CHAPTER 2 : Alemany and Vilarrasa: Uneasy Partnership [1] Fr. Peter Anderson was the first to plant the seed of the Dominican Order in the western United States. The seed was his own life and death. But its nourishing and growth were in and through Bishop Joseph Sadoc Alemany and Fr. Francis Sadoc Vilarrasa together with Sr. Mary Goemaere. Of these three the initiative was first taken by Alemany, when, as provincial of St. Joseph Province, he sent Anderson to California with the implantation of the Order there in mind, and then, as newly ordained bishop, by asking Vilarrasa and Mary Goemaere to be associates with him in firming up whatever beginnings Fr. Anderson had made. The surviving records and the histories based upon them reveal Alemany to be a holy and persistently creative churchman. One might have guessed at his future from his beginnings. He was born in Vich in the province of Catalonia some 30 miles from Barcelona. His father was a blacksmith and his mother the daughter of a local chocolate maker, both devout and strict Catholics in a Spain wracked by anti-clericalism. Joseph was the third of 12 children. Two of the boys ended up priests of the diocese of Vich, two besides Joseph -- Manual and Juan -- became Dominican friars. Two daughters entered convents, one of Carmel, the other Dominican. Three sons married, and two of the children died in infancy. When 16 years old Joseph entered the Dominican Order in the priory of Santo Domingo in Vich of the Province of Aragon, receiving the habit there toward the middle of September, 1830. He immediately expressed his desire to become a missionary for the Philippines but was persuaded by his director to finish his studies in Europe before volunteering for the missions. On September 23, 1831, he made his solemn profession and took for his religious name "Sadoc" after the Dominican Polish martyr of the 13th century. He had his three year course in philosophy at Tremp and then was sent to the celebrated priory "de la Anunciacion" at Gerona, one of the oldest convents in the Order. Here he began his theological studies, but after his first year the priory together with every other religious house in Spain was closed because of the Law of Secularization of 1835. Joseph went to his grandmother's house in Grub, near Vich, and spent a year there quietly studying St. Thomas under the tutelage of Fr. Lucia Costa, a lector of the Order. The Master General of the Order, Jacinto Cipolleti, invited him and other Spanish Dominican students to Italy for the completion of their studies. He happily complied and was assigned to the convent of Santa Maria Dei Gradi in Viterbo. Two years later, on March 11, 1837, though one year shy of the sacerdotal canonical age, he was ordained a priest in San Lorenzo Cathedral in Viterbo by Archbishop (later Cardinal) Gaspar Bernard Pianetti of that city. Shortly after ordination he was appointed assistant master of novices in his convent of Dei Gradi. Such a trust invested in one so young -- he was only 23 years old -- indicates that he was recognized as a man of prayer and religious observance. It seems he was also appreciated for his intelligence and theological acumen. We know that at least twice he was chosen for public defense, once in philosophy and again in theology -- an honor reserved for the best of the students. At his theological defense was Henri Lacordaire, newly arrived from France to begin his novitiate in Viterbo. The great preacher and future restorer of the Order in France openly admired Alemany's performance. Mutual admiration and, more deeply, love and zeal for the Lord, led to a lasting friendship between the two Dominicans. Before completing his theology, Alemany again expressed his desire to go to the Philippines, but instead of Asia it was to the United States that he was commissioned. This eventuated because the Dominican Bishop Miles of Tennessee had made known to the Master General, Angelus Ancarni, his desperate need for priests in his vast and extremely poor diocese, and Ancarni wanted to oblige him. Accordingly, Alemany along with two others, Fathers Francis Cubero and Hyacinth Pozzo, was assigned to North America. Though not exactly according to his own will, the assignment did not disappoint him. His ready obedience was quick to find good things about the States, even anticipating better weather there than in the Philippines (!), as he wrote to his uncle at the time:
His last months in Italy he spent in Rome at the Urban College of Propaganda Fide pursuing his English studies (which for him involved not just the study of the language, but of the geography, history, mores of the land for which he was destined)) and finishing his theology. Upon the completion of his studies, he was awarded the degree of Lectorate in Theology at the Minerva, one of the venerable centers of Dominican life and culture. It was on February 12, 1840, that Alemany with his two Dominican companions, set sail for America. His Catalonian blood ran warm as the ship passed his native land. Nostalgia touched his heart, but his sights as always were fixed upon the future:
When, after a rough and long voyage, Alemany arrived in America at the beginning of April, 1840, he found that Bishop Miles no longer had immediate need of help, having already procured several priests for his diocese. The bishop advised Alemany to go to St. Joseph's convent in Somerset, Ohio, and continue his studies in English in preparation for his missionary work in a new and strange world. This he did, and was soon putting his English to good use in parochial and missionary activity in and around Somerset and Zanesville. His Spanish continued to be of use also, as when the provincial, Fr. Charles Pius Montgomery, sent him to Cuba to solicit funds for church building and repairs. Due to an attack of Yellow Fever, which laid him low for a time, and the anticlericalism that had spread from Spain to its territories, Alemany had little success. He returned, however, with some amusing anecdotes, such as his encounter with a Captain General who took him for a spy of Don Carlos, pretender to the throne of Spain. The General, recalled Alemany years after the event, "wishing to ascertain my true character catechized me about the number of sacraments. He corrected me when I placed the Holy Eucharist before Penance -- but having heard from me that St. Thomas argues that Penance is better placed after the Holy Eucharist because Penance is medicine and the Eucharist is food -- and a child needs food before medicine -- he seemed satisfied, but I was not. I asked him for some donation and he ordered his secretary to give me an