II

It is a fact that the Italians now emigrate to Asia, Africa, and Oceania in minimal numbers. Almost all are fascinated by the seductions of the New World, where if they no longer dream about the gold of California and Peru, they feel confident of finding work and sufficient comfort. Therefore, they prefer to go to the Republic of Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Chile, etc., in South America and to the United States in North America.

            Even though the disappointments, the dangers, the temporal and spiritual hazards are pretty much the same for all the immigrants, they do present themselves as greater or lesser, in diverse forms and different circumstances, depending on the country that the immigrants choose to adopt. This consideration is of major importance in the choice of means of assistance that can be given them.

            The farmers of northern Italy, who have serious and peaceful habits, and are generally good Christians, prefer to go to South America. They are attracted there by the offers of land which in those countries is granted in perpetual lease or in property, for very little, by the governments themselves or by investment companies, whose agents in Italy make themselves recruiters of colonists with the amplest promises.

            For the most part, then, those who get there soon find a destination, a language close to Italian, and numerous compatriots who have been there for a long time. But soon they scatter into distant regions, full of dangers, where they suffer cruel disappointments, and die from nostalgia and sufferings. Their economic conditions improve somewhat at the price of many sacrifices, but their spiritual conditions become very sad.

            Relatively speaking, the number of priests over there is very small. In those immense countries the distance between the places inhabited by the immigrants is enormous, since communication has not yet been made easy. Therefore, even though the Italians are often to be found in large enough numbers so as to build parishes and with sufficient wealth so as to support a resident priest, it is a great achievement if they can have their children baptized and every so often go to confession to a priest who visits them rarely and very quickly. They therefore remain entirely deprived of every religious instruction and of the means indispensable for a Christian life.

            Many moving letters from America reach the bishops of Italy from those who formerly belonged to their dioceses (Summary, VI). These letters, while they show the faith of those abandoned migrants who demand spiritual food, also prove that they are bereft of it, that they are exposed to danger because of their ignorance, their long absence from the Sacraments, and the intrigues of the Freemasons who are actively engaged in their well-known schemes.

            In those regions the Italians are numerous enough to form real colonies. They preserve their language and nationality. But the lack of religious instruction for the children and the above-mentioned lack of priestly ministry are, without doubt, their greatest danger.

            First of all, they need priests, good priests. Worse yet is the condition of the Italians who emigrated to the United States, as has been proven by the last Council of Baltimore and by the authoritative and confidential information received in this regard (Summary, VII). Since it was a question of predominantly Protestant countries, which come

within its jurisdiction, the Sacred Congregation directed its investigation particularly toward them to see what it could do on behalf of the Italians.

            In those countries the shortage of priests is great relative to the size of the task facing them. Even though there are not a few Italian priests, they are forced to work in parishes with so much to do and in such conditions that they cannot dedicate themselves to their compatriots in any special way (Summary, VIII). Despite the zeal of the Archbishop of New York and the efforts of the Sacred Congregation, only one Pallottine priest was found who could temporarily go to Castle Garden (the government port) to receive the thousands of immigrants who reach that city each month. Even in the United States priests, and good priests, are in demand.

            However, more than the lack of priests, what is most deplored there is the sterility of priestly ministry on behalf of the Italians. The information we have gathered permits us, unfortunately, to prove this (Summary, VII).

            This sterility can be attributed to two causes: The first is the economic situation of the immigrants. This places the Italians in a position of inferiority before the wealth of the immigrants of other nations who can spend and do generously spend for the expenses of cult and support of priests. The Italians are placed in an inferior position, for many one of real beggary. They cannot contribute, or they easily excuse themselves from contributing to, such a collective burden. It is humiliating to acknowledge that, after the disappearance of the Indians from the United States and the emancipation of the Negroes, the Italian immigrants in large number represent the pariahs of this great American Republic. It is sufficient to point out that they are so despised for their filth and beggary that in New York the Irish granted them free use of the basement of the Church of Transfiguration, so that they could gather for their religious practices, since the Irish did not want to have them in the upstairs church (Summary, IX). In that basement the newcomers gather to receive the services of the priests.

            The Italians who emigrate to the United States, in contrast to those who go to South America, are for the most part not farmers. Those who are dedicated to such a profession move to the wide-open country of the Far West. Their fate is not dissimilar, if not actually worse, than that of their compatriots in Brazil, La Plata, Paraná, etc., though it should be added that their labor is already mortgaged to the Protestant “padrone”

(patron), who pays for expenses of the journey and takes those slaves with himself. This padrone is often a fanatic proselytizer (Summary, IV).

            Generally, migrants to the United States belong to all classes and to all social professions. They come from all the provinces of Italy: factory workers, adventurers attracted by the feverish activities dominant there and the promise of huge rewards. There are some who practice arts and crafts, others who are engaged in all types of commerce, in all types of businesses even the basest ones, ready to change jobs daily so as to survive. Very many go begging because they are caught by misfortune or through vice by utter destitution (Summary, VII). Though numerous in the cities of the Union, they lack the power to build their own churches, as the Irish, the Germans, etc. have done. In New York, where they reach the number of 50,000 so far, they did not have a single chapel. (Summary, II).

