Research 19th century American communal utopias and you will not find any normally with relationships to the Roman Catholic church. An unfortunate oversight by the many researchers who cleave towards the free love of Oneida, the ethnic communes of the Amana, Bishop Hill. The Catholic-based commune of St. Nazianz, Wisconsin needs inclusion into the American versions of heaven on earth.
AMERICAN COMMUNES 19TH CENTURY
On the western fringes of the-then United States, communes formed to allow groups of people, especially recent immigrants, normally of like-minded individuals to better survive together in a strange new world. In the last two examples, both the Amanas and the Swedes of Bishop Hill, came together in Europe before fleeing to America to escape persecution for following their beliefs. And while there existed some communes comprised of native-born Americans, for the most part – for example, Oneida, communal life tended to be an immigrant affair.
Usually, those who came were led by a strong individual who possessed charismatic abilities enough to pry families away from all they knew. The passage to the New World became simply a starting point. Areas where the communities could buy land for a cheap price were all west of the Appalachian Range.
The Amanas came led by several individuals known as Inspirationists. The Inspirationist communed with God as in the old days of the Prophets. Both they and the Janssonites of Bishop Hill started as protest groups from within the Lutheran Protestant movement.
Catholic Communes?
Of course, Catholicism has a long history of communal living in the form of monasteries and convents. Religiously sequestered men and women have lived together for centuries in more or less self-sustained oases from the world. But there are only a couple of examples of Catholic communal villages outside of the Jesuit communities in Paraguay. Orthodox thought – strong in the face of the Protestant majority – weighed against a community of goods, seen as a threat to the wealth and power of the church. Religious discipline was and is an important facet of the Catholic church, as well. There is a definite hierarchy inherited from the days of the Roman Empire. There is a pope, an archbishop, a bishop and then come the lowly priests – or monks.
One problem with the hierarchy was ethnicity. In the case of mid-eastern Wisconsin – or earlier cases like mid-western Ohio and Minnesota – John Henni, the first bishop of Milwaukee, came from the Swiss canton of Graubünden. He had worked under the bishop of Cincinnati, John Purcell who originated from southern Ireland. The two worked well together as Purcell tabbed Henni to become his Vicar General – right-hand man, if you will. In Ohio, in the 1820-1840s, many Germans and Irish came to Ohio.
For the most part, relations remained fine though normally both groups tended to segregate, either in urban settings, but also in the countryside. The ethnic difference did bubble underneath the calm. In the case of Father Joseph Albrecht, resentment of having to take orders from an Irishman became another reason for his eventual fleeing Ohio with his congregation – including nuns and priests – in 1867 for Minnesota.
AMBROSE OSCHWALD
Like Father Joseph, Ambros came from Mundelfingen, Baden in Germany. Born in 1801, his hometown lay under the rule of the Prince of Fürstenberg. With the French Revolution and the ascent of Napoleon, the Holy Roman Empire – of which Fürstenberg belonged – became part of Baden in a process known as mediazation. Coming from a strongly Catholic family, Ambros decided to become a priest and gained his ordination in 1833.
He charismatically drew others to him preaching a central message of love for one’s neighbor with compassion for the less fortunate. While his message echoed mainstream Catholicism, Oschwald came into it with the hierarchy above him.
The Catholic Church underwent a push towards ultramontanism in the years after Napoleon, especially in the lead up to the revolutions of 1848 which rocked Germany. Oschwald, a small-town priest, fell into the conservative camp. His ideas rowed parallel to the mainstream hierarchy above him, but he brought quirks.
healer and mystic
His readings of biblical accounts of healing through prayer, laying on of hands and exorcism combined with his interest in plants and herbs which could heal. He declared, in 1843, he healed 3,160 people thanks to the power granted to him by God. Investigations on both civil and church levels found complaints against him as hearsay without evidence. In Wisconsin, he would continue his healing ministry even with the misgivings of those above him in the church.
