26. Scalabrini to Merry del Val²⁷

Memorial of Bishop G.B. Scalabrini on a Commission for Catholic Migrants

(Pro Emigratis Catholicis) - Piacenza, May 4, 1905

Most Eminent Prince:

I have the honor of submitting to the great wisdom of Your Eminence some considerations and proposals regarding the present and future conditions of Catholicism in the two Americas.

            These observations and proposals are the fruit of long studies done on the spot and even more of the experience of well-deserving missionaries and famous prelates who have dedicated their whole life to the spreading of religion in those regions.

            Never before at moments of writing about this subject, have I felt more moved and have invoked with greater intensity, enlightenment from God and the grace of that eloquence which comes from the splendor of the word supported by the evidence of facts and figures, so as to be able to transmit to others the inner convictions I feel on this very important subject. What I saw in my journeys through the United States and Brazil is before me as it were real and the emotions I felt will never be cancelled from by heart.

            I have visited large cities and recently established communities, fields made fruitful by work, and immense plains never touched by a human hand. I have known immigrants who had reached the prominence given by wealth; others, who lived in comfort; but mostly, the obscure, immense mass of the poor who struggle for life against the dangers of the desert, the snares of unhealthy climate and human greed, alone, totally abandoned, deprived of all religious and social comforts and of everything. I felt their hearts beat in unison with mine when I spoke to them in their native tongue in the name of our common faith.

            Painful spectacle, I have seen the faith dying in millions of souls for lack of spiritual nourishment and also, unfortunately because of the unworthiness of some of its ministers.

            I have also seen the practice of Christian life and the ineffable hopes of religion bloom again in entire populations, like in a springtime of the spirit, under the wind of a holy apostolate.

            I have seen, in a word, that if in those regions the Church of God has no greater importance than the one it has now in the direction of both public and private life, and if millions of souls are lost, it is due in large measure to the lack of a well organized religious work adapted well to the specific environments, and to the lack of clergy, rather than to the great activity of the enemies of the faith. I have, therefore, formed the strong conviction that it is urgent to take some measures and that it is a serious error, not to say a sin, on the part of all of us who are charged with the government of the Church to allow the continuation of conditions which so greatly damage the souls and belittle before God’s enemies the social importance of the Catholic Church.

            There is no question that one of the greatest events of modern history was the occupation, by the European nations, of all the continents inhabited by primitive races which were considered retarded or refractory to civilization and which were practicing the lowest forms of idolatry.

It was an event of political, social, and therefore religious, character, since all human facts reflect the psychic unity from which they emanate. To remain within the argument of these considerations of mine, the conquest of America and the submission of the indigenous races had truly surprising political, social and religious consequences.

            America, as everyone knows, is one of the largest continents of the earth. Its area is 40 million square kilometers, that is, four times larger than Europe and its extends in both hemispheres, divided almost in two halves above and below the Equator, reaching in the North the Polar Circle and in the South the 60th degree of latitude. Thus it has all climates, hot and cold, with subtropical and temperate zones, and it possesses all the fruits and the natural resources of all climates.

            Surrounded by three great oceans, endowed with all the riches that the earth’s fertility and human industry can produce, America has in its conformation, in its gulfs, in its wide and secure bays, in its great navigable rivers thousands of kilometers long, the space and the natural roads given to mankind by Providence. It was Providence that wished to save for mankind this last cradle where the different races could go on to a promised land where they could mingle, multiply and progress for their own well-being and for the glory of God.

            At the present time there are in America 18 independent republics and several colonial possessions belonging to various European nations, with a population of about 150 million. If that vast continent had the population density of Italy (even if we do not count the equatorial and polar regions) it could be host to over 2,500 million inhabitants, that is, one third more than the people now living all over the surface of our globe.

            All the people of the earth have contributed to the formation of these nations, and with statistical figures one could determine in what measure the blood of each European people has become part of the American type.

            Thus, civilized people and populous cities have now supplanted the ancient empires of the Incas, the Aztecs, the Quichnos, the Guarany, the vagrant Indian tribes of the north and the numerous ones wandering in the south without a name and without a fixed residence.

            The forms of European immigration to America, after the brief and bloody period of the conquest, are entirely different from all other migrations recorded in history.

            Not hordes of barbarians sowing massacre and ruin, but hosts of peaceful workers searching success and forgetfulness. No longer the rushing of a swollen river that sweeps away everything, but the placid spreading out of fecunding waters. No longer suppression of nations, but fusions and adaptations in which the various nationalities meet, intermingle, forge themselves anew and give origin to other peoples in which, notwithstanding some differences, certain characteristics and particular religious and civil tendencies prevail as they do in the case of one and the same people.

