centuries, which revealed important changes over time, especially when it
came to career patterns. Thanks to mandatory parish reports, I learned a
good deal about changing sacramental practice and trends in devotional
offerings. The diocesan newspaper, with which I spent untold purgatorial
hours, provided generous insight into parish social life, as I had rather
expected it would; it was also an unanticipated source of information about
changing funeral customs and the place of death in Catholic consciousness.
I had not expected to find much about sexual discipline and its contestation
in either the archives or the paper, but by the end of my research I had
uncovered a surprising amount of provocative data, some of which would
have eluded a more hurried researcher. Trudging through a particularly
dreary cache of letters from and to a late-nineteenth century bishop, I
encountered one from an itinerant mission preacher detailing the startlingly large number of abortions—“actual or intended”—that had been
confessed to him at a recent mission in Kalamazoo. Nothing in the missive
suggested surprise on the part of the writer.
The diocesan archives were much less rich when it came to such “secular” topics as politics and social movements, save where explicitly Catholic
issues were directly at stake. (This is much less true of the records that date
from the 1960s and after, but at the time these were closed even to me.)
Supplementary collections elsewhere sometimes helped to fill the gap, as
with the papers of the Detroit Association of Catholic Trade Unionists,
housed at Wayne State University, where the papers of a prominent labor
priest were also to be found. Serendipity led me to the privately-held
papers of another priest known for his social activism and broad local contacts and to what remained of the archives of the local Catholic Worker,
which had close ties to the labor movement. (The founder’s widow was a
fellow parishioner.) But as my research progressed, it gradually dawned on
me that I was in fact compiling evidence that was “secular” in its implications despite its apparent “churchiness”—evidence that spoke directly to
such matters as the course of Detroit’s development, directly affected for a
number of years by the Chancery’s decisions about where to plant new
parishes. Detroit was a city that shouldn’t have worked, given its ethnic
heterogeneity, explosive growth, and the brutality of its industrial regime.
That it more or less did was attributable in part to the social glue provided
by the Catholic Church with its network of parishes, schools, colleges,

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hospitals, social service, and cultural organizations. I did not doubt, by the
time my book was published, that I had things to say to my colleagues in
urban, labor, and immigrant history.3
My erstwhile colleagues evidently disagreed: despite positive reviews,
Seasons of Grace sold anemically. Nor did I help my cause by turning almost
immediately to a research focus that smacked of the ecclesiastical—to wit,
the Catholic diocesan clergy in the United States. I had been surprised, in
the course of my previous research, at how little attention this decidedly
interesting population had received from historians of American Catholicism. Understanding the clergy—their training, modes of life, self-understanding, and self-presentation—seemed to me essential to a full reconstruction of the Catholic sub-culture at the various stages of its evolution.
Given that priests were often communal as well as religious leaders, moreover, studying the clergy also seemed key to a fuller understanding of the
Church’s role as a mediating institution. I did intuit that, for many of my
colleagues, the clergy represented an outmoded way of doing Catholic history—one that focused on clerical elites rather than the laity. And I knew
from experience that studying the clergy meant serious problems with
sources, which were apt to be thin and, all too often, hard to access. If
Catholic priests in the past kept diaries or wrote personal letters, as some
must have done, few diocesan archives have bothered to collect them. I was
lucky in Detroit: two successive bishops had required regular letters from
seminarians studying in Europe and from chaplains serving in the Second
World War, and those letters—some of them surprisingly candid—were
archived. Other than that, however, priests’ correspondence in the archives
dealt mostly with grievances of various sorts, many of them petty, and with
the occasional scandal—useful up to a point but hardly providing a balanced picture of clerical life. A good deal of relevant information about
Detroit’s priests, moreover, was filed in collections that I strongly suspected were off-limits to research. (I knew better than to ask.) With free
access to the archives’ vault, I could access that material. Most researchers
could not.
Nevertheless, I persisted, focusing initially on the French-speaking
clergy so prominent in the Great Lakes region in the early decades of the
nineteenth century. Happily for me, they proved to be letter-writers, and
some of their letters had been rescued by the aforementioned archivist at
Notre Dame, to whom I continue to be grateful. I also had useful scraps
3. Leslie Woodcock Tentler, Seasons of Grace: A History of the Catholic Archdiocese of
Detroit (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1990).

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from my Detroit research, most notably a rich collection of documents
from an experiment in rural ministry in the Michigan Thumb in the 1920s.
Several articles resulted.4 I knew, of course, that I would eventually have to
broaden the geographic scope of my research. Ideally, I would compile a
collective biography of the priests in three additional dioceses, to supplement what I had found in Detroit. I would certainly need a generous grant,
given the time away from home such an endeavor would require. But
would I ever again enjoy the kind of access I’d had in Detroit, without
which such a project might not be possible? Doubts nagged at me in my
vulnerable moments. With a sabbatical on the horizon, however, I continued to think in terms of a book-length study. Surely there were dioceses
whose leaders would grasp the importance of a project like mine and agree
to cooperate.
Although priests were my principal preoccupation over the course of
the 1990s, the most significant article that I published then—significant,
at least, in terms of its readership—had little to do with the priesthood.
Titled “On the Margins: the State of American Catholic History,” this
article challenged the assumptions that undergirded what I saw as the persistent marginalization among American historians of scholarship on
Catholicism.5 Why, for example, were labor historians so dismissive of the
communal achievements embodied in Catholic parish founding and working-class support of parochial schools? Did such achievements have nothing to do with the gradual development of class consciousness? Why were
my colleagues in women’s history so indifferent to women’s religious
orders, given their significance as a socially-sanctioned alternative to marriage and motherhood and the professional attainment they made possible
for their members? Why did even those historians of ethnicity who emphasized the role of Catholicism in the immigrant community tend to ignore
it as they dealt with more assimilated ethnic populations in the decades
after the First World War? Historians of American Catholicism, I think,
were grateful for such questions. Most of us knew the sense of marginality
on which the article was premised. A “state of the field” article, moreover,
4. Leslie Woodcock Tentler, “’A Model Rural Parish: Priests and People in the Michigan Thumb,” Catholic Historical Review 78:3 (July 1992); Leslie Woodcock Tentler, “’How I
Would Save Them All:’ Priests on the Michigan Frontier,” U.S. Catholic Historian 12:4 (Fall
1994); Leslie Woodcock Tentler, “Reluctant Pluralists: Catholic and Reformed Clergy in
Ante-Bellum Michigan,” U.S. Catholic Historian 15:2 (Spring 1997); Leslie Woodcock
Tentler, “’God’s Representative in Our Midst:’ Toward a History of the Catholic Diocesan
Clergy in the United States,” Church History 67:2 (June 1998).
5. Leslie Woodcock Tentler, “On the Margins: the State of American Catholic History,” American Quarterly 45:1 (March 1993).

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is almost bound to attract a larger-than-usual readership, if only because
none of us can keep up with current scholarly output.
The 1990s also brought a deeper involvement on my part with the
Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism at Notre Dame—
a gift indeed for someone whose research interests were not shared by her
immediate colleagues. Through Cushwa conferences and seminars, I met
other historians of American Catholicism and was encouraged to think in
bolder ways about my research agenda. Of particular significance was the
“Twentieth Century Project,” generously funded by the Lilly Foundation,
which aimed to spur research on American Catholicism between the earliest days of the century and the turmoil that followed Vatican II. Surprisingly little had been published on this period. Was the church in the
immediate pre-conciliar decades too centralized administratively, too
aggressive when it came to sexual discipline, too reflexively patriotic, and
too complacent intellectually to appeal to a cohort of historians who had
valorized the variety and rambunctiousness of the immigrant church? I
rather suspect that this was the case. Too many of us, whether we acknowledged it or not, were deeply invested in providing a kind of scholarly imprimatur to post-conciliar American Catholicism. The “Twentieth Century
Project,” which spawned a number of excellent monographs, resulted in a
more nuanced understanding of the decades under study and a new appreciation of the Council’s complex roots.
Although I participated in the Twentieth Century Project, I did not
use the opportunity to produce a history—or, chronologically speaking, a
partial history—of the American diocesan clergy. But priests still figured,
given that my project entailed a history of Catholic pastoral practice with
regard to marital contraception and the variety of lay responses to this particular mode of sexual discipline. What accounts for the sudden shift in my
research focus? I think, in retrospect, that I was exceedingly anxious about
the problem of archival access were I to embark on a book-length study of
the clergy. How many bishops were likely to grant me the freedom I had
enjoyed in Detroit? Better, perhaps, to defer the problem—to assume that
it could be resolved at some point in the conveniently hazy future. But it’s
also true that I’d long been fascinated by the birth control question, which
had occasionally surfaced in the course of my earlier research. I was particularly intrigued by its link to the recent history of confession—to the rapid
spread of frequent confession in the middle decades of the twentieth century and the near-collapse of the sacrament in the decades following Vatican II. That near-collapse signaled a radical shift in lay understanding of
ecclesial authority and I strongly suspected that birth control played a

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major role in this regard. Given my long-standing interest in the Catholic
politics of gender, moreover, the subject was a natural. Then, too, I could
remember a time in the not-terribly-distant past when Catholics themselves seemed obsessed with the subject. Growing up in a heavily Catholic
neighborhood, I knew that Catholics couldn’t practice birth control even
before I knew precisely what birth control was.
Having found a congenial subject did not solve my source problems. I
knew that plentiful sources existed for the 1950s and ’60s, when birth control was increasingly a topic of public policy debates and, ultimately, of
intra-Catholic contention. But how many of these sources addressed the
specifics of pastoral practice, especially in the confessional? I had no idea.
Nor did I know whether much was available, by way of relevant documents, for earlier decades in the twentieth century. Indeed, I began my
research assuming that the resulting narrative might well begin in 1945.
But I was in for a happy surprise—or, perhaps more accurately, a series of
happy surprises. Sources proved to be abundant, albeit somewhat less so for
the earliest years of the century. Pastoral literature was particularly informative, even for the late nineteenth century. My earliest document was a set
of teaching notes produced in 1875 by a Passionist missioner, who was
tasked with instructing his neophyte confreres on how to preach about sex.
Catholic couples resorted to birth control “more commonly than many suspect,” he informed them, although the subject had of necessity to be
“HINTED AT PRUDENTLY,” lest ignorant members of the congregation be schooled in sinful behavior.6 Few of the mission sermons I found,
whether printed or in manuscript form, deviated from this counsel prior to
the First World War. Only the Redemptorists regularly preached on the
subject with clarity and vigor.
Mission sermons were among the richest of my archival sources. (I was
graciously welcomed and assisted at the archives of the Passionist Fathers,
the Paulists, and the Redemptorists.) But other sources surfaced, too. By
the 1920s, with the advent of a vociferous movement to promote birth control for the married, relevant documents appeared in the papers of the
National Catholic Welfare Conference and at each of the six diocesan
archives that I visited. With the promulgation in 1930 of Casti Connubii,
effectively the first papal encyclical to denounced contraception as a grievous sin, the documentary flood-gates were opened. Casti Connubii had
6. Fr. Gaudentius Rossi, C.P., “Some Instructions about the Sermons, Meditations,
and Catechisms Delivered by Our Fathers, in Our Missions,” April 1875. Passionist Provincial Archives, Holy Cross Province, Chicago.

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summoned priests to abandon their hitherto reticent ways and be proactive
as confessors when it came to marital birth control. But how to do so in
the context of a world-shattering depression? Both printed and archival
sources wrestled with this question, and particularly with the problems
posed by the advent of a physiologically-plausible mode of family limitation based on periodic abstinence. Under what circumstances was the use
of “rhythm” licit? Sources grew even richer following the Second World
War, with the rise of family life ministries and a more positive theology of
marital sex. The early 1960s brought a veritable explosion, with sources
now marked by a new frankness and, increasingly, a lay perspective.
Although sources proved to be gratifyingly numerous, I decided early
on to incorporate oral history into the project—specifically interviews with
priests. The decision raised eyebrows among a fair number of my colleagues. Why priests, they wanted to know, rather than lay men or, especially, women? The answer was easy: because priests played such critical
roles as apologists for and enforcers of church teaching, most notably as
confessors. But if I was sure about priests as my subject, I was deeply
uneasy about oral evidence, being old enough by then to understand the
fallibility of memory. I had serious doubts, moreover, about whether my
interviewees would speak frankly or, indeed, whether I would find many
interviewees at all. I did, in fact, find a goodly number of willing subjects—
56 priests, nearly all of whom spoke with remarkable candor. (Casting the
interviews as life histories helped to jog the memories of the many men
who initially professed not to remember much about what was now the
distant past; by the time my respondent had told me about his family,
childhood parish, seminary experience, and preparation as a confessor, he
was typically off and running.) I used the resulting evidence cautiously. But
it did assist me toward a more nuanced view of my documentary sources
and a more sympathetic orientation to the sometimes reluctant enforcers of
a sexual discipline that most Catholics came to reject. My book7 was the
richer for those interviews and so was I. Nearly every man with whom I
spoke was thoughtful, gracious, and intelligent; most evinced a pastoral
sensitivity that lent them a kind of radiance. Their testimony was a gift; so
were their persons.
Catholics and Contraception was published in 2004, at the height of the
sex abuse crisis. Like other Catholics, I responded to that crisis with shock
and dismay; indeed, I came close to leaving the church. My scholarly self
7. Catholics and Contraception: An American History (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press, 2004).

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was thrown off-balance, too. How, in the present circumstances, could I
possibly continue my research on priests? More than access to sources was
at issue, although such access had obviously become much more difficult.
Blindsided as I was by the scandals, I lost confidence in my ability to
understand my subjects. How to account for the apparent extent of the
scandals and the willingness of both bishops and the perpetrators’ fellow
priests to look the other way? I simply did not know. Read through the lens
of the escalating scandals, moreover, even seemingly innocuous evidence
came to seem suspect. Michigan’s priests, for example, had for many
decades been permitted to house teen-aged boys at their rectories either as
domestic workers—unattached older women were often in short supply in
rural districts in the nineteenth century—or when an aspiring seminarian
needed tutoring in Latin, a subject that many rural schools did not teach
prior to the 1920s. Such arrangements, I’d initially thought, probably
worked to lessen the distance between priest and people, permitting the
priest to be seen as a quasi-paterfamilias. Should I now regard them as
inherently sinister? And what did such arrangements suggest about the
dominant Catholic mentality with regard to the nature and incidence of
homosexuality?8
Paralyzed by doubt and residual anger, I decided to abandon my longdeferred “priests” project. I did manage one additional article, this one
based on archival sources too rich to ignore, but otherwise put my notes in
storage, where they remain to this day.9 For roughly the next decade, I
devoted my scholarly energies to the years surrounding the Second Vatican
Council and the radical changes in Catholic thought and practice that
emerged in this turbulent time. Issues of sex and gender loomed large—a
natural outgrowth of my work on contraception.10 I grew curious about the
shape of such conflicts in other western nations, most notably those where
Catholic practice pre-Council had been robust. Funding from the Lilly
8. I explore the subject in greater detail in “Evidence and Historical Confidence,” a
contribution to “Forum: Writing Catholic History After the Sex Abuse Crisis,” American
Catholic Studies, 127:2 (Summer 2016).
9. Leslie Woodcock Tentler, “’To Work in the Fields of the Lord’: Roots of the Crisis
in Priestly Identity,” U.S. Catholic Historian 29:4 (Fall 2011).
10. Representative publications include Leslie Woodcock Tentler, “Souls and Bodies:
The Birth Control Controversy and the Collapse of Confession,” in Michael J. Lacey and
Francis Oakley, eds., The Crisis of Authority in Catholic Modernity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011) and Leslie Woodcock Tentler, “Breaking the Silence: Sex, Gender and the
Parameters of Catholic Intellectual Life,” in James L. Heft, SM and Una M. Cadegan, eds.,
In the Logos of Love: Promise and Predicament in Catholic Intellectual Life (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2015).

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Foundation underwrote a conference I organized at Catholic University, to
which institution I had moved at the end of the 1990s, which in turn gave
rise to an edited book: The Church Confronts Modernity: Catholicism Since
1950 in the United States, the Republic of Ireland, and Quebec.11 Although I
could hardly call myself a comparativist, that book resulted in several invitations to participate in similar projects, where scholars from various countries contributed expertise to a larger conversation about religious change.12
My graduate teaching at Catholic University began to incorporate a comparativist dimension, too—something that proved surprisingly energizing.
Reading about the recent religious history of locales as disparate as Sweden
and Italy, I felt like a student again.
Interest in comparative history was also flourishing at the Cushwa
Center, with which I remained closely involved. It was under Cushwa’s
auspices that in 2012 I returned to Detroit to immerse myself in newlyopened archival records from the episcopate of Archbishop, later Cardinal,
John Dearden (1959–80). My work in Detroit was part of an ambitious
comparative project which examined the implementation of Vatican II
reforms in a number of dioceses around the world—in Europe, Mexico,
Latin America, and India as well as Canada and the United States.13 As
one would anticipate, the post-conciliar story varied—sometimes quite
dramatically—depending on local circumstances. In Detroit, the immediate post-Council years were marked by rising racial tensions, which culminated in 1967 in what was then the worst urban rioting in the American
twentieth century. Local Catholic leaders, most notably Archbishop Dearden, worked in unprecedented fashion to facilitate integration of Catholic
schools and heavily Catholic neighborhoods—efforts that many Catholics
admired but that others deeply resented. Polarization was the result—
something that at least some Catholics attributed to the Council’s reforms.
Others lamented what they saw as a failure of post-conciliar nerve—a
11. Published in 2007 by the Catholic University of America Press, Washington, DC.
I was the editor and also wrote the introduction.
12. See, for example: Leslie Woodcock Tentler, “Sex and Sub-Culture: American
Catholicism Since 1945,” in Nancy Christie and Michael Gauvreau, eds., The Sixties and
Beyond: Dechristianization in North America and Western Europe, 1945–2000 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013) and “How Exceptional? U.S. Catholics Since 1945,” in David
Hempton and Hugh McLeod, eds., Secularization and Religious Innovation in the North
Atlantic World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017).
13. Leslie Woodcock Tentler, “Through the Prism of Race: The Archdiocese of
Detroit,” in Kathleen Sprows Cummings, Timothy Matovina and Robert A. Orsi, eds.,
Catholics in the Vatican II Era: Local Histories of a Global Event (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
University Press, 2018).

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reluctance on the part of Catholic leaders to preach social justice with sufficient vigor or embrace what these critics saw as the Council’s mandate of
continual reform.
Detroit was approaching bankruptcy as I returned to do research and
the Catholic Church in the city is fairly described as being by then in a
moribund state. Three draconian rounds of church closings since the late
1980s had seen to that. The archdiocesan archives, housed now at the seminary, were located in what had been in my youth an upper middle-class
neighborhood. Much had changed, and not for the better. Abandoned
houses dotted nearby streets; lost souls drifted through vacant lots; a oncethriving parish church stood empty—window gaping, fixtures stripped,
saplings sprouting from the roof. To drive these mean streets and then to
read the excited plans of Council-era Catholic activists was almost unbearably painful. (Among the most energetic of these activists, many of whom
were clergy, was the former pastor of the abandoned church just mentioned.) They had so much hope for the city they loved, so much faith in
the Church as an agent of racial healing. On certain days in the archives,
those documents almost reduced me to tears. This level of emotional
engagement was, I suppose, a gift of sorts; the heart has a place in our
scholarly work, although its promptings must be thoughtfully monitored.
Working on so recent a time period, moreover, was a kind of return to
Sociology 100—that freshman-year elective so abruptly snatched from my
plate. I even found survey data among my abundant sources.
I was still at work on the Cushwa project when I retired from teaching. That involvement did much to ease the transition, which seemed at the
time like embarking on an extended research leave. But soon enough the
question loomed: what would I do with my retirement? Ever my activist
parents’ daughter, I had moments when continued scholarly work seemed
a self-indulgent option. With the country in so parlous a state, surely it
would be better to devote my energies to politics or advocacy? Material
considerations also entered in: travel to archives costs money and I was
growing weary of the super-economy lodging and meals such travel invariably entailed. (Low-cost quarters at a duck farm on a partially-deserted
street in Detroit proved to be good fun, although the neighborhood was
daunting.) Then came a wholly unlooked-for query from Yale University
Press: might I be interested in submitting a proposal to write a new survey
of American Catholic history? The prospect was irresistible. Depending as
I would have to do on the scholarly work of others, I would be able to work
from home. I would also be able to use at least some of the archival leftovers that were cluttering my study. And after years of work on American

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Catholic history, how difficult could such a project be? Not one to look a
gift-horse in the mouth, I said yes immediately.
Five years later, as I write, the resulting book is on the verge of publication.14 Writing it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, at least in a scholarly sense. I discovered huge gaps in my putatively vast knowledge of the
American Catholic past. I had been aware of how little I knew about the
colonial centuries in North America, especially the work of French and
Spanish missionaries. I expected to have to read extensively on this period
and assumed—correctly, as it happened—that this would prove to be a gift.
I had not expected, however, to have to read extensively on the years of
American nationhood and certainly not on the Catholic history of the
period since the Civil War. But extensive reading was definitely called for,
given how little I actually knew about the specifics of the Catholic past,
especially those many specifics with which my previous research had not
dealt. Even more vexing were interpretive questions—what to include, what
to omit, what meaning to impose on a narrative that ultimately spanned
close to five hundred years. Even matters of style were a challenge, since I
assumed an audience primarily made up of non-academics who nonetheless
merited a serious scholarly offering. Small wonder that the book went
slowly, despite my freedom in retirement to plug away at it daily.
For all these reasons, I had some black times as the book proceeded.
Had I not signed a contract with the publisher, I would almost certainly
have abandoned the project mid-stream. But as I slowly came to realize,
even this time of scholarly trial was also a time of gifts. There was the satisfaction of seeing a coherent narrative emerge from the welter of evidence
I had accumulated—a narrative that came to possess a plausible degree of
thematic coherence. There was the always-renewable joy of learning new
things. Best of all was my growing appreciation for the collective nature of
historical scholarship. I had to read widely for this project, including older
books and articles of the sort often dismissed as dated or scorned as excessively pious and lacking in imagination. Rather to my surprise, I learned a
lot from such sources. Even dated or unimaginative scholarship, after all,
can rest on scrupulous research. I would venture to guess, moreover, that
many of our scholarly predecessors, perhaps especially the priests among
them, were more formidable linguists than most students of American
Catholicism today. Not many of us, alas, can do research in multiple languages. (I confess to knowing only enough Latin to flag a relevant source,
14. Leslie Woodcock Tentler, American Catholics: A History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2020).

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which I then convey to my medievalist spouse for translation; I do the same
with sources in German.) Humility is a gift, or so it is said, and my reading
induced good stores of humility. But most of all, it made me grateful. Our
scholarly labors, my reading reminded me, are part of something larger, no
matter how dated or unimaginative our own publications may eventually
come to seem.
Nearing the end of my career, I have long since come to regard myself
as a historian of American Catholicism, although much of my undergraduate teaching was devoted to courses in urban, labor, immigrant, and
women’s history. Perhaps I simply gave up on the notion that historians of
labor or immigration would accept work like mine as relevant to their pursuits. Positive developments, however, have played the major role. The
field of American Catholic history has grown and matured, with bright
young scholars bringing new energy and long-time practitioners producing
work of admirable breadth and sophistication. Who would not be pleased
to regard such a lively community as one’s own? I don’t much like the
balkanization so evident among historians of the American past and sometimes fear that presenting myself as a historian of American Catholicism
simply contributes to the problem. I am grateful, after all, for my years of
teaching courses on subjects other than religion, which helped me to situate my research in broad historical context. But most of us need a scholarly
community and participation in such a community almost invariably
bestows identity. The trick is to keep that identity from limiting our vision,
even as we remain grateful for the many gifts it brings.

“Beautiful Like Helen”:
A Study in Early Medieval Theological Method
OWEN M. PHELAN*
Paschasius Radbertus authored a massive Commentary on Matthew
during the middle decades of the Ninth Century amid the intellectual
blossoming of the Carolingian Renewal. Inspired by an episode from
Cicero’s De Inventione, Paschasius likened his effort to that of a great
artist painting an image of Helen of Troy. In light of his explanation,
an exploration of Paschasius’ use of the image illumines his theological
method, particularly the importance of tradition and of mimesis both
to his biblical exegesis and to his theological work more generally. Further, the study highlights Paschasius’ individual genius while also
pointing to his representativeness among early medieval theologians.
The essay concludes by noting Paschasius’ connection to and influence on
pivotal later medieval and modern theological enterprises.
Key words: Paschasius Radbertus, Cicero, Biblical Exegesis,
Gospel of Matthew, Carolingian, historical theology

T

oward the end of his life, from his retirement at the royal monastery
of St. Riquier, Paschasius Radbertus (c.790–c.860) put the finishing
touches on his massive commentary on Matthew’s Gospel.1 Paschasius
was an intellectual titan astride the Carolingian Ninth Century. As a boy
he benefitted from a rich theological education at the female religious
community of St. Mary’s in Soissons under abbess Theodrada, to whom
he remained devoted throughout his life.2 Theodrada was an engaged and

* Prof. Phelan is professor of Church History at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary. Work on
this article was supported by a Summer Faculty Research Grant from Mount St. Mary’s Seminary. I am grateful to our Rector, Msgr. Andrew Baker, for his generosity. I would like to
thank the editor and anonymous readers for the CHR. Their criticism and feedback helped
improve this article. I would also like to thank colleagues for their sage advice, especially
William Bales, Martin A. Claussen, Michael Heintz, and Paul Hilliard. Remaining errors of
fact, judgment, or style are mine alone.
1. Paschasius Radbertus, Expositio in Matheo libri xii, ed. Beda Paulus, [Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaevalis (hereafter CCCM), 56–56B] (Turnhout, 1984).
2. Hannah W. Matis, “The Seclusion of Eustochium: Paschasius Radbertus and the
Nuns of Soissons,” Church History 85:4 (2016), 665–89.

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curious thinker, as evidenced not only by Paschasius’ writings but also by
surviving correspondence with one of Charlemagne’s chief court intellectuals, Alcuin of York, who composed for her an important treatise on the
nature of the soul.3 As a young man, Paschasius entered the famous and
influential royal monastery of Corbie where he quickly established himself
as a rising star with great intellectual potential. In the early 820s, he served
among the monks tasked with launching the daughter monastery of
Corvey, part of a larger initiative to missionize the Germanic-speaking
peoples of Saxony. He returned to Corbie to become its chief catechist
and then, in 843, was elected abbot. While abbot he actively engaged in
wider intellectual and reform conversations swirling around Carolingian
Europe, including participation in the Council of Paris (847). When time
allowed, Paschasius composed ambitious works in support of his friends,
patrons, and colleagues. While he is primarily known in the modern world
for his writing on the liturgy, having composed the very first Latin treatise
dedicated solely to the Eucharist, he was also a prolific biblical commentator.4 He wrote commentaries on the Psalms and on Lamentations as
well as on Matthew.5 He was a legal scholar, perhaps even playing a role
in compiling the Ps-Isidorean Decretals.6 He authored catechetical
treaties, composing short works on the theological virtues and explana3. James J.M. Curry, “Alcuin, De ratione animae: a text with introduction, critical apparatus, and translation” (PhD diss., Cornell University, 1966). See also Paul E. Szarmach, “A
Preface, Mainly Textual, to Alcuin’s De ratione animae,” . . .
Wandered Full Many Ways . . . Festschrift in Honor of János M. Bak, eds. Balázs Nagy and Marcell Sebők (Budapest, 1999), 397–408.
4. Paschasius Radbertus, De corpore et sanguine domini, ed. Beda Paulus [CCCM, 16]
(Turnhout, 1969). On the treatise see, Owen M. Phelan, “Horizontal and Vertical Theologies: ‘Sacraments’ in the Works of Paschasius Radbertus and Ratramnus of Corbie,” Harvard
103:3 (2010), 271–89; Patricia McCormick Zirkel, “The Ninth-Century
 

  
Eucharistic Controversy: A Context for the Beginnings of Eucharistic Doctrine in the West,”
Worship 68 (1994), 2–23; and Josef Geiselmann, Die Eucharistielehre der Vorscholastik (Paderborn, 1926), 267–81.
5. Paschasius Radbertus, Expositio in Psalmum XLIV, ed. Beda Paulus [CCCM, 94]
(Turnhout, 1991); Paschasius Radbertus, Expositio in Lamentationes Hieremiae libri quinque,
ed. Beda Paulus [CCCM, 85] (Turnhout, 1988). On Psalm 44, see Alf Härdelin, “An epithalamium for nuns: imagery and spirituality in Paschasius Radbertus’ ‘Exposition of Psalm
44(45),” In Quest of the Kingdom, ed. Alf Härdelin (Stockholm, 1991), 79–107; on Lamentations, see E. Ann Matter, “The Lamentations Commentaries of Hrabanus Maurus and
Paschasius Radbertus,” Traditio 38 (1982), 137–63.
6. See, most recently, the literature review and negative judgment in Mayke de Jong,
Epitaph for an Era: Politics and Rhetoric in the Carolingian World (Cambridge, UK, 2019),
199–205. The seminal article is Klaus Zechiel-Eckes, “Ein Blick in Pseudoisidors Werkstatt:
Studien zum Entstehungsprozess der falschen Dekretalen. Mit einen exemplarishcen Editorischen Anhang,” Francia 28/1 (2001), 37–90.

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tions of Marian doctrines.7 He also penned political/cultural criticism,
crafting fascinatingly idiosyncratic lives of two predecessors at the helm of
the monastery of Corbie.8
Paschasius’ weighty exposition of Matthew, whose modern critical edition fills three substantial Corpus Christianorum volumes, was written in
stages over more than twenty years, with the first several books completed
already by 831. In the prologue, Paschasius sets out to explain what he sees
himself accomplishing, why, and how. Attention to Paschasius’ deliberate,
sophisticated, and self-reflective discussion as well as its resonance across his
opera bears two fruits. First, and most specifically, it brings into sharp focus
Paschasius’ individual genius, his broad erudition and powerful synthetic
ability and thus helps locate Paschasius in the Christian theological tradition. Second, and more generally, it grinds a lens through which to view the
broader significance of Carolingian theological enterprise and its integration of the Christian tradition, one in which Paschasius is exceptional in his
sophistication without being unusual in his methodology. A reappraisal of
Paschasius Radbertus’ work, along with his Carolingian contemporaries, is
of special significance to historical theology, which, with the exception of
period specialists, has long been overwhelmingly dismissive or even scornful
in its assessment of the efforts of Carolingian theologians.9
After some prefatory comments, including Paschasius’ own interest in
the Gospel and his disappointment in the general state of Matthew studies,
the Prologue inaugurates a discussion of methodology with a striking men7. Paschasius Radbertus, De fide, spe, et caritate, ed. Beda Paulus [CCCM, 97] (Turnhout, 1990); Paschasius Radbertus, De partu Virginis. De assumptione sanctae Mariae Virginis,
eds. E. A. Matter and A. Ripberger [CCCM, 56C] (Turnhout, 1985). On Paschasius’
Marian teachings, see the comments in Henry Mayr-Harting, “The Idea of the Assumption
of Mary in the West, 800–1200,”
  , ed. R.N. Swanson [Studies in Church
History, 39] (Woodbridge, 2004), 86–111, esp. 86–89 and, more broadly, the earlier Leo
Sheffczyk, Das Mariengeheimnis in Frömmigkeit und Lehre der Karolingerzeit (Leipzig, 1959).
8. Paschasius Radbertus, De uita sancti Adalhardi [Patrologia Latina (hereafter PL),
120: 1507C–1556C]; Paschasius Radbertus, Epitaphium Arsenii, ed. Ernst Dümmler (Berlin,
1900). For context, see principally, De Jong, Epitaph for an Era.
9. On biblical studies, for example, see the supremely influential—and still in print—
judgment of Beryl Smalley, who devotes only ten pages of her four hundred page study of
medieval exegesis to the Carolingians and concludes “when original exegesis began again
towards the middle of the eleventh century. . .” Beryl Smalley,
     
Middle Ages, 2nd ed. (Notre Dame, IN, 1964), 46. An example of a focused study of Carolingian exegetical excellence, with a chapter devoted to Paschasius, is Hannah W. Matis,
Song of Songs in the Early Middle Ages (Leiden, 2019); for an example of period specialists digging into early medieval biblical studies in a variety of ways, see
     
Carolingian Era, eds. Celia Chazelle and Burton Van Name Edwards (Turnhout, 2003).

OWEN M. PHELAN

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tion of Cicero.10 Specifically, Paschasius recounts an episode from the
second book of Cicero’s De Inventione, where Cicero offers an apologetic
analogy for his treatment of rhetoric by telling the story of a famous artist’s
depiction of Helen of Troy. The Corbie monk sees this episode as recommending a classically inspired approach to mimesis which not only guides
his approach to his exegetical work on Matthew, but also informs his overarching theological method. Sometime around 90BC, Cicero began a treatise on Latin rhetoric that he abandoned after two books.11 The work is

10. While the Gospel of Matthew is frequently engaged by early Christian writers, longform commentaries are rare. Throughout Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, the most
popular and widely consulted commentary is that of Jerome. Jerome, Commentariorum in
Matheum libri iv, eds. D. Hurst and M. Adriaen [Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina (hereafter CCSL), 77] (Turnhout, 1969). For some introductory context and comment, see Jerome,
Commentary on Matthew, trans. Thomas P. Scheck (Washington D.C., 2008), 3–47. Multiple
Carolingian authors lament the dearth of material addressing the whole of Matthew and offer
something of a flurry of work on the first gospel. Bishop Claudius of Turin (780–827) completed a commentary on Matthew in 815. A modern critical edition remains to be published,
although an edition of the prefatory letter, addressed to Justus, abbot of Charroux in the diocese of Poitiers, is printed as Claudius of Turin, Epistola 2, [Monumenta Germaniae Historica,
Epistolae (hereafter MGH.Ep), Ep. IV], ed. E. Dümmler (Berlin, 1895), 593–96. A partial
edition of the opening sections was completed by Bruce Alan McMenomy, “e Matthew
Commentary of Claudius, Bishop of Turin: A Critical Edition of the Sections Pertaining to Matthew
1–4” (PhD. Dissertation, UCLA, 1993). In 820, Hrabanus Maurus dedicated a commentary
to Archbishop Haistulf of Mainz as part of a broader program promoting clerical reform, Hrabanus Maurus, Expositio in Matthaeum, ed. Bengt Löfstedt [CCCM, 174-74A] (Turnhout,
2000). On this text and its significance, see Owen M Phelan, “Prompting a Conversation
about Reform: The Carolingian Renewal in Early Medieval Europe through Hrabanus
Maurus’ Commentary on Matthew” (forthcoming). Sometime shortly after, another commentary, the Pseudo-Bede commentary on Matthew, appeared. It lacks a modern critical edition,
but an early modern edition can be found in PL, 92.9–132. On the relationship among
Claudius, Hrabanus, and Ps.-Bede, see Brigitta Stoll, “Drei karolingische Matthäus-Kommentare (Claudius von Turin, Hrabanus Maurus, Ps. Beda) und ihre Quellen zur Bergpredigt,” Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 26 (1991), 36–55. In mid-century, from the community of
Irish scholars working out of Liège, Sedulius Scottus (fl. 850) gathered a Collectaneum on
Matthew. Around 865, Christian of Stavelot composed a commentary on Matthew for his
Benedictine community, Christianus Stabulensis, Expositio super Librum generationis, ed.
R.B.C. Huygens, [CCCM, 224] (Turnhout, 2008). For some introduction and context, see
Matthew Ponesse, “The Instruction of Monks in Christian of Stavelot’s Commentary on the
Gospel of Matthew,” e Journal of Medieval Latin 18:2 (2008), 24–35.
11. Cicero, De Inventione, intro. and trans. H.M. Hubbell (Cambridge, MA, 1960). For
basic background, see John O. Ward, “The Medieval and Early Renaissance Study of Cicero’s
De Inventione and the Rhetorica ad Herennium: Commentaries and Contexts,” e Rhetoric of
Cicero in Its Medieval and Early Renaissance Commentary Tradition, eds. John O. Ward and
Virginia Cox (Leiden, 2006), 3–75, and also the earlier works: George A. Kennedy, e Art of
Rhetoric in the Roman World (Princeton, 1972), 103–48 and idem, Classical Rhetoric and Its
Christian and Secular Tradition from Ancient to Modern Times (Chapel Hill, NC, 1980), 90–96.

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notable for being the only prose work Cicero composed in his youth, and
presumably, for reflecting the education he received as a young man in the
late Roman Republic. Later in life, he looked back on the work and found
it disappointingly “unfinished and rough” and recalls it largely as the product of school notebooks compiled during his late teens.12 Of course, it
becomes the most common rhetorical textbook of the Latin Middle Ages,
much more popular than his mature works on rhetoric and is cited continually from the first century, by authors like Quintilian (c.35–c.100) and
Victorinus (fl. 4th C), through the end of the Middle Ages.
Cicero begins Book Two with a story in defense of the eclectic sources
he claims to have consulted in constructing his work.13 He recalls that once
upon a time the citizens of the very wealthy Italian city of Croton contracted the famous artist Zeuxis of Heraclea to help decorate their opulent
temple of Juno. For one panel, the artist wished to depict the celebrated
beauty of Helen of Troy, but would need models. The citizens then took
him to their gymnasium so that he could review the beauty of the town’s
young men. It was not what he was looking for. They then assembled all
the town’s young girls before the artist. He selected five because he saw
that while no one girl possessed all the perfections of female beauty, each
had perfections lacking in the others, and drawing on the best features of
each he proceeded to fashion his image of Helen. Cicero’s example teaches
readers how to think about imitation, or mimesis.14 Crucially, the imitation
advocated by Cicero is multi-faceted, that is, it is not strictly a matter of
reproducing faithfully what one receives—or in this case sees. Rather,
Cicero’s idea contains a notion of copying something before one, but also
requires a development or reformation of what one receives. Thus, mimesis
means imitation, but an imitation that not only transmits but also transforms in a positive way whatever is being imitated, directing it toward an
ideal end. In Cicero’s story, artistic imitation of the female form provides
an analogy for his rhetorical textbook, which ideally draws on the very best
instances of rhetoric from earlier sources in order to craft a more perfect
example of the subject.

12. Cicero, De Oratore I.ii.5, intro. and trans. E.W. Sutton and H. Rackham, 2 vols.
(Cambridge, MA, 1942), 4. “inchoata ac rudia.”
13. Cicero, De Inventione II.i.1–3, 166–68.
14. On mimesis and its influence on ideals of reform in Christian history, see the brilliant Karl F. Morrison, ! "#$!%#& '()*#%#+, +- .!-+($ #, %/! 0!1% (Princeton, 1982), which
includes a chapter on Paschasius’ view of history at 121–35. More generally, in the background sits the provocative Erich Auerbach, Mimesis:
Literature, trans. Willard Trask (New York, 1953).

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Paschasius’ mention of the painting of Helen in the Prologue to his
Commentary on Matthew reveals a careful and sensitive reading of Cicero’s
De inventione, one that adopts Cicero’s analogy, and puts it into the service
of biblical studies and the broader Carolingian Renewal of Paschasius’ own
Ninth Century.15 The monk of Corbie, himself a young man, recognizes
that Cicero’s mimetic activity entailed both copying of and improving
upon his models. Paschasius explains
Certainly one should not be called a ‘plunderer of the ancients’ when
Cicero, the king of eloquence, records that he himself copies a certain
Zeuxis, who from all the girls of Croton selected five more beautiful than
the others set before his eyes, while painting a picture of Helen for those
seeking a marvelous work. To this end he brought together in a whole of
greater beauty what aspects were beautiful individually in each of them.16

Thus Paschasius begins somewhat defensively, reaching for an authority to
ward off criticism—perhaps by students—of his engagement with sources,
a problem faced by more than one prominent Carolingian monk and
teacher.17 The monk of Corbie then seizes upon Cicero’s double point that
while Zeuxis would imitate or copy the beautiful features he found in his
models, his final product would be superior to his models and fitting for
the ideal of beauty by bringing together one girl’s lovely arms with another
girl’s comely legs and so fashioning a more perfect image of female beauty.
15. On the Carolingian Renewal, see the recent analysis in Janet L. Nelson, “Revisiting
the Carolingian Renaissance,” Motions of Late Antiquity: Essays on Religion, Politics, and Society
in Honour of Peter Brown, eds. Jamie Kreiner and Helmut Reimitz (Turnhout, 2016), 331–46.
On educational efforts, see John Contreni, “Learning for God: Education in the Carolingian
Age,” 23 456789: 5; <3=>3?9: @9A>8 24 (2014), 89–129 or, more broadly, idem, “The Carolingian renaissance: education and literary culture,” 23 New Cambridge Medieval History, vol. 2,
ed. Rosamond McKitterick (Cambridge, UK, 1995), 709–57. On concern for renewal in clerical life, see Steffen Patzold and Carine van Rhijn, Men in the Middle: Local Priests in Early
Medieval Europe (Berlin, 2016) and Carine van Rhijn, Shepherds of the Lord: Priests and Episcopal Statutes in the Carolingian Period (Turnhout, 2007). For general orientation, see the older
but still useful essays in Rosamond McKitterick, ed., Carolingian Culture: Emulation and
Innovation (Cambridge, UK, 1994).
16. Paschasius Radbertus, Expositio in Matheo Prologue, 6: “Nec ideo profecto compilator ueterum appellandus quando ut Tullius refert ipse rex eloquentiae quondam Eleusynum est
imitatus qui ex omnibus Crotoniensium uirginibus quinque delegit pulchriores quas statuit coram
oculis dum Elene imaginem illis petentibus mirabile opus pingeret ut quod uni earum minus esset
pulchritudinis ex his decorosius quicquid singillatim in se pulchrius exprimerent totum picturae suae
coloribus conferret.”
17. Mayke de Jong, “From Scholastici to Scioli: Alcuin and the Formation of an Intellectual Elite,” Alcuin of York: Scholar at the Carolingian Court, eds. L.A.J.R. Houwen and A.A.
MacDonald (Groningen, 1998), 45–57.

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For Paschasius, Cicero’s example of Zeuxis capturing the beauty of Helen
suggests the way an exegete ought to capture the beauty of the Christian
tradition. Moreover, Paschasius marshals tradition into the service of
reform by applying to contemporary challenges a text crafted from the
resources of tradition, very often drawn out of their original contexts and
re-formed for a new specific audience. In order most beautifully to interpret the Scripture, the exegete must be familiar with the Christian (and
classical) tradition so as to be in a position to select the most apt texts and
work them into a commentary fitting for a contemporary audience. His is
not an abstract exercise, but a concrete pedagogical and pastoral effort.
Across the pages of his commentary, Paschasius takes up themes and
topics of the moment.18 He focuses attention on perennial pastoral concerns he believes to be featured in Matthew’s Gospel, especially the care
of sinners and the fostering of true conversion.19 He also tackles technical
textual and literary issues like variant readings, scriptural style, and the
difficulties of translation.20 Finally, he addresses burning contemporary
controversies, such as the Felician heresy (Spanish Adoptionism), predestination, prayer to the saints, and the mission to the Danes.21 The mimesis
modeled by Paschasius is not simply a transmission of data, it is a profound renewal, making new again and applying to his Ninth Century circumstances the wisdom and knowledge of tradition found in the works of
his predecessors.
18. Ganz, Corbie in the Carolingian Renaissance, 209, n. 22.
19. Paschasius Radbertus, Expositio in Matheo Prologus, 2: “Quem si recte inspicimus per
totum textum euangelii curam peccatorum specialius gerit unde et mores instituit atque fontem uerae
conuersionis patenter ubique ostendit.”
20. E.g. Paschasius touches on variant manuscript readings in trying to explain the cry
of the multitude at Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem (Mt. 21:9). Paschasius Radbertus, Expositio in
Matheo IX, 1020: “Sed quod in nostris codicibus habetur Osanna filio Dauid iuxta hunc sensum
quibusdam uisum est esse latinius ut dicatur Osanna fili Dauid uocatiuo casu et sit sensus: Obsecro
Domine fili Dauid saluum fac quod et plures in suis codicibus emmendare iam ausi sunt. Quod non
inmerito temerarium esse uidetur cum et Greci codices et Latini quoscumque inspicere potui datiuum
habeant casum.”
21. Felix of Urgel and his heresy are mentioned at Paschasius Radbertus, Expositio in
Matheo IX, 954. For context, consult John C. Cavadini, BC DEFG HIJKFGLMLNO LP GIC QCFGR STLUtionism in Spain and Gaul, 785–820 (Philadelphia, 1993). Paschasius remarks on predestination at Paschasius Radbertus, Expositio in Matheo XII, 1386–1387. For more, consult
Matthew Bryan Gillis, Heresy and Dissent in the Carolingian Empire:
Orbais (Oxford, 2017). Relics and the intercession of the saints appear at Paschasius Radbertus, Expositio in Matheo XI, 1206–07. For general orientation, see Patrick J. Geary, Living
with the Dead in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, NY, 1994). The mission to the Danes is addressed
at Paschasius Radbertus, Expositio in Matheo XI, 1165. On the origins of the Danish mission
see Eric Knibbs, Ansgar, Rimbert and the Forged Foundations of Hamburg-Bremen (Burlington,
VT, 2011).

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For his Exposition of Matthew, Paschasius gathered model passages from
earlier writings and in fine mimetic fashion brought them together so as, in
some ways, to exceed the example of his inspiration, Cicero, and his inspiration’s inspiration, Zeuxis with his five models. Paschasius draws from more
than 130 separate authorities in crafting his work.22 Among the impressive
breadth of resources available to and used by Paschasius are the usual patristic luminaries, such as Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine, and Gregory the Great,
as well as more recent thinkers like Adomnan of Iona and the Venerable
Bede. He consults Latin translations of influential Greek writers like Origen
and John Chrysostom, and incorporates opinions of contemporary and near
contemporary authors like Alcuin, Hilduin of St.-Denis, Hincmar of
Rheims, Paul the Deacon, and Paulinus of Aquileia. Woven among the contributions of such an impressive run of Christian authors are insights gleaned
from an array of classical authorities, both those who pre-date Christianity
and those who do not, Latin authors as well as Latin translations of Greek
authors. Among such figures are Cicero, of course, but also Virgil, Livy,
Lucan, Ammianus Marcellinus, as well as Homer and Josephus.
Paschasius, perhaps sensitive to contemporary criticism, not only tries
to justify his process through a retelling of Cicero’s famous story, he also
promises to the reader that he will leave signposts to help the reader navigate the many and varied sources from which he draws his insights. After
mentioning special debts he holds to Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine, Gregory, Chrysostom, and Bede, the Corbie monk adds: “I undertook carefully to add the letters of their names to the margins of this work so that
from these the steadfast reader is able to advance, or quickly to recognize
from the section in whose footsteps I follow.”23 This indication of plans for
source marks sets Paschasius in a sophisticated early medieval scholarly tra22. The exact number will depend on how one wants to count texts now known to be
pseudonymous. See Beda Paulus, “Introduction” to Paschasius Radbertus, Expositio in
Matheo, xxxix–lxi. Also, as he worked on the Exposition over the decades, his catalogue of
authors grew. He cites more different authors and works in the later books than in the earlier
ones. See David Ganz, Corbie in the Carolingian Renaissance (Sigmaringen, 1990), 208, n. 18.
23. Paschasius Radbertus, Expositio in Matheo Prologue, 7: “horum nominum litteras in
huius operis margine diligenter apponere curaui ex his ut possit lector securus incedere uel cuius sequar
uestigia e regione mox cognoscere.” No evidence survives of source marks in the manuscript
record, and at least one early medieval corrector recognized the issue and crossed out this line
in Laon, Bibliothèque Municipale 67. Einleitung, Paschasius Radbertus Expositio in Mattheo,
ix. The significance of the lack of source marks is only highlighted by the fact that this manuscript was produced at Corbie in the third quarter of the ninth century, either during
Paschasius’ lifetime or shortly after his death. Bernhard Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen
Handschriften des neunten Jahrhunders, Vol. 2: Laon-Paderborn, ed. Birgit Ebersperger (Weisbaden, 2004) #2058, 22–23.

