Book Review: Sons of Saint Patrick

The Faith and Reason Institute sent me a review copy of Sons of Saint Patrick: A History of the Archbishops of New York, from Dagger John to Timmytown by George Marlin and Brad Miner, published by Ignatius Press:

Sons of Saint Patrick tells the story of America's premiere Catholic see, the archdiocese of New York—from the coming of French Jesuit priests in the seventeenth century to the early years of Cardinal Timothy Dolan. It includes many intriguing facets of the history of Catholicism in New York, including:
~the early persecution of and legal discrimination against Catholics
~the waves of catholic (sic) immigrants, most notably from Ireland
~the Church's rise to power under New York's first archbishop, "Dagger" John Hughes
~the emerging awareness in the Vatican of New York's preeminence
~the clashes between America and Rome over the "Americanist" heresy
~the role New York's archbishops have played in the life of America's greatest city—and in the world

The book focuses on the ten archbishops of New York and shows how they became the indispensable partners of governors and presidents, especially during the war-torn twentieth century. Also discussed are the struggles of the most recent archbishops in the face of demographic changes, financial crises, and clerical sex-abuse cases.

Sons of Saint Patrick is an objective but colorful portrait of ten extraordinary men—men who were saints and sinners, politicians and pastors, and movers and shakers who as much as any other citizens have made New York one of the greatest cities in the world. All ten archbishops have been Irish, either by birth or heritage, but given New York's changing ethnic profile, Cardinal Timothy Dolan may be the last son of Saint Patrick to serve as its archbishop.

In about 500 pages, the authors cover the history of the Catholic Church in New York through its ten archbishops. The history of the area before the establishment of the diocese, citing the presence of St. Isaac Jogues--who was hard to kill--and the transition from Dutch to English control, demonstrates the dangers and hostility Catholics would face in New York City. Each archbishop is given a nickname:

The Gardener: John Joseph Hughes

The First: John Joseph McCloskey

The Roman: Michael Augustine Corrigan

The Builder: John Murphy Farley

The Bureaucrat: Patrick Joseph Hayes

The Power Broker: Francis Joseph Spellman

The Equalizer: Terence James Cooke

The Admiral: John Joseph O'Connor

The Realist: Edward Michael Egan

The Evangelist: Timothy Michael Dolan

For each archbishop, the authors provide background on his family and education, his ordination and priestly career before being named archbishop, and then a description of his achievements and failures. They include details about the archbishop's relationships with the priests of the diocese and the politicians in power. Each chapter also describes the personality of the archbishop and his administrative style, hands-off, detail-oriented, and in-between. The archbishops from first to last wrestle with government for the sake of the Catholics in New York so that they are treated fairly. Cardinal Spellman confronted Eleanor Roosevelt and others over legislation for public and private schools distributed by the Federal government in 1949, for example, and her fearful anti-Catholicism shows. The Barden Amendment, sponsored by a congressman from North Carolina, was defeated when it was discovered that the congressman had supported funding for Protestant schools in his home state. As time passes in the story, the archbishops face greater challenges to their efforts to uphold Church teaching and religious freedom as artificial birth control, abortion, and so-called same-sex marriage are not only legalized but imposed on the Church in her work in education, family services, healthcare, etc.

There are some unpleasant revelations: Archbishop Hayes not only disregarded and neglected the major seminary for the archdiocese, St. Joseph's/Dunwoodie, but he created unhealthy and unsafe conditions for the seminarians and faculty studying there. Archbishop Spellman went along too easily, the authors seem to indicate, with the eminent domain arguments of architect Robert Moses in the building of Lincoln Center on the Upper West Side, displacing "seven thousand mostly Catholic families" and destroying St. Matthew's church of West Sixty-Eighth St. 

Archbishop O'Connor, one of my heroes, hated the rich so much that he insulted donors; he thought every rich person had grown up with a silver spoon in his or her mouth and "led leisurely, superfluous lives." Many rich donors--some of whom had grown up in blue-collar, working-class families just like his and had worked hard to become successful-- and who wanted to make substantial donations when visiting O'Connor "walked out with the check still in their breast pockets" because of his stated prejudice against them. (The same issue comes up in the last chapter about Archbishop Dolan because of comments Pope Francis made about wealthy people in 2014).

I know that the book is focused on the archbishops of New York City, but I do wish there could have been some more supporting material about the archdiocese--a map of the changing territory, a table of the census of Catholics through the years--just to add context. Was there something particularly special about St. Matthew's on West Sixty-Eighth Street?

This is a remarkable, well-researched, sometimes chatty, well-written book. It's more than just a series of biographies because the authors describe the links and the transitions between archbishop and archbishop. 

The Canterbury Clerestory Windows at The Cloisters

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is hosting an exhibition of stained glass from Canterbury Cathedral at The Cloisters:

This exhibition of stained glass from England's historic Canterbury Cathedral features six Romanesque-period windows that have never left the cathedral precincts since their creation in 1178–80.

