Our History

History of the Province

The Early Years - Steady Growth

(7) Steady Growth

While matters were thus happily progressing in the far West various events took place in the East which helped to strengthen the Capuchin foundation in Pennsylvania. By a Roman decree of January 6, 1878, the convent at Herman was raised to a guardianate, and Fr. Maurice was appointed Guardian and Fr. Fidelis Vicar of the new monastery. As Fr. Maurice could now no longer give his attention and care to the Seraphic School the Directorship of the College devolved upon Fr. Joseph Anthony, until then stationed at Pittsburg.

On May 29th the personnel of the Commissariate was increased by four newcomers from the Bavarian Province, Fr. Pancratius, Fr. John Maria, Frater cleric Thaddeus and Brother Didacus. Fr. John Maria was sent to Herman, where he acted as Lector and at the same time as Director of the College. Fr. Joseph Anthony returned to Pittsburg, where his services were needed in the parish.

During the summer of 1878 the Seraphic School or College, that is to say the old parish rectory which had been used as such after the completion of the monastery, was enlarged by an addition of 52 x 30 feet.

The colony was again strengthened during the following year, when Fr. Francis, the Bavarian Provincial, whose interest in his American foundation was unabating, sent Fr. Joseph Leonissa and Brother Arsenius to reinforce the Pennsylvania mission. Needless to say, like their predecessors, they brought substantial help with them in the form of generous donations in cash, books, altar vessels, etc., etc.

The same reasons which had induced the pioneers to transfer the Seraphic School and Clericate also caused them to plan the removal of the Novitiate from Pittsburg to Herman, the quiet seclusion of which fitted it admirably for a Franciscan retreat such as is required for the proper training of the youthful candidates of the Order. In the summer of 1879 a suitable building was erected, to the north of the church, for that purpose. The plans very, very modest and the building conforms to Capuchin regulations in every detail. The costs barely exceeded the sum of $2,400.00. On September 19th the novices bade farewell to Pittsburg and hastened to their new home in Herman, where they were cordially welcomed by Fr. Maurice, their new Master, and Fr. Pancratius, his able co-adjutor. The first to take his vows in Herman was Frater Leo, at present the energetic missionary rector of Marienthal, in the Diocese of Wichita, Kansas.

In the same year Fr. John Maria, whose health was gradually failing under the trying climate of his adopted country, returned to Pittsburg, and Fr. Joseph Leonissa took his place as Director of the College and Lector of the Clericate. The departure of Fr. John was a great loss to our schools, as he was a man of extraordinary character and knowledge. He was quite a linguist, being well-versed in the Latin, Greek, German, English, French and Spanish tongues. He was but little benefitted by his change from Herman to Pittsburg and soon returned to Bavaria, where he died at Eichstaett, November 22, 1882.

In the spring of the year 1880 an event occurred which no doubt hastened the maturing of the Bavarian mission into an independent Province.

Two years after the arrival of Father Hyacinth and his companions in Pittsburg the Fathers of the Westphalian Province, having through the notorious "May Laws" lost their monasteries in the kingdom of Prussia, decided to follow the example of their Bavarian brethren and seek a home in America. The Carmelite Fathers wishing to give up their establishment in Cumberland, Md., the exiled Friars bought their monastery and church for the sum of $21,000.00 and took formal possession in June, 1875. In July, 1877, Father Anthony, Commissary of the Cumberland mission, took over the charge of St. Mary's Parish in Metamora, IL., over which he personally presided as Superior and Pastor. Upon the request of Bishop Spalding Fr. Anthony in the following year undertook the founding of a new German parish in the episcopal city of Peoria. As the Provincial of the Westphalian Province did not favor the acceptance of the new charge and Fr. Anthony was loath to abandon a project the success of which seemed very dear to the Bishop, it was proposed that Fr. Hyacinth, Commissary of the Pennsylvania mission, take over the newly-founded Sacred Heart Parish in Peoria. This was done with the consent of the ecclesiastical Superiors, and at the same time Fr. Anthony and Fr. Titus, who had in turn resigned their commissaryship of the Cumberland foundation, joined the Pennsylvania commissariate.

In the meantime the Fathers of the Kansas mission had not been idle. Work on the new monastery in Victoria had been begun in the early part of April, and as the harvest had utterly failed that year it was comparatively easy to get cheap labor to hasten its completion. The building was an unpretentious structure 66 feet long, about 33 feet wide, and 22 feet high. It was ready for occupancy in the fall of the year. Lord Walter Maxwell of England and the St. Louis Missionary Union of Munich generously contributed toward the building expenses, whilst the people of Victoria, unable to give pecuniary aid owing to the failure of their crops, nevertheless rendered valuable help by hauling a great amount of the building material free-of-charge.

