Immaculata University

Chronicle of Faith Presenters and Session Abstracts

Keynote Address:

Christopher Kauffman, Ph.D., Catholic Daughters of America Chair in American Catholic History, The Catholic University of America, James A. Flaherty of Philadelphia, Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus: Patriotism, Anti-Catholicism, and Ethnic Diversity, 1910 - 1925.

This narrative opens with Flaherty rising to leadership in the largest organization of Catholic laymen in North America. The most historical expression of his patriotism occurred shortly after the U.S. entered World War I, when Supreme Knight Flaherty wrote to President Woodrow Wilson a brief letter in which he proposed that the Order establish social-service centers in training camps and in areas behind the lines of war. Wilson approved the Knights’ proposal for the centers popularly called “K of C Huts,” which were manned by thousands of Knights who served the troops under the banner “Everyone welcome, Everything Free.” After the war the Order sponsored educational and employment programs for veterans. As a result of this dramatic display of patriotism 400,000 men joined the Order.

James Flaherty was an ardent champion in the struggle against anti-Catholicism on several fronts, ranging from a spurious attack upon the Knights’ loyalty to the Ku Klux Klan’s attack upon Catholicism in the "tribal twenties.” Symbolic of his commitment to ethnic diversity Flaherty endorsed the publication of the K of C Racial Contribution Series, books on Germans, Jews, and African Americans.

A gifted speaker and a committed lawyer in the Orphans Court, Flaherty was well-known in several spheres of life and thought in the Philadelphia scene. Because he was so identified with Catholic culture, Flaherty would be proud to be remembered in this celebration of the Bicentennial of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

Session 1

Panel 1

S. Theresa Ahern, MSBT, M.A., Archivist, Missionary Servants of the Most Blessed Trinity, The Charism of the Missionary Servants of the Most Blessed Trinity in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, 1931-2008.

The Missionary Servants of the Most Blessed Trinity were actually founded in Russell County, Alabama in the Archdiocese of Mobile. The first Motherhouse burned to the ground in 1930 and due to the kindness of Cardinal Dougherty the new Motherhouse was established in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia in February of 1931. The charism statement of the Missionary Servants directs them to serve people who are “spiritually neglected or abandoned, especially the poor.” The history of the Missionary Servants in Philadelphia bears witness to their mandate through their service in Social Services and among various immigrant populations especially the Hispanic and the Chinese.

In reality the first Missionary Servants of the Most Blessed Trinity came to Philadelphia in 1920 to serve as “home finders” for the Catholic Children’s Bureau. From this grew one of the primary ministries of the Missionary Servants in Philadelphia, i.e. serving as social workers for Catholic Social Services in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and in what was to become the Diocese of Allentown. In the course of the years over 100 Sisters served in Catholic Social Services.

In 1939 subsequent to the visit to Philadelphia of Most Rev. Paul Yu Pin the Apostolic Vicar of Nanking, Msgr. Francis Wastl asked the Sisters who were laboring in Catholic Social Services to take an interest in the Chinese population of Philadelphia. This interest led to the establishment of Holy Redeemer Catholic Church and School for the Chinese.

Over the years the Missionary Servants of the Most Blessed Trinity served in various parishes in what would today be called parish ministry. Among these parishes were Dom Bosco, Epiphany, St. Paul, St. Roch in Pen Argyl, as well as in Parish Social Ministry in a variety of parishes. For many years the Sisters served the Hispanic community around the Cathedral Parish.

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S. Ann Harrington, B.V.M., Ph.D., Professor of History, Loyola University of Chicago, Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary: The Philadelphia Connection.

Mary Frances Clarke and four companions decided to leave Dublin for Philadelphia to teach Irish immigrants in need of Catholic education just twenty-five years after the beginning of the Diocese of Philadelphia. The foundation of the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, also known as BVMs, is dated November 1, 1833, two months after they arrived. Their priest helper was Terence James Donaghoe, whom they met after their arrival in Philadelphia and who served as pastor of St. Joseph’s parish and later St. Michael’s parish.