            Such migration reflects a natural law. The physical and the human worlds are subject to a mysterious force that stirs and mixes, without destroying them, the elements of life – a force which transports the organisms born in certain places and spreads them into space, transforming and perfecting them in such a way as to constantly renew the miracle of creation.²⁸

            Due to this law, in a century America has become the great crucible of the old European nations and seems destined to exercise a strong influence on the destinies of humanity.

            This glorious economic and political fact which began in the XIX century and is still taking place in the XX, explains the great interest that the European governments show in following each their migrant groups in the various American States. These governments subsidize associations formed for the protection, social assistance, charity, and education of the immigrants. They establish employment agencies and commercial outposts. They encourage all those organizations which transform the immigrants from an amorphous conglomeration of people into a living organism in which vibrates the national sentiment of the immigrants through which the love for their countries of origin is kept alive in their Americanized descendents.

            The Catholic Church is called by its divine apostolate and by its centuries-old tradition to put its imprint on this great social movement whose goal is the economic improvement and the fusion of the Christian peoples.

            As it has done everywhere and in all times, the Church has a noble and beautiful mission even in this conflict of interests. It must first of all provide for the safety of the faith, for its propagation and for the salvation of souls; then, it must take its seat, as queen and mother of all, among the

different groups; smooth the sharp edges of the various nationalities; quiet down the struggles for self interest waged by the various countries; in a word, bring harmony among the various nationalities in the unity of faith which is a source of peace.

            Nobody could deny to the Church this function of mother and moderator of peoples which belongs to her by divine right and by universal consent. In fact all Catholics believe and the non-Catholics in good faith admit the truth of the axiom that wherever the Church is, there is the immortal work of a merciful God: Immortale Dei miserentis opus, quod est Ecclesia.

            Considerations, facts and figures cited, lead us naturally to ask: what must the Church do in order to keep the religious sentiment alive and active and the Catholic faith strong in these peoples before whom a future, rich with so many promises, is now open, and to which the Catholic peoples of Europe send yearly such a strong contingent of migrants.

            The question is simple, but the answer is not. An adequate answer must be articulate and comprehensive at the same time – an answer of a general and particular character. It must be general, that is, because of the authority it comes from, and particular and varied according to the environments where it must be applied, the different needs it intends to satisfy, the laws, the customs of the single nations and, I should add, of the various Christian communities that are being formed.

            I shall try to be brief, presenting just a synthesis of my thoughts.

            Since the discovery of America, the Church has exercised its apostolate there. It kept in check the greediness and the cruelty of the conquerors and civilized the natives. Let it suffice as an example of the struggle in which the clergy engaged in order to defend these natives and the Christian communities formed among the Guarany in the Missions of Paraguay – a vast political and religious empire admired even by writers who were not too soft toward Catholicism, and which was rightly called “The Republic of The Saints.”

            Later on, because of the prevailing conditions, the action of the clergy became too involved in politics. The colonial political power of Latin America became the worst imaginable form of misgovernment, foolishly tyrannical and greedy not only toward the natives but also toward the Americanized populations of European origin. The saying that a European cobbler had a better right than an illustrious Creole to govern a colony became an axiom for those colonial governments which seemed to be formed only to alienate these emerging populations from their mother

countries and to arouse hostility toward anything European. This moral divorce widened until it degenerated into open rebellion. This state of animosity and political rebellion had its repercussions on religion, since in the eyes of the majority, the clergy appeared, and it often was in fact, confused with the political power. To this cause must be added the scarcity of churches and clergy, so that we must necessarily conclude that Catholicism in those regions existed more in name than in fact, with little for the governments and for the peoples.

            Many priests also crossed the ocean with the migrants. Unfortunately, however, with few exceptions, they were the rotten type from among the clergy. There, without control and because of their scandalous lives and their trafficking in holy things, they discredited religion and ruined entire communities.

            It is now time to restore, even there, everything in Jesus Christ.

            Much has been done to this end, but it is a trifle in comparison to what must still be accomplished. All immigrants of various nationalities need the alert and maternal care of the Church. Poles are tormented and torn apart by schism. French Canadians are in constant agitation against Episcopal authority. The Germans of the South, where the Jesuits are not among them as in the Rio Grande do Sul, claim priests of their nationality. The Ruthenians and the Italo-Greeks are confronted with the burning questions of the celibacy of their priests and of their Rites. There are other minor migrations scattered everywhere and abandoned or almost abandoned, etc.

            Italian emigration, however, is the most exposed to the snares of Protestant sects in the North and in the South and deserves special attention.

