Fr. Bresnahan, Part II

Detail of the Feb. 20, 1908 edition that included an article
about a card received from Fr. Bresnahan

Back in March, I wrote about Father Patrick J. Bresnahan's memoir, which recounts his travels through Catholic mission territory in early 1900s Florida. Just yesterday, I stumbled across two other mentions of Fr. Bresnahan's efforts. They were articles in two newspapers in Madison, a North Florida town cited in the priest's memoir as having more than its share of bigotry and prejudice against Catholics.

The first was in the Feb. 20, 1908 New Enterprise and concerned a card the newspaper received from Fr. Bresnahan. Being a former print journalist, I know that story placement in a newspaper isn't random. So I noticed the editors put the article about Fr. Bresnahan directly below a story that described how "an unknown negro was shot to death by a posse who were chasing him" because he was a habitual thief.

Fr. Bresnahan's article seems to chastise unknown harassers for disliking how people of color were allowed to worship in the Catholic church along with whites. This was during segregation, and I assume the two races sat in separate parts of the church. In keeping with the times, the priest used the word negro in his card.

To the newspaper's credit, it allowed Fr. Bresnahan's voice to be heard. The story appears to recount the priest's card verbatim. He wrote "for the benefit of the individual who penned the anonymous threat found at the door of the Catholic church last week ..."

The unnamed threat wasn't explained, and wasn't carried out. However, Fr. Bresnahan wanted the individual responsible to know that a Catholic priest "is not the hired minion of any social aggregation."  Likewise, a Catholic church was "not a social club meeting house but a temple of God." Everyone was welcome to hear the word of God and have the mysteries of God dispensed to them. "Every human soul has a right to these blessings, no matter what color its habitation may be." You rock, Fr. Bresnahan.

He goes on to write that he wasn't a politician, that all money he received in Madison went toward the local Catholic presence, and that he wasn't trying to make a white man colored or a colored man white. He bore his anonymous "friend" no malice "as life is too short for such nonsense." But he also noted that his mission was to appeal to man's higher nature, and that if the unnamed individual ever visited the Catholic church, he shouldn't be surprised "to see a place reserved for the colored people."

Townsfolk overall seem to have been receptive. Nine months later, Fr Bresnahan's missionary services were drawing crowds, as the Enterprise-Recorder reported Nov. 5, 1908. The beautiful music was cited as one reason. But, overall, the "people of Madison are beginning to know for themselves what the Catholic church really is, and the prejudice is therefore disappearing." It was predicted that by the end of services, everyone would understand that there was "one Truth, one Faith, one Baptism...," that Christ wasn't divided.

It's hard to say how deeply inroads were made. Fr. Bresnahan was preaching in the heart of Bible Belt Protestantism. I admire the priest's initiatives, and think we might consider emulating some of the talks he lined up for the week:

• Thursday, church rules and Confession; 
• Friday, the rosary and praying for the dead; 
• Saturday, devotion to the Blessed Virgin; 
• Sunday morning, necessity of charity; 
• Sunday afternoon, the threatening evil of socialism;  
• Sunday night, the secret of Catholic success. 

Sounds almost modern. It's also a refreshing reminder of the ever-present continuity of our ancient faith.

Florida as mission territory

This image of Fr. Patrick Bresnahan
is from his memoir of mission work,
Seeing Florida With a Priest

While researching an early 1880s Catholic colony near Sanford, I found a fascinating book by Father Patrick J. Bresnahan on the excellent Central Florida Memory website. The 1937 Seeing Florida With a Priest recounts his journeys through Florida mission territory in the first decade of the 1900s. What's doubly interesting is that Fr. Bresnahan afterward became the first resident priest at All Souls Catholic Church in Sanford. That church's roots are in the early colony, whose history I'm exploring. Nice circle.

The dichotomy between ecumenism and religious prejudice in frontier Florida continues to intrigue me, and is found aplenty in the 97-page book and elsewhere. At the Sanford church and elsewhere in Florida, local non-Catholics often supported the building of Catholic churches. That seemed especially true in the 1880s. 

Meanwhile, Fr. Bresnahan writes of his first mission in Madison, Fla., in 1904, that "bigotry and prejudice were then rampant in that pretty town" (page 14).  One man who secretly attended mission services was regularly accused of being Catholic by his neighbors, because he tried to dispel misconceptions.