Mary Frances Clarke, the founder of the BVMs grew up in the first quarter of the nineteenth century as did her companions: Margaret Mann, Rose O’Toole, Eliza Kelly, and Catherine Byrne. The women were greatly influenced by the developing Roman Catholic Church both in Dublin and in Philadelphia. Even though at almost every step the women needed input from some Roman Catholic priest or bishop as they continued their work, they were able to retain their own identity and conduct their ministries in a manner they felt appropriate.

This paper focuses on how the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary happened to be founded in Philadelphia where they are little known today, their connections to St. Joseph’s and St. Michael’s parishes, why they left Philadelphia and moved to the Iowa Territory after just 10 years, and how the time spent in Philadelphia influenced their future development as a religious congregation which has had close to 5000 members.

Panel 2

Patrick Hayes, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Theology and Religious Studies, St. John’s University, Miracle Narratives in the See of Brotherly Love.

Miracle narratives abound in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia nineteenth and twentieth century. Four of these narratives—all of which were used in the causes of saints—are worthy of comparison. The first relates the story of a young girl, Margarita Schnyder, who in 1858 slipped off the porch of her hotel in Williamsport and broke her clavicle. The doctors’ treatments only served to worsen her condition, but through the application of a relic of Peter Claver—the so-called Jesuit “apostle to the negroes”—her shattered bones were healed. Analysis of this narrative reveals the importance of Jesuit involvement, as well as the role of nineteenth century German ethnic piety and ecclesiastical authority in the Archdiocese. The tribunal questionnaire of 1866—the only such inquiry from that century now housed in an American repository—supplies a noteworthy and fulsome documentary record for the third and final miracle used in Claver’s canonization process.

Miracles attributed to two other saints are explored. The first occurs to Robert J. Gutherman, whose hearing was restored through the intercession of Mother Katherine Drexel in 1974. This was the first miracle used in her cause and it is on the basis of this miracle that she was beatified in 1988. Additionally, the third and fourth miracle narratives arose in connection with St. John Neumann and also occurred to two youths—to James Kent Lenahaan of Villanova in July 1949 and to Michael Flanigan of West Philadelphia in 1963. Lenahan, a nineteen year-old boy was in an unusual automobile accident, as he was crushed between a car and a telephone pole. His injuries were extensive and his condition was deemed hopeless, but after his parents placed Neumann’s picture on top of James, he was soon released from the hospital, having made a complete recovery. Flanigan was a six year-old suffering from a rare bone cancer. After visiting the Neumann shrine at St. Peter’s Church, he also recovered.

A close reading of the testimonials of those who witnessed and questioned these miracles leaves little room to doubt their veracity, but between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries one can detect a discernable increase in the precision of both the narratives and their interrogation. In this power point presentation I want to lift up the power of Philadelphia’s miracle narratives, to point to their roles in the canonization of saints, and to find some comparisons between the narratives across the centuries.

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Nicholas Rademacher, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, Cabrini College, Living Saints: Mother Teresa and Dorothy Day at the 41st International Eucharistic Congress, Philadelphia, PA.

During the week August 1-8, 1976, under the leadership of John Cardinal Krol, Archbishop of Philadelphia, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia hosted the 41st International Eucharistic Congress, which coincided with the United States Bicentennial celebrations going on here the same year. On August 6, Feast of the Transfiguration and anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, Mother Teresa, who is now called blessed, and Dorothy Day, whose cause for canonization is being considered in Rome, appeared on the same stage during a conference entitled “Woman and the Eucharist.” In this paper, drawing on materials available in the Archdiocesan Archives and at the Ryan Memorial Library at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary, I will revisit both the context and content of the respective addresses that each woman delivered on that day. I will focus on their relationship to the Eucharist and the way in which it informed their work as Christian social activists.

