The Catholic Church In East Baltimore
The Catholic Church established its roots in Baltimore in 1789 when the first Catholic bishop in the United States, Father John Carroll of Upper Marlboro, Maryland, chose Baltimore as the Seat of his Diocese. (1) In the 20th century, East Baltimore attracted a significant Catholic population that has waxed and waned throughout the years. The Church is a powerful institution within East Baltimore that has played and continues to play a significant role in many facets of people’s lives. The oral histories included in the East Baltimore Documentary Photography Project reveal the many ways that the church was a center for social, economic, and of course religious activity. These include but were not limited to organized sports, Catholic schooling, charity functions, family counseling, and community meetings. (2)
What sets these oral history interviews apart from other forms of research is the fact that they offer very personal, diverse, and sometimes contradictory perspectives on the Church. Despite being one institution, the Catholic Church meant very different things to different people. Personal experiences with clergy and other members of the church colored individuals’ feelings towards religion, the institution, and their community. Approaching the history of the Catholic Church in East Baltimore through this microscopic lens allows researchers to obtain a more accessible and more nuanced view of the Church than more objective and broad research does.
Nuns
Many children in East Baltimore spent their formative years in Catholic schools, either as their primary academic institution or for religious education through catechism. Perspectives on the Catholic Schooling system varied among individuals, but especially between adults and children. Mary Bready, a retired after-school program organizer who worked with children in Patterson Park, recalled the power religious instructors had over children:
“[The] nun [w]as a powerful figure…We used to have kids that came in the playground with their knees all chewed up, and we would say what was the matter and they'd say we were naughty and the nuns had us kneeling on dry peas [i]n the corner of the classroom, and they'd come in with their skin all [worn] off their knees from kneeling on dry peas in the corner of the classroom.” (3)
Bready’s description and tone of voice on these tapes reveal an ambivalence toward these types of punishments. While she mentions that she worried about it when her own children were in school, she does not condemn the nuns or the church. Instead, she admits that the nuns were “very useful” whenever the children needed to be coerced into good behavior. (4) Given these statements, it can be assumed that it was socially acceptable for nuns to dole out such physical punishments and that while such punishments were not pleasant, they were seen as necessary to improve a child’s character.
Mary Bready’s adult perspective on the nun’s treatment of children differs from the perspective of Maria Celluzzi who experienced Catholic School as a child. Interviewed at the age of 30, Celluzzi recalled that her experience with the nuns and the clergy at St. Casimir’s Catholic school “left [her] feeling very [awkard] [sic] and very afraid of the Lord.” (5) Celluzzi immigrated to the United States from Ukraine in 1956 when she was around 8 years old. Because she could only speak Ukrainian and German, the nuns at St. Casimir’s Catholic school “taught [her] how to speak, proper, proper English. With a ruler.” (6) Celluzzi also recalled that the nuns could be bribed into treating students better: “They were very strict and …[if] you could bribe them with something they would treat you better.” (7)
Celluzzi’s experience with the church left a huge impact on her. They led her to leave the Catholic Church as an adult. The differing perspectives surrounding the nun’s treatment of children reveal that attitudes surrounding the church’s role in childhood and education varied from person to person and between generations. Nuns could both be a source of discipline and structure, as well as a source of trauma for students.
The Catholic Church and Ethnic Identity
The Catholic Church served the dual purpose of serving the community’s spiritual needs and also maintaining cultural traditions from the resident’s respective homelands. Catholic residents of East Baltimore in the 20th Century immigrated from various countries including Ukraine, Poland, Italy, Germany, and more. Despite their shared religious and spiritual beliefs, these groups varied in their language, holidays, and styles of worship. The differences were profound enough that different churches were established to serve different ethnic groups. One’s connection to their church was also tied to their ethnicity and sense of identity. Attending church was one way individuals could maintain ties to their homeland.
By the 1970s and 80s, residents of East Baltimore were conflicted in their perspectives on the inter-ethnic mixture of churches. Father Esposito from Our Lady of Pompei Catholic Church, a majority Italian church, felt that the Church should be a place that accepted all ethnicities:
“So, we have many people intermarry, Irish-Italian, German-Italian, Polish-Italian, We have many straight German, Irish, or Polish families, these are the nationa[l]ities that are mostly in the neighborhood. Uh, living in perfect harmony with everybody, they're well accepted, in fact, we shouldn't even talk of them not being accepted, they're part of the community and that's it.” (8)
Yet Father Esposito also knew that some Churches preferred to maintain ethnic homogeneity. In his interview, he compared his church to a different Church in East Baltimore called St. Leo: “we do not compare to St. Leo's, I'm certain you know what that is in Little Italy. They are strictly an Italian parish.” (9)
Interviews discussing the election of Pope John Paul II in 1978 also brought up the differing intensities of ethnic affiliations within East Baltimore. Pope John Paul II’s Polish nationality made some Baltimorians proud of their home country and even used it as a way to get back at the Italian community who had been represented by Italian Popes for centuries.