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dition that established conventions for research and references guides.
Source marks allowed early medieval intellectuals to signpost their applications of tradition in ways that allowed for contemporary debates not just
over theological points, but also over theological sources. Bede’s advocacy
of source marks is well-studied, and by no means a unique effort.24 Paschasius’ contemporary, Hrabanus Maurus (c. 780–856), explains his use of the
convention, including in his own Exposition on Matthew and his commentary on the Books of Kings.25 In a preface to the latter, addressed to
Hilduin (775–840), abbot of the royal monastery of St. Denis and
archchaplain to Emperor Louis the Pious (778–840), Hrabanus explains
that he used works of Augustine, Jerome, Gregory the Great, Isidore of
Seville, and Bede, and that he either transcribed their thoughts or
rephrased them for the sake of brevity. “I set down all of their opinions
either just as written by them or I briefly explained their meaning in my
own words.”26 Moreover, he used source marks to identify his authorities,
whether ancient or contemporary, including himself.
And where their own words are, I noted down in the margins of the
pages the names of some of them. Where I express their sense in my own
words or where I composed anew a likeness of their sense, just as divine
grace deigned to grant to me, I took care to note down the letter ‘M’ representing the name of Maurus—which Alcuin my teacher of happy
memory imparted to me—so that the careful reader knows what each
offers from his own or determines what ought to be understood in each.27

Hrabanus reveals his understanding of his editorial authority by explaining
that he identifies his textual authority when he transcribes a passage verba24. See M.L.W. Laistner, “Source-marks in Bede Manuscripts,” VW XYZ[\]^ Y_ VWY^Y`ical Studies 34:136 (1933), 350–54 and more recently, Michael M. Gorman, “Source Marks
and Chapter Divisions in Bede’s Commentary on Luke,” Revue Bénédictine 112:3–4 (2002),
246–90.
25. More generally on Hrabanus and source marks, see Sita Steckel, “Von Buchstaben
und Geist: Pragmatische und symbolische Dimensionen der Autorensiglen (nomina auctorum) bei Hrabanus Maurus,” Karolingische Klöster: Wissentransfer und kuturelle Innovation, eds.
Julia Becker, Tino Licht, and Stefan Weinfurter (Berlin 2015), 89–130.
26. Hrabanus Maurus, Epistola 14, ed. Ernst Dümmler, MGH.Ep, Epistolae V
(Berlin, 1899), 402: “Quorum omnium sententias aut, sicut ab ipsis conscriptae sunt, posui aut
sensum eorum meis verbis breviando explanavi.”
27. Hrabanus Maurus, Epistola 14, 402–03: “Praenotavique in marginibus paginarum
aliquorum eorum nomina, ubi sua propria verba sunt; ubi vero sensum eorum meis verbis expressi
aut ubi iuxta sensus eorum similitudinem, prout divina gratia mihi concedere dignata est, de novo
dictavi, M litteram Mauri nomen exprimentem, quod meus magister beatae memoriae Albinus mihi
indidit, prenotare curavi, ut diligens lector sciat, quid quisque de suo proferat, quidve in singulis sentiendum sit, decernat.”

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tim, but sources himself when he paraphrases or refashions his evidence.
The Fulda master would continue the practice for some years, as seen in his
mention of source marks in an introductory letter to Lupus (805–62), the
deeply learned abbot of Ferrières, for his commentary on the Pauline Epistles, sent around 840.28 Paschasius hopes such a convention would help
sophisticated readers move knowledgeably through the work and pick up
on the contexts and authorities of the different texts consulted. In fact, at
moments he finds particularly crucial, his deliberate and self-conscious use
of authorities includes identifying his sources by name within the text of
his work. Early in Book One of the Matthew Commentary, for example,
when unpacking the genealogy, Paschasius explains that Jechoniah is
counted twice because he marks the Babylonian captivity, which is both
the end of one narrative arc and the beginning of another. Paschasius summarizes: “Indeed, according to Augustine one and the same Jechoniah is
twice enumerated just as if positioned in a corner.”29 Thus, this king of
Judah is like a corner where two walls come together and reckoned as the
end of one and beginning of another. Throughout the book, both in the
margins and in the text, the Corbie monk planned carefully to note the
authoritative examples to which he is indebted as he fashions his beautiful
commentary on Matthew.
The explanatory thrust of Paschasius’ introduction reinforces the
importance of mimesis. Even as he wants to offer an original masterpiece,
he does not seem to want to offer original material. He acknowledges both
a concern for humility in the present time and deference to the wisdom of
older traditions when he writes “I do not love the arrogance of boasting, so
I promise that I reached for their knowledge and their merits, but also
rejoice that I laid hold of that truth and faith which they taught, and I was
nurtured by their teachings.”30 The transmission here hinted at by Paschasius is not a mechanical and external handing on of something fixed or
static. He did not merely pass along what he found in earlier authorities;
rather, he absorbed what he discovered, internalized it, and re-presented to
his readers the results of his careful research and reflection. Paschasius’

28. Hrabanus Maurus, Epistola 23, 429–30.
29. Paschasius Radbertus, Expositio in Matheo I, 1, 10–11, 2014–15, 68: “Secundum
uero Agustinum unus idemque Iechonias bis quasi in angulo constitutes adnumeratur.” Cf. Mt.
1:11–12 and Augustine, Sermo 51, Sermones in Mathaeum I (sermons LI–LXX), ed. F. Dolbeau, [CCSL, 41a] (Turnhout, 2008), 22–24.
30. Paschasius Radbertus, Expositio in Matheo Prologue, 4: “non adeo fastum iactantiae
diligo, ut me ad eorum scientiam aut merita attigisse polliceam sed quod fidem quam ipsi docuerunt
et ueritatem adprehendisse ipsorumque doctrina enutritum me esse gaudeo.”

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“BEAUTIFUL LIKE HELEN”

inquiries into the knowledge and merits of earlier authorities is transformative for the author himself, who then joyfully passes on that with which
he was nourished, leaving him reformed for the better and inviting others
also to benefit.
As has long been recognized by some scholars and editors, Paschasius
did not merely copy the authorities he consulted, but rather altered, edited,
or otherwise added to them.31 In the introduction to the modern critical
edition of the Commentary on Matthew, Beda Paulus, the editor, remarks
that it is often difficult to identify the specific sources upon which Paschasius depends. After a perhaps unnecessary swipe at Hrabanus Maurus, the
Benedictine editor lauds Paschasius for not following his sources slavishly
and for his independence in how he incorporates them into his effort.32
Paulus then offers descriptions and examples of ways in which Paschasius
routinely engages his sources with varying degrees of editorial intervention.
Sometimes he just plain changes his sources, rewriting what he read with
similar language to a similar point, perhaps showing his memory of an
authoritative text. For example, in a comment on Jesus’ baptism in the
Jordan, Paschasius cites Augustine of Hippo from his Agreement among the
Evangelists. Augustine reflects upon the different words used by the synoptic writers to record what happened at Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan. The
Corbie monk uses words similar to his source in order to convey a similar
point. Augustine concludes that “in no way does one deem this [different
language in Mark or Luke] to be a difficulty who wisely understands that
these thoughts are necessary to know the truth, with whatever words they
were expressed.”33 In commenting upon John the Baptist’s words (Mt.
3:11), Paschasius echoes Augustine’s thought and words in writing “but in
no way does anyone deem this [Luke’s different language] to be a difficulty,
who wisely understands that these thoughts are necessary to know the
31. Paschasius’ exceptional profundity is praised in M.L.W. Laistner, abcdef ghi jkfters in Western Europe A.D. 500 to A.D. 900, 2nd edition (Ithaca, NY, 1957), 303–05. In the
context of the history of biblical exegesis, such praise is echoed by Ceslas Spicq, Esquisse d’une
histoire de l’exégèse latine au moyen âge (Paris, 1944), 46 and the formidable Henri de Lubac,
Medieval Exegesis, Vol. 3:
, trans. E.M. Macierowski (Grand
Rapids, MI, 2009), 147–55.
32. Einleitung, Paschasius Radbertus, Expositio in Mattheo, xxi: “Er fügt nicht wie etwa
Rabanus Maurus Zitat an Zitat aus den Kirchenvätern und verbindet diese mit eigenen Kommentierungen, sondern Radbert benützt seine Quellen ganz frei und selbständig.”
33. Augustine, De consensu euangelistarum II, 12.xxvii, ed. Franz Weihrich [Corpus
Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum (hereafter CSEL), 43] (Vienna, 1904) 127: “nullo
modo hinc laborandum esse iudicat qui prudenter intellegit ipsas sententias esse necessarias
cognoscendae ueritati, quibuslibet uerbis fuerint explicatae.” Bold text identifies identical language in Paschasius and his source. Regular text shows changes and adjustments.

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truth in whatever words they are expressed.”34 Paschasius agrees with
Augustine that different words, rather than confuse and contradict, complement each other in order to paint a fuller picture.
In a similar move to a slightly different end, Paschasius turns to Bede’s
Exposition on the Gospel of Luke further to unpack the genealogy with which
Matthew opens. Bede connects the genealogy to Jesus’ baptism in the
Jordan and remarks “coming in the flesh, by the washing of baptism He
opened to us the doors of heaven.”35 Paschasius likewise links the genealogy, though this time that of Matthew, to Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan in
nearly the same words, changing only the case of lavacrum and substituting
a synonym for the verb. This has the effect of rendering the washing of
baptism and gates of heaven both open to us by virtue of the incarnation,
as opposed to Bede’s formulation in which baptism occupies a middle position between the incarnation and the opening of the gates of heaven.
Paschasius writes “coming in the flesh, he made open to us the washing of
baptism and the gates of heaven.”36 Besides applying Bede’s exegesis of
Luke to Matthew’s Gospel, Paschasius’ minor changes show him using
words similar to those of his authority in order to make a different point.
Paschasius will also alter his sources to clarify a passage’s interpretation. He examines Jesus’ instructions to his followers that they should
travel lightly to evangelize and not carry with them two coats, or shoes, or
a staff (Mt. 10:10). For interpretation, the Corbie monk turns to the allegorical exegesis of Gregory the Great, who in Homily 17 of his Forty
Gospel Homilies considers a similar instruction found in Luke (Lk. 10:1–7).
The pope preaches that the shoes in the passage are dead works, which is
pointed to by the fact that shoes are made from dead animals. Insofar as
shoes conceal feet, wearing shoes is then trying to protect one’s own foolish
works, in not heeding the Lord’s commands, with the dead works of
others. Gregory concludes that “there are indeed many who defend their
own wickedness by the wickedness of others, for because they consider that
others have done such things, they think that they are free to do them.”37
34. Paschasius Radbertus, Expositio in Matheo II, 3, 11, 202: “Sed nullo modo hinc laborandum iudicat quisquis prudenter intelligit ipsas sententias congnoscende ueritati necessarias esse
quibuslibet uerbis explicentur.”
35. Bede, In Lucae evangelium expositio I, iii.38, ed. David Hurst [CCSL, 120] (Turnhout, 1960), 92: “adueniens in carne baptismi nobis lauacro caeli ianuas pandit.”
36. Paschasius Radbertus, Expositio in Matheo I, 1, 16–17, 78: “adueniens in carne,
baptismi nobis lauacra et caeli ianuas patefecit.”
37. Gregory the Great, Homiliae in Evangelia 17.5, ed. Raymond Étaix [CCSL, 141]
(Turnout, 1999), 120: “Sunt etenim multi qui prauitatem suam ex alienis prauitatibus tuentur.
Quia enim alios talia fecisse considerant, se haec facere licenter putant.”

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Paschasius finds Gregory’s instinct helpful and reproduces it for the most
part, but clarifies his teaching in three respects. First, he is more optimistic
than Gregory in assessing just how many succumb to wickedness of this
kind and opts for “some” instead of “many.” Second, he emphasizes that
such attempts at justification are thin and ineffectual as he characterizes
such people not as defending their behavior, but as trying to defend it.
Third, by swapping adjectives and verbs, he removes the legal resonance of
Gregory’s pronouncement and connotes rather a role for belief and free
will. The monk of Corbie explains, “There are some who try to defend their
own wickedness by the wickedness of others, since they see that others
have done such things, they believe that they can freely do them.”38 Thus
Paschasius clarifies and refocuses the insights of the great church father.
Sometimes Paschasius goes beyond his source, expanding a teaching
to add a significant element or dimension. In a passage expounding a
forty-day and forty-night fast, the Corbie monk again turns to the great
North African bishop, Augustine, for some theological mathematics. But,
on this occasion he expands Augustine’s teaching to add significant content. Paschasius reflects upon Augustine’s On Eighty-lree Separate Questions, specifically question eighty-one where the bishop of Hippo explains
the symbolism of the forty days of Lent and the fifty days between Easter
and Pentecost. Augustine breaks down the forty days of Lent into ten and
four “because the number ten, which suggests the whole of teaching” is
multiplied by four, which is the number of bodily activities in service, to
arrive at the number forty.39 He explains that he arrived at the number ten
by adding God in his three persons to the whole of creation made in seven
days. Paschasius likes the math, but wishes to be more specific and concrete about the teaching indicated by the number ten and explains that
“because this teaching of the Ten Commandments for our sluggish laziness is often not fulfilled as it should be, it is ten which expresses the
whole perfection of this religious teaching.”40 Paschasius reproduces
Augustine’s sacred math, but imposes a specific significance on the
number, connecting his discussion to the concrete commands of the
38. Paschasius Radbertus, Expositio in Matheo VI, 10, 10, 584–85: “sunt nonnulli qui
prauitatem suam ex alienis pruitatibus conantur tueri dum alios talia fecisse conspiciunt, se ea perficere liberius credunt.”
39. Augustine, De diversis quaestionibus octoginta tribus LXXXI, I, ed. Almut Mutzenbecher [CCSL, 44a] (Turnhout, 1975), 240: “quoniam denarius numerus, qui totam insinuat
disciplinam.”
40. Paschasius Radbertus, Expositio in Matheo III, 4, 2, 243: “quia haec disciplina decim
mandatorum pro nostra torporis ignauia quam saepe ut oportet non impletur, denarius qui totam
huius religionis disciplina<e> exprimit perfectionem.”

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Decalogue. Thus, he expands Augustine’s thought by adding a specific
dimension to his content.
Sometimes an expansion changes a text’s meaning to render a positive
injunction in place of a negative criticism. In Book Ten, Paschasius treats
Jesus’ criticism of the Pharisees late in Matthew’s Gospel. Matthew depicts
Jesus as critical of the scribes’ and Pharisees’ understanding of Mosaic Law.
Jesus charges that the Pharisees require others to do what they themselves
are unwilling to do and craft for themselves ostentatious signs of their own
observance of the Law (Mt. 23:3–5). For interpretation, Paschasius turns to
a Latin translation of Origen’s Commentary on Matthew in which Origen
concentrates on the pastoral consequences of the Pharisees’ actions. “Therefore He [Jesus] blames these teachers [the Pharisees], who not only teach
what they do not do, but also do so cruelly and without mercy, and not
according to a determination of the strength of each one who listens. But in
fact they impose greater things by their own power!”41 Origen understands
Jesus to criticize the Pharisees for making themselves models of observance
of the Law. There are at least three problems with this tactic as far as Origen
can see. First, the Pharisees themselves do not well observe the Law.
Second, they show no judgement about the individuals, no discretion about
how observance of the Law might require different responses from different
people. Third, they wind up burdening their followers with obligations
beyond what the Law requires. Paschasius relies on Origen’s insights, but
expands and alters the focus, transforming Origen’s criticism of what the
Pharisees failed to do—act with mercy and take into account the capability
of the listeners—into a lesson for his readers about what Carolingian pastors
ought to do. Paschasius writes, “all things are to be treated mercifully by
good and discreet men lest they be blamed by the Lord along with teachers
of this sort, so that they first fulfill the greater and not disregard the lesser.
They should arrange, bind, and impose individual things according to a
determination of the strength of each one listening.”42 Thus does Paschasius
absorb Origen’s analysis, but turns it in a new direction, which encourages
reform among the clerics who comprise his own primary audience.
41. Origen, Commentary on Matthew 10, ed. Erich Klostermann and Ernst Benz, [Origenes Werke 11: Origines Matthäuserklärung II: Die Lateinische Übersetzung der Commentariorum Series] (Leipzig: 1933), 17: “Reprehendit ergo huiusmodi praeceptores, qui non
solum quae docent non faciunt, sed etiam crudeliter et sine misericordia, et non secundum aestimationem virium uniuscuiusque audientis, sed maiora virtute ipsorum iniungunt.”
42. Paschasius Radbertus, Expositio in Matheo X, 23, 4, 1107: “Omnia a bonis et discretis
uiris misericorditer sunt tractanda ne reprehendantur a Domino cum huiuscemodi preceptoribus ut
primum ipsi maiora compleant et minora non omittant. Deinde secundum estimationem uirium
uniuscuiusque audientis singula dispensent et alligent et inponant.”

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Still other times Paschasius corrects what he views as an error in his
source. Working with an anonymous Irish redactor’s eighth century commentary on Matthew, Paschasius emends and then further nuances his
source’s remarks. On the first verse of Matthew, chapter twenty-three,
which runs “then Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to his disciples,” the
commentary records only that “then Jesus spoke to the multitudes.” The
redactor explains that the significance of the verse lies in to whom Jesus
spoke: “to the multitudes, not to the scribes because they were unworthy.”43 Paschasius corrects, redirects, and elaborates when he writes “but
now he said these words not to the Pharisees, but to the multitudes and
to his disciples because they were unworthy. Yet he did not wish entirely
to condemn the Pharisees on account of their sound teaching.”44 Paschasius recognizes that the verse includes the disciples with the crowd as
Jesus’ audience, but then suggests that the contrast be drawn with the
Pharisees and not the scribes. While perhaps he recognized that scribes
belonged to something of an office whose practitioners were found both
among the Pharisees and the Sadducees, his comment primarily serves to
focus attention on the distinction between the Pharisaical teaching, which
was not necessarily a problem, and the Pharisees’ living out of their teaching, which was most definitely a problem. The Corbie monk then proceeds to moderate the implied criticism in the contrast by interpreting
further significance in the Gospel’s description of Jesus speaking “to” a
group and not “against” a group.
On occasion Paschasius will reimagine his source. In Book Seven, he
takes up a discussion of Jesus’ parable of the mustard seed (Mt. 13:31–32).
For inspiration, the Corbie monk turns to a homily delivered by Peter
Chrysologus on the same topic, though not on the same text. Peter
explores the parable as told by Luke (Lk. 13:18–19). He explains that the
seed grows into a large tree which is characterized by its greatness and that
this greatness is the Kingdom of God’s greatness in its expansion through
our lives. Peter summarizes “as the text says, the kingdom of God is like a
grain of mustard seed, because the kingdom is brought by a word from
heaven, is received through hearing, is sown by faith, takes root through
belief, grows by hope, is diffused by profession, expands through virtue,
43. Mt. 23:1. Anonymous, Liber questionum in evangeliis 23, 1–3, ed. J. Rittmueller [CCSL, 108F] (Turnhout, 2003), 359: “AD TURBAS. Non ad scribas quia indigni
erant.”
44. Paschasius Radbertus, Expositio in Matheo X, 23, 2.3, 1105: “Sed hos sermones iam
non ad Phariseos loquitur sed ad turbas et ad discipulos quia indigni erant. Nec tamen penitus
propter eos sanam eorum doctrinam uult contemni.”

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and is spread out in branches.”45 Paschasius takes Peter’s conclusion, but
prunes and shapes it to highlight how the Kingdom flourishes in individual
Christians through the three theological virtues that fructify one’s life. He
writes “Therefore [what was planted] with assurance is received by hearing,
takes root by faith, grows on high by hope, is extended and increased by
charity, is spread out into branches by profession, and every day turns green
in virtues.”46 Such a decision reflects how Paschasius focused pedagogical
concerns to pastoral ends. This particular organizational instinct, a cultivation of the three theological virtues, is also evident in his three books of
instruction written to help his friend, Abbot Warin of Corvey, as a model
for the formation of young Saxon monks gathered at Corvey.47
Other times, Paschasius will juxtapose multiple sources, enriching his
exegesis by weaving together insights from different authorities. In a passage explaining the Sermon on the Mount, Paschasius draws from both the
anonymous Irish commentary on Matthew and from Augustine’s books on
the Sermon on the Mount. After delivering the Beatitudes, Jesus instructs
the crowd that salt which has lost its flavor is good only to be trodden by
men (Mt. 5:13). In glossing the vocabulary of this verse, the anonymous
Irishman comments: “[Such a person] is trodden by pursuers. So, who suffers persecution is not trodden, but he who is afraid is trodden, for he is
able to be trampled. Although a holy one puts up with many things in the
world, his mind is fixed on heaven.”48 Paschasius also draws on Augustine’s
reflections on the same passage, where the North African Church Father
remarks, “he who suffers persecution is not trampled therefore, but he who
fears persecution is made a fool by fear. For he is not able to be trampled
unless he is below, but he is not below who however many things he may
suffer in his body on earth, nevertheless has his heart fixed on heaven.”49

45. Peter Chrysologus, Sermo 98.4, ed. Alexandri Olivar [CCSL, 24a] (Turnhout,
1981), 603: “Granum sinapis, sicut dicit, instar est regnum dei, quod de supernis adfertur uerbo,
suscipitur auditu, fide seritur, credulitate radicatur, spe crescit, confessione diffunditur, uirtute tenditur et dilatatur in ramos.”
46. Paschasius Radbertus, Expositio in Matheo II, 13, 32, 712: “Idcirco confidenter suscipitur auditu, fide radicatur spe crescit in altum caritate diffunditur et dilatatur in ramos confessione
extenditur uirtutibus cotidie uirescit.”
47. Paschasius Radbertus, De fide, spe, et caritate, ed. Beda Paulus [CCCM, 97] (Turnhout, 1990).
48. Anonymous, Liber quaestionum in euangeliis, 5, 13. 103: “CONCULCETUR. ‘A’
persequentibus. ‘Non’ ita ‘calcatur qui patitur persequutionem, sed qui timet. Calcari enim potest
inferior’; sanctus autem, ‘quamuis in terra multa sustineat’, mente ‘tamen fixus in caelo est’.”
49. Augustine, De sermone domini in monte libros duos I, 6, 16, ed. Almut Mutzenbecher
[CCSL, 35] (Turnhout, 1967), 16: “Non itaque calcatur ab hominibus qui patitur persecutionem,

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Paschasius combines the two sources and teaches: “the holy and true minister of Christ, although he puts up with many things in the world and the
wicked make fun of him, nevertheless is not able to be trampled because in
his mind he remains fixed on heaven.”50 Paschasius preserves Augustine’s
original emphasis on the Christian who is not able to be trampled, even as
he adopts the anonymous author’s characterization of the untrampled one
as holy, along with the subtle change from heart to mind as what remains
fixed on heaven. More dramatic is Paschasius’ narrowing of the teaching’s
subject from all Christians to clergy specifically, which highlights the
Corbie monk’s reframing of Augustine’s characterization of the passage’s
threat as a question of derision and not of persecution. Paschasius shapes
his exegesis for Carolingian pastors active in pursuit of reform.
Paschasius’ deep reflection on tradition can point him to innovative and
groundbreaking conclusions about the biblical text. In fact, sometimes,
Paschasius’ instinct to think creatively with authoritative words is so strong
that only echoes survive of an authority’s formulation of an otherwise unconnected idea. In Paschasius’ interpretation of Matthew 25, where Jesus speaks
about the coming of the Son of Man in judgment, he primarily engages
Jerome and Origen to craft his interpretation, but—strikingly—offers an
interpretation of “the least” found in neither Jerome nor Origen and not
known to modern scholarship from other antique or early medieval exegesis.51 The Corbie monk identifies “the least” as the Apostles and other Christians who preach the Good News. He further explains that they will be present at the Last Judgment neither among those who are saved nor among
those who are condemned, but rather alongside Christ in judgment. Paschasius concludes: “Those who left behind all their possessions and even themselves for the sake of Christ will therefore be with the Lord at the same judgment, not that they might be judged, as I said, but that they might judge.”52

sed qui persecutionem timendo infatuatur. Calcari enim non potest nisi inferior; sed inferior non est
qui, quamuis corpore multa in terra sustineat, corde tamen fixus in caelo est.”
50. Paschasius Radbertus, Expositio in Matheo III, 5, 13, 308: “sanctus et uerus minister
Christi quamuis in terris multa sustineat et derideant eum mali tamen conculcari non potest quoniam mente fixus in caelo manet.”
51. I would like to offer special thanks to my colleague Bill Bales for bringing this text
to my attention. See William A. Bales, “’These Least Brothers of Mine’: A Reappraisal of the
Great Judgment Scene as Apocalyptic Retribution in Matthew 25:31–46,” Letter & Spirit 9
(2014), 51–75; Sherman W. Gray, The Least of My Brothers: Matthew 25:31–46, A History of
Interpretation (Atlanta, 1989), 163-66.
52. Paschasius Radbertus, Expositio in Matheo XI, 25, 40, 1252: “Idcirco et ipsi in
eodem iudicio erunt cum Domino. Ergo non ut iudicentur ut reor sed ut iudicent qui sua
omnia etiam et semet ipsos pro Christo reliquerunt.”

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The cumulative effect of Paschasius’ exegetical efforts—to engage, to present,
to alter, and to move beyond his sources—operates according to a mimetic
logic inspired by Cicero. Paschasius crafts the most beautiful commentary he
can envision based on the models he has in the monastic libraries of the Carolingian world.53 The resulting commentary manifests a beauty that can only
come from taking the best of each of his sources and bringing them together
into a new and more perfect whole dedicated to clerical reform in furtherance
of the Carolingian Renewal.
Paschasius’ mimetic instinct extends beyond his biblical insights and
directs his wider theological approach to interpreting life. Cicero’s story
appears to have quite forcefully struck Paschasius; it appears at least three
times in his surviving works. In addition to its appearance in the prologue
to the exposition of Matthew, a robust account is featured in the Vita Adalhardi, a biographical apology for Paschasius’ predecessor as abbot of Corbie
modeled on the Late Antique memorial treatises of Ambrose and
Jerome.54 He probably composed the work shortly after Adalhard’s death
in 826, near the time—or likely shortly before—he began his work on the
Gospel of Matthew. In writing the vita, Paschasius recounts that “Cicero,
the king of Latin eloquence, writes in the second book of the Invention of
Rhetorical Art that when the people of Croton flourished with wealth . . .
they summoned a certain Zeuxis who apparently excelled all other painters
in skill.”55 He proceeds to recount the full story from Cicero with all its
details. Careful attention to the framing of the story shows both how critical it is to Paschasius’ mind, and hints at its flexibility as an interpretive
lens. In both recollections, Paschasius identifies Cicero as the “king of
rhetoric” and so authorizes the story’s analytic value. On the other hand,
whereas in the Commentary on Matthew, Paschasius deploys the story to
shield himself against charges of cribbing his material, here he focuses on
how masters vet models. He asks rhetorically “If our ancient also entered
the gymnasium of this life after he had been purified in the font of baptism,
53. On monastic libraries in the Carolingian world, see Michael Lapidge, mn opqrst
Saxon Library (Oxford, 2006); Bernhard Bischoff, Manuscripts and Libraries in the Age of
Charlemagne, trans. Michael Gorman (Cambridge, UK, 1994); Ganz, Corbie in the Carolingian Renaissance.
54. See De Jong, Epitaph for an Era. See also Ganz, Corbie in the Carolingian Renaissance,
103 and idem, “The Epitaphium Arsenii and Opposition to Louis the Pious” Charlemagne’s Heir:
New Perspectives on the Reign of Louis the Pious (814–840), eds. Peter Godman and Roger Collins
(Oxford, 1990), 537–50; Morrison, me Mimetic Tradition of Reform, 121–35.
55. Paschasius Radbertus, Vita Adalhardi 20, [PL, 120: 1518D]: “Scribit namque Tullius, rex eloquentiae Latinae, in libro secondo de inventione rhetoricae artis, quo tempore Crotonienses
florerent opibus… vocasse Zeuxim quemdam, qui omnium pictorum ingeniis videbatur excellere.”

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after he had renounced the world, how did he with pure intent of mind
gaze upon different [youths] paying attention to different things?”56 Thus
the author wonders just which are those perfections that matter. In this
case, they are not aesthetic perfections, but rather moral ones. A litany follows, in which Paschasius imagines the moral implications of peoples’ preoccupations, both wicked and holy. Some pursue luxury, others pursue justice. Some follow lusts of the flesh and others chase future blessedness.
Interestingly, Paschasius’ mind in interpreting Cicero does not seem to
stray far from Matthew’s Gospel. Adalhard is here likened to a master
artist choosing for emulation those like the five virgins, but rather than the
five physically beautiful virgins from Croton, Paschasius proffers the five
morally praiseworthy virgins from Matthew’s Gospel, who vigilantly
awaited the wedding party (Mt 25:2–10). “From all those, he [Adalhard]
chose those whom he could understand as the five virgins who unfailingly
trim their lamps with the holy oil of charity and prepare to go forth to meet
the bridegroom and bride.”57 The working concept is again one of mimesis.
Adalhard’s study of the saints led him to select the excellences that each of
them possessed to model in himself in such a way that he imitates them
and improves upon them in order to become more Christ-like, who is the
most beautiful, morally speaking. “From all these he reformed himself into
the one image of Christ.”58 Through the emulation of virtues found in earlier exemplars, a more perfect moral life is painted. The theological vision
behind Paschasius’ use of the Helen analogy in his study of Adalhard is
only emphasized by the fact that he could have used the analogy in the
same way he used it in his commentary on Matthew in so far as his biographies, first of Adalhard and then of Wala, are strewn with quotations
from, references to, and echoes of biblical, patristic, and classical texts.59
Paschasius turns to Cicero’s analogy a third time, about ten years after
writing about Adalhard, at the beginning of the Epithaphium Arsenii, a dia56. Paschasius Radbertus, Vita Adalhardi 21, [PL, 120: 1519B]: “Ita si quidem et senex
noster ingrediens palaestram hujus vitae, postquam ablutus est baptismi fonte, post abrenuntiationem saeculi; quo puro mentis intuitu conspexit diversos ad diversa tendentes?” Note also a suggested connection between the gymnasium and a baptistery. Like many Carolingian authors,
Paschasius viewed the ontological and educational effects of baptism and baptismal formation
as crucial to a proper worldview. See, Owen M. Phelan, uv wxyz{|}x~ x €y}‚|}{~ ƒ„yx v†
Carolingians, Baptism, and the Imperium Christianum (Oxford, 2014).
57. Paschasius Radbertus, Vita Adalhardi 21, [PL, 120: 1519B]: “Elegit tamen ex
omnibus quos potuit intellegere quinque virgines, quae pio charitatis oleo suas indesinenter ornant
lampadas, et parant exire obviam sponso et sponsae.”
58. Paschasius Radbertus, Vita Adalhardi 21, [PL, 120: 1519C]: “ex his omnibus unam
in se Christi reformavit imaginem.”
59. Ganz, Corbie in the Carolingian Renaissance, 103–20.

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logue in two books discussing the life of Wala of Corbie (755–836). Wala
was another of Paschasius’ recent predecessors at the helm of Corbie and
Adalhard’s immediate successor. A strong proponent of imperial unity,
Wala supported Louis’ the Pious’ eldest son Lothar during the rebellions
of the 820s and 830s, which helps explain Paschasius’ need to defend Wala
and tell his story from a particular apologetic point of view.60 At the outset
of the work he responds, within the dialogue, to an interlocutor who “proposes that in the manner of Zeuxis, [Paschasius] depict as a memorial for
the ages an image in outline of the character of our Arsenius.”61 Arsenius,
a late antique tutor turned holy man (c. 350–c. 440), is the pseudonym
Paschasius assigns to Wala.62 Like the longer reference in the Vita Adalhardi, this mention of Cicero’s story points to a double mimetic concern,
with imitation and with improvement. And also like the passage from the
Vita Adalhardi, the focus of the mimetic concern is on moral exemplarity,
although rather than placing the focus on the subject’s efforts, as with
Adalhard, the focus returns to Paschasius himself, who like his position
with respect to Matthew’s Gospel is that of an artist looking to craft the
most beautiful portrait. Paschasius must select the truest and best examples
from Wala’s life in order to fashion the most beautiful image of a holy man.
While Paschasius’ oeuvre is exceptionally rich and complex in its innovative engagement with earlier traditions, it is not unusual in its processes.
Predecessors and contemporaries laboring under the broad intellectual
impulses characterizing the Carolingian Renewal engaged texts in similar
ways with similar consequences. For example, already at the end of the
eighth century, the previously mentioned Alcuin of York plumbed the
depths of patristic advice and commentary for material he would shape into
a number of works addressing contemporary concerns. The York master
shows that the methodology employed by Paschasius was well-known both
60. De Jong, Epitaph for an Era. See also, Mayke de Jong, ‡ˆ ‰ˆŠ‹ŒˆŠŒ‹Ž ŒŒˆ ‘’Œ“”•ity and Atonement in the Age of Louis the Pious, 814–840 (Cambridge, UK, 2009), 102–11;
Courtney M. Booker, Past Convictions:
Carolingians (Philadelphia, 2009), 42–50.
61. Paschasius Radbertus, Epitaphium Arsenii I, ed. Ernst Dümmler (Berlin, 1900), 18:
“rogat Arsenii nostri morum liniamentis imaginem saeculis in memoria more Zeuxi pingere.”
62. Generally, on Carolingian court culture and nicknames, see the study of Charlemagne’s court in Mary Garrison, “The Social World of Alcuin: Nicknames at York and the
Carolingian Court,” Alcuin of York: Scholar at the Carolingian Court, eds. L.A.J.R. Houwen
and A.A. MacDonald (Groningen, 1998), 59–79. Certainly, Paschasius was familiar with this
courtly convention and remarks at one point that Alcuin addressed Adalhard by the name
Antony while others called him Augustine. Paschasius Radbertus, Vita Adalhardi 21, [PL,
120: 1519C]: “Ob hoc autem ab aliquibus, ut epistolae magistri Albini ferunt, Antonius vocabatur;
a nonnullis vero, ut supra dictum est, Aurelius Augustinus.”

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for biblical expositions and for more thematically designed theological
investigations. Sometime around the year 800, Alcuin put the finishing
touches on a seven book treatment of John’s Gospel which had been
requested by Charlemagne’s sister, Gisla, the abbess of Chelles, and
Charlemagne’s daughter Rodtruda, also at the monastery of Chelles.63
Throughout the work, Alcuin draws mostly from Bede, Augustine, and
Gregory, but also from Caesarius of Arles, Hilary of Poitiers, and
Ambrose. In his prefatory letter, Alcuin does not cite Cicero’s story of
Helen, but offers a pharmacological analogy.
Physicians are accustomed to compose out of many different kinds of
ingredients a certain kind of drug for the health (salutem) of someone
seeking it, but they do not consider themselves to be the creators of the
herbs and other kinds of things from whose combination the health
(salus) of the one suffering is brought about, but rather they are servants
(ministros) who collect and mix the ingredients into one body.64

Though shifting from an artistic to a medical paradigm, Alcuin’s understanding of his theological work corresponds to Paschasius’. The point of
the analogy is even clearer in the Latin, where the world for health, salus,
also means salvation. The great Anglo-Saxon scholar makes something
new and useful to his current situation out of ingredients from the tradition. Moreover, rather than merely pass the ingredients on to his patient,
he gathers specific examples and blends them together in order to promote
improvement in his subject. Also, as with Paschasius, a theological instinct
for engagement with tradition informs not only Alcuin’s exegetical works,
but also his thematic works. In 802, Alcuin completed his most influential
theological exploration, On the Faith of the Holy and Undivided Trinity.65
63. Alcuin, Commentaria in S. Joannis Evangelium, [PL, 100: 743–1008]. On the commentary itself, see Michael Gorman, “Rewriting Augustine: Alcuin’s Commentary on the
Gospel of John,” Revue Bénédictine 119:1 (2009), 36–85. On Gisla’s influence and the importance of Chelles, see Janet Nelson, “Women and the Word in the Earlier Middle Ages,” Studies in Church History 27 (1990), 53–78.
64. Alcuin, Epistola 213, [MGH.Ep IV], ed. Ernst Dümmler (Berlin, 1895), 357:
“Solent namque medici ex multorum speciebus pigmentorum in salute poscentis quoddam medicamenti conponere genus, nec se ipsos fateri praesumunt creatores herbarum uel aliarum specierum, ex
quarum compositione salus efficitur aegrotantium, sed ministros esse in colligendo et in unum pigmentaria manu conficiendo corpus.”
65. Alcuin of York, De fide sanctae trinitatis et de incarnatione Christi, eds. Eric Knibbs
and E. Ann Matter, [CCCM 249] (Turnhout, 2012). For more treatment on Alcuin’s creative engagement with patristic tradition, see John C. Cavadini, “A Carolingian Hilary,” –—
Study of the Bible in the Carolingian Era, eds. Celia Chazelle and Burton Van Name Edwards
(Turnhout, 2003), 133–40; idem, “The Sources and Theology of Alcuin’s ‘De fide sanctae et

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He composed the work as an aid for bishops and priests tasked with transmitting the faith to the Saxons recently conquered and converted by
Charlemagne.66 Throughout the work, Alcuin’s primary interlocutor is
Augustine from whom our author cites at least eleven separate works, but
especially On the Trinity and the Enchiridion. Other figures engaged
include Arnobius, John Cassian, Fulgentius of Ruspe, Gennadius of Marseilles, Isidore of Seville, Leo the Great, and Marius Victorinus. The general tactics employed by Alcuin are now familiar. On some occasions he
rearranged clauses and sentences from a single source, at other times he
combined words from two different sources. As John Cavadini explains,
“Alcuin takes over units or modules of tradition, so to speak, but they are,
however, finally as divisible as Alcuin wants them to be.”67 He also freely
adds his own words of clarification or appends a further point to a text, and
also often summarizes an authority’s point in order to move along a bit
more quickly.
Such instincts are not confined to Paschasius’ predecessors. His contemporary, the aforementioned abbot of Fulda and then archbishop of
Mainz, Hrabanus Maurus works the same way throughout his biblical exegesis and thematic theological works. For his own Exposition on Matthew,
Hrabanus sifts through an impressive catalogue of authors available to him
in Fulda’s substantial library.68 Earlier authors who worked on Matthew are
frequently cited: Hilary of Poitiers, Victorinus, and especially Jerome,
whose Commentary on Matthew is singled out for criticism (perhaps unnecessarily, although more modestly) even as it is often used.69 But Hrabanus
individuae trinitatis,’” Traditio 46 (1991), 123–46; idem, “Alcuin and Augustine: De Trinitate,” Augustinian Studies 12 (1981), 11–18.
66. For a brief synopsis of Charlemagne’s problems with the Saxons, see Paul Fouracre,
“Frankish Gaul to 814,” ˜™ š™› œžŸ ¡¢£™ ¤™¢¡™¥¦ §¡¨©ª «, ed. Rosamond McKitterick
(Cambridge, UK, 1995), 85–109, at 102–05. On the theological significance of the Saxons,
among others, to the Carolingians specifically, see, for example, James Palmer, “Defining
paganism in the Carolingian world,” Early Medieval Europe 15 (2007), 402–25. For a broader
discussion of Alcuin’s concern for mission, see Owen M. Phelan, “Catechising the Wild: The
Continuity and Innovation of Missionary Catechesis under the Carolingians,” Journal of
Ecclesiastical History 61:3 (2010), 455–74, esp. 464–67.
67. Cavadini, “The Sources and Theology,” 135.
68. See the introduction in Hrabanus Maurus, Expositio in Matthaeum, ed. Bengt Löfstedt, [CCCM, 174-174A] (Turnhout, 2000).
69. Hrabanus Maurus, Expositio in Matthaeum Prologus, 2: “Scripsit quoque praedictus
uir beatus Hieronimus petente Eusebio in hoc euangelium commentarium, sed pro breuitate temporis,
ut eius sermonibus dicam, omissa ueterum auctoritate, quos nec legendi nec sequendi facultas sibi data
est, historicam interpretationem digessit breuiter et interdum spiritalis intellegentiae flores miscuit,
perfectum opus reseruans in posterum.”

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casts his net widely and gathers insights from various works by Origen,
Eusebius, Theophilus of Antioch, Apollinaris of Laodicea, and Theodore of
Heraclitus along with Cyprian, Ambrose, Augustine, Fulgentius, Orosius,
Leo, Gregory the Great, and others. Beyond his massive collection of biblical studies, Hrabanus uses the same theological strategy in his thematic
works. In the second decade of the Ninth Century, the then schoolmaster
at Fulda completed a program for priestly formation to address the most
urgent concerns of Ninth Century Carolingian reformers. In On the Formation of Clergy, Hrabanus frequently turns to the ideas and words of his
authorities even as he develops new and different points for his audience.70
The result is a sophisticated, yet practical guide with concrete and easily
accessible instruction for young clerics who want effectively to minister to
their congregations. Across the third book of the work, Hrabanus primarily
combines Augustine’s strategies for biblical exegesis in De doctrina christiana
with Gregory the Great’s pastoral advice in the Regula pastoralis. But
throughout the whole work, Hrabanus engages many different voices from
the tradition and makes them his own. In one charming example, while
emphasizing the importance of content for the preacher, that it not be sacrificed for clever rhetorical artifice, Hrabanus appropriates a pithy observation found in one of Jerome’s letters. Jerome instructs his interlocutor that
“of two imperfect things holy rusticity is much better than sinful eloquence.”71 Amid a discussion of rhetoric and substance, Hrabanus teaches
his students that “of these two imperfect things, I rather choose holy rusticity over sinful eloquence.”72 Even this brief scan of Alcuin and Hrabanus
Maurus shows that the engagement with tradition found throughout Paschasius’ Commentary on Matthew is notable more for its exhaustive breadth and
sophistication than for its uniqueness among Carolingian authors.
Analysis of the appearance of Helen of Troy in the writings of Paschasius Radbertus draws attention not only to Paschasius’ erudition, it also
illumines his theological method: a process of mimesis working with tradition. He scours authorities for insights and suggestions applicable to his
contemporary circumstance, but more than just identifying and copying,
he engages his sources, creatively applying them to the questions or prob70. Hrabanus Maurus, De institutione clericorum libri tres, ed. Detlev Zimpel (Frankfurt
am Main, 1996). For a fuller discussion, see Owen M. Phelan, “New Insights, Old Texts: Clerical Formation and the Carolingian Renewal in Hrabanus Maurus,” Traditio 71 (2016), 63–89.
71. Hieronymus, Epistula 52.9, ed. Isidorus Hilberg, [CSEL, 54] (Vienna, 1996), 431:
“multoque melius est e duobus inperfectis rusticitatem sanctam habere quam eloquentiam peccatricem.”
72. Hrabanus Maurus, De institutione clericorum 3.27, 487: “ex duobus imperfectis magis
eligo sanctam rusticitatem, quam eloquentiam peccatricem.”

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lems at hand. Throughout his work, he strives to draw on the best examples
from tradition and juxtapose them to fashion a most helpful, most inspiring, and most beautiful masterpiece. From this study hopefully we can
draw three conclusions which prompt deeper engagement within the
Christian tradition and with Carolingian theologians and their biblical
exegesis. First, we recognize that Paschasius Radbertus is an exceptional
intellectual whose broad erudition and self-reflective work reveals a sophisticatedly analytical and powerfully synthetic mind. His careful repurposing
of authorities applies the riches of tradition to contemporary problems,
from theological controversies to pastoral conundrums, for contemporary
audiences, especially the clergy so central to the project of Carolingian
reform. Second, we acknowledge a provocative and perhaps widespread
trend in ninth century theological approaches to tradition and, moreover,
in how tradition saturated early medieval approaches to reform. While
Paschasius, without doubt, is extraordinary in the fineness of his interaction with his sources and the sheer abundance of sources engaged, he is not
all that atypical in his approach. Carolingian intellectuals viewed tradition
as a precious resource to be guarded, admired, engaged, and applied. Particularly for Carolingian authors invested in cultural reform and especially
ecclesiastical reform—figures like Paschasius, but also many others like
Alcuin and Hrabanus Maurus—Cicero’s story of Helen of Troy is both an
example of the fitting use of tradition and a compelling explanation of tradition’s importance. This is to say, Cicero’s exemplum points intriguingly to
a central conceptual and pedagogical concern for promoters of the Carolingian Renewal and to the solution: mimesis—to copy and to improve—the
process of bringing tradition into the service of reform. Third, while theologians like Paschasius shaped reform efforts in the Ninth Century, their
impact does not end with the Carolingian Empire. They become both
sources and shapers of later tradition as reformers from the high Middle
Ages to the modern world look back not only to them, but through them
to their predecessors. In the twelfth century, for example, Carolingian
authors populate influential school books. They are well represented in the
Glossa ordinaria, where Ralph of Laon, the main author of the section on
Matthew’s Gospel, features Paschasius’ Matthew Commentary. Similarly,
Hrabanus’s commentary on the Book of Kings is the most frequently cited
source for the Gloss on Kings.73 And, Alcuin of York is the single most

73. In the twelfth century, for example, Carolingian authors figure prominently in the
Glossa ordinaria see, E. Ann Matter, “The Church Fathers and the Glossa ordinaria,” ¬­
Reception of the Church Fathers in the West: From the Carolingians to the Maurists, ed. Irene
Backus (Leiden, 1997), 83–111, on Paschasius at 105–06, on Hrabanus at 89.

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“BEAUTIFUL LIKE HELEN”

important source for the Gloss’ comments on John’s Gospel.74 Eight centuries later, in the twentieth century, Carolingian writings inspire and
inform the efforts of the influential ressourcement theologians. Ressourcement pioneer Henri de Lubac’s first two books lean heavily on Carolingian
authors. Early medieval figures litter the footnotes of his groundbreaking
1938 study, Catholicism.75 Moreover, the preface to the second edition of
de Lubac’s second effort, 1944’s Corpus Mysticum, explicitly identifies Carolingian theologians as its inspiration. De Lubac recalls examining a dissertation on Florus of Lyon which inspired him further to explore Paschasius Radbertus, Ratramnus of Corbie, Gottschalk of Orbais, and Hrabanus
Maurus.76 The influence of Paschasius Radbertus, along with his confreres,
on the Christian tradition is deep and long and—perhaps—underappreciated and underexplored.