            Spaniards and Portuguese find a large territory where their language is spoken; the English and Irish and Germans, have, alone, in the British territories a second country, at least for what concerns the language. Only the Italians live where no missionaries are present, abandoned to themselves. And there was a time no too far back when they were badly tolerated, even in churches!

            In my recent travels through those regions I have participated, I repeat, in religious events that moved one to tears and I have gathered facts and anecdotes that make me blush as an Italian and a Bishop when I think that the abandon in which so many souls were left could have happened and that for very many of them still persist.

            I will not dwell in the discussion of these evils: they are known to everyone. On the other hand in Your Eminence as well as in the heart of the Holy Father the desire is alive to find a remedy.

            Allow me now, Your Eminence, to refer succinctly to the remedies that seem to me more effective.

            In my opinion, as I mentioned before, the first remedy consists in a wise organization of the apostolic work right there in the Americas. Such an organization should originate from the Holy See, not only an unquestioned and unquestionable authority before the entire Catholic clergy, but also universal by nature, and therefore that embraces all nationalities.

            We must act in such a way as to see that every colony or community, where immigration has been more intense, be provided with its priest who, living in the urban center of the colony, could periodically and at the proper time make a round of the missions of the territory assigned to him.

            This religious work must be completed with that of the school where the children of the immigrants may learn with the first elements of reading, writing and arithmetic, the language of the country that must be their new motherland and the language of the country of their origin because a very apt element in the preservation of the faith is exactly the preservation of the language of origin. What may be the mysterious reason, this is not the place to investigate it. But daily experience tells us that as long as an individual, a family, or a colony preserves its own language, it will not likely lose its own faith.

            The schools could be entrusted to sisters, and I have made a successful experiment in this field by engaging the Sisters Apostles of the Sacred Heart both in some rural colonies in Brazil and in urban centers.

            Since in those young communities what is good and useful should not be separated, in many of the most neglected places next to the school and church it will be good to establish a dispensary managed by the Sisters or by the priest, where the most commonly used medicines could be bought at a low cost.

            In this way the clergy would be the center of a variety of activities for religious, social and material assistance. The Church would stand blessed among those populations. Once more, it would become true that, like in the case of its Divine Founder, the Church would be present “doing good and healing all.”

            So far I have spoken about South America.

            As for North America, the dangers of the loss of faith are even greater, since to those already listed, such as the lack of assistance, we must add the

proselytizing done by the Protestant sects which are there more active, numerous and rich of means and power.

            The losses we have sustained in the United States for lack of religious assistance are immense. According to statistical calculations two thirds of the present population of those States, about 50 million, comes from the immigration from the various European nations. It is painful to know that, although a great portion of this immigration comes from Catholic countries, at the present time Catholics are only about 12 million. There is no doubt that the Catholics in the United States could be more than double their present number if only those who immigrated had remained Catholic. This could have happened if upon their arrival in the United States they had found or could have found later the necessary religious help. In general migrants tenaciously hold on to everything that reminds them of their mother country and their ancient faith. Sadly, the United States clergy is not numerically sufficient and, in addition, it is faced by the language barrier. This is a double obstacle. Immigrants, especially those of Latin race, have difficulty in learning English, and the Anglo-Saxon clergy, romance languages.

            The remedies, in addition to the one I have mentioned of sending in sufficient number well-trained priests, could be the following:

1)     Creation of parishes on the basis of the single nationalities every time the Catholics are able to pay the cost of maintaining such an institution, both regarding the support of the clergy and the practice of cult.

        The United States laws are very liberal and grant civil rights to any parochial association without distinction of nationality. The experience made in several cities with the creation of Italian parishes should suffice to prove how valuable this simple instrument is for reviving the faith and the desire for religious practices, even on the part of individuals who seemed very apathetic.   

2)     In those centers where many different nationalities live together and where none of them is capable of forming a parish, there should be sent a mixed clergy, with the strict obligation of imparting religious education to adults and of teaching the catechism to the children in their own language.

3)     The clergy should preferably be of the same nationality as its parishioners, or at least speak their language.

4)     Every parish should have a school where together with English and the first elements of education, the native language of the immigrants could be taught.

            The institution of such parochial schools is of primary importance, not only for the benefit of the religious sentiment by taking advantage of the patriotic one, always very strong in the immigrants, but also to preserve

the youth from the influence of the American school which, because of its spirit of perfect indifference regarding religion, assumes the character of an atheistic school.

            I have thus outlined the greatest part of what the study and the work of the proposed central Commission or Congregation Pro Emigratis Catholicis (for Catholic Migrants) should be.

