As we saw in the
previous posting on this subject, the agrarian socialist Henry George and
the renegade priest Father Edward McGlynn took the opportunity offered by the issuance
of Rerum Novarum in 1891 as the
perfect chance to get back into the public eye.
Simply by claiming that they were again being persecuted by the Catholic
Church, the pair was able to tap into the anti-Catholicism always bubbling
under the surface of American life.
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| Cardinal Simeoni |
This created a
standoff centering on McGlynn’s recalcitrance.
The renegade kept insisting he had been wrongfully excommunicated
because of his political opinions, and therefore refused to recant them. This is despite the fact that he was fully
aware he had been excommunicated purely for disobedience for refusing to go to
Rome to present his views.
At the same time,
Archbishop Corrigan — who had several times over the intervening years
expressed his willingness to intercede with the pope on McGlynn’s behalf if
McGlynn would only meet him halfway — had (with a great deal of justification)
recently taken the stand that to lift McGlynn’s excommunication without
requiring him to give up his socialist views would be a serious mistake. Cardinal Simeoni, who had also been the
target of many of George’s and McGlynn’s attacks and insults, agreed.
To break the
stalemate, Leo XIII sent Francesco Cardinal Satolli to the
United States with explicit orders to reconcile McGlynn to the Catholic Church if at all
possible. Satolli’s instructions did not
include a requirement that McGlynn recant georgism, and he personally was not
in favor of forcing McGlynn to back down on that point. McGlynn’s excommunication had been for
disobedience, not adherence to socialism.
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| Cardinal Satolli |
McGlynn evidently
felt that the withdrawal of Simeoni and his replacement with Satolli was a
great victory and demonstrated that the Catholic Church was weakening. He continued to grandstand, making insulting
speeches and declaring he would never surrender his georgist views — which
neither the pope nor Satolli was asking him to do.
Finally, when it became
obvious to all but the most diehard of George’s and McGlynn’s supporters and
anti-Catholics that McGlynn was posturing for effect and nothing else, he
decided at long last to agree to the conditions (apologize, accept Rerum Novarum, and go to Rome). Even then, he attached a lengthy explanation
of his political views to his submission.
Although Satolli and the judges disregarded this as irrelevant to the
conditions for McGlynn’s reinstatement, it allowed McGlynn to claim that
Satolli had accepted the document and therefore agreed with George’s views.
This, of course,
was obviously untrue, as it would have amounted to a change in Catholic doctrine. Nevertheless, to this day there are not
wanting so-called “experts” who cite the fact that McGlynn attached an
irrelevant document to his submission that was ignored as absolute proof that
the Catholic Church can and does change its teachings.
Satolli, in fact,
had no authority to judge McGlynn’s political views, and it would have meant
absolutely nothing even if he had gone on record as agreeing with them — which
he did not. Pope Leo XIII had reserved
judgment in McGlynn’s case to himself . . . and McGlynn’s refusal to go to Rome
to be judged was the reason for his excommunication in the first place — after he complained that he had not had the opportunity to present his case in Rome!
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| Father McGlynn |
Naturally,
McGlynn continued to hold mass meetings in which he loudly proclaimed that the
lifting of the excommunication was a capitulation on the part of the
Church. Even as he took ship for Rome to
meet the conditions, he continued to make speeches in which (among other
things) he declared that he was going of his own free will, not because he had
to.
McGlynn sang a
somewhat different tune after he had his private audience with the pope. Having gone in ready, willing, and able for a
fight, he was taken completely off guard by Leo XIII’s pastoral style. The pope’s manner of dealing with
recalcitrant clergy and seminarians, honed to a fine point during his decades
as Archbishop-Bishop of Perugia, was to calmly discuss matters and get the
person who had fallen into error to realize his mistakes without having to make
a direct accusation, and work with the offender to come to a mutually agreeable
plan of correction of any faults.
Reading between
the lines of McGlynn’s own account of the interview, he at first attempted to
bluster his way through, but kept coming up against the pope’s refusal to take
the bait and condemn him. Leo XIII asked
him if he accepted the principle of private property, and McGlynn answered with
an equivocation. Obviously aware that
McGlynn was lying to him, the pope changed the subject to the matter of
obedience, where McGlynn was on even shakier ground.
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| Pope Leo XIII |
Unable to get
McGlynn to admit his faults (keep in mind that this is taken directly from
McGlynn’s own account of the interview), Leo XIII asked him if he would prefer
to be transferred out of New York.
McGlynn, knowing full well that no other American bishop would have him,
refused on the grounds that all his friends were in New York. Finally, with McGlynn having met the minimal
conditions for lifting the excommunication, Leo XIII told him, “Well, you may
abound in your own sense” (i.e., “Do
as you think best”), and sent him home to New York.
McGlynn was now
technically back in the Church, but Archbishop Corrigan did not consider him a
priest in good standing and was not about to give him a parish assignment or
any other position. No longer
newsworthy, the media stopped paying attention to McGlynn, and he went into
seclusion for a couple of years. He made
a few speeches in support of George’s ideas and against Catholic schools (which
he detested), but even his greatest admirers admitted that the fire seemed to
have gone out of him.
Finally, after
years of declaring that he would never recant, McGlynn made a full public retraction on Wednesday,
December 19, 1894:
The Rev. Dr. Edward McGlynn has made a complete
recantation. He is no longer an apostle
of the doctrines for preaching which he brought on himself the ban of
excommunication from the Roman Catholic church. . . . Archbishop Corrigan will soon put him in charge
of a parish. (“Parish for M’Glynn: He Recants and Will Soon Be Completely
Forgiven,” Meriden Daily Republican,
December 19, 1894, 3.)
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| Archbishop Corrigan |
Again, McGlynn was excommunicated for disobedience, not for
holding georgist views; a “friend of Dr. McGlynn” who misspoke slightly gave
the above statement to a reporter.
Still, on Saturday, December 22, 1894, Corrigan assigned McGlynn to Saint Mary’s Parish in Newburg, New York,
as rector.
McGlynn continued
to ask for a parish assignment in New York City where he had made such a name
for himself. Corrigan, however, was not
inclined to do so, and was strongly advised not to by Satolli, who had every
reason to suspect that McGlynn’s repudiation of his georgist views had not been
completely honest. Satolli, in fact,
said that if McGlynn mde an issue of the matter, that he, Satolli, would back
Corrgian’s position to the hilt with the pope.
Satolli was
probably right about McGlynn’s holding back.
The day before McGlynn died, he dictated a letter implying he had lied
in his recantation in order to get a parish.
#30#