Our Rich History: Pioneer priests brought a strong Catholic tradition to Kentucky

By Stephen Enzweiler
Special to the Tribune

At the beginning of the 19th century, the turbulent and deadly effects of the French Revolution had finally begun to subside across most of Europe. The “Reign of Terror” and its associated policies nearly destroyed Catholicism in much of Europe.

The lives of frontier missionary priests were harsh. (Photo provided)

The first few decades of the 19th century witnessed a decline in Enlightenment influences, and with the Concordat of 1801, the new French government under Napoleon Bonaparte reconciled revolutionaries and Catholics and solidified the Roman Catholic Church as the majority church of France. It was a period meant to usher in an era of reconciliation and renewed cooperation between the new regime and the shattered Catholic Church. But the damage had been done and few could forget.

According to historian Dr. Frank Tallett, more than 30,000 priests had been forced out of France during the Revolution. About 20,000 more had been forced to hand over their letters of ordination, and up to 9,000 had been forced to marry. Thousands who did not recant or leave were guillotined. Gone was the once proud and influential Gallican Church of France, with its centuries-old rituals and religious traditions, its beauty and its liturgy. Gone, too, were its priests who alone had the authority to consecrate bread and wine into the Holy Eucharist.

Like seeds scattered in the wind, thousands of clergy fled in the darkness westward across the stormy Atlantic to what they thought would be a bright, new land of hope. With them they brought their philosophy and theological training, their priestly faculties, and their unquenchable desire to save souls, all fueled by their Lord’s great commission to “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations” (Matthew 28:18). And, like seeds do, they found fertile soil in a new home called Maryland and the newly established Diocese of Baltimore, led by the energetically pragmatic and optimistic Bishop John Carroll (1735–1815).

Bishop John Carroll, first Bishop of Baltimore. (Photo provided)

Born in Maryland in 1735, John Carroll joined the Jesuits in 1753 and studied in Liege, Belgium until his ordination there in 1761. He remained in Europe until he was almost 40, gaining a reputation as a learned and influential clergyman. But when Pope Clement XIV suppressed the Jesuit order in 1773, he returned to Maryland. At the time, English laws discriminated against Catholics and prevented the existence of any public Catholic Church in colonial Maryland. For a time, Carroll became a missionary priest visiting the rural mission stations bringing the Gospel and sacraments to Catholic settlers along the Maryland-Virginia frontier. As the American rebellion began, his sympathies were with the revolution which he saw as favorable to the future of the Catholic Church in America.

With Independence in 1783, Fr. Carroll wrote to a friend in Rome that “our Religious system has undergone a revolution, if possible, more extraordinary, than our political one.” Unlike the French Revolution, the American Revolution employed the Enlightenment ideal of separation of church and state, permitting Catholicism in the newly formed United States to develop and grow on its own without political interference. Unlike in Europe, where the Church was seen as part of the government, in the United States there was no threat of mixing the two. It was Benjamin Franklin, a close friend of Fr. Carroll, who then argued for complete religious freedom for Catholics in the new United States, and his close association with Franklin made Carroll the de facto ambassador of all American Catholics.

Like Franklin, Fr. John Carroll was a forward thinker. He favored saying the Mass in English, proposed that papal power extend only to spiritual matters, fought taxes against the Church and its clergy, and demanded equal rights for Roman Catholics. He founded parishes, and in 1783 he led a series of meetings with fellow clergy which resulted in the organization of the Catholic Church in the United States. His work did not go unnoticed. On June 9, 1784, Fr. John Carroll was appointed by Pope Pius VI as provisional “Superior of the Missions in the thirteen United States of North America.” In 1790, he became the first Bishop of Baltimore.

Fr. Stephen Badin (1768–1853). (Photo provided)

Like a farmer preparing the soil for planting, Bishop Carroll was instrumental in preparing the conditions for the planting and growth of the Church in the United States. Catholics had lived in the American colonies for more than 150 years, mostly as farmers in Maryland growing tobacco. By the close of the revolution in 1783, eastern farm soils were exhausted, and the Catholic farmers looked west toward the lands of legendary fertility in Kentucky. But the Catholic emigrants were unable to secure priests to accompany them. At the time there were only 25,000 Catholics in America and only 25 priests. And as the era of westward migration gained steam, the American Church found itself chronically understaffed.

In 1790, there were only about 300 Catholic families in Kentucky, most of them concentrated in Nelson County near a trading post called Bardstown. All of them were hungry for a priest to bring them the gospel and the sacraments. The only priest in this vast frontier wilderness was Rev. Charles Maurice Whelan (1741–1805). Whelan had been sent there by Carroll in 1787 and became the first Catholic priest in Kentucky. In Carroll’s own words, he “not only kept alive the spirit of religion amongst the Catholics, but in addition, he has gained a great increase for the Church of Jesus Christ.”

