English-speaking Catholics 1900-1920.

As the 19th Century was drawing to a close, Canada had begun to play a minor role on the world scene. The completion of the railway had opened the doors to a wealth of natural resources and provided access to employment opportunities across the land. Mining, logging, industry, fanning, city-building, all needed labourers and settlers, yet more people were leaving than entering the country. Besides, for the first time since Confederation, volunteer troops were sent abroad to assist the British against the Boer forces in South Africa, laying bare the French/English issue of imperialism versus nationalism.

What Canada needed at that period of history was a workforce. And what threatened the basic future of Protestant Canadian society was the influx of a 'foreign' element. On the whole, Irish Catholics, aside from their religious affiliation, by that time identified with the broader English-speaking population.

Laurier and immigration 

In response to business and railway interests, and with the development of an agricultural market and the demand for hard wheat, Wilfrid Laurier's government, elected in 1896, implemented a program of large-scale immigration that intensified from 1903 to 1913. Clifford Sifton, the federal Minister of the Interior, in seeking to people the West, was willing to allow entry to those from places other than the British Isles, Northern Europe, and the United States. He admitted: "A stalwart peasant in a sheepskin coat, born on the soil, whose forefathers have been farmers for ten generations, and a stout wife and a half-dozen children is good quality".

That statement, however, did not mirror prevailing public opinion or Canadian immigration policies, which were unabashedly racist. Sifton and his immigration authorities listed preferred settlers in a descending order, barely opening the door to those in "sheepskin coats." At the top were British and American agriculturalists, followed by French, Belgians, Dutch, Scandinavians, Swiss, Finns, Russians, Austro-Hungarians, Germans, Ukrainians, and Poles. Next came those believed less assimilable: Italians, South Slavs, Greeks, and Syrians. Asians, Jews, Gypsies, and Blacks were at the bottom because, according to a newspaper account, like the Italians, "they don't farm well".

What was the impact of that "foreign" contingent on the English-speaking Catholic population, particularly in Ontario? While the government sought commitments to obtain agricultural and resource labourers for isolated areas, many of the immigrants, non-English speaking and non-Protestant, did not comply. They chose instead to work in the cities like Toronto and Hamilton, rekindling the ethno-religious prejudices previously directed towards the Irish. In fact, in a 1897 series of articles entitled "Foreigners in the City," written for a Toronto newspaper, the future Prime Minister Mackenzie King described the Irish, Scots, English, Americans and Newfoundlanders as "nearly akin in thought, customs and manners to the Canadians themselves," thus excluding them from the definition. It seems that religious tensions between Irish Catholics and other British immigrants were insignificant in view of a common language. Those who stood out in King's discussions were Germans, Jews, Italians, Syrians and, remarkably, Fre nch Canadians.

French Canadians

The French Canadians, who, by 1897, accounted for 800 of Toronto's population, were employed chiefly in factories. Since they were isolated within the English-speaking city, and wanted to continue religious practice in their own language, the Archbishop of Toronto requested from the Archbishop of Montreal a priest to serve their needs. This allowed for the foundation of Paroisse Sacre-Coeur in 1887. The children of these French parishioners attended the separate schools and most spoke English well. But linguistic hostility was sparked in other parts of the province when, in 1910, Bishop Michael Fallon of the London diocese led Irish Catholic opposition to bilingual schools. His intervention had far-reaching effects on both provincial and federal politics.

Because of the influx of French speakers into the Ottawa Valley, many separate schools gave instruction in French, offering English as just another curriculum subject. Taking a stand against this practice, the Ontario Conservative government issued Regulation 17 in 1912 which limited the use of French in the classroom to the first two years. Franco-Ontarians were outraged. The conflict flared again in 1915 when the Ottawa Separate School Board, predominantly French, refused to comply with the Regulation or to discipline teachers who continued to teach in the French language. The government was supported by English-speaking Catholics who, as instigated by Bishop Fallon, endeavoured to keep the French "in their place". In February of 1916, 122 French teachers in Ottawa went on strike, leaving 4000 French children without instruction. The teachers had been unpaid because the city withheld $83,000 in separate school taxes. In November of the same year, the Judicial Committee of the British Privy Council ruled th at the Ontario government had the right to decide the language taught in provincial schools. That decision had some repercussions for Wilfrid Laurier's federal Liberal party which, in 1917, split along French-English linguistic lines. Compulsory military duty, or conscription, was proposed by Tory Prime Minister Robert Borden, to compensate for the decline in volunteers in the World War I offensive. The proposal, while resented by Ontario and prairie farmers and by various ethnic communities, was most strongly opposed in Quebec, still smarting from the anti-French-language school policies in Ontario. Gaining the support of pro-conscription Liberals in Ontario, the Tory government was swept back into power, leaving Laurier with 82 Liberal seats--mostly in Quebec.