Panel 3

Francis Ryan, Ed.D., Professor and Director of American Studies, La Salle University, Frances Bradshaw’s 1918 Ethnographic Study of the Philadelphia Polish Catholic Schools: A Ninety-Year Retrospective.

This paper is a follow-up to the 1918 Dewey-Barnes study of the Philadelphia Polish community in the Port Richmond section of Philadelphia. During the late spring and summer of 1918, John Dewey, the Columbia University philosopher, and Albert Barnes, the Philadelphia physician and art connoisseur, came to Philadelphia to oversee what was the first ethnographic study of this ethnic community. The other participants in this study, whom Dewey and Barnes supervised, were graduate students in Dewey’s social philosophy class at Columbia. Each student was assigned a different feature of the community to examine, from religion and family structure, to politics and education. Frances Bradshaw studied the Polish Catholic School (St. Adalbert’s) and the neighborhood public school (the Martin School). Bradshaw’s study, which was believed lost until I discovered it in 1992 in the archives of the Sterling Library at Yale University, critiques, among other things, the educational programs at both schools in the context of progressive education.

This follow-up study, which is on-going and which consists essentially of oral histories, concludes that St. Adalbert’s Parish, through its Saturday Polish language program and its celebrations of Polish culture, continues to provide an ethnic identity for both Polish-Americans and for recent Polish immigrants and their children. For recent Polish immigrants, these language and cultural programs, along with ESL instruction in the school, eases the potentially-traumatic immersion into mainstream American culture. These parish-sponsored programs, along with other Polish cultural agencies in the community (especially the local library), contribute to the forging of “partial identifier” character-types, consisting of immigrants and their descendents who retain ties to their ancestry. Some evidence suggests, however, that these parish-sponsored programs also contribute to the shaping of “total-identifiers,” those who live out their lives totally within the ethnic group.

My research suggests that there is much confusion about the role of St. Adalbert’s School as an ethnic school. The curriculum and pedagogy follow the guidelines from the Office of Catholic Education, and the academic program bears almost no resemblance to the school visited by Bradshaw in 1918. In fact, an examination of its overall program and the ethnicity of its students questions the degree to which it should be understood today as the type of true ethnic school encouraged by Archbishop Ryan in the late nineteenth century. What is clear, however, is that while a cultural and linguistic dichotomy existed in 1918 between the Polish residents of Port Richmond and other Philadelphians, this dichotomy in culture and language now exists between Polish-Americans in Port Richmond and recent Polish immigrants.

At the conclusion of the 2007-2008 academic year, St. Adalbert’s School (its parish designated as “Polish” on its web site, with a Polish language Sunday Mass), the Nativity BVM School (the regional and allegedly “Irish” school), and Our Lady Help of Christians School (its parish designated “German” on its web site, with no German language Mass) will evidently merge into St. Adalbert’s building. This study will conclude by examining the projected effects of this merger on the alleged ethnic character and purpose of St. Adalbert’s School.

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Eugene J. Halus, Jr., Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Politics, Immaculata University, Dennis Clark, Pluralism and Urban America, 1960-1993

Dennis Clark played an important and multifaceted role in the history, politics and religious life of Philadelphia. He authored books about the Irish in Philadelphia, the role of the Roman Catholic Church in urban affairs, and urban redevelopment and integration. As an activist he advocated for a greater role for the laity in the church and for the church to develop strategies that would engage the urban and ethnic issues emerging in the 1960s. Lastly as a Philadelphia city official he attempted to promote integration and inter-ethnic understanding that acknowledged the legitimate claims of both African-Americans and Euro-American ethnics.

Clark’s life and writings have thus far gone largely undocumented, but he clearly played a significant role within Philadelphia’s Irish Catholic community and the larger Euro-American ethnic movement that was emerging nationwide in the 1960s.

This paper is part of a larger study exploring the origins of the Euro-American ethnic movement in the 1960s and its effects upon American politics and the Catholic Church.

Panel 4

Jennifer Schaaf, Ph.D., Lecturer in History, Penn State Abington, Francis Patrick Kenrick and the Intensification of Clerical Authority in Antebellum Philadelphia.

