Cahenslyism,
A movement among
Roman Catholic immigrants in the
United States to secure separate ecclesiastical organization for each nationality or language, and in particular for Germans; named after
Peter Paul Cahensly, Austro-Hungarian envoy to the Vatican, and a leader of the St. Raphael Society in
Germany and
Austria for promoting
Roman Catholic interests among emigrants.
About 1884, eighty-two German priests in the
United States petitioned the
Pope for help in perpetuating their native tongue and usages in the diocese of
St. Louis.
Mo., and in 1886 petitioned again that German Catholics be obliged to join German-speaking churches, and be forbidden attending those speaking
English.
Receiving no open answer, they formed, in 1887, a society which sent representatives that year to the St. Raphael Society at
Lucerne, Switzerland, and enlisted the cooperation of
Herr Cahensly.
They also secured the co-operation of many German bishops and priests in the
United States, and especially of
Archbishop Katzer, of
Milwaukee; but were opposed by many others, especially by
Cardinal Gibbons, of
Baltimore, who, at the installation of
Archbishop Katzer, in 1891, denounced the movement as unpatriotic and disloyal.
A provincial congress of German-Catholic societies at
Dubuque, Ia., in 1892, approved the movement, as did also a national congress in
Newark, N. J.; but it seemed overshadowed later by the predominance of more liberal views under the decisions of
Monsignor Satolli, in 1892 and 1893; and
Archbishop Corrigan publicly declared it a dead issue, and condemned by the
Pope.