Germans

Until the advent of the World War, the Germans, next to the British, enjoyed a preferred immigrant status and, at the time of Confederation, formed the largest of the foreign groups. Viewed as hard-working and conservative, they posed no threat because they were dispersed and isolated. The Catholics among them settled in Perth, Huron, Bruce, and Grey counties in Ontario. Some resided in Toronto where the majority of Germans, however, were Protestant. As early as 1881, a few German services were held at St. Patrick's Church on McCaul Street, built for Toronto's Irish Catholics in 1861. It was not until 1929, however, that St. Patrick's was established as a German Catholic parish, under the ministry of a Redemptorist priest.

The largest German settlement was in Waterloo County, with Berlin as its urban centre. The combination of agriculture and industry provided the area with a booming economy. Its Catholic population was guided by the Congregation of the Resurrection whose priests, Eugene Funkin, Louis Funkin, Theobald Spetz, and John Fehrenbach, established St. Jerome's College, where German was taught, although all courses were conducted in English. Intense nationalism during the war of 1914-1918 fostered an anti-German sentiment that forced the citizens of Berlin to change its name to Kitchener in 1916. Across the country, previously respected Germans were now labelled "enemy aliens"; some were dismissed from their jobs and some were placed in internment camps. The use of their language was either restricted or banned.

Syrians

Mackenzie King, in one of his 1897 articles, commented on the presence of Syrians in Toronto, about 50 or 60, who "have also in their midst a Catholic Syrian priest". The reference is to Father Macarios Nasr, a Melkite, who was allowed to conduct services at St. Patrick's Church. After six months, however, Nasr had to find another church because "our presence is very expensive".

The St. Vincent de Paul Society offered its hail on Shuter Street and it became the religious centre for Syrians, mostly Melkites and some Maronites, engaged as confectioners, importers, peddlers, and rug repairmen. When, in 1911, the hall was sold, the Syrian community appealed to the Latin-rite Catholic diocese for help. The Syrians were granted permission to use the basement of St. Michael's Cathedral for services and to start a Church Building Fund. The Catholic Register and Canadian Extension reported:

"Although the good Assyrian people will do their share gladly and willingly, they, being few and poor, will have to rely mainly on the charity of the generous Catholics of the city."

By 1913, however, the Syrian community was being torn apart by theological conflicts between adherents of the Maronite and Melkite Rites and by arguments about Syrian versus Lebanese identity. The Melkites created Our Lady of Assumption parish and the Maronites worshipped at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel. Both communities maintained separate religious and ethnocultural identities, but English was the language of their children at school. In 1922, the pastor left the Maronite for the Latin Rite and "their community atrophied".

Much more threatening than the small number of Syrians were the Poles, Ukrainians, and Italians, whose cultures, in the eyes of the Protestant majority, were morally inferior and whose religion was steeped in superstition. It was feared that their lifestyles would disrupt the social fabric of the country. While the Catholic hierarchy sought to retain religious affiliation by establishing national parishes, the Protestant clergy, chiefly the Methodists and Presbyterians, strove to assimilate them by upholding the social gospel to improve their lot. This contest for souls was not merely confined to Protestant versus Catholic in Ontario, but became a struggle between English and French for domination in Western Canada.

Polish immigrants

The first homogeneous group of Poles emigrated from German-held territory (Poland was not a nation-state until 1918) and settled in Renfrew County, Ontario, in 1858. The second wave of immigration (1895-1913) included family groups, many of whom received land grants and set up farms in Manitoba and the western prairies. However, in that period some of them, mostly "single men, or men with families left behind," were attracted to the employment opportunities and wages offered in the cities of Ontario.