It has long been assumed that Catholics responded to the intensifying scrutiny and the growing antagonism of nativists by retreating more closely into their parish communities in the middle decades of the nineteenth century. Historians have assumed that the Right Reverend Francis Patrick Kenrick, who served as Bishop of Philadelphia during the deadly 1844 nativist riots, spearheaded a campaign for insularity among the members of his flock in the aftermath of the crisis. It is certainly true that nativism coincided with the consolidation movement that strengthened clerical authority and revitalized Catholic piety. And it also is true that Kenrick encouraged his coreligionists to avoid entanglements with hostile Protestants that might escalate to acts of violence to avoid further loss of life. But Catholic institutional growth and maturation, and the prescriptions for peaceful coexistence with Protestants encouraged by members of the hierarchy such as Kenrick must not be mistaken for a turn toward reclusiveness or alienation from the broader American society. Catholics met Protestant critiques with impassioned campaigns to defend the faith and to raise Catholics’ social and cultural stock in the eyes of their Protestant neighbors. They undertook specialized benevolent work that advertised their adherence to middle class American values and signaled their acceptance of mainstream standards of respectability. They displayed their taste for intellectual endeavors and refined entertainments. And in the process of doing so, they aimed to prove that there was no dissonance between their Catholic identity and their American identity. In Philadelphia, it was Kenrick himself who stood at the forefront of these efforts. He spearheaded social, cultural, and theological initiatives designed to foster cross-denominational understanding at a time when Protestant antagonism seemed to preclude such mutuality.

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John Ahtes, M.A., Lecturer in History, Immaculata University, Dennis Cardinal Dougherty, Irish Nationalism and the Civil War.

This paper examines the relationship of the hierarchy and clergy of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia to Irish Nationalism in general, and specifically to the period of the Irish struggle for Independence and subsequent Irish Civil War. Particular attention is paid to relations with the Catholic Church in Ireland and its political role in this period, American policy toward the Irish Question, and the Irish-American Nationalist community in Philadelphia, The efforts of Archbishops Prendergast and Dougherty to respond to the challenge of ethnic nationalism among the faithful of Philadelphia in this critical period will be a particular focus.

Panel 5

S. Marie Hubert Kealy, I.H.M., Ph.D., Professor of English, Immaculata University, Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary – Immigrant Church to University.

This paper explores the origin and development of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia from mid-nineteenth century to the chartering of Immaculata University in 1920. Underneath the focus of the IHM charism, and its flowering from pre-school to college in the Philadelphia area, is the story of two organizations that developed in parallel lines from early responses to parish needs to the sponsoring of universities. The original boundaries of the Philadelphia diocese included all of eastern Pennsylvania; thus, both the Scranton and Immaculata Congregations of IHMs belong to this bicentennial history. Both groups of sisters began with outreach to immigrant families and to unschooled adults; both have served in the suffragan dioceses carved from the original Philadelphia territory; both have expanded their educational apostolates to university level and to contemporary needs of the Church in inner cities and in foreign territories.

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William Watson, Ph.D., Professor of History, Immaculata University, The Sisters of Charity, the 1832 Cholera Epidemic in Philadelphia and Duffy’s Cut.

This paper will explore the role of the Sisters of Charity, founded in 1809 by St. Elizabeth Anne Seton, as caregivers in the 1832 cholera epidemic in the City of Philadelphia and its environs. The epidemic claimed over 900 lives in the Delaware Valley from July through September, and most professional medical personnel were ineffective in treating the disease. In some well-documented cases, the care was unprofessional and destructive to morale. The Sisters were called upon by the City Board of Health to provide the most professional level of care possible, and they responded enthusiastically and effectively. Their services on behalf of the sick and dying constituted the one positive aspect of the region’s treatment plan. Sisters were also called upon to minister to the dying Irishmen of the Duffy’s Cut tragedy in Chester County that August, and their involvement in the Duffy’s Cut narrative is a crucial aspect of that story. This paper will utilize archival resources of the

City of Philadelphia, Swarthmore College, and the Daughters of Charity (as the order is known today).

