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integrated into Catholic liturgy, but by that time there was nobody in the parishes to profit from it except black people. The whites had all fled to the suburbs. They missed some exciting liturgy and a real opportunity for exposure to another culture. Such then was Bishop Schrembs' legacy to ethnicity of all forms in Cleveland; it was full of ambiguities which reflected the chaotic times of his episcopate. Bishop Edward Hoban Schrembs' successor as Bishop of Cleveland was Edward F. Hoban. One would have to classify him as a modern Americanizer formed and directed by his mentor in Chicago, Cardinal George Mundelein. Bishop Hoban came to Cleveland from Rockfbrdo Illinois, in 1943. He had been bishop in Rockford since 1928, but his roots were in Chicago where he was ordained in 1903. He quickly captured the attention of Mundelein who made him his auxiliary bishop in 1921. Mundelein's policy in Chicago was much like that of Horstmann in Cleveland. Mundelein was a Propaganda student in Rome, recognized the value of all cultures and yet he wished ardently to make his priests thoroughly Americanist regardless of their ethnic background. But at the same time he attached great worth to the uniqueness of every nationality and appointed men from every ethnic group in Chicago to positions of responsibility in his administration. Bishop Hoban learned to respect these men with whom he worked closely and seemed blind .....
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Most Rev. Bishop Edward F. Hoban
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to any nationalism in the Church. He brought this fresh vision to Cleveland at a time when he was already sixty-five years old. When Edward Hoban was installed at st. John Cathedral as Bishop Of Cleveland on January 21, 1944, he preached a sermon which Outlined clearly the course he would follow with regard to ethnicity. He took for granted that all who knew him also knew he was the son of parents who had immigrated from Ireland. But at the same time,,he also made it clear that in his administration he Would favor no nationality, including his own. The best men Would be appointed to his staff. The old Irish-German feuds were to be forgotten. It was the work of the building up of the Post World War 11 Church in the Cleveland Diocese that would enlist his concern. Quickly he named a Pole, Fr. John Krol, who later became Archbishop of Philadelphia, as his chancellor. There then followed a whole series of clerical appointments that recognized that all Americans were equal in law and in the eyes of the new bishop. Nationality had nothing to do with these appointments; the bishop, true to his promise, chose the best men. Bishop Hoban visited Ireland and the birthplace of his parents there when he traveled to Europe and to Rome after the war, but he made it clear that these visits were personal to him. His sense of Irish ethnicity reached no further than his personal life. As Bishop of Cleveland, Hoban took special interest in those who were displaced by the ravages of the war; he welcomed them to .....
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Cleveland and sent priests from his diocese to seek after the people languishing in government-built Displaced Persons camps, urging them to come to Cleveland to resettle. The people came. For them he built a new cluster of national parishes. Still he followed the pattern of his predecessors in urging these new Americans to seek to become American Catholics. To achieve this policy, Bishop Hoban added more staff to the Catholic Resettlement Bureau. This work continues to bear fruit in parishes like St. Vitus for Slovenians and St. Paul's at East 40th and St. Clair Street for Croatians. There was one difference in the non-English speaking parishes Bishop Hoban encouraged or founded. They were to build schools, but, although ethnic culture might be urged, there was no question that the language of these schools was to be, in all classes, English. Older people, newly immigrated, could continue their language in prayers, devotions and singing, but their children were to learn English. Perhaps like no other Cleveland bishop, Edward Hoban grasped the meaning of ethnic culture. He approved and encouraged it. There was, however, no doubt in his mind that the children of these immigrants needed to assimilate with the American culture they were to merge with in the territorial parishes. To all of this, Cleveland's Irish people seem to have given monumental support. Ireland had no post-war crisis of poverty for which aid was needed from abroad, hence the Irish gave .....
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generously and in the name of Christian charity to the needy of Europe. This was primarily done through the Catholic Charities Bureau. Bishop Hoban healed what was left of the national strife in the Cleveland Diocese by urging all patriotic Cleveland Catholics to come to the aid of their needy co-religionists in Europe. By the time he died in 1966, one heard very little of nationalities competing with one another. Whatever sense of domination of church affairs the Irish Catholics in Cleveland might have sought earlier in the history of the diocese, it had all but disappeared by the time of Bishop Hoban's death. This is not to say, however, as we have noted earlier, that Irish ethnicity had died among the Irish by 1966. It simply had begun to manifest itself in areas other than those closely associated with the Roman Catholic Church with which it had once been so strongly identified and which had so profoundly shaped it. We have already pointed out that in the decade of the 1960's, the rise of black consciousness gave impetus to a corresponding rise in ethnic consciousness among the other racial and ethnic groups in Cleveland. Loyalty to the Church had produced a special kind of ethnicity among Cleveland's Irish on the East and West Sides in the immigrant and post-immigrant period. With the end of the immigrant and post-immigrant period, the Church no longer plays the central role it once did in Irish ethnicity. This does not seem to indicate that in the continuing Irish ethnic consciousness in this city the Church no longer plays any part .....
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at all. In fact, the contrary seems to be true. The Irish who recall their heritage, and indeed those who do not, retain, it would seem, a loyalty to their church and to their parishes . But new patterns of Irish ethnicity are emerging. Where they will lead we cannot speculate with much hope of accuracy. What does seem certain is that there are no longer any Irish parishes nor Irish neighborhoods. Thus it must follow that Irish ethnicity will manifest itself In social, familial, cultural and organizational events. Ethnicity, including Irish ethnicity, has often been narrow, arrogant and, even self-serving in Cleveland over the last one hundred years. One would hope that these faults would disappear as ethnicity seeks to lead to some sort of American identity. This American identity has not yet emerged fully. When it does, it hopefully will be built on a respect for the diversity of our cultures and traditions and the preservation of what is of worth in each of them. Surely such a search for the worth of the Irish heritage is of specific value for the Cleveland Irish. It should be clear that enormous research is necessary to complete this search. And it would seem that this research must be done by the young scholars of today who have barely tapped the reserve of meaning which lies yet to be revealed in the Irish experience of the past in this city. One cannot doubt that this research will be done and that it will, without either arrogance or apology, be made available to all who might inquire in the future about the meaning of the heritage of Cleveland's Irish.
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