GERMANS
481
GERMANS
Church, Newark, and in 1856 the Rt. Rev. Abbot
Winiraer sent Father Valentine Felder, O. S. B., to
that city. Two years hiter. 8t. Michael'.s German
church was dedicated. In lS.'):i the Abbot of Einsied-
eln, at the request of the Bisliop of Vincennes, sent a
colony of Benedictine monks to Indiana. They
settled in Spencer County, where they founded the
.\bbey of St. Meinrad. At that time, the Very Rev.
Jos. Kundeck had been for twenty years vicar-
general of the diocese, in which he laboured most
zealously. In 1S.57 the sovereign pontiff estaljlished
the Diocese of Fort WajTie, selecting for its first
bisliop, the Rev. John Henry Luers, born near Miin-
ster, Westphalia, 29 September, ISIO. He soon dedi-
cated St. Mary's Cierman church, the pastor of which
was the Rev. Joseph Wentz. In the summer of 1858 the
Franciscan Fathers of the Province of the Holy Cross
founded a residence at Teutopolis, Effingham County,
Illinois, under the Very Rev. Damian Hennewig.
The corner-stone of the college was laid in 1861, and
the institution opened in the next year. A similar
institution arose at Quincy. The Cierman Catholic
church at .\lton was, in June, 1860, destroyed by a
tornado, but the congregation courageously set to
work to replace it by a more substantial edifice. In
1850, the Salesianura, the famoas seminary of Mil-
waukee, was opened, with the Very Rev. Michael
Heiss as rector and the Rev. Dr. Joseph Salzmann as
leading professor. The church of the seminary was
consecrated in 1861. The finechurch of St. Joseph was
erected at Milwaukee, Wi.sconsin, in 1856, by Rev. 0.
Holzhauer. A community of the Capuchin Order, des-
tined to spread to many parts of the United States and
to distinguish itself by successful mission work, arose
in the diocese. Two secular priests. Fathers Haas and
Frey, conceived the idea of establishing a Capuchin
house. After some correspondence, a father of the
order came from Europe and opened a novitiate,
receiving the two priests as novices in 1857. After
their profession postulants came, the community grew,
and God blessed their labours wonderfully. The
first German priest on record in Upper California,
was the Rev. Florian Schweninger, who first appears
at Shasta, in 1854. He must have arrived in 1853.
In 1856 the Rev. Sebastian Wolf had charge of a
station at Placerville, California. He was later (1S5S-
59) stationed at St. Patrick's church as assistant, but
preached the German sermon at St. Mary's cathedral,
at the nine-o'clock Mass on Sundays. He began to
erect a church for the Germans early in 1860, and
since then St. Boniface's congregation has formed an
independent parish. He remained pastor until the
archbishop called from St. Louis some Franciscans,
who took charge and, in 1893, founded another Ger-
man parish, St. Anthony's, in the southern part of the
city. In the lower part of the State, the Diocese of
Monterey, the first German name found in the parish
records of San Diego is that of the Rev. J. Christ.
Holbein, missionary Apostolic, who was in charge of
both the former Indian mission and the city of San
Diego, from July, 1849, to February, 1850. A Ger-
man settlement for the first time appears in the
Catholic Directory as an out-mission of Santa Anna in
1867, but it had no German priests until years after.
It is St. Boniface's. The first Cierman parish of Los
Angeles, St. Joseph's, was organized in 1888; the first
German church in Sacramento in 1894. German
Jesuits went to work in what is now Oregon and
Washington, with others of their order, in the early
forties, and since then German parishes have arisen.
No German priests or settlers of account reached New
Mexico until within the last fifteen or twenty years.
Gradually German Catholics were to be found in
nearly every part of the United States, especially in
New York. Ohio, Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Michigan,
Minnesota, Missouri, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey,
everywhere establishing flourishing congregations
with schools and churches. The number of German
Catholics in the United States can only be given
approximately. Over one-third of the Germans from
the German Empire, as well as the majority of the
Ciermans from Austria, are Catholics; accordingly,
almost one-half of the Germans in this country
shoukl be Catliolics. Making liberal allowance for
the leakage, we may safely say that at least one-
fourth, i. e. over three millions, are Catholics. This
is a conservative estimate. The leakage is consider-
able among Catholics of all nationalities. For the
defection of Ciermans in particular, the following
reasons must be assigned. Where Germans settled
in small numbers, frequently tfiere were no priests of
their own tongue. Left to themselves, they were in a
condition of religious isolation; they gradually neg-
lected religious practices and finally lost their faith.
Although this applies to all immigrants who do not
speak English, it proved specially disastrous in the
case of the Germans. As over one-half of the German
settlers were Protestant, and frequently had churches
and various church organizations, there was a non-
Catholic atmosphere around them; mixed marriages,
particularly in such places, frequently resulted in
losses to the Catholic Church. Great as the contri-
butions of the immigrants of '48 were to the intellec-
tual advancement of the L^nited States, it cannot be
denied that, on the whole, their influence was not
favourable from a religious viewpoint. The same
must be said of certain German organizations, as the
turnvereins, which frequently manifested an anti-
Catholic, and even anti-religious, spirit. Nor can it
be denied that Socialistic principles were largely
spread by German immigrants and German publica-
tions. Small wonder that hundreds of thousands of
Germans have been lost to the Catholic Church.
German Churcltes and Religious Communities. — No attempt is made to give exact statistics of German Catholic churches and parishes, because such are not available at the present time. A general idea, how- ever, can be formed from the fact, that among the 15,655 priests in the Catholic Directory- for the United States, about one third bear German names. Among the more distinguished German prelates, mention should be made of John ilartin Henni, first Bishop, and later .\rchbishop, of Milwaukee; Michael Heiss, Archbishop of Milwaukee; Seb. Gebhard Messmer, Bishop of Green Bay, now Archbishop of JlUwaukee; Winand S. W'igger, tliird Bishop of Newark, a wise ruler, a devout priest, and notable for his practical work as head of tlie St. Raphael Society for the pro- tection of immigrants; and most particularly of the saintly Bishop Neumann of Philadelphia, whose beatification is the earnest hope of all American Catholics.
Of the great number of European orders and con- gregations of men and women labouring in the LTnited States for man's spiritual or physical welfare, the following are of German origin and even now (1909) are recruited chiefly from Germans or their descen- dants: —
Religious Orders of Men. (1) Benedictines, — (a) American Cassinese Congregation, founded in 1846, by the Rev. Boniface Wimmer, O.S.B. — At the present time there belong to this congregation the following independent abbeys: St. Vincent's Arch- Abbey, Beatty, Pennsyhania, with r26 fathers, 5 deacons, 23 clerics, 64 lay brothers, and 4 novices; St. John's Abbey, CoUegeville, Minnesota, with 94 fathers. 11 clerics, 26 lay brothers, 9 novices; St. Benedict's .\bbey, .\tchison, Kansas, with 51 fathers, 6 clerics, 18 brothers; St. Mary's Abbey, Newark, New Jersey, with 40 fathers, 7 clerics, 14 lay brothers- Maryhelp .\bbey, Belmont, North Carolina, the Rt. Rev. Leo Haid, D.D,, 0,S,B,, abbot-bishop, 31 fathers, 1 deacon. 4 clerics, 36 lay brothers, 4 novices; St, Ber- nard's Abbey, Cullman Co., Alabama, with 38 fathers,
