Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 7.djvu/576

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HUGHES


516


HUGHES


beron, proved by M. Lot to have taken place 23 January, 9S9, disturbed the new king, and Arnoul, the new archbi.sliop whom he accepted at the end of March, 989, as successor to Adalberon, attempted a restoration of the Carlovingians (Sept., 989), and Charles of Lorraine, their heir, was for a short time master of Reims and Laon. Arnoul refused'to appear at the Council of Senlis (beginning of 990), but the imprisonment of Charles of Lorraine and of Arnoul (29 March, 991), and the deposition of Arnoul pro- nounced at the Council of St. Basle, fixed by M. Lot at 17 and IS June, 991 (and not 993), assured the maintenance of the C'apetian dynasty. Gerbert be- came Archbishop of Reims (21 June, 991).

This revolution accomplished by a council was re- ceived by the papacy with reserve. When Hugh Capet requested the Holy See to legitimize the action of the council, John XVI was silent; later, under the influence of Germany, the pope refused formally to recognize the election of Gerbert. Then began the difficulties which led the bishops devoted to Hugh to profess certain "Galilean principles". Neverthe- less, Hugh must not be represented as wishing to found a State Church; what he wished was to main- tain the Archdiocese of Reims under the domination of F'rance, and to remove it from the influence of the German emperors. If his attitude towards the papacy was often suspicious, it was not due to a Gallican theology, but because he feared that the popes of the time were too subservient to the policy of the emperors; hence his relations with the Holy See were merely an episode in his general policy, destined to l>ring about the cessation of the powerful influence which the Saxon dynasty had exercised over France during the tenth century.

His domestic policy was very favourable to the development of monastic life and the autonomy of the monasteries. He defended their property against lay tyranny; he sought to remove them from epis- copal jurisdiction while upholding the royal right to confirm abbatial elections; he supported all the liberties of the monks in the exercise of their electoral rights; he renounced the custom of distributing abbeys as benefices to laymen. Because of its polit- ical importance he wishe<l to retain effective direction over the Abbey of St. Martin of Tours, and even under the reign of the Plantagenet Henry II the (^apetians preserved considerable influence at Tours and along the Middle Loire. Apropos of Hugh Capet it is worthy of note that because the Dukes of France had in their jiossession the famous cope (cappa) of St. Martin, certain authors give to Hugh the Great and to his son Hugh the surname of Capet, which in history is reserved exclusively for the subject of this article. Hugh Capet in his religious policy applied and favoured the ideas of reform upheld by the monks of Cluny.

Fernand Lot, Lea demiers Cnrolingiens, Lothaire, Louis V, Charles de Lorraine (Paris, 1891): Idem, Etudes sur le rignede Huducs Capet el In fin du dixilme siicle (P.iri.'i, 1903); Luchaiiie, Hislnire dett inslitttti/ms inonnrehiques dc la Frnnre sous le^ pre- miers Caprtiens (2rKl ed., 2 vols., P.lris, 1S91); Joi.IEN Havet, Preface d I'uliliim des Lettres de Gerherl (Paris, 1889); lIoNciD. Etudes sur Vhistnire de Uugues Capet in Revue Histarique, XXVIII; Kalckstein, Der Kampf der Robertiner und Kara- linger (Leipzig, 1877).

Geokoes Goyau.

Hughes, John, fourth Bishop and first Archbishop of New York, b. at Annaloghan, ("o. Tyrone, Irelanil, 24 June, 1797, of Patrick Hughes and Margaret McKenna; d. in New York, 3 January, lS(i4. His father, a farmer of limited means, emigrated to the United States in ISKi, and settled at Cliambersburg, Pa. John's early educition was received at a school in Augher, and later in Auchnacloy, near his native village. Though he felt called to the priesthood, circumstances did not permit him to continue his studies; being disinclined to farm life, he was placed


with a friend of his father to study horticulture. He followed his father to America in 1817, landed at Baltimore, and soon after went to Chambersburg, where he aided his family for a year or more. His ardent desire to become a priest brought him in 1S19 to Mount St. Mary's College, Emmitsburg, Md., which he entered as an employee, l)eing received a year later as a student. Ordamed to the priesthood 1.5" October, 1826, by Bishop Conwell, in St. Joseph's Church, Philadelphia, he laboured first at St. Augustine's, Phil- adelphia, later at Bedford, Pa., finally returning to Philadelphia to become pastor of St. Jo.seph's, and afterwards of St. Mary's, whose trustees were in open revolt against the bishop, and were subdued l)y Father Hughes only when he built St. Joseph's church, 1,S32, then considered one of the finest in the country. Previous to this, in 1829, he founded St. John's Orphan Asylum. About this period he was engaged in a religious controversy with Rev. John A. Brecken- ridge, a distinguished Presl)yterian clergyman, with the result that Father Hughes's remarkable al)ility attracted widespread attentioti and admiration. His name was mentioned for the vacant See of Cincinnati and for the Coadjutorship of Philadelphia. On 7 January, 1838, however. Father Hughes was conse- crated Bishop of Basileopolis and Coadjutor of New York, by Bishop Dubois, in St. Patrick's Cathedral, Mott Street, New York. In 1839 he became adminis- trator Apostolic of New York, and on the death of Bishop Dubois succeeded to the vacant see, 20 Decem- ber, 1842. He was raised to the dignity of first Arch- bishop of New York, 19 July, 1850, receiving the pallium personally from Pius IX at Rome, 3 April, 1851.

The abolition of trusteeism in New York marked the beginning of his episcopate. He confronted a critical diocesan condition arising from differences between Bishop Dubois (q. v.) and the lay trustees whose control of church revenues was working injury to religion, and had encumbered the ten churches then in the city with a debt of .S300,000, a crushing burden in those days. Bishop Hughes's experience in Phila- delphia with trusteeism served him well in taking up the defence of Bishop Duliois. He appealed directly to the people, before whom he forcefully defended the Divine authority to govern granted by Christ to the hierarchy, and clearly exposed the viciousness of lay domination in the administration of church matters. The people readily passed a resolution condemning the cathctlral trustees who gave way to a new board well dispo.sed to obey ecclesiastical authority. The bishop convoked in 1841 the first Diocesan Synod of New York, which enacted timely legislation affecting spiritual matters, and devised for the tenure and administration of church property wise regulations which placed the rector of the church in control of temporals as well as spirit\ials. His triumph over the trustee system would ha%e Ijecn complete and final at the very outset had the trustees of St. Louis's church, Buffalo, been as prompt to submit as all others. Their attitude Itrought the archliishop, as late as 1855, into a controversy with P>astus Brooks, editor and state senator, who assailed in the Legislature the arch- bishop's plan of holding church property. Unfavour- able legislation followed, but was soon repealed, and prepared the way for the present satisfactory religious corporation law of the St:ite of .\"ew York.

Returning from Europe, whither he had gone in 1839 to seek aid for his diocese, Bishop Hughes found his flock involved in a movement to modify the exist- ing common school system, which, professing to be non-sectarian, was vindcrmining, in fact, the religious belief of ('atholie children. The bishop immediately placed himself at the head of the movement, and deemed it incumbent on him to oppose the Public School Society, a private corjioration controlling the management of the schools and the distribution of the