Martin John Spalding was an American Roman Catholic prelate. He is remembered for his service as Bishop of Louisville (1850-1864) and Archbishop of Baltimore (1864-1872).
Background
Martin was born on May 23, 1810 at Rolling Fork, Kentucky, United States, the son of Richard and Henrietta (Hamilton) Spalding, who had migrated with their families to Kentucky in 1790. He was a descendant of Thomas Spalding who settled in St. Mary's, Maryland, about 1650. Bishop John L. Spalding was a nephew. After the death of their mother, the Spalding children were reared by an unusually devout grandmother, whose influence doubtless accounts in part for the fact that two of them entered the priesthood and two others joined a convent.
Education
Martin Spalding attended a typical log-cabin school and St. Mary's College, near Lebanon, from which he was graduated in 1826. He then entered the seminary at Bardstown, where he came into contact with such Catholic pioneers as Bishop B. J. Flaget and his coadjutor, John B. M. David, and F. P. Kenrick.
Career
Ordained, August 13, 1834, by Cardinal Pedicini, he said his first mass at St. Peter's tomb and soon returned to Bardstown, Kentucky, as pastor of the cathedral and instructor in the seminary. The young priest was active in making conversions, in ministering to the negroes, and in writing for the St. Joseph's College Minerva, a literary magazine, the forerunner of the Catholic Advocate (begun 1835) of which later he was editor and which was in turn succeeded (1858) by his Louisville Guardian under lay editors.
In 1838, he was appointed to the rectorship of St. Joseph's College, from which he resigned in 1840, engaging thereafter in pastoral work in Lexington and, after the episcopal see was removed to Louisville in 1841, in the old Bardstown parish.
About this time he commenced the career as a lecturer which brought him fame throughout the United States and Canada. He also contributed to such magazines as the Religious Cabinet, the United States Catholic Magazine, and The Metropolitan, serving the last named in an editorial capacity.
In 1844 Bishop Flaget called him to Louisville to be vicar-general. Here, with Father John McGill, he conducted a series of lectures, published as General Evidences of Catholicity (1847), and republished in several subsequent editions.
At the suggestion of the aged Flaget, he was appointed by Pope Pius IX to the coadjutorship of Louisville with the right of succession as titular bishop of Lengone, though certain members of the hierarchy feared that he lacked the necessary energy and firmness for the office. Consecrated bishop on September 10, 1848, he took active charge of the diocese, although he did not formally succeed until February 11, 1850.
Leaving financial affairs to his brother, Rev. Benedict J. Spalding (1812 - 68), whose patrimony was bequeathed to diocesan institutions, the Bishop gave zealous attention to administrative matters.
In 1852 he went to Europe with aid for John Henry Newman, who was in financial difficulties because of the suit brought against him by Dr. Achilli; as a result of this trip he introduced into his diocese in 1854 the Xaverian Brothers from Bruges.
He also introduced the Minor Conventuals, the Ursulines, and the Sisters of Notre Dame. In the Councils of Baltimore and Cincinnati he took an active part. His pastorals on the sacraments, on marriage, and on the school question attracted wide attention, as did his series of articles in The Catholic Guardian (1858) contrasting the liberal acceptance of religious schools in Europe with the hostility which they encountered in America. The bishop's greatest difficulty arose from the Know-Nothing agitation stirred up by the Louisville Daily Journal, then edited by George D. Prentice.
A mob attacked the foreign quarters, murdered about a hundred Irish and German residents of Louisville on "Bloody Monday, " August 5, 1855, and drove many from town. Spalding bore himself with tactful force and displayed a courageous leadership of his people which deterred further violence.
Though a Southerner, during the Civil War Spalding tried to be scrupulously neutral. In charities, he was assuredly so. He detailed Sisters of Charity and Sisters of Nazareth as nurses on the battle fields and in the Louisville hospitals. He visited and preached in camps; he advised against Archbishop Kenrick's proposal of a definition of the Church's position in the struggle; he influenced Governor Magoffin to veto the first test-oath bill which passed the Kentucky legislature, but when it became law he took the oath under protest that he held the act unconstitutional.
His brochure, Dissertazione nella Guerra Civile Americana (1863), is said to have had considerable effect upon Continental opinion. After the death of Archbishop Kenrick, he was transferred on July 31, 1864, to the archepiscopal see of Baltimore, to the general satisfaction of Catholics throughout the country, despite apparent protests by Secretary Seward to Rome on the score of Spalding's doubtful loyalty to the federal cause. As archbishop, his regime was brief but noteworthy. The Second Plenary Council was held in 1866 and carried out much church legislation formulated by himself and Dr. James A. Corcoran of Charleston.
He busied himself in collecting funds for the rehabilitation of the churches in the South, and displayed unusual activity in organizing conferences of the St. Vincent de Paul Society, the Catholic Protectory under the Xaverian Brothers, a home of the Good Shepherd, St. Francis School and Colored Orphanage, and the headquarters of Father Herbert Vaughan's Josephite Fathers for colored missions, which has since become an important community. He gave ample support to the Passionists, and to the Redemptorists and the Jesuits who were building their respective houses of study at Ilchester and Woodstock.
In 1867-68, he was in Rome on papal invitation to celebrate the anniversary of St. Peter's martyrdom and in 1870 he took a leading part in the Vatican Council as a member of the commissions on Faith and Postulata. A strong supporter of the cause and definition of papal infallibility, he published Pastoral Letter to the Clergy and Laity of the Archdiocese on the Papal Infallibility, Written in Rome, July 19, 1870 (1870), which has both theological and historical value, and Lecture on the Temporal Power of the Pope and the Vatican Council, Philadelphia (1870). Two years later he died and with fitting services was buried in his cathedral.
Views
Quotations:
Following the riots' end, Spalding wrote, "I entreat all to pause and reflect, to commit no violence, to believe no idle rumors, and to cultivate that peace and love which are characteristics of the religion of Christ. "
Following the end of the Civil War, Spalding made an emotional appeal for financial aid to the defeated South, posing the question, "Can we be held blameless before God if our brethren, whom we are solemnly commanded to love even as ourselves, should perish through our coldness and neglect?"
Writing to Archbishop John McCloskey, he said, "Four million of these unfortunates are thrown on our charity, and they silently but eloquently appeal to us for help. "
Personality
Although delicate as a child, he developed into a large man of demonstrative spirit, with a merry ring in his laughter, a good speaking voice, and a frank, blunt address.