Meanwhile Toronto, with its booming economy, attracted rural Canadian youths who left school to seek jobs. As a result, there was in 1901 a housing crisis; low-rent housing in the $8 to $25 range was almost impossible to find. Thus the Polish men, mostly unskilled, struggled to survive in the immigrant ward with its slum conditions. Drawn together by their language and religion, a group of them met in 1905 at St. Patrick's Church "to recite the Rosary in Polish and the Little Hours to the Virgin Mary".

That meeting precipitated the formation of St. Stanislaus Parish. Through the missionary efforts of the Congregation of the Resurrection in Waterloo, a priest visited to hold services in Polish at three of Toronto's downtown churches: St. Michael's Cathedral, St. Patrick's, and St. Mary's Church on Bathurst Street. These were attended by a number of Slavonic people. Concerned with their plight, particularly that of the young Polish men, with no English, unskilled and illiterate, the priest in 1907 alerted Toronto's Archbishop Dennis O'Connor of the need for a permanent clergyman to guide them. In 1911, Irish Catholic brewer Eugene O'Keefe purchased a Presbyterian church for the Polish congregation, who, under Rev. Joseph Hinzman, established St. Stanislaus Parish in the heart of what was to become a Polish neighbourhood. Four years later, St. Mary's also became a Polish parish.

While the Polish Catholics organized to develop mutual benefit societies to provide financial assistance to those in need, they also were "involved in preserving national culture and Polish identity." But the outbreak of the World War in 1914 had a tremendous impact on Polish communities in Canada. Citizens' committees were organized to gather financial contributions to help the Polish army in France, and to convince Canadian authorities that Polish immigrants from German-held territories should not be interned as enemy aliens. Recruitment centres were set up, an unofficial one at St. Stanislaus' Church, to obtain volunteers to join their compatriots in France. These North American efforts were said to have been "decisive in the formation of a free Polish republic after World War One". What they also did was solidify the intent of Polish associations and culture. Having depended on their own resources, many Polish Catholics, reflecting a North American view of their role, wanted more responsibility in the op eration of their parishes. In some cases this led to defection from the Roman Catholic rite to the Polish National Catholic Church.

Ukrainians

Most Ukrainian immigrants settled in Western Canada. Some were Orthodox, some known as latynnyky attached to the Roman Catholic Rite, but the majority were Uniate Catholics, following the tradition of the Eastern rite, but recognizing the authority of the pope. Within the Uniate rite there were many married priests.

A contentious issue stemmed from the Vatican's decision in 1894, at the prompting of the American hierarchy, to prohibit married clergy from serving in North America. This left a vacuum that Latin-rite Catholic clergy scarcely penetrated. Hoping to solve the problem, the Canadian hierarchy laid the foundation, in 1910, to establish a Ukrainian bishopric for Canada in Winnipeg. Included in the plans were financial aid, clerical support, and the preparation of Ukrainian candidates for the priesthood at St. Augustine's Seminary in Toronto. In 1912, Nykyta Budka was appointed Ukrainian Bishop for all of Canada. The fact that Budka was reliant on French clergy and English money only heightened the suspicions of some Ukrainians opposed to what they saw as centralization and latinization of their Church. Consequently some abandoned the Uniate rite to join the Orthodox church.[*]

A few Ukrainian immigrants, mostly young single men, arrived in the cities of Ontario, often by way of the United States. An article in Toronto's People describes the experience of three of the first arrivals in 1903. They were overheard on the street, speaking their language, by a Galician Jew delivering bread. He brought them to his bakery on York Street, fed them, and arranged accommodation at a friend's boarding house. The next day, the Jewish landlord took them to the Canadian Pacific Railway Company where they got jobs laying sewer pipes at fifteen cents an hour.

The goal of the young immigrants to the cities was to earn money enough to buy land on the prairies or to return to Ukraine to farm. Always in search of higher-paying jobs, their lifestyle was transient. They were excellent workers and took on difficult, distasteful and dangerous labouring work. In Toronto they lived in the Ward and in Jewish boarding houses where a common language dispelled some of the loneliness.

