Nativism and Calumny
From the Ursuline Convent Riot to Springfield, Ohio
An angry crowd of about two thousand people gathered outside the Ursuline convent in Charlestown, Massachusetts late on the night of August 11, 1834. They eventually broke into the convent, looting and destroying what they found inside and finally setting fire to the building. The nuns and the young students boarding in the convent escaped through an exit in the rear of the building. The convent was never rebuilt, and the nuns eventually left Massachusetts, joining fellow Ursulines in Canada.
What inspired this fit of madness? A few days earlier, a nun and teacher at the convent, Elizabeth Harrison, who had taken the name Sister Mary John, had left the convent but was convinced to return by the Bishop of Boston, Benedict Fenwick. Rumors began to spread, however, that Harrison was being held against her will at the convent. Only a couple of years earlier, another young woman, Rebecca Reed, had begun attending the convent school as a boarding student. Despite her Episcopalian background, she decided to become a postulant with the Ursulines, but then left the convent six months later. Reed began to tell stories about how she, and other women and girls at the convent, had been forced to profess Catholicism against their wills and were subjected to various tortures if they did not comply with the wishes of the mother superior and the bishop. She eventually published these claims in 1835, the year after the burning of the Ursuline convent, as Six Months in the Convent.
Reed’s accusations, together with the apparently unfounded rumors about Harrison’s confinement, were the immediate spark for the riot, but the root causes were the anti-Catholicism deeply woven into Protestant New England culture and the growing anti-Irish immigrant sentiment among Boston’s Protestant majority. Reed’s accusations against the nuns have long been waved away as fabrications, although in a post-sexual abuse crisis world it’s difficult to dismiss them entirely. Still, the crowds in Charlestown were not interested in an investigation of the facts, but rather were agitated by anti-Catholic and nativist innuendo and prejudice.
Reed’s book was followed by the much more fantastical Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk, published the following year, whose author claimed that as a nun in the Hôtel-Dieu convent in Montréal, she witnessed nuns regularly raped by priests and the infants born from these unions baptized and then strangled to death. It was later discovered that Monk had never in fact been a nun and that her claims were fabrications, although that did not stop the book from remaining a bestseller. These books marked a new era of anti-Catholic sensationalism, and other false claims about Irish Catholic immigrants spurred further acts of violence, such as the anti-Catholic riots in Philadelphia in May and July of 1844, fueled by false accusations that Catholics were attempting to eliminate the use of the Bible in public schools (in fact, Catholics, like Bishop Francis Kenrick, were advocating for Catholic students to be able to use a Catholic version of the Bible in school).
I bring up this distant history because over the last few days, false rumors have spread on social media about Haitian immigrants in the town of Springfield, Ohio killing and eating the pet cats and dogs of their neighbors. The claims, which have been dismissed as baseless by local political and law enforcement authorities, seem to have originated with thoughtless or malicious posts on social media by local residents, but they were eventually noticed and spread by far right and anti-immigrant groups and made their way to conservative social media. On September 9, Republican vice-presidential candidate J.D. Vance promoted the false claim about Haitian immigrants on social media, and the claim was repeated by former president Donald Trump during the presidential debate on September 10, and he has since added the false insinuation that the Haitian immigrants in Springfield came to the U.S. illegally, when in fact most of them are in the U.S. legally and many were invited to the city by employers and civic leaders to fill vacant manufacturing and service jobs.
For three days, the public schools in Springfield have been closed in response to bomb threats targeted at the city’s Haitian population. Last Thursday, Springfield’s City Hall was evacuated as a result of another bomb threat, and an annual event celebrating cultural diversity was cancelled as a precaution. Although there has thankfully been no rioting or overt violence against Haitian persons, the fear of violence hangs over Haitian Americans not only in Springfield, but throughout the country.