Oschwald also believed in mysticism. Thanks to a special relationship to God, he could interpret dreams and predict the future. He published Mysticshe Schriften – Mystical Writings – in 1849, foretelling the Second Coming of Christ at the turn of the 19th century. The Turks would invade Europe; then beaten in the lower Rhineland and finally, New Jerusalem would come about in southwestern Germany, of course, with a thousand-year reign of peace to follow. Such writings took the mystical priest farther out on the branches of apostasy in the eyes of some of those above him. He became forced to promise to publish no more books, a promise he soon went back upon.
problems with the heirarchy
In 1850, Oschwald organized Der geistlich-magnetische Verein – Spiritual Magnetic Society. Now, the Archbishop definitely became concerned. He wrote a letter to all his churches in the diocese warning Oschwald’s ideas could lead to a cult. In the words of German historian Hubert Treiber, “The conflict surrounding the ‘spiritual-magnetic association’ is significant in that it again shows where Oschwald was really considered to have gone wrong. He was obviously one of those people who ‘do not mean to go against norms but do so in their over-eagerness to follow them’. To a certain extent Oschwald was only repeating, albeit in an exaggerated (and thus distorted) form what was being preached from the pulpits at the time. Many of his actions were exaggerated versions of the pious practices put forward by the ultramontane movement which had its own religious-magical cults.”
Oschwald had earlier been shunted off into different parish churches in the hinterlands of the Black Forest. But this time, Oschwald was suspended and relieved of parochial work. In 1852, he went to Munich to study medicine. Returning to Baden in 1854, he informed the archbishop of his giving up of the priesthood in favor of medicine. Also, he requested from both civil and religious authorities for permission to emigrate. The archbishop in Freiburg finally decided, “There is an enormous flow of support from all sides; Oschwald is taking on the robe of a prophet; he predicts terrible events and the people elevate him the rank of future pope; we simply must get him out of the way.”
resignation for a new adventure
The archbishop did give Oschwald a letter of his resignation from his archdiocese. This allowed Oschwald to attach himself to an American diocese when the time came,
“The honorable Ambros Oschwald, priest of our archdiocese, born on the 14th of March 1801 in Mundelfingen, ordained on the 16th of August 1833 and until now chaplain in Hammereisenbach, has given notice because he intends to emigrate to America. We accept his resignation and dismiss the forementioned priest from our archdiocese. We testify that he adhered to the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church in matters of faith, discipline and rite, although he did display separatist tendencies and wrote a book full of false visions. He leads a pure life in every respect and followed our commandments with dignity and to the best of his ability. We would also like to make clear in this document that as far as we are concerned the case against Ambros Oschwald is closed. We do not intend to impose further prohibitions on him, subject him to further censure or remove him from office, so that he can fulfil all his priestly duties when my Lord bishop accepts him into his diocese in America.”
EMIGRATION
With the run up to 1848 and after the results of the failed revolutions in Germany led to a cultural religious war between Protestant and Catholic. There also floated in the air the idea of last days soon to come – In Mystical Writings, Oschwald put out the date of 1887 as the end time. He also wrote,
“The church will have two great wings, like the wings of an eagle in order to fly across the seas to America. Catholic priests, and anyone else who adheres to the catholic faith … will have to emigrate to America this is what we must understand by the two great wings. God will reserve them there and he will not punish them in the New World until such times as the Old World has been punished”.
Like the official church, Oschwald opposed the “modern” and for him too “this opposition (becomes) … the criterion for the true faith”.
For Oschwald and his followers, like many other Germans, America represented a place to escape the new age which they rejected. In America, they could withdraw completely to a place of refuge. Here, they could erect a world counter to the one they saw developing in the Old World. Order could come from chaos.
The end of May 1854 sees Oschwald with 113 followers boarding two ships from LeHavre, France for New York City. After a voyage of five weeks, they continued to Milwaukee. In Wisconsin, with monies pooled from his followers, Oschwald bought 3,840 acres in Manitowoc. Of the original 113, 70 members made their way to the new settlement they named St. Nazianz after St. Gregory of Nazianz, a man who left the world behind in favor of a contemplative life like the new German emigrants hoped to emulate.
