TRANSCRIPT OF PASSIONISTS ARRIVAL IN PITTSBURGH – 1852
Chronological Records of the Foundation of the Passionist Retreat at Birmingham, Pittsburgh, PA., United States, North America, Sunday, November 14, 1852
Introduction
In the year 1852, the Right Rev. Michael O’Connor, Bishop of Pittsburgh, in the State of Pennsylvania, in North America, had to go to Rome for important affairs of his new Diocese. One of the objects of his journey to the Eternal City was to bring with him to his Diocese a band of Religious Priests to work in his large field of God’s Holy Church I this country and especially among those entrusted to his pastoral care. During his long residence in Rome as a student in the College of Propaganda Mr. O’Connor had acquired a thorough knowledge of the different religious institutions in the Holy City. He was also perfectly acquainted with the spiritual wants of the American Missions in the larger republic of the United States, in his zeal and prudence he had to choose a religious body most adapted to supply the existing spiritual wants. After mature consideration and fervent prayer his choice fell on the Congregation of the Most Holy Cross and Passion; in this choice of Bishop O’Connor we have not only a sign of his discriminating prudence but we see a signal token of God’s Providence in behalf of the American Missions. We beg to state our reasons for advancing this proposition. The development of these views will also serve as an introduction to this new chronicle for Our Congregation, in America.
If the eagle light of St. John discovered that: “All that is in the world is the concupiscence of the flesh, concupiscence of the eyes and the pride of life, (St. John 2,16), by which the Apostle and Evangelist meant that lust, covetousness, and pride are the dominant vices of the earth; we must confess that these vices are not less prominent in the New World, than they have been in the Old. The object which the vast majority of emigrants propose to themselves in coming to America; the greater felicity, and the more abundant means which exist in this vast country to obtain the object proposed, the stronger motive and the more powerful inducements which the newcomer finds at his arrival in this land of his adoption, all this and experience justify us in affirming that the three capital vices of covetousness, pride and sensuality are no less common and vigorous in the new than in the old world.
No reflecting person could be induced to leave and leave forever the home of his birth, to sever family connections, to abandon relatives, friends and acquaintances for a new and distant country, except he expected fully to indemnify himself for all these voluntary losses and painful sacrifices. The fact is that every emigrant in coming to America expects to better his condition. No one will deny this in regard to lay emigrants, and it may be that in these latter years the disease may have infected Ecclesial persons too. We may lay it down as a settled fact that covetousness is the moving passion of emigration and the animating principle of American Society.