            The necessity of such a Commission and the advantages it can bring forth are self-evident. For new phenomena, new structures, adequate to the need. Isolated instructions and measures, no matter how wise, are not sufficient since it is only human that both of them, without a structure for their implementation and that keeps them alive, have little value. As a matter of fact, instructions and directives for this purpose were already issued by the Holy See and particularly by Leo XIII, but their efficacy, due to many causes that it is superfluous to enumerate here, unfortunately was not what it should have been.

            The migration phenomenon is universal and the desired Commission should be universal for its authority and central for its position. The action of the individual Bishops, each unaware of what the others are doing, could result in a dispersion of forces.

            All the European governments have felt the need to create new administrative offices to discipline emigration at home, to watch over it abroad in its various directions, and especially to protect it from the innumerable ambushes that competing interests plot against the immigrants.

            As anyone can see, the Church must, with greater justification, think of directing and protecting its children who, by migrating to Protestant or to newly formed countries where religious assistance is inadequate, lose their faith.

            Only a Commission emanating from the Holy See will be able, without arousing the government’s jealousy and that of the American Episcopate, to provide for the religious needs of the various nationalities; effectively stop the deleterious work of the Protestant sects, especially in those countries where these predominate; bring back, by wise measures, the schismatic Poles to the Church’s bosom and pacify the other nationalities.

            How should such a Commission be constituted?

            The Commission should be composed, I believe, by the representatives of the various nationalities which furnish the greatest number of immigrants, that is, by three Italians, one Pole, one German, one Canadian, etc.

            These representatives should be chosen among very competent persons well informed about the conditions and needs of their compatriots abroad and who can also speak Italian in order to facilitate communication

of the members with the person called to head the Commission and with other Congregations to which they may be called to report. This could be easily done by preferably turning to religious congregations which have dedicated themselves to the assistance of their emigrated compatriots.

            What should be the scope and the task of the Commission?

            Its aim should be that of providing spiritual care to the immigrants in the multifaceted circumstances and in the active periods of the phenomenon, especially in the Americas, and thus of keeping alive the Catholic faith in their hearts.

            Its task:

l)          Study the most serious and complex migration problem by preparing first of all a questionnaire on this subject and by keeping itself well informed on the Catholic migratory movement.

2)         While respecting the praiseworthy private initiatives taken in this field, promote the organization of Catholic interparochial Committees.

3)         Arouse the zeal of Bishops and parish priests in favor of these Committees, suggesting to them practical means to help the migrants especially at the moment of their departure from the home country and arrival in a foreign land.

4)         Answer the questions asked of it regarding the measures taken or to be taken and smooth the eventual difficulties that might arise regarding migration, either at home or abroad.

5)         See to it that the immigrants be accompanied by priests during the voyage and, above all, that the various colonies be provided with good and zealous missionaries, and so on.

I deem it useful to briefly clarify the last three points.

            Not all the priests who dedicate themselves to the spiritual care of the immigrants are endowed with the necessary virtues of zeal, piety and abnegation required of a good missionary. Many of them, on the contrary, prostitute their sacred ministry, becoming true merchants of gold rather than pastors of souls.

            This is perhaps one of the reasons why many Bishops nourish a kind of aversion for the foreign clergy and why some of them decided to ask their native priests to study languages and to assign them after to the foreign communities. This measure cannot produce good practical results either because in many cases the acquisition of a foreign language is insufficient when these priests ignore also the dialects of the various regions, or because in learning a foreign language one does not acquire the character of the people speaking it.

            From this, it is evident the importance of the choice of clergy to which the spiritual care of the migrant communities must be entrusted.

            The Commission could easily provide for this need if all the priests wishing to go abroad to work among the immigrants and the Bishops in need of missionaries for the foreigners settled in their dioceses would apply to it.

            The Commission could just as easily obtain reliable information on the priests aspiring to serve as missionaries and evaluate their capability, while the Bishops asking for them should consider themselves lucky to receive approved and recommended priests.

            The objection should not be raised that the S. Congregation of the Council provides this selection, at least for the Italian priests, on the basis of the recent well known decrees. This dicastery does not release certificates for departure unless the priest has already obtained a certificate of acceptance from the Bishop of the Diocese where he wants to go.        This is how the Bishops’ suspicion is overcome: they cannot accept requests sent them by priests totally unknown to them.

            The Commission could avert all this if it acts as intermediary between the priests aspiring to a Mission and the Bishops in need of their work.

            It is comforting to know that during the last few years the Bishops have tried to provide the immigrants with priests. But, at the same time, it is painful to think how for a long time they have completely neglected the religious interests of so many hundreds of thousands of poor immigrants.