Session 2

Panel 6

Fr. Francis Berna, O.F.M., Ph.D., Director of Graduate Theology and Ministry, LaSalle University, A Church in Contrast: The Graduate Program at LaSalle University.

Inaugurated in 1950 as La Salle University’s first graduate program, a standard theological curriculum with an innovative schedule sought to prepare the Brothers of the Christian Schools to teach religion in high schools and colleges. Absent the requirement of clerical Latin the curriculum itself offers the first hints of a different church, an ecclesiology with a non-clerical focus.

The heady years of Vatican II suggest perhaps the explosion of this approach to church. La Salle’s program stood in sharper contrast and for some it deserved the pejorative label of “liberal.” Not terribly different than other college or university based programs both professors and students exercised the freedom to explore notions of church in sharp contrast with the hierarchical images promoted in most seminary education and concretely expressed in the lived experience of Philadelphia Catholics.

More recent years reflect the increasing enrollment of lay people who are not part of the consecrated life. Rather than attracting students from greater distances enrollment patterns indicate local interest; extended summer sessions have given way to more regular semesters as well as intensive scheduling. Increased service to the local church and the ministry of non-consecrated laity challenges the program to hold together the tension of the prophetic charism and the Episcopal ministry of the church.

This paper will explore program mission statements, enrollment patterns, course descriptions and related materials to demonstrate the various ecclesiologies operative in the program’s fifty-seven year history.

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Eugene J. Halus, Jr., Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Politics, Immaculata University, The Saint Gabriel’s System, La Salle College High School and the de La Salle Christian Brothers: A Study in Contrasting Similarities.

While considerable attention has been paid to the role of churches, the role of religious institutes as a form of social capital has largely been ignored in the social science and historical literature, and has been further complicated by the fact that many researchers do not have a clear definition of what exactly social capital is. The intention here is twofold. First to begin to develop a framework to understand religious institutes as a form of social capital, and second to utilize the theology and educational philosophy of St. John Baptist de La Salle as evidenced in two distinctly different educational institutions as a case study. By doing so we may discover that we may in fact need to talk about forms of social capital rather than everything under the one term social capital.

Panel 7

Richard Juliani, Ph.D. Professor of Sociology, Villanova University, The Parish as an Urban Institution: Revisiting Parish, Priest and People: Saving the Faith in Philadelphia’s 'Little Italy.'

This paper, based on a reflection on the recently published study Priest, Parish and People: Saving the Faith in Philadelphia’s Little Italy (University of Notre Press 2007), focuses on the challenge of conducting scholarly research in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. In this book, the author sought to synthesize a history of St. Mary Magdalen dePazzi, founded in 1853, the first church for Italian Catholics to be founded anywhere in the United States; a biography of Father Antonio Isoleri, its sixth pastor, who served in that capacity for 56 years, from 1870 to 1926; and a analysis of the challenge of the “Italian problem” for American Catholicism. The paper examines the original intention of the author, the eventual substance of the book itself, and the aftermath of its publication --- as well as the historiography of immigration and religion in American Catholic experience.

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Fr. Daniel Joyce, S.J., M.Div., Assistant to the President for Mission and Adjunct Professor of Theology, St. Joseph’s University, The Development of Parish-based Urban Missiology for Ministry in the United States: The Contributions of Four Jesuits in Philadelphia, 1733-1892.