By 1911, there were 2,500 Ukrainians in Toronto alone. The latynnyky joined in services with the Poles and, in fact, made up a good proportion of the laity at St. Stanislaus Parish when it opened. The Uniates waited for a priest of their own and from 1909 to 1911 were attended occasionally by a visiting priest from Buffalo. Mass was celebrated in a private home in West Toronto Junction, which became an area of Ukrainian concentration located close to newly opened plants. In 1911 the Uniates were given the use of St. Helen's Church, built for the Irish in 1875. Bishop Budka stopped in Toronto on his way to Winnipeg, and on December 12, 1912, celebrated his first Mass on Canadian soil at St. Helen's. By 1914, the Ukrainian Catholic community in Toronto worked together to build their own church, St. Josaphat's, which became a focal point of religious and cultural life.

At the outbreak of the War, Toronto was the largest Ukrainian centre in Eastern Canada. Under the War Aliens Act, most Ukrainian immigrants had to register and report regularly to the police station. In many ways this helped to stabilize the Ukrainian community. And for 'enemy aliens' they managed to volunteer 10,000 troops to serve in the Canadian army.

Italians

In the first wave of Italian immigration (1900 to World War I), 119,700 entered Canada, primarily through the United States, and settled in the major urban centres of Ontario. Eighty percent were young men, labourers who worked in the mines and bush of Northern Ontario, in seasonal construction work, and in factories, returning to the city during winter months. They took advantage of educational opportunities offered by the Frontier College to "bunkhouse" men, and signed up for English classes at the non-sectarian Central Neighbourhood in the Ward and at the Little Flower Methodist Mission in the heart of what was known in Toronto as Little Italy. Struggling to survive, they wanted to speak English to cope in the new environment and were not concerned about being "brought back to Jesus."

Besides the young labourers, Italians were employed as barbers, tailors, peddlers, bakers, shoemakers, street musicians, and fruit vendors. Some who began as fruit vendors became grocers and provisioners. Families grew and children became proficient in English and prospered. The Archdiocese of Toronto established an Italian parish in 1908, Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Mutual aid societies were established and newspapers founded and, most importantly, the value of the extended family as a social institution flourished, regardless of how outsiders saw them. At the beginning of the War, Italian immigrants were viewed with suspicion, and discrimination against them resulted in increased unemployment. The picture changed, however, when Italy joined Britain in 1915. Italy's emigration legislation had a clause that had an impact on reservists in time of war. Thus, Italian immigrants were hailed as heroes as they travelled through Canadian cities to join the fight abroad. Their families, in many cases haying lost the b readwinner, were forced to rely on public charity.

Protestant frowning

In June of 1913, at the Presbyterian Church's General Assembly in Toronto, ministers involved in Canadian missionary work urged the curbing of immigration. Complaining about their illiteracy, their pauperism, their fondness for liquor, Rev. W. D. Reid added that immigrants "are also bringing in and propagating socialist doctrines." According to Rev. S. W. Kinsdale:

"Responsibility rests with Anglo-Saxons for allowing immigrants to continue in patterns set in foreign, mainly Roman Catholic countries.... Protestant churches must keep immigrants from falling into 'the clutches of the rum-seller, the Jewish usurer, and the slave-driver.'"

The "Great War" interrupted the immigration process. The spread of the Spanish Flu at its conclusion had a devastating and far-reaching effect. Added to that, the political and economic upheaval in Europe forced Canada to re-examine its immigration policies. By the 1920s the Irish were a part of the English majority, while the Catholic Church, in its attempts to serve its faithful of different tongues, had promoted a multicultural society that would continue to flourish with the changing patterns of future immigration.

(*)Editor's note: Bishop Budka eventually returned to Ukraine where he suffered martyrdom in 1945-6 together with all other Ukrainian Greek Catholic bishops there, when Stalin forcibly dissolved the Eastern Rite Catholic Church, arresting tens of thousands of laity and priests, and expropriating their several thousand churches and properties, to be given to the Orthodox church.