German Catholic Central-Verein

The most important national association embodying the tripartite identity of Ger­man American Catholics.

The German Catholic Central-Verein was founded in 1855 and still exists in ves­tigial form.

The CV came into existence when del­egates representing seventeen local societies from four states and the District of Co­lumbia met in Baltimore to form Der Deutsche Romisch-Katholische Central- Verein von Nord-Amerika in April 1855. The immediate spark for its founding was the healing of tension between two Ger­man Catholic parishes in Rochester, New York, but the intense anti-Catholic na- tivism of the 1850s reinforced the drive for unity among the nation’s German Catholics. The CV’s constituent units were mutual benefit societies of the sort typi­cally found among immigrant groups, whose individual members had to be prac­ticing Catholics affiliated with a German parish.

Initially concerned mainly with routine organizational matters, the CV soon in­volved itself in issues of general interest to the ethnic group, such as support for Catholic parochial schools, a special interest of Henry J. Spaunhorst, its president from 1873 to 1891. Aid for newly arrived immi­grants began in 1868 and continued in var­ious forms for many years. Expanding the scope of its activities was a natural develop­ment, but it embroiled the CV in the con­troversies that wracked American Catholi­cism in the 1880s and 1890s. “Nationality” was a prominent feature in battles pitting liberals against conservatives: the former, also called “Americanizers,” urged accom­modation of the Catholic religion to the na­tional culture; the latter, strongly supported by the Germans, believed that such a course imperiled religious faith. Though not the most militant of German groups, the CV suffered during this era of “storm and stress,” especially when its plan to establish a German chair at the Catholic University of America fell victim to partisan infighting at that institution.

As the ideological strife subsided in 1900, the CV awoke to an organizational crisis, the basic cause of which was a sharp decline of immigration from Germany and the emergence of a predominately second- generation clientele no longer in need of the social cushioning provided by its con­stituent societies. More immediately, the Widows and Orphans Fund, a life insur­ance subsidiary whose membership was in­dividual and voluntary, was teetering on the verge of a collapse that threatened the continued existence of the parent organiza­tion. In addition, “state leagues” of Ger­man Catholic societies had developed inde­pendently of the CV, and the newly formed American Federation of Catholic Societies (AFCS), which was ethnically in­clusive, seemed poised to absorb them and perhaps the CV’s member societies as well. The CV’s leaders met these challenges by severing its connection with the Widows and Orphans Fund, incorporating the state leagues as constituent units in the national organization, and establishing itself within the AFCS as the corporate representative of German Catholics.

These moves greatly strengthened the CV, doubling its membership by 1907, but the organization still lacked a mission cal­culated to appeal to the more American­ized second generation. The choice of so­cial reform as its official raison d’etre, surprising as it might seem in view of the German Catholics’ earlier conservatism, made sense for several reasons. First, it was in keeping with the reforming spirit of the Progressive Era. Second, it drew inspiration from papal social teaching and more par­ticularly from Germany, where social Catholicism flourished and where the Volksverein fur das katholische Deutsch­land (Popular Union for Catholic Ger­many) furnished an organizational model. Third, the conviction that liberal Catholic “Americanizers” denied the existence of “the social question” sharpened German Catholics’ sensitivity to the need for re­form. Finally, the CV’s leaders believed that commitment to social reform would stimulate new vitality among its member units.

Although Nicholas Gonner Jr., made an abortive attempt during his term as president (1899-1903), the social reform mission was not successfully introduced until after the CV completed its organiza­tional restructuring. Two men new to the CV played key roles in the accomplish­ment of that goal from 1908 to 1909: Peter E. Dietz, a pioneering “labor priest,” pressed for decisive action to translate the formally accepted mission into a practical program; Frederick P Kenkel, a highly re­spected German Catholic journalist, be­came director of the newly established Central Bureau in St. Louis and editor of its new bilingual monthly, Central-Blatt and Social Justice (CBSJ). Dietz’s participa­tion was short lived, but Kenkel became the dominant figure in the organization until his death in 1952.

The social reform mission did, indeed, energize the CV’s member units. Anti­Socialist agitation was its most popular fea­ture, since socialism was portrayed as anti­religious and German radicals were prominent in the movement.

Organizational decline in the postwar years reinforced Kenkel’s personal alien­ation from modern society. In 1930, the CV still had 86,000 members, but that was down almost a third from the prewar peak. The fading of German ethnicity was like­wise reflected in the accelerating language shift: CV proceedings were published in English after 1928, for its leaders under­

stood that continued insistence on German would doom the organization itself to rapid extinction.

Kenkel at first welcomed Franklin D. Roosevelt’s energetic attack on the Great Depression but soon came to the conclu­sion that his policies were not, as some Catholic reformers argued, in line with the corporative vision outlined in Pope Pius XI’s encyclical (Quadragesimo Anno 1931). As it developed, the New Deal confirmed Kenkel’s fear of centralized state power, the ultimate end of which was communism in Russia and Nazism in Germany. The CV rejected all forms of totalitarianism but de­nied that the German people were collec­tively guilty of the crimes of the Hitler regime. Though Kenkel held to the ideal of corporatist reform, it was not systemati­cally promoted in the 1940s and was all but forgotten after his death. While still avowing its commitment to the reform of society, SJR’s concentration on the evils of communism and secularism, on national cultural decadence, and, since the 1960s, on growing religious liberalism among American Catholics, has given the CV’s message an unmistakable cast of ideologi­cal conservatism.

On the practical level, the CV pro­vided financial support for relief efforts in central Europe after World War II, aided in the resettlement of displaced persons and other refugees, and developed a pro­gram of financial assistance for Catholic missionaries. The Central Bureau, which remains the nerve center of what is now known as the Catholic Central Union of America, also maintains an important re­search library dealing with social issues and German Catholic Americana. The bu­reau has had three directors since Kenkel’s death: Monsignor Victor T. Suren, 1952­1962; Harvey J. Johnson, 1962-1986; and John Heinrich Miller, CSC, 1986 to the present. However, the national organiza­tion, which now numbers perhaps 2,000 members, is a mere shadow of the proud German American Catholic society that embarked on its campaign of social reform a century ago.

Philip Gleason

See also Gonner, Nicholas E., Jr.; Kenkel, Frederick P

References and Further Reading

Barry, Colman J. The Catholic Church and German Americans. Milwaukee: Bruce, 1953.

Curran, Charles E. American Catholic Social Ethics: Twentieth-Century Approaches. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1982.

Fox, Mary Harrita. Peter E. Dietz: Labor Priest. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1953.

Gleason, Philip. The Conservative Reformers: German-American Catholics and the Social Order. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1968.