The Complex Legacy of John Ireland

Twice a year, Catholics in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis gather on the grounds of the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul and process down John Ireland Boulevard, reciting Rosaries on the way to the magnificent cathedral. John Ireland, archbishop from 1888 to 1918, is most noteworthy, at least to historians, for his identification — fairly or not — with the heresy of Americanism. Indeed, this subject is a persistent theme in Fr. Marvin O’Connell’s fine biography, John Ireland and the American Catholic Church (1988). But as a native Minnesotan and a parishioner of the Cathedral of St. Paul, I primarily associate Archbishop Ireland — yes, he was indeed Irish — with French transplant Emmanuel Masqueray, the brilliant architect who helped build our cathedral, as well as the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis.

The age of the automobile has artificially shortened distances, and it now takes about 15 minutes to drive the ten miles along I-94 between the two churches — perhaps longer if traffic is heavy around uptown. Suffice it to say that a century ago, travel was much more difficult — and time-consuming. So, Masqueray was kept busy, bustling back and forth between the two projects Ireland had undertaken, “with characteristic bravura,” as O’Connell puts it, simultaneously.

I do not claim to be impartial when it comes to assessing the beauty of the cathedral in which I married my wife and in which all four of our children were baptized. I find myself in agreement with our new pastor, who asserted in a recent homily that it is the most majestic building on the continent. Probably the first thing that strikes visitors is the size of the edifice — my kids call it “the big church,” to which all others shall be compared and dubbed “little.” The cathedral is just over 300 feet tall, but because it stands on Summit Hill, it looms larger.

As my children are young, I usually spend at least some of the Mass in the back with one or more of them. And, though signs are posted reminding visitors that worship is in progress, tourists shuffle in and out, chatting quietly and taking pictures. They do not always show proper reverence for the mystery unfolding before them — to which most seem oblivious — but almost all of them are struck by the grandeur of the cathedral. Obviously, not every church needs to be built on such a scale, but it is a reminder that beauty serves to evangelize the unchurched. I have no reason to believe the tourists will soon swim the Tiber, but I hope they suspect that something important occurs in that big building on top of the hill.

I grew up in suburban St. Paul, so I can’t recall a time when I was unaware of the cathedral’s exterior, clearly visible from the freeway. Specifically, I remember its green dome of oxidized copper. That dome leaked and has since been replaced; in its stead, we have a new one, some interior water damage, and a debt to be paid off over time. Even without the green patina, the cathedral maintains its prominence.

I do not know when I initially set foot inside the cathedral, but my first memory is of being confirmed there when I was in seventh grade. Nothing in my experience of churches had prepared me for such a place, and I acted like those awestruck tourists. I recall being especially impressed by how ornate and intricate everything was, especially compared to my simple suburban parish church. But as time goes on, and as the building becomes more familiar, my admiration grows for Masqueray’s Neoclassical restraint. Compared to postconciliar modernist architecture, his buildings are lavish, but they are a universe away from the opulence of the Baroque.

Archbishop Ireland had hoped the Twin Cities would merge into a single city he termed Paulopolis. Instead, the cities have remained distinctive, even rivalrous. The residents of the wealthier, busier Minneapolis look down on their benighted neighbors to the east. Though the state’s largest city does its best to imitate Austin, Texas, or Portland, Oregon, residents of the state’s capitol are content, as a popular T-shirt reads, to “Keep St. Paul Boring.” Still, even as a local partisan, I must concede that the basilica is worthy of a trip across the Mississippi into that upstart municipality to the west. There is an intimacy to the (comparatively) smaller church that makes Masqueray’s other masterpiece more accessible. Like the Twin Cities themselves, the two buildings balance each other.

The first Mass was celebrated in the Cathedral of St. Paul on March 28, 1915, Palm Sunday, just three years before Archbishop Ireland died. Much of the detail that impresses visitors was not present initially; construction continued for the next half century. But at long last, and almost just in time, Ireland had his cathedral. Even though it was the era of ethnic parishes, Ireland’s cathedral would be for all Catholics. As a nod to the various ethnicities that had helped raise money for the building, the cathedral contains six shrines dedicated to various patrons, including St. Boniface for the Germans, the group that undoubtedly gave Ireland the most trouble.

Today, the German parishes are long gone — or, rather, the parishes remain but now serve a different group of immigrants. I once attended a Spanish Mass at two in the afternoon in the German church at which my parents were married and I was baptized. Similarly, at the Rosary procession, Hispanic men have the honor of carrying statues of Our Lady. They were not present in sufficient numbers to have a shrine of their own in the cathedral, but a lovely statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe has been added to the cathedral courtyard.

To his detractors, such as Bishop Bernard McQuaid of Rochester — New York, not Minnesota — Archbishop Ireland was “too conciliatory to Protestant-minded America.” Perhaps he was. Certainly, Popes Leo XIII and Pius X seemed to think so. O’Connell quotes from a sermon Ireland delivered at the third plenary council of Baltimore in 1884: “The choicest field which providence offers in the world to-day to the occupancy of the Church is this [American] republic…. The surest safeguards for her own life and prosperity the republic will find in the teachings of the Catholic Church, and the more America acknowledges those teachings, the more durable will her civil institutions be made.”

O’Connell summarizes: “Here was the marriage contracted in heaven, Catholicism and America. Far from being mutually antagonistic or exclusive, the two of them, properly understood, were perfectly mated.”

Now, insofar as Ireland was positing a permanently beneficial relationship between the Church and the American republic, he was obviously incorrect. But I don’t think that was his argument. He may have erred, but if he did so, his was an error of imprudence. Ireland’s experience as a chaplain in the Union Army had given him a more favorable opinion of Protestant Americans than was held by prelates in Rome. Regardless, it cannot be inferred that Ireland’s statements were meant to apply to the America of today. Either way, Ireland never did get his red hat.

Now, a century later, it’s difficult to see what all the fuss was about. Even the stubborn Germans have assimilated. The Hispanics are probably on their way. In the place of the seemingly narrow ethnic parish, we have large suburban ones. In place of Protestant-minded America, we live in a post-Protestant country. That hardly seems an improvement. And yet, I wonder: Would things really have transpired differently had the American episcopacy comprised intransigent Germans instead of conciliatory Irishmen?

John Ireland reminds us that the Sturm und Drang of our day is less important than we think. He will remain an important figure, certainly, in the historical disputes over Americanism in the Catholic Church. But whatever his flaws, his glorious buildings remain, monuments to the faith he tried to keep and the Church he did his best to serve. Emmanuel Masqueray, worn out from work, preceded John Ireland to the grave. They are both buried in Calvary Cemetery — in St. Paul. May we remember them with gratitude. And may they rest in peace.

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