74. Alexander Andrée, “The Glossa ordinaria on the Gospel of John. A Preliminary
Survey of the Manuscripts with a Presentation of the Text and its Sources,” Revue Bénédictine
118:1 (2008), 109–34, at 120–23.
75. Henri de Lubac, Catholicisme: les aspects sociaux du dogma (Paris, 1938).
76. Henri de Lubac, Corpus Mysticum: Corpus Mysticum: Essai sur L’Eucharistie et
l’Église au moyen âge, 2nd ed. (Paris: Aubier, 1949) 7.

Webs of Conversation and Discernment:
Looking for Spiritual Accompaniment in
Sixteenth-Century Spain
LU ANN HOMZA*
This article borrows a paradigm from a 2003 essay by theologian Mercedes Navarro Puerto to gauge spiritual priorities in sixteenth-century
Spain. Spanish Catholicism in the early modern period very often is
construed as averse to horizontal ties, individual judgment, and the
free construction of religious communities, but Navarro’s concept of
“spiritual accompaniment” helps us to grasp the presence of conversation, reciprocity, and non-confrontational discernment in early
modern Spanish Catholicism. The evidence assessed here broadens our
understanding of what Spanish Catholicism would tolerate and even
support in the sixteenth century, and deepens the way we portray religious dissent.
Keywords: Spanish Catholicism, accompaniment, conversation,
discernment, reciprocity

W

hen historians of medieval and early modern Europe study the past,
they usually prefer to start from the position that the past is a foreign
country, in the hope that expectations of difference will help them understand their historical subjects on their own terms.1 Still, sometimes historians can be encouraged to ask different questions of their evidence by considering hypotheses raised by contemporary academics, which is how this
investigation began: its inspiration comes from a 2003 essay by Spanish biblical scholar, Mercedes Navarro Puerto. A member of the Mercedarian
*Lu Ann Homza, Professor of History, William & Mary, lahomz@wm.edu. This article
is dedicated to the memory of Monica Brzezinski Potkay, whom I was privileged to accompany before she died of cancer in April 2018. All translations are my own. Readers will notice
that the primary sources quoted in the notes in original Spanish differ in their diacritical
markings and orthography: those differences are due to decisions on the part of their editors.
The research for this article was generously supported by Kate Conley, Dean of Arts & Sciences at William & Mary.
1. For trenchant comments on historical distance, Quentin Skinner, “Meaning and
Understanding in the History of Ideas,” History and Theory 8 (1969), 3–53, and especially 11–
15, 25–28.

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Order of Charity [Mercedarias de caridad], Navarro co-founded the Asociación de teólogas españolas, and acted as general editor for a twenty-twovolume series on Women and the Bible; in 2017, she shared the Herbert
Haag Foundation prize for “Liberty in the Church.” Translated into English, the title of her 2003 article is “Shared Adult Accompaniment: A Psychological and Biblical Perspective;” it was inspired by an eclectic group of
sources, including the Christian Gospels and the 1995 film, Leaving Las
Vegas.2 Leaving Las Vegas portrays a companionship between a male alcoholic and a female prostitute, who first pities him and then attempts to draw
him back into the circle of life. The alcoholic resists direction. His autonomy—which comes down to his will to destroy himself—ultimately matters
more to him than the affinity he clearly has with the woman. Yet even at
the end of the film, neither character has forsaken the other. Instead, there
is an enduring, clear-eyed, but non-judgmental bond between the two as
the prostitute accompanies the alcoholic on his deathbed.3
For Navarro, Leaving Las Vegas raises a barrage of questions about
“the complexity of accompaniment and human company, vis-à-vis liberty,
destruction, and the autonomy of the human subject.”4 Whereas Christianity has a long tradition of accompaniment, Navarro finds that the phenomenon tends to be defined in three ways: as pertaining to the growth of
young people, as being present at particularly special life events, and as
spiritual direction. Accompaniment in this sense turns on “what”—a stage,
a critical situation, an experience.5 Instead, Navarro thinks the Christian
Gospels transmit a different, deeper modality of accompaniment among
adults, one that turns on horizontal, egalitarian, and reciprocal relationships, in which “who” matters more than “what” or “when.”6 In her read2. Mercedes Navarro Puerto, “Acompañamiento adulto compartido, una perspectiva
psicológica y bíblica,” Testimonio 196 (2003), 81–99.
3. A provocative analogue to Navarro’s idea of accompaniment may lie in Jesuit prison
ministry in early modern Europe, although that process was necessarily limited by time: Frank
Sobiech, Jesuit Prison Ministry in the Witch Trials of the Holy Roman Empire: Friedrich Spee, SJ,
and His Cautio Criminalis (1631) (Rome, 2019). Tara Soughers has explored possible spiritual friendships with saints in “Friendship with Teresa of Ávila: Spiritual Companionship
across Time and Space,” Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality 14 (2014), 166–86, in
which reciprocity and a willingness to be transformed are crucial. Though not indebted to
Navarro’s work, Soughers’ is complementary to it.
4. Navarro Puerto, “Acompañamiento adulto compartido,” 81.
5. Navarro Puerto, “Acompañamiento adulto compartido, 81–82.
6. Navarro’s spiritual accompaniment thus turns on sharing, searching, and being present: “Acompañamiento adulto compartido,” 87. Obviously, spiritual direction as practiced
and experienced in the medieval and early modern period could involve intensely emotional
and enduring relationships between priests and penitents, even though it operated hypothet-

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ings, Jesus not only accompanies, but asks to be accompanied; He creates
a group of equals, which expands constantly. It is not a closed system, just
as Jesus never closed His community. Furthermore, Jesus teaches his followers in ways that allow them to discover wisdom. Their spiritual accompaniment is active and searching. Ultimately, Jesus and his followers
together are creating the Kingdom of God.7
It turns out that Navarro’s model of spiritual accompaniment helps to
draw together certain religious threads in sixteenth-century Spain. Those
threads of conversation, reciprocity, and constant, but non-confrontational
discernment were endorsed by both upper and lower echelons of Spanish
Catholicism in the sixteenth century, including bishops, Dominican friars,
founders of religious orders, and laymen and women. These individuals did
not conceal their priorities. They talked about their values to their friends,
as well as to Spanish inquisitors; they put their preferences into manuscripts and printed texts, written in the vernacular and in Latin, from the
1520s through the meetings of the Council of Trent. These individuals’
recommendations refine our understanding of religious dissent in early
modern Spain. Important scholarship has demonstrated that a number of
Spanish intellectuals in the early modern period were inspired by the
Pauline epistles to champion the charitable, fraternal correction of religious
error, a stance that contrasted mightily with the Spanish Inquisition’s
system of secret denunciation and public infamy.8 Navarro’s model
ically on a vertical plane. Jodi Bilinkoff, Related Lives: Confessors and their Female Penitents,
1450–1750 (Ithaca, 2005); Owen Hufton, “Altruism and Reciprocity: Early Jesuits and their
Female Patrons,” Renaissance Studies 15 (2001), 328–53; Ruth Manning, “A Confessor and
his Spiritual Child: François de Sales, Jeanne de Chantal, and the Founding of the Order of
Visitation,” Past and Present 2006 supplement (vol. 1), 101–17. In Related Lives, chap. 4,
Bilinkoff found abundant evidence that early modern priests and penitents were equally
searching for spiritual soul mates.
7. Navarro Puerto, “Acompañamiento adulto compartido,” 88–94.
8. In Il vangelo e la spade: l’inquisizione di Castiglia e i suoi critici (1460–1598) (Rome,
2003), Stefania Pastore uncovered a network of inquisition critics who derived their spirituality from the Pauline Epistles, and who emphasized charity, Christian equality (despite religious conversions), the abandonment of ceremony and gesture, and a dynamic relationship
between the Old and New Testaments. In Il vangelo, 142–51, 229–44, Pastore treats two figures investigated here, Domingo de Valtanás and Bartolomé Carranza. Pastore emphasizes
Valtanás’s refusal to sanction discrimination against conversos, and highlights Carranza’s preference for fraternal correction. My treatment of both figures is more multifaceted. Massimo
Firpo has found some Italian clerics who match Pastore’s vision in the decade after 1527: Juan
de Valdés and the Reformation in Italy (Burlington, 2015), 2–5. I have argued that Pastore overlooked a key component—historical consciousness—in the spirituality she was examining:
Homza, “‘Local Knowledge’ and Catholic Reform in Early Modern Spain,” Reforming Reformation, ed. Thomas J. Mayer (Burlington, 2012), 81–102.

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includes charitable, fraternal correction, but it also allows us to chart other
elements that could go along with that principle. The result heightens our
awareness of the nuances in Spanish Catholicism in the sixteenth century,
including the line between orthodoxy and heterodoxy.9 Ultimately, applying the model of spiritual accompaniment to Spanish Catholicism challenges the standard depiction of it as averse to horizontal spiritual ties,
individual judgment, and the free construction of spiritual communities.10
The figures under investigation here often were well-known to their
contemporaries and to each other. Juan Bernal Díaz de Luco, known as
Dr. Bernal (d. 1556), was a canon lawyer, an episcopal vicar for the bishop
of Salamanca, a member of the Council of the Indies, the bishop of Calahorra, and a member of the Spanish delegation at the first sessions of the
Council of Trent.11 In 1530 and 1543, Dr. Bernal published vernacular
treatises that addressed the care of souls.12 Domingo de Valtanás Mejía was
an Andalucian noble and a Dominican friar who became a renowned
preacher and spiritual advisor. Between 1516 and 1553, he founded eleven
convents; from 1525 to 1558, he expounded the New Testament in print
and wrote an apologia on controversial topics.13 Bartolomé de Carranza (d.
9. The Spanish Inquisition thrived on the dichotomy of orthodoxy vs. heterodoxy, and
that binary was transplanted, albeit unwittingly, into the pivotal study of Catholic culture in
early modern Spain, as Marcel Bataillon, Erasmo y España (Mexico City, 1950) contrasted
partisans of Erasmus with followers of scholasticism. Bataillon’s dynamic survives in more
recent scholarship: Stefania Pastore, Una herejía española: conversos, alumbrados, e Inquisición
(1449–1559) (Madrid, 2010), 21–22, who nonetheless aims to overcome inquisitorial categories in her investigations: 32–35. Work on Catholic culture in early modern Italy has long
been bound by a division between groups of spirituali and intransigenti: Firpo, Juan de Valdés,
17, 26. William V. Hudon challenged the spirituali and intransigenti model in “Religion and
Society in Early Modern Italy: Old Questions, New Insights,” American Historical Review 101
(1996), 783–804. For a rejection of dichotomies in the study of Spanish religion, Mercedes
García-Arenal and Felipe Pereda, “On the Alumbrados: Confessionalism and Religious Dissidence in the Iberial World,” The Early Modern Hispanic World: Transnational and Interdisciplinary Approaches, eds. Kimberly Lynn and Erin K. Rowe (Cambridge, 2017), 121–52.
10. The Black Legend continues to affect historical scholarship on Spain: Frances Luttikhuizen, Underground Protestantism in Sixteenth-Century Spain: a Much Ignored Side of Spanish History (Gottingen & Bristol, 2017).
11. José Ignacio Tellechea Idígoras, El Obispo ideal en el siglo de Reforma (Rome, 1963).
Tomás Martín Martínez, “El ‘Catalogus sanctorum episcoporum’ del Obispo Bernal Díaz de
Luco,” Miscelánea conmemorative del Concilio de Trento (1563–1963): estudios y documentos
(Madrid & Barcelona, 1963), 373–459.
12. Instrucción de perlados (Alcalá, 1530), and Aviso de curas (Alcalá, 1543). Dr. Bernal
substantially enlarged the latter with practical advice in its next two editions. The edition of
Aviso de curas used here is Alcalá, 1551.
13. Confesionario muy provechoso con el Vita Christi (Toledo, 1537); Doctrina christiana
(Seville, 1555); Exposición de los Evangelios con sermons (Sevilla, 1558); Epitoma y sumario de la

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1576) was also a Dominican friar, as well as an advisor to Philip II and the
confessor of retired Holy Roman Emperor Charles V; he would become
the archbishop of Toledo, a member of the Spanish contingent at Trent,
and the most famous victim of the Spanish Inquisition. Between 1547 and
1552, Carranza wrote Latin treatises on clerical residence and the duties of
the clergy; in 1558, he published in Antwerp his Comentarios sobre el catechism christiano.14
Meanwhile, Ignatius de Loyola (d. 1556) had a conversion experience
after a war wound in 1521; in retreat in the village of Manresa, he formulated the core of the Spiritual Exercises, which he would continue to revise
for twenty years. He and his friends meditated and preached; in 1537, they
began to identify themselves as belonging to the “Company of Jesus,” and
Ignatius and five others were ordained to the priesthood the same year.
Members of the Society of Jesus engaged in life-long networks of correspondence.15 Their supporters eventually included Dr. Bernal and Valtanás, with the former attempting to install them in his diocese, and the
latter publishing a defense of their order.
Significantly, from 1526–27 Ignatius was investigated by Spanish
inquisitors, who then turned over the case to the archbishop of Toledo: in
the sentence of July 1, 1527, Ignatius was prohibited from teaching for
three years.16 In 1559, Carranza was arrested by the Spanish Inquisition
and, in 1561, inquisitors also began to scrutinize Valtanás.17 Yet Ignatius,
vida y excelencias de treze patriarchas del Testamento Nuevo (Sevilla, 1555); Apología sobre ciertas
materias morales en que hay opinion, y Apología de la communion frequente, ed. Álavaro Huerga,
O.P., and Pedro Saínz Rodríguez (Barcelona, 1963), which contains a biography. That biography should now be cross-referenced with Gianglaudio Civale, “Domingo de Baltanás,
monje solicitante en la encrucijada religiosa andaluza: confesión, inquisición, y Compañia de
Jesús en la Sevilla del Siglo de Oro,” Hispania Sacra 59 (2007), 197–241.
14. Carranza’s Controversia de necessaria residentia personali episcoporum et aliorum inferiorum pastorum (Venice, 1547), has been translated by Tellechea Idígoras (Madrid, 1993).
Also see Carranza, Speculum pastorum. Hierarchia ecclesiastica in qua describuntur officia ministrorum ecclesiae militantis (1551–52), ed. Tellechea Idígoras (Salamanca, 1992); and Comentarios sobre el catechism christiano, ed. Tellechea Idígoras (Madrid, 1972), 2 vols.
15. John W. O’Malley, The First Jesuits (Cambridge, 1993), chap. 1.
16. Javier Burriez Sánchez and Manueal Revuelta González, Los jesuitas en España y en
el mundo hispánico (Madrid, 2004), trace the arc of Spanish opposition to the Society of Jesus
in the early modern period, 58-70. See too the important article by José Luis González
Novalin, “La inquisición y la Compañia de Jesús,” Anthologica Annua 37 (1990), 11–56.
17. Tellechea Idígoras has published eight volumes of historical documents relating to
Carranza’s arrest and trial. On Valtanás, Civale, “Domingo de Baltanás,” proves that Valtanás’s
arrest was due to the heresy of solicitation of nuns, not Lutheran sympathies. On the Jesuits’
hands-off approach to Carranza after the latter’s arrest, O’Malley, The First Jesuits, 317–20.

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Carranza, and Valtanás publicized their ideas for decades—through followers, letters, sermons, and print—before, after, and despite their arrests.
The fact that the Spanish Inquisition pursued them had practically no
impact on their intellectual weight or public esteem for them.18
The individuals at the lower end of the religious hierarchy in this investigation also suffered inquisition trials, and they too spread their ideas for
more than a decade before they were deemed suspicious. An ordained
priest, Antonio Medrano, was prosecuted intermittently for thirteen years.19
He was investigated by the inquisition tribunal in Valladolid in 1519, and
banished from that city in 1522 and 1523. In 1524, he was scrutinized by
the episcopal vicar-general in Salamanca—who at that time was Dr.
Bernal—and then exiled from that city as well. In 1526, a new inquisition
case was launched against him by the tribunal in Calahorra, which oversaw
Navarre: in that instance, Medrano abjured a light suspicion of heresy. In
1530, he was seized by the inquisition tribunal in Toledo for prosecution,
where a number of his friends were already on trial. In 1532, after having
confessed under torture, Medrano abjured a grave suspicion of heresy and
was secluded perpetually in a Navarrese monastery, where he continued to
cause trouble.20 His acquaintance, wife and mother María de Cazalla, had
dozens of followers around Toledo from throughout the 1520s, and was
prosecuted for heresy by Toledo’s inquisition tribunal from 1532 to 153421
(Figure 1). She withstood torture and ultimately was absolved for lack of
proof, though she had to abjure a light suspicion of heresy for having communicated with friends in the tribunal’s secret jail. Both Medrano and
Cazalla were officially tried for the heresy of alumbradismo. Alumbrados
claimed to receive spiritual enlightenment directly from God. They downplayed clerical intercession to reach salvation, abstained from hollow works,
and believed they had the ability to understand scripture, even if they were
18. Civale has found that only two of Valtanás’s works were placed on indices of prohibited books: “Domingo de Baltanás,” 235 n. 123. For perspectives and actions of individual
inquisitors on the Carranza case, see Kimberly Lynn, Between Court and Confessional: the Politics of Spanish Inquisitors (Cambridge, 2013), 64–76, 128–30.
19. Medrano’s appearances before the inquisition have been edited by Javier Pérez
Escohotado: Proceso inquisitorial contra el Bachiller Antonio de Medrano (Logroño 1526–Calahorra 1527) (Logroño, 1988), and Antonio de Medrano, alumbrado epicúreo (Toledo, 1530)
(Madrid, 2003).
20. Pérez Escohotado, Antonio de Medrano, alumbrado epicúreo, 440–41, where the prior
of the monastery in which Medrano was enclosed begged the inquisitors to move him elsewhere.
21. Milagros Ortega-Costa, Proceso de la inquisición contra Maria de Cazalla (Madrid,
1978).

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FIGURE 1. María de Cazalla Public domain. From nuevotestamentojohnpmeier.
blogspot.com/2017/02/maria-de-cazalla.html

female. Modern scholars have stressed that the alumbrados believed their
vocation could not be created or enhanced by human effort, but the fact
remains that these figures were surrounded by friends and followers all the
time.22 Medrano and Cazalla’s inquisition trials have survived, and are our
only sources for their beliefs and practices.23
22. In Juan de Valdés and the Italian Reformation, Massimo Firpo emphasizes that
Valdés believed divine illumination had to precede all spiritual progress, and that such
enlightenment varied according to God’s plan: 36–49. Pastore, Una herejía española, 36–37,
describes alumbradismo as consonant with the values she has uncovered in sixteenth-century
critics of the Inquisition. Her comment that Spanish visions of reform in the 1520s involved
the “teaching and re-catechization of the faithful” would seem to presuppose conversation and
a flexible, optimistic approach to community: Una herejía española, 279. The six figures who
appear in her book on alumbradismo do not include the two examined here, María de Cazalla
and Antonio Medrano.
23. We consequently cannot assess whether Medrano and Cazalla meant what they
said while they were under interrogation, since we have nothing with which to compare their
testimonies. Importantly, deciding that certain of their statements were sincere while others
were insincere is a fruitless strategy, since it all too easily turns them into reflections of what
we think they should have been. Skinner warns about such “mythologies of coherence” in
“Meaning and Understanding,” 16–22, while Mercedes García-Arenal cautions us to beware
of romantic ideas of authenticity: “Religious Dissent and Minorities: the Morisco Age,” The
Journal of Modern History 81 (2009), 898.

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After close readings of their works, correspondence, and trials, these
six figures—Ignatius, Dr. Bernal, Carranza, Valtanás, Medrano, and
Cazalla—appear to express values that correspond to Navarro’s paradigm
of spiritual accompaniment. They pursued conversation, emphasized horizontal and reciprocal relationships, practiced discernment, and maintained an open attitude toward the potential composition of spiritual
communities. Yet three cautions are in order. First, not one of the six used
the phrase “spiritual accompaniment” in their work or their depositions:
in fact, that phrase occurs nowhere in Latin or Spanish religious treatises
from the sixteenth century. Second, early modern Catholic writings frequently carried a message about clerical responsibility which would seem
to have inhibited any sort of reciprocal relationship between the clergy
and the laity. Ezekiel 33:2–9 explained that a watchman who failed to
warn the community of impending danger would be culpable if that community perished; by extension, a priest who neglected to denounce sin,
mend quarrels, and watch over the spiritual and physical needs of his congregation would be similarly liable. By combining the verse from Ezekiel
with Jesus’ remarks in John 10:1–16 and John 21:15–17—wherein Jesus
said that he knew his sheep, and told Peter to feed them—clerical authors
in Spain in the sixteenth century believed they had a clear mandate for
priests to reside in their parishes. So did the fathers at the Council of
Trent, who debated fiercely whether residence was a jus divinum (divine
law), and who ultimately agreed that bishops had a divine command (preceptum) to know their sheep (Session 23, 1563, Canon 1). Third, in no way
did the figures assessed here think of themselves as belonging to a codified
movement of spiritual accompaniment, nor were their values unique in
Spanish society. Voluntary Catholic congregations in the late fifteenth
century, such as the Oratory of Divine Love, recognized in 1497,
espoused conversation, mutual spiritual support, prayer, and charity
among its associates. Cooperation among its members was a given, as was
their discernment and advice toward each other.24 In short, early modern
Catholicism involved a continuous balancing act between the requirement
of a clerical hierarchy—and the need for those religious authorities to be

24. Nicholas Terpstra comments that confraternal membership offered “[m]utual support and mutual discipline”: Lay Confraternities and Civic Religion in Renaissance Bologna
(Cambridge, 1995), 40, and finds that residents of fifteenth-century Bologna did not distinguish between lay and clerical piety except by degrees of intensity: 41. Terpstra has also noted
how compelling early modern Europeans found such brotherhoods, which were “semiautonomous, lay, voluntary, charitable, [and] mutually disciplining:” “Confraternities as
Modes of Spiritual Community,” Early Modern Catholicism: Essays in Honour of John W.
O’Malley, S.J. (Toronto, 2001), 163–82, here 177.

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educated and effective—and an egalitarianism that presumed collaboration could assist in spiritual growth.
As it turns out, Dr. Bernal, Carranza, Valtanás, and Ignatius voiced
spiritual priorities that handled both poles of that equation. All four trumpeted the importance of practical measures in the world. The idea of movement, whether physical or mental, undergirded their advice. If their readers
were going to administer the sacraments, they had to do so in a virtuous
manner; if priests were ignorant, they should seek out Scripture and books.
In a similar way, laypersons also had to work toward their salvation, even
if they first had to be pressured by a priest into foregoing sin or educating
their children in the faith.25 Sometimes, recommendations were expansive
and specific. In Controversia de necessaria residentia (1547), Carranza told
bishops and clerics with the care of souls not to rest on the dignity of their
position; instead, they were charged to take up “the pure administration of
the Gospel,” a duty that was truly apostolic.26 Administration of the
Gospel turned on teaching, but significantly, the objective could not be
reached through books: instead, Carranza said the clergy could only teach
in an apostolic way if they visited, observed, and pondered the people in
front of them.27 Their success was contingent upon recognizing their
parishioners “face to face”28 (Figure 2).
Writing in the vernacular, Dr. Bernal was perhaps even more adamant
in his demand for clerics to be on the move, and again, personal contact
was key. In his Instrucción de perlados, he criticized episcopal visitors who
traveled but still spent so little focused time in the parishes that “very
seldom what they should do is actually done, whether regarding the property of the Church, or in the correction of public vices.”29 In his more popular Aviso de curas, he told priests to extend as much care to the parish
churches as to their own households. He advised them to read books and
establish schools. Notably, because Dr. Bernal imagined priests as fully
engaged with every aspect and level of their community, he expected them
to try to rectify material misfortunes as well as spiritual ones, such as aiding
25. Bernal Díaz de Luco, Aviso de curas (Alcalá, 1551), f. 26r.
26. Carranza, Controversia, 54.
27. Carranza, Controversia, 74. As he cited the usual analogies for the episcopal office,
Carranza again implicitly highlighted activity: bishops were inspectors, caretakers, doctors,
and guardians, 121.
28. Carranza, Controversia, 51.
29. “Y porque con lo poco que se detienen los visitadores en los pueblos, muy pocos
vezes se haze lo que se devría hacer, ansi en la hazienda de la iglesia, como en la correción de
los vicios públicos.” Juan Bernal Díaz de Luco, Instrucción de perlados (Alcalá, 1530), f. 13v.

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FIGURE 2. Portrait of Bartolomé de Carranza (1503–76), from Retratos de Españoles
ilustres (Madrid: Real Imprenta, 1791) Public domain. Courtesy of Wikimedia.

the poor by pressuring the rich into acts of charity.30 He too knew that the
laity was made up of individuals, and advised the clergy to pay attention
accordingly. Priests should know “the age, profession, and way of living of
each person, in order better to counsel and help everyone, according to
what each one needs.”31 This clerical obligation held true even if the parish
was lucky enough to have monasteries nearby32 (Figure 3).
Valtanás also was blunt about the need for action. He wrote, “the flock
is in a risky place when its pastor does not walk with it . . . a bishop is not
elected to walk at court, but to preach, confess, and administer the sacraments, and provide for the churches.”33 The proper function of a prelate was
30. Bernal Díaz de Luco, Aviso de curas, f. 149r.
31. “sabiendo la edad, estado, y manera de vivir de cada uno para major aconsejar y
socorrer a todos, conforme a lo que cada uno oviere menester.” Bernal Díaz de Luco, Aviso de
curas, f. 68r.
32. Bernal Díaz de Luco, Aviso de curas, f. 69r.
33. “A mal recaudo está el ganado cuando el pastor no anda con él. . . . El prelado no
es elegido para andar en las cortes, sino para predicar y confesar y administrar los sacramentos

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FIGURE 3. Juan Bernal Diaz de Luco (1495–1556), Aviso de curas muy provechoso
para todos los que exercitan officio de curar animas (Alcalá de Henares: Casa de Ioan
de Brocar, 1551). Courtesy of Wikimedia.

to feed [apacentar] his flock with doctrine and material sustenance [mantenimiento].34 A vicar could not perform adequately this duty, because “the office
of a bishop is a personal obligation,” and the same held true for ordinary
parish priests. To earn their tithes, bishops and priests had to be diligent;
their work might be onerous, but to neglect it was worse, since clerics who
“neither walked with their sheep, nor watched over them,” spawned heretics,
however unwittingly.35 The remedy was to be on the ground in person, and
to follow Jesus’ example, who had known the names of all His sheep.36
As for Ignatius, given his counsel about the proper ministries for the
Society of Jesus, and his release of his brethren from reciting the Divine
y proveer sus iglesias.” Valtanás, “Apología de la residencia de los obispos en sus iglesias,”
Apología sobre ciertas materias morales, 161–62.
34. Valtanás, “Apología de la residencia,” 163.
35. Valtanás, “Apología de la residencia,” 162.
36. One of the counter-examples behind Valtanás’s advice may have been Archbishop
and Inquisitor-General Fernando de Valdés, who notoriously refused to go to his diocese of
Seville even when persons were accused of Protestantism there in the 1550s.

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WEBS OF CONVERSATION AND DISCERNMENT

FIGURE 4. Portrait of Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556), considered an early authentic portrait dating from 1598–1600, preserved in the private chapel of the Superior
General of the Society of Jesus in Rome. Wikimedia.

Office as a community, as well as from the parish—he obviously imagined
that his brethren would be moving through the world.37 Certainly the
Jesuit practice of “fishing” was all about activity, discernment, and conversation: here, members and supporters wandered the streets, looking for
individuals who might wish to converse about spiritual topics and pursue a
more vivified faith. As part of casting their verbal “nets,” the Jesuits were
expected to notice circumstances and personalities, and alter their language
accordingly.38 The most frequent phrase in Jesuit documents was “to help
souls,” whether emotionally, practically, or intellectually.39 Souls could not
be assisted or consoled unless their particular circumstances at a specific
moment were known40 (Figure 4).
37. For these emphases, O’Malley, The First Jesuits, 91–133, and 74: “mobility was
intrinsic to their theory about their calling.”
38. Ignatius laid out in detail the need to observe and accommodate one’s interlocutors
in his 1541 instructions to Fathers Alfonso Salmerón and Paschase Broët, who were being
sent to Ireland: Obras completas de San Ignacio de Loyola, ed. Ignacio Iparraguirre, S.I.
(Madrid, 1963), 642–43; also see O’Malley, The First Jesuits, 111–14.
39. O’Malley, The First Jesuits, 18–19.
40. We can see the Jesuits’ attention to circumstances in their prison visitations, as well
as their interactions with children and teenagers accused of witchcraft: Sobiech, Jesuit Prison

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The same awareness of individuality was obvious in the Spiritual Exercises, which could be minutely altered to suit personal needs. Throughout his
correspondence, Ignatius sought to match individuals with objectives, as
when he told Francis Xavier that he was best qualified to explain and promote missions in India, thanks to his long time in Goa: “. . . it is so important
that the Apostolic See has certain and complete news about India, coming
from a person who is reliable and has a reputation for being such. . . . You
would be more appropriate for this role than the others there, both because
of the information you have, and the information that is known about you.”41
These men not only hinted at the value of face-to-face communication, but explicitly urged humans to talk to one another. Valtanás asserted
that human conversation could have spiritual benefits:
. . . among the wise and virtuous, great familiarity and conversation should
not be discounted; rather, the more you talk with a person, and the more
virtue and perfection you become aware of in that person, the more you
esteem and honor them, and the more credit you give to everything they
say. . . . The angels, who always interact and talk with God, do not hold
Him as less, but rather revere, honor, and hold Him in greater esteem.42

Valtanás did not worry about over-familiarity. He believed the virtuous
would improve each other.
Ministry, and see the example of Hernando de Solarte in Homza, Village Infernos and Witches’
Advocates: the Witch-Hunt in Navarre, 1608–1614, chaps. 2 and 4, forthcoming, Penn State
University Press.
41. “Después, importando tanto que la Sede Apostólico tenga información cierta y
entera de las cosas de las Indias, y de persona que tenga crédito para con ella . . . también vos
para esto seríades más a propósito que otro de los que allá están, por la noticia que tenéis y la
que se tiene de vuestra persona.” Obras completas, 818. Ignatius did not realize that Xavier had
died months earlier.
42. “Entre los sabios y virtuosos, la mucha familiaridad y conversación no es causa de
tener en poco; antes, cuanto más conversan con una persona y más virtud y perfección conocen de ella, tanto más la estiman y honran y dan más crédito a todos sus dichos. . . . Los ángeles, por tratar y conversar siempre con Dios, no por esto lo tienen en menos, antes lo reverencian, honran, y tienen en más.” “Apología de la frecuentación de la sacrosanta eucaristía y
comuníon,” Apología sobre ciertas materias morales, 208. Valtanás’s positive view of language is
implied by the number of works he composed in the vernacular for a secular audience; see his
bibliography in Apología sobre ciertas materias morales, 114–29. He portrayed the sort of conversation that he deplored in his critique of gambling: “No ha ejercicio en que más se gane el
infierno y pierda el paraíso que con el juego: allí se blasfema Dios y los santos; hay perjuros y
juramentos en vano a montones; hay rencilllas y cuestiones; hay palabras de afrenta, amenazas,
y codicia de tomar lo ajeno y enganar. Y esto no sólo de parte de los que juegan, más aún de
parte de los que miran y están presentes al juego.” “Apología de los juegos,” Apología sobre ciertas materias morales, 166.

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In Dr. Bernal’s case, he expressed anxiety about friendship before he
endorsed it. In his treatise on the duties of parish priests, he worried that
casual conversations between clergy and laity could lead to too much intimacy, which could have a negative sequence of effects. Such closeness might
diminish the dignity of the priest’s office, “and also cause penitents to not
confess their sins with the appropriate shame to the priests with whom they
have laughed or talked informally.”43 Yet immediately thereafter, he wrote
that he would never sequester the clergy from secular environments:
My intention is not to make clerics so alone and removed from conversation with their subjects that they live in sadness and great solitude, and
lose the fruit that good persons very often produce in friendly conversations, talking about upright and useful matters about souls, lives, virtues,
or estates of the persons with whom they communicate.44

Thus Dr. Bernal ended up in the same place as Valtanás: both envisioned
a network of upright people who sustained and corrected each other, no
matter what their status.45
The two men were quite explicit about human spiritual gifts. Valtanás
wrote, “we faithful are a mystical body, whose Head is the Son of God
made human. And just as the limbs of a natural body communicate their
operations among themselves . . . so a faithful person can communicate to
other Christians what he gains in works done in service to God.”46 Dr.
Bernal told parish clergy to create a confraternity to console the dying,
43. Bernal Díaz de Luco, Aviso de curas, f. 43v. Like Ignatius, Dr. Bernal was nervous
about hearing the confessions of women: Instrucción de perlados, f. 34v.
44. “Ni por esto es mi intención hazerlos [los clérigos] tan solos y apartados de la conversación de sus súbditos que ellos bivan en tristeza y gran soledad, y se pierda el fruto que
muchas vezes los buenos hazen en las conversaciones familiares, tractando materias honestas
y provechosas a las ánimas, vidas, o honrras, o haciendas de las personas con quien communican.” Aviso de curas, f. 44r–v.
45. Dr. Bernal recommended that clerics always talk to “personas doctas y de buena
vida y zelo, para que les avisen de lo que deven hazer,” and yet never stipulated that those “personas doctas” had to be members of the clerical estate: Instrucción de perlados, f. 9r. In Aviso de
curas, f. 60r, Dr. Bernal wrote that parish priests should verify that their congregations knew
the liturgy of baptism and would carry it out in their homes, lest a newborn be put at risk
while waiting for the priest to arrive.
46. “Somos los fieles en un Cuerpo Místico, cuya Cabeza es el Hijo de Dios humanado.
Y como los miembros del cuerpo natural se comunican las operaciones . . . así lo que un fiel
gana en las obras que hace en servicio de Dios, puede comunicar a sus cristianos.” Valtanás,
“Apología de los méritos,” Apología sobre ciertas materias morales, 140. Valtanás defended the
ability of individuals to make appropriate religious decisions based on their experiences:
Homza, “Local Knowledge,” 98.

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241

whose members would assist the priests with their responsibilities. Every
member of that confraternity was equally valuable:
And because it will not be possible for the priest to be there the whole
time the ill person is dying, he should make sure that some good friars or
other good persons from the pueblo accompany the sick person, and console him. And those persons always may say devout things to the sick
person, on a topic which they feel would be most helpful, in order to
increase his devotion or receive more consolation. . . .47

Here, Dr. Bernal not only used the verb “to accompany,” but implied that
laypersons as well as clerics had the ability to nurture spiritual growth
through conversation.
Ignatius endorsed a similar vision. In a message from 1549, he told a
fellow Jesuit that ”human talents and efforts, learning, eloquence, skill, and
even the weapons of the powerful” had been deployed in the primitive
Church for the glory of God. Persons who carefully used their natural gifts
in the service of God were acting righteously, so long as they understood
that God had no need of their gifts, which He had bestowed in the first
place.48 In his instructions for Jesuits bound for Trent, Ignatius spelled out
an analogous message:
For the greater glory of Our Lord God . . . [you shall] preach, confess,
and read; teach children; give the Exercises; visit the poor in hospitals;
and exhort neighbors, according to the talents that each one has, in order
to move persons toward devotion and prayer, so that all of them shall
pray, and we shall pray, to God our Lord, that His divine Majesty shall
find it worthwhile to infuse His Holy Spirit in all those who handle matters that pertain to the Council. . . .49

Valtanás, a supporter and contemporary, understood that the work of the
Jesuits was tied inescapably to human contacts:
47. “Porque no podrá todo el tiempo que el enfermo estuviere en su agonía estar el cura
presente, deve procurar que algunos buenos religiosos o otras buenas personas del pueblo lo
acompañen y consuelen y le digan siempre cosas devotas en lo que sintieren que él tiene más
devoción o recibe más consuelo. . . .” Bernal Díaz de Luco, Aviso de curas, ff. 111v–12r.
48. Obras completes, 719–21.
49. “A la mayor Gloria de Dios N.S. . . . predicar, confesar y leer, enseñando a muchachos, dando ejercicios, visitando pobres en hospitales, y exhortando a los prójimos, según que
cada uno se hallare con este o con aquel talento para mover las personas que pudiéremos a
devoción y oración, para que todos rueguen y roguemos a Dios N.S. que su divina Majestad
se digne infundir su espíritu divino en todos los que tractaren las materias que a tan alta congregación pertenecen. . . .” Obras completes, 669.

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WEBS OF CONVERSATION AND DISCERNMENT
I see in [the Jesuits] a great deal of charity with their neighbors. . . . They
do not recite the Divine Office [as a community], because there [already]
are many who do so in the Church of God, and the Apostles did not do so
either, in order to be at greater liberty to preach and confess and read, and
to address the other works of charity, in which they were fully occupied.50

Gauging inclinations, speaking with people, and then acting were cornerstones of the Society of Jesus.51
If Ignatius repeatedly told his brethren to encourage the spiritual gifts
of their interlocutors, Dr. Bernal went further and publicly recognized the
importance of the laity’s discernment. Throughout the Aviso de curas, which
easily could have ended up in the hands of secular readers, he was very conscious of the pueblo’s opinion.52 The pueblo could sink a cleric’s reputation
in a matter of minutes if that ecclesiastic were so foolish as to acquire a
concubine or to gamble. Dr. Bernal wrote as if the ecclesiastical and the
secular contingents of the parish were capable of correcting each other.
Dr. Bernal openly welcomed lay sagacity when he wrote to his diocese
from Italy in 1549. Trapped while the Council of Trent was suspended,
and not knowing when he would be able to return home to Calahorra,
Bernal asked his congregation for their prayers. He told them that he was
continually thinking of their spiritual welfare, and urged them to use their
own judgment to find good confessors and good literature.53 Significantly,
he had his letter to his diocese published in 1553 after he returned to
Spain, which demonstrates his willingness to put his affection and trust
into print.
50. “Veo en ellos mucha caridad con los prójimos. . . . No tienen coro, porque hartos
hay en la Iglesia de Dios, y los Apóstoles no lo tuvieron por estar más desocupados para el
predicar y confesar y leer, y para tratar las otras obras de caridad, en que largamente se
ocupan.” Valtanás, “Apología para la Compañía de Jesús,” Apología sobre ciertas materias
morales, 169–70. In terms of human connections, Carranza’s comments on the Last Judgment
are also noteworthy: his description of friends, spouses, parents, and children being torn from
each other and consigned to a fate in Heaven or Hell was profoundly emotional. Carranza,
Comentarios sobre el catechismo christiano, 1:323.
51. Obras completas, 668–70, 772–75.
52. Bookstore inventories from the 1550’s in Burgos and Toledo held multiple copies
of Dr. Bernal’s Aviso de curas, priced at sums that even laborers could afford. The work went
through three editions in the sixteenth century. Homza, Religious Authority in the Spanish
Renaissance (Baltimore, 2000), 142. On questions of vernacular literacy, Sara T. Nalle, “Literacy and Culture in Early Modern Castile,” Past and Present 125 (1989), 65–96.
53. Juan Bernal Díaz de Luco, Soliloquio y carta desde Trento, ed. Tomás Marín
Martínez (Barcelona, 1962), 200.

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To a remarkable degree, then, these religious men expected clerics and
laypersons to work together, talk together, pray for each other, and turn
their critical acumen toward common spiritual improvement: the textual
evidence strongly supports horizontal ties between the clerical and lay
spheres. They also evinced an open attitude toward spiritual community.
For example, in Valtanás’s defense of the frequent reception of the
Eucharist, he explained that everyone would benefit from it, e.g, “nuns, or
maidens, or married women, or widows, men, or women.” He also maintained that the Eucharist could be received with the same spiritual benefits
on any day of the year, not just Easter, so long as one’s conscience was
cleared of mortal sin.54 Ignatius too endorsed persistent encounters with
the Eucharist for everyone, so long as an examination of conscience took
place beforehand.55
Dr. Bernal never mentioned Spain’s conversos in his religious works,
who were persons who had either personally converted from Judaism to
Christianity, or whose ancestors had done so, but Valtanás, Carranza, and
Ignatius did.56 In his apologia on lineage, Valtanás contended that Jews and
Christians shared responsibility for Christ’s crucifixion, with neither group
being entirely virtuous or thoroughly wicked. He thought that in certain
circumstances, it might be acceptable to exclude from public office any
first-generation converts to Christianity, or conversos who were the children or grandchildren of persons condemned by the Inquisition for following Mosaic Law. But exclusionary tactics should not be applied to thirdand fourth-generation conversos who were good Christians:
regarding those [converts] who come from those people [the Jews] at a
distance, such as the third or fourth generation, they must not be excluded
from public offices, nor treated differently in any way from Christians who
descend from Gentiles. . . . For those virtuous people who descend from
Jews and are good Christians, it is only right that Christians who come
from Gentiles honor them and treat them as brothers.57

54. Valtanás, “Apología de la frecuentación de la sacrosancta eucaristía,” 195, 203.
55. O’Malley, The First Jesuits, 152–57.
56. In his Aviso de curas, Dr. Bernal did spend several folios on the question of baptizing
slaves, a point that may have reflected discussions on the Council of the Indies. He favored
the quick baptism of children, and the careful catechization of adults: ff. 60v–62r.
57. “. . . pero a los que vienen de esta gente de lejos, como de tercera o cuarta generación, no se debían excluir de ellos, ni hacer diferencia en nada entre cristianos que descienden de gentiles. . . . A los virtuosos que descienden de judíos y son buenos cristianos, justo es
que los que vienen de gentiles los honran y tratan como hermanos.” Valtanás, “Apología cerca
de los linajes,” Apología sobre ciertas materias morales, 152–54.

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Jesus had suffered for both Gentiles and Jews. Valtanás went on:
I have favored these people [the conversos]. And the reason for it is
because it seems to me, that the law of Jesus Christ and charity demand
it; and because I know that St. Paul, whom I hold as my father (though
I imitate him very badly), did as much; and because I see many of them
afflicted without fault.58

Valtanás concluded his polemic by noting that the first Inquisitor-General
in Spain, Diego Deza, had prohibited conversos from entering a monastery
he founded in Ávila, while also “ordering that only an average [mediocre]
inquisition be done, and not the harsh [exactísimo] one that currently is in
operation.” He then listed the illustrious conversos who had accomplished
so much spiritual good—albeit, Christian good—in their lifetimes.59
Valtanás’s remarks on the Jews and the Crucifixion matched Carranza’s in the latter’s Commentaries on the Christian Catechism. There, Carranza asserted that men and women from every social stratum had played
a role in Christ’s crucifixion; he declined to single out the Jews for blame.60
Meanwhile, Ignatius’s actions regarding conversos are well known. He
refused to insert a purity of blood statute into the Constitutions. He admitted a grandson of a Jewish rabbi in Venice into the order.61 A number of
the earliest Jesuits were conversos, as were many of Ignatius’s friends. Under
his leadership, the Society of Jesus “richly, knowingly, and strategically
benefitted from their converso confreres.”62

58. “A esto digo que es verdad, que he favorecido a esta gente. Y el motive que a ello tuve
fue por parecerme que la ley de Jesucristo y la caridad asi lo manda; porque sé que san Pablo,
a quien yo he tenido por mi padre, y aunque muy defectuosamente he tratado de le imitar, así
lo hiciera. Y porque veo a muchos de ellos afligidos sin culpa.” Valtanás, “Apología cerca de los
linajes,” 154. Remarkably, he then wrote that Christians who descended from Jews “surpassed
other Christians insofar as the Remedy of the World came from their lineage, and Jesus came
personally from their lineage, and from them, Jesus took on humanity;” 152–53.
59. Valtanás, “Apología cerca de los linajes,” 157–58. In 1521, Deza had called Valtanás to Seville from Salamanca in order to teach in a college that Deza had founded. After
Deza’s death in 1523, that college imposed a purity of blood statute and Valtanás, objecting
to such, moved to the monastery of San Pablo. Pastore, Tra il vangelo, 142–44.
60. Carranza, Commentarios, 1:238.
61. On that grandson, Giovanni Battista Eliano, see now Robert J. Clines, A Jewish
Jesuit in the Eastern Mediterranean: Early Modern Conversion, Mission, and the Construction of
Identity (Cambridge, 2019).
62. Robert A. Maryks, The Jesuit Order as a Synagogue of Jews (Leiden, 2009), chap. 2.
As part of his hagiography of Ignatius, Pedro de Ribadeneyra, S.J., recorded multiple philoJewish statements that Ignatius purportedly made, though the fact that Ribadeneyra himself
was of converso ancestry has caused certain scholars to think he exaggerated; Maryks, The Jesuit

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All four men endorsed the private, charitable, and fraternal correction
of sin. Valtanás wrote, “to correct the faults of a neighbor with a sign of
charity is a divine precept, to which all are bound. . . . To afflict the afflicted
and not console, even if it might be for the purpose of humiliation, is
against charity unless it is done with tact and prudence.” Ignatius’s instructions of 1551 noted that Jesuit superiors “always [should take] for granted
one’s good will, and . . . [make] every precaution for the due observance of
charity toward neighbor.” He then warned that correction would be more
successful if it were offered with great affection, and presented without
offense.63 Dr. Bernal urged priests to take particular care in questioning
penitents about their faith:
With a great deal of prudence and care, the priest must ask if penitents
feel any sort of weakness toward the faith, or are tempted by any doubt
or error. The priest shall try with great charity and diligence to heal the
person who feels weak, and to strengthen those who feel tempted, so that
they shall persevere in the faith as good Christians. . . . And the priest
shall counsel them, that when they have doubts or temptations, they
should come immediately to him, or to other discreet confessors, so that
they can explain what they don’t understand, and [the priest may] console and encourage them.64

As for Carranza, it is worth recalling that in the early 1550s, he had talked
with Carlos de Seso after learning that Seso had voiced some troubling
opinions about purgatory.65 Later that decade, Spanish inquisitors would
categorize Seso as one of the key fomenters of luteranismo. In his own
inquisition trial, Carranza and his defense witnesses argued that Seso had
Order, 42–50. Maryks finds a contradiction between Ignatius’s affection for conversos and his
alleged statements about his own purity of blood, but ultimately decides that the latter was a
rhetorical device to stall suspicion of the order.
63. Obras completes, 764–65.
64. “Y deve con mucha prudencia y cautela inquirir en las confessions muy particularmente si los que se confiessan sienten alguna flaqueza en la fe, o son tentados de alguna dubda
o error, procurando con gran caridad y diligencia de sanar lo que en esto hallare flaco, y de
efforcer mucho a los que sintieren tentados, para que perseveren en ella como buenos christianos. . . . Aconsejandoles que quando ansi se vieren con dubdas o tentaciones, vayan luego
a él, o a otros confessors discretos para que les declaren lo que no saben, y les consuelen y
effuercen.” Bernal Díaz de Luco, Aviso de curas, f. 75r–v. Dr. Bernal went on to stress the love
and consolation that confessors should extend to penitents who were being tormented by diabolical temptations: “. . . consolando mucho a los que esto padescen, y animándoles a que por
esto no se tengan por malos Christianos, antes por personas a quien Dios quiere hacer merced,
de darles materia de trabajo espiritual, y tengan por cierto que aquello viene muchas vezes a
personas que dessean servir a Dios, y están apartados de pecar.”
65. For details about that conversation and its aftermath, Pastore, Il vangelo, 234–41.