On May 20th of this year Bishop Tuigg ordained the first neopresbyters of the Pennsylvania mission, viz., the Rev. Frs. Patrick, Anthony and Didacus. Fr. Patrick was appointed Prefect of the College in Herman, Fr. Joseph Leonissa, the former Director, resigning his charge, and Fr. Maurice, Guardian of the Herman monastery, again assumed the duties of Director of the Seraphic School. From that time the offices of Director of the College and Guardian of the monastery were united until the year 1891, when the Most Rev. Father General, on the occasion of his canonical visit, ordained that these offices be again kept separate.

From this recital it will be seen that the Pennsylvania mission had made a stride forward in the last two years. It now possessed monasteries in Pittsburg and Herman, Pa., a hospice in Victoria, Kansas, and a third monastery in Peoria, IL, the convent of that place having been raised to a Guardianate by a Decree of Propaganda of August 29, 1880. Ordinations, various accessions from the Cumberland commissariate, and immigration from Bavaria had raised the number of priests within the Pennsylvania commissariate to fifteen, to which are to be added nine Clerics and fifteen Lay Brothers, including the Novices, a total of thirty-nine members.

Toward the end of the year overtures were made by the Fathers of Cumberland to the Pennsylvania commissariate to affiliate also the convents at Cumberland and Metamora, as had been done with Peoria; a plan which we shall see carried out in the following year.

(8) Grown to Man's Estate

As stated in the previous chapter, the Fathers of the Westphalian Province had turned their eyes towards the United States when their monasteries in the Prussian cities of Muenster, Cleve, Werne, and Ehrenbreitstein were suppressed in the summer of 1875. Though the letter of the infamous "May Laws" did not demand their exile, the Friars were prohibited to live in community or exercise their sacred ministry, which practically meant their banishment from German territory. The Provincial Chapter sent Fathers Anthony of Rorup and Francis of Ruedesheim to America, where they arrived May 12, 1875. On the 25th of the following month they took formal possession of SS. Peter and Paul's monastery at Cumberland, Maryland, which they had, with the approval and consent of the Archbishop of Baltimore, purchased from the Carmelite Fathers. On August 20th, in the same year, five priests, six lay-brothers, and four candidates bade farewell to the monastery at Muenster to join their exiled brethren in Cumberland. The canonical erection of the Capuchin monastery and novitiate at Cumberland was effected by a Decree of Propaganda dated December 12, 1875. Almost immediately after their arrival the Fathers opened a Seraphic School, but the hopes they had built on this venture never were realized, and the school was given up in 1878.

The monastic family at Cumberland had, however, gradually increased from year to year owing to the arrival of new priests, lay-brothers and novices from Germany, and the Fathers began to think of making new foundations. Father Anthony, who had been appointed as the American representative and commissary of the Provincial of the Westphalian Province, undertook in July, 1877, the charge of St. Mary's Church at Metamora, in the Diocese of Peoria, Illinois, taking with him three Fathers and three lay-brothers from Cumberland. He at once set out to build a new church, the existing one proving much too small. A monastery was also built, and completed and occupied in March of the following year.

When in 1878 Father Anthony, upon the urgent request of Bishop Spalding, undertook to found a new parish in Peoria, misunderstandings arose within the commissariate, resulting in the resignation of Father Anthony, and subsequently also in that of his successor in office, Father Titus, a Friar of the Tyrolese Province, who had come to America upon the request of Father Boniface of Mayence, the Vicar-Provincial of the Westphalian Province. As previously related, the Peoria monastery and church were taken in charge by the Pennsylvania commissariate, and Fathers Anthony and Titus, with the consent of their respective Superiors, joined the Bavarian Friars.

Father Boniface, having in the meantime been elected Minister Provincial, now appointed Fathers Joseph of Cupertino, Gregory Maria, and Francis Xavier as joint commissaries of the Cumberland foundation. The chronicler tells us that the life of the Fathers at Cumberland and Metamora was one of great sacrifices and in strict accord with the rules and regulations of the Capuchin institute, and that they labored with commendable zeal and singular success in the Lord's vineyard. However, their path seems to have been beset with many difficulties, and finally, in October, 1880, the Superiors of the Cumberland commissariate met Father Hyacinth in Pittsburg to confer with him on the incorporation of the houses at Cumberland and Metamora with the Pennsylvania commissariate. A union of the two missions was agreed upon under certain conditions and mutual restrictions, and ratified at the Provincial Chapter of the Bavarian Province, held in Altoetting, Bavaria, August 25, 1881. By a decision of the same Chapter the Cumberland monastery became the novitiate of the united commissariates, and the monastery at Herman, Pennsylvania, was to be the residence of Father Hyacinth, who continued in his office as Commissary-Provincial.

