York County's Catholics have been building for years. Clergy abuse means they must rebuild

St. Patrick's building is one of the most compelling of the baker's dozen of Roman Catholic congregations in York County.

The South Beaver Street building can boast of many fine architectural features, and its congregation has contributed greatly to the community over the decades.

Part of the York church's design delights is what its building lacks - a complete steeple.

Not a bad thing at all.

In a souvenir booklet marking its 200th anniversary in 1976, the writer pointed out that the building's tower and spire were never erected.

What is a Church without a steeple? the book asked.

It might be that a church is not finished, remains on the ground to serve its people or has had more important things to do than build a tower, the book, "St. Patrick's Church, 1776-1976," states.

More:List: Names, details of 301 Pa. priest sex abuse allegations in Catholic dioceses

More:Evidence of priest abuse sent to York County DA in 1995, but no charges filed, report says

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St. Patrick's congregation, like many other Roman Catholic parishes in Pennsylvania, has allegedly fallen prey to priests who have taken advantage of their positions to abuse parishioners.

Unfortunately, these types of allegations are emerging across the Christian world. The lead pastor and board of elders of Willow Creek, a noted and influential Protestant megachurch in Illinois, resigned recently after revelations of sexual harassment allegations against its founding pastor.

Catholics in York County go back as far as the county itself. In fact, further back - well before the county was founded in 1749. They are an integral part of the community's fabric, and this tragedy impacts not only Catholic congregations but the whole community.

We'll return to St. Patrick's steeple after exploring the Roman Catholic Church in York County in five ways:

Conewago Chapel, the Mother Church

Catholics settled in future Hanover and York County in enough numbers that, by 1730, they were able to found what has become known as Conewago Chapel, the Mother Church of Pennsylvania west of the Susquehanna.

At about this time, Scots-Irish Protestants were settling in the Peach Bottom area of southeastern York County, and English Quakers in the Red Land region in the northern part of the county.

German and English Protestants built homesteads in Springettsbury Manor, in the central part of the county.

But not only Protestants settled in this area carved by the Codorus, Conewago and Kreutz creeks.

There were enough Catholics at the time of York's founding that Pennsylvania Proprietor Thomas Penn sought to ban them from owning property in the village in 1742, saying their beliefs were destructive to others.

Church faces language wars

About 1850, York's Catholic congregation was undergoing about the same conflict as its Protestant counterparts. Mass would be in Latin, but should it otherwise be a German-language church or should English be the dominant language of the congregation? 

The German Reformed Church in York, as one example, was undergoing the same tension with a twist. Should its worship service, too, be in German or in English? The Reformed Church divided into two, its congregations today: Trinity United Church of Christ on West Market and Zion UCC near Penn Park. York Lutherans dealt with the same issue.

In 1852, St. Mary's Parish was formed on South George Street by members of the German wing of the church. St. Patrick's remained on South Beaver Street.

Catholic settlers from Maryland

Many of York County's Catholics came here via Maryland. Indeed, that state, under Lord Baltimore, was a refuge for Catholics in the 1600s.

York County experienced not only a rush of immigrants in the early-to-mid- 1700s but hosted waves of settlers mainly from western Europe over the centuries.

For example, St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in New Freedom traces its origin to 1841, when a missionary priest traveled from Baltimore to a remote settlement that would become New Freedom. A German immigrant farmer, Meinrad Muller, took him in.

This was in the early stages of growth for this village, the first stop north of the Mason-Dixon Line for the new Northern Central Railway. That rail line was completed between Baltimore and York in 1838.

But that area was still rural and sparsely populated.

A history of the parish states that a small wooden church was built in 1842: "The church was dedicated to Saint John the Baptist, who had similarly preached in the wilderness of the coming of God."

Missionaries sent out from this parish

At Conewago Chapel, west of Hanover, a church building was completed in 1787. The sturdy structure today is the oldest Catholic church building made of stone in the United States, according to the church's website.

The church became known as a sender of missionaries.

That reputation prompted Bishop George L. Leech to proclaim in 1937:  “Conewago belongs to America, not merely to a parish or a diocese because it was the gateway through which passed the saintly founders and zealous missionaries who carried the light of the true faith eastward and westward into the frontiers of our land, long generations before the founding of our beloved nation.”

Some Catholics kept moving west

So, York County became home to Germans, English and other western European Catholic and Protestant settlers.

They worked the factories and farms of York County, part of the Pennsylvania Dutch belt.

The eastern European Catholics that populated steel mills and coal mines of places like Johnstown, Pittsburgh and the Scranton area did not find homes here in great numbers.

In fact, York County touted its native-born workforce.

So you have this from a Red Lion history book in1980:

"The laborers in the cigar factories of Red Lion were all native America."

And a 1957 York County history states:

"Yorkers are a home-loving people, predominantly native-born, with whom thrift and industry are traditional."

Such offensive statements implied that more recent immigrants - say, in the 20th century from Eastern Europe or blacks from the rural South - were not present in York County where they would weaken the work ethic.

The Association of Religion Data Archives listed 37,745 Catholic adherents in 2000 and 35,605 in 2010, less than 10 percent of the population.

They worshipped in 13 churches, compared to 92 United Methodist Churches and 73 Lutheran parishes in 2000.

The population in those churches and other "Mainline Protestant" denominations totaled 99,121 in 2000 and 79,653 in 2010, according to ARDA.

You could say that York County is not Catholic country. But the impact of the grand jury report on clergy abuse has rattled the county, Catholic or not.

For example, in one parish, St. Joseph's in Springettsbury Township, about a dozen clergymen were named in the grand jury or diocese reports of alleged abuse cases. The names of seven clergymen with ties to St. Patrick's appeared on the lists.

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Back to St. Patrick's and its steeple.

The building is incomplete, and so is the congregation.

"In a sense," the book states, "St. Patrick's Church is not finished."

"Just as St. Paul told us we must continuously labor to build up the stature of Christ's body, the Church; so the priest, religious and faithful people of St. Patrick's are still building their Church."

That's true, the building project goes on, particularly in the wake of the grand jury report.

Rebuilding, too.

And not just at St. Patrick's.

More:Here's a new list about where Harrisburg diocese clergy accused of abuse served in York County

Upcoming public presentations

- I will present on York County trolley history and their associated electric parks at 7 p.m., Aug. 27, at a meeting of North Eastern York County History In Preservation. The presentation will be in the Manchester borough office at 225 S Main St.

- I will also present at a special OLLI class at Penn State York: "Women Who Have Made Marks on York County History and Culture." That class also will include a discussion with Carolyn Schaefer and Susan Byrnes, two women who have made a difference in the late 20th- and 21st-century York County. Details: 10 a.m.-noon, Sept. 27; $8, OLLI members/$15 nonmembers. Contact: 717-771-4015 or OLLI@York.PSU.edu.

- Bart Stump, a Dallastown School District teacher, will present on petroglyphs, American Indian rock carvings in the Susquehanna River at the next meeting of York County Writers Roundtable. The public is invited to this free presentation, set for 7 p.m., Sept. 6, at the York County History Center, 250 E. Market St. 

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