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not appeared to be a heretic when the initial encounter took place, and
hence Carranza was right to give him the benefit of the doubt.66
These clerics knew they administered the sacraments. They believed
the clergy was invested with spiritual powers through ordination, and their
sense of that spiritual responsibility was apparent in their writings. For
example, Carranza said that bishops were like mountains because they
were immovable and stood out from the other parts of the earth. In the
Instrucción de perlados, Dr. Bernal employed missionary images to convey
how much rustic people needed learned clerics.67 In early modern Catholicism, it was impossible to ignore the special role that parish priests and
bishops played in the process of Christian salvation: that role not only was
mandated by the New Testament and Church tradition, but reinforced by
the decrees of the Council of Trent. Not surprisingly, in a general letter of
instruction for Italy in 1551, Ignatius stipulated the importance of attracting persons to the sacraments of penance and the Eucharist.68
Still, awareness of the sanctity of ordination—and cooperation with
the Spanish Inquisition—should not cancel out these individuals’ sympathy with and endorsement of horizontal bonds.69 Their promotion of activ66 . Homza, “Local Knowledge,” 96–97.
67. Carranza, Controversia, p. 78; and Bernal Díaz de Luco, Instrucción de perlados, f.
15r. In all fairness, Dr. Bernal portrayed parish priests in remote places as requiring instruction, too; ibid.
68. Obras completas, 774.
69. González Novalin amply describes the Society of Jesus’ interactions with the Spanish Inquisition in “La inquisición y los Jesuitas,” where he alternates between condemnation
and empathy regarding the Society’s activities. Ignatius refused to allow the Jesuits to act as
judges or censors for the Inquisition in Spain or Italy, but members of the order acted as confessors to persons condemned to the stake in Spain and Portugal, beginning in 1553 and continuing through 1560; 26. Such interactions could be seen as private, fraternal correction.
Jesuits in Seville also cooperated with the Inquisition’s order to submit possibly heretical
books in 1559, when they turned in a defective manuscript copy of the Spiritual Exercises, 54–
55; that action left them grief-stricken. O’Malley, The First Jesuits, 312, recognizes that
Ignatius and his brethren cooperated with and endorsed the Roman Inquisition, but also
notes that they “generally tried to work for the easiest possible reconciliation.” The question
of horizontal ties with women is more fraught. Carranza wrote that certain women could be
trusted with the entire Bible in the vernacular; Valtanás treated women and men interchangeably in his advice; Dr. Bernal wanted priests to be careful in hearing the confessions of
females, but Ignatius and the Society famously reduced their involvement with women. Elizabeth Rhodes notes that women mattered most to Ignatius in his early years, when he himself
was in transition. Though he entertained founding a company of women in 1546, in 1547 a
papal bull freed him and the Society from ever supervising women. Rhodes, “Ignatius and
Women,” in: Maryks, ed., A Companion to Ignatius of Loyola: Life, Writings, Spirituality, Influence (Leiden, 2014), 7–23.

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ity, mutual communication, and affection was real and considerable. They
did not simply mention spiritual collaboration in the margins of their texts,
for their thoughts on conversation and discernment were front-and-center.
Notably, those who put their treatises into print often included critiques of
clerical misbehavior, which gave their publications a certain leveling effect,
since the possible sins of priests were now listed for anyone to read.70
Within the sphere of the Christian sacraments, and the practical process of
who administered them to whom, a truly mutual authority was
impossible.71 Yet within other lived experiences—worrying about the poor,
consoling the dying, attending to children, aiming at spiritual improvement—this religious elite endorsed pervasive and sincere exchanges and
companionship with the laity. In their vision of the best spiritual world, lay
people and clerics conversed and worked toward the same sacred end.
These values match to a great extent the qualities of spiritual accompaniment that Navarro sketched out in 2003. Significantly, so do the
emphases voiced by Antonio Medrano and Maria de Cazalla, labeled
heretics by the Spanish Inquisition. It is worth emphasizing that Medrano
and Cazalla had been talking about their views for years before their
inquisitorial prosecutions.72 Like Ignatius, they spoke to people and circulated letters; they conveyed their messages to Franciscan friars, academics
at the University of Alcalá, and ordinary women and men.73 They were
quite as well-known as Dr. Bernal, Ignatius, Carranza, and Valtanás, albeit
in fewer communities. They only became outliers within Spanish Catholicism over time, and under specific circumstances.74
Not surprisingly, given the fact that they were under arrest, Medrano and
Cazalla explicitly respected status, as did Dr. Bernal, Carranza, Valtanás, and
Ignatius. They valued the Inquisition as an institution, and identified their
70. Homza, Religious Authority, chaps. 4–5.
71. Bilinkoff, Related Lives, 26, came to the same conclusion where spiritual directors
and penitents were concerned.
72. Pastore views their arrests as inevitable, a position with which I disagree: Stefania
Pastore, “Unwise Paths: Ignatius Loyola and the Years of Alcalá de Henares,” Maryks, A
Companion to Ignatius of Loyola, 25.
73. Pastore lays out the many personal links between Ignatius and the early alumbrados
in ”Unwise Paths,” including Ignatius’s acquaintance with Medrano, 40. She believes his years
in Alcalá had a profound effect on his metaphors and politics, 43.
74. The key development was the arrest of Francisca Hernandez in 1529. Her testimony prompted the arrest (and flight) of many. See Bernardino Llorca, La inquisición española
y los alumbrados (1509–1667), segun las actas originales de Madrid y de otros archivos (Salamanca,
1980); Homza, The Spanish Inquisition, 1478–1614: an Anthology of Sources (Indianapolis,
2006), 80–111.

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spiritual gifts as puny. They said they would be happy to share the outlook of
the Holy Catholic Church; they cited their Old Christian genealogy if it
applied, or mentioned blood relatives who were successful in the Church if
their family tree was damning.75 They also trumpeted classic charitable activities. In 1524, one of Medrano’s character witnesses insisted, “. . . I lived with
him in an inn for three years . . . and Medrano has so much charity and love
for everyone, even for his enemies, that he takes more notice of them than a
father would for his own sons.”76 While on trial in 1526 in Calahorra,
Medrano listed this question for his defense witnesses, among others:
(10th question) . . . if they know—besides the fact that I am a very Catholic
Christian who is accustomed to follow the Divine Office, as befits a good
priest—that I am a very charitable and giving man, who is accustomed to
perform many charitable works and give many alms to the poor, giving
them what I can, according to my position; and even more than what my
position, rents, and patrimony require. . . . [I give] food to eat to the poor,
and bring them to eat at my house, and I eat together with them like a very
charitable man; and I also visit the poor and sick, taking them things to eat,
and looking for them, and giving them food of my own.77

Cazalla’s character witnesses also stressed repeatedly that she looked out
for the poor. Friar Francisco de Vicuña, OFM, asserted, “Every time I
went to beg bread and other things from Maria de Cazalla’s house . . . she
gave it, and I heard other people say that she gave alms to the poor, and I
myself saw how she sometimes visited the sick in hospitals.”78
75. For Medrano’s genealogy, given in Valladolid in 1519, Pérez Escohotado, Antonio
Medrano, alumbrado epicúreo, 91–95. That volume also contains evidence about Medrano from
earlier prosecutions. Cazalla was of converso ancestry; she gave her genealogy to Spanish inquisitors in 1525, when she confessed as part of an edict of grace. Ortega-Costa, Proceso, 101–02.
76. “de tres años que estovo dentro de una posada con el….tiene tanta caridad y amor
con todos, aunque sean sus enemigos, que hazercase a ellos mas que ningund padre por sus
yjos.” Pérez Escohotado, Antonio Medrano, alumbrado epicúreo, 75–76.
77. “10. Pregunta. Item si saben que’l dicho bachiller Medrano allende de ser muy
católico cristiano e como tal seguir como suele y acostunbra seguir sus dibinos ofiçios com
buen sacerdote, es hombre muy caritativo e limosnero e suele e acostunbra hazer much caridad
y limosna a los pobres, dándoles de lo que tiene según su facultad e aún más de lo que según
su facultad, rentas y patrimonio requieren . . . dándoles de comer a los pobres e trayéndolos y
conbidándolos a comer a su casa e comiendo con ellos juntamente como hombre muy caritatibo, bisitando los pobres, enfermos, llevándoles y buscándoles de comer e dándogelo de lo
suyo.” Pérez Escohotado, Proceso inquisitorial contra el Bachiller Antonio de Medrano, 76.
78. “. . . dixo que todas las vezes queste t[estig]o yva a pedir pan e otras cosas a casa de
la dicha María de Caçalla . . . lo dava e oya dezir a otras personas que hazía limosnas e que así
mismo vido este t[estig]o como la dicha María de Caçalla, alg[un]as vezes que yva a visitor
enfermos e enfermas e espitales.” Ortega-Costa, Proceso, 303–04. For other comments on
Cazalla’s charity, 286, 288–89, 291.

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Medrano and Cazalla also placed themselves within orthodox territory
by calling up distinctions in public reputation or fama, a category that had
explicit legal repercussions.79 Their defense witnesses invariably reported
that they only spoke with upright individuals. In 1524, when Medrano was
under investigation by the vicar of Salamanca, his witnesses voiced uniformly positive opinions about him. He was chaste. He was a good Christian. His conversation was so virtuous that he reformed and consoled
others: as a female acquaintance noted, he associated with the good and
made them better;
. . . [she] knows many persons of very good life and conversation, and
when Medrano interacts with them, he makes them more perfect. . . .
And this witness has talked a little with him, and she has felt great benefit in her soul and conscience after she knew and spoke with him, and
she only ever saw him interact with persons of very good life.80

Diego de Mercado said it was public and notorious that Medrano’s spiritual impact had inspired Diego himself to become a Franciscan.81 In fact,
heaven help the individual who was not good and tried to talk to Medrano,
because his style was to “chastise everyone to serve God, and not offend
God in any way.” Less virtuous persons would find that they could not
endure his conversation, given his “scolding and teaching.”82
Identical sentiments came from defense witnesses for María de Cazalla:
she was a friend to the virtuous, and only associated with honest people. A
cleric who had known her for more than twenty years reported that she was
“zealous about virtue, and he saw her scold persons who did not live well and
behave decently.”83 When Cazalla testified, she noted that she deliberately
looked for good confessors for the sake of her own spiritual improvement.
79. Daniel Lord Smail, The Consumption of Justice: Emotions, Publicity, and Legal Culture
in Marseille, 1264–1423 (Ithaca, 2003).
80. “dixo que conoce este testigo personas de muy buene vida e conversacion e que trantando con ellas, las aze mas perfectas e de buena vida; y questa testigo a conversado algo con
el e siente gran provecho en su anima e conçiençia despues que le conosçe e conversa, e que
nunca le vio tratar syno con personas de muy buena vida.” Pérez Escohotado, Antonio
Medrano, alumbrado epicúreo, 73. This sort of exchange is exactly what Dr. Bernal would have
in mind for parish priests some twenty-five years later.
81. “. . . recibe de su conversacion mucho provecho y consolación; fue él (despues de
Nuestro Senor) que le conduxo que fuese frayle, y que ansi es público y notorio.” Pérez Escohotado, Antonio Medrano, alumbrado epicúreo, 69.
82. “. . . no podía nayde [sic] sufrir su conversación segund su reprehensión e doctrina.”
Pérez Escohotado, Antonio Medrano, alumbrado epicúreo, 74–76.
83. “. . . celosa de toda virtud y la vió reprehender a personas que no bivían bien e andavan desonestas.” Ortega-Costa, Proceso, 286; also see 280, 295.

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WEBS OF CONVERSATION AND DISCERNMENT

Such evidence might imply that Medrano and Cazalla liked moral
pecking orders as much as anyone, and favored only limited circles of social
and religious interaction; if such were true, they would seem to violate spiritual accompaniment’s emphases on openness and inclusiveness. Yet one of
the ambiguities in Navarro’s paradigm is how one practices discernment
without making hierarchies. If spiritual accompaniment pivots on finding
real companions, then distinctions must be part of the process, as individuals measure whom they might find compatible. Those decisions about
rapport could alter over time. As was the case with conversos, moriscos (converts from Islam), Old Christians, and Jesuits, alumbrados were not invariably homogeneous or consistent in their preferences, and they changed
their friends and allies according to circumstances.84
Medrano and Cazalla pursued conversation as part of gauging companionship. For instance, Medrano’s interrogatory for his defense witnesses emphasized his own speech: he described himself as practicing
something akin to the “fishing” that so characterized the early Jesuits.
5th Question. Next, if they know that whether in the village of Navarrete
(where Medrano is a native son), as well as in his studies in Salamanca
. . . after becoming a presbyter, he celebrated and administered the sacraments, teaching others to pursue a religious, holy, and Catholic way of
life, leading and attracting those persons who spoke with him so that
they might love and serve God, Our Lord, and despise the transitory
things of this world.85

The eighth question of the same interrogatory was perhaps even more
telling. There, Medrano described how he customarily met with “persons
who wanted to hear and converse with him . . . and if sometimes he and
other persons separated themselves, in order to speak about devotion, and
84. As an example among the alumbrados, Francisca Hernandez cut off some companions and adopted others in the 1520s: Homza, Religious Authority, 7–8. On the variety of preferences within minority communities, Gárcia-Arenal, “Religious Dissent and Minorities: the
Morisco Age,” 888–920; Sara T. Nalle, “A Minority Within a Minority: The New and Old
Jewish Converts of Sigüenza, 1492–1570,” The Early Modern Hispanic World, 91–120. Events
in Portugal in the 1550s prompted Ignatius to recommend the expulsion of some brethren
from the order; see his letters to Diego Mirón, Obras completas, 799–801.
85. “5. Pregunta. Ytem si saben que así en la v[illa] de Navarrete y Fuenmayor, donde
es natural el dicho bachiller Medrano, como en el dicho estudio de Salamanca . . . después de
ser presbitero, celebrando y administrando [los] santos sacramentos, dotrinando y enseñando
a los otros a religiosa, santa, e católicamente bivir, ynduçiendo y atrayendo a los que con él
conversaban a que amasen y sirbiesen a Dios Nuestro Señor y menospreçiasen las cosas transitorias d’este mundo.” Pérez Escohotado, Proceso inquisitorial contra el Bachiller Antonio de
Medrano, 75.

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someone else came near, he did not stop talking about holy doctrine, but
rather enjoyed the fact that many came close to hear him. . . .”86
In Cazalla’s case, conversation looks like an even more overt search for
fellowship.87 She seems to have talked constantly to other people; her trial
record contains only the faintest allusions to solitude or contemplation.
Instead, she was always out and about, reading prayers and the Gospels to
other women, and visiting convents; she also communicated through letters.
She was as verbally active as Dr. Bernal’s ideal parish priest. Witnesses
affirmed that she spoke with gusto to men and women of all social classes;
when she traveled to Pastrana in the early 1520’s, people on the road stopped
to see her.88 The prosecution had a negative view of such talkativeness,
thanks to the Pauline dictum that women should be silent in church, and the
consequent truism that women could not possess magisterium, or the authority to teach. The prosecutor was determined to view Cazalla’s speech as
instruction, which is why he accused her of enseñar, doctrinar, and comunicar.
She and her defenders insisted on the possibility of horizontal communication, and described her speech as platicar, plática, and conversar.89
Significantly, her conversation, discernment, and search for companionship extended to the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. Witnesses
repeatedly described Cazalla as speaking with the clergy.90 One defense
informant after another attested that she publicly grumbled [murmuraba]
about ecclesiastics who preached coldly [friamente], with apathetic, heartless, or dull sermons.91 Cazalla testified about her own willingness to point
out clerical missteps. The priest Diego Hernández was reputed to be a man
of little judgment; he was a backbiter [murmurador] and a slanderer
[maldiciente]. He also had very poor eyesight, to the point that he had to
hold a text up to his eyelashes in order to read it.92 When Cazalla saw him
reading in this way, she asked if his eyesight bothered him at the altar
while he was saying Mass. Hernández replied that he knew the text of the
Mass by heart. Cazalla remained unsettled; she told another priest to tell
Hernández to be sure “to put himself close to the book when he was at the
86. Pérez Escohotado, Proceso inquisitorial contra el Bachiller Antonio de Medrano, 76.
87. Ortega-Costa, Proceso, 404–05.
88. Ortega-Costa, Proceso, 188–89, 292.
89. For the prosecutor’s language, Ortega-Costa, Proceso, 132, 161–63, 167, 188–89;
for Cazalla’s responses, 140, 199–201, 228.
90. Ortega-Costa, Proceso, 300, 292.
91. Cazalla’s adjectives for sermons that displeased her also reveal her preference for
kindness and charity.
92. Ortega-Costa, Proceso, 343.

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altar; and he should draw near where the words of consecration are written;
and he should put himself in a well-lighted place so that he can see the
remains of the Eucharist and the purification of the chalice.”93 When her
counsel reached him, Hernández replied that the matter was none of her
business. But he also reassured Cazalla a number of times that it was
enough to say the words of the consecration by heart, even if he did not
actually read the text. Clearly he cared about her opinion, and she had no
hesitation in evaluating him.
Here, then, was a married woman—not a nun or beata—who watchfully assessed the competence of a priest as he consecrated the Eucharist.
She made sure that her misgivings were relayed to him, and he worried
enough about her judgment that he made an effort to reassure her. Her
local community, composed of both men and women, had no difficulty at
all with her actions, and Dr. Bernal would have recognized here a perfect
example of the pueblo helping or hindering a cleric’s reputation. Significantly, Cazalla openly relayed the incident to inquisitors. None of her
defense witnesses thought that she had misbehaved in criticizing Hernández, perhaps because she stressed that her comments had been offered in
good will.94 She did not go to the archbishop of Toledo or Toledo’s
inquisitors with her complaints; she was pursuing fraternal correction, even
though Hernández became her enemy because of it.95
Cazalla and Medrano insisted upon their ability to recognize spiritual
gifts in both men and women: so did Valtanás, Carranza, Ignatius and, to
a lesser extent, Dr. Bernal. These figures understood that they were discerning. Cazalla, for instance, referred repeatedly to her older brother, Juan
de Cazalla, a Franciscan friar and episcopal vicar, in her defense: this was
a shrewd tactic in terms of attesting her family’s orthodoxy and appearing
to be under a male’s guidance, but it also highlighted her ability to find her
93. “que le aconsejase se junta[se] bien con el libro quando estuviese en el altar e que se
açercase bien a dondestán [sic] escriptas las palabras de la consagración e que se pusyese en
lugar claro porque viese las reliquias del Santo Sacramento y la purificación del cáliz.” OrtegaCosta, Proceso, 343.
94. “. . . pues quella con buena voluntad se avia movido a decir. . . .” Ortega-Costa, Proceso, 287, 324, 344.
95. Though Cazalla’s original comments to Hernández might have been charitable in
intent, she ultimately tried to recuse him as a witness for capital enmity: Ortega-Costa, Proceso, 215–16. Cazalla repeatedly invoked charity and benefit of the doubt in addressing the
prosecution’s accusations: Ortega-Costa, 200, 202, 212, 411, 414. Multiple witnesses for
Medrano in his various trials spoke about the loving consolation he offered them. For example, Pérez Escohotado, Antonio de Medrano, alumbrado epicúreo, 69–70.

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own advisors. More dramatically, Medrano had an intense relationship
with a younger beata named Francisca Hernández, to the point that he
ignored, for years, episcopal and inquisitorial directives to stay away from
her. From a structural point of view, Medrano might appear simply to have
inverted the hierarchy of confessor and penitent, but his preference had
larger implications. Medrano was an ordained parish priest, who told
everyone that he was being counseled by a younger woman. He explained
his attachment in this way: “Putting to one side the blessed, immaculate,
Mother of God, what I say is that nothing I have read or seen has come
close to what God has done in this woman [Hernández].”96 Medrano was
pursuing a new mode of spiritual existence, one in which individuals chose
their companions based on affinity and what they determined to be good
results. Commonly recognized credentials were no longer accepted automatically, and public reputation mattered less than individual insight.97
According to Spanish inquisitors in the 1520s and 1530s, the heresy
of alumbradismo turned on the rejection of priestly mediators and external
religious rituals. They were partially wrong; in fact, Cazalla and Medrano
insisted upon finding their mediators and spiritual companions for themselves, based upon conversation, observation, and discernment. The other
figures examined here also elevated the process of spiritual appraisal; they
understood that spiritual talents were variegated, and proceeded optimistically. Unlike the inquisitors based in Toledo, Cazalla’s friends and
acquaintances thought she was capable of expounding scripture. While she
purposefully diminished her teaching role and her critical judgment as she
defended herself, her defense witnesses—who displayed no indication of
wishing her ill—did exactly the opposite in their descriptions of her. Carranza thought there were women as well as men who could be trusted with
the entire Bible in translation; he defended the principle of charity as the
cornerstone of the care of souls.98 Ignatius wrote that charity toward neighbors must be upheld at all costs, including suspected heretics.99 Dr. Bernal
96. Pérez Escohotado, Antonio de Medrano, alumbrado epicúreo, 64.
97. Medrano’s determined veneration of Francisca Hernandez was taken to even
greater lengths by Francisco Ortíz. Lu Ann Homza, “How to Harass an Inquisitor-General:
the Polyphonic Law of Friar Francisco Ortíz,” in: A Renaissance of Conflicts: Visions and Revisions of Law and Society in Italy and Spain, eds. John A. Marino and Thomas Kuehn (Toronto,
2004), 297–334.
98. Carranza, Comentarios, 1:111.
99. In 1545, Ignatius wrote to a member of the order in Bavaria, asking him to visit the
famous fugitive Bernardo Ochino in the hope of reconciling him to Rome: “. . . you might try
to visit Ochino in some way or other. . . . I think it would help to make such a visit, if you
think it proper, and learn what you can from him. Assure him that we should be glad to help

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and Valtanás urged readers to assess confessors, and told their audiences to
be open to spiritual help from all quarters.100
Thus figures who moved across the line between heterodox and orthodox in sixteenth-century Spain cherished spiritual conversations and ties
across social planes. Their values operated hand-in-hand with an awareness
of individuality. They resisted agglomeration; they were actively looking for
like-minded souls. All of them valued networks of spiritual endeavor. As for
whether the six figures examined here should be classified as dissenters, the
leading scholarship identifies Spanish religious resistance in the early
modern period as grounded in the Pauline Epistles, charity, and the private
correction of religious error. The authors examined here endorsed such priorities (though not all of them explicitly attributed their inspiration to Paul),
but they also championed more attributes than this model of protest
acknowledges, such as conversation, reciprocity, and discernment.101 Significantly, four of the individuals assessed here held remarkably high positions
in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, but none of them wrote or spoke about their
values as if they were contentious.102 In fact, their firm emphasis on charity
was echoed in practically every vernacular confessors’ manual in sixteenthcentury Spain, which persistently took the First Commandment from
Matthew 22:37–39 rather than Exodus 20:2–6.
Searching for the threads of Navarro’s paradigm of spiritual accompaniment deepens our grasp of what Spanish Catholicism in the sixteenth
him, in all charity, in any way possible, if he would only grasp the opportunity of making use
of our help in the Lord.” Ochino first had been an observant Franciscan, and subsequently
became a vicar-general of the Capuchin congregation. He fled Italy for Geneva in 1542. This
letter is not contained in the Obras completas, but can be found in Letters of St. Ignatius of
Loyola, transl. William J. Young, S.J. (Chicago, 1959), 86–87.
100. Patrick J. O’Banion, The Sacrament of Penance and Religious Life in Golden Age
Spain (University Park, 2013) has found evidence that families referred each other to favorite
confessors for the sacrament of penance, 122-23.
101. Cazalla mentioned her esteem for Paul: Ortega-Costa, Proceso, 206.
102. Thus Ignatius’s values match Navarro’s paradigm even though he focused on obedience to superiors as a core value for the Society of Jesus, and Inquisitor-General Fernando
de Valdés, who reorganized the Spanish Inquisition in 1561, contemplated handing over all
his pious foundations to the Society of Jesus upon his death. See González Novalin, “La
inquisición y los jesuitas,” 31; as well as John W. O’Malley, “Was Ignatius Loyola a Church
Reformer? How to Look at Early Modern Catholicism,” Catholic Historical Review 77 (1991):
177–93. The problem with Pastore’s model of Spanish religious dissent is its binary structure,
which classifies figures as either/or; it does not allow persons to equivocate, develop over time,
or hold what might strike us as conflicting loyalties. For example, Valtanás’s friendship with
Inquisitor-General Alonso Manrique is explained away by Manrique’s not being a typical
inquisitor-general: Pastore, Il vangelo, 133–42, 149–50.

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century would allow and even support. It encourages us to adopt a more
generous approach in imagining the religious priorities of our historical
subjects.103 We know that local situations and local preferences routinely
outflanked centralized religious initiatives in the sixteenth century in both
Spain and Italy, and yet we too often portray this dynamic as a fundamentally vertical conflict. The idea of spiritual accompaniment works instead
like latitude: it helps us see ways in which centers and peripheries could
move together horizontally across boundaries, in favor of common spiritual
goals, mutual conversations, and reciprocal judgments. Thus Cazalla, Carranza, Dr. Bernal, and Valtanás longed for competent and empathetic
clergy who could deliver sufficiently deep sermons to move the souls of
their audiences, and all six figures examined here understood that human
beings had spiritual gifts as well as flaws. Anachronistic though it might
seem to apply a modern idea to the sixteenth century, Navarro’s vision of
spiritual accompaniment helps us to see commonalities that the Spanish
Inquisition and modern scholarship have papered over.

103. It is worth mentioning too that Spanish inquisitors could explicitly think of themselves and their judgments as charitable. For example, one inquisitor who was supervising
Medrano’s last trial in Toledo noted that earlier judgments in Valladolid and Calahorra had
been given “con caridad” and “cum caritate fraterna;” Pérez Escohotado, Antonio de Medrano,
alumbrado epicúreo, 393. For inquisitors who said they were affected by conversation, charity,
and discernment, Sara T. Nalle, Mad for God: Bartolome Sanchez, the Secret Messiah of Cardenete (Charlottesville, 2001); Lynn, Between Court and Confessional, chap. 1; Homza, “‘Local
Knowledge,’” for Inquisitor Alonso de Salazar Frías.

Agricultural Missionaries:
The Trappists and French Colonial Policy
under the July Monarchy
JAY BUTLER*
In the 1840s, the July Monarchy enlisted the Trappists to develop
model farms in Algeria and Martinique. The July Monarchy wanted
to remedy lackluster agricultural development in Algeria and to support the Martinique economy after emancipation. In contrast, the
Trappists viewed their colonial involvement as a moral mission to
regenerate an ancient center of Christianity in Algeria and to assist
enslaved Martinicans succeed as free people after emancipation. This
paper provides a textured picture of Catholic involvement in French
colonialism by exploring the commonalities and distinctions between
the goals of the Trappist missions and those of the July Monarchy, a
picture that brings to light the underexplored prominence of Trappists
in mid nineteenth-century France.
Keywords: French Colonialism, July Monarchy, Martinique,
Algeria, Trappists

I

n the 1840s, the initially anti-religious July Monarchy (1830–48)
enlisted the aid of a Catholic monastic group it had earlier opposed, the
Trappists, to develop model farms that would further colonial ventures in
Algeria and Martinique. As will be discussed below, the July Monarchy
and the Trappists shared the goal of creating in both colonies a successful
agricultural culture independent of enslaved labor, but the purposes each
envisioned for doing so diverged significantly.

*Mr. Butler (jbutler2@ncsu.edu) received his JD from Harvard Law School and is a
graduate student in history at North Carolina State University. The author wishes to acknowledge the contribution of the late Father Chysogonus Waddell, O.C.S.O., whose unpublished
paper on the “Pre History” of Gethsemani Abbey sparked this project by leading the author
to the La Trappe Abbey archives on Martinique and Algeria. The author would also like to
thank Steven Vincent for his guidance in this project, and the anonymous reviewers for comments that made this a better paper. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2019
annual conference of the Western Society for French History.

256

JAY BUTLER

257

The Trappists had led a revival of French monastic life following the
dissolution and sale of monasteries during the Revolution and the continued suppression of monastic orders in the Napoleonic era.1 After the fall of
Napoleon, in the decade between 1817 and 1828, Trappist monks and
Trappistine nuns re-established eighteen monasteries throughout France,
twelve for monks and six for nuns, with the largest of these being Melleray
Abbey, which held 175 monks by 1828.2
The July Revolution of 1830 threatened this monastic revival. Partly as a
result of the meddling of Charles X in religious affairs, the July Monarchy
came to power in 1830 on a wave of anti-clerical sentiment that resulted in
attacks on church property throughout France.3 French law made monastic
communities particularly vulnerable because it required specific approval for
them, which the Trappists did not have.4 The government during the Bourbon Restoration overlooked this requirement as the Trappists expanded, but
the July Monarchy viewed the Trappists, who had become a favorite of the
Bourbon Duchesse de Berry, with suspicion. This suspicion bred harsh action.
On September 28, 1831, according to an attorney who came to his aid,
Dom Antoine Saulinier de Beauregard “glanced at the neighboring forest
and perceived weapons glittering among the trees. He called some of his
brother monks to him to assure himself it was not an illusion. But almost
immediately they distinctly saw troops deploying and covering all exits from
the monastery.”5 Prime Minister Casimir Périer had ordered 600 troops on
foot and horseback to close down Melleray Abbey. Dom Antoine resisted,
arguing that the monastery constituted a lawful agricultural enterprise. But
his arguments did not prevent the dispersal of almost all his monks. The
1. See Derek Beales, Prosperity and Plunder: European Catholic Monasteries in the Age of
Revolution, 1650–1815 (Cambridge, UK and New York, 2003), 231–33, 267. Napoleon
declared a ban on the Trappists throughout his Empire in 1811. Marie de la Trinité Kervingant, A Monastic Odyssey, trans. Jean Holman (Kalamazoo, MI, 1999), 340–41.
2. Dom Antoine Saulinier de Beauregard, Compte rendu par ordre de Sa Sainteté de l’état
des Maisons de la Réforme de la Trappe établies en France, Sept. 1828 (reproduced in Revue
Mabillon, no. 111 (Juillet–Septembre, 1938), 134–80. Other contemplative monastic orders
re-established monasteries throughout France in the nineteenth century after the Trappists.
See Maurice Colinon, Guides des monastères: France, Belgique, Luxembourg (Paris, 1983).
3. H.A.C. Collingham, The July Monarchy: A Political History of France 1830–1848,
(London, 1988), 42, 303–04; Pamela Pilbeam, The 1830 Revolution in France (New York,
1991), 103–12.
4. Charles Pouthas, L’Église et les questions religieuses sous la monarchie constitutionelle,
1814–1848 (Paris, 1961) 162–63, 166–67.
5. M.E. Janvier, Procès de l’abbaye de Melleray: Plaidoirie de M.E. Janvier (Paris, 1832),
27. Translations from French are mine unless otherwise noted.

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monastery remained suppressed and under government surveillance until
October 1838 when it was allowed to receive postulants again.6
Melleray was not alone. The July Monarchy also invaded the Trappist
monasteries of Mont des Cats, Bellevaux, and La Trappe in 1830, and
Bellefontaine in 1832. The monks of Mont des Cats had to take temporary
refuge in the Swiss mountains. Bellevaux closed, and the monks there
established a new monastery in Switzerland for the next three years. La
Trappe and Bellefontaine were searched, and after the Bellefontaine
search, the government arrested the Bellefontaine abbot and imprisoned
him for a month.7
Yet by the 1840s, the July Monarchy was calling on the Trappists to
assist it with colonial ventures in Algeria and Martinique. This coincided
with what the subprefect of Châteaubriant described in 1843 as “the well
known return towards religious ideas.”8 Many scholars have commented on
the increase in French religiosity in the late 1830s and early 1840s.9 By that
time, the generation that had grown up during the Revolution and
Napoleonic Empire with little religious education and amid a predominantly anticlerical culture gave way to a new generation. After the Restoration, catechism and other forms of religious education became more regularly available to children. A domestic mission movement brought religious
instruction and revival to adult populations.10 The popularity of romantic
writers who valued religion helped breed, according to Gérard Cholvy, a
“genuine cultural alternative to the Enlightenment.”11 Religious education
6. Marius Faugeras, Le diocèse de Nantes sous la monarchie censitaire (1813-1822–1849),
2 vols. (Fontenay-Le-Comte, 1964), 1:306–34; Jérôme du Halgouët, Sketches for a History of
the Trappist Order in the First Half of the Nineteenth-Century (Collected Articles of Jérôme du
Halgouët), trans. Fr. John Hasbrouk (Carlton, OR, 1999), 81–83.
7. Casimir Gaillardin, Les Trappistes, ou, l’Ordre de Cîteaux au XIX e siècle: Histoire de
la Trappe depuis sa fondation jusqu’à nos jours, 1140–1844, 2 vols. (Paris, 1844), 2:460–75.
8. Report of the subprefect of Châteaubriant to the prefect dated February 16, 1843,
71–72 V/1, Loire-Atlantic departmental archives.
9. Gérard Cholvy and Yves-Marie Hilaire, Histoire religieuse de la France contemporaine, 2 vols. (Toulouse, 1985), 1:39–40, 89–98; Ralph Gibson, A Social History of French
Catholicism, 1789–1914 (London, 1984), 232; Adrien Dansette, Religious History of Modern
France, 2 vols., trans. John Dingle (New York, 1961), 1:219–24.
10. Gibson, Social History of French Catholicism, 54–55, 228, 250–51; Gérard Cholvy,
La religion en France de la fin du XVIII e siècle à nos jours (Paris, 1998), 28–29; Dansette, Religious History, 1:202–12.
11. Gérard Cholvy, “Le renouveau monastique en France au XIXe siècle: Le contexte,” Esprit et Vie, no. 1 (2 Janvier 1997), 9–13, here 10. See Carol Harrison, Romantic
Catholics: France’s Postrevolutionary Generation in Search of a Modern Faith (Ithaca and
London, 2014), 1–9.

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and missions along with the rise of romanticism thus set the stage for the
religious revival. The July Monarchy reflected this trend when in the late
1830s, Louis-Philippe’s new Prime Minister, Count Louis-Mathieu Molé,
established an archbishopric in Algeria, allowed the Jesuits to return to
France, and increased the state religious budget.12
But the turn toward religion in some quarters does not explain why a
government still heavily influenced by anti-clerical liberals would call on an
unauthorized monastic order it had recently suppressed for help. The threat
posed by Trappist alignment with the Bourbons may have evaporated, but
the Trappists remained legally unauthorized, and some in government
continued to argue that the Trappists should not be tolerated. In the mid
1840s, for example, a former prime minister under the July Monarchy,
Adolphe Thiers, called for the Chamber of Deputies to abolish the Trappists along with other religious orders.13 Nor does the religious revival
explain why the Trappists would answer the call from a government that
had been, and in some quarters remained, hostile to them. This paradox
can best be understood as the convergence of two differing ideologies finding common ground.
The July Monarchy wanted to improve its colonies in Algeria and
Martinique with model farms that would valorize manual labor and
encourage agricultural development. The Trappists were a perfect fit to
implement this goal. Under the sixth-century Rule of Saint Benedict that
the Trappists strictly followed, manual labor is central to monastic life.14
Nineteenth-century Trappists believed that living by the work of their
hands served as a morally uplifting form of prayer.15 They devoted a much
larger proportion of their day to manual labor than pre-revolutionary
monastic practices had allowed.16 This suited these monks, many of whom
12. Iowerth Prothero, Religion and Radicalism in July Monarchy France—The French
Catholic Church of the Abbé Chatel (Lewiston, NY, 2005), 277–78.
13. Adolphe Thiers, Discours parlementaires, 15 vols., ed. Calmann Lévy (Paris, 1880),
6:651–52. As Peter King observed: “The revival of monasticism in the nineteenth century
took place against a background of implacable hostility from Liberal government. . . .” Peter
King, Western Monasticism: A History of the Monastic Movement in the Latin Church (Kalamazoo, MI, 1999), 378.
14. Timothy Fry, ed., The Rule of Saint Benedict in English (Collegeville, 1982), Chapter
48, p. 69.
15. Annales de l’Abbaye de Melleray, 3 vols., unpublished, 2:77 (manuscript copy in
Melleray archives, stored at Cîteaux Abbey, Saint-Nicolas-lès-Cîteaux, France) (hereinafter
Annales de Melleray).
16. Augustin-Hervé Laffay, Dom Augustin de Lestrange et l’avenir du monachisme (Paris,
1998), 119–23; Gaillardin, Les Trappistes, 2:50–53.

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AGRICULTURAL MISSIONARIES

FIGURE 1. Melleray monks at work in the fields with the monastery in the background circa 1840; possibly from the Melleray archives, public domain. Reproduced in Christian Bouvet and Alain Gallicé, Notre-Dame de melleray: Une abbaye
cistercienne de sa foundation à aujioud’hui (Châteaubriant, 2008).

came from rural working class backgrounds where they had worked as farm
hands or skilled artisans.17 Their monastic labor often took the form of
agricultural work, and Trappist success in agronomic endeavors earned
them repute in France as agricultural experts.18
At Melleray Abbey in lower Brittany, for example, the monks adopted
English agricultural innovations in the 1820s that had not previously been
tried in western France (Figure 1). Those involved creative and intensive
fertilizing and irrigation techniques, use of innovative agricultural tools, creation of artificial prairies, as well as novel crop and grazing animal rotations.
With those innovations, the Trappists of Melleray turned into fertile fields
land that had been so barren that an agronomist had called it the “Siberia
17. Bernard Delpal, Le silence des moines: Les Trappistes au XIX e siècle: France–Algérie–
Syrie (Paris: 1998), 535 (listing socioeconomic origin of Aiguebelle Abbey monks); Dom
Hercelin to Director of Colonies, October 10, 1842, côte 115, pièce 10 (listing prior occupations of monks to be sent to Algeria); Founders Register of Gethsemani Abbey, Gethsemani
Abbey archives (Trappist, KY) (listing prior occupations of the Melleray monks who went to
Kentucky to found a new monastery after the Martinique venture collapsed).
18. Gaillardin, Les Trappistes, 2:446–48.

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of Brittany.” They spread this knowledge through an agricultural school.19
Their success helped Melleray Abbot Dom Antoine develop the reputation,
according to one 1840 newspaper account, as “one of the most illustrious
agronomists and horticulturalists in France.”20 According to the prefect of
Châteaubriant, this agricultural expertise resulted in a major economic
impact on the communities the monks worked in. During the 1820s, the
efficiencies introduced by Melleray’s agricultural methods had reduced the
average cost of a day’s labor in the region by at least thirty centimes.21
The value Trappists invested in manual labor fit within a stream of early
nineteenth-century French thought in which writers from a variety of political persuasions extolled manual labor’s creative possibilities and moral
power.22 This viewpoint carried over into schemes for colonial development
without slavery considered by the Chamber of Deputies during the July
Monarchy. Jules Lechevalier prepared a report to the chamber, for example,
that recommended an investment fund to encourage poor laborers to come
to the colonies where they could make a living by the labor of their hands.23
As Trappist impact on the region surrounding Melleray demonstrated, they
could serve as valuable role models to such immigrant laborers.24
19. Marius Faugeras, “Les Trappistes de la Melleray, pionniers de l’agriculture moderne dans la première moitié du XIXe siècle,” Enquêtes et documents-Centre de recherches sur
l’histoire de la France atlantique, 3 (1975), 171–210.
20. L’Ami de la Religion, no. 3352, Thursday, October 29, 1840, 194. The Minister of
the Interior made a similar observation in an 1821 report to King Louis XVIII. Faugeras, “l’agriculture moderne,” 201.
21. Faugeras, Le diocèse de Nantes, 1:336 and n. 213.
22. The moral power of labor was recognized by writers as varied as Karl Marx and the
bourgeois moralist Louis Villermé. William H. Sewell, Jr., Work & Revolution in France: The
Language of Labor from the Old Regime to 1848 (Cambridge, UK, 1980), 222–23. Sewell provided examples of nineteenth-century French socialist poets who “praised [labor] as the
height of human creativity and the source of all social order.” Ibid., 236. But this attitude was
not ubiquitous. While socialists like Benoît Malon, according to Steven Vincent, “extended
the Enlightenment ideal of the dignity of laborers” by “amplify[ing] it with a heightened
appreciation of the nobility of work,” Paul Lafargue, the son-in-law of Karl Marx, painted the
valorization of labor as a ploy to disempower the working classes. K. Steven Vincent,
“Authority, Revolution, and Work: Views from the Socialist Left in the Fin de Siècle,” in: The
Human Tradition in Modern France, eds. K. Steven Vincent and Alison Klairmont-Lingo
(Wilmington, DE, 2000), 99–113, here 108–12.
23. François Manchuel, “Origines républicaines de la politique d’expansion coloniale de
Jules Ferry (1838–1865),” Revue française d’histoire outre-mer, 75, no. 279 (2e trimestre, 1988),
185–206, here 188–90.
24. Claude Prudhomme has explored the relationship between missionaries and colonial economic development in “Les missionnaire et l’entrepreneur dans les colonies
françaises,” in: L’esprit économique imperial: 1830–1970. Groupes de pression et réseaux du

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AGRICULTURAL MISSIONARIES

But the purpose the Trappists hoped to achieve by serving as role
models diverged from the government’s goals. While the July Monarchy
sought to rehabilitate lackluster economic development in Algeria and
instill a work ethic in Martinican slaves so they would continue to support
the colonial economy after emancipation, the Trappists were not focused
on colonial economic success. In Algeria, they wanted the example of their
monastic life to regenerate Christianity in a part of the world that had been
an ancient and vibrant Christian domain. In Martinique, they sought to
regenerate enslaved Martinicans spiritually and materially by teaching
them through example how to succeed as free farmers after a lifetime of
slavery. In both cases, the Trappists must have realized that cooperation
with the government could lend them needed legitimacy in light of their
tenuous legal status and the continued calls to abolish them. Thus, in addition to accomplishing missionary goals, increasing ties with the state might
be seen as a form of self-preservation.
The monastic historian Jean Leclercq has derided the Trappists for
allowing themselves to be used as tools of French colonialism in the nineteenth century.25 This criticism is valid as far as it goes. The Trappists were
willing to act in a manner that furthered the government’s colonial goals.
However, Leclercq’s assessment neglects to explore what the Trappists initially sought to accomplish with the July Monarchy beyond being agents of
French colonization. People of the past “deserve to be considered on their
own terms,” as Rosamond McKitterick aptly wrote.26 The Trappists’ reasons
for responding to the call of the July Monarchy are, at least from the viewpoint of religious history, as important to explore as the government’s goals.
Examining the distinction between the goals of the Trappist missions and
those of the July Monarchy alongside the mutual goals that brought them
together helps to provide a textured picture of Catholic participation in
French colonialism, one in which the motives and underexplored prominence of Trappists in nineteenth-century France are brought to light.

patronat colonial en France et dans l’empire, eds. Hubert Bonin, Catherine Hodeir, and JeanFrançois Klein (Saint-Denis, 2008), 149–65.
25. Jean Leclercq, “Le renouveau Solesmien et le renouveau religieux au XIXe siècle,”
in: Centenaire de Belloc (Urt, FR, 1977), 47–84, here 73–74.
26. Rosamond McKitterick, “Great Light,” Times Literary Supplement (May 22,
2009) (quoted in Roger Price, Religious Renewal in France, 1789–1870: The Roman Catholic
Church between Catastrophe and Triumph (Aberystwyth, UK, 2018), 9.

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Algeria
The July Monarchy inherited Charles X’s politically expedient invasion
of Algeria. But rather than withdraw gracefully, King Louis-Philippe
attempted, as Jennifer Sessions has argued, to use Algerian colonization as
a means to legitimize his own exercise of power.27 The July Monarchy, Sessions wrote, “contrasted the Bourbons ‘wasteful’ political aims for the expedition with a vision of productive, agricultural exploitation.”28 Algerian
colonization offered France the opportunity to move beyond outdated
notions of mercantilist colonies dependent on slave labor. “Slavery and
commercial monopolies,” according to Sessions, “were repudiated as economically insufficient and morally corrupting.”29 Instead, the July Monarchy wanted agricultural development that could improve the moral fiber of
French colonists coming to Algeria.30
To sustain a vision of agricultural exploitation by free workers, however, the Algerian colonists needed to develop productive agricultural ventures. Yet during the July Monarchy, colonists rarely fit the mold of productive farmers. Many came instead for the quicker profit that might be made
by keeping inns and taverns or trading in land. The government intended to
remedy this problem by granting land concessions to those likely to succeed
with cultivation.31 These intentions were largely frustrated when well-connected metropolitan elites with little interest in long-term agricultural
development most often succeeded in securing the land concessions.32
In the face of these problems, a Catholic member of the Chamber of
Deputies, François de Corcelle, concluded that the Trappists might provide a perfect remedy.33 Corcelle, together with Alexis de Tocqueville and
Gustave de Beaumont, undertook a parliamentary fact-finding mission to
Algeria in 1841.34 Following that mission, Corcelle wrote a letter to the

27. Jennifer E. Sessions, By Sword and Plow: France and the Conquest of Algeria (Ithaca
and London, 2011), 2, 65.
28. Ibid., 65.
29. Sessions, By Sword and Plow, 184. See Manchuelle, “Origines républicaines de la
politique d’expansion coloniale,” 186–88.
30. James McDougall, A History of Algeria (Cambridge, UK, 2017), 90.
31. Sessions, By Sword and Plow, 232–247; McDougall, A History of Algeria, 90–93;
Marc Baroli, Algéri, terre d’espérances: Colons et immigrants (1830–1914) (Paris, 1992), 31–32.
32. Sessions, By Sword and Plow, 262.
33. J. Bersange, Dom François Régis: Fondateur et premier abbé de N.-D. de Staouëli
(Algérie) (Paris, 1911), 70 (originally published in 1885).
34. Delpal, Le silence des moines, 152.

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AGRICULTURAL MISSIONARIES

FIGURE 2. Joseph-Marie Hercelin, OCSO (1787–1855), Abbot of Notre-Dame de
La Trappe (1833–55), Vicar-General of the Congregation of La Trappe (1834–
55). Courtesy of the Zisterzienslexikon.de/wiki/Hercelin-Joseph-Marie.

