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"The Cunning Leader of a Dangerous Clique"?: The Burtsell Affair and Archbishop Michael Augustine Corrigan

I. Introduction Sometimes friends are more dangerous than enemies. This axiom proved dramatically true in the case of one nineteenth-century New York priest, Richard Lalor Burtsell, whose friendship with another New York cleric, Edward McGlynn, cost him dearly, both in his own lifetime and in the attention accorded him by posterity. Edward McGlynn is still remembered today for his radical political views and his subsequent excommunication.1 Richard Burtsell was a staunch supporter of his friend McGlynn and paid a high price for his loyalty. The figure of Edward McGlynn looms so large in virtually every account of late nineteenth-century New York Catholicism that it has tended to eclipse the importance and significance of Richard Burtsell. In some respects, however, Burtsell was a more substantive figure than McGlynn. Speaking of the McGlynn Affair, Archbishop Michael Augustine Corrigan wrote that Burtsell was "the backbone of the rebellion,"2 and Bishop Anthony Ludden of Syracuse described him as"the cunning leader of a dangerous clique."3 Burtsell might very well be remembered today as the most famous priest in the history of the Archdiocese of New York if it were not for his more flamboyant and better-known friend, Edward McGlynn. The "McGlynn Affair" is so well known that its prominence has tended to eclipse the "Burtsell Affair," which occurred at the same time (when Corrigan removed Burtsell from his Manhattan pastorate). Unlike McGlynn, who ignored canon law and made a demagogical appeal to public opinion, Burtsell, who was adept in canonical procedures, used legal channels to contest Corrigan's attempt to remove him from the parish which he had founded. The battle was carried on both publicly and privately and revealed a good deal about the character of both men and the changing nature of political authority in the American Catholic Church at that time. Earlier in the nineteenth century priests often received a favorable hearing when they appealed to Rome against disciplinary actions by their bishops. However, in this instance, Rome came down firmly on the side of the Corrigan. The Burtsell Affair also reveals the influence of the eminence grise of the early years of the Corrigan administration, his vicar general, Thomas S. Preston. A convert Episcopal clergyman and a rigid conservative with ultramontane views, Preston constantly urged Corrigan to take decisive action against Burtsell. While Burtsell paid dearly for his friendship with McGlynn, Corrigan benefited from his friendship with Preston, who mapped out a successful strategy that enabled Corrigan to quiet Burtsell and score a clear victory against his upstart priest. However, it may have been a Pyrrhic victory, since Corrigan's actions against Burtsell further polarized an already divided clergy and laity in New York because of the internecine battles of the McGlynn Affair. Preston, however, was convinced that Burtsell was the leader of an "Americanist" faction among the New York clergy whose liberal political and theological views threatened the unity of the Church. He continually urged Corrigan to discipline Burtsell in order to squelch his liberal influence just at the time the two factions in the American Catholic Church were gathering strength and readying for battle in the "Americanist" crisis which came to a head in the late 1890's. II. Richard Lalor Burtsell Richard Lalor Burtsell was born in New York on April 14, 1840, and baptized in St. Mary's Church on Grand Street. He received his early education in New York City parochial schools and at the Jesuit-run College of St. Francis Xavier.4 As a boy, Burtsell excelled in his studies and was awarded several honors during his time at the Jesuit college.5 When he expressed an interest in studying for the priesthood in 1851, he was sent to the Sulpician Seminary in Montreal, and two years later at the tender age of thirteen, he was sent alone across the Atlantic to the Urban College of Propaganda in Rome. …