Many of the Haitians in Springfield are Catholic (a majority of the population of Haiti itself identifies as Catholic), and many more belonging to a variety of Protestant and non-denominational churches. Unlike the burning of the Ursuline convent long ago, the current demonization of the Haitian American population in Springfield doesn’t seem to be motivated by anti-Catholic prejudice. It does tap into the same tired tradition of anti-immigrant nativism, though, and indeed the accusation of immigrants eating dogs or cats has a long history, as well, dating back at least to anti-Chinese immigrant propaganda in the mid-19th century. Although as Catholics we should always express solidarity with vulnerable groups and those who are persecuted or subject to violence, we should share a special sense of solidarity with Springfield’s Haitian community, then, because of the U.S. Catholic Church’s own experience of demonization and threats, or even outright acts, of violence.
I can’t help but be especially angry that Vance, a U.S. Senator from Ohio, is himself a Catholic and yet has participated in spreading these atrocious lies about fellow members of the Body of Christ, knowing that this rhetoric places this vulnerable population at risk of violence. The point is not that targeting Catholics is somehow worse than targeting immigrants belonging to other religions, or that Catholics should be angrier about threats against their fellow believers. Every person, regardless of their religion or ethnicity, has the right to live in peace and to not be subject to defamation or threats of violence.
Rather, I think the fact that Vance and other Catholics on social media have participated in this anti-immigrant rhetoric should be an intense source of shame. In The Education of a Christian Prince, Desiderius Erasmus decried the wars “when Christian draws the sword against Christian,” and added, “Still more absurd, Christ is present in both camps, as if fighting against himself.” His point is not that it is more unjust to fight against a fellow Christian, but rather that Christians should feel shame at the fact that even recognizing their enemy as a fellow member of the Body of Christ is not enough for them to recognize the folly of their violence. Similarly, how can a Catholic spread malicious lies about people with whom they share the Eucharist every Sunday? Of course, we are called to recognize Christ in every migrant (Mt. 25:35), but at the very least, can’t we recognize Him in those who are part of His Body?
Vance’s actions—their maliciousness, their knowingness, their deliberateness—have crossed a moral red line. One might argue that a Catholic politician can prudentially reach different judgments on immigration policy, for example, taking a stance that favors more emphasis on enforcement and restricting legal immigration than that staked out by the US bishops. Even if that were true, here we are not talking about a question of policy, but rather about spreading malicious lies about a group of people based on their ethnicity and knowingly putting them at risk of extremist violence. This is the sin the Catechism of the Catholic Church defines as calumny, when “by remarks contrary to the truth, [one] harms the reputation of others and gives occasion for false judgments concerning them” (#2477). Mention could also be made of the sin of hatred, deliberately wishing evil or harm to one’s neighbor, even if the harm is not carried out by oneself (#2303).
Catholic leaders in the region have spoken out against the anti-Haitian rhetoric and ensuing threats, but as far as I can tell, no Ohio bishop has voiced a condemnation. Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami, whose archdiocese serves the largest Haitian community in the U.S., has denounced the attacks. Given that Vance’s actions are clear violations of the moral law with public implications and a wound to the Body of Christ, however, the bishops should not only condemn his anti-immigrant rhetoric, but consider disciplinary action, including publicly withholding communion until he repents. (And yes, I’m open to certain politicians being denied communion for their stance on abortion, as well… My position is sure to be unpopular with almost everybody.) We need moral clarity (“Eucharistic coherence”) from the Church right now, rather than waiting for a 21st-century version of the Ursuline convent burning to occur and then wondering what went wrong. Indeed, anti-immigrant rhetoric has already led to the shooting of 45 Hispanic Americans (including the death of 23) in an El Paso Walmart in 2019, the shooting of 17 (and the death of 11) members of the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018, and an attempted plot to bomb apartment buildings housing Somali refugees in Garden City, Kansas in 2016, among many other hate crimes. Surely the Church can publicly call to repentance those who “eat and drink judgment on themselves” (1 Cor. 11:29) by openly winking and nodding at this kind of violence.
excellent analysis and comparison.