            In St. Louis, Missouri, the church built for the Italians was sold, because there was no way of paying its debts. The same thing happened in Baltimore, where the Church of St. Leo passed to the service of the Irish (Summary, VII). What more?? By themselves they are not capable of defraying the expenses of cult in chapels freely granted to them, nor of supporting the priest who dedicates himself to their spiritual service. The priest who goes to receive the immigrants at Castle Garden in New York and exercises his ministry in the Italian section is supported by the Irish (Summary, VIII).

            A second cause offered for the sterility of the priestly work on behalf of the Italians would be their religious indifference. The lack of primary education, the almost total ignorance of religion, the anti-Christian habits brought by many from Italy, the material occupations to which they untiringly give themselves, and the preoccupations of poverty, are cited as causes of this indifference. The little esteem that they show for religious, for priests of their same nationality, the curses that even more than their language reveal their country of origin, the unwillingness, even of the wealthy, to contribute to the needs of worship, and the manifestation of sentiments unbecoming every good Catholic, are cited as proof of the religious apathy by which they stand out when compared to the religious activity of immigrants of other nations (Summary, VII and X).

            Independently of these various explanations, the ignorance of the English language, which deprives them of the common cares of American Catholics, and their dispersion, which deprives them of the special

attention of Italian priests, are singled out as great obstacles to their religious fervor (Summary, VII).

            The greatest part of the poor Italians know no other language, save their native dialect, so that they find themselves isolated even when they are in great number. The Irish, the Germans, the French, though learning English, preserve with their language their own nationality in the midst of the American race. They form colonies in the bosom of the great Republic in which they participate with the natives in the economic and political life. The poor Italians on the other hand, remain individuals lost in the crowd. Because of this very moral isolation, the adults preserve the characteristics of their own country, and they do not participate in the religious life of the parishes where they reside. Moreover, the young attend public schools, learn English and not Italian, take up American customs, and since they are not taken by their parents to Catholic churches, they ignore the catechism, even if they don’t drink the poison of heresy. Slowly those poor families become transformed in a few years melting into the great American nation, preserving their Italian identity in name only.

            Consonant with this difficulty is the dispersion of the Italian immigrants over the entire surface of the United States. It is not easy, therefore, for the priests to get to them even less to gather them so as to offer them the means of spiritual salvation. They are scattered from New York to San Francisco, from Ontario to Texas, or gathered in small flying groups (gruppi volanti) in search of work, given to petty peddling, to the nomadic life of the mountebanks, and of the organ grinders. Or they are scattered among Protestant families which they serve, or even as beggars, or sometimes gathered in small bands, among many peoples of various nationalities in the mines, the shops, in railroad work or lumbering, at very great distances. It is, therefore, impossible to see how they can afford religious instruction at given times and places and how they can practice their religious duties in common. The missionaries associate themselves and move with the Indian tribes beyond the Far West. But how can one follow, associate oneself with those Italians who are so scattered? In any event, numerous facts have proven that the zeal of priests would not be completely unsuccessful among them, in spite of the noted wretchedness and religious indifference, if one could succeed in keeping them together for some time, or even better in establishing colonies which would give origin to important parishes. To give one example, the

Archbishop of New York reminds us how in a mission lasting twenty days, given a few years ago in the basement of the Church of the

Transfiguration, the Italians residing in that section came every day to fill that place. One thousand persons received the Holy Sacraments and gave $370.00 for the expenses of the Missions (Summary, V). This event, which took place in a city where only two or three percent of 50,000 Italians were usually going to church, would prove that the religious indifference could be the effect rather than the cause of the neglect and that a persevering and disinterested zeal would triumph in many cases. It could be concluded, then, that in the United States the Italians are in very sad conditions, in part because of their fault, in part because of their poverty, in part because of the lack of priests who can specifically dedicate themselves to their compatriots. The same documents that contain such painful statements, confirm that if it were possible to have someone who could take care of them from the moment they reach Castle Garden, New Orleans, San Francisco, and the other principal ports of the Union, would look over them, by regulating their dispersion, holding them as much as possible united in the cities or in colonies, by providing them with capable and zealous priests who could speak their language, and if it were possible to have in New York, Boston, Baltimore, Charleston, St. Louis, San Francisco, Chicago, the principal centers, committees that would promote the erection of churches, schools, hospitals and also some institutions for material aids. So much zeal and so much perseverance could succeed in greatly paralyzing the causes which bring about the dissolution of the Italian Catholic element in that huge territory (Summary, V, VII, VIII, IX, X).

            There, where the activity of all non-Catholic sects and Freemasonry is greatest, Italian Catholic activity must be greatest if the faith of so many good people is to be preserved and the indifference of many shaken. Even there for a variety of circumstances, the same cry is heard as in Latin America: Send good Italian priests to care for Italian immigrants.