For over 300 years there has been a parish-based Jesuit mission in Philadelphia maintained by Jesuits and ex-Jesuits alike. Aspects of a Jesuit missiological style and spirituality for that ministry have been interpreted during a crucial period of time for the germination and growth of the Catholic Church in Philadelphia. The principle interpreters of that mission are Joseph Greaton S.J.; Robert Molyneux, S.J.; Felix Barbelin, S.J.; and Burchard Villiger, S.J.; Through an examination of their careers as pastors, educators and citizens within the context of an expanding urbanism in Philadelphia can a distinctive missiology can be evaluated? Several personal factors are important in gaining a deeper understanding of the careers of these men: their formation as Jesuits, the practice of The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola and the shaping of their missionary style through a constant connection to the Society of Jesus at large - both real and perceived. This work attempts to review how these men may have imagined their sense of mission within the context of the colonial and federal periods of U.S. history resulting in a framework for the growth that further developed in the 19th century. The missiological style and spirituality for ministry interpreted by these Jesuits makes a contribution to the growth of the urban parish in the northeastern United States, a significant sector of the American Church.

Panel 8

Vincent Marchionni, B.A., Department of History, Saint Joseph’s University, Sodalities and Ultramontane Catholicism in Philadelphia: Old Saint Joseph’s as a Case Study.

This paper argues that geography, theology, and demography converge to create a parallel Catholic universe within the parish. This trend began in antebellum America and continued through Vatican II. Through a variety of organizations emanating from the parish, a Catholic conceivably could go his entire life without joining a secular organization. Geographically, parishes were situated in urban environments where it was within walking distance of the people. Therefore the people were only a few blocks away from the priest, who was connected to the bishop, who was connected to the pope – Rome was only a few blocks away. Emphasizing this transnational theology was ultramontanism, the zenith of which occurred under the pontificate of Pius IX. Intense, communal, and emotional piety coupled with baroque architecture, and heavy-handed authority brought about a shift in American Catholicism. A truly international church frightened many native-born Americans, as demographics changed. From the 1840s through the 1920s indigent immigrants first from Ireland and Germany, then southern and Eastern Europe, flooded America’s docks. Nativism ran rampant most powerfully in the decade before the Civil War, but was prevalent through the First World War. These three factors led to Catholic a bunker mentality. Old Saint Joseph’s Church is a wonderful example of this movement, as it created numerous devotional and social programs throughout the 1840s and 1850s. I researched the minutes of various sodalities there and realized just how prevalent sodalities were. Every age group was represented and they provided both religious succor and fraternity in an impersonal, industrial city. The sodalities at Old Saint Joseph’s are emblematic of ultramontane Catholicism’s drive to create a safe haven for persecuted American Catholics.

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Mr. Colin Varga, B.F.A., Assistant Archivist, Philadelphia Archdiocesan Historical Research Center, The Susquehannocks: Catholics in 17th Century Pennsylvania.

This paper details events described in the Jesuit Relations of Susquehannock people being converted to Catholicism as early as 1638, the continuing contacts from Susquehannocks visiting Montreal, and the journey of a missionary the Rev. Jean Pierron, to a Susquehannock village in 1674. From this period there is archaeological evidence of Jesuit contact from excavations of Susquehannock villages.

Unfortunately, the history of the Susquehannocks turns tragic after this: Small pox epidemics weaken the once mighty people, Maryland creates an alliance with the Seneca, and the Susquehannocks are forced from their villages. They seek refuge in Maryland at Accokeek along the Potomac River and come under fire from the Virginia Militia and armed Marylanders who kill one of last chiefs. After this they are no longer considered a threat and the Seneca allow them to return to Pennsylvania as a tribute nation of the Iroquois (not a full member of the Confederacy but one that pays tribute). The Count Zinzendorf notes that the Susquehannocks visit the “Popish Chapel” (Old St. Joseph’s Church) in Philadelphia in 1743, and the final chapter of these people is written by the Paxton Boys with the massacre in Lancaster Christmas 1763.

Unlike the Iroquois who had Catholicism forced on them with gun and bayonet, the Susquehannocks sought out Catholicism on their own.

Panel 9

Katie Oxx, Ph.D., Visiting Professor of Theology, Saint Joseph’s University, The Spiritual Construction of Religious Identity: St. Nicholas of Tolentine Church and Italian-American Catholicism.