ounce of gold." For some two years Alemany continued his labors in Ohio, but now Bishop Miles had need of him. Thus began his three year residence at the Cathedral of the Holy Rosary in Nashville, from 1842 to 1845. Besides his parochial duties at the cathedral he also headed briefly the very modest diocesan seminary located in the bishop's own house. In 1845 he resumed his missionary activities, with St. Peter's Church in Memphis, Tennessee, as his house of residence. In 1847 the province held its chapter at St. Rose Priory in Springfield, Kentucky. It was here that the lives of Frs. Alemany and Vilarrasa began to converge. They knew each other before their encounter at the chapter -- within the Eastern Province, certainly, but also in Spain and Italy as students and young priests, and perhaps even before their entrance into the Order: letters between Vilarrasa and his parents suggest that the Vilarrasa and Alemany families were at least acquainted. Vilarrasa's background was much the same as that of Alemany. His town of birth was La Pobla de Lillet, a few miles from Alemany's Vich. He entered the Dominican Order at the Convent of St. Catherine in Barcelona -- of the same province, Aragon, as was Alemany -- when he was only 15 years old and, like Alemany, chose "Sadoc" for his religious name. One year later, September 23, 1830, he took his solemn vows. After his profession he evidently remained at St. Catherine's where he completed the philosophical curriculum and began the study of theology. His theological studies, however, were harshly interrupted. By the summer of 1834 religious persecution had begun in Spain. In July of that year the Dominican convent in Madrid was attacked and several religious killed while praying the divine office in choir. By spring of the following year the persecution was widespread in the provinces, and on July 25, 1835, several religious houses in Barcelona, the convent of St. Catherine among them, were attacked by mobs and burned. Eighteen religious were killed during these riots. Faced with this situation, Vilarrasa, together with other members of the Aragon Province -- Brother Joseph Alemany included, as we have seen -- accepted the invitation of the Master General to come to Italy. The year 1836 found Vilarrasa at the convent of La Quercia near Viterbo, not far from S. Maria Dei Gradi, where Brother Sadoc Alemany was currently assigned. Here he entered once again into his theological studies. "The little dark man is said to have just attained the height required by canon law for admittance into the priesthood,"[2] but he unquestionably qualified in every other respect. And so in May of 1837 he was ordained a priest. The ordaining prelate was Archbishop Pianetti of Viterbo who, just two months before, had also raised Alemany to the priesthood. During his next two years at La Quercia Vilarrasa exercised the office of assistant to the master of novices, as did Alemany in the neighboring convent. In 1839 he was sent to Santa Maria Sopra Minerva in Rome where in 1841 he took the degree of lector in Sacred Theology. He then returned to La Quercia where he again filled the office of assistant to the master of novices. Like Alemany also, the young Vilarrasa's grasp of and ability in theological science was recognized: although fresh from his formal studies, he was appointed to teach theology to the Dominican students at the La Quercia house of studies. As described in the records of La Quercia, "while small of body, he was great of mind, an industrious student, an observant religious, and of a character that won the hearts of all."[3] In addition to Henri Lacordaire, among his novices/students was Alexandre Vincent Jandel, who was to become in 1850 Vicar General and five years later Master General of the Order, and was to appoint his former master/teacher the first major superior of the western Dominicans. Vilarrasa continued on at La Quercia until the Fall of 1844. Fr. George Augustine Joseph Wilson, provincial of St. Joseph's Province, was in Europe at the time and it was probably due to conversations with him that Vilarrasa volunteered for the American mission. He embarked at Le Havre on November 17, 1844, having as his traveling companions Frs. Januarius Mannes D'Arco and James Aloysius Orengo, two Italian Dominicans who had also volunteered for America, and Frs. Langdon Thomas Grace and Nicholas Raymond Young, members of St. Joseph's Province who had been sent to Italy to complete their studies and had just been granted their theological degrees. Fr. Vilarrasa himself gives some account of the voyage in a letter written to his family once arrived at St. Joseph's Priory in Somerset. The letter is dated January 12, 1845. Happily, he recalls that aboard ship his party was
He gives further details of the trip, noting that they left New York at four o'clock in the afternoon of the day of their arrival and went by train to Philadelphia, where they remained till the sixth and then traveled to Baltimore, staying there only over night. From there they traveled about 300 miles by rail to a city "the name of which I do not remember." The rest of the journey to Somerset was made by stagecoach, and "after two days and nights of continual running and bumping" they arrived at Somerset. In his next letter home, April 5, 1845, we find a brief but telling description of the parochial, religious, and missionary life of St. Joseph's:
Partial Endnotes [1] Sources for the present chapter are, for Alemany: mainly McGloin, but also O'Daniel, Coffey, WDA XIII:3; and Francis Weber for Alemany's diary. For Vilarrasa, cf. Coffey and O'Daniel; and WDA XIII:4, especially for his letters and Chronicle. Translations of Vilarrasa's letters home are, substantially, those which appeared in the Catholic Review's Contemporary History of the Sufferings and Triumphs of the Church of Jesus Christ, January, 1851, also found in V's file. Brief biographies of members of St. Joseph's Province appearing in this and in subsequent chapters are in Coffey's Pictorial History... The bare bones of biographies of members of the Western Province may be found in their respective files, Roman numeral XII, beginning with Vinyes, WDA XII:1. More substantial biographies of many westerners appear in their obituaries in the catalogi (or, in the early years, the Acta of the biennial congregations) the year of or immediately following their death. For Sr. Mary Goemaere and the other pioneering sisters cf. The Dominicans of San Rafael... and Sr. M. H. Kilgannon, O.P., The History of St. Catherine's Academy... (Click Endnote Number to Resume Reading) [2] O'Daniel, p. 173. [3] ibid. |