By the time a church building was under construction in Madison in 1907, "all the Catholics contributed generously, and some non-Catholics" (page 15). But all was not completely well. On the same page, Fr. Bresnahan tells how the sheriff threatened to arrest the Catholic church ladies for selling tickets for a giveaway of a patchwork quilt.

The raffle was part of a fundraising bazaar and supper. The town marshal came to the rescue, the publicity generated attention and the gala raised $400. My go-to inflation calculator website doesn't go back to 1907, but were that $400 raised in 1913, it would be the equivalent of $9,483 in 2015 dollars.

Once the church was built, non-Catholics converged to help form a robust choir for a two-week mission. "I left Madison with a feeling that I had done something to remove prejudice" (page 16), writes Fr. Bresnahan humbly. Soon after, he was in Tallahassee, where he found little bigotry despite the occasional "vomitings  of 'cheap' politicians" (page 18).

The above is just a sampling of what can be found in this valuable memoir, which was published by Economy Print Shop in Zephyrhills. I've not yet finished reading the book, but can't end this blog post without mentioning Fr. Bresnahan's encounters with Florida Crackers in Sopchoppy, "which is real country and 'cracker' village" (page 23). His experience bears quoting, because it corrects cultural history that, at times, still depicts pioneer Florida Crackers as backwoods bigots.

"The great interest exhibited during the mission was remarkable; it was conducted in the public school building. The natives, all 'crackers', vied with one another, unlike any other place, in giving me hospitality; and, they went so far as to get up parties for my entertainment, even though many had never seen a priest before. Moreover, they all seemed glad to find out what they had heard concerning priests hitherto were 'lies'." (page 23)

Ignorant backwoods folk? Hardly. The Crackers exhibited a genuine human dignity that contrasts starkly to the antics of some of the era's movers and shakers. There's a lesson in that.

Pedaling the faith

A big thanks to archivist Sister Catherine Bitzer and the Archives of the Diocese of St. Augustine, for material she shared about Catholic life on the frontier. The information in Brief History of the Churches of the Diocese of St. Augustine Florida stretches the boundaries of my 19th century focus by up to eight years, but is too interesting to overlook.

St. Peter, 1908. Archives of the Diocese of St. Augustine

At the turn of the 20th century, a chunk of land 100 miles by 40 miles comprised Florida East Coast mission field. The Rev. Michael J. Curley covered the area by bicycle and rail. Fr. Curley was the first resident pastor of St. Peter's in DeLand, which was without a resident pastor from 1883 to the early 1900s. (Yes, St. Peter is my parish and I know my first two Pioneer Catholic posts are related to it. I'll expand soon!)

It's hard to think about Florida - fourth most populous U.S. state - as once being mission territory. But the archival literature references Fr. Curley as a missionary priest who pedaled and pushed his bicycle for hours from DeLand to New Smyrna, where he got on the train. That's a good 20 to 25 miles. He then pedaled some more, between stations along the coast.

Clergy were spread thin in frontier Florida, and persevered amid challenges. There wasn't a resident priest from Daytona south to Palm Beach. The Rev. Michael F. Foley of Baltimore spent a good portion of 1885 to 1893 ministering to DeLand and surrounding areas, despite being in "broken-down health." After he left, the Rev. John O'Brien of Palatka came to DeLand once a month to offer Mass. Fr. Curley arrived in 1904.  A diocesan missionary priest named the Rev. P.J. Bresnahan helped spread the Gospel in "DeLand's vast mission field," as the entire Central East area was called, but I'm not sure how long he stayed after his 1906 efforts. Fr. Curley, described as zealous, devoted the second Sunday of each month to the missions.

Concurrent with mission work, a structured worship schedule took form in the growing DeLand parish. Here's a look at the program in about 1906:

• Sundays, November to May:  High Mass with sermon in morning; Rosary, sermon, Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament in the evening
• Sundays, June to October: Low Mass with sermon, followed by Benediction, in morning
• Way of the Cross on Fridays in Lent
• First Friday "faithfully observed"
• Sunday School "never omitted"

By this time, 20+ years had passed since Catholics and non-Catholics in DeLand worked together to build and furnish St Peter's Church. They did it again,  in 1906-1908, to erect a rectory and enlarge the church.  Brief History states with pleasure that "... many non-Catholics contributed very generously." The South hasn't always been kind to Catholicism. The good feeling of the ecumenism lingers across the decades.