Founded in 597, Canterbury Cathedral is one of the oldest Christian structures in England. It was an important pilgrimage site in the Middle Ages—as witnessed by Geoffrey Chaucer'sCanterbury Tales, a literary masterpiece from the fourteenth century—and is also the cathedral of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the leader of the Church of England and the Anglican Communion worldwide. Recent repairs to the stonework of the magnificent historic structure necessitated the removal of several delicate stained-glass windows of unparalleled beauty. While the restoration of the walls has been undertaken, the stained glass has also been conserved.

The windows shown at The Cloisters are from the clerestory of the cathedral's choir, east transepts, and Trinity Chapel. The six figures—Jared, Lamech, Thara, Abraham, Noah, and Phalec—were part of an original cycle of eighty-six ancestors of Christ, the most comprehensive stained-glass cycle known in art history. One complete window (Thara and Abraham), rising nearly twelve feet high, is shown with its associated rich foliate border.

Masterpieces of Romanesque art, these imposing figures exude an aura of dignified power. The angular limbs, the form-defining drapery, and the encompassing folds of the mantles all add a sculptural quality to the majestic figures. The glass painting, which is attributed to the Methuselah Master, is striking for its fluid lines, clear forms, and brilliant use of color.

Blue Heron is performing at The Cloisters on Palm Sunday, April 13--both performances are sold out!

In 1541, following Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries, Canterbury Cathedral was re-founded as a secular cathedral. The works in the program are drawn from a set of partbooks commissioned by Canterbury from the singer and scribe Thomas Bull, then at Magdalen College, Oxford, in order to supply the cathedral's new choir of professional singers (including the youthful Thomas Tallis) with a complete repertoire of Masses, Magnificats, and votive antiphons. The centerpiece of the program is the Missa Spes nostraby Robert Jones (fl. 1520–35), a wonderful and wholly obscure composer whose only two surviving works appear in Bull's partbooks.

Radiant Light: Stained Glass from Canterbury Cathedral at The Cloisters closes on May 18, 2014--makes me want to book a flight to New York! My husband took the picture above when we visited Canterbury Cathedral many years ago.

Janet Cardiff: The Forty Part Motet at The Cloisters

Closing tomorrow at the Metropolitan Museum/Cloisters in New York City:

The Forty Part Motet (2001), a sound installation by Janet Cardiff (Canadian, born 1957), will be the first presentation of contemporary art at The Cloisters. Regarded as the artist's masterwork, and consisting of forty high-fidelity speakers positioned on stands in a large oval configuration throughout the Fuentidueña Chapel, the fourteen-minute work, with a three-minute spoken interlude, will continuously play an eleven-minute reworking of the forty-part motet Spem in alium numquam habui (1556?/1573?) by Tudor composer Thomas Tallis (ca. 1505–1585). Spem in alium, which translates as "In No Other Is My Hope," is perhaps Tallis's most famous composition. Visitors are encouraged to walk among the loudspeakers and hear the individual unaccompanied voices—bass, baritone, alto, tenor, and child soprano—one part per speaker—as well as the polyphonic choral effect of the combined singers in an immersive experience. The Forty Part Motet is most often presented in a neutral gallery setting, but in this case the setting is the Cloisters' Fuentidueña Chapel, which features the late twelfth-century apse from the church of San Martín at Fuentidueña, near Segovia, Spain, on permanent loan from the Spanish Government. Set within a churchlike gallery space, and with superb acoustics, it has for more than fifty years proved a fine venue for concerts of early music.

The article on Spem in alium suggests that Tallis wrote this brilliant piece during Mary I's reign, not during Elizabeth I's. After all, the words are drawn from the book of Judith, one of the Deutero-Canonical works usually omitted from Protestant Bibles. The conclusion is:

All these considerations together point to a planned premiere of Spem in alium in Nonsuch Palace in 1556, with Queen Mary Tudor as the intended dedicatee. In the event, that premiere seems not to have occurred—most likely because of the death of Fitzalan's son and daughter in 1556, and of his wife in 1557. The most likely first performance was therefore in 1559 or 1567, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. (The newly crowned Elizabeth spent five days at Nonsuch in August 1559, and we know from Wateridge's anecdote quoted above that the piece was performed in Arundel House in London; the date of that performance has now been determined to have been 1567.) Queen Elizabeth is therefore most likely the first English monarch to have heard Spem in alium, although the evidence suggests that it was composed for her half-sister, Queen Mary Tudor, as a fortieth-birthday present.

Spem in alium
Spem in alium nunquam
habui praeter in te, Deus Israel:
qui irasceris et propitius eris,
et omnia peccata hominum
in tribulatione dimittis:
Domine Deus, Creator caeli et
respice humilitatem nostram.

Translation:
I have never put my hope in any
besides you, O God of Israel,
who grows angry, but then,
becoming gracious, forgives all the
sins of men in their tribulation:
Lord God, creator of heaven and
earth, look upon our lowliness.

I have read that one reason Spem in Alium is so popular now is that it's featured in that "grey" book series. The exhibit has had quite an effect on visitors and The Cloisters' website for the exhibit is quite detailed. Here is another review.