Culture

Bishop O'Connell's visit to Japan coincided with the end of the Russo-Japanese War, in which Russia and Japan vied for imperial control of Manchuria and Korea.

On Oct. 14, 1905, a ship bound for Japan departed San Francisco with a special envoy aboard. Bishop William O'Connell, then Bishop of Portland in Maine, was traveling on a diplomatic mission as Papal Legate, representing the church's interests in Japan on behalf of Pope Pius X. Still two years away from his appointment as Archbishop of Boston, Bishop O'Connell was already making a name for himself as an ambitious leader in the church following his appointment to Portland in 1901. Never one to downplay his standing, Bishop O'Connell stated in an undated letter, "It is I think the first time an American prelate has been given a diplomatic mission to any court and after all that does make me an epoch for the Church in America." Nonetheless, the assignment was still something of a surprise. Historian James O'Toole, in his biography of O'Connell titled "Militant and Triumphant," cites O'Connell as saying his assignment to the Japan commission came "like a bolt from the blue."

Bishop O'Connell's visit to Japan coincided with the end of the Russo-Japanese War, in which Russia and Japan vied for imperial control of Manchuria and Korea. This conflict led to an increased hostility in Japan towards foreign parties but was also, overall, a period of relative religious toleration. Bishop O'Connell was quoted as saying as much in The Pilot on Feb. 10, 1906, asserting that Japan was comparable only to the U.S. in terms of religious liberty. The bishop was received respectfully in Yokohama on Oct. 29, 1905, before traveling to Tokyo. The Pilot, in a Sept. 9, 1905, announcement of his trip, called Bishop O'Connell "the exponent of the Catholic and the American ideal."
O'Toole, in "Militant and Triumphant," describes the mission to Japan as "long on ceremony and short on substance," focusing on building goodwill and relations between Japan and the Catholic Church. The trip consisted of several weeks of dinners, speeches, and visits to the Catholic communities in Kobe and Nagasaki. With around 60,000 Catholics in Japan at that time, The Pilot reported on Feb. 10, 1906, that one possible goal was the establishment of an Apostolic Delegation in Japan, which eventually came into existence in 1919. In a letter dated Nov. 12, 1905, Bishop O'Connell recounts his audience with Emperor Mutsuhito, who "stood absolutely for the fullest freedom for the Catholic Church in every part of his Kingdom and in Korea, where now his influence was being more fully extended" after the Russo-Japanese War.
For all the goodwill and positivity that was lauded about the bishop's trip to Japan, it is worth noting that he maintained belief in the superiority of Western civilization. In a letter dated Dec. 5, 1905, he stated, "I am thankful for the great privilege I have had in being able to see the East . . . But never again! Never. Let me live where there is a Sunday, a church bell, and the necessaries of life," far from "the awful gloom of paganism." Bishop O'Connell's 1907 appointment as Archbishop of Boston landed him not only living in such a society but leading it. Still, his status as an eminent religious and political figure did allow him the opportunity to travel much more extensively than was common at the time. As Archbishop of Boston, he made numerous trips to Rome, as well as to England, the Holy Land, the West Indies, Chicago, Nassau, and Miami.
Something to note about the correspondence cited in this article is its spuriousness. In 1915, O'Connell published "The Letters of William Cardinal O'Connell, Volume I," purportedly covering his life from 1876-1901. An unpublished second set of letters from 1901 to 1906 follow, presumably meant for a Volume II that never came to fruition. Owing to the uniform nature of the manuscripts, the consistent anonymity of the addressees, and the handwriting of a more mature Cardinal O'Connell, James O'Toole was able to discern that the letters were actually written later, around 1911-1915. While these letters were presented as genuine historical accounts of his past, O'Toole remarks in "Militant and Triumphant" that they are "not really forgeries in the usual sense," but "rather a form of early autobiography in epistle form." This is not to say that the events recounted therein are necessarily false, but that they are embellished so that Cardinal O'Connell could proffer an enduringly serviceable public image.
The Cardinal William Henry O'Connell Papers are housed at the Archdiocese of Boston Archives. To learn more about our collections, visit us online at bostoncatholic.org/archives.

REBECCA MAITLAND IS AN ARCHIVIST OF THE ARCHDIOCESE OF BOSTON.

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