Urban religious spaces are highly contested, historically changing sites of identity construction, maintenance, deconstruction, and reconstruction. This paper looks at St. Nicholas of Tolentine Church and particularly its procession of the saints to examine the spatial construction of Italian-American Catholic identity.

St. Nicholas (1912) is one of two remaining Italian parishes in the south vicariate of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. Its neighborhood is increasingly Asian and Mexican and has been the site of nationally publicized immigration conflicts. Because St. Nicholas is inside the parish boundaries of Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (1860), a spatial analysis reveals a number of differences between them. First, though the ethnic makeup of the parishioners is the same, Annunciation engages with its local community to a greater degree and hosts a Spanish Mass. Second, Tolentine’s parishioners have always demonstrated their Italian ethnicity by marking place; early settlers demolished the Protestant church they purchased and erected an explicitly Italian structure. In 1933, the site was incorporated by the diocese with its current independent status. Third, the festivals each church hosts illustrate significant differences in the ways they demonstrate their ethnicity. At St. Nicholas’ festival, a palpable sense of Italian ethnicity is at the fore. A procession of saints is the central event of the day; the year’s First Communion class leads about a hundred people on a zig-zagging tour through the Mexican and Vietnamese blocks surrounding the church. Although the parish history claims the procession was brought over by the parish founders, this festival is only in its fourth year.

In this paper I draw on Joseph Sciorra’s work on religious processions and the marking of place and what Terrence Tilley calls the “invention” of Catholic tradition in Italian Catholicism. My analysis of Tolentine allows for the application of theoretical models in the geography of religion, which is part of my ongoing work in this emerging field.

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Thomas F. Rzeznik, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of History, Department of History Seton Hall University, Church Closings, Pastoral Planning and Parish Viability: Lessons from 1993.

In 1993, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia announced plans to restructure twenty-one parishes through a combination of closures and consolidations. While the direct effects were limited to North Philadelphia and the city of Chester, two of the region’s poorest communities, the decision marked a significant moment for the archdiocese as a whole. Not only did it awaken local Catholics to the consequences of demographic change and their own upwards social mobility, it also forced archdiocesan leaders to respond to charges that the church was “abandoning the city” and modify its policies towards parochial planning.

Moving beyond news reports and the standard narratives of protest, this paper situates parish closings in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia within their larger historical context, in comparison not only with other Catholic dioceses throughout the nation but also with other religious communities in Philadelphia, many of whom faced their own struggle with congregational decline and denominational planning. It assesses the changing methods and policies employed by the archdiocese to justify consolidation or closure, with particular attention to the recent implementation of localized “cluster pastoral planning.” I argue that this process added a degree of transparency to the process of parish restructuring at the expense of comprehensive planning and renewal. The lessons from 1993 also included a shift from straightforward financial arguments as the basis for restructuring decisions to a more thorough analysis of the “spiritual health” of parishes, thus signaling a change in the archdiocesan definition of parochial viability.

This case study concludes by raising important issues that will shape future deliberation, including historical preservation, the reuse of sacred space, and the financial pressures of recent clerical abuse settlements.

Panel 10

William Watson, Ph.D., Professor of History, Immaculata University, The Sisters of Charity, the 1832 Cholera Epidemic in Philadelphia and Duffy’s Cut.

City of Philadelphia, Swarthmore College, and the Daughters of Charity (as the order is known today).

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John Ahtes, M.A., Lecturer in History, Immaculata University, Dennis Cardinal Dougherty, Irish Nationalism and the Civil War.

Closing Session

Margaret McGuinness, Ph.D., Chair and Professor of Religious Studies, La Salle University and Margaret Reher, Ph.D., Professor Emerita of Religious Studies, Cabrini College, Closing Session – Chronicling the Faith: Commentary and Questions.

Drs. McGuinness and Reher will offer an overall analysis of the papers presented on the day of the conference and make some projections, based upon the papers, regarding the challenges the archdiocese will face in the coming decades.