Prime Minister, Marshal Jean-de-Dieu Soult, in which Corcelle criticized
the morality and work ethic of the colonists. Corcelle singled out the Trappists for their successful agricultural experience as a group that could help
remedy this problem.35 Encouraged by Corcelle’s support, and with a
strong letter of introduction from Marshal Soult to French colonial officials, the Trappists’ Vicar General, Dom Hercelin (Figure 2), together
with the abbot of the Trappist monastery of Aiguebelle, visited Algeria to
look for a suitable location for a monastery.36 But soon controversy erupted
about providing aid for a Trappist establishment in Algeria. The minister
of religion informed Corcelle that the government could not support an
unauthorized congregation.37
Undaunted, Corcelle bypassed the religion minister and appealed
directly to General Bugeaud, then governor general of Algeria. As Bernard
35. F. de Corcelle to Marshal Soult, July 1842 (reproduced in relevant part in Delpal,
Le silence des moines, 152).
36. Marshal Soult to General Bugeaud, June 3, 1842, côte 115, pièce 3, La Trappe
archives, Soligny-la-Trappe, France (Soult signed in his capacity as war minister).
37. Bersange, Dom François Régis, 80.

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Delpal has observed, Corcelle suggested a means of allying the cross with
the sword and the plow. The Trappists, Corcelle argued, could, by means of
a model farm, assist those former soldiers who were granted land by
Bugeaud as compensation for their service.38 At this time, in 1842, indigenous Algerians were engaged in fierce armed resistance to French colonization with most of the fighting occurring in the interior of the country.39
Bugeaud believed that effective colonization would help relieve the army’s
burden in Algeria.40 As a member of the Chamber of Deputies, Bugeaud
had championed agricultural development in rural France for its moralizing
effect, and he probably expected the same benefit for Algerian colonists.41
He also came to appreciate the near military discipline with which the
Trappists regulated their lives.42 Although proselytizing activity in Algeria
could heighten the already strong animosity among the Muslim population,
an outcome Bugeaud would not want, the Trappists sought to lead by
example, not by active evangelization.43 It was therefore not surprising that
Bugeaud wrote back to Corcelle indicating that he would like to see the
Trappists come to Algeria and that he would be willing to assist with land.44
For the July Monarchy, a successful model farm might attract more
colonists to the land, thereby assisting agricultural colonization to take root
more permanently. In contrast to the government goal of deepening French
colonial roots, Trappist correspondence demonstrates a desire to use the
example of their utopian religious community to bring Algeria back into the
domain of universal Christianity. As James P. Daughton has observed with
respect to a later period of French colonialism, religious missionaries often
saw themselves more as “colonizers of souls” than as colonizers for France.45

38. Delpal, Le silence des moines, 153; Bersange, Dom François Régis, 82.
39. McDougall, A History of Algeria, 58–72.
40. Thomas-Robert Bugeaud, Par l’épée et par la charrue: écrits et discours de Bugeaud, ed.
Paul Azan (Paris, 1948), 128.
41. Barnett Singer and John Langdon, Cultured Force: Makers and Defenders of the
French Colonial Empire (Madison, WI, 2004), 58.
42. General Bugeaud to Dom Hercelin, Aug. 27, 1843, côte 115, pièce 37, La Trappe
Abbey archives.
43. The Trappist approach contrasts with the White Fathers, who started in Algeria
under the Second Empire twenty-five years after the Trappists arrived and who established
active missionary posts. Baroli, Algéri, terre d’espérances, 223–24.
44. Bersange, Dom François Régis, 86–88.
45. James P. Daughton, An Empire Divided: Religion, Republicanism and the Making of
French Colonialism, 1890–1914 (Oxford and New York, 2006), 12–13. See Sarah A. Curtis,
Civilizing Habits: Missionaries and the Revival of French Empire (New York, 2010). Moral
missions were not limited to religious orders. Osama Abi-Mershed, for example, described
how colonial administrators in Algeria influenced by the teachings of Saint Simon tried to

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AGRICULTURAL MISSIONARIES

FIGURE 3. François-Régis de Martin–Donos (1808–80), first abbot of Staouëli
Abbey, the Trappist monastery in Algeria (1846–54), photograph (ca. 1870).
Courtesy of Wikipedia

The Trappists were acutely aware that North Africa had been an ancient
center of Christianity, one that Arab conquest had supplanted with Islam.
Upon receiving the new Bishop of Algeria in Rome in 1838, Pope Gregory
XVI had declared that “‘the African church is coming back to life. I hold next
to my heart the successor of Saint Augustine.’”46 Similarly, representatives of
the Bourbon monarchy as well as French Catholic writers during the July
Monarchy often stressed the significant, if ancient, history of Christianity in
Algeria.47 The Trappists saw an opening in France’s 1830 defeat of the
Ottomans in Algeria that would allow them to help revive Christianity there.
The governing body of the Trappists, the General Chapter, wrote a
letter in 1843 expressing the hope that the Trappists could “reanimate”
Christianity in North Africa. They wrote to the leader of the Trappist
expedition to Algeria, Père François Régis (Figure 3), that if God will
“birth” their vision of an ideal society: “technological and industrial in its economic enterprises; peaceful and spiritual in its socio-political relations.” Osama Abi-Mershed, Apostles of
Modernity: Saint-Simonians and the Civilizing Mission in Algeria (Stanford, 2010), 32. See also
Marcel Emerit, Les Saint-Simoniens en Algérie (Paris, 1941).
46. Quoted in Curtis, Civilizing Habits, at 114.
47. Phillip Naylor, “Bishop Pierre Claverie and the Risks of Religious Reconciliation,”
The Catholic Historical Review, 96, no. 4 (October, 2010), 720–42, here 723; Louis Veuillot,
Les Français en Algérie: Souvenirs d’un voyage fait en 1841, 4th ed. (Tours, 1842), 92–95.

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FIGURE 4. Staouëli Abbey circa 1849, from L’Illustration, année 7 (Paris: J.-J.
Dubochet, 1849), reproduced in Bernard Delpal, Le silence des moines: Les Trappistes au XIX e siècle: France–Algérie–Syrie (Paris, 1998), 177.

“deign to reanimate in Africa the faith of Cyprian, of Augustine, and of
Fulgence, that will produce new fruits, maybe even more delicious, more
abundant than even those of the ancients.”48 They sought to accomplish
this task by example. The Trappists intended to be, as the Baron Charles
Dupin later called the Abbey of Staouëli (Figure 4), a “showcase” for
Christianity.49 And it was by model behavior that the Trappists hoped to
bring about conversions. “If you are true children of Saint Benedict,” wrote
the General Chapter to Père Régis, “your example will be for these infidels
the most eloquent and the most salutary of all that can be predicted for
you. If you make them admire your virtue, grace will perhaps soon lead
them to imitate you.”50
48. Actes et décisions des chapitres généraux de la congrégation de N.D. de la Trappe en
France, 1835–1843, documents supplémentaires du chapitre général de 1843 (reproduced in V.
Hermans, “Actes et décisions des chapitres généraux des congrégations trappistes du XIXe
siècle (1835–1891)(I),” Analecta Cisterciensia XXVII (Jan.–Jun., 1971), 141–42).
49. M. le baron Dupin, Report to the Senate, Mar. 24, 1863 (quoted in Delpal, Le
silence des moines, 183).
50. Actes et décisions, 142. As shown by the choice of the word “infidels” to describe the
Muslims, the Trappists, like most nineteenth-century Christians, did not view Islam as a
legitimate alternative to Christianity. They hoped to return Algerians to what they considered
to be the true faith.

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Père Régis, soon to be Abbot of Staouëli with the title “Dom” Régis,
confirmed the Trappist goal of achieving Christian conversion when he
appeared before the monks of Melleray Abbey in September of 1844 to
seek their help. In the first year of Staouëli Abbey’s existence, the death
rate from dysentery, fever, and other ailments had decimated the monks
from Aiguebelle that Dom Régis had brought with him. The abbot needed
Melleray’s help to replenish the reduced ranks. Even as he described the
difficulties encountered in establishing this monastic venture, he told the
monks of his “most ardent zeal for the conversion of the Arabs.”51 That was
a zeal apparently shared by the Trappists of Melleray. About two dozen
responded to Dom Régis’s call over the course of a few years despite the
known risks. Half of them also succumbed to death in the climate of Algeria within the first few years of their arrival.52
In the Trappist view, this was a worthwhile sacrifice. As expressed by
a Staouëli monk five years after establishment of the Algerian monastery,
the Trappists believed that only the return of Christianity to the land of
Saint Augustine could lend legitimacy to the French invasion of Algeria.
Only religion, the monk wrote, “could transform the violence of political
conquest and occupation into elevated moral education.” The return of
Christianity could, in his Trappist utopian view, create “a new people.”53
The July Monarchy and the Trappists had to overcome mutual suspicions to reach agreement on the means of accomplishing their separate
goals. When the government proposed Staouëli, not far from Algiers, for
a new Trappist agricultural operation, the Trappists agreed. But when
their lead negotiator Père Gabriel saw the proposed act of concession, he
reported to Dom Hercelin that it contained “conditions so onerous” it
would make the Trappists the “vassals of the Director of the Interior,”
Count Guyot.54 He described the proposed act of concession as “insulting”
and “outrageous.”55 Guyot had, according to Père Gabriel, so continually
opposed the Trappists that he “feared the bad faith of the Director.”56
51. Annales de Melleray, 2:215.
52. Annales de Melleray, 2:215–17. In just the three-year period from 1847–1849,
eleven Melleray monks died at Staouëli. Necrology of monks departed for Staouëli, Melleray
archives.
53. Notices historiques from the Staouëli Abbey archives (quoted in Delpal, Le silence des
moines, 158).
54. Père Gabriel to Dom Hercelin, April 10, 1843, côte 107, pièce 8, La Trappe archives.
55. Père Gabriel to Dom Hercelin, April 21, 1843, côte 107, pièce 9, La Trappe archives.
56. Père Gabriel to Dom Hercelin, January 20, 1843, côte 107, pièce 2, La Trappe
archives.

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Guyot responded with a letter to Gabriel stating that he was surprised and
offended by Gabriel’s reaction to the proposed act of concession.57 Dom
Hercelin, however, agreed with Gabriel that the proposal left the Trappists
at the government’s mercy and initially rejected it in a letter to Guyot stating that the restrictions on erecting waterworks without government permission and the extensive planting requirements without the security of an
outright land transfer were unreasonable.58 The government did not relent
on the conditions imposed, however, and Dom Hercelin ultimately concluded that the project was worth the risk those conditions presented.59
Charles-André Julien has asserted with little support that General
Bugeaud, “who wanted to please the Court . . . ceded to all the requests of
the Trappists.”60 This included, according to Julien, transforming the land
grant from a grant in usufruct (the right to use the land only) to one “en
toute propriété”; that is, full, unrestricted ownership.61 But the initial land
grant to the Trappists was not a grant en toute propriété. On the contrary,
the conditions that worried Gabriel and Hercelin were imposed in a July
11, 1843 ministerial order that only conditionally granted 1,020 hectares of
land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Plain of Staouëli to a civil
society formed by some of the Trappist monks of Aiguebelle Abbey. The
land grant stipulated that it would only become “definitive after the accomplishment, within the deadlines hereinafter provided, of the conditions
established by the present act.”62 Those conditions required the Trappist
civil society to put into cultivation all arable land. At least half of the arable
land had to be cultivated within the first five years. The Trappists were
required to plant two thousand trees every two years until they had planted
ten thousand over the course of ten years. Even then, the government
reserved to itself ownership of any water found on the land, crucial for agricultural production, and the Trappists only had a right to that water in
usufruct. Waterworks required specific government approval, and other
building plans had to be submitted to the government before construction.
57. Count Guyot to Père Gabriel, April 12, 1843, côte 115, pièce 21, La Trappe
archives.
58. Dom Hercelin to Count Guyot, May 2, 1843, côte 115, pièce 22, La Trappe
archives.
59. Bersange, Dom François Régis, 90.
60. Charles-André Julien, Histoire de l’Algerie contemporaine, 1 (Paris, 1964), 243.
61. Julien, Histoire de l’Algerie, 243. Section 544 of the Napoleonic Code defined “propriété” as the right to enjoy and dispose of things in the most unrestricted manner not prohibited by law or regulation.
62. Recueil des actes du gouvernement de l’Algérie: 1830–1854 (Algiers, 1856), 247, Article 2.

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The 1843 ministerial order also provided the Trappists a 62,000-franc
subsidy, but that subsidy only covered half the estimated cost of building
initial living quarters and nothing to fulfill the onerous conditions of the
order.63 Bugeaud provided some additional material support, stating in an
1843 letter that the Queen had asked him to look favorably on the Trappists and that he had provided tools and 50 to 60 military prisoners to work
with the monks, together with such cash as they might need.64 But by
1844, the Trappists were out of money. Although the colonial council had
agreed to provide Staouëli Abbey a loan of 30,000 francs, the government
refused to approve the loan. Dom Régis had to travel to France where he
raised 9,000 francs from Society for the Propagation of the Faith and
20,000 francs from Aiguebelle Abbey that it had borrowed to continue the
work. Queen Marie-Amèlie, who had personally given 600 francs to support the venture, promised Dom Régis to use her influence to help the
Trappists, but that was of no avail.65 Delpal wrote that in those early years,
the Trappists in Algeria were “harassed by the administration and menaced
by their creditors,” and their requests for further aid were often refused.66
The Trappists succeeded in meeting the conditions of their land grant
by 1849, a year after the fall of the July Monarchy, and only then obtained
full rights to the property.67 But this success came at great personal cost.
From the 1843 foundation through 1857, 107 monks died at Staouëli. Seventy percent of those who died were under sixty.68
After the 1850s, however, the death rate abated, and the Trappists
turned Staouëli into the model farm that the July Monarchy had wanted to
see. The colonial government published official reports on the Trappists’
63. Recueil des actes, 247–48; Frère Gabriel to Dom Hercelin, January 20, 1843, côte
107, pièce 2, La Trappe archives (estimating the cost to build initial living quarters at between
100,000 to 150,000 francs).
64. Bugeaud, Par l’épée et par la charrue, 149. Military prisoners were separately housed
at the monastery, and by the 1880s were paid 1 franc, 60 centimes for a day’s work. Hippolyte
Lecq, L’Exploitation agricole de la Trappe de Staouéli (Algérie) (Algiers, 1882), 10–11. Bernard
Delpal concluded that these military prisoners became “integrated into the life of the Trappists” at Staouëli. Dom Régis maintained a particularly good rapport with the prisoners and
sincerely believed, Delpal writes, that the Trappists could “convert” and “regenerate” these
men and “even create a new sort of race.” Delpal, Le silence des moines, 171 and n.48.
65. Bersange, Dom François Régis, 151–53, 169–80.
66. Delpal, Le silence des moines, 170. Delpal makes no reference to the Queen’s help in
his detailed study of the Trappists in Algeria.
67. Delpal, Le silence des moines, 169–70; Gabriel Verge, Monographie du domaine de la
Trappe de Staouéli (Algiers, 1930), 19.
68. Delpal, Le silence des moines, 164.

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FIGURE 5. Postcard of Trappists harvesting grapes at the Monastery of Notre-Dame
de Staouëli, early XX century, Ménard et Blain, Phot. Courtesy of Wikipedia.

agricultural successes at Staouëli. Gabriel Verge wrote that Staouëli had
become a “quasi-official center of agricultural development” where other
colonists would come to find examples for developing their own land.69 By
1882, according to a contemporary report, the Trappists had developed at
Staouëli forty hectares of woods, 300 hectares of grape vineyards, thirty
hectares of geraniums, 120 hectares of wheat, ninety hectares of oats and
barley, and thirty-five hectares of vegetable and fruit gardens. The monks
manufactured perfumes from the geraniums they grew and produced wines
from their vineyards. For half the year, the Trappists supplied enough table
wine for all of Algiers and its suburbs with a quality that commanded a
premium price.70 In addition, the Trappists established herds of sheep and
cattle and maintained breeding hogs and extensive beehives71 (Figure 5).
Although the initial occupation of land by the Trappists must have
engendered local enmity, by many accounts the Trappists developed a
good rapport with their Muslim neighbors. A variety of contemporary
69. Verge, Monographie, 20.
70. Lecq, L’Exploitation agricole, 18–19, 44. Staouëli wine won coveted gold medals in
France in 1878, 1894, and 1895 as well as a gold medal in Liverpool in 1886. Chollet, NotreDame de la Trappe de Staouëli, 196.
71. Lecq, L’Exploitation agricole, 11–14.

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chroniclers of Staouëli Abbey recited anecdotes concerning how well
received the Trappists were among the surrounding non-European population.72 Abbé G. Chollet wrote that the Arabs of the region appreciated
the asceticism of the Trappists, which he said they compared to “observing
a continual Ramadan.”73
For all the good will they may have generated, the Trappists’ initial
foray into Algeria failed to achieve its primary goal—the conversion of the
Algerian people. From 1843 until Staouëli Abbey closed in 1904, only one
Algerian joined the ranks of the monks of Staouëli. All the other monks
came from the metropole.74 Ultimately, it is local people who decide if a
foreign mission is to succeed among them, as Troy Feay has observed.75
Indigenous Algerians may have respected the Trappists, but they retained
their attachment to Islam. Even among the European colonists, Catholicism made few inroads.76 Discouraged by this failure and with implementation of the 1901 law of associations looming, the Trappists decided to
close Staouëli Abbey in 1904.77

72. Émile Delaunay, Staouéli: Histoire du monastère, depuis sa fondation. Suivi de: une
excursion à Oran, Misserghin, Biskra, etc. (Limoges, 1877), 56–57; Chollet, la Trappe de
Staouëli, 212–18.
73. Chollet, la Trappe de Staouëli, 212.
74. Delpal, Le silence des moines, 168.
75. Troy Feay, “Creating ‘The People of God’: French Utopian Dreams and the Moralization of African Slaves,” in: In God’s Empire: French Missionaries and the Modern World,
eds. J.P. Daughton and Owen White (New York, 2012), 60.
76. Baroli, Algéri, terre d’espérances, 221–28. Marc Baroli observed that while Staouëli
provided a visible presence for the Church, it was more useful as an agricultural model. Ibid.
Thus, despite initially having different goals in mind than the government, the Trappists
ended up achieving only the July Monarchy’s goal of providing a model for agricultural
development.
77. Delpal, Le silence des moines, 192–93; 453. Other factors beyond the failure of the
Christianization mission and government policies contributed to the closure. Members of the
colonial press, stoked by disgruntled competitors in the perfume industry, had launched
increasingly vitriolic anti-clerical attacks against Staouëli Abbey on the one hand, while on
the other, the Algerian Archbishop demanded that the Trappists make crippling annual payments to support Algerian seminaries. Delpal, Le silence des moines, 192–94. These problems
resulted, according to Delpal, in “a profound malaise in the community at the dawn of the
twentieth century.” Delpal, Le silence des moines, 193. Charles-André Julien asserted that after
the death of Dom Régis in 1880, the Trappists neglected agriculture, and Julien suggested
this led to the closure. Julien, Histoire de l’Algerie, 244. Dom Régis, however, left Staouëli in
1854 to accept a position in Rome (Bersange, Dom François Régis, 283–98), and for the fifty
years after his departure, Staouëli Abbey continued to succeed as a model farm. Lecq, L’Exploitation agricole, 10–45; Édouard Gascon, Une visite à la Trappe (Algiers, 1896); Chollet, la
Trappe de Staouëli, 106–98; Delpal, Le silence des moines, 176–87.

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Martinique
In July 1846, the July Monarchy again approached the Trappists for
help with colonial agriculture—this time in Martinique. The inevitability
and imminence of emancipation in Martinique increasingly concerned the
government, which feared the economic consequences of freeing the
enslaved people of the island. Pressure had been mounting in favor of
French emancipation since the English abolition of slavery in 1834. Most
French abolitionists argued during the 1830s and early 1840s that enslaved
people needed to be educated and instilled with an independent work
ethic, and that this preparatory work should be done as a prelude to freedom.78 The July Monarchy, though at best lukewarm to abolition, shared
this view, as did Catholic Church leaders in France and Martinique who
in the 1840s increasingly called for abolition with a preparatory phase.79
Colonial planters used the excuse of needed preparation to convince the
July Monarchy to delay any significant moves toward emancipation. The
government’s delay in drawing up any definite plans for emancipation, however, drove a number of abolitionists from gradualism to calling for immediate emancipation.80 An 1844 petition drive among workers in Paris and
Lyon calling for the freedom of all workers, including the enslaved, sparked
debates in the French legislature about the need for emancipation.81 The
July Monarchy answered these debates by proposing more definite preparatory measures known as the Mackau legislation after the Minister of the
Navy and Colonies, Ange René Armand, baron de Mackau (1788–1855).
This legislation authorized ordinances to regulate the care of slaves, to provide for their education, and to promote marriage, as well as authorizing
rachat, the purchase by a slave of his or her own freedom.82
78. Lawrence C. Jennings, French Anti-Slavery: The Movement for the Abolition of Slavery
in France, 1802–1848 (Cambridge, UK, 2000), 71–73, 145–52. Alexis de Tocqueville, for example, took this approach in a series of articles in 1843 supporting the Broglie Commission’s parliamentary report that provided for a ten-year preparatory period during which measures would
be implemented to “morally improve and civilize the Negroes. . . .” Alexis de Tocqueville, Writings on Empire and Slavery ed. and trans. Jennifer Pitts (Baltimore and London, 2001), 224.
79. See Philippe Delisle, Renouveau missionaire et société esclavagiste, la Martinique:
1815–1848 (Paris, 1997); Troy Feay, Mission to Moralize: Slaves, Africans, and Missionaries in
the French Colonies, 1815–1852 (PhD Diss., University of Notre Dame, 2003), 71–75, 100–02.
80. Jennings, French Anti-Slavery, 201–02.
81. Seymour Drescher, “British Way, French Way: Opinion Buildings and Revolution
in the Second French Slave Emancipation,” American Historical Review (June 1991), 709–34,
here 719.
82. Jennings, French Anti-Slavery, 218; Rebecca Schloss, Sweet Liberty: The Final Days
of Slavery in Martinique (Philadelphia, 2009), 208.

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In the face of resistance from colonial planters, the government initially accomplished little under the Mackau legislation. As a result, in late
1845 and early 1846, the French abolitionist community denounced the
government’s slowness in implementing the goals of that legislation and
challenged the Navy and Colonies ministry in the legislature. The ministry
responded to this challenge by, among other things, issuing on May 18,
1846 ordinances on religious and elementary education for slaves.83
Soon thereafter, the Navy and Colonies ministry contacted the Trappists about setting up an establishment in Martinique. The correspondence
between the French government and the Trappists on this subject, which
has been retained in the archives of the Abbey of La Trappe, shows that
the Ministry of Navy and Colonies knew in 1846 that emancipation was
inevitable and was making arrangements to maintain the economic productivity of the Antilles after it occurred.84 With the example of Haitian
independence still fresh and in view of past uprisings by enslaved Martinicans, the government must have believed that freedom for slaves had to be
granted soon to avoid it being taken without conditions.85 In 1846, therefore, the government anticipated emancipation by planning to fund a
Trappist model farm in Martinique as a means to preserve the economic
productivity of its colony following the inevitable end of slavery.
The correspondence in the La Trappe archives, together with private
letters from one of the Trappist leaders of the mission to Martinique,
demonstrate that the Trappists, just as in Algeria, were not focused on the
economic success of the colonies. This correspondence expresses the Trappists’ belief that slavery was a moral evil that debased the slave and the slave
holding society alike and, in addition, discredited the intrinsic value of
manual labor. They wanted to help regenerate the enslaved population by
teaching them agricultural skills to succeed as a free people while providing
83. Jennings, French Anti-Slavery, 233–34.
84. Côte 181, pièces 1–35, La Trappe archives. The July Monarchy had already taken
some steps in that direction by issuing directives aimed at preparing the enslaved workers at
the government farm in Saint Jacques for freedom and by spending funds aimed at religious
instruction it hoped would moralize those workers. Schloss, Sweet Liberty, 184, 218.
85. The enslaved people of Martinique had rebelled in 1822 and 1831. Sessions, By
Sword and Plow, 188. The threat of an imminent slave rebellion in early 1848 helped convince
the new Second Republic to emancipate immediately the slaves. Nelly Schmidt, La France at-elle aboli l’esclavage?: Guadeloupe-Martinique-Guyane 1830–1935 (Paris, 2009), 128. Indeed,
before the official 1848 decree emancipating slaves even reached Martinique, the slaves there
rose up in rebellion and forced the colonial administration to grant their freedom. Jennings,
French Anti-Slavery, 282–83.

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enslaved and free Martinicans alike with the example of a radically Christcentered life in which manual labor functioned as an integral and valued
part. To the Trappists, this was a moral mission focused on individual souls
rather than a mission to preserve an economy.
The government initially contacted the Trappists by letter dated July
1, 1846 from Henri-Léon Causat de Riancey.86 Addressed to Dom
Hercelin, the Trappists’ vicar general of the congregation, it included a
memorandum written by G. de Lagrange for the Ministry of the Navy and
Colonies.87 It also attached an extract of what it described as a “completely
confidential” report from the Director of the Colonies.88 The Director
endorsed the Lagrange memorandum and stated that “nothing would be . . .
more favorable to the success of the government’s current views than to see
a religious Order . . . specially devoted to agricultural operations establish
itself in the colonies and provide all classes an example of useful, fruitful,
and intelligent work.”89
The Lagrange memorandum expressed the government’s motivations
for calling on the Trappists. It started by declaring that the primary question facing the government was how to “conserve colonial society with all
the resources necessary for life and the preservation of that society. That
implies work and agricultural work above all.” “Everything makes us fear,”
Lagrange continued, “that the moment slavery is abolished, blacks
employed in agriculture will desert in mass.” Those who remain, he
posited, would not be sufficient to keep the plantations running. This is “a
menacing question of life or death for our colonies” where the population
primarily consisted of enslaved people.90
The government, Lagrange noted, had encouraged the immigration of
European laborers, considered preventing workers from moving from one
job to another, and tried to enable religious instruction, but he did not judge
any of these measures adequate to remedy the threat. Manual labor had
become entirely associated with slavery in the colonies and was looked down
upon. “The white who is reduced to the necessity of manual labor, like the
86. Riancey to Hercelin, July 1, 1846, côte 181, pièce 1, La Trappe archives.
87. Note sur le moyen de réhabiliter le travail agricole dans les Colonies, côte 181, pièce 24,
La Trappe archives (hereafter “Note”).
88. Extrait d’un rapport presenté au Ministre de la Marine par le Directeur des Colonies le
30 juin 1846, côte 181, pièce 2, La Trappe archives.
89. Ibid.
90. Note, 1–2. Sixty-five to seventy percent of the population in the Antilles colonies
lived in slavery before emancipation. Schmidt, aboli l’esclavage?, 135.

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sailor or soldier, is today profoundly disdained by the blacks. . . . [T]he condition of a white manual laborer in their estimation is below that of a Negro
slave.”91 Bringing in more European laborers would not encourage the
newly emancipated slave population to work, he thus concluded, especially
since the white workers who had come to the colonies to date had poor reputations as reliable laborers. Lagrange dismissed the idea of restricting
worker movement (as eventually occurred after emancipation) because that
would mean “work would always be characterized by constraint.” He feared
that such a restriction “would only make agricultural labor more odious.”92
This discussion led to Lagrange’s own proposal. He argued that the
introduction of a religious order that engaged in manual labor might attract
the admiration of enslaved workers. He recommended the Trappists. “By its
Rule, as we know, this Order is exclusively devoted to agricultural work. . .
. In a word, [they] take precisely for their own lot the occupation reserved
today for slaves. . . .”93 Lagrange concluded: “Work that is shared by God’s
elect, in whom [the enslaved] will recognize more holiness in the world,
could no longer be seen as something degrading and unworthy of a free
man. His prejudice will vanish. This result would appear infallible.”94
After a visit to Dom Hercelin by ministry employees, Baron de
Mackau wrote a note to the Vicar General in which he confirmed that he
wanted the Trappists to help “organize free labor and moralize blacks in
our colonies.”95 Dom Hercelin replied that the Trappists would be honored with this mission.96 Dom Hercelin chose Melleray Abbey to lead the
Trappist venture, and he sent three Melleray monks to Martinique, at government expense, to explore the possibility of establishing a Trappist
monastery at a government farm. Melleray had rebounded with renewed
vigor after the suppression of the 1830s. Frenchmen flocked to it, and by
1846, it was reaching its capacity with 150 monks even after its contribution to the establishment of Staouëli.97
91. Note, 2–3.
92. Note, 4. Newly freed laborers faced a host of restrictions in Martinique after emancipation, including travel restrictions. Schmidt, aboli l’esclavage?, 190–91.
93. Note, 8.
94. Note, 9.
95. Baron de Mackau to Dom Hercelin, July 29, 1846, côte 181, pièce 5, La Trappe
archives.
96. Dom Hercelin to his Excellence the Minister of the Navy and Colonies, August 16,
1846, côte 181, pièce 6, La Trappe archives.
97. Jay Butler, “From Melleray to Gethsemani: Spreading Cistercian Spirituality in the
Early Nineteenth Century,” Cistercian Studies Quarterly 53, no. 1 (2018), 73–95, here 84–92.

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The three Melleray monks commissioned to go to Martinique issued
a report that recommended the Trappists accept the government’s proposal
despite the grave risks posed by the “fatal” climate.98 This report to Dom
Hercelin spelled out the Trappist desire to effect a regeneration of enslaved
Martinicans. The Melleray monks had toured the Saint Jacques government farm where their project would be centered. All of the colonists and
even the churchman they met expressed doubt that the Trappists could
successfully instruct slaves to run a farm as free workers. But the three
Melleray monks concluded that Saint Jacques could be turned into a
“model farm” if one succeeded at moralizing its “fine workers and establishing them in free labor. . . . [T]he black is neither as profoundly corrupted nor as intractable as has been depicted to us.”99 They concluded that
the enslaved Saint Jacques workers would follow the guidance of a group
who treated them well instead of imposing more of the “cruel, corrupt, and
brutal” treatment they had received from their colonial masters.100
The Trappists also believed that enslaved workers needed their leadership. They observed that the enslaved worker of Saint Jacques “raised his
head all the more proudly now that he saw himself on the point of obtaining that liberty he had sought so long.”101 But given how enslaved Martinicans had been treated, the Trappists, like the July Monarchy, foresaw a
mass exodus to the city as soon as emancipation took place. The Trappists
expressed concern not for the economic well-being of the colony, but for
what they saw as the disastrous effects such an exodus would have on the
moral well-being of the formerly enslaved. Trappists valued manual labor,
particularly agricultural labor, for its power to strengthen the soul. They
viewed city life as morally degrading. The Melleray monks argued that the
Saint Jacques workers “must be entrusted without the least delay into the
care of a religious group, above all to a congregation of workers who . . . by
the example of their work” would lead these workers to value agricultural
labor and to succeed as free farmers.102
The distinction between the government’s goals as set out in the
Lagrange memorandum and those of the Trappists as set out in the report
98. Fr. Eusèbe, Fr. Hilarion, Fr. Emmanuel, Extrait du rapport fait au Général des
Trappistes par les trois religieux envoyés à Martinique à l’effet d’examiner s’il y avait possibilité de
réaliser un projet d’établissement proposé par le Département de la Marine, March 15 1847, côte
181, pièce 11, La Trappe archives (hereafter “Rapport”).
99. Rapport, 6.
100. Rapport, 8–9.
101. Rapport, 7.
102. Rapport, 7.

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to Dom Hercelin is the distinction between economic colonization and the
missionary’s concern for individual moral welfare. The July Monarchy
hoped to preserve the economic well-being of its colony after emancipation. The Trappists sought to ensure the spiritual well-being of enslaved
people so they could succeed in a meaningful way after emancipation.
On May 14, 1847, the foreign minister, François Guizot, wrote to
Dom Hercelin asking him to provide a Trappist proposal for Martinique
“as soon as possible.”103 Three days later, the ministry drew up a memorandum addressed to Guizot outlining the conditions under which the Trappists’ Martinique venture might be undertaken.104 It started by stating that
the Trappists, as in Algeria, would be treated as ordinary priests in a civil
association because French law did not authorize the religious congregation itself. It then stated that the government would convey the 439hectare Saint Jacques plantation to the Trappists “at the price of their
sweat” provided they worked toward the “double goal” of initiating blacks
as free laborers and improving colonial agriculture more generally. They
were also to provide a Christian education in reading and agriculture to
boys between 8 and 18 and to establish a hostel for the elderly and infirm.
The memorandum encouraged them to invite service orders of priests and
nuns already on the island to assist them.105
The memorandum provided for the plantation to revert to the state if
the Trappists were unable to continue their work after January 1, 1851, and
the Trappists would only hold the land in usufruct until then. The memorandum stated that forty monks would move to Martinique, and the government would provide them a 350,000-franc subsidy for the construction
of a monastery and all other expenses they might incur in establishing the
103. Foreign Minister Guizot to Dom Hercelin, May 14, 1847, côte 181, pièce 13, La
Trappe Abbey archives. Although Marshal Soult was nominally prime minister in addition to
war minister, Guizot actually controlled government direction at this time. André Jardin and
André-Jean Tudesq, Restoration & Reaction, 1815–1848, trans. Elborg Forster (Cambridge,
UK, 1983), 128. That Guizot, who was generally no friend to Catholicism, became personally
involved in moving the project along seems to indicate a heightened level of government
interest in preparing for emancipation.
104. Untitled memorandum, May 27, 1847, côte 181, pièce 17, La Trappe archives
(hereinafter “Memorandum”).
105. The Sisters of Saint-Joseph de Cluny and the Brothers of Christian Instruction
were two leading religious groups already involved in moralizing and educational missions in
Martinique. Feay, “Creating ‘The People of God,’” 54–56. These orders sought to impart an
encompassing Catholicism that impacted all aspects of life, not unlike the Trappist vision for
their presence in Martinique. Philippe Delisle, Catholicisme, esclavage et acculturation dans le
Caraïbe francophone et en Guyane au XIX e siècle (Matoury, French Guiana, 2006), 38–40.

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model farm until 1851. The Trappists were expected to pay back the state
at a rate of 10,000 francs per year over thirty-five years. If the Trappists
continued the enterprise into 1851, all the slaves that belonged to this state
plantation would receive their freedom without further condition.106
In July of 1847, the Melleray Abbott appointed one of his monks, Père
Eutrope Proud, to lead the expedition to Martinique. Père Eutrope had
described the Trappist mission in a December 27, 1846 letter to his brothers and sisters as follows: “The purpose of our foundation then is to bring
labor back into honor, to inspire a taste for it in all classes and thus to
obtain liberty for these wretched slaves whose condition resembles that of
domestic animals.”107 In another letter dated August 1, 1847 to his brother,
Père Eutrope wrote that he was in Paris working out final arrangements
with the government and informed his brother: “[t]he deal is practically
concluded for the trifling sum of 350,000 francs.”108
Père Eutrope described the conclusion of negotiations in a memoir
retained by the Trappist Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani in Kentucky.
“All we were waiting for before setting out for Martinique in the number
of 40 [monks] was the cancellation of the lease of the plantation we were
to cultivate.” The cancellation “was a long time coming.” When Eutrope
went to Paris on October 2, 1847, he found the lease cancellation had been
received, but the government “was greatly preoccupied at the time with the
agitation of those seeking a new government [and] postponed the complete conclusion of the affair for some weeks.” He returned to Melleray to
wait, and then the February 1848 Revolution brought down the July
Monarchy. Having heard nothing from the new government, Père
Eutrope went to Paris at the end of March. There a representative of the
Second Republic told him it “would take no account” of the arrangements
the Trappists had made with the July Monarchy. The new government, at
least initially, viewed the Trappist presence as unnecessary since the slaves
had already achieved freedom.109
Seven months later, without government support, Père Eutrope was
on his way to Kentucky leading over forty other Melleray monks to estab106. Memorandum.
107. Eutrope Proud to his brothers and sisters, December 27, 1846, translator
unknown, Gethsemani archives, Trappist, Kentucky.
108. Eutrope Proud to Pierre Proud, Aug. 1, 1847, translator unknown, Gethsemani
archives.
109. From Melleray to Gethsemani 1848, short undated memoire of Eutrope Proud,
translator unknown, Gethsemani archives.

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lish the first Trappist Abbey in the new world, Gethsemani Abbey.110
United States bishops had asked to host a Trappist monastery in order “to
inspire love of work in whites” and thus help to pull “the negro race . . .
from slavery.”111 Reflecting the Trappists’ concern with their security in
France, the Melleray abbot also sought to open a monastery in a location
outside of French government control in order, according to the Annales de
Melleray, “to assure the Trappists of France a refuge in the case of a revolution or religious persecution.”112 Although Melleray Abbey had moved
on to another project, Lagrange, this time on behalf of the Second Republic, contacted Dom Hercelin in a letter dated July 12, 1849 to reopen discussions of a Trappist monastery in the Antilles. Emancipation had not
relieved the need to train formerly enslaved Martinicans in the agricultural
arts. The La Trappe archives contain correspondence on the subject
through 1850.113 But with the two largest Trappist monasteries engaged
elsewhere, Aiguebelle in Algeria and Melleray in Kentucky, the Trappist
Antilles venture never came about.
Conclusion
The Trappists had a utopian vision for the colonies of Algeria and
Martinique—utopian in the sense Troy Feay defined well as “the aspiration for a moral mission of social transformation.”114 The Trappists did not
share the July Monarchy’s interest in the economic development of the
colonies. They hoped, instead, that by the moral example of their life of
work and prayer they could regenerate Algeria by drawing Algerians back
to Christianity and regenerate enslaved Martinicans by teaching them the
moral value of manual labor and by giving them the skills to succeed as free
farmers. Their utopian vision of regeneration fit within the current of nineteenth-century French utopian ideas displayed by other missionaries as
well as by utopian socialists, ideas that made use of colonialism but that
were often distinct from the goals of the colonizing government.115
The common denominator of these two visions, valorizing agricultural
labor, led two formerly opposed groups to work together. The Trappists’
nineteenth-century utopian vision failed to bear fruit in Algeria and never
110. Butler, “From Melleray to Gethsemani,” 92–95.
111. Annales de Melleray, 2:261.
112. Annales de Melleray, 2:261.
113. Côte 181, pièces 27–35, La Trappe archives.
114. Feay, “Creating ‘The People of God,’” 47; Abi-Mershed, Apostles of Modernity, 32.
115. See Feay, “Creating ‘The People of God,’” 51.

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had the opportunity to take root in Martinique. France finally authorized
contemplative monastic groups like the Trappists in 1853 under the
Second Empire, and the Trappists never again felt compelled to embark on
a cooperative overseas venture with the French government. But they continued to spread their vision of religious life abroad without such government involvement. Long after the disintegration of French colonialism,
the Trappists and Trappistines, now known as the Order of Cistercians of
Strict Observance, have established themselves beyond France and Europe
throughout the world with twenty-two monasteries of monks or nuns in
North America, ten in Asia, eight in Latin America, six in Africa, and two
in Oceana.116 This includes the Abbey of Our Lady of Atlas, a monastery
in Tibhirine, Algeria established with a medical mission in mind.117 In
Martinique, at the Benedictine Priory of Sainte-Marie des Anges, descendants of Europeans and descendants of Africans carry on twenty-first century life together under the ancient Rule of Saint Benedict.118

116. Order of Cistercians of Strict Observance, Geographical Regions, acc. February
28, 2020, https://www.ocso.org/monasteries/geographical-regions.
117. Seven Trappists at Tibhirine were murdered in 1996 during the Algerian civil war.
McDougall, History of Algeria, 311. This event inspired a 2010 film, “Des hommes et des dieux,”
which won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival. New monks have repopulated the
Tibhirine abbey, and Trappist life continues in Algeria.
118. Priory of Sainte-Marie des Anges at Carbet, acc. February 28, 2020
https://www.service-des-moniales.cef.fr/en/priory-of-sainte-marie-des-anges-at-carbet.

The Diocese of Savannah and Desegregation,
1935–73
MARK NEWMAN*
During the civil rights era, the Diocese of Savannah faced conflicting
pressures from white segregationists and African Americans who were
committed to overturning racial discrimination. Diocesan leaders
moved cautiously, desegregating schools in tandem with public school
desegregation, while taking a leading part in negotiations to desegregate public facilities in Savannah. Some black Catholics participated
in the civil rights movement and many objected to the diocese closing
black Catholic schools and churches on behalf of desegregation. Bishops
paid little heed to African American Catholic concerns; and residential
segregation, reinforced by white suburban flight, limited the impact of
diocesan desegregation.
Key words: African American Catholics; Civil Rights Movement;
Desegregation; Diocese of Savannah

A

cting in concert with the bishops of Atlanta and Charleston who
issued identical pastoral letters, in February 1961 Bishop Thomas J.
McDonough of Savannah announced that Catholic schools in his diocese
would admit Catholic children regardless of race no later than public
schools desegregated. McDonough’s pastoral letter was read in his diocese’s churches in the wake of a campus riot when the University of Georgia in Athens admitted two African American students, and the state
assembly abandoned massive resistance to desegregation of public education. Mary Bennett, a white Catholic from Savannah, wrote to
McDonough that she felt humiliated by his widely reported pastoral letter
because her white non-Catholic co-workers “are not only bitter toward my
faith, but also toward the negro.” Alarmed by the prospect that the diocese
would end the long-standing segregation of its institutions, she declared:
“I cannot understand why, at this late date, the church feels, because of
separate facilities, it has persecuted the negroes.” Alluding to the segrega*Mark Newman is Reader in History at the University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom,
and would like to thank the British Academy for funding the research for this article. His
email address is m.newman@ed.ac.uk

282

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tionist preferences that many white Catholics shared with other southern
whites, Bennett asserted that Africans Americans should not go to white
Catholic churches and schools because they were “unwelcome.”1
Adopting a cautious approach conditioned by widespread white support for segregation, the diocese did not desegregate its schools until 1963,
acting to coincide with the beginning of federal court ordered public school
desegregation in the diocese. McDonough’s pastoral letter, Bennett’s
response, and the diocese’s eventual desegregation of its parochial schools
illustrate how diocesan desegregation policy depended on secular change,
neglected black Catholic opinion, and was conditioned by widespread antiCatholicism and white support for segregation among Catholics and the
non-Catholic majority.
Scholars have examined the importance of religion in motivating support and opposition to the civil rights movement and desegregation, but,
until recently, their studies focused on Protestantism. An emerging literature on Catholicism and civil rights in the United States between the 1930s
and early 1970s has traced the efforts of some clergy and laity to foster
interracialism, uncovered evidence of black and white Catholic involvement in the civil rights movement, and documented the opposition of significant white lay and some clergy opposition to desegregation. In the
South, bishops implemented desegregation in accordance with their perception of local conditions. However, accounts of Catholics and desegregation in the South and of the civil rights movement in Georgia neglect the
Diocese of Savannah. The diocese’s experience provides further evidence
that some white clergy worked to facilitate desegregation, many African
American Catholics participated in the civil rights movement, and
Catholic prelates in the Deep South linked desegregation to secular change
to deflect or lessen white opposition from within and outside Catholic
ranks. In Savannah, as in many other American cities inside and outside
the South, many white Catholics also joined white flight to the suburbs
and relocated away from African American communities, thereby substantially limiting desegregation of Catholic churches and schools. Studies of
Catholicism in some other southern locales have highlighted the civil
rights involvement of some members of religious orders and women religious from the North. The Diocese of Savannah, however, also provides
1. Mary Bennett to Thomas J. McDonough, February 20, 1961 (quotations), Thomas
J. McDonough pastoral letter, February 15, 1961, 1-4, folder 10, box 24, Archives of the Diocese of Savannah (hereafter cited as ADS); Numan V. Bartley, The Rise of Massive Resistance:
Race and Politics in the South During the 1950’s (Baton Rouge, 1969), 334–35.

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THE D IOCESE OF SAVANNAH AND DESEGREGATION

evidence of active support for racial equality from diocesan clergy, and,
unusually in the South, the diocese played a leading and effective role,
neglected by scholars, in negotiations that secured secular desegregation in
the city of Savannah.2
The Diocese of Savannah-Atlanta encompassed the state of Georgia
until 1956 when the Vatican divided it north and south between the Diocese of Atlanta and the Diocese of Savannah. There were only 30,992
Catholics in the Diocese of Savannah-Atlanta in 1950, comprising just 1
percent of the total population within the diocese’s boundaries. There were
33,317 Catholics in the Diocese of Savannah in 1966, or 1.9 percent of the
population. Most Catholics lived in the diocese’s urban areas, mostly in
Savannah, Macon, Augusta, Columbus, Albany, Brunswick, Valdosta, and
Waycross. The African American Catholic population was small, numbering an estimated 2,599 in the Diocese of Savannah-Atlanta in 1950, and
3,650 in the Diocese of Savannah in 1965.3
2. Aldon D. Morris, The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement: Black Communities Organizing for Change (New York, 1984); John T. McGreevy, Parish Boundaries: The Catholic
Encounter with Race in the Twentieth-Century Urban North (Chicago and London, 1996);
Karen J. Johnson, One in Christ: Chicago Catholics and the Quest for Interracial Justice (New
York, 2018); Patrick D. Jones, The Selma of the North: Civil Rights Insurgency in Milwaukee
(Cambridge, MA, 2010); Amy L. Koehlinger, The New Nuns: Racial Justice and Religious
Reform in the 1960s (Cambridge, MA and London, 2007); Shannen Dee Williams, “Black
Nuns and the Struggle to Desegregate Catholic America After World War I,” PhD diss.
(Rutgers University, 2013); R. Bentley Anderson, Black, White, and Catholic: New Orleans
Interracialism, 1947–1956 (Nashville, 2005); Andrew S. Moore, The South’s Tolerable Alien:
Roman Catholics in Alabama and Georgia, 1945–1970 (Baton Rouge, 2007); Mark Newman,
Desegregating Dixie: The Catholic Church in the South and Desegregation, 1945–1992 (Jackson,
MS, 2018); Cecilia A. Moore, “‘To Serve Through Compelling Love’: The Society of Christ
Our King in Danville, Virginia, 1963,” U.S. Catholic Historian, 24 (Fall 2006), 83–103; Paul
T. Murray, “‘The Most Righteous White Man in Selma’: Father Maurice Ouellet and the
Struggle for Voting Rights,” Alabama Review, 68 (January 2015), 31–73; Gary Wray
McDonogh, Black and Catholic in Savannah, Georgia (Knoxville, TN, 1993); Cyprian Davis,
O.S.B., “Black Catholics in the Civil Rights Movement in the Southern United States: A. P.
Tureaud, Thomas Wyatt Turner, and Earl Johnson,” U.S. Catholic Historian, 24 (Fall 2006),
69–81; Reed Sarratt, The Ordeal of Desegregation: The First Decade (New York and London,
1966), 278–81; Stephen Tuck, “A City Too Dignified to Hate: Civic Pride, Civil Rights, and
Savannah in Comparative Perspective,” Georgia Historical Quarterly, 79 (Fall 1995), 539–59;
Stephen G. N. Tuck, Beyond Atlanta: The Struggle for Racial Equality in Georgia (Athens, GA
and London, 2001); and Andrew M. Manis, Macon Black and White: An Unutterable Separation in the American Century (Macon, GA, 2004).
3. “Diocese of Savannah,” retrieved March 10, 2018 from www.catholichierarchy.org/diocese/dsava.html; Our Negro and Indian Missions: Annual Report of the Secretary of the Commission for the Catholic Missions Among the Colored People and the Indians, January 1951, 22–23, January 1966, 22, Archives of the Society of Saint Joseph of the Sacred

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Until the civil rights era, African Americans who worshiped in predominantly white Catholic churches were relegated to separate pews at the
back and given communion after whites. In 1939, “the Rev. Superiors of
the Colored Missions in the diocese” established the Colored Catholic
Laymen’s Association of Georgia, which held an annual convention. In
areas where the black Catholic population was sufficiently numerous,
African Americans attended racially defined special parishes, staffed by
white priests belonging to religious orders, especially the Society of African
Missions (S.M.A.). The Church operated separate schools for African
Americans, which also served as evangelizing agents for their students and
their families. Founded by two Benedictine priests in 1874, St. Benedict
the Moor Church in Savannah added a school in 1875. St. Peter Claver in
Macon began as a Jesuit mission in 1888 before being taken over by the
S.M.A. in 1913. Heiress to a banking fortune, Sister Katherine Drexel,
founder of the Sisters of Blessed Sacrament (S.B.S.), helped fund St. Peter
Claver School in Macon, completed in 1904. The S.M.A., which had
taken over the St. Benedict the Moor Church in 1907, opened Immaculate
Conception Church and School in Augusta in 1909. In Savannah, the
S.M.A. founded the Most Pure Heart of Mary Church in 1907, before
adding a school in 1909, and St. Anthony of Padua Church and School in
1909. Enrollment in black parochial schools was largely Protestant, with
parents attracted by their educational quality and discipline. Sisters from
white orders, such as the Missionary Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate
Conception and the S.B.S., and sometimes African American lay teachers
taught in black Catholic schools. Bishop Gerald P. O’Hara of SavannahAtlanta observed, “The secret of success is the Catholic school. In Georgia
it is the principal source of conversion.”4

Heart, Baltimore, Maryland (hereafter cited as ASSJ); Gillian Brown, “Civil Rights and
Sister Mary Julian Griffin,” in: Gillian Brown et al. comp., One Faith, One Family: The Diocese
of Savannah 1850–2000 (Syracuse, NY, 2000), 148.
4. A. J. Laube, “Catholic Mission Work Among the Negroes of Georgia,” Bulletin of
the Catholic Laymen’s Association of Georgia, January 1921, 6; F. J. Weiss to G. P. O’Hara,
October 12 (first quotation), November 30, 1939, Gerald P. O’Hara to F. J. Weiss, October
16, December 4, 1939, folder 13, box 13, ADS; “Mother Katherine Drexel’s Nuns in Macon
and Atlanta,” Bulletin of the Catholic Laymen’s Association of Georgia, January 31, 1936, 8;
“Immaculate Conception Church Serves Augusta’s Colored Catholics,” Bulletin of the Catholic
Laymen’s Association of Georgia, September 28, 1940, 13; “Colored Catholics of Savannah
Have Three Churches and Schools,” Bulletin of the Catholic Laymen’s Association of Georgia,
August 28, 1943, 5; Our Negro and Indian Missions, January 1940, 13–15, January 1944, 13–
14, January 1945, 11–12 (second quotation), January 1948, 9-12, January 1949, 9–13, ASSJ;
Rita H. DeLorme, “Grounded in History, Immaculate Conception Catholic School,
Augusta, is Still Thriving and Innovating,” Southern Cross, January 22, 2015; “History of St.