ST. NAZIANZ
Ordnung
While still in Baden, Oschwald produced a volume of rules to guide the new colony to come, Statuten für die Gründung der Kolonie in St. Nazianz. The colony ran from both a secular and a religious side. The head of a Council of the Elders ran the day-to-day administration within the colony. Oschwald, meanwhile, maintained public morals (the euphorat). Failure of members to heed the morals set down could lead to warnings issued and possible exclusion. Members of the colony could elect others to some post, like the Council of Elders, but in practice, the colony ran through Oschwald on patriarchal lines, like a large household. The statutes dictated a communist way of life and provided for institutions for both men and women to run like monasteries.
A year into the colony, Oschwald doubled down on the rules with his Organization; Living for the Future- St. Nazianz; Wages and Food. Besides the sections on morality and governance, also there were sections containing strong elements of social justice: Section 6 – The care of the poor, invalids, orphans and others in need shall be provided for, so that the poor shall receive the same care as the rich. Section 7 – Aid shall be given to one another in the obtaining of the most necessary things according to the instructions of the elders. No one shall suffer innocently. Each one shall receive aid when in trouble as soon as possible. Section 22 – Suppression and oppression will not be tolerated.
The breviary
The rules – basically, the Catholic Breviary or Divine Office, a collection of prayers, hymns, psalms and readings recited at specific times throughout the day – also regulated the day-to-day life of the community down to hours – prayer-meals-work. The prayers recited throughout the day provided order. Members hoped to imitate the lives of the first Christians.
work, home and food for all
After a few years of hardship in getting the community running, by 1860, the village began to grow. As it grew, the commune took on the shape Oschwald desired. Work, money, food all shared and new members who wished to join need to either be Catholic or desirous to join. They need to observe the sacraments as well as others including the poor, widows, the sick and orphans. A list of basic boorishness could get one expelled though members had three chances to reform before the final boot.
All members initially were married. They lived in separate log houses. Homes became added as needed with time. A hospital, orphanage, schools, seminary, mills and businesses saw the light of day as the years passed. Craftsmen created what was needed by the community and for sale outside – straw hats, felt shoes, cheese and some of the first teachers in the region.
celibacy for some
Also, two convents were constructed for the unmarried. These people joined the Association, choosing to live simply and in celibacy. Men were known as the Oschwald Brothers and the women, the Oschwald Sisters. The monastery was built on the south end of the community and the convent on the north. There was a church built to serve the new parish and a rectory for Father Oschwald.
Simplicity and eschatology also explained an enthusiasm for monastic life. Celibate members of the colony lived in one of the two convents following the rule of the Third Order of St. Francis. The Third Order – or Secular Franciscan Order – accommodated men and women married not wanting to live separately but did want to live the life rules offered by St. Francis. The celibate members lived under a rule like the Third Order Regular of St. Francis, while married members lived fully as dedicated Third Order Seculars. All took part in the daily liturgy of the Church. The community essentially governed by the sacraments. Confession and penance were sufficient to ensure order and holy communion to preserve commitment.
In 1858, the first section of the “Monastery of the Holy Spirit” (the Pink Convent, so-called because of its color), to house the celibate female members of the colony, finished. Then in 1863, about 50 women, called sisters, took the habit of the Third Order of St. Francis, after the building was completed in 1860. In 1865 the “Brothers’ Monastery” (Loretto Monastery) opened to celibate male members of the colony, replacing a provisional accommodation used since 1858.
a little piece of the old country
On the highest point near the village, Oschwald created a shrine for a little statue of Mary and her child which they had brought along on the journey from Germany. Originally, the statue was notched into a tree. The tree fell over in a storm, but the statue survived this incident and another where it was placed into a stone shrine which fell over during another storm. In 1870, the present Loreto Chapel was built and enlarged three years later. Having survived an ocean crossing and natural elements, the little statue now found here is a replica. The original stolen in 1987.
living conditions in the colony
Salaries were not paid though if items were sold outside the community, members could keep whatever earnings they received. Non-members could live in the colony – they usually were people with special skills valued by the village. Their skills or goods were compensated for.
Those people joining the community donated whatever monies they could to the common treasury. Supposedly, if anyone ever wanted to leave, they could do so with money they had contributed or the amount of work they contributed. Some did gain compensation while others may not have.