Rev. William de Rohan was another sent by Carroll to assist Whelan. De Rohan had served in the Carolinas and had been granted permission by Bishop Carroll to minister to the people in Kentucky. For four years he brought the gospel and the sacraments to whomever needed it. In 1792, he built a log structure which became the first Catholic church built west of the Allegheny Mountains. Unfortunately, both Whelan and de Rohan encountered personal problems that made their stays in Kentucky short-lived.

Rev. Charles Nerinckx (1761–1824). (Photo provided)

Then on September 3, 1793, Bishop Carroll sent the newly ordained Fr. Stephen Badin (1768–1853) west into Kentucky. It was the same Stephen Badin who had escaped revolutionary France with Fr. Benedict Joseph Flaget and Fr. John Mary David, and it would be Badin who would become the guiding light that transformed the face of Catholicism in Kentucky.

Badin was stern and rigid, but his care for the spiritual lives of his charges and for bringing the Eucharist to them was famous among Kentuckians. He taught young catechumens with strictness and exhorted families to have morning and evening prayers. His opposition to dancing was legendary. Like a bloodhound, he could sniff out dancing schools and private parties wherever they may be.

One contemporary remembered: “He sometimes arrived unexpectedly while dancing was going on … he glided into the room before anyone knew it and told them smiling, that ‘it was time for night prayers.’” Writing to Bishop Carrol, Badin remarked, “No clergyman is fit for Kentucky who seeks for his own interests more than for those of Jesus Christ.”

The 1790 missionary chalice of Fr. Stephen Badin (Cathedral Archives, Covington). (Photo provided)

In 1805, Badin was joined by Rev. Charles Nerinckx (1761–1824), another survivor of the French Revolution. Badin and Nerinckx liked each other from the beginning and went on to become close, lifelong friends. Short and stocky, the older Nerinckx had an almost endless physical strength and stamina. His mortification was legendary: he fasted every day, wore homespun clothes, and had an aversion to any kind of decoration or ornamentation. Once when he received a new horse bridle as a gift, he quietly took out his pocketknife and trimmed off the tassels and ornamentation. Like Badin, he was exceedingly strict and was an opponent of dancing, putting great emphasis on prayer, confession, and receiving the sacraments, especially the Holy Eucharist.

“Nothing could exceed the devotion of Mr. Nerinckx to the Holy Sacrament of the altar,” wrote Bishop Flaget in a letter to Bishop England after Nerinckx’s death in 1824. “In this respect he is the model for every clergyman.” Nerinckx kept his churches plain and without decoration except for the altar where the tabernacle was. To him it was the Holy of Holies, where his Eucharistic Lord dwelled. He always kept it richly decorated and instilled in all his congregations the regular practice of perpetual adoration of the Sacrament. After founding the Sisters of Loretto in 1812, he instilled in them the rule of observing “perpetual adoration” each Thursday night–all night–in memory of the institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper.

Rev. Stephen H. Montgomery (1789–1855) who built St. Mary’s Mission in Covington. (Photo provided)

In the years after 1805, the Catholic population of Kentucky grew as westward migration continued. In 1808, Bardstown became the seat of a new Diocese, with the diligent Benedict Joseph Flaget as its new Bishop. The arrival of the Dominicans in Kentucky was in notable contrast to the strict pastoral style of Badin and Nerinckx. Guided by the deft hand of leaders like Rev. Edward Fenwick and Rev. Stephen Montgomery, the Dominicans became popular, were more lenient, and fostered kindness, tolerance and piety among Kentucky Catholics. They also approved of dancing.

Yet as more immigrants arrived from the east, Bishop Flaget struggled to provide priests to minister to the growing Catholic communities. One of those struggling communities was Covington, where almost a quarter of the 947 residents in 1830 were Catholic. A frustrated Flaget turned to Cincinnati’s Bishop Purcell and asked for help, and in response, Purcell sent a robust Dominican named Fr. Stephen Montgomery (1789-1855), then rector of the Seminary in Cincinnati.

Within a year, with funds provided by Purcell, Fr. Montgomery constructed the first Catholic mission church in Northern Kentucky on Fifth Street in Covington. Drawing on his Order’s devotion to the Virgin Mary, he named the new congregation “St. Mary’s Mission” and would serve as its first permanent pastor until 1845.

Stephen Enzweiler is a historian and serves as the Cathedral Historian and Archivist at the Cathedral Basilica in Covington.

We want to learn more about the history of your business, church, school, or organization in our region (Cincinnati, Northern Kentucky, and along the Ohio River). If you would like to share your rich history with others, please contact the editor of “Our Rich History,” Paul A. Tenkotte, at tenkottep@nku.edu. Paul A. Tenkotte, PhD is Professor of History and Gender Studies at Northern Kentucky University (NKU) and the author of many books and articles.