John T. McGreevy initiates his study of the Jesuits in nineteenth-century America by quoting John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Their statements in letters made two years after the restoration of the Society of Jesus reveal the animosity of the Founding Fathers toward the order, which they viewed as “a greater calamity to mankind than the French Revolution or Napoleon's despotism or ideology” (1). McGreevy lucidly explores the extent to which the Jesuits were disliked in this time and place through a series of case studies. The result is an engaging analysis of how the Jesuits revived themselves and established Catholicism as a global enterprise.
This well-organized book is centered around five chapters examining specific events and individuals that shed light on the activities of Jesuits in the nineteenth-century United States. An introduction sets the stage for these accounts, and a conclusion reveals the impact of the events through our own time. This collection of stories is formed by primary sources, particularly letters. McGreevy does an excellent job of letting the writers of these documents speak for themselves, and the extensive footnotes expose his careful and far-reaching archival research.
Conflicts between religious freedom and education are considered in chapters 2 and 3. Chapter 2 features the story of Swiss Jesuit John Bapst in 1850s Maine, and his efforts to minister to the inhabitants and promote religious education, which ended with a mob tarring and feathering him. Chapter 3 moves to the border state of Missouri, before, during, and after the Civil War—a time and place of divided allegiances. This was especially true for Catholic priests such as Belgian Jesuit Ferdinand Helias, who ministered to Catholics who often refused to swear loyalty oaths to the government.
The blessed John Berchmans’ healing of a young woman in 1866 Louisiana is explored in chapter 4. Mary Wilson was a recent convert to Catholicism, and an aspiring novice of the Society of the Sacred Heart, who experienced poor health until Berchmans appeared at her sickbed and healed her, at the end of a nine-day novena. Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the authentication of miracles, and the processes of beatification and canonization are ably examined here, set against the backdrop of an increasingly secular world.
Chapter 5 chronicles the efforts of Father Burchard Villiger in Philadelphia, where he built a church modeled after and named for the Gesù in Rome and served as president of St. Joseph's College, one of the earliest of the Jesuit colleges in the United States. His involvement in the early educational enterprises of the Jesuits highlights a focus for which the Society is still known today. The chapter also examines the “Americanist” controversy of the period, when the concept of church/state separation lay at the heart of conflicts over education and religion.
The sixth chapter explores the Philippines at end of the century, after the Spanish-American War (1898). Tensions between the devout Catholic inhabitants and the new American democracy now in place created an atmosphere of old vs. new, Americans vs. Spaniards, and the Jesuits found themselves in the middle. These events reflect the larger picture of the Society working in the emerging global sphere, dealing with governments possessing different goals and ideals.
The nineteenth century was an era of great conflict. Between the US Civil War and the revolutions in Europe that sent many Jesuits abroad, the world the Jesuits entered postrestoration was decidedly different from the one in which they had been suppressed. The nationalistic, anti-Catholic spirit of the United States often set the Society at odds with the members of their communities. McGreevy's investigation of issues including education, immigration, and nationalism is both important and timely. His book will be of great value to scholars and graduate students interested in the concept of freedom of religion in this era. Individual chapters can be read on their own to examine specific cases, and these could easily serve as selected readings for undergraduate students as well. Overall, this book makes an important contribution to the field and is highly recommended.