Meals were shared commonly at one table. Children attended school but also contributed with some manual labor when they became old enough. Basic clothes and shoes came from the community. Extras needed furnishing from the members themselves.
A regimen of prayers – the Breviary – put order into the daily scene. Early rising and late retiring with work, meals prayer and evening recitation of the Rosary rounding out a typical day. The members hoped to imitate the lives of the first Christians they read about in the Acts of the Apostles.
As a place of refuge and preparation, a rigorous ethical regime seemed quite natural, a return to the virtues of the early church. A simple way of life necessitated by isolation and survival related Christian simplicity. “Holy simplicity” of a simple agrarian life made expectations of a happy future a certainty.
PROTOTYPE FOR OTHERS?
This colony developed not only a place of “flee” to, but also as a refuge opening possibilities of a new way of looking at the world due geographical and social isolation. The ascetic lifestyle practiced guaranteed a passage to the next life. St. Nazianz became a place of rescue and refuge for the eschatological community.
Gregory of Nazianz served as a popular saint in Baden. An early father of the church living in the fourth century AD, Gregory became convinced of the injustice of private property. There was no such thing originally in paradise and the coming millennium promised to restore life to the original.
father joseph albrecht
During the winter of 1867-1868, Father Joseph Albrecht brought another group of Catholics to St. Nazianz from midwestern Ohio. Albrecht and his group also hailed from Baden. Both Albrecht and Oschwald knew each other from Germany. Albrecht admired Oschwald’s creation in Wisconsin. He had run afoul of the diocesan authorities in Cincinnati and suffered from the poor opinion of many other brothers within his same order – Missionaries of the Precious Blood. Finally, he left with many members from his congregation as well as desired to follow their own saint along with several brothers and sisters from a convent he had organized.
Albrecht, a former mayor of a village in Baden, came later in life to the priesthood. He, his wife and teen aged daughter all joined the Precious Blood before emigrating to America in the late 1840s. As a former man in charge, he did not always respond well to orders from above, especially when the bishop was Irish as was the case in Ohio. He saw, along with Oschwald, that the Second Coming was almost upon them and he wanted to establish a similar refuge – he chose the even wilder domain of midwestern Minnesota – in which members could greet the Second Coming from.
heirarchial relationships
Unlike, Father Oschwald, Albrecht did not gain a release from his bishop so he could transfer to the domain of another. This would prove problematic for him and his community which he founded at Rush Lake, Minnesota. Charismatic like Oschwald, Albrecht never attracted quite the numbers found at St. Nazianz. Also, like what happened in Wisconsin, the religious enthusiasm and eschatological expectations would dissipate in the years following the deaths of founding priests.
Unlike Albrecht, in America, Father Oschwald was on good terms with the Bishop of Milwaukee, the Swiss man John Henni. Henni paid visits to St. Nazianz on several occasions. Oschwald had also set aside some of his mystical side though he continued to practice healing, collecting plants and herbs to make cures with. He offered medical help to all who needed it, whether they belonged to the colony or not.
DEATH OF A SAINT
In February 1873, Father Oschwald died after an illness of only a few days. The community went into total grief witht his passing. Laid to rest in the St. Ambros Chapel, his body later became moved the little, newer Loretto Chapel in front of the graves of the later Salvatorians. with the movement, his body showed little signs of decay – incorruptibility supposedly one of the sure signs of sainthood.
Later, in 1867, realizing his age creeping up on him, he wrote his will intending to secure the future of the colony after his death. Government of the colony became laid into the hands of a commission, Oschwald himself elected. He also made provisions to turn the colony into a corporation as defined by American law. Those provisions were still incomplete at his death.
A NEW ADMINISTRATION
Anton Stoll came with Father Oschwald in 1854. Stoll served as the day-to-day manager of the community and continued in that role after Oschwald’s death. But to serve as spiritual advisor, Peter Mutz became chosen. Mutz came from a Lutheran background. Living in poverty, he came to St. Nazianz at Oschwald’s invitation. Converting, Mutz went on to become a priest, himself, in 1869.