“ For four hundred years there was never another Pope other than Italian. And it seems like it took the Polish to break through the ice and come through with a Polish Pope. Which made us feel very, very happy, us of Polish descent.” (10)
- Edward (Rich) Siekjerski
“I went to an affair to the Polish Castle and when we came back, when the affair was finished, we came out and some of the ladies were makin uh, a joke about the Italian people.” (11)
- Stella Figniski
“I'm so happy that we got Pope, Holy Pope, something new, for a long, long, it was a big change. But it took a long, long time. Is that all right? But he's Polish and I'm Polish and I'm good Catholic and I'm so happy about it, I can't, I can't get out of my mind how it happened that (Polish)” (12)
- Veronica (Fronnie) Poturalski
Other Baltimorians of Polish descent felt differently. One Polish-American woman named Catherine Glowacki voiced her ambivalence towards the new Pope’s nationality:
“I don't know that. I don't know, [that] like I said [thats why she] ain't askin [sic] me, because to me any nationality, if they [are] Polish, if they're qualified for it, that's different, that's the one belongs there…Not because he's Polish.” (13)
- Catherine Glowacki
Conclusion
East Baltimorians varied in their opinions about the role the church played in maintaining ethnic identity. Some, like Father Esposito and Catherine Glowacki, believed the church should be an accepting space for all ethnicities. They seemed to be of the opinion that spirituality should overshadow personal ties to one’s ethnicity. Others, like Veronica Padrowski and Edward Siekjerski, combined their religious affiliation with their loyalty to their home country. Here, the church played a contradictory role. It both united and divided the residents of East Baltimore.
East Baltimore is a great location to analyze the nuances of the Catholic Church. Despite being a unified institution, the Church’s vast reach means that its beliefs are expressed in a myriad of ways across the globe. East Baltimore’s diverse population meant that many of these different religious practices were practiced in close proximity to one another. Personal views surrounding the Catholic Church were contradictory and nuanced, yet persistent and stable. The oral histories included in the East Baltimore Documentary Photography Project Collection help color our understanding of the role the Catholic Church played in East Baltimore.
Bibliography
1. “Father John Carroll Appointed First Bishop of Baltimore (1789)”, Arch Diocese of Baltimore Official Website, https://www.archbalt.org/the-archdiocese/our-history/father-john-carroll-appointed-first-bishop-of-baltimore-1789/, Accessed June 20, 2022.
2. Father Luigi Espositio (Roman Catholic Priest of Our Lady of Pompei Catholic Church), Interviewed by Elinor B. Cahn and Joan Clark Netherwood, Undated, Transcript and recording, University of Maryland Baltimore County Special Collections, East Baltimore Photography Documentary Project, Coll278_Cassette 33.
3. Mary Bready, Interviewed by Elinor B. Cahn and Joan Clark Netherwood, Undated, Transcript and recording, University of Maryland Baltimore County Special Collections, East Baltimore Photography Documentary Project, Coll278_Cassette 08.
4. Mary Bready, Interviewed by Elinor B. Cahn and Joan Clark Netherwood, Undated, Transcript and recording, University of Maryland Baltimore County Special Collections, East Baltimore Photography Documentary Project, Coll278_Cassette 08.
5. Maria Celluzzi, Interviewed by Elinor B. Cahn and Joan Clark Netherwood, January 6, 1979, Transcript and recording, University of Maryland Baltimore County Special Collections, East Baltimore Photography Documentary Project, Coll278 Cassette 01.
6. Maria Celluzzi, Interviewed by Elinor B. Cahn and Joan Clark Netherwood, January 6, 1979, Transcript and recording, University of Maryland Baltimore County Special Collections, East Baltimore Photography Documentary Project, Coll278 Cassette 01.
7. Maria Celluzzi, Interviewed by Elinor B. Cahn and Joan Clark Netherwood, January 6, 1979, Transcript and recording, University of Maryland Baltimore County Special Collections, East Baltimore Photography Documentary Project, Coll278 Cassette 01.
8. Father Luigi Espositio (Roman Catholic Priest of Our Lady of Pompei Catholic Church), Interviewed by Elinor B. Cahn and Joan Clark Netherwood, Undated, Transcript and recording, University of Maryland Baltimore County Special Collections, East Baltimore Photography Documentary Project, Coll278_Cassette 33.
9. Father Luigi Espositio (Roman Catholic Priest of Our Lady of Pompei Catholic Church), Interviewed by Elinor B. Cahn and Joan Clark Netherwood, Undated, Transcript and recording, University of Maryland Baltimore County Special Collections, East Baltimore Photography Documentary Project, Coll278_Cassette 33.
10. Edward (Rich) Siekjerski, Interviewed by Elinor B. Cahn and Joan Clark Netherwood, Undated, Transcript and recording, University of Maryland Baltimore County Special Collections, East Baltimore Photography Documentary Project, Coll278_Cassette 46.
11. Stella Figniski (On tape with Catherine Glowacki, Russell Harbaugh, Martha Lane, and Veronica Poturalski), Interviewed by Elinor B. Cahn and Joan Clark Netherwood, Undated, Transcript and recording, University of Maryland Baltimore County Special Collections, East Baltimore Photography Documentary Project, Coll278_Cassette 56.
12. Veronica Poturalski (On tape with Catherine Glowacki, Stella Figniski, Russell Harbaugh, and Martha Lane), Interviewed by Elinor B. Cahn and Joan Clark Netherwood, Undated, Transcript and recording, University of Maryland Baltimore County Special Collections, East Baltimore Photography Documentary Project, Coll278_Cassette 56.
13. Catherine Glowacki (On tape with Stella Figniski, Russell Harbaugh, and Martha Lane), , Interviewed by Elinor B. Cahn and Joan Clark Netherwood, Undated, Transcript and recording, University of Maryland Baltimore County Special Collections, East Baltimore Photography Documentary Project, Coll278_Cassette 56.