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THE D IOCESE OF SAVANNAH AND DESEGREGATION

Appointed bishop in November 1935 at the age of forty, O’Hara was
born in Green Ridge, Pennsylvania, and raised mostly in Philadelphia.
Prior to his installation as bishop in 1936, O’Hara had spent his entire life
in Pennsylvania, except for study and ordination in Rome. During his
tenure as bishop, O’Hara established the Colored Catholic Clinic in
Atlanta and expanded the segregated Catholic school system that he had
inherited. He also played a crucial role in the founding of the Catholic
Committee of the South (CCS), which, at his invitation, held its first
annual convention in Atlanta in April 1940. Supported by many of the
South’s Catholic bishops, the CCS did not condemn segregation overtly,
but its program to address regional problems included a commitment to
developing “true political and economic democracy” and bringing “about a
Christian understanding among Southerners, irrespective of race or creed.”
O’Hara served as the committee’s episcopal chairman until 1946, and
Monsignor T. James McNamara, rector of the Cathedral of St. John the
Baptist in Savannah and another CCS cofounder, was general chairman
between 1940 and 1942.5
Born in Savannah in 1899, McNamara, a cradle Catholic, had
returned to his native city in 1924 for ordination following college and
seminary education in Maryland and Rochester, New York. At his
urging, and with O’Hara’s support, in October 1943 the Savannah
Peter Claver Catholic Church,” retrieved February 28, 2020 from https://www.spcccmacon.
com/history-of-st-peter-claver-church.html#; Brown et al. comp., One Faith, One Family, 69,
72–73, 82, 215, 252, 254; McDonogh, Black and Catholic in Savannah, 107, 109-11, 157–66.
When sources disagree about the opening date of an institution, the chronology in the diocese’s official history has been adopted. There were also some other early black Catholic
schools, but they did not endure. McDonogh, Black and Catholic in Savannah, 107, 111,
338n6–7.
5. Our Negro and Indian Missions, January 1948, 9–12, ASSJ; “Church for Colored
Catholics Dedicated at Lakeland, Georgia,” Bulletin of the Catholic Laymen’s Association of
Georgia, March 29, 1941, 2A; “Atlanta Catholic Colored Clinic Completes Two Years of
Service,” Interracial Review, 20 (May 1947), 80; untitled biographical sketch of “The Most
Reverend Gerald P. O’Hara,” folder “Catholic Committee of the South (Paul D. Williams),”
box 2, Gerald P. O’Hara to Peter L. Ireton, June 12, 1940, folder 3, box 1, “Minutes of the
Meeting of the Bishops of the South,” January 29, 1941, 1–4, folder 17, box 2, Gerald P.
O’Hara to Paul F. Tanner, February 19, 1946, folder 10, box 2, Catholic Committee of the
South Papers, Amistad Research Center, New Orleans, Louisiana (hereafter cited as CCSP);
Katherine Ann Martensen, “Region, Religion and Social Action: The Catholic Committee of
the South, 1939–1956,” Master’s thesis (University of New Orleans, 1978), 27–34, 36; Vincent J. O’Connell, “Ten Years of the Catholic Committee of the South,” May 10, 1949, 1–
16 (quotations on 5), “Have You Met the Catholic Committee of the South,” n.d., folder 1,
box 4, series 20, National Catholic Conference for Interracial Justice Records, Marquette
University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin (hereafter cited as NCCIJR).

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Deanery Council of the Savannah-Atlanta Diocesan Council of
Catholic Women adopted a resolution, submitted to the city’s mayor
and board of alderman, that called for hiring African American policemen to serve in black areas and for city housing plans to relocate African
Americans to “war housing projects” away from poor housing. While the
mayor was sympathetic regarding housing, city authorities rejected
hiring black policemen. Subjected to threatening telephone calls, Deanery president Mrs. John Lyons Jr., resigned her position to protect her
family.6
McNamara served as the driving force behind the CCS’s Race Relations Department. In his report to the committee’s annual convention held
in Memphis, Tennessee, in April 1944, he denounced segregation and
called on Catholics “to be militantly sympathetic with the Negro in his
struggle.” McNamara declared that Catholic schools should teach a race
relations course, labor unions include African Americans, the federal government buy land for blacks, and the United States Congress ensure funding of the Fair Employment Practices Committee.7
McNamara joined the Southern Regional Council (SRC), a biracial
but largely white organization established in 1944, and served on its board
of directors. Headquartered in Atlanta, the council promoted the formation of human rights councils across the South, and it advocated improvements in race relations within segregation. The council’s board did not
declare support for racial desegregation until 1951.8
McNamara was more forthright in his criticism of racial discrimination. In 1946, he told his parishioners at Cathedral of St. John the Baptist,
in reference to widespread African American disfranchisement in the
South, that it was un-American and un-Christian that “a segment of our
country’s citizens will be disfranchised simply because of the color of their
skin.” McNamara argued in a 1947 article in Interracial Review, a monthly
magazine published by the Catholic Interracial Council of New York, that
6. “A Brief Sketch of the Life of Rt. Rev. Msgr. T. James McNamara,” folder “Catholic
Committee of the South (Paul D. Williams),” box 2, CCSP; “Negro Policeman for City
Sought,” Savannah Morning News, October 25, 1943, 8 (quotation); Rita H. DeLorme, “The
Ladies of Savannah Deanery Council of the N.C.C.W. Take on Racism, 1940’s-Style,” folder
“Race Relations,” no box, ADS.
7. Martensen, “Region, Religion and Social Action,” 44–45 (quotation on 45).
8. Numan V. Bartley, The New South, 1945–1980 (Baton Rouge, 1995), 29–30; Paul D.
Williams, “The Southern Regional Council and Civil Rights,” Interracial Review, 22 (January
1949), 10.

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“the Catholic Committee of the South has no separatist view of the Negro
and does not look upon him through segregated eyes.”9
In 1948, McNamara addressed the Savannah Rotary Club and proclaimed that extensive miscegenation made a mockery of the idea that the
South was truly segregated. He argued that most African Americans
“would be happy to observe segregation, if the white man would,” and “the
Negro . . . does not resent segregation as such but he does resent the legal
pattern of segregation which stigmatizes him and labels him a second-class
citizen.”10
In May 1949, McNamara led a workshop on race relations, attended
by five hundred people, at the CCS’s annual convention in Lexington,
Kentucky. The workshop called for an end to segregation “in all Catholic
churches,” admission of African Americans to “the convent, to the brotherhood or to the priesthood,” and for the abolition of segregation in
Catholic education at every level from schools to colleges. Participants also
called for desegregation of Catholic hospitals and their staff. However, the
workshop’s statement was not binding on the CCS or on southern prelates
who enjoyed virtual autonomy over their dioceses.11
Although he remained the diocese’s bishop, O’Hara had been posted
abroad as regent of the apostolic nunciature in Romania since 1946. His
prolonged absence ensured that the diocese would make no changes in its
segregation policy, although there were no indications that O’Hara had
intended to. Committed to Catholic schools as agents of evangelism, the
diocese sanctioned the opening of another African American school, Our
Lady Queen of Peace, in Lakeland in 1947. In 1950, O’Hara returned to
the diocese with the personal title of archbishop. A year later, African
American Catholics made public their dissatisfaction with segregation
when the Colored Catholic Laymen’s Association of Georgia decided at its
annual convention in Atlanta to remove colored from its title. The organization’s officers later explained to O’Hara, “We felt that by using the word
9. “Rights of Negroes,” Interracial Review, 19 (May 1946), 69 (first quotation); T.
James McNamara, “The Catholic Committee of the South and the Negro,” Interracial
Review, 20 (July 1947), 102–04, here 102 (second quotation).
10. T. James McNamara, “Address to the Savannah Rotary Club,” Interracial Review,
21 (July 1948), 102–03, here 103 (quotations).
11. “Statement of the Catholic Committee of the South, Lexington Convention, 1949”
(quotations), folder 5, box 48, Joseph H. Fichter Papers, Special Collections and Archives,
Loyola University Library, Loyola University New Orleans, New Orleans, Louisiana;
Martensen, “Region, Religion and Social Action,” 56–57.

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‘Colored’ we were segregating ourselves, and we have gone on record as
opposed to discrimination and segregation.”12
The association was not alone among Catholics in rejecting segregation. In January 1951, the CCS’s annual convention in Columbia, South
Carolina, chose O’Hara as episcopal chairman. An estimated one thousand
people, most of them white, attended the convention, which resolved that
“we aim at the ultimate integration of all members our Church . . . in the
religious, economic, and cultural life of the nation . . . regardless of race,
color, or language.” However, the resolution had no impact on diocesan
segregation policy in Savannah-Atlanta or in many other southern dioceses. O’Hara wrote in June, “It is a fact well-known to all of us that the
Catholic Committee of the South has been largely ineffective.” The committee held its last convention two years later.13
Aware of widespread southern white support for segregation and suspicion of Catholics, O’Hara did not address segregation publicly or take
any action against it, which might endanger Catholics. In 1951, he
informed the Commission for the Catholic Missions among the Colored
People and the Indians in Washington, D.C. of an incident at Our Lady
Queen of Peace School. O’Hara wrote: “The Ku Klux Klan is riding again.
A few weeks ago some Klansmen in the neighborhood drove around the
property [the school] and into the colored quarter of Lakeland. They did
frighten the colored people, and we entertained fears that this action would
have ill effect upon the enrolment for the present term.”14
Although he remained the diocese’s ordinary, in 1951 the Vatican
posted O’Hara abroad for another lengthy spell, leaving Auxiliary Bishop
Francis E. Hyland, a fellow Pennsylvanian, to run the diocese. In 1952,
Hyland announced that the diocese would build a parochial high school for
12. Katy Lockard, director of Archives and Record Management, Diocese of Savannah,
email to author, January 8, 2020; Nelson J. King, Paul G. King, and E. L. Matthews to
Gerald P. O’Hara, September 5, 1951 (quotation), folder 13, box 13, ADS; Sister Mary of
Victory O’Brien, IHM, “Archbishop Gerald P. O’Hara, Ninth Bishop of Savannah (1935–
1959),” in: Brown et al. comp., One Faith, One Family, 119–24, here 122–23.
13. “The Catholic Committee of the South. Columbia, South Carolina, January 22–24,
1951 Resolutions,” 2, 7 (first quotation), folder 1, box 4, series 20, NCCIJR; Gerald P.
O’Hara to Peter L. Ireton, June 30, 1951 (second quotation), folder “Catholic Committee of
the South,” no box, Bishop Peter L. Ireton Papers, Archives of the Diocese of Richmond,
Richmond, Virginia; Martensen, “Region, Religion and Social Action,” 58, 60–61, 66.
14. Sister M. Julian Griffin, V.S.C. in cooperation with Gillian Brown, Tomorrow
Comes the Song: The Story of Catholicism among the Black Population of South Georgia, 1850–
1978 (Savannah, 1979), 63.

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THE D IOCESE OF SAVANNAH AND DESEGREGATION

African Americans in Savannah, the first such school in Chatham County
and the diocese’s second black Catholic high school. In 1948, Immaculate
Conception grade and high school in Augusta had repaired and expanded
its facilities, following a three-year $10,000 fund raising campaign by
church members and former students. Similarly demonstrating their initiative, in the 1940s African American Catholic parents in Savannah began
calling for and raising funds for a Catholic high school so that their children
could continue in Catholic education. Their efforts helped raise some of its
$85,000 construction costs that were also funded by the Bureau of Indian
and Negro Missions in Washington, D.C. The Savannah Tribune, an
African American weekly newspaper, welcomed Hyland’s announcement of
the school as a “very significant move,” which “could not have come at a
better time.” With segregation seemingly entrenched in public and Catholic
institutions in the diocese, the paper welcomed the school as an opportunity
for a high school education superior to that provided by poorly resourced
black public schools. Opened as Blessed Pius X High School in the fall of
1952, the school initially began with the ninth and tenth grades.15
Most white lay Catholics in the diocese, like other whites, likely
favored segregation, but there were also some who supported integration
or were at least ambivalent toward segregation. In 1953, Bishop Vincent S.
Waters of Raleigh merged an African American and a white Catholic
church in Newton Grove despite substantial opposition from whites. He
also issued a pastoral letter banning segregation in the diocese’s churches.
Joseph P. O’Connor, a Valdosta layman, congratulated Waters for his
action, writing him: “You have reaffirmed the Lord’s teachings.”16
In the summer of 1953, John J. O’Connor, a member of the faculties
of Georgetown and Catholic universities in Washington, D.C., surveyed
15. Untitled biographical sketches of the Most Reverend Francis E. Hyland, folder 1,
box 5, Bishop Francis Hyland Papers, Archives of the Archdiocese of Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia (hereafter cited as AAA); “Announce Plans for Catholic Negro High School in Savannah”
and “Negro Weekly in Savannah Praises High School Plans” (quotations), The Bulletin, April
26, 1952, 20; DeLorme, “Grounded in History”; “St. Pius X High School Alumni Celebrates
PiusFest 2017,” Savannah Herald, August 23, 2017, retrieved October 2, 2019 from
http://savannahherald.net/st-pius-x-high-school-alumni-celebrates-piusfest-p11843-1.htm;
McDonogh, Black and Catholic in Savannah, 120. In 1955, Blessed Pius X High School was
renamed St. Pius X High School to reflect the late pope’s canonization.
16. Joseph P. O’Connor to Vincent S. Waters, June 28, 1953, scrapbook “Ban on Segregation 1953 volume II,” Archives of the Diocese of Raleigh, Raleigh, North Carolina. On
the desegregation of Newton Grove, see Blake Slonecker, “A Church Apart: Catholic Desegregation in Newton Grove, North Carolina,” North Carolina Historical Review, 83 (July
2006), 322–54.

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Catholic educational desegregation in the South and border states. He
wrote of Georgia, “The feeling here is that until the unjust law of segregation is repealed, it is necessary to maintain separate but unsegregated
churches, otherwise the needs of the rank and file of people will not be
met. Most people fight shy of disobeying a State law, even though it is an
unjust law.”17
In January 1954, Hyland reported that in the previous year “in a
goodly number of places where there are no Negro parishes or missions, I
confirmed some colored converts. These colored people attend our white
churches and there has been little or no trouble about it. This will continue
to be the case as long as our Catholic Negroes remain a small minority.”
Hyland declared that he had resisted requests to initiate new black missions, reasoning that secular change might make that unnecessary because
“It is just possible that the pattern of segregation in the South may change
sooner than anyone realizes,” and, in any case, recent African American
converts were “of a superior type and they are being gradually integrated
into our white parishes.”18
In May 1954, the United States Supreme Court declared segregation
in public schools unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education. In
November, Georgia elected Marvin Griffin governor on a promise to resist
school desegregation. In 1956, the Georgia General Assembly passed legislation that would deny state funds to any public school that desegregated,
and it adopted an interposition resolution that declared Brown null and
void. A poll in the Catholic Digest in the same year found that seventy-six
percent of white Catholics (and seventy-five percent of white Protestants)
in the South supported segregation and nineteen percent integration, with
five percent having no opinion. Sign magazine, published by the Passionist
Fathers in Union City, New Jersey, reported that in Georgia, “There is
much firm opinion in favor of, and in opposition to, continued segregation
on the personal level.” However, many white Catholics thought that the
Church would not need to tackle the issue for “some time to come,” and
many white parents declared “they would take their children out of
parochial schools if integration was ordered.” Although African American
Catholics wanted segregation completely overturned, Sign reported, “they
are not trying to force the issue. Catholic Negro leaders, like white leaders,
are convinced that progress in this direction will be slow.” Consequently,
17. John J. O’Connor, “Catholic Educational Integration,” Interracial Review, 28 (May
1954), 81.
18. Our Negro and Indian Missions, January 1954, 7–12, ASSJ.

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THE D IOCESE OF SAVANNAH AND DESEGREGATION

“Negroes are working untiringly to better conditions in geographically segregated parishes.”19
Georgia’s Catholic clergy regarded the desegregation issue as “explosive”
and the church’s position as “most delicate.” Consequently, the Catholic
Church had “done nothing to push the idea of ending segregation” in its institutions. Hyland had made only one public statement about desegregation,
telling a news service that “I regret very much to say that the prospect is not
too encouraging for the immediate future, due primarily to the present political climate in Georgia.” However, because of “integration elsewhere, including some of the states of the South,” he did not believe that “the pattern of
segregation can endure too long in this state.” Hyland’s own sympathies were
unequivocal. He declared: “The Church sympathizes wholeheartedly with the
Negro people of Georgia and elsewhere in their aspirations to obtain those
rights and recognitions to which they have every claim and title.”20
In July 1956, the Vatican appointed Hyland the first bishop of the new
Diocese of Atlanta, while O’Hara, still absent abroad, remained ordinary
of the Diocese of Savannah until resigning the position in November 1959
to concentrate on his role as apostolic delegate to Great Britain. Regardless
of O’Hara’s absence, Georgia’s policy of massive resistance ensured that
the Catholic Church would not risk inflaming anti-Catholicism by desegregating ahead of secular change.21
Entrusted to run the diocese after Hyland’s departure, Thomas J.
McDonough became Auxiliary Bishop of Savannah in January 1957. Born
in 1911, McDonough was a native of Philadelphia, who had not been
reared in the Jim Crow South. Unwilling to depart from established practices when militant segregationists dominated state politics, he continued
segregation in the Diocese of Savannah22 (Figure 1).
By 1959, the diocese had eight black churches, three of them in
Savannah, and the remainder in Albany, Augusta, Columbus, Lakeland,
19. Bartley, Rise of Massive Resistance, 68–69, 131, 132; Manis, Macon Black and White,
171–77; “The White-Negro Problem,” Catholic Digest, 20 (June 1956), 2–5, here 4; Patrick J.
McDonnell, “Georgia: Catholics Must Go Carefully,” Sign, 35 (July 1956), 18, 70, here 18
(first, second, fourth and fifth quotations), 70 (third quotation).
20. Ibid., 18 (first and second quotations), 70 (subsequent quotations).
21. Untitled biographical sketches of the Most Reverend Francis E. Hyland; O’Brien,
“Archbishop Gerald P. O’Hara,” 124.
22. “Biographical Note” in inventory to Bishop Thomas J. McDonough Papers, ADS;
“Louisville To Be Third See For New Archbishop,” Southern Cross, March 2, 1967, 1.

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FIGURE 1. Thomas J. McDonough (1911–98), Auxiliary Bishop of St. Augustine
(1947–57), Auxiliary Bishop of Savannah (1957–60), Bishop of Savannah (1960–
67), Archbishop of Louisville (1967–81). Courtesy of the Diocese of Savannah
Archives & Records Management Office.

and Macon. There were eight black parochial schools: four in Savannah;
two in Augusta; and the others in Lakeland and Macon. The white
Catholic priests and nuns who taught in black Catholic schools, sometimes
along with black lay people, were mostly foreign, recruited from Ireland
and Britain. They rejected racial prejudice and demanded the best from
their students. Ormonde E. Lewis, who graduated from St. Pius X High
School in 1963, recalled that his teachers “did not address race per se.”
Rather, the school taught its students to develop and value their abilities.
Charles J. Elmore, who also graduated in 1963, explained “We were taught
not to be racist, and we were taught to have some humility, but also to recognize adversity, and when it’s wrong you had to stand up but not screaming and shouting and cussing. Use your intellect to fight racism and ignorance.” He added, “we were taught the importance of self-reliance; that you
could be as good as you wanted to be” (Figure 2). Although they reluctantly tolerated rather than challenged segregation, teachers in Catholic
schools occasionally ran afoul of its strictures. In the late 1950s, two Franciscan Sisters, who were taking a group of children from Savannah’s St.
Benedict’s School shopping, refused to leave a downtown department store

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THE D IOCESE OF SAVANNAH AND DESEGREGATION

FIGURE 2. Saint Pius X basketball team, c. 1960. Courtesy of the Diocese of Savannah Archives & Records Management Office.

until their charges were fed after lunch counter staff had initially denied
them service.23
Their expectations raised by the Brown decision and the Montgomery
bus boycott in 1955 and 1956, young African Americans in the South were
becoming increasingly impatient with the persistence of segregation. In
February 1960, African American students in Greensboro, North Carolina,
sat in at lunch counters that refused them service. The sit-ins quickly spread
to many other southern cities, including Savannah in March. Black leaders
also organized an economic boycott of lunch counters in downtown Savannah department stores and demanded that they desegregate their facilities,
serve black customers lunch, hire black workers, and treat black customers
23. “Report on Negro Work and Application for Aid Presented to Commission for the
Catholic Missions Among the Colored People and Indians,” September 21, 1959, folder “Race
Relations,” no box, ADS; Ormonde E. Lewis, interview by author, August 17, 2005 (first quotation); “Dr. Charles J. Elmore on St. Pius X High School,” September 13, 2018 (second and
third quotations), retrieved September 1, 2019 from https://omny.fm/shows/ from-the-newsroom-savannah-now/listen-dr-charles-j-elmore-on-st-pius-x-high-schoo; Ken Foskett, Judging Thomas: The Life and Times of Clarence Thomas (New York, 2004), 64–66.

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295

courteously. Although black Catholic churches did not stage civil rights
meetings, in May, St. Pius X High School hosted a National Association
for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) mass meeting of over
2,500 people. Dr. Carl R. Jordan, a member of Most Pure Heart of Mary
Church, was the event’s main speaker, and Father Dennis Begley, S.M.A.
of St. Anthony of Padua gave the invocation. Students in black Catholic
schools generally did not participate in civil rights direct action. Robert
DeShay, a pupil at St. Benedict’s, recalled, “Most of us in Catholic school,
we came from very conservative, nonconfrontational families.” However,
some of St. Pius X High School’s students joined the movement, although
they participated as individuals rather than as a Catholic group. Myers
Anderson, a Catholic convert and St. Benedict parishioner, was a long-time
member of the Savannah chapter of the NAACP and provided bail for
demonstrators. The chapter also had other black Catholic members.24
In May 1960, two months after the Vatican had appointed him Bishop
of Savannah, McDonough met with priests who served in the diocese’s
black churches and missions. He told them that in speaking to white groups
about civil rights they should emphasize that the Mystical Body of Christ,
the body of believers with Christ as its head, recognized no distinctions
based on race. McDonough stated that while priests could belong to the
NAACP, they “should not be too active in it.” He indicated that he would
make a public statement on civil rights in the fall to be preceded by church
pastors spending three or four weeks preparing parishioners for its release.25
The statement never came as McDonough waited to see if Georgia
would abandon massive resistance and accept the recommendations of the
Committee on Schools. Appointed by the state legislature in early 1960 to
reconsider the segregation issue, the committee, headed by Atlanta banker
John A. Sibley, recommended discarding massive resistance in favor of local
option on public school desegregation. The bishop also became convinced
that it would be better if he acted in concert with neighboring Catholic
prelates. Accordingly, on January 3, 1961, McDonough telephoned Bishop
Paul J. Hallinan of Charleston and suggested that they and Bishop Hyland
24. Foskett, Judging Thomas, 43–44, 55, 67–68 (quotation on 68); McDonogh, Black
and Catholic in Savannah, 56–57; [Henry A. Cabirac, Jr.] untitled note “May 20 [1963],
Savannah, Georgia,” folder 4, box 5, series 33, NCCIJR; Lewis interview; Tuck, “A City Too
Dignified to Hate,” 542, 546–47; Frederic O. Sargent, The Civil Rights Revolution: Events and
Leaders, 1955–1968 (Jefferson, NC and London, 2004), 46–47.
25. “Bishop McDonough Named to Savannah Diocese,” The Bulletin, March 19, 1960,
1; “Meeting of Bishop with Priests in Colored Apostolate,” May 17, 1960, 5 (quotation)
folder 10, box 24, ADS.

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THE D IOCESE OF SAVANNAH AND DESEGREGATION

meet in Savannah to discuss issuing a joint statement on racial issues. On
January 11, the University of Georgia admitted two African Americans,
including Charlayne Hunter, a Catholic convert from Atlanta, under federal court order. A campus riot followed. Called into special session by Governor Ernest Vandiver, the legislature responded by adopting the Sibley
Committee’s recommendations. The Bulletin, the fortnightly newspaper of
the Catholic Laymen’s Association of Georgia, condemned the violence on
the Athens campus and praised the state for showing “her determination
that the rule of law shall not surrender to the rule of rocks and epithets.”26
On January 12, Bishop McDonough of Savannah, Bishop Hyland of
Atlanta, and Bishop Hallinan of Charleston met in Savannah. In preparation for the meeting, both McDonough and Hallinan had drafted public
statements indicating their intention to desegregate parochial schools in
their dioceses when they judged conditions safe. Faced, however, with
objections from Father John Cuddy, his superintendent of schools,
McDonough had abandoned the idea of issuing a statement. Nevertheless,
Hallinan persuaded his fellow bishops that they should individually issue
identical Lenten pastoral desegregation letters in their dioceses.27
Hallinan drafted the pastoral letter, which after incorporating changes
suggested by the two Georgia bishops, went to their respective priests on
February 15. Read from pulpits on Sunday February 19, the letter cited Jesus’
admonition that “you love one another,” the Declaration of Independence,
and a November 1958 statement by the United States Catholic bishops condemning segregation, before explaining that Catholic schools would desegregate “as soon as this can be done with safety to the children and the schools”
and “not later than the public schools are open to all pupils.” The letter added,
“The Negro schools will be continued as long as there is need for them. Their
purpose is to teach and reach the Negro, not to segregate him.”28
26. “Catholic Negro Co-Ed Walks Tight Rope In Integration of Georgia University,”
Alamo Messenger, January 20, 1961, 1, 7; Bartley, New South, 250, 253; Thomas J. Shelley,
Paul J. Hallinan: First Archbishop of Atlanta (Wilmington, DE, 1989), 121–22; “The Image of
Georgia,” The Bulletin, January 21, 1961, 4 (quotation).
27. Paul J. Hallinan to Thomas J. McDonough, January 18, 1961, Paul J. Hallinan to
Martin C. Murphy, February 7, 1961, folder 720.3, no box, Archives of the Diocese of
Charleston, Charleston, South Carolina (hereafter cited as ADC); Shelley, Paul J. Hallinan, 122.
28. Hallinan to McDonough, January 18, 1961; Hallinan to Murphy, February 7,
1961; Paul J. Hallinan to John E. Kelly, February 15, 1961, folder 720.3, no box, ADC; Francis E. Hyland to Paul J. Hallinan, January 25, February 10, 1961, folder 49, box 036/6, AAA;
McDonough pastoral letter, February 15, 1961, 1–4 (first quotation on p. 1; second, third,
and fourth quotations on 3).

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297

Two days later, McDonough wrote, “I have already received much
abuse because of the statement I made.” However, he also received a few
supportive messages. Dr. and Mrs. Carl R. Jordan of Savannah, an African
American couple, telegraphed McDonough their congratulations and
assured him that “You can count on the Jordan family all the way.” Hyland
and Hallinan also received some support alongside negative responses.29
In comments to the Savannah Morning News, Cuddy played down the
prospects of parochial school desegregation. He argued that because of the
quality of black Catholic schools, “it is very possible that no Negro will ever
apply to enter a white Catholic school here.” Cuddy added that even after
public schools desegregated, a Catholic school located in an area undergoing racial strife might not desegregate. He said that his parishioners at St.
Michael’s, a white church in Savannah Beach (Tybee Island), had “mixed
emotions” about the pastoral letter, but there had been “no really violent
reaction.”30
Although the pastoral letter had promised that the Diocese of Savannah would prepare Catholics for desegregation by educating them in
“Catholic teaching on racial justice” by means of “Pastoral letters, sermons,
study clubs and school instruction,” no action followed. By contrast, Hallinan launched an educative program in his Charleston diocese. Atlanta
was the only one of the three dioceses facing federal court-ordered public
school desegregation. In April 1961, Bishop Hyland claimed that “Due to
illness, brought on principally by the racial issue, I have not been able to do
anything beyond the issuance of the pastoral letter” including holding “a
scheduled meeting with Bishop Hallinan and Bishop McDonough, to
compare notes.” When Atlanta began public school desegregation in
September 1961, the diocese’s Catholic schools remained segregated.31
The Diocese of Savannah offered no educational program in race relations, but Monsignor T. James McNamara represented the diocese on a com29. Dr. and Mrs. Carl R. Jordan telegram to Thomas J. McDonough, February 20,
1961 (second quotation), Kathleen M. Hardy telegram to Thomas J. McDonough, February
20, 1961, Thomas J. McDonough to Mrs. Francis Percival McIntire, February 21, 1961 (first
quotation), folder 10, box 24, ADS; Shelley, Paul J. Hallinan, 124–26.
30. “Catholic Bishop Orders Integration Readiness,” Savannah Morning News, February 20, 1961, 5B (quotations), 8B.
31. McDonough pastoral letter, February 15, 1961, 3 (first and second quotations);
Claude Sitton, “Catholic Bishops Vow Integration,” New York Times, February 20, 1961, 28;
Francis E. Hyland to L. J. Twomey, April 3, 1961 (third and fourth quotations), folder 8, box
21, Louis J. Twomey Papers, Special Collections and Archives, Loyola University Library,
Loyola University New Orleans; Sarratt, Ordeal of Desegregation, 279.

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THE D IOCESE OF SAVANNAH AND DESEGREGATION

mittee of civic and religious leaders, formed at Mayor Malcolm Maclean’s
urging by Albert R. Stuart, Episcopalian Bishop of Georgia, to negotiate
lunch counter desegregation. An agreement reached in October 1961 made
Savannah the first city in Georgia to desegregate lunch counters.32
By contrast, the Diocese of Savannah continued segregated institutions. In February 1962, Benjamin Muse, a white Catholic convert from
Manassas, Virginia, visited the dioceses of Atlanta, Charleston, and Savannah on behalf of the SRC to report on their efforts toward implementing
their pastoral letters of a year before. Muse found that “little or no progress
had been made in the dioceses of Savannah and Atlanta.” Bishop Hyland,
he noted, had retired in October 1961 after “a nervous breakdown, in
which the failure of Catholic schools to desegregate along with public
schools was to some extent both cause and effect.”33
Muse found that Savannah diocesan school superintendent Cuddy
“talked very much like a restrained Southern segregationist and only
grudgingly conceded that segregation was wrong and should be ended.”
Cuddy claimed that no African Americans had applied for admission to
white Catholic schools, although Bishop McDonough told Muse that four
black students had applied in Savannah and one in Albany. Muse reported
that McDonough was “deeply conscious of the wrongness of race discrimination and segregation . . . troubled over his inability to move forward”
and “obsessed with the difficulties and ‘danger’ in this field.” When Atlanta
got a new bishop, McDonough said the three dioceses’ prelates “should get
together and see where we are in this matter.” In February 1962, the Vatican appointed Paul J. Hallinan as the first Archbishop of Atlanta, and, in
June, he announced that the archdiocese’s parochial schools would desegregate in September. The Very Reverend Harold J. Rainey, chancellor of
the archdiocese, told the press that the decision did not apply to the Diocese of Savannah.34
32. “Mediation—Savannah, Georgia, Summer 1963,” 3–4, folder 1, box 25, ADS;
Tuck, “A City Too Dignified to Hate,” 542–43, 546–47, 552.
33. Andrew J. McDonald to Henry Cabirac Jr., July 30, 1962, folder 15, box 1,
Catholic Council on Human Relations Papers, Amistad Research Center; Benjamin Muse,
memorandum “The 1961 Desegregation Initiative of the Catholic Bishops of Charleston,
Savannah and Atlanta,” March 2, 1962, 1–4 (first quotation on p. 1; second quotation on 4),
folder 4, box 5, series 33, NCCIJR.
34. Muse, memorandum “The 1961 Desegregation Initiative of the Catholic Bishops
of Charleston, Savannah and Atlanta,” March 2, 1962, 3–4 (first quotation on 3; second, third
and fourth quotations on 4); “Move Won’t Affect Savannah Schools,” Savannah Morning
News, press clipping, June 11, 1962, vertical file “Integration—Chatham County,” Savannah

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However, in 1963, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered
Chatham County Board of Education to begin desegregation of at least one
grade of public schools in September. In response, McDonough announced
in a pastoral letter on June 23 that Catholic elementary and high schools
would desegregate all grades in September. The bishop explained that he
had consulted “with priests and teachers in all parts of the Diocese over the
past few months, [and] they have concurred unanimously with my decision.” By informing pastors that “Only Catholic negro children will be
accepted” in white schools, McDonough ensured that school desegregation
would be limited and less likely to produce significant white opposition.35
The bishop told the press, “I am confident that most of our people will
receive this decision in good grace.” The few extant letters in the diocese’s
archives from Catholics on the subject are mostly congratulatory. Florence
M. Fox of Savannah expressed her happiness and pride, telling
McDonough that his action “may even make it a little easier for the other
[public] schools to put aside their pride and prejudice and do likewise.”
Even some Catholics who opposed McDonough’s decision were prepared
to accept it. White layman Philip R. Viviani of Macon wrote, “I will abide
and accept your decision only because of my children. Their education and
welfare are more important than my feelings in this matter.” McDonough
replied that he had followed his “conscience” and expressed “deep regret I
was unable to announce this decision several years ago.”36
At the time of the pastoral letter’s release, the city of Savannah was
experiencing a pause for negotiations after more than two weeks of civil
rights demonstrations that demanded desegregation of movie theaters,
hotels, motels, and restaurants. Mayor Maclean once more asked Bishop
Stuart to involve the city’s clergy in efforts to reach a settlement. A meeting
in Stuart’s office of five white laity, five African American leaders and five
white clergymen, including McDonough, designated the five clergy to visit
Public Library, Savannah, Georgia; Claude Sitton, “Atlanta’s Catholic Schools to Integrate
in September,” New York Times, June 11, 1962, 1.
35. Sarratt, Ordeal of Desegregation, 188–89, 243–45; Thomas J. McDonough to “Reverend and dear Father,” June 21, 1963 (second quotation), folder 2, box 25, ADS; “Diocesan
Schools Adopt Open Admissions Policy” and Thomas J. McDonough, pastoral letter, Southern Cross, June 29, 1963, 1 (first quotation); “Catholics to Integrate Schools in September,”
Savannah Morning News, June 24, 1963, 6B, 8B.
36. “Catholics to Integrate Schools in September,” 8B (first quotation); Florence M.
Fox to Thomas J. McDonough (second quotation), n.d., Philip R. Viviani to Thomas J.
McDonough, June 24, 1963 (third quotation), Thomas J. McDonough to Philip R. Viviani,
July 1, 1963 (fourth and fifth quotations), folder 2, box 25, ADS.

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THE D IOCESE OF SAVANNAH AND DESEGREGATION

businesses that had not desegregated. At the request of more moderate
black clergy, McDonough persuaded Hosea Williams of the Chatham
County Crusade for Voters, an offshoot of the NAACP, to call off the
demonstrations. McDonough also tried unsuccessfully to get the restaurant owners to desegregate. Negotiations at City Hall between the main
parties proved fruitless.37
The Catholic Church still enjoyed a degree of trust and influence in
Savannah’s black community. St. Pius X High School provided one of few
places where African Americans could hold mass civil rights rallies. And at
least one Catholic priest, Father William V. Coleman, a Connecticut
native and rector of Saint John Vianney Minor Seminary in Grimball’s
Point, attended other civil rights meetings in Savannah.38
Renewed civil rights protests brought clashes with police and rock
throwing. In response, thirty-one clergy, including McDonough, Stuart,
and Bishop John Owen Smith of the South Georgia Methodist Conference, issued an interdenominational statement calling for a return to peace
and order, and resumption of negotiations to ensure that “recognition and
guarantees be given to the rights of all citizens.” The Catholic signatories
included Monsignor Andrew J. McDonald, chancellor of the Diocese of
Savannah, Monsignor T. James McNamara, Father Raymond Bane,
S.M.A., pastor of St. Benedict’s, and Monsignor John D. Toomey, diocesan pastor of St. James Church. The Southern Cross, a weekly diocesan
newspaper started by McDonough in 1963, appealed for “peace with justice for all men” and condemned what it described as “rioting and violence”
in the city. With McDonough’s permission, Toomey also took action to
resolve the crisis by trying to mediate a settlement39 (Figure 3).
Toomey was a native Georgian, a cradle Catholic who had been born
in Augusta in 1914. His insider status as a white southerner, albeit a
Catholic, and his awareness of southern white sensibilities enabled him to
communicate effectively. Toomey found the city’s business community,
experiencing falling sales, receptive. After the businessmen appointed two
37. “Mediation—Savannah, Georgia, Summer 1963,” 4–6; Henry Cabirac to Jack
Sisson, September 20, 1963, folder 7, box 1, series 33, NCCIJR.
38. “Fr. Coleman Named Pastor,” Southern Cross, January 22, 1970, 1; Foskett, Judging
Thomas, 73, 76, 78.
39. Tuck, “A City Too Dignified to Hate,” 547; “Racial Peace Hopes Grow,” Savannah
Evening Press, July 13, 1963, 1, 8 (first quotation); “Racial Peace Is Everybody’s Job,” Southern
Cross, July 18, 1963, 1; “In Search of Peace,” Southern Cross, July 18, 1963 (second and third
quotations); “Mediation—Savannah, Georgia, Summer 1963,” 4.

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FIGURE 3. Msgr. John Downy Toomey (1914–70), pastor of Sacred Heart of Jesus
Church, Milledgeville (1949–56), pastor of Saint James Church, Savannah (1956–
69), pastor of St. Joseph Church, Macon (1969–d. 70). Courtesy of the Diocese of
Savannah Archives & Records Management Office.

negotiating committees, they included Toomey as the sole clergyman in
the negotiations, which produced a comprehensive downtown desegregation agreement. Implemented by October 1, 1963, the agreement preceded
the federal Civil Rights Act desegregating public accommodations by ten
months. The New York Times credited the Catholic Church with playing “a
major role in bringing representatives of the white and Negro communities
to the negotiating table” and praised Toomey as “an unsung hero,” who
had taken the leading role in the negotiations.40
In September 1963, twenty African Americans enrolled in the twelfth
grade of two white Savannah public schools as Chatham County began
school desegregation under federal court order. The fifteen blacks who joined
40. “Death Claims Msgr. Toomey,” Southern Cross, January 1, 1970, 1; “Mediation Savannah, Georgia, Summer 1963,” 6–7; “Racial Peace Is Everybody’s Job,” 1; M. S. Handler, “Savannah Truce Shaped by Priest,” New York Times, August 4, 1963, 64 (second quotation); M. S. Handler, “Savannah is Calm Over Integration,” New York Times, September 2,
1963, 6 (first quotation); Homer Bigart, “ Savannah is Tranquil,” New York Times, July 19,
1964, p. 1; untitled, August 1, 1963, folder 5, box 1, A. Pratt Adams, Jr., Collection, Georgia
Historical Society, Savannah, Georgia; Thomas J. McDonough to Henry Cabirac, August 2,
1963, folder 4, box 5, series 33, NCCIJR; Tuck, “A City Too Dignified to Hate,” 542.

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THE D IOCESE OF SAVANNAH AND DESEGREGATION

Savannah High School were spat on, attacked, and met with the chant,
“Two, four, six eight, we don’t want to integrate.” At the same time, ten
African American children enrolled in formerly white Catholic schools in
the city of Savannah, and twenty-seven blacks joined other previously white
parochial schools elsewhere in the diocese. McDonough wrote to Hallinan,
“The desegregation of our Catholic Schools took place without any unpleasant incident.” However, McDonough noted that “Some of our Catholic
White parents have withdrawn their children in opposition to our present
policy. Thanks be to God, however, the numbers were very few—but very
vocal.”41 The largest contingent of African Americans, numbering fifteen,
enrolled in St. Teresa School, a grammar school and Albany’s only Catholic
school with an overall enrollment of five hundred students. Father Martin
Bangert, O.F.M., pastor of St. Clare Negro Mission, wrote soon after, “The
first P.T.A. meeting has already been held on an integrated basis. Some of
the Negro parents have been appointed or elected to head some of the school
committees. All the Negro children love the school, feel right at home in it,
and seem to be doing well.” However, McDonough, Bangert noted, had
faced opposition, “Many nasty letters and phone calls were received by him
[McDonough]. Some from crackpots, fallen away Catholics, etc.”42
Despite desegregation of their enrollment, the former white schools
that had admitted African Americans did not integrate them into athletics
and school dances. While complete integration in schools remained the
goal, in November 1963 Cuddy explained, “At the present moment, it
seems that our policy is to allow each high school to work out whatever
program it can with its own problems in its own community.” Cuddy also
noted that although the diocese’s Catholic Youth Organization “has been
integrated for several years . . . it still arranges separate white and Negro
dance programs at its annual diocesan convention.”43
African American and white Catholic adults remained largely separate
from one another. In 1964, the newly formed John F. Kennedy Council of
41. Tuck, “A City Too Dignified to Hate,” 539 (first quotation); Handler, “Savannah
is Calm Over Integration,” 6; Jack [Sisson], memorandum to Matt [Ahmann] “Albany, Ga.
(Savannah diocese),” September 8, 1964, folder 2, box 4, series 33, NCCIJR; Thomas J.
McDonough to Paul J. Hallinan, September 5, 1963 (second and third quotations), folder 1,
box 25, ADS.
42. Father Martin, “Operation Understanding,” n.d., 1–2 (first quotation on p. 1;
second quotation on p. 2), folder 2, box 4, series 33, NCCIJR; Memorandum, Jack [Sisson]
to Matt [Ahmann], "Albany, Ga. (Savannah diocese)," September 8, 1964, folder 2, box 4,
series 33, NCCIJR; "Georgia School to Integrate,” New York Times, September 1, 1963, 41.
43. John Cuddy to “Dear Fleming,” November 17, 1963, folder 707.1, no box, ADC.

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the Knights of Columbus, the Augusta chapter of a national Catholic
laymen’s benevolent and fraternal organization whose councils tended to
reject black applicants, became the first council in the state to admit blacks
and enrolled seven African Americans. However, most Catholic bodies in
the diocese remained unwilling to act ahead of secular desegregation.44
In May 1964, the Southern Cross called on U.S. Congressmen “to stop
letting themselves be bullied by racists in the Senate and out” and pass the
civil rights bill originally proposed by President John F. Kennedy, which
the editorial endorsed as “designed to protect the God-given and constitutionally guaranteed rights presently denied most of America’s 20,000,000
Negroes.” After the bill’s enactment in July, thirty-nine of Savannah’s
Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish clergymen published a full page paid
statement in the city’s two daily newspapers. The statement commended
the new law’s intention “to guarantee the rights and insure the justice due
to every person without discrimination.” Signatories included
McDonough, McDonald, McNamara, Toomey, Father Francis Donohue,
the editor of the Southern Cross, and several other Catholic priests.45
The Diocese of Savannah desegregated more institutions after the
Civil Rights Act, including the Savannah Deanery Council of Catholic
Women and the annual retreat for Catholic laymen held at Camp Villa
Marie on the campus of Saint John Vianney Minor Seminary. Coleman
insisted that the seminary desegregate following the bill’s passage. It
admitted two African American students, Richard Chisolm and Clarence
Thomas, in the fall. However, their experience demonstrated that desegregation was not the same as integration, which presumed a reciprocal relationship among equals. White students refused to sit by their black classmates at meal times, ignored them during the day, and racially taunted
them in their dormitories at night. Thomas recalled, “It was hard because
it was white. You still had a society that said you weren’t supposed to do
the same things white people did.” White student Mark Everson later
admitted, “Some of us were real racist jerks to him.” Tired of his treatment,
44. “K. of C. ‘Invites’ Qualified Negroes,” press clipping, February 1964, SC-1-102043, Knights of Columbus Supreme Council Archives, New Haven, Connecticut; “Southern Field Service Report for November 1963 through September, 1964—A Survey of Activities; and General Observations,” folder 8, box 4, series 30, NCCIJR.
45. “Civil Rights and the Great Commandment,” Southern Cross, May 28, 1964, 1 (first
and second quotations); John D. Toomey to “Reverend and Dear Father,” July 10, 1964,
folder 3, box 25, ADS; “A Statement to the Citizens of Savannah and Chatham County”
(third quotation), Savannah Morning News, July 8, 1964, 8 and Savannah Evening News, July
8, 1964, 3A.

