Paul Moses: Islamophobia and Anti-Catholocism
[Paul Moses teaches journalism at Brooklyn College and CUNY Graduate School of Journalism.]
For the past few months, I’ve been doing some research in New York newspapers on the anti-Catholic vitriol the Irish faced in the nineteenth century. It’s been hard to avoid noticing how similar those attacks are to the biting comments being made against Islam and the backers of a Muslim community center proposed for a lower Manhattan building near the World Trade Center site.
Look, for example, at just one day in the city’s history: Sunday, October 31, 1880. All the “right” people—former President Ulysses S. Grant, for example—filled the pews of Protestant churches to hear accusations from a multitude of ministers that the pope was poised to take over New York if William R. Grace, a Democrat, was elected several days later as the city’s first Catholic mayor.
At Central Methodist Episcopal Church on Fourteenth Street, the Rev. J. P. Newman argued that if Grace was a good Catholic (he attended daily Mass), he was unfit to be mayor. “The Catholic candidate for Mayor is the shadow of a man who is the shadow of another man,” he said, meaning the pope.
At Washington Square Methodist Church, the Rev. W. F. Hatfield proclaimed, “The Roman hierarchy should be dealt such a blow at this time that its encroaching power in this city will be destroyed.”
At the Church of the Disciples of Christ on 28th Street near Broadway, the Rev. Joseph Bradford Cleaver spoke under the title "Crucifix Smiting the Cross; or shall the Papacy govern New York City?" He was among those who saw the opening of the magnificent new St. Patrick's Cathedral on Fifth Avenue in midtown Manhattan the previous year as a dangerous sign of Catholic power and warned that Cardinal John McCloskey, who was "enthroned" there, would rule America as the pope’s viceroy and bring on a new Inquisition if Grace were elected mayor.
At the Church of the Holy Trinity at Madison Avenue and 42nd Street, Rev. Stephen H. Tyng Jr. insisted that the pope would take over New York’s public schools.
A few voices tried to respond. In his homily on the Sunday before the 1880 election, the Rev. Michael J. O’Farrell, pastor of St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church on Barclay Street, maintained, "The man who declares it to be a Protestant country is a traitor to the Constitution." The pastor said he would have voted for a Jewish candidate who was subjected to religious attacks (and seven hundred Jews rallied on the Lower East Side that evening to protest against those who sought to defeat Grace because he was a Catholic).
Read entire article at Commonweal
For the past few months, I’ve been doing some research in New York newspapers on the anti-Catholic vitriol the Irish faced in the nineteenth century. It’s been hard to avoid noticing how similar those attacks are to the biting comments being made against Islam and the backers of a Muslim community center proposed for a lower Manhattan building near the World Trade Center site.
Look, for example, at just one day in the city’s history: Sunday, October 31, 1880. All the “right” people—former President Ulysses S. Grant, for example—filled the pews of Protestant churches to hear accusations from a multitude of ministers that the pope was poised to take over New York if William R. Grace, a Democrat, was elected several days later as the city’s first Catholic mayor.
At Central Methodist Episcopal Church on Fourteenth Street, the Rev. J. P. Newman argued that if Grace was a good Catholic (he attended daily Mass), he was unfit to be mayor. “The Catholic candidate for Mayor is the shadow of a man who is the shadow of another man,” he said, meaning the pope.
At Washington Square Methodist Church, the Rev. W. F. Hatfield proclaimed, “The Roman hierarchy should be dealt such a blow at this time that its encroaching power in this city will be destroyed.”
At the Church of the Disciples of Christ on 28th Street near Broadway, the Rev. Joseph Bradford Cleaver spoke under the title "Crucifix Smiting the Cross; or shall the Papacy govern New York City?" He was among those who saw the opening of the magnificent new St. Patrick's Cathedral on Fifth Avenue in midtown Manhattan the previous year as a dangerous sign of Catholic power and warned that Cardinal John McCloskey, who was "enthroned" there, would rule America as the pope’s viceroy and bring on a new Inquisition if Grace were elected mayor.
At the Church of the Holy Trinity at Madison Avenue and 42nd Street, Rev. Stephen H. Tyng Jr. insisted that the pope would take over New York’s public schools.
A few voices tried to respond. In his homily on the Sunday before the 1880 election, the Rev. Michael J. O’Farrell, pastor of St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church on Barclay Street, maintained, "The man who declares it to be a Protestant country is a traitor to the Constitution." The pastor said he would have voted for a Jewish candidate who was subjected to religious attacks (and seven hundred Jews rallied on the Lower East Side that evening to protest against those who sought to defeat Grace because he was a Catholic).