Catholic Missionary Calls Book of Mormon Hocus Pocus

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Catholic Missionary Reports from the Frontier, 1832 Mackinaw Island, Ottawa Indians, Joseph Smith, Lorenzo Dow, Alexander Campbell Third volume of the Berichte der Leopoldinen-Stiftung im Kaiserthum Oesterreich , published in Vienna, 1832. 38-page pamphlet in original printed wraps, 33 x 20 cm (5 x 8 inches), fold-out chart enumerating donations, closed 9 cm tear in rear cover (apparently a paper-fault), otherwise remarkably fresh condition. The Leopoldinen-Stiftung (Leopoldine Society) was founded in Vienna in 1829 to encourage financial and moral support in the Austro-Hungarian Empire for Roman Catholic missionary efforts in North America. The impetus came from Bishop Edward Fenwick of Cincinnati, Ohio, who sent his vicar-general, Frederick Resé, on a trip to Europe in 1827 to raise money and recruit priests for North American missions. The Society functioned in a fashion similar to the Society for the Propagation of the Faith in France (and to American Protestant mission organizations as well), collecting small donations from large numbers of parishioners throughout the Empire in order to provide missionary support. The Berichte [Reports] were essentially newsletters for contributors, providing news of the challenges and successes in the mission field to inspire more contributions. Since the Diocese of Cincinnati in 1832 included all of Ohio, Michigan and the Northwest Territory and Bishop Fenwick maintained close ties with the Society, the priests recruited and supported by the Society were active among the tribes of northern Michigan and Wisconsin. Their accounts that appear in the Berichte are important source material on native-white relations in those areas. In addition, most issues of the Berichte include letters from one or more American bishops detailing the state of Catholicism within their dioceses, providing insight into the diverse issues facing Catholicism in 1830's America. This third issue of the Berichte includes the following: 21-page account by Vicar-General Resé of various issues facing missionaries in North America, including the virulent anti-Catholicism of popular preachers such as Lorenzo Dow and Lyman Beecher. Resé also notes that the American religious scene includes some of "the most ridiculous and preposterous products of human fantasy" and proceeds to describe Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon (which he labels "hocus pocus"), Alexander Campbell and his "new Bible" (his version of the New Testament , and the hollow earth theories of John Cleves Symmes. Three letters (six pages) from Bishop Edward Fenwick of Cincinnati, written from Mackinaw Island and Green Bay describing Catholic missions t among the Indians. three-page letter from Bishop Benedict Joseph Fenwick of Boston (cousin of Edward Fenwick) describing the need for a Catholic college in Boston to counteract the Calvinist/Unitarian monopoly on higher education in New England. (Fenwick subsequently founded both Boston College and Holy Cross.) Four-page letter from Cincinnati from Slovene native Frederic Baraga , one of the priests recruited by Resé on his 1829 trip to Vienna. Baraga served northern Michigan (particularly the Upper Peninsula) until his death in 1868, the last fifteen years as the first bishop of Marquette. An outstanding linguist, he wrote an important pioneering grammar and dictionary of the Ojibway (Chippewa) language. In this letter to his sister from Cincinnati on his way to Michigan for the first time, he describes his first lessons in an Indian language from a young Ottawa brave ("it is not easy") and gives a short Ottawa vocabulary of thirteen words and a brief prayer to the Virgin. A varied and interesting archive of Roman Catholicism on the frontier. , including more "Berichte." read more

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