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THE D IOCESE OF SAVANNAH AND DESEGREGATION

Chisolm left at the end of his freshman year in 1965. Thomas, now the
seminary’s sole black student, graduated in 1967 and left the South.46
In June 1965, Coleman, who tutored Thomas, wrote a column in the
Southern Cross in which he claimed that “the overwhelming majority of their
[the civil rights movement’s] responsible demands are clearly in line with
their dignity as God’s children.” Reader Philip R. Viviani replied that the
movement’s demonstrations produced violence and its “constant griping
and moaning only alienates many white people.” Furthermore, he insisted
that the movement was “riddled with Communist elements.” Wade M.
Simmons, an African American Catholic from Savannah, responded: “The
average Negro has never received and is not receiving what he is entitled to
legally,” and he argued that “demonstrations and violence” were “the only
ways, as long as the entrenched White resists the legal and Christian methods which Negro people have used for the past fifty years.”47
In June 1965, five of the six bishops of the Province of Atlanta, representing the dioceses of Atlanta, Charleston, Miami, Raleigh, and Savannah, and Charles B. McLaughlin, Auxiliary Bishop of Raleigh, issued a
joint pastoral letter that supported civil rights. Inspired by the Second Vatican Council, held in Rome between 1962 and 1965, that emphasized the
Church’s duty to address the world’s problems, the letter condemned “The
denial to Negroes of decent housing, education and job opportunities, and
even the right to vote” and claimed that “Every man is morally due the
blessings of liberty and justice.”48
In August 1965, days after African Americans had rioted in the Watts
section of Los Angeles after a clash with police, Monsignor Toomey, a
member of the Georgia Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on
Civil Rights, published an open letter to Martin Luther King Jr. in the
Southern Cross. Referring to the riot, Toomey wrote, “it is still wrong to dis46. “Villa Marie Retreat,” Southern Cross, September 3, 1964, 3; John P. Sisson to Francis Donohue, October 9, 1964, folder 4, box 5, series 33, NCCIJR; Foskett, Judging Thomas,
73–75, 78–79 (second quotation on p. 79), 81 (first quotation), 83, 85, 87–88.
47. Foskett, Judging Thomas, 85; William V. Coleman, “On Courage,” Southern Cross,
June 3, 1965, 4 (first quotation); Philip R. Viviani to the Southern Cross, June 17, 1965, 5
(second and third quotations); Wade M. Simmons to the Southern Cross, August 5, 1965, 5
(fourth, fifth, and sixth quotations).
48. “Pentecost Statement by Bishops of Province,” Southern Cross, June 3, 1965, 4. A
critic of the civil rights movement, Archbishop Joseph P. Hurley of St. Augustine, the sixth
prelate, did not sign the statement. On Hurley’s opposition to the movement, see Charles R.
Gallagher, “The Catholic Church, Martin Luther King Jr., and the March in St. Augustine,”
Florida Historical Quarterly, 83 (Fall 2004), 149–72.

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obey the law, to flout authority, to kill, to injure and to steal.” He appealed
to King to “take your peace mission to Los Angeles immediately,” rather
than have his organization, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference,
expend its efforts assisting local civil rights campaigns in Georgia. Toomey
did not mention that most of the thirty-four people who died in Watts were
African Americans killed by police and National Guardsmen.49
In response, Father Timothy O’Dwyer, S.M.A. of St. Pius X High
School wrote that in view of the continuance of segregation despite its abolition in law, “Let the white legislators show as much respect for law as they
request the Negro to have.” W. W. Law, president of the Savannah
NAACP, declared that Toomey had been silent about recent civil rights
related murders in Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi, and had not joined
civil rights protests in Savannah. Toomey, Laws wrote, should urge Cardinal Francis McIntyre of Los Angeles to lift his ban on clergy involvement
in the civil rights struggle or preaching on the issue.50
Although Catholic clergy differed in their responses to the civil rights
movement, by September 1965 the Diocese of Savannah had reportedly
desegregated all of its diocesan facilities. In January 1967, McDonough
wrote that “many parishioners who attended formerly so-called Negro
parishes are now being identified with so-called white parishes.” However,
a year later, Monsignor Andrew J. McDonald, acting as diocesan administrator, noted that older African Americans “are not inclined to make
changes” and preferred to stay in black churches. The diocese’s leaders interpreted desegregation largely as meaning African Americans joining formerly white institutions rather than whites also attending traditionally black
schools and churches. The diocese’s closure of Immaculate Conception
High School in Augusta in 1967 provided the first indication that desegregation would mostly entail the sacrifice of black Catholic institutions.51
49. John D. Toomey, “An Open Letter to Dr. Martin Luther King,” Southern Cross,
August 19, 1965, 6 (quotations); Harvard Sitkoff, The Struggle for Black Equality, 1954–1992
(New York, 1993), 185–87.
50. Timothy O’Dwyer to the Southern Cross, September 2, 1965, 5 (quotation); W. W.
Law to Monsignor John D. Toomey, Southern Cross, September 2, 1965, 5; Andria Segedy,
“St. Pius X history: Savannah churches, community opened doors to classical education during
segregation,” September 17, 2018, retrieved March 2, 2020 from https://www.savannahnow.
com/entertainmentlife/20180915/st-pius-x-history-savannah-churches-community-openeddoors-to-classical-education-during-segregation+&cd=6&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk.
51. Gerard E. Sherry, “Racial Justice, Racial Progress Divides Georgians,” N.C.W.C.
News Service, September 3, 1965, folder “Georgia,” box 45282.02, Subject Files—Hallinan,
AAA; Our Negro and Indian Missions, January 1967, 12–14 (first quotation), January 1968,

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THE D IOCESE OF SAVANNAH AND DESEGREGATION

While the diocese no longer segregated its institutions as policy, many
white Catholics had not accepted the change. In October 1966, the Southern Cross noted, “There are many Catholics who have chosen to ignore the
Church’s clear teaching on the subject [of segregation].” But there was also
some degree of acceptance. In 1967, the Savannah Diocesan Council of
Catholic Men unanimously adopted resolutions that supported open housing and called for the elimination of de facto segregation in public and
Catholic schools.52
Much like in other southern cities, such as Richmond, Virginia, and
Atlanta, many whites, including Catholics, responded to public school
desegregation, fear of crime, and a desire for better homes by leaving
Savannah for surrounding areas within commuting distance, such as west
Chatham County and growing suburbs in Effingham and Bryan counties.
As a result, residential segregation increasingly undermined the diocese’s
efforts to integrate its institutions.53
The issue of how to eliminate de facto black and white Catholic
schools fell to Gerard L. Frey, installed as Bishop of Savannah in August
1967. Born in New Orleans in 1914, Frey had spent his life in the Archdiocese of New Orleans and came to his new diocese supportive of civil
rights and determined to oversee the completion of diocesan desegregation. Within a few months, Frey began transferring black parishes from
religious orders to diocesan priests, hoping, he said, to “make our Negro
Catholics believe us when we tell them that no distinctions are made in
their regard, as far as the Church is concerned.”54
12–14 (second quotation), ASSJ; DeLorme, “Grounded in History.” Staffed by the Sisters of
the Third Order of Saint Francis, Allegany, New York, Our Lady Queen of Peace School in
Lakeland closed in 1966, when the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, who ran Our Lady Queen
of Peace Parish, withdrew. Brown et al. comp., One Faith, One Family, 133, 332; Lockard
email to author, January 8, 2020.
52. “Perplexing Election,” Southern Cross, October 27, 1966, 4 (quotation); “Savannah
Council Backs Integration and Open Housing,” Georgia Bulletin, October 19, 1967, 5.
53. Lesley Conn, “A diverse and divided city,” Savannah Morning News, January 30,
2011, retrieved February 25, 2020 from https://www.savannahnow.com/article/20110130/
news/301309894+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk; Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and
the Making of Modern Conservatism (Princeton and Oxford, 2005), 234–51; Robert A. Pratt,
The Color of Their Skin: Education and Race in Richmond, Virginia, 1954–89 (Charlottesville,
1992); Hamilton Lombard, “Richmond’s quiet transformation,” April 7, 2015, retrieved
March 2, 2020 from http://statchatva.org/2015/04/07/richmonds-quiet-transformation/.
54. “Bishop Named to Post,” Savannah Evening News, November 7, 1972, 15; “Bishop
Gerard Louis Frey,” retrieved March 2, 2020 from http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/
bishop/bfrey.html; “Bishop Frey to Remove ‘Division,’” Savannah Morning News, May 18,

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Sr. Mary Ursula, provincial of the Missionary Franciscan Sisters of the
Immaculate Conception, warned Frey in July 1968 that the order would
withdraw from St. Pius X High School “if, after serious efforts have been
made to integrate the school, it would continue on a segregated basis or
with merely a token form of integration.” The provincial suggested that the
school be consolidated with white Catholic schools by September 1969. In
May 1969, a study by the University of Notre Dame, commissioned by the
diocese to examine means of desegregating the city of Savannah’s Catholic
schools, recommended closing St. Pius X and building a new a “diocesan
coeducational” high school centrally in the city, or converting Saint John
Vianney Minor Seminary into such a school. The report also called for the
closing of two other African American Catholic schools, St. Benedict’s and
St. Anthony’s and the enrolment of their students in other Catholic schools.
The report found that St. Benedict’s had become a “fire hazard” that was too
expensive to repair. The diocese closed St. Benedict’s and St. Anthony’s
schools during the 1969–1970 school year, but took no action regarding St.
Pius X, most likely because of determined opposition from the school’s faculty and parents, although parishioners had also protested against the closure of the other schools. In Augusta, the withdrawal of the Sisters of Mercy
who staffed Sacred Heart, a white school, forced its closure in 1969 as no
replacement order could be found amid a general decline in vocations in the
second half of the 1960s. Despite objections from some white parents, a
special committee decided that Sacred Heart’s students should attend
Immaculate Conception, an African American grade school.55
The state’s public schools did not offer a promising alternative for
those Catholic parents who wanted to evade desegregation. In January
1970, a federal court ordered public schools in Macon and some other
school districts in the diocese to desegregate fully and immediately. Fearing that whites might try to enroll in Catholic schools in order to evade
public school desegregation, Frey ordered the diocese’s schools to be alert
to that possibility and “remain most sensitive to the applicant’s motivation.” He affirmed that “we certainly do not want any students, Catholic or

1968, 5B (quotation); John P. Sisson to Harold R. Perry, July 23, 1968, folder 9, box 11,
series 34, NCCIJR.
55. Sister Mary Ursula to Gerard L. Frey, July 28, 1968 (first quotation), folder 7, box
19, ADS; “Report of Survey of Chatham Catholic Schools,” Southern Cross, June 5, 1969, 2,
8 (third quotation); “Report of Survey of Chatham Catholic Schools,” Southern Cross, June 19,
1969, 3 (second quotation); “School Phase-Out To Be Completed,” Southern Cross, April 16,
1970, 1; Edward J. Cashin, The Story of Sacred Heart (Augusta, GA, 1987), 23; Our Negro and
Indian Missions, January 1971, 7–20, ASSJ.

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THE D IOCESE OF SAVANNAH AND DESEGREGATION

FIGURE 4. Saint Pius X High School, Savannah, Georgia (1952–71). Courtesy of
the Diocese of Savannah Archives & Records Management Office.

non-Catholic, who apply simply because of racial reasons.” Many whites,
historian Andrew M. Manis explains, responded to public school desegregation by relocating to Macon’s “northern and western suburbs in Bibb
County”56 (Figure 4).
In February 1970, the diocese announced that St. Pius X High
School would be phased out by September 1971 and its students and faculty amalgamated with two white schools, Benedictine Military School,
for boys, and St. Vincent’s Academy, for girls, “in order to effect more
meaningful integration within the Savannah Catholic Schools.” All but
one member of the St. Pius faculty and the majority of its board
responded by issuing a statement of dissent, while agreeing that “integration is the ideal for which the church must strive.” A meeting of two hundred St. Pius X parents, faculty, and students objected not to integration
but to the closure of their school. They also expressed concerns about
higher tuition costs in and transportation to the other two schools, regretted that they were single-sex, and worried that as religious orders ran the
schools they were outside diocesan control. A majority of St. Pius X parents and students favored integration, but they objected to its one-sided
56. Gerard L. Frey, “School Enrollment,” Clergy Bulletin, 4 (January 9, 1970), 221
(first quotation), folder 2, box 18, ADS; “Church Officials Back Chatham Desegregation,”
Southern Cross, June 3, 1971, 1; Manis, Macon in Black and White, 8 (second quotation), 311,
315–16.

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309

implementation and felt pride in and attachment to the school. One
mother commented, “Has the Bishop noticed that when black students go
to white schools, the white students run from them? Let the white students come here. We will accept them.”57
A poll of St. Pius X’s Catholic students found them overwhelmingly
against closing black schools to achieve integration immediately. Concern
about school closings may have contributed to divided support for integration itself. Forty-seven students supported immediate school integration,
with twenty-three against and twenty-four not sure, while twenty-one
agreed, sixty-six disagreed and nine were not sure that predominantly black
schools should close to facilitate integration. Fear of acceptance in white
schools also likely contributed to opposition to and indecision about integration, because a large majority either disagreed or were not sure that St.
Vincent’s and Benedictine wanted more African American students. Led
by four adults, a group of fifty or sixty students from St. Pius X and Most
Pure Heart of Mary, a black elementary school, boycotted their classes and
marched to the chancery in protest at St. Pius X’s closing and to voice their
fears that the Most Pure Heart of Mary School might follow.58
By contrast, the diocese encountered objections from some white parents when Frey ordered an African American and a white elementary
school in Macon, St. Peter Claver and St. Joseph, to desegregate not by
compulsory transfer of students from one school to the other, but by filling
their vacancies to ensure a racially mixed student body. Some white parents
denied that integration was a moral issue and alleged that the plant and
teachers at St. Peter Claver were of inferior quality. The bishop and his
staff stood their ground, as they did regarding the closing of St. Pius X
High School. The two Macon schools opened on a desegregated basis in
September 1970.59
57. Consolidation for Catholic High Schools,” Southern Cross, February 12, 1970, 1
(first quotation); Timothy McLaughlin to the Southern Cross, March 5, 1970, 8; Nancy
Ancrum, “Church to Close St. Pius High; Move Debated,” Savannah Morning News, February 13, 1970, 1D (second and third quotations); “Public Statement,” attached to Fred Nijem
to Gerard L. Frey, February 13, 1970, folder 8, box 19, ADS; “St. Pius Closing Meetings
Planned,” Savannah Morning News, March 8, 1970, 1C, 2C.
58. “William V. Coleman, “A Survey of Student Background and Attitudes at Saint
Pius X High School, Savannah, Georgia,” 4–5, 7, folder 7, box 19, ADS; “Series of Meetings
on St. Pius Amalgamation,” Southern Cross, March 12, 1970, 1, 7; Ann Marshall, “Parents
Asked to Aid in Student Shift,” Savannah Morning News, March 14, 1970, 12B.
59. “Macon Area School Study Committee Meeting Summary,” March 23, 1970,
folder 2, box 18, William V. Coleman to “Dear Parishioner,” June 3, 1970, folder “Integra-

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THE D IOCESE OF SAVANNAH AND DESEGREGATION

In almost every other case, parochial school desegregation involved the
closing of African American schools, including eventually Savannah’s
Most Pure Heart of Mary School in 1977. Many of the children who had
attended black Catholic schools, most of them Protestant, enrolled in
newly desegregated public schools, which often offered better facilities and,
unlike Catholic schools, did not charge tuition. In January 1971, Frey
wrote, “In parochial life, there is also a tendency to integrate our facilities
but not to the extent as the schools.” While the diocese sometimes merged
black and white churches, in other cases black churches closed, including
Immaculate Conception in Augusta, Saint Clare in Albany, Saint Jerome
in Americus, and St. Francis in Valdosta. St. Benedict’s survived, most
likely because of its location in an African American populated area and
status as the mother church for African Americans in the city.60
In November 1972, the Vatican named Frey as Bishop of Lafayette,
Louisiana, where he was installed in January 1973. Frey had completed the
formal end of segregation in the Diocese of Savannah started by his predecessor McDonough. Fearful of arousing popular white opposition from
within and outside Catholic ranks, both bishops had tied diocesan desegregation to secular desegregation mandated by federal authorities. Implemented overwhelmingly at the cost of black Catholic institutions, diocesan
desegregation was one-sided and ignored the wishes of many African
Americans for desegregation based on reciprocity that would maintain at
least some historically black churches and schools. Many black Catholics
felt a lingering resentment and sadness about the way in which the diocese
acted. Many white Catholics, for their part, were as opposed to desegregation as many southern white Protestants and, likewise, sought to evade its
impact. While white segregationist opposition contributed significantly to
bishops implementing desegregation gradually and inequitably, their
approach also reflected a paternalist approach to black Catholics that
treated them as wards of the Church. The survival of St. Benedict’s Church
in Savannah, and the existence of five other predominantly African American churches, reflected less prelates’ sensitivity to black Catholic aspirations than the persistence of residential segregation, exacerbated by white
tion of Schools,” William V. Coleman, General Chancery Files, ADS; Brown, “Civil Rights
and Sister Mary Julian Griffin,” p. 149.
60. Our Negro and Indian Missions, January 1971, 7–20 (quotation), January 1973, 7–
11, ASSJ; McDonogh, Black and Catholic in Savannah, 127; Joe Heiterer, “3 Churches to be
Merged,” Augusta Chronicle, March 23, 1971, 1; Cashin, Story of Sacred Heart, 23–25; Reverend F. J. Donohue, “Holy Trinity Church Re-dedicated,” Southern Cross, September 13,
1973, 1; Brown, “Civil Rights and Sister Mary Julian Griffin,” 149.

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flight to the suburbs, and the desire of many black Catholics to attend their
traditional parishes even when they moved to other neighborhoods.61
The Diocese of Savannah illustrates the cautious approach that
Catholic bishops in the South adopted in desegregating their institutions,
and the unwillingness of most of the region’s prelates to act ahead of secular change, especially regarding schools. In Savannah and other southern
dioceses, bishops did not consult with and involve African Americans in
decision making about desegregation and its implementation, but black
Catholics were not passive. At a time when desegregation was not yet a
realistic possibility, they pressured the diocese to open, and helped raise
funds for, St. Pius X High School. They later tried in vain to save St. Pius
X, when the Diocese of Savannah, like many other southern dioceses,
closed some black institutions in the name of desegregation. Like in other
southern cities such as New Orleans, African American Catholics were
also active participants in the civil rights movement.
Scholars of Catholic desegregation in the United States South have
mostly focused on the actions of prelates and noteworthy priests, usually
from religious orders, but the experience of the Diocese of Savannah suggests that diocesan priests merit scrutiny as well. More attention is also
needed to the contributions of sisters (African American and white), and
African American laity both to secular and Catholic desegregation in the
South, which will undoubtedly yield further evidence of black Catholic initiative and activism. Building on participant-observer, Terri A. Dickerson’s study of New Orleans’ Catholic school desegregation, much work
also remains to be undertaken on the experience of African American children who desegregated parochial schools. The story of southern Catholicism and racial change is far from complete.62

61. “Savannah Bishop Named To Head Louisiana See,” Southern Cross, November 9,
1972, 1; Sister Mary of Victory O’Brien, I.H.H., “Bishop Gerard L. Frey,” in: Gillian Brown
et al. comp., One Faith, One Family, 145–47, here 147; McDonogh, Black and Catholic in
Savannah, 61–62, 132.
62. Terri A. Dickerson, “Lambs of God: The Untold Story of African American Children Who Desegregated Catholic Schools in New Orleans,” PhD diss. (George Mason University, 2017).

Ujamaa, Small Christian Communities,
and Moral Reform in Western Tanzania,
1960s–1990
SALVATORY S. NYANTO*
This article examines the efforts of Small Christian Communities (in
Kiswahili, Jumuiya Ndogo Ndogo za Kikristo) to carve out a separate
space of moral reform and regulation beyond the spheres of ujamaa and
state authority between the 1960s and 1990. These communities served
as platforms for expressing ideas and addressing social concerns arising
from members. They also controlled converts’ demeanors and adjudicated issues related to moral laxity, marriage conflicts, and conjugal
relations where ujamaa policies and the state had little to do with these
issues. Nonetheless, like ujamaa villages, Christian Communities faced
numerous challenges leading to the collapse of some of these communities in western Tanzania. This study builds on the scholarship which
provides a model for understanding historically and culturally constructed institutions within their specific settings to show how sociocultural and political environments shaped Christian Communities,
but also to understand the limits of ujamaa as well as its influence.
Keywords: Tanzanian Socialism (Ujamaa), Small Christian Communities, Moral Reform, Western Tanzania.
Introduction

O

n February 4, 2017, the United Republic of Tanzania marked the
fiftieth anniversary of the Arusha Declaration that issued the policy
document on Socialism and Self-reliance (Ujamaa na Kujitegemea) of February 4, 1967. Students, academics, and political parties organized public
forums and debates in commemoration of the anniversary to discuss,
* Salvatory S. Nyanto is a Lecturer in the Department of History at the University of
Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, email: ssnyanto@gmail.com. His research interests include: Religion and Empire, Christian-Muslim Relations, and Slavery and Missionaries in Western
Tanzania. For his publications, see https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=TU7fbkoAAA
AJ&hl=en, P. O. Box 35031, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The author is grateful for the constructive comments from all the three anonymous reviewers. Their comments and suggestions
have helped him to improve the arguments in this article.

312

SALVATORY S. NYANTO

313

among other things, the principles and relevance of the Arusha Declaration to contemporary Tanzanian society. Nonetheless these public forums
hardly discussed the responses of religious communities to ujamaa and the
anti-sectarian nature of ujamaa and the state.1 This study is not a faithful
reflection of ujamaa values, but an attempt to demonstrate one religious
community’s efforts, that is, the Catholic Small Christian Communities
(Jumuiya Ndogo Ndogo za Kikristo), to carve out a separate space of moral
reform and regulation beyond the spheres of ujamaa and state authority.
Very often, Christian Communities controlled converts’ demeanors and
adjudicated issues related to moral laxity, marriage conflicts, and conjugal
relations where ujamaa policies and the state had little to do with these
issues. The study uses the Catholic Christian Communities as an illustrative case to understand the limits of ujamaa as well as its influence.
To tell this story of the influence and limitations of Small Christian
Communities, this article relies on church records deposited in the
archives of the archdiocese of Tabora in western Tanzania. Church
records include reports and correspondence about the development of
communities in missions and village outstations. They provide glimpses
into understanding the structure, functions, successes, and challenges
Christians encountered in these communities. The article also uses party
records of the Chama cha Mapinduzi (CCM) deposited in the archives of
the party in Dodoma, and parliamentary proceedings (Hansard) and the
newspapers of the 1960s deposited in the University of Dar es Salaam
main library. These sources provide the socio-political and cultural contexts of the 1960s and the 1970s which shaped major developments in
Tanzania. This study supplements church records, government records,
and newspapers with secondary sources about ujamaa and dissident politics in the country in the 1960s. Nevertheless, time and resource constraints hindered consulting sources about the development of Small
Christian Communities in Kenya and Uganda. These sources would have
provided a comparative overview of Christian Communities in countries
which did not experience socialism.
A considerable number of studies have challenged the policies of the
Tanzanian ujamaa as ambitious projects of nation building and rural development. Their analyses show that the state was at the center of managing,
1. Jackline Masinde, “ACT Yaandaa Kongamano la Azimio la Arusha,” Mwananchi,
Sunday, February 5, 2017, Kongamano la Miaka 50 ya Azimio la Arusha-You Tube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1IQ_led-CY, uploaded by Humphrey Polepole, February 3, 2017.

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UJAMAA AND SMALL CHRISTIAN COMMUNITIES

controlling, and directing the development efforts in rural communities.
Accordingly, the centrality of the state makes rural communities objects of
political and social control in the spheres of daily life.2 Increasingly, however, scholarship has departed from focus on the centrality of state authority to examine its failures and the negative consequences in rural communities.3 A few studies have gone beyond examining the failures of the
policies to show how rural communities not only became creative and
active intermediaries of global and local political dynamics, but also created
a separate space in which families would act beyond ujamaa and state
authority. In so doing, families offered “refuge from state” and became “a
contingent social resource and survival strategy” for household members to
forge the “multiple meanings” of ujamaa, self-reliance, and development.4
This study builds on the existing scholarship about ujamaa and state
authority to show how Christian Communities carved out a separate space
of moral reform and regulation beyond the spheres of ujamaa, state
authority, and global discourses that were in play in rural communities. By
situating the study within the context of the 1960s and 1970s in Tanzania,
the study builds on the scholarship on Tanzania and East Africa that provides a model for understanding historically constructed institutions
2. See for instance, Lionel Cliffe and John Saul, Socialism in Tanzania: An Interdisciplinary Reader, Volume 2 (Nairobi, 1973); Cranford Pratt, The Critical phase in Tanzania 1945–
1968: Nyerere and the emergence of a Socialist Strategy (London, 1976), 172; Jannik Boesen,
et.al., Ujamaa: Socialism from Above (Uppsala, 1977); Zaki Ergas, “Why did the Ujamaa Village Policy Fail? Towards a Global Analysis,” Journal of Modern African Studies, 18.3 (1980),
387–404; and Michael Jennings, “‘We Must Run While Others Walk’: Popular Participation
and Development Crisis in Tanzania, 1961–1969,” Journal of Modern African Studies, 41. 2
(2003), 171–86. See also Surrogates of State: NGO, Development, and Ujamaa in Tanzania
(Bloomfield, 2008), 60–64; Mathew V. Bender, “‘For More and Better Water, Choose Pipes’:
Building Water and the Nation on Kilimanjaro, 1961–1985,” Journal of Southern African Studies, 43. 4 (December, 2008), 842–43.
3. Goran Hayden, Beyond Ujamaa in Tanzania: Underdevelopment and Uncaptured
Peasantry (Berkley, 1980), 146; Phil Raikes, “Eating the Carrot and Wielding the Stick: the
Agricultural Sector in Tanzania,” in: Tanzania Crisis and Struggle for Survival, ed. Jannik
Boesen (Uppsala, 1986); Leander Schneider, “Developmentalism and Its Failings: Why Rural
Development Went Wrong in 1970s Tanzania” (doctoral dissertation, Columbia, 2003),
216–24.
4. James L. Giblin, A History of the Excluded: Making Family a Refuge from State in
Twentieth Century Tanzania (Oxford, 2006); Paul Bjerk, Building a Peaceful Nation: Julius
Nyerere and the Establishment of Sovereignty in Tanzania, 1960–1964 (Rochester, 2015); Priya
Lal, “Militants, Mothers, and the National Family: Ujamaa, Gender, and Rural Development
in Postcolonial Tanzania,” Journal of African History, 51 (2010), 2; “Self-Reliance and the
State: The Multiple Meanings of Development in Early Post-colonial Tanzania,” Africa: The
Journal of the International African Institute, 82. 2 (May, 2012), 213.

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MAP 1. Small Christian Communities in the Archdiocese of Tabora, 1970s–90s

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within their culturally and historically specific community settings.5
Lastly, this study goes beyond the theological interpretation of ujamaa villages as “ujamaa village apostolate” and Christian Communities as “societies in miniature” to show how socio-cultural and political environments
shaped these communities.6
Ujamaa and the Contexts for the Rise of Small Christian
Communities, 1963–70
In the early years of independence, Tanganyika was characterized by
conflict-ridden politics, debates over Africanization, racial animosity, and
bipolar politics which threatened domestic unity and international
integrity.7 President Julius Kambarage Nyerere launched the Arusha Declaration in 1967 and delineated the policy of ujamaa as one of the drives for
Africanization and as a response to challenges emanating from domestic,
regional, and international politics. The policy called for increased agricultural production in settled ujamaa villages as the strategy for economic
development. President Julius Nyerere envisioned ujamaa to mean living
together in a village, farming together, marketing together, and collaboratively sharing resources as a community.8 Ujamaa meant eliminating ideological differences, maintaining equality, and getting rid of all forms of
injustices and exploitation. It also aimed at designating the roles of men
and women within a broader conception of national familyhood.9 To pro5. Derek Peterson, “Morality Plays: Church Courts, and Colonial Agency in Central
Tanganyika, ca. 1876–1928,” The American Historical Review, 111. 4 (October, 2006); Lal,
“Militants, Mothers, and the National Family,” 2.
6. Marie Giblin, “Ujamaa Village Apostolate,” eds. Bishop Christopher Mwoleka and
Fr. Joseph Healey, Ujamaa and Christian Communities, No. 45 (Eldoret, 1976); Wilbert
Gobbo, “Critique of the Trinitarian Social Model of Leonardo Boff: Small Christian Communities of the Archdiocese of Tabora, A Case Study” (doctoral dissertation, London, 2016).
7. Goran Hyden, Beyond Ujamaa, 96; Bjerk, Building a Peaceful Nation, 61–130;
Ronald Aminzade, Race, Nation, and Citizenship in Post-Colonial Africa: The Case of Tanganyika (New York, 2013), 79–81; James R. Brennan, Taifa: Making Nation and Race in
Urban Tanzania (Athens, 2012); Andrew Ivaska, Cultured States: Youth, Gender, and Modern
Style in 1960s Dar es Salaam (Durham, 2011), 6.
8. “Blueprint for Socialism: Mwalimu outlines path for future,” The Standard, February
6, 1967; Hyden, Beyond Ujamaa, 98; Bjerk, Building a Peaceful Nation, 61–130; Aminzade,
Race, Nation, and Citizenship, 79–81; and Pratt, The Critical phase, 228–48.
9. Julius K. Nyerere, “Socialism and Rural Development,” in: Freedom and Socialism,
Selection from Writings and Speeches (Dar es Salaam, 1969); idem., Freedom and Development
(Dar es Salaam, 1973), 7–9; Pratt, The Critical phase, 232; Phil L. Raikes, “Ujamaa and Rural
socialism,” Review of African Political Economy, 3 (1975), 38; Donatus Komba, “Contribution
to Rural Development: Ujamaa and Villagisation,” in: Mwalimu: The Influence of Nyerere, eds.
Colin Legum and Geoffrey Mmari (London, 1995), 32–37; Julius K. Nyerere, Freedom and

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317

mote the people-centered development in the country, the Declaration
issued a blueprint of socialism and self-reliance that among other things
called for workers and peasants to stop “begging” and to build a “socialist
Tanzania through [their] own sweat.”10 For leaders and party members,
the Declaration included conditions of leadership on property, directorship
of private companies, and other profit-making posts. It urged leaders to
denounce commercial posts and demonstrate good and dynamic leadership
“to uphold a socialist morality and discipline.”11
The mode of village life and communal production began in the 1960s
with the volunteerism of sixteen villages in the Songea district that formed
the Ruvuma Development Association (RDA). The ideals of the RDA of
communal production, cooperation, and social equality influenced the government to launch the nationwide villagization program to encourage the
people to settle in villages. The program fostered the provision of social
services to rural communities such as water, sanitation, and electricity, to
mention just a few examples.12 In consequence of the program, the number
of ujamaa villages in Tabora region increased from fifty-two in 1970 to 156
in 1974, and the population increased from 16,700 in 1970, and 28,730 in
1974, to 553,770 in 1975.13
The policies of ujamaa and villagization called for the need to establish
cell leaders in villages to act as the link with their people as well as messengers to party leaders. In cognizance of the importance of cell leaders, the
government launched a country-wide political orientation campaign in
1967 to equip cell leaders with a thorough knowledge of the creed and
objectives of the party—Tanganyika African National Union (TANU)—
and the Arusha Declaration that embodied the policies of socialism and
Socialism (Dar es Salaam, 1968), 233–35; Michael Jennings, “We Must Run,” 166; Paul
Bjerk, Building a Peaceful Nation, 842; and Goran Hyden, Beyond Ujamaa, 98.
10. “Socialism depends on workers,” The Nationalist, July 24, 1967; “Sweat will build
Tanzania: Nyerere analyses workers’ role and responsibility,” The Nationalist, July 28, 1967.
11. “Implement Socialism: Pro-capitalist party leaders condemned,” The Nationalist,
January 24, 1967; “Arusha Declaration: We won’t wait for commission on socialism, says
Kambona,” The Nationalist, January 25, 1967; “Big challenge to leaders: Accept document,
Nyerere asks TANU,” The Standard, February 28, 1967; “Deadline to leaders,” The Nationalist, March 4, 1967; “Tanu backs declaration: leaders given one year to conform,” The Standard,
March 4, 1967.
12. Andrew Coulson, Tanzania: A Political Economy (Oxford, 1980), 263–71; Schneider, “Developmentalism,” 140–77.
13. Hyden, Beyond Ujamaa, 103; Adolpho Mascarenhas, “After villagization—what?”
in: Towards Socialism in Tanzania, eds. Bismarck Mwansasu and Cranford Pratt (Toronto,
1979), 152.

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self-reliance.14 Four years later, in 1971, the party (TANU) issued party
guidelines (mwongozo). The guidelines emphasized the importance of
involving the people in decision-making regarding their own problems. The
party, accordingly, established the “ten-cells” or “party cells” units, grouping
ten homesteads under one leader (balozi wa nyumba kumi kumi). Village
leaders organized new settlements of ten households. Each one cell-unit
could be built along the same street, making it easy to work together and
discuss affairs at the grassroot level. The guidelines warned leaders to refrain
from arrogance, extravagance, superiority complexes, and all kinds of acts
that were contrary to the ideals of ujamaa.15 In urban areas, the guidelines
called for the establishment of branches in all the nationalized banks, industries, and companies. It condemned requests of workers for time off to visit
their sick relatives and loans for emergency needs of their extended families
in rural areas to “reduce the capitalist hold of the country.”16
Nonetheless, ujamaa emerged resolutely as secular and anti-sectarian,
and thus was far more welcoming of non-religious communities, especially
the Ruvuma Development Association, which had influenced the policy.
In 1969, the central committee of TANU disbanded the RDA. But
Nyerere drew the core ideas of the policy of ujamaa from the RDA and
included its leaders in the party of TANU to promote the villagization program.17 Likewise, ujamaa in Tanzania grew into what critics described as
anti-religious, and certainly public discussion of ujamaa in explicitly Christian terms was forbidden. Nyerere and other TANU leaders discouraged
religiously based demands within the party and held back from using religious beliefs in political arguments. The government invariably warned all
religious organizations that they should not “mix religion with politics.” In
consequence, “religion had to be reduced to a private, apolitical sphere.”18
On the other hand, Muslims opposed TANU and ujamaa in the 1960s, a
few years after independence. They claimed that the government was
secretly pro-Christian, and that the secular education system was intended
to support Christian domination over Muslims. They also criticized over14. “Cell leadership,” The Nationalist, January 14, 1967; “Course for cell leaders: country-wide political orientation,” The Nationalist, July 13, 1967.
15. Mwongozo wa TANU—The Party Guidelines (Dar es Salaam, 1971), 7–8; CCM
Nyaraka, Dodoma. The CCM Guidelines (Dar es Salaam, 1981), 7, 56–57; Andrew Coulson,
Tanzania, 329; Hyden, Beyond Ujamaa, 159; and Lal, “Militants, Mothers, and the National
Family,” 3.
16. Hyden, Beyond Ujamaa, 159, 161.
17. Schneider, “Developmentalism,” 172.
18. David Westerlund, Ujamaa na Dini: A Study of Some Aspects of Society and Religion
in Tanzania, 1961–1977 (Stockholm, 1980), 57–58.

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seas scholarships, arguing that they were awarded to Christians to advance
the agenda of dominating over Muslims in the country.19
Furthermore, Unyamwezi in western Tanzania emerged as one of the
regions in Tanzania where several key political leaders, including Christopher Kasanga Tumbo, chief Abdallah Fundikira, Joseph Kasella-Bantu,
and James Mapalala, were associated with opposition to Nyerere. Notwithstanding Nyerere’s threat to expel government workers on strike, Christopher Kasanga Tumbo, the general secretary of the Tanganyika Railway
Workers’ Union between 1960 and 1962, made the “strike inevitable” as he
was not ready to “sell the independence of workers’ unions in the country.”20 He mobilized African railway workers to “go [their] own way” and
succeeded to make a complete paralysis of the railway service before handing over “the railway dispute” to the officials of the international trade
union in Dar es Salaam “for their mediation.”21 He also criticized Nyerere’s
government for supporting only nonracial “localization” (in which residents and non-residents regardless of their race could fill out the civil service posts) and called for the racially defined “Africanization” which ideally
meant to replace foreign expatriate workers (non-Africans) with
Africans.22 The Prime Minister, Rashid Kawawa, sent Tumbo off as the
high commissioner to London, hoping that he would reconsider his radicalism. But in 1962, Tumbo resigned and returned to Tanganyika to form
an opposition party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).23
Abdallah Fundikira was the chief of the Nyamwezi and a Muslim
leader who remained a powerful political figure after independence, serving
as Minister of Justice in the government. He opposed TANU and
Nyerere’s policies, the treatment of political opponents, and the proposal
for a one-party state. Fundikira’s opposition to Nyerere and the party led,
in 1964, to his resignation from the party and from his post as Minister of
19. Westerlund, Ujamaa na Dini, 93–94.
20. “Nitayari kutembea hata uchi kuliko kukubali senti kuuza uhuru wa vyamaTumbo,” Ngurumo, Oktoba 21, 1961; “Sitaki kutishwa kwa migomo: mtumishi serkalini
akigoma namfukuza-Nyerere,” Ngurumo, November 20, 1961; “Wafuasi 16 elfu pamoja na
Tumbo wajengewe jela serkali isipowaonya matajiri,” Ngurumo, November 23, 1961; “Strike
almost inevitable on railway: union chief is pessimistic about talks,” Tanganyika Standard,
January 4, 1960.
21. “We go ahead—Tumbo,” Tanganyika Standard, February 9, 1960; “African rail
workers start strike: services not seriously crippled—Leverett,” Tanganyika Standard, February 10, 1960; and “Rail strike: Tumbo hands over,” Tanganyika Standard, April 15, 1960.
22. Bjerk, Building a Peaceful Nation, 67–69, and 73; and John Iliffe, A Modern History
of Tanganyika (Cambridge, 1979), 542.
23. Bjerk, Building a Peaceful Nation, 83.

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Justice after his speech in Tabora.24 Fundikira continued running his private business until 1990 when he headed, together with other dissident
politicians including Christopher Kasanga Tumbo, Prince Bagenda,
Mabere Marando, and Ndimara Tegambwage, the debate on multiparty
politics in Tanzania. His role in organizing opposition parties led to chairing the first interim structure of the National Committee for Constitutional Reform which became the NCCR-Mageuzi party, with social
democracy as its ideology. Later, Fundikira formed his own political party
called the Union for Multiparty Democracy (UMD).25
Similarly, Joseph Kasella-Bantu, a member of parliament for Nzega
East, opposed Nyerere’s policies and the one-party system. In a budget session of the parliament (bunge) of July 1968, Kasella-Bantu challenged the
party supremacy of TANU and called it “undemocratic” because it did not
welcome opposing viewpoints from members of parliament.26 Consequently, the meeting of the National Executive Committee (NEC) of
TANU which was held between October 15 and 18 in 1968 expelled
Kasella-Bantu from the Parliament along with other radical members
because of their challenging the supremacy of the party. These members
were S. M. Kibuga of Mufindi, F. M. K. Chogga of South Iringa, G. R.
S. Kaneno of Karagwe, F. L. Masha of Geita East, W. R. Mwakitwange,
and J. M. Bakampenja of Ihangiro-Bukoba. The NEC removed these
members of parliament “for having grossly violated the party creed both in
their attitudes and their actions, and for showing a very clear opposition to
the party and its policies.”27 The NEC also expelled Mr. O. S. Kambona,
member of parliament for Morogoro East who later went into exile in
Britain, and Mr. E. M. Anangisye, member of parliament for Rungwe
North, because “they were neither believers of TANU nor believers of the
ideology of ujamaa.”28
24. Westerlund, Ujamaa na Dini, 94, Paul Bjerk, Building a Peaceful Nation, 146.
25. “Tanzania loses two stalwart former chiefs,” Tanzanian Affairs, Issue 88, September
1, 2007, in: https://www.tzaffairs.org/2007/09/tanzania-loses-two-stalwart-former-chiefs/,
last accessed on June 20, 2018.
26. Majadiliano ya Bunge (Hansard): Taarifa Rasmi (Mkutano wa Kumi na Tatu),
Sehemu ya Tatu, Julai 19, 1968.
27. “Minutes za Mkutano wa Halmashauri Kuu ya Taifa Uliofanyika Tanga, Oktoba
15–19, 1968,” 8, CCM Nyaraka, Dodoma; “Bunge’s Supremacy in Multipartyism,” Daily
News, August 27, 1992; “Katiba mpya haikwepeki, viraka ni kujitakia shari III,” Raia Mwema,
Aprili 19, 2012, in: http://www.raiamwema.co.tz/katiba-mpya-haikwepeki-viraka-ni-kujitakia-shari-iii/ last accessed on June 22, 2018.
28. “Katiba mpya haikwepeki, viraka ni kujitakia shari III,” Raia Mwema, Aprili 19,
2012.

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The expulsion of members of parliament from the party meant loss of
the parliamentary seats, and, accordingly, Kasella-Bantu returned to
Nzega. In the same year, in 1968, Kasella-Bantu lost his post as a member
of the secretariat of the party in the Nzega district. The report of TANU
executive council marked him as a “person with continuous complaints”
(mtu wa kulaumu laumu tu) who could not make substantial contribution to
the district.29 In 1969, following the case of the murdering of four men,
Kasella-Bantu together with other seventeen suspects spent five years in
prison under the Preventive Detention Act of 1962. The Act empowered
the President to detain indefinitely without trial any person who acted in a
manner that threatened security of the state. Kasella-Bantu was eventually
freed in 1978, but went into exile in Germany.30 Other politicians detained
under this Act were Mr. Eli Anangisye—member of parliament for
Rungwe North, and Mr. Hamisi Salumu (a Zanzibari, popularly called
Hamisi Beni) who were detained for “carrying out subversive activities
against the state,” while Mr. K. Geugeu, Mr. W.J. Mbwambo, and Mr.
J.T. Zangira were detained because they “asked for money and sold their
principles, respect, and consciousness.”31
Like Kasella-Bantu, the dissidence of Mapalala and his kin led to his
loss of the position in the party in Nzega district in 1968. The report of the
secretariat of TANU claimed that Mapalala “had dissident relatives who
could prevent the secretary general [of the party] from exercising his duties
in Nzega,” which implies that party leaders would find an unwelcome environment to work in the district.32 In the same year in 1968, three years after
the formation of the one-party state and the disbanding of other political
parties, James Mapalala began his campaign in Tabora against the oneparty state system on what he claimed to be a violation of human rights by
leaders from top to bottom in the villages. He had been working in Tabora
as a teacher and contributed several articles to the newspaper, Kiongozi,
which was printed and distributed by the Tanganyika Mission Press in
29. “Minutes za Mkutano wa Halmashauri Kuu ya Taifa Uliofanyika Dar es Salaam,
Oktoba 5, 1968,” 3, CCM Nyaraka, Dodoma.
30. For details about this case and Kasella-Bantu’s subsequent exile, see C. J. Georges,
“R.v. Kasella Bantu and Other (1969) HCD 170, Crim. Sass. 47-Tabora-1969,” April 21,
1969, in: http://criminalverdicts.blogspot.com/2012/12/r-v-kasella-bantu-and-other-1969hcd-170.html, last accessed on April 25, 2018; Michael Okema, “Why ‘Kill’ Our Heroes,
then Sing their Praises?,” The East African, Monday, May 5, 2003; “Preventive Detention Act
BBC Report,” Tanzanian Affairs, Issue 15, July 1, 1982.
31. “Two subversives detained,” The Nationalist, July 22, 1967; “Three more detained,”
The Nationalist, July 26, 1967.
32. “Minutes za Mkutano,” Oktoba 5, 1968, 3, CCM Nyaraka, Dodoma.

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Tabora. His articles demonstrated his dissatisfaction with oppression
against the people in the town of Tabora and rural areas.33 On what
appeared to be an order from Nyerere, the regional commissioner for
Tabora, Mr. Semamba Makinda, imprisoned Mapalala at Uyui for quite
some time. Later, the delegation of bishops and sheiks in Tabora wrote a
letter to the President requesting the release of Mapalala. Notwithstanding
his imprisonment, Mapalala’s demand for multiparty democracy continued
in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1992, he became one of the founders of the multiparty movement, and also the Civic Movement. His movement joined Seif
Sharif Hamad’s Zanzibar United Front (ZUF), to form the Civic United
Front (CUF, commonly known as Chama cha Wananchi) with “utajirisho
ideology” (ideology of richness).34 Similarly, Kasella-Bantu, who had fled
into exile in Germany after his release from detention in 1978, returned to
Tanzania to form his political party, the United Democratic Party (UDP).35
In addition to contentious politics, the 1960s era saw the government’s
launching of the campaigns to promote national culture. In so doing, the
government banned vernacular languages, including Kinyamwezi and foreign languages, and, instead, Kiswahili was used as a medium of instruction in primary education and government duties. In January 1962, Mr.
Rashidi Kawawa, the second vice-president of Tanzania, declared
Kiswahili as the “national language” and called for the use of English to
“stop immediately” as a medium of communication because it “was the language of another nation and Tanzanians should not boast of it.”36 Both
Kawawa and President Julius Nyerere emphasized the use of Kiswahili as
the national language “to revive and improve [national] culture” to “enable
people make progress of [Tanzanian] society.”37 The promotion of national
culture corresponded to the launching of a campaign to ban “indecent
dresses” including miniskirts and tight trousers, wigs, and foreign music.
Dar es Salaam, as a center of transnational cultural influence, became the
33. Elias Msuya, “James Mapalala: Mwanzilishi wa mageuzi aliyeishia kwenye mikosi,”
Mwananchi, Ijumaa, Oktoba 12, 2012.
34. Msuya, Mwananchi, Oktoba 12, 2012, “Mapalala against national conference,”
Daily News, August 24, 1992; Burgess G. Thomas, et.al, Race, Revolution, and the Struggle for
Human Rights in Zanzibar: The Memoirs of Ali Sultan Issa and Seif Sharif Hamad (Athens,
2009), 266.
35. Michael Okema, “Why ‘Kill’ Our Heroes,” The East African, Monday, May 5, 2003.
36. “Use Kiswahili now: national language for all business,” The Nationalist, January
5, 1967; “Kiswahili ‘our language’: Kawawa urges use in government,” The Standard, January 5, 1967.
37. Nyanga O. K., “The use of Kiswahili,” The Nationalist, January 14, 1967; “We must
protect culture-Mwalimu,” The Nationalist, January 2, 1969.