            This is well-known by the courageous missionaries who were the first to offer the ministry to the migrant communities. They had to overcome much diffidence; were greeted coldly; had to surmount many difficulties; and many times their services were disdainfully rejected.

            Even today, in spite of a holy reawakening on the part of the Bishops in general, if one thinks of the amount of work still to be done, one can realize how little has been accomplished until now.

            The task of the Commission would be to follow the great migratory currents; to classify the colonies from the largest that count hundreds of thousands of members to the smallest; to enumerate the churches, the priests in charge of them, and to demand that measures be taken where nothing has been done; to come to the aid of the Bishops with advice, exhortations and by sending them good priests; to urge religious Congregations to offer their help; to help with all the means the Commission could find through a persevering, diligent and loving study.

            The Commission will send its members to find out on the spot what means are employed to satisfy the spiritual needs of the immigrants, and will not be satisfied by the reports sent by the Bishops, since more often

than not these reports do not reveal the real conditions of the migrants, but only the good intentions of the compilers.

            As for the difficulties that so often arise everywhere, we must observe that almost always they originate from the diversity of languages, from the differences of culture, customs and practices and from a hundred other causes.

            Difficulties that are not resolved on time cause friction, abuse of power, vengeance and dissentions – all to the detriment of the migrant communities and of the churches and to the advantage of the dissident sects which take advantage of these things as a weapon for defaming the Church and the clergy.

            And even in these cases the members of the Commission, by going to the various places, could easily and with assurance determine the cause of the disorders, relate the information to the Commission and immediately take the necessary measures.

            It is true that there are Congregations charged with resolving controversies that may arise in similar cases: but the usual wise slowness with which these procedures are executed, caused in large part by the enormous distances; the solemn formalities assumed by these affairs when brought before the Congregations; the difficulty of obtaining quick and exact information and the ignorance of the environment where the controversies arise, are all obstacles which often prolong a condition detrimental to the interest of the contending parties.

            The Commission should also examine very carefully the means to be used to counteract the active and insistent propaganda employed by the Protestants’ and not without success, especially among the Italians of the United States. How many painful things could be brought to light in this regard!

            Another painful fact that should call the Commission is the multiplication of the so called independent churches in the Polish colonies.

            From what has been succinctly outlined up to this point and from so much more that could be written if one wished to study the subject more deeply, it is easy to understand how vast and practical is the field of action which could be assigned to the projected Commission.

            Nobody could doubt the happy impression that the creation of such a Commission would produce in the souls of millions of poor immigrants already pervaded by the discouraging conviction, though false, that their common Father, the Supreme Pontiff, is not interested in their fate.

            How can this Commission be made efficient?

            It would already possess efficiency of itself, as I have said, by virtue of the authority it would derive from the Apostolic See. This efficiency would be increased later on by the adoption of timely and opportune measures; by insisting with the Bishops that they should have implemented what has been prescribed; by requesting an annual report on what has been done in this area; by sending a person so delegated to the place once in a while; by granting some honor the most active missionaries, etc.

            An annual collection should also be imposed in all the churches of the world for the purpose of creating a fund to be used in part for the proper functioning of the Commission itself and devolving the rest to assist the migrants.

            As Leo XIII ordered a collection in response to the Negro slave trade why couldn’t the reigning Pontiff order one for the white slave trade? Undoubtedly everyone would contribute to it since in this case the need is more easily understood and felt.

            It would be well too, I believe, to destine to this work of general interest at least a portion of the income that could be earned by the sale of special editions of books of liturgy, the catechism, etc. Nobody could reasonably object to that.

            Could this work, dedicated solely to the great glory of God and to the salvation of so many souls, fail to receive the help of the Lord?

I shall conclude with the following very important words of Theodore Roosevelt, taken from the last issue of the Revue de Paris:

For anyone it is a serious and at the same time dangerous thing being uprooted from the land, from the region of the forefathers where had sunk the roots of one’s family, and being transplanted in a new country. It is necessary that the immigrant receive every help, that will not be more effectively given him than by those who are in a condition to welcome him in the name of a spiritual brotherhood. Better than anyone else therefore the Church can participate in the elevation and progress of so many people arriving among us. I believe and am convinced that the first duty of the Church is to watch that the immigrant, especially the immigrant from the Old World (may he come from Scandinavia, from Germany, from Finland, from Hungary, from France, from Italy, from Austria) is not pushed into ruin without a friendly hand being extended to him, without all religious confessions concurring to save him and help him.

            Of Your Most Reverend Eminence

Most Humble and affectionate servant,

Gio. Battista Bishop of Piacenza