Peter Cahensly

Peter Paul Cahensly (1838-1923), a merchant in Limburg an der Lahn, was a member of the German Reichstag and a wealthy Catholic layman.

In 1866, claiming that many German immigrants were leaving the Catholic Church in America, he suggested to the Catholic Congress held at Trier that a society should be established for the systematic protection of German emigrants, both at the point of departure and the port of landing. As a result of his urging, the Mainz Katholikentag of 1871 founded the "St. Raphaelsverein zum Schutz deutscher katholischer Auswanderer" (de), an aid organization for German Catholics emigrants [cite book |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=LjLQwToInS4C|title=History of the Church, Volume 10|date=1994|author=Hubert Jedin (editor)] [cite news |url=http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05402b.htm|title=Emigrant Aid Societies|work=Catholic Encyclopedia] .

Claiming that part of the problem was the domination of the church in America by the Irish, Cahensly urged the reorganization of the church in the country, in particular the formation of dioceses and parishes along ethnic lines. The activities of this organization led to the conflict over "Americanism" within the Catholic Church in the United States [cite news |url=http://www.catholichistory.net/Events/CahenslyControversy.htm|title=Cahensly controversy|work=CatholicHistory.net] [cite news |url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9C01E4DE133BEE3ABC4B53DFB066838C609EDE|title=How Cardinal Gibbons Fought Pan Germans|date=1917-06-03|work=New York Times] [cite book |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=npQ6Hd3G4kgC|title=Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups|author=Stephan Thernstrom] and also to ill-feeling between American Catholics of Irish and German extraction [cite news |url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9C04E2D61E39E033A25753C2A9679D94639ED7CF|title=The trouble deep-seated; A race controversy in Bishop Wigger's Diocese|date=1892-11-20|work=New York Times] Long after German-Irish tensions relaxed, Cahensly's efforts still echoed through the church in America. When, in the 1920s, the Vatican urged the creation of an African-American seminary, the American hierarchy reacted strongly to what one bishop called "African Cahenslyism" [cite book |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=vqjaenJGEfYC|title=Parish Boundaries: The Catholic Encounter with Race in the Twentieth-Century Urban North|date=1996|author=John T. McGreevy] .

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