VI

Diocese of Harrisburg

1.    Shanahan to Scalabrini²⁹

         Harrisburg, September 1, 1901

Most Rev. and Dear Bishop:

I am writing to ask if you could assist me in obtaining a priest to look after the Italian people here. Archbishop Corrigan sent me an excellent man last winter. I thought, at first, that he would succeed in bringing the

Italians to Mass. They made very fair promises to him but they broke every one of them. He told them that he was not after their money; that he came to look after their souls. But they would not trust him as they were sure that he would get to their pocketbooks later on. He heard thirteen confessions during his stay here but the Italians would not come to the meetings which he called or attend the Masses which he said. He returned to New York very sad indeed, saying that the Italians here would all be lost. Perhaps his predictions will come true but I do not think so, so I want to give them another trial. We have in this city about 60 families and in other suburban towns about 140 families making about 200 families in all. Some 500 single Italians are working at a great bridge that is being built here. Few from the Italian families go to Mass, and not one man of the 500 laborers goes to Mass as far as I see. The religious condition of the Italian people here and everywhere else in this country is truly deplorable. Poverty does not account for this carelessness. A few of them are poor but the great majority in Pennsylvania are quite well to do.

            Hoping that you will interest yourself in these indifferent people, and help me save the little children in any event, I remain,

Very sincerely yours,

J.W. Shanahan, Bishop of Harrisburg