The Catholic Defender: The Catholic Church during the time of President Chester A. Arther 1881 - 1885 grew

During the presidency of Chester A. Arthur (1881–1885), the Catholic Church in the United States experienced rapid growth, driven primarily by massive waves of European immigration, strategic infrastructural expansions, and a key diplomatic intervention by President Arthur himself. 

Immigration Surge: Millions of Catholic immigrants arrived from Ireland and Germany.

Massive Scale: The Catholic population grew from 1 million in 1850 to over 7 million by 1890.

National Milestone: During this Gilded Age era, Catholicism surpassed Methodism to become the largest single Christian denomination in the United States. 

The Third Plenary Council of Baltimore (1884)

The landmark Third Plenary Council of Baltimore was convened in November 1884 to manage this exploding growth. Led by Archbishop James Gibbons, the council established several permanent fixtures of American Catholic life:

The Parochial School System: Mandated that every Catholic parish build its own school to educate immigrant children.

The Baltimore Catechism: Commissioned a standardized text that became the definitive guide for Catholic religious education in the U.S. for the next century.

Catholic University of America: Outlined plans to form a national Catholic university in Washington, D.C. 

President Arthur's Diplomatic Intervention (1884)

While President Arthur was an Episcopalian and his father was a Baptist minister, his administration directly aided the global Church: 

The Italian Crisis: In early 1884, the newly unified, anti-clerical Italian government attempted to expropriate and sell off the property of the Pontifical North American College in Rome. 

The Strategic Rescue: Recognizing it as an institution funded by American citizens, President Arthur and his Secretary of State intervened diplomatically. 

The Outcome: They successfully blocked the seizure, allowing the seminary to continue training American priests safely. 

The North American College Crisis (1884)

Following the unification of Italy, the newly formed Italian secular government began liquidating and seizing properties owned by the Catholic Church and the papacy. In early 1884, the government announced it was poised to confiscate and auction off the building of the North American College, a prominent institution used to train American Catholic seminarians in Rome. 

The Catholic Appeal: Because of his advanced age and failing health, the Archbishop of New York, John Cardinal McCloskey, relied on his coadjutor, Archbishop Michael Corrigan, to handle the emergency. Archbishop Corrigan wrote a formal letter to President Arthur, urgently requesting that the United States government intervene with the King of Italy to grant a stay or exempt the institution as virtually American property. 

President Arthur's Intervention: Although Arthur was raised by a Baptist preacher and personally aligned with the Episcopal Church, he viewed the situation pragmatically rather than religiously. To him, it was a legal matter of a foreign nation seizing property owned, managed, and used exclusively by American citizens. 

The Diplomatic Resolution: President Arthur instructed his Secretary of State, Frederick Frelinghuysen, to contact the American Minister to Italy, William Waldorf Astor. Astor formally protested to the Italian government, arguing that confiscating the college would be an affront to the United States. Yielding to the diplomatic pressure, the Italian government backed down and saved the college. 

General Relations with Catholics

Personal Background: Arthur was the son of an Irish immigrant from Northern Ireland (who was a Presbyterian before becoming a Baptist preacher). As a young college student, Arthur was reportedly highly sympathetic to Irish independence, famously wearing a green jacket on campus to signal his support for the Irish—a demographic that was predominantly Catholic in New York politics. 

The 1884 Campaign Context: While Arthur did not receive the Republican nomination for the 1880s election cycle, his close political ally and the subsequent Republican nominee, James G. Blaine, faced massive backlash from Catholic voters. During that campaign, a Blaine supporter famously labeled the Democrats the party of "Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion." This anti-Catholic slur alienated Catholic voters and cost the Republicans the election, highlighting how volatile relations between Washington leaders and the Catholic community were during the Gilded Age.