Background
John England was one of ten children born to Thomas and Honora (Lordan) England. The former was a refugee hedge-schoolmaster, who prospered as a tobacconist in Cork.
South Carolina Roman Catholic bishop of Charleston
John England was one of ten children born to Thomas and Honora (Lordan) England. The former was a refugee hedge-schoolmaster, who prospered as a tobacconist in Cork.
John attended (1792 - 1800) a Church of Ireland institution, where as the only “Papist” he was subjected to insults from master and pupils which made him combative.
After reading law with the idea of entering this profession, for which Catholics had become eligible, he studied for the priesthood in the College of St. Patrick, Carlow, the first seminary opened with English approval to replace the Continental colleges closed by the French Revolution. On completion of the theological course, he was ordained by Bishop Moylan in North Chapel, Cork, October, 1808. England was assigned as chaplain to the North Presentation Convent (Cork), and in this capacity aided in building an enlarged school. Recognized as a forceful preacher, he was named lecturer in the cathedral. As chaplain at the Magdalen Asylum and for the prisoners in Cork, he became acquainted with the conditions under which men convicted of political and minor criminal offenses were transported to Australia. Writing impassioned articles for the Irish press, he aided in so arousing public opinion that the government undertook the reform of prison ships and ultimately permitted non-Anglican clergymen in the penal settlements (Orthodox Journal, 1819; Dublin Evening Post, June 7, 1816). In 1813, he was named a trustee of the Cork Mercantile Chronicle, for which he wrote extensively. As the responsible trustee, he was fined £100 for his refusal to name the writer of “Commiseration of a Landlord” (Apr. 1, 1816), but the money was soon subscribed by Daniel O’Connell and his friends. For several years England was outstanding in the patriotic fight against the “Veto, ” a scheme sanctioned by a number of English and Irish bishops by which the government through a concordat with Rome would have a voice in the selection of bishops. The agitation was successful, but the agitator won the hostility of Dublin Castle without gaining episcopal approbation. Refused an exeat which would enable him to enter the foreign missions, England was transferred to a harmless pastorate in the Protestant village of Bandon (1817). This failed to silence the irreconcilable democrat, whom Archbishop Curtis of Armagh later described as a man of intellect and ability who “lacks sacerdotal meekness, and prudence” and who in political matters “does not act with equanimity and sufficient caution. ” England was not rendered mute; he even won Protestant respect by infusing spirit into a peasant congregation. In 1820 he received apostolic briefs of his appointment to the newly created diocese of Charleston (Carolinas and Georgia), and on Sept. 21 was consecrated by Bishop Murphy in St. Finnbar’s Cathedral, Cork. His elevation was popularly considered the “transportation” of a heroic rebel who protested against aristocratic rule in Church and country. Bishop England landed at Charleston December 30, 1820. He found that his diocese had only five missionaries, a few wretched churches, a dis ordered treasury, and about 5, 000 known Catholics of whom a fifth were negroes. Immediately he made an extended visitation, appointing priests to established congregations, gathering isolated Catholics into groups, and preaching in town halls and in churches the facilities of which were granted by Presbyterian and Episcopalian divines. Before the year had passed, he visited his brother bishops in the North and called upon President Monroe and John Quincy Adams. This northern trip resulted in England’s well-intentioned attempt to settle the Hogan schism in St. Mary’s parish, Philadelphia, which was resented by Bishop Henry Conwell as factious interference on behalf of a worthless priest whose conduct and pamphlets were bringing disgrace upon the Church. England’s criticism soon aroused the attack of the Hoganites whom he in turn condemned when reviewing the controversy in his Miscellany. While he was preaching at St. Peter's in New York (1822), some Irish malcontents unsuccessfully appealed to him against their bishop. This did not improve his relations with Bishop Connolly of New York nor with Archbishop Maréchal of Baltimore who resented England’s peacemaking activity as unwarranted meddling in other dioceses. Oppressed by these controversies, England instituted a democratic constitution for his own diocese which provided for frequent conventions of priests and lay delegates and defined the status of the Church under such captions as doctrine, government, property, membership, and conventions. The pew system and parochial trusteeism were abolished, and all property was held by a diocesan board incorporated by the legislature. Though this innovation was frowned upon by the other bishops and was discarded by England’s successor, it worked well under him. In 1822, he opened The Philosophical and Classical Seminary of Charleston, thus winning Chancellor Kent’s encomium as the “restorer of classical learning in South Carolina. ” This academy proved popular among Protestants until it was realized that the income derived from it financed an ecclesiastical seminary, which incidentally annoyed the Jesuits and Sulpicians because it competed with Georgetown College, and St. Mary’s, Baltimore. England was determined to train his own seminarians rather than accept foreign priests or men educated by the Sulpicians, with whose rule he was not in sympathy. Although non-Catholics reopened the College of Charleston, England maintained his schools in a fair way. In 1829 he induced the Sisters of Mercy to establish a girls’ academy in Charleston. In 1834 he brought in the Irish Ursulines, silencing nativist opposition by playing on Southern feeling against Massachusetts, where an Ursuline convent at Charlestown had been destroyed by a mob. He welcomed negroes at his weather-boarded Cathedral of Saint Finnbar, where he himself instructed them in religion. In 1835 he opened a school in Charleston for free negroes, arousing an attack upon church property which was frustrated by the arrival of Irish militiamen. To satisfy public opinion, the school was closed. In 1840 he replied to a speech of Secretary Forsyth in Georgia, in which the latter identified Rome with abolitionism because of Gregory XVI’s condemnation of the slave-trade. England declared that the Pope had not