Returning to St. Nazianz after the death of Oschwald, Mutz – serving another congregation closer to Milwaukee at the time – caused waves immediately proposing to have the colony halt its use of the Breviary, the strict regiment of prayers around which the day of St. Nazianz revolved.
Stoll was outraged, but Mutz countered saying the Breviary was meant only for clergy. The time spent in the many prayers could go better for rest. The test ended splitting the community – who in time gained the option to choose to continue as before or abandon the Breviary cycle.
PROBLEMS EMERGE
More difficult problems included land ownership, colony incorporation, debt payment and court challenges raised by a few followers who now looked to leave demanding compensation on their way out. It was not until 27 July 1874 until the colony – with 102 members – agreed upon incorporation documents to legally incorporate the community. They used many of the same guidelines Father Oschwald already decided upon, but there were changes. An elected Board of Directors now took over governance of St. Nazianz. Father Mutz would be the Board President as spiritual leader, while Stoll retained his role as administrator. In the past, all land was held, purchased and sold by Father Oschwald. That responsibility shifted to the Board.
The colony – incorporated as the Roman Catholic Religious Association of St. Nazianz – continued to provide shelter, food and clothing for the members. The practice of no payment for services rendered for the community by members became written down so to avoid questions in the future.
GOLDEN AGE DIMS
Stoll and Mutz continued guiding the community over the next few decades until Stoll died in 1889 and Father Mutz retired because of health in the mid-1890s. In 1896, as Father Mutz prepared to retire, he got in touch with Father Francis Jordan – founder of the Salvatorian community in Rome. Father Jordan was also a Badener by birth. He personally came to the USA with four other Salvatorians who would remain. The Salvatorians agreed to pastor the parish and run the corporation. In exchange the order gained the property where the Oschwald Monastery and Loretto Hill lay on the south edge of town. The change took place 15 August 1896.
The Salvatorians were good to their word taking care of the dwindling number of communalists as the aged out. Later, the Salvatorians created their own monastery and seminary complex which served as the headquarters for their missions in America.
Incorruptibility
Incorruptibility refers to the preservation of the body from normal decay after death. Catholic tradition maintains incorruptible saints give witness to the truth of the resurrection of the body and the life that is to come. Now this tradition fails to clearly define the detailed form a holy person’s body lies before an incorruptible declaration occurs. Nor does it not necessarily require the body remains permanently in the same condition when originally found. Incorruptibility, when proven, authorities can consider as a sign of holiness.
Father Oschwald’s body was remarked as little changed at the time of his funeral in 1873. In 1926, his body then became removed to its present tomb beneath the Loretto Chapel. Again, the body appeared surprisingly preserved, even after over fifty years. This is one more thing Oschwald and Father Joseph Albrecht had in common.
POSTSCRIPT
As Father Oschwald himself said, “We did not come to America to become rich, but to save our souls.” His community lasted 42 years, a good length of time for a communal group in the 19th century. Conditions leading to the establishment changed with time. The colony was never directly threatened with extinction because of celibacy found in other religious colonies of the time as there were married couples with children among its members.
Oschwald wrote that the colony “is a place where one is prepared to enter heaven”. Alas, the end of the world did not come at its appointed time in 1887. He did not live to see the failure of the prophecy. As the final inheritors of the world were succeeded by other generations, it became harder to maintain eschatological enthusiasm. After Oschwald’s death, life in the colony became increasingly routine.
Even the Salvatorians are today gone, though their cemetery remains. Of the colony all that remains are some of the original buildings, stone memorials, all of which serve as silent witnesses to the past in an open-air museum.
A final sidenote: the Salvatorians not only succeeded Father Oschwald’s community in Wisconsin, but they eventually served the descendants of Father Albrecht’s group in the hamlet of Jordan in Oregon.
SOURCES FOR FURTHER STUDY
Online, an excellent work by Dr. Hubert Trieber, a law professor who included works on philosophy and history in his vast list of publications. A short book written by Johannes Werner also details the life of Father Oschwald, though it is in German. A good short synopsis of the community also appears online written by Karyl Rommelfanger for the Max Kadie Institute, an interdisciplinary unit at the University of Wisconsin-Madison dedicated to detailing the lives and stories of German immigrants.