The Commissariate now saw the number of its houses increased to six; the number of its priests had risen from fifteen to twenty-eight, that of the clerics from nine to twelve, and that of the lay-brothers from fifteen to thirty-one, making a total of seventy-one Friars. This naturally suggested the advisability of having the American mission freed from the jurisdiction of the distant mother-province across the sea, and allowed to take rank among the provinces of the Order. A petition to this effect was addressed to the Very Rev. Father Venantius, the Superior of the .Province of Bavaria, and by him forwarded and recommended to the authorities in Rome. The Sacred Congregation of Propaganda by a Decree of July 20, 1882, authorized the Minister General of the Order, Father Giles of Cortona, to proceed with the erection of the new Capuchin Province of Pennsylvania, at the same time defining the limits of the territory to which any new foundations of the new young Province were to be confined. The letters patent of the Minister General raising the Pennsylvania mission to the rank of a Province bear the date of August 7, 1882. The latter, therefore, is the birthday of the Province of Pennsylvania, the twenty-fifth anniversary of which was quietly observed four months ago, and which the late Father Hyacinth, its founder, happily lived to see.

The nine electors of the new Province met in Chapter at Pittsburg on September 26-28, and unanimously chose Father Hyacinth as their first Provincial, Fathers Felix Maria, Francis Seraph, Maurice, and Fidelis being elected Definitors, and Fathers Anthony Maria and Gregory Maria as Custods-General. The Cumberland monastery was made the residence of the Provincial and at the same time the House of Studies, whilst Herman was henceforth to harbor the novices and scholastics of the Order.

Shortly before the erection of the Pennsylvania commissariate into a Province the mission loot one of its foremost and most valuable laborers in the person of Father Francis Xavier, who left America to carry out his long-cherished plan to join the Trappist Order. Father Francis was born in Germany March 19, 1844, entered the Capuchin Order September 21, 1866, and was ordained priest April 4, 1868. He came to America in the fall of 1875, and labored first in Cumberland, later as Superior and Pastor at Metamora, and came to Pittsburg in September, 1881, leaving for Europe in July of the following year. He is now Abbot of the Trappist monastery at Oehienburg, Alsace, where he had exchanged the Franciscan garb for that of the disciples of St. Bernard.

Another notable event of the year 1882 was the sacerdotal silver jubilee of Father Felix Maria, then Guardian and Pastor of SS. Peter and Paul's at Cumberland, on August 18. The day was made an occasion of much rejoicing. Father Felix being dearly loved both by his brethren in religion and by the laity. It may not be amiss to subjoin here a brief biographical sketch of this notable Friar, who has borne no small share of the labors and burdens of the Province from its first beginnings to the day of his lamented death, which occurred at St. Joseph's Hospital, Yonkers, New York, July 10, 1901.

Father Felix Maria, known in the world as August Lex was born in ZiII, a frontier town of the Bavarian Alps, April 21, 1833. After successfully completing his classical studies he matriculated in the University of Munich, but finding little to attract him in the world he soon entered the Capuchin Order, taking his solemn vows in the monastery of Burghausen, December 8, 1855. After his ordination, which took place August I, 1857, he labored with signal success in various monasteries of the Bavarian Province, especially in Aschaffenburg. In 1875 he decided to devote his labors to the newly-founded American mission, and, as the chronicler has it, his coming proved a veritable blessing to the struggling commissariate. He rendered excellent service to our Province in the various offices which he held, being in turn Guardian and Pastor, Definitor, and Master of Novices. He may be regarded as the father of the" Archconfraternity of Christian Mothers," as it was chiefly through his efforts that this now flourishing society, which has over 50,000 members in 633 affiliated branches, was established at St. Augustine's. In the latter nineties his health began to fail, and the desire to return to his beloved Bavaria grew upon him as his strength diminished. Under the milder climate of the fatherland he hoped to regain some of his old-time vigor and prolong his priestly career for a few years. In June, 1901, he left for Europe, Father Cassian accompanying him to New York. But Father Felix was not to see his native mountains again. Having to wait a few days for an outgoing steamship he accepted the cordial invitation of his confreres of the Calvarian Province to escape from the heat of the city and spend the interval at their monastery at Yonkers, some thirty miles above New York. Here, however, his condition unexpectedly grew worse, and he was transferred to St. Joseph's Hospital, where his earthly journey came to an end on June 10. His remains were brought to Herman, and interred in St. Mary's Cemetery, June 13.

In Father Felix the Province lost an exemplary religious and a tireless laborer for the honor of God and the salvation of souls. The memory of his gentle charity and burning zeal is still fresh in the minds of his brethren and an inspiration to all who knew him in life. R.I.P.