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target of these campaigns. They were meant to “cleanse” the city from
“moral decadence” in order to make “respectable urban citizens.”38 These
campaigns spread into rural areas after the Arusha Declaration, and efforts
were made to make rural areas “an ideal site for the performance of Tanzanian citizenship,” drawing an image of the city as morally “decadent” and
“unproductive.”39 As the movement to promote “national culture” spread
in the rural areas, public debate over marriage, gender, generation, and
wealth became intense among men and women in bars, offices, and homes
in Dar es Salaam, and, as a result, filtered into the countryside in 1969,
after the launching of the Arusha Declaration and villagization.40 With
increasingly divisive politics, the anti-sectarian nature of ujamaa, campaigns against moral decadence, and the debates over marriage which had
filtered into rural areas, Christian Communities in Unyamwezi carved out
a separate space of moral reform and regulation beyond the spheres of
ujamaa, state authority, and global discourses.
Community’s Efforts to Carve out a Separate Space of Moral Reform
and Regulation, 1973–90
The need to establish Small Christian Communities began in the
1970s during the Synod of Bishops, that declared the formation of Christian Communities “pastoral priority number one,” because they functioned
as the smallest unit of the Church next to the family.41 In Unyamwezi,
Small Christian Communities began in 1972 at Tabora, Kaliua, and the
Urambo Parishes. They consisted of family members living on one street
who could meet to pray, sing, and discuss religious and social affairs. In the
same year, the parishes of Makokola and Ipuli established similar communities.42 In 1974, the Tanzanian Episcopal Council (TEC) circulated the
resolutions of the meetings held by all bishops, in which the fifth resolution demanded the dioceses commit themselves to establishing Christian
Communities in the next five years.43
38. Ivaska, Cultured States, 5–6, 16–17, 60.
39. Ivaska, Cultured States, 17.
40. Ivaska, Cultured States, 167–68.
41. Archives of the Archdiocese of Tabora (hereafter AAT), Bishop Christopher
Mwoleka, “Preparation for Synod of Bishops,” T. 64/1977, AAT 325. 013.
42. Barua, Ofisi ya Kazi za Kitume, Jimbo Kuu Tabora, kwa Mwenyekiti wa Baraza la
Walei, Tanzania, Oktoba 15, 1976, AAT. 325.013; Bishop Christopher Mwoleka, “Directives on how to establish Small Christian Communities,” Presented at the Association of
Member Episcopal Conferences in Eastern Africa (hereafter AMECEA) on July 13–23,
1976, AAT 325. 013.
43. Barua, Ofisi ya Kazi za Kitume, Oktoba 15, 1976, AAT 325. 013.

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Christian Communities consisted usually of members of groups ranging from five to twelve families. They chose a man or woman in whom they
had confidence as their leader. The leader was commonly called the
guardian (mlezi) because members trusted him or her to lead them in religious and social affairs. Other leaders included the chairperson, secretary
general, and treasurer. The primary duty of the mlezi was to find and bring
into the group newcomers (Christians), to collect and present the tithe from
members, and report to the Parish.44 The guardian had to know all members
in the community and where they lived. He or she had to write down into
a work book the names of members and the status of their marriages. Other
responsibilities of the mlezi included encouraging Christians to pay the
tithe, advising the chairperson of the community about baptism and funeral
arrangements, reporting to the priest about the conduct of seminarians on
his or her street, and attending the meetings organized by the chairperson,
at least once every two months.45 The priest in charge of Christian Communities provided advice when needed and visited members to check their
progress and address issues that they could not settle as members. Otherwise, matters pertaining to religious and social aspects had to be left to the
members of the Christian Communities for discussion and decision.46
Indeed, the adoption of cell-like small Christian communities can be
shown to resemble the influence of the ten-cell structure and decentralization in ujamaa villages. But Christian communities also created a separate
space from the state’s abolition of workers’ vacations and requests for
emergency loans to assist their extended families in rural areas. The esprit
de corps prompted families to establish developmental projects to help
them address the mentioned challenges.47 One type of developmental
project designed by members to ensure self-reliance was farming. Mem44. J. Brouwer, W.F., “Participation of the Christians in building a Christian Community: An attempt of building a Christian Community in Tabora Parish,” Tabora, March 25,
1978, AAT 325. 013; Fr. J. Brouwer, “Ushirikiano na Jitihada zinazofanywa na Wakristu
katika Ujenzi wa Jumuiya Ndogo Ndogo za Kikristu katika Parokia ya Tabora,” Juni 20, 1978,
AAT 325. 013; P. Claude, “Jumuiya Ndogo Ndogo, Parokia ya Itaga, Juni 20, 1978,” AAT
325.013. Today, Small Christian Communities have four leaders: guardian, chairperson, secretary general, and treasurer.
45 . Fr. J. Brouwer, W.F., “Mpango wa kazi ya Mwenyekiti na Mlezi, Parokia ya Mt.
Theresia Tabora,” 1977, AAT 325. 013.
46. Barua, Ofisi ya Kazi za Kitume, Oktoba 15, 1976, AAT 325. 013.
47. AAT 325. 013 “Ripoti kuhusu Semina juu ya Jumuiya Ndogo Ndogo na Maendeleo iliyofanyika katika Vikundi Vinne, katika Kituo cha Uchungaji Tabora,” Juni 6–29,
1978, AAT 325. 013.” For the details of the TANU government’s abolition of vacations and
emergency loans for workers to ‘reduce the capitalist hold of the country’ see Hyden, Beyond
Ujamaa, 159.

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bers cultivated fields, the produce of which had to be sold. The money
obtained was spent to pay a little allowance to the local catechist and to
address the social problems of members. Catechists had to be sustained by
the contributions mainly from the Christian Communities as the majority
of parishes were not self-reliant. Their income came mainly from tithes,
Sunday collection, and gifts, to mention just a few, which could not sustain catechists in villages.48
The group spirit of working and living together to address social and
religious challenges further influenced some members of Small Christian
Communities to form independent groups called Christian Life Communities (Vikundi Vinavyoishi Kikristu). In the 1980s, a few men and women
at the Ipuli outstation formed the Christian Life Community as part of an
international lay association of the Christian Life Community (Vikundi
Vinavyoishi Kikristu Ulimwenguni). Members adopted the Ignatian model
of spiritual life, which reflected the Church’s reforms of the sixteenth century, to reach out to the laity and become a spiritual institution. Ignatius’
spiritual model was, apart from education, committed to the pastoral ministries of religious orders, and to ordinary men and women beyond monasteries and convent walls.49 The community was established in March 1982,
with twelve members under the guardianship of a Jesuit priest, Fr. Joseph
A. Payeur, S.J. As an obligation, every member had to spend a year on probation to check whether his or her conduct followed the requirements of
the group. Nonetheless, three members withdrew after a year of probation.
The remaining nine members attracted men, women, and youth to join the
community until it had a considerable number of members.50
In due course, self-sufficiency and group spirit made Small Christian
Communities an important tool in the growth of African Christianity in
villages. The contribution of these communities was often reported by the
diocesan Lay Apostolate Council, which organized tours in villages and
parishes to check the progress of communities, to teach, and to initiate the
establishment of Small Christian Communities in parishes and villages
48. Archbishop Mark Mihayo, Archbishop of Tabora, to Secretary General, Catholic
Secretariat, Dar es Salaam, Encs. Tabora Archdiocese: Answers to AMECEA Questionnaire, JBK/FAW, March 16, 1979, AAT 325. 013.
49. J. K. Mushi, Kuanzishwa kwa Kikundi cha Vikundi Vinavyoishi Kikristu (V.V.K),
Kumb. Na. IPULI/CLC/1, Machi 29, 1983, AAT 325. 013; Robert Bireley, The Refashioning
of Catholicism, 1450–1700 (New York, 2012), 25, 33, Ignatius of Loyola, A Pilgrim’s Journey:
The Autobiography of St. Ignatias of Loyola (Lexington, KY, 2012), 27–35.
50. J. K. Mushi, “Kuanzishwa kwa Kikundi cha Vikundi Vinavyoishi Kikristu,” Machi
29, 1983, AAT 325. 013.

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UJAMAA AND SMALL CHRISTIAN COMMUNITIES

FIGURE 1. Discussion in one of the Small Christian Communities, Archdiocese of
Tabora (undated image). Courtesy of the Catholic Archdiocese of Tabora. The catechist was pictured emphasizing a point to members who had attended the meeting.

where Christians had not yet done so.51 At Nguruka, for instance, the
establishment of Christian communities strengthened the growth of
African Christianity in the village. William Kaselle, the deputy director of
the diocesan Lay Apostolate Council, called the establishment of Christian
Communities in the village a means of adding flavor to Christianity,
“kukoleza ukristo.”52 The growth of African Christianity, under the auspices
of Christian Communities, corresponded to the growth of African clergy,
as prayers, discussion, and singing of members during weekly meetings and
fellowships influenced girls and boys to consider becoming priests, nuns,
and catechists53 (Figure 1).
51. See for instance, Fr. John Mageda, “Mpango wa Ufuatiliaji wa Kazi za Walei
Maparokiani na Semina,” Kumb. Na. BLW/J/B/89, Mei 15, 1989, AAT 325. 013; William
R. Kaselle, “Uenezi wa JNNK Igunga-Usongo,” Kumb. Na. BLW/B/J/89, Septemba 8, 1989,
AAT 325. 013; William Kasele, “Ujenzi wa Jumuiya Ndogo Ndogo za Kikristo Parokia ya
Ndala, Kumb. Na. JNN/B/J/90, Februari 19, 1990, AAT 325. 013; and William R. Kaselle,
“Ufuatiliaji wa Ujenzi wa Jumuiya Ndogo Ndogo za Kikristo,” Kumb. Na. JNN/B/90, Mei 8,
1990; AAT 325. 013.
52. William R. Kaselle, “Usimikishaji wa Jumuiya Ndogo Ndogo za Kikristo Kigango
cha Nguruka,” Kumb. Na. BLW/B/J/89, Septemba 10, 1989, AAT 325. 013.
53. William R. Kaselle, Usimikishaji wa Jumuiya Ndogo Ndogo, Septemba 10, 1989,
AAT 325. 013.

SALVATORY S. NYANTO

327

The translation of “Christian Life Communities” as Vikundi Vinavyoishi Kikristu indicates accommodation of Christian practices into the settings and lives of the Nyamwezi to make it look more “African.” Similarly,
the use of term “kukoleza ukristo” (to add flavor to Christianity) indicates
something akin to Lamin Sanneh’s “translating the message” whereby a
foreign religious tradition is incorporated into indigenous cultural settings,
making translatability a source of success for Christianity in Unyamwezi
societies.54 Thus, by establishing Christian Communities, men, women,
and children in Unyamwezi “domesticated” or “appropriated” Christian
practices into their culture and “heard the message according to their own
needs and existing situations.”55
Christian Communities created yet another space of “honor,”
“respect,” and “morality” beyond the spheres of ujamaa. In fact, ujamaa and
villagization could be viewed from two vectors: the modernist vectors of
ujamaa and villagization and the traditionalist vectors of African communities of extended families. The traditional structure of kinship and
extended families called for “reciprocity, collective effort, and an open version of community.”56 The penetration of ideas about culture and marriage
from urban centers to the rural areas through ujamaa and villagization gave
the rise to the modernist vector that embodied a principle of extended
family characterized by “connection and fluidity.”57 The marriage councils
merged the modernist and the traditional trajectories of extended families
as they incorporated some of the ideals of the modernist view of ujamaa
and villagization, while maintaining the traditional view of extended families. By merging the two traditions, marriage councils addressed issues of
honor and morality among the members within their cultural specific settings to work “in their own favor,” and, accordingly, formed what
Andreana Prichard calls “affective spiritual communit[ies]” in which mem-

54. Lamin Sanneh, Translating the Message: The Missionary Impact on Culture, Revised
and Expanded Edition (Maryknoll, 2009), 51–55. See also West African Christianity: The Religious Impact (Maryknoll, 1983).
55. Elizabeth Elbourne, Blood Ground: Colonialism, Missions and the contest for Christianity in the Cape Colony and Britain 1799–1853 (Montreal, 2002), 174); Elizabeth Prevost, The Communion of Women: Missions and Gender in Colonial Africa and the British
Metropole (Oxford, 2010), 6; Gregory Maddox, “The Church and Cigogo: Father Stephen
Mulundi and Christianity in Central Tanzania,” in: East African Expressions of Christianity,
eds. Thomas Spear and Isaria Kimambo (London, 1999), 151; and James L. Giblin,
“Family Life, Indigenous Culture and Christianity in Colonial Njombe,” in: East African
Expressions, 309.
56. Lal, “Militants, Mothers, and the National Family,” 2.
57. Ibid, Ivaska, Cultured States, 167–68.

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UJAMAA AND SMALL CHRISTIAN COMMUNITIES

bers expressed their emotions and spiritual connection beyond the spheres
of ujamaa and state authority.58
With clerical approval, families and leaders of Christian Communities
were vested with the power to discuss marriage cases, family conflicts,
members’ dishonesty, clandestine sexual behaviors, and pregnancy outside
marriage before they could be presented to the marriage reconciliation
board or the diocesan marriage tribunal (Lat. tribunal matrimonium) for
official hearing and decisions. Leaders also handled cases relating to unstable marriages, broken marriages, and the need to strengthen restored marriages with partners who had buried their differences.59 These marriage
councils seem to have less relation to Michel Foucault’s conception of
power which deviates from the sovereignty of the state, and instead focus
more on power which is understood in terms of the “multiplicity of force
relations immanent in the sphere in which they operate” and which “constitute [people’s] organization.” Thus, the way these marriage councils
monitored and regulated sexuality in western Tanzania functioned as a
form of power which crossed paths with state efforts to exercise power
through the vehicle of the ujamaa village.60
In exercising their power to regulate sexuality and the social conduct of
members, Small Christian Communities prohibited movements into other
Christian denominations and religions. Relations before marriage with nonCatholics were also interpreted as acts of dishonor. At Kipalapala Parish,
members and leaders of the Christian community accused Gusia Panda* of
having a clandestine sexual affair with a young Moravian Brethren man,
Suma Yona*, with whom she had a baby. The chair of the Christian Community, along with Gusia Panda’s parents, ordered her to meet the parish
priest to settle the case, but the lady never appeared. The parish priest
admonished the woman for her disobedience to the Church, her parents, and
her Christian Community. In his letter to Gusia Panda, the parish priest
condemned her for having painted a negative image of the Church and
warned other youth in the parish to rectify their conduct.61 He said,
58. Peterson, “Morality Plays,” 988; Andreana C. Prichard, Sisters in Spirit: Christianity, Affect, and Community Building in East Africa, 1860–1970 (East Lancing, 2017), 4, 14–16.
59. Bishop Mwoleka, Directives, July 13–13, 1976, AAT 325. 013; Ripoti juu ya
Maendeleo ya Ujenzi wa Jumuiya Ndogo Ndogo za Kikristu katika Jimbo kuu la Tabora,
Oktoba 15, 1976; AAT 325. 013.
60. Michel Foucault, Histoire de la Sexualité 1: La volonté de savoir (Paris, 1976), 121,
The History of Sexuality, Volume I: An Introduction by Michel Foucault, translated from the
French by Robert Hurley (New York, 1978), 92.
61. The names employed here are not names of the real persons. They are imaginary
names to maintain their anonymity.

S ALVATORY S. NYANTO

329

Kitendo ulichotenda kinaonesha wazi kwamba wewe sio Mkatoliki bali
umelipaka matope Kanisa Katoliki . . . Kwa barua hii pia nawaonya vijana
wote wenye tabia mbaya Parokia Kipalapala wabadili mienendo yao
mibaya. . . . [The Act committed clearly indicates that you are no longer
Catholic, as you have painted a negative image of the Catholic Church.
With this letter, I also warn all youth at Kipalapala Parish to change their
bad behaviors].62

This cited excerpt shows that clandestine sexual relations were one of
the challenges that Christian Communities, priests, and parents grappled
with in their attempt to shape the conduct of unmarried young men and
women in western Tanzania. As a form of power and a tool of social and
moral reform, Small Christian Communities identified, listened to, and
subjected members convicted of adultery and out-of-wedlock pregnancy to
achieve what Derek Peterson calls “moral reform.”63
Besides addressing marriage cases and conjugal relations, leaders and
members exercised their power in monitoring the behaviours of catechumens and seminarians living in families belonging to the Christian Community and their social relations with others. A report about the conduct
of catechumens had to be presented to the catechist of the outstation, who
had to submit it to the parish priest for assessment before the former could
be admitted into the church.64 Additionally, members of the Christian
Community discussed, together with their guardian, the character and
challenges of raising children in the community in accordance with the
doctrines and culture of the Church and society at large. Young boys who
aspired to become priests attended seminary education. Their general conduct had to be checked regularly and their participation in the community
and the local church had to be closely monitored too. The report of the
seminarians’ behaviour was presented to the catechist and the parish priest
at the end of the holiday before they returned to the seminary. The rationale for this practice was to ensure that seminarians demonstrated a good
example to society and members of the Christian Community as a foundation for the growth of a strong African clergy.65
62. Barua ya Fr. Augustine Mringi, kwenda kwa Ndugu Gusia Panda, * Jumuiya ya Mt.
Matia, Parokia Kipalapala, Aprili 5, 1990, AAT 325. 013. *These names are not real. They
are pseudo names to maintain the anonymity of the person concerned.
63. Derek R. Peterson, Ethnic Patriotism and East African Revival: A History of Dissent,
c. 1935–1972 (Cambridge, 2012), 173.
64. Parokia ya Mt. Theresia, Tabora, 1977, AAT 325. 013.
65. Maendeleo ya Ujenzi wa Jumuiya Ndogo Ndogo, Oktoba 15, 1976, AAT 325. 013;
Parokia ya Mt. Theresia, Tabora, 1977, AAT 325. 013; and William R. Kaselle, Usimikishaji
wa Jumuiya Ndogo Ndogo, Septemba 10, 1989, AAT 325. 013.

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UJAMAA AND SMALL CHRISTIAN COMMUNITIES

The Collapse of Small Christian Communities in the era of Ujamaa,
Mid-1970s–90
Although the villagization program succeeded in moving more than
two million people to 4484 villages between 1970 and 1971, creating many
new opportunities and facilitating the provision of social services, several
challenges brought the program to a grinding halt. Various factors
accounted for the failure of a number of villages, including the statist
nature of the government, whose direct intervention in economic activities,
nevertheless, did not give room for popular participation.66 Other reasons
included poor management and leadership at the village level, dishonesty,
inefficiency unchecked corruption in the rural cooperatives, poor mobilization, and poor planned settlement that did not take into account “local ecological consciousness,” to mention just a few reasons.67
Like ujamaa villages, Small Christian Communities faced numerous
challenges, and these, accordingly, led to the collapse of some of these communities. In western Tanzania, for instance, Small Christian Communities
encountered several challenges in initiating the growth of African Christianity in villages beyond mission stations. Strict regulations slowed down
and sometimes diminished the courage of members who had to leave the
groups or communities. The one-year probation for members of the Ipuli
Christian Life Community was an example of regulations that weakened
the commitment of some members to remain in the group despite their
good intentions.68 The lack of commitment and competency of some leaders
also discouraged members and often caused the progress of communities in
villages to dwindle. In some villages, Small Christian Communities fizzled
out because leaders could not lead members in finding solutions to religious
and social challenges. In his annual report about the progress of Small
Christian Communities in the archdiocese of Tabora, the director general,
66. Hyden, Beyond Ujamaa,104, 106, and 114; Jennings, Surrogates of the State, 60.
67. Schneider, ‘Developmentalism,’ 221-22; John S. Saul, “The Role of the Cooperative
Movement,” in: Rural Cooperation in Tanzania, eds. Lionel Cliffe et.al. (Dar es Salaam,
1975), 207–13; “Marketing Co-operatives in a Developing Country: The Tanzanian Case,”
in: Socialism in Tanzania: An Interdisciplinary Reader, Volume 2, eds. Lionel Cliffe and John
S. Saul (Nairobi, 1973), 146; Yusufu Q. Lawi, “Modernization and De-Harmonization of the
Man-Nature Relationship: The Case of the Agro-Pastoralist Iraqw of the Old Mbulu District,” in: The Tanzania Peasantry: Economy in Crisis, eds. Peter G. Forster and Sam Maghimbi
(Aldershot, 1992), 55: “Tanzania’s Operation Vijiji and Local Ecological Consciousness: The
Case of Eastern Iraqwland, 1974–1976,” Journal of African History, 48 (2007), 69–93.
68. J. K. Mushi, Vikundi Vinavyoishi Kikristu (V.V.K), Machi 29, 1983, AAT 325.
013. As already pointed out, out of the 12 initiators of the group, three members left the
group within a year of probation.

SALVATORY S. NYANTO

331

Fr. John Mageda, complained about leaders lacking commitment as a root
cause for the disintegration of some communities in villages. He said,
“tatizo ambalo hujitokeza hasa pale wachaguapo walezi wasiokuwa na moyo
hasa wa kitume na hapo tu ndiyo JNNK hufa” (the problem becomes apparent
when members choose leaders who are not committed to serve; that is the
issue which kills the Small Christian Communities).69
Lack of commitment to serve as leaders or guardians went hand in
hand with unpreparedness in the reading and discussion of Scripture
before members of the Christian community. Very often, leaders or
guardians of the communities had not done enough preparation for the
weekly Scriptures. Thus, discussion and interpretation were characterized
by leaders’ frequent hesitations, which misled members in comprehending
the entire Scripture.70 Incompetence and unpreparedness were attributable
to two factors. The first was the fact that most leaders and guardians of the
communities knew only the rudiments of reading and writing. They were
not accustomed to rigorous reading and critical interpretation. The second
factor, though related to the first, was the fact that most leaders were inexperienced in leading discussions of different interpretations and viewpoints
from members. In his report on the achievements and challenges of Small
Christian Communities at Itaga Parish, P. Claude summarized the two
problems as simply, “uongozi mbaya” (bad leadership)71 (Figure 2).
The use of the Kiswahili language, as part of nation-building and promotion of national culture, disenfranchised members who could not communicate well in that language. This disenfranchisement was apparent in
elders who felt ashamed of airing their viewpoints in Kiswahili, a language
regarded as a lingua franca in reading and interpreting the Scripture, fearing
that junior members cognizant of the language would laugh at them. Most
elders felt at ease to communicate in the local language, Kinyamwezi, which
incidentally was no longer a medium of communication in church services.72
In consequence, difficulty in interpreting the Scripture raised a problem for
many members who were accustomed to praying the rosary and learning by
heart and reciting questions from the catechism. Asking questions about the
Scripture to which they had listened—which demanded personal interpre69. Fr. John Mageda “Taarifa Kuhusu JNNK Katika Jimbo Kuu la Tabora,” Kumb. Na.
BLW/T/R/87, Mei 10, 1987, AAT 325. 013.
70. P. Claude, “Jumuiya Ndogo Ndogo (Parokia ya Itaga),” Juni 20, 1978, AAT 325.
013.
71. Jumuiya Ndogo Ndogo, Juni 20, 1978, AAT 325.013.
72. Jumuiya Ndogo Ndogo, Juni 20, 1978, AAT 325.013.

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UJAMAA AND SMALL CHRISTIAN COMMUNITIES

FIGURE 2. Members of one of the Small Christian Communities in the Archdiocese of Tabora (undated). Courtesy of the Catholic Archdiocese of Tabora. The
catechist—in one of his visits to the Small Christian Community—was pictured
talking to some of the family members who had attended the meeting.

tation—remained a challenge to many members. Only a few could contribute to the discussion, while the rest remained quiet, hesitant, and unsure
of what to say, leading to the decline of weekly attendance.73
In addition to the language barrier, the decline in attendance was
exacerbated by the preoccupation of men and women in the villages with
making ends meet. Members were preoccupied with cultivation, planting,
and harvesting, which affected the attendance of men and women and,
accordingly, weakened substantially the spirit of these communities.74 Poor
attendance, too, haunted Christian Communities of parishes in the suburbs of Tabora town. At Makokola Parish, located only a few miles from
the Cathedral, Christian communities did not have a good start, nor did
they attract the attention of many Christians. Christians were not interested in attending meetings, nor did they take charge as leaders. This tendency explains why, despite the many Christians who attended the Sunday
Mass, the organizers of the seminar on Christian Communities complained to the parish priest that only twenty-seven Christians (men and
73. Jumuiya Ndogo Ndogo, Juni 20, 1978, AAT 325.013.
74. Fr. John Mageda, “Taarifa kuhusu JNNK katika Jimbo Kuu la Tabora,” Kumb. Na.
BLW/T/R/87, Mei 10, 1987, AAT 325. 013.

SALVATORY S. NYANTO

333

women) attended.75 Lack of interest, poor attendance, and busy schedules
also diminished the efforts of a few determined Christians to establish
communities in Tabora and Ipuli Parish in the town. Until the year 1989,
there was no Small Community to report in all the three parishes of
Tabora town, despite the seminars the diocesan Lay Apostolate Council
organized to encourage Christians.76
The last, but by no means least, challenge was the growing hatred and
poor communication between parish priests and leaders of the Lay Apostolate Council, that weakened the motivation to reinstate Small Christian
Communities in western Tanzania. Some parish priests objected to the
council’s organized program of touring villages to urge Christians to form
communities, causing mounting tensions between the parish priests and
leaders of the council. Tabora Parish, notwithstanding serving the cathedral
jurisdiction with an archbishop who urged priests in parishes to let Christians form communities, until the year 1989 remained at a standstill, with no
Small Christian Community to report.77 Christians of the Kiloleni outstation of Tabora Parish took their own initiative to invite the council to hold
a seminar on how to establish Small Christian Communities. The seminar
culminated in the founding of the first Christian Community in the parish
but the parish priest disapproved of the community because he was not on
good terms with members of the council. The disapproval of Christians’
efforts to make their own Small Christian community made the parish
remain at a standstill in the drive for the making of African Christianity.78
Conclusion
The experience of Small Christian Communities in western Tanzania
offers an example of the ways in which religious communities and institutions carved out a separate space for morals and regulations outside the
spheres of ujamaa and state authority. The policies of ujamaa and the state
created an apolitical sphere for religious communities and discouraged
Christians from channeling their religious demands to the party. Thus, the
establishment of Small Christian Communities can be viewed both as a
75. Barua, Fr. Augustine Mringi kwenda kwa, Fr. Laurent Saint-Pierre, “Ujenzi was
Jumuiya Ndogo Ndogo za Kikristu-Parokia ya Makokola,” Februari 11, 1990, AAT 325. 013.
76. Fr. Augustine Mringi, “Ujenzi wa Jumuiya Ndogo Ndogo za Kikristu Jimbo Kuu
Tabora,” Aprili 23, 1989, AAT 325. 013.
77. Fr. Augustine Mringi, “Usimikishaji wa Jumuiya Ndogo Ndogo za Kikristu-Parokia Tabora,” Agosti 28, 1989, AAT 325. 013.
78. Fr. Augustine Mringi, Jumuiya Ndogo Ndogo, Agosti 28, 1989, AAT 325.013.

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UJAMAA AND SMALL CHRISTIAN COMMUNITIES

coping strategy and a response to carve out a separate space of morals and
regulations where ujamaa policies and the state had little to do with religious issues. In the process of making “affective spiritual community”
beyond the spheres of ujamaa influence, Christian Communities controlled converts’ demeanors and adjudicated issues related to moral laxity,
marriage conflicts, and conjugal relations.
The creation of the private space helps us to understand the limits of
ujamaa as well as its influence on the Catholic Small Christian communities in western Tanzania. While the organizational structure of ten families
forming one Christian Community can be shown to resemble the influence
of the ten-cell structure and decentralization in ujamaa villages, communities, nevertheless, established developmental projects which provided
refuge from the state’s abolition of workers’ assistance to their extended
families in rural areas. Nonetheless, the adoption of the Kiswahili language
as the national language, which corresponded to the banning of vernacular
Kinyamwezi, disadvantaged the elderly, as they could not communicate
well in the new language. This challenge, coupled with several others,
slowed the progress of Christian communities, and, like ujamaa villages,
some villages communities were brought to a grinding halt.

Notes and Comments
CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19) IMPACT
Due to concerns to contain the spread of the Covid-19 virus, numerous conferences and events have been cancelled or rescheduled, among
them the Spring meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association,
originally set for April 17 and 18 at the University of Scranton. Please
check with conference organizers regarding extended deadlines for submitting proposals and new meeting dates for other conferences and workshops. The financial strains created by the virus have also led some organizers to cancel permanently their events.
Because of precautionary measures taken by the Catholic University of
America, the office of the Catholic Historical Review has been temporarily
closed. Without the necessary staff to support its operations, the Spring
issue does not contain all of its usual features such as the Book Reviews and
Periodical Literature sections, and Notes and Comments is drastically
reduced. Once operations return to normal, these sections will be restored.
Your patience and understanding are much appreciated.

OBITUARY
Jean Delumeau
(1923–2020)

335

336

NOTES AND COMMENTS
It is almost unbelievable that we know so little about the basic elements,
the most important and widespread religious practices, and so many of
the great pilgrimages themselves. All we have are brief mentions scattered among inaccessible articles and journals, and too often even those
are there for non-historical reasons.

These words, quoted by Delumeau near the very beginning of his inaugural lecture delivered at the Collège de France on February 13, 1975,
neatly encapsulate the ambitious challenge he had set himself to meet, and
which he substantially achieved, over the course of a long, distinguished,
and very productive career as the leading Catholic historian of religion in
post-war France. The original title of that lecture: “The history of religious
mentalities in the modern West” expresses clearly his dual debt to the rich
French traditions of religious sociology, on the one hand, and to the history of mentalities over the longue durée, on the other. 1 These had been pioneered, respectively, by Gabriel le Bras (1891–1970), author of the twovolume classic Études de sociologie religieuses (1955–56) and Lucien Febvre
(1878–1956), co-founder of the Annales school of historians and author of
Le problème de l’incroyance au XVIe siècle. La religion de Rabelais (1947), both
of whom are mentioned in the opening paragraph of the lecture; the quotation at the start of this obituary notice being taken from Febvre.2 Near
the start of the lecture as delivered, Delumeau also paid tribute to one of
the very first members of the Collège: the humanist, orientalist scholar,
and friend of the early Jesuits, Guillaume Postel (1510–81) as: “one of the
most ecumenical spirits of the sixteenth century’” manifest evidence that
the Collège had been concerned with religion from the outset as well as an
indication of Delumeau’s own self-identification as a liberal Catholic who
regarded Vatican II as just the beginning of a new Catholic Reformation.
The revised title of Delumeau’s lecture: ‘”Le Prescrit et le Vécu,” which
was adopted for other French printings of the text and used for the English
translation (“Prescription and Reality”), gets closer to the heart of his project.3
1. « Histoire des mentalités religieuses dans l’Occident moderne. » This text is available
to download on Open Access from the website of the Collège de France at:
https://books.openedition.org/cdf/732. (Last accessed April 13, 2020.)
2. Lucien Febvre, « La Dévotion en France au XVIIe siècle, » in Lucien Febvre, Au
Cœur religieux du XVI siècle (Paris, 1957), 332—although in the text Delumeau dates the quotation to 1932. Subsequent references to this inaugural lecture are to the English, lightly
revised translation made by Ian Patterson and published in Edmund Leites, ed., Conscience
and Casuistry in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 1988), 134–58, at 134.
3. Jean Delumeau, La Christianisme va-t-il mourir? (Paris, 1977), 177–211; Pierre
Toubert et Michel Zink, eds., Moyen Âge et Renaissance au Collège de France. Leçons inaugurales
(Paris, 2009), 511–29.

NOTES AND COMMENTS

337

This was to see beyond the traditional, top-down account of Catholic
Christianity, couched in doctrinal and institutional terms—religion as a
noun—in favour of adopting a bottom-up perspective that sought to offer
an account of “‘lived religion”—religion as a verb. However, for the very
first reprinting of the lecture, it was given yet another title: “Dechristianisation or a new model of Christianisation?”4 This points the reader to the
reseach question that underlay the several thousand pages of print which
Delumeau put out in the public domain on religious history, beginning
with the publication of Naissance et Affirmation de la Réforme (1965, now in
its 11th edition, 2012) and its sister volume Le Catholicisme entre Luther et
Voltaire (1971; 7th edition, 2010).5
Before the publication of these two titles from the influential Nouvelle
Clio series, which have done so much to shape the understanding of successive cohorts of French university students, particularly of the Protestant
Reformation, as can be seen by the relative number of editions they have
enjoyed, (only the second volume was translated into English, with a preface by John Bossy, in 1977), Delumeau completed two very substantial
works, which for any lesser human would have comfortably constituted
their life’s work.6 These consisted of his still unsurpassed, two-volume doctoral thesis on the economic and social life of Rome during the second half
of the sixteenth century and the pioneering study of the Alum mines in the
papal states during the early modern period.7 The former made exemplary
use of the avvisi (newsletters) sent to the Duke of Urbino, and now in the
Vatican Library, while the second relied on the use of records hidden away
in the papal port of Civitavecchia. The connection between these classic
works of economic and social history, both supervised by Fernand Braudel
(1902–85), leader of the second generation of the Annales school and

4. « Déchristianisation ou nouveau modèle de christianisme? », Archives des sciences sociales
des religions, no. 40 (juillet–décembre 1975), 3–20: http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/
prescript/article/assr_0335-5985_1975_num_ 40_1_1913. (Last accessed April 13, 2020.)
5. On the later editions of Naissance et Affirmation de la Réforme, Delumeau collaborated
with Thierry Wanegffelen and Bernard Cottret; and for Le Catholicisme entre Luther et Voltaire
with the distinguished historian of Jansenism and pupil of Robert Goubert, Monique Cottret.
6. Delumeau also authored a third work of economic and social history, on trade
conducted out of the important Breton port of Saint-Malo: Le mouvement du port de SaintMalo, 1681–1720 à la fin du XVII e siècle (Rennes, 1966) as well as several popular works of
general history, including the prize-winning: La Civilisation de la Renaissance (Paris, 1967)
and L’Italie de Boticelli à Bonaparte (Paris, 1974).
7. Vie économique et sociale de Rome dans la seconde moitié du XVI e siècle, 2 vols., (Paris,
1957–59) and L’alun de Rome XV e-XIX e siècle (Paris, 1962). An abridged edition of this work
was subsequently published in paperback: as Rome au XVI e siècle (Paris, 1975).

338

NOTES AND COMMENTS

famous for his panoramic history of the Mediterranean world in the Age
of Philip II, and Delumeau’s subsequent, prolific work on religious history
is not immediately obvious.8 What they had in common, in actual fact, was
the desire to root behaviour, both individual and collective, in the mentalité
of the age; one which, furthermore, was very much shaped by the material
conditions of life and the anxieties these provoked.
As William H. Williams pointed out in his review of Catholicism
between Luther and Voltaire in these pages (CHR, 58/1 [1972], 88–89),
Delumeau’s central concern was to “demonstrate as myth the conventional
concept of a process of de-Christianisation taking place in the 18th century” (88). In other words, we can only evaluate de-Christianisation after
defining what we mean by “Christianization.” As Delumeau put it himself
in his inaugural lecture at the Collège de France:
The model of Christianity we normally use as a parameter is not the syncretism of the Middle Ages so much as the austere, unanimist religion of
the 17th century, which was far more concerned than the Medieval
Church to transform prescription and regulation into reality at the popular
level and to turn the ideal of the few [in]to the daily life of all. . . . We must
discard the over-simplified linear explanation which sees the eighteenth
century as initiating a uniform decline in all the Christian denominations.9

Such a view presupposed the “myth” or “legend” of a Christian(ized)
Middle Ages and was apparently very different from that of his slightly
younger contemporary, John Bossy (1933–2015), as the British historian
observed robustly in his preface to the English translation of Delumeau’s
Catholicism from Luther to Voltaire. For Bossy the shift from Christianity
being conceived as a community of believers in the Middle Ages to its being
understood by both the Protestant and Catholic reformers in terms of rival
confessions of belief was to be considered a wholly negative development,
since it led to a diminished religious universe, in which Christianity no
longer performed the social miracle of ritualized reconciliation, symbolised
by the role of the kiss of peace at the Mass. Instead, there was a new stress
on the distinction between the godly—represented by seminary-trained
priests and dynamic missionaries spouting hell-fire sermons—and the
8. Fernand Braudel, La Mediterranée et le Monde mediteranéen à l’époque de Philippe II, 3
vols. (Paris, 1949; rev. edn., 2 vols., 1966). As he was a member of the Collège de France,
who were then not permitted to supervise doctoral students, Delumeau’s de iure supervisor
was the political historian Gaston Zeller (1890–1960), author, inter alia, of La réunion de
Metz à la France (1552–1648), 2 vols. (Paris, 1926).
9. Delumeau, “Prescription and Reality,” 149.

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339

majority, for whom printed catechisms reduced Christianity to what could
be taught and learned.10 However, in the course of panoramic evocations of
a spiritual world we have lost, beginning with the 2,090-page tetralogy: La
Peur en Occident (XIV e–XVIII siècle): une cité assiégée, 1978; La Péché et la
Peur. La culpabisation en Occident (XIII e–XVIII e siècles), 1983; Rassurer et
Protéger: le sentiment de securité dans l’occident d’autrefois, (1989); and L’Aveu
et le pardon: les difficultés de la confession, XIII e–XVIII e siècles (1990),
Delumeau produced a description of the rituals and practices of pre-modern
Catholicism of unprecedented range and detail that, in many ways, complimented Bossy’s interpretation.11 Moreover, the French historian’s view of
the Protestant and Catholic Reformations as parallel attempts at confessionalization surely emboldened his British counterpart to argue the same
in his own bold survey: Christianity in the West.12 Furthermore, the sources
that Delumeau relied upon extensively—including sermons, songs, catechisms, confession manuals and visitation records produced by and for clerics—were precisely those generated by the top-down pressures of interfering ecclesiastical authorities and missionaries, (more often than not with the
connivance and open support of the secular authorities without whom the
whole enterprise would have been impossible), which both Bossy and
Delumeau thought were responsible for inculcating a mechanical faith that
might be seen as the forerunner to the twentieth-century attempts at mass
indoctrination attempted, for example, by communist China.13

10. This argument was most fully developed in Bossy’s masterpiece: Christianity in the
West, 1400–1700 (Oxford, 1985).
11. They were all published in Paris by Fayard and save for L’Aveeu et le pardon, they
have all been translated—La Peur en Occident into no fewer than fifteen languages. However,
the only one of these to be translated into English (by Eric Nicholson) has been (to date): Sin
& Fear: the emergence of western guilt culture (13th–18th centuries), (New York, 1990).
12. Although it should be noted that this idea of regarding the Protestant and Catholic
Reformations as structurally parallel in their aspirations to acculturate and discipline the
“average soul,” rather than merely ideologically opposed phenomena, was also shared by
Bossy’s doctoral supervisor, H. Outram Evennett in the latter’s Birkbeck lectures delivered in
Cambridge in 1951 but not published until 1968 (with a postscript by Bossy) as: Spirit of the
Counter-Reformation, (Cambridge, 1968), so it is unlikely that Delumeau was aware of this
when he independently developed this important insight.
13. In “Prescription and Reality” Delumeau compared, only half in jest, the Roman
Catholic Catechism with Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book: “Putting aside the differences in
time and place, there was, I think, a comparable programme of indoctrination on the part of
this Christian society: and it was a kind of indoctrination unknown in the Middle Ages, or, at
least, unknown in that repetitious, didactic form” (“Prescription and Reality,” 147). Elsewhere
in the lecture Delumeau gives due credit to the role played by the state in this process: “This
new, relentlessly pervasive Christianity (“ce Christianisme de tous les instants”) could only
become universal if civil authorities provided constant support and reminders” (ibid., 148).

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NOTES AND COMMENTS

Delumeau had in his particular sights the “pedagogy of fear and guilt”
(surculpabilisation) which is something he had direct childhood experience
of as a boy who spent much of what appears to have been a pretty miserable
childhood attending boarding schools run by the Salesians, who were still
playing upon the fearful consciences of their pupils in the 1930s. Indeed,
in a very personal passage from the introduction to La Peur en Occident
(27), Delumeau describes the trauma of experiencing, aged 10, the sudden
death of a family friend and neighbour, a young pharmacist who had visited his parents, apparently in excellent health, the night before he died,
which left him unable to return to school for some three months and then,
some two years later, how at his Salesian boarding school he was taught to
meditate on the Good Death on the first Friday of every month in the
school chapel. For Delumeau, this “pastoral pedagogy,” to borrow the term
used by Robert Bireley in his thoughtful review essay of Sin and Fear and
Rassurer et Protéger in this journal: “transferred the object of fear from
death, which could not be avoided, to [fear of] damnation, which with
God’s help could.”14 In the same chapter of La Peur en Occident, Delumeau
agrees with Lucien Febvre that one can understand society and the role of
religion from the perspective of its fears. In Sin and Fear he draws on Jung
and Freud to make a similar argument about the hermeneutic helpfulness
of ideas of sin. The first pages of Rassurer et Protéger return to Febvre in the
allusion to the latter’s contention that one could interpret Western civilisation through its pursuit of security. According to Delumeau, therefore, a
massive campaign of acculturation on the part of both Catholic and
Protestant clergy from the mid-sixteenth to mid-eighteenth century,
might well have inculcated “higher religious practice”—the senenteenth
century was considered by not only the French historian as the “Century of
Saints” in France—but the emphasis on the Justice of God, together with
fear of death and Hell—an infernal cycle of fear—was ultimately responsible for the dechristianisation of the West from the mid-eighteenth century
onwards.15 According to Bireley, powerfully evocative as it is, this account
is “open to charges of onesidedness.” To begin with, Delumeau tended to
generalize from France to the whole of Western Europe (focus was on
France, followed by Italy; there was very little on Spain and the Germanspeaking lands and discussion of Protestantism focused overwhelmingly on
the British Isles). In his determination to access the “taught” rather than
“teaching” Church, Delumeau also directed his attention on the sacramen14. Robert Bireley, “Review article: two works by Jean Delumeau,” CHR, 77/1 (1991),
78–88.
15. Parts III and IV of Sin and Fear, considered to be the most original parts of the
book, deal specifically with this “Evangelism of Fear.”

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tals—including benedictions, processions, veneration of the rosary and the
cult of saints—rather than on the sacraments which were so central to Tridentine Catholicism. The absence of anything approaching a sustained discussion of casuistry, for example, is noteworthy. As Bireley pointedly
remarks at one point: “Where is the Church in all this?”
Delumeau followed up his tetralogy on fear, sin, security, confession,
and absolution with a trilogy of books, totalling a more modest 1400 pages,
addressing the history of Paradise. The first of these considered the nostalgia
felt in the late middle ages and early modern period for an earthly paradise;
volume two dealt with the expectation of the earthly millennial kingdom,
and volume three concerned the history of hope in perfect joy without
end.16 As might have been expected, for Delumeau, the gradual weakening
of belief in the reality of an earthly paradise as described in Genesis could
only be a good thing as it removed one of the chief weapons of a vengeful
God for whom only the elect could aspire to enjoy its fruits. The best
account of Delumeau’s writing style, which also goes some way in explaining the author’s productivity as well as his prolixity, is given by Robert Bireley in his review of the first volume of this trilogy when he writes:
Delumeau’s purpose is less to analyze than it is to recreate for the reader
a bygone mentality; thus he remains close to the documents, often citing
extensively so that the reader himself [sic] can savour them and grasp
their truth as the author puts it.17

In a radio interview he gave in 2016, Delumeau revealed that he only
really came alive, intellectually speaking, when he moved from his last
single-sex Salesian boarding school to a co-educational lycée in Marseilles
for the last two years of his pre-university education.18 There he fell under
the influence of two inspirational teachers, Roger Mehl and Jacques
Monod. The latter, who taught Delumeau Latin and Greek, joined the
Resistance and was shot by the Germans. Both teachers were also Protestants and, judging from Delumeau’s recollection almost eighty years later,
it was this, his first meaningful encounter with members of a Church
16. Une histoire du Paradis: le jardin des délices (Paris, 1992); Mille ans de bonheur: l’histoire du Paradis (Paris, 1995); and Que rest-t-il du Paradis? (Paris, 2000). Taken together these
books form a trilogy on the longing for a paradise.
17. Robert Bireley, “Book review : Une histoire du Paradis. Le jardin des Délices,” CHR,
80/1 (1994), 111–13, at 112.
18. Luc Daireaux, Au miroir de Clio avec Jean Delumeau, (itinéraire d’un historien de
religieux), 3 July 2016. https://soundcloud.com/luc-daireaux/au-miroir-de-clio-avec-jeandelumeau-itineraire-dun-historien-du-religieux-03072016 (last accessed April 13, 2020).

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NOTES AND COMMENTS

which his previous education had cast as the “other,” that was the “light
bulb” moment for him. It set the French historian on his lifelong journey
to understand what religious identity actually consisted of and what it
meant, both now and in the past, to live not only as a Catholic or Protestant, but also as a Christian.
It also helps explain why, after he enrolled at the élite École normale
supérieure in Paris in 1943, he took his high school teaching diploma (l’agrégation) in 1947 in history and geography. After a year at the Lycée
Alain Fournier in Bourges, Delumeau won a two-year scholarship to the
École française de Rome (1948–50), before he returned to teach at the
Lycée Chateaubriand in the Breton city of Rennes (1950–54), which
became his home for the rest of his life. He was awarded a one-year fellowship at the CNRS in Paris in 1954 before receiving his doctorate in the
following year. From 1955–1970 he taught history at the University of
Rennes before becoming professor of history at the Sorbonne where he
taught from 1970–1975. He capped his distinguished career by being
offered the chair in religious mentalities at the Collège de France which he
held from 1975 until his retirement in 1994. In 1988 he was made a
member of the Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres. In addition to
his academic work, Delumeau played a vigorous role as a public intellectual
who championed Vatican II and until his dying day advocated, amongst
other liberal causes, married priests. As part of this commitment to reach
a wider audience for religious history he fronted forty-six, thirteen-minute
episodes on “Les Religions et les hommes” a series on comparative religion
which was commissioned by Canale 5, France’s first private free-to-air TV
network and first broadcast in 1996. Over the course of his long life he
received numerous public recognitions for his work including: Officier des
Palmes académiques; Officier de l’ordre du Mérite; Chevalier de l’ordre de
la Légion d’honneur and Officier de l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He died
in Brest on 13 January 2020.
Delumeau published his last work, L’avenir de Dieu [The Future of
God] in 2015. It is a personal reflection on his journey both as an historian
and as a practising Roman Catholic. As such it overlaps with much of the
content of the iter that Delumeau recounted in this review in 2010.19 However, it also draws attention to the French historian’s willingness to relate
not only the past to the present, but also to the future. As Delumeau put
it in the closing words to his inaugural lecture at the Collège de France in

19. Jean Delumeau, ‘The Journey of an Historian,” CHR, 96/3 (2010), 435–48.

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1974, discussion of which opened this obituary: “It is not the job of an historian to predict the future. Rather, by refusing to accept over-simplifications, he increases its possibilities.”
University of York, UK

SIMON DITCHFIELD*

* He am most grateful to Isabelle Brian for her advice and encouragement and to JeanMarie Le Gall for an important observation.