condemned slavery as practised in America and that the Church accepted the institution, counselling obedience on the part of slaves while encouraging their just treatment. For practical reasons, England, who could hardly have sympathized with slave-owners, was not fearless in his stand (S. L. Theobald, “Catholic Missionary Work among the Colored People of the United States, ” Records of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia, December 1924). He was in demand as a preacher in Irish centers and as a lecturer before Catholic lyceums. Among outstanding lectures were: “Classical Education” (1832) ; “The Nature of Religious Orders” (1835), at a time when native Americans honestly feared the arrival of religious communities ; “The Pleasures of The Scholar” (1840), before Franklin College, Ga. ; and “American Citizenship, ” in the Boston cathedral on the occasion of President Harrison’s death. He gloried in being the first priest to address the House of Representatives, as he did on January 8, 1826, in the presence of the president, senators, and a crowded gallery. The foundation of the United States Catholic Miscellany (1822 - 61), the first distinctly Catholic paper, was England’s greatest achievement. He hoped to make it a national organ, but was unable to win the support of the hierarchy. England believed that he was thwarted at every turn by French ecclesiastics who distrusted his democratic proclivities and whom he considered a menace to Catholic advance because of their aristocratic leanings. The Miscellany challenged national attention, for the bishop was an aggressive controversialist who forced the issue with an antagonist at a time when there were plenty of nativist charges. Catholic happenings were emphasized; the struggle for Catholic emancipation was closely followed; and lengthy articles explained Catholic teachings. Catholic writers appear to accept uncritically the statement that England assured the secretary of the Catholic Association in 1828 that he had personally organized 40, 000 men in America under the command of Gen. Montgomery to invade Ireland in case emancipation was denied (W. J. I' itz-Patrick, The Life, Times, and Correspondence of the Right Rev. Dr. Doyle, 1880; Guilday, post, I, 122; Denis Gwynn, The Struggle for Catholic Emancipation, 1928, p. 257). The Miscellany made England a national figure, yet hardly “the most striking ecclesiastical personality of his day in the United States, ” and “the foremost intellectual representative of the Irish element in the American Church” (Guilday, I, 43, 475). England’s prolific pen was never idle, although many of his writings were hastily composed and padded with quotations. He was always forceful and logical, though his essays were marred by bitterness as well as an impatience with the American attitude toward his creed and race and by a touch of Celtic exaggeration. Among the best known of his lengthy brochures are : a reprint of the translated Roman Missal as used in Ireland with a prefatory explanation of the Mass compiled from French theologians (1822); an Explanation of the Construction, Furniture, and Ornaments of a Church, etc. , which was written in Rome and published in three tongues at papal expense (1833), republished in Baltimore (1834) ; Explanation of the Ceremonies of Holy Week in the Chapels of the Vatican and of those at Easter Sunday in the Church of St. Peter ( 1832) ; Letters Concerning the Roman Chancery (1840) ; Letters to the Honorable John Forsyth on the Subject of Domestic Slavery ( 1844) ; and The Garden of the Soul (1845). England’s works were published by his successor, Ignatius A. Reynolds (S vols. , 1849) ; in abridged form by H. F. McElrone (2 vols. , 1900) ; and in a critical edition under the direction of Archbishop Sebastian G. Messmer (7 vols. , 1908). The insistence of England at home and at Rome upon a national synod which so annoyed Archbishops Maréchal and Whitfield, had much to do with the calling of the Provincial Councils of Baltimore. This did not increase England’s popularity any more than his reiterated advice that native priests be raised to the hierarchy rather than Frenchmen, though his own preferential votes for vacant sees went to priests of Irish birth. Named apostolic delegate to Haiti ( 183337) with instructions to draft a concordat, he failed, even accentuating the Gallican stand of the Haitian government. The agreement which he negotiated was so sweeping in concessions that it was not accepted by Gregory XVI. Meanwhile, his own diocese suffered because of his extended absences. Nevertheless, England was true to his inconspicuous diocese, refusing to allow his name in nomination for an Irish see, even that of the archdiocese of Cashel (1833). Though aided by the Leopoldine Society and the Propagation of the Faith, the bishop was always in debt. As there was no immigration, numbers increased slowly; in 1842, there were in his diocese only about 7, 000 Catholics, who because of their scattered location required sixty-five churches and chapels with twenty-one priests, entailing a heavy expense. To-day he is chiefly remembered for his long letter to the Society of the Propagation of the Faith (Lyons, France) in which he estimated Catholic leakage in the United States at 3, 250, 000 souls on the basis of 8, 000, 000 immigrants from 1786 to 1836, of whom he guessed one half would be Catholics, when official immigration figures indicate only 750, 000 immigrants and their descendants. England’s figures, accepted as an accurate statement, were (and are) extensively quoted to the discredit of the Church and to the satisfaction of unfriendly critics (Gerald Shaughnessy, Has the Immigrant Kept the Faith? (1925) ch. XIV). Saddened by burdens and fatigued by a European trip followed by extensive preaching in Philadelphia and Baltimore, England took to his bed in the last days of 1841 though he lingered for four months.
He proved an indefatigable preacher with a characteristic vehemence of expression, an ardent democrat, who immediately applied for citizenship, and a man of determined principles.
He accepted slavery, however, maintaining that slaves were better cared for than Irish peasants.
trustee of the Cork Mercantile Chronicle
He was always forceful and logical, though his essays were marred by bitterness as well as an impatience with the American attitude toward his creed and race and by a touch of Celtic exaggeration.
So important was his work that an Australian authority speaks of him as “the founder of the Catholic Church in Australia” (E. M. O’Brien, “John England, ” The Australian Catholic Record, April 1928).