“200 Years of Catholicism in Boston” exhibit is on display in O’Neill Library.

It is easy to fall into a certain way of looking at the city of Boston.  We are perched atop Chestnut Hill in our Catholic school, looking out at a city that is well known for its Irish heritage, and therefore Catholic people, right?

Certainly nobody at BC believes that every Bostonian is an Irish Catholic, but it is easy to see how we could forget about a time when Catholicism was far less welcome in Boston.  The new exhibit in the O’Neil Library is a striking collection of images and artifacts that will certainly help to make BC students think about what it means to be a Catholic here.

Students who walk through the bridge in the middle of O’Neil library are greeted with a variety of photographs depicting places and events from the history of the Catholic Church in Boston.  The centerpiece is a timeline that outlines important dates, and gives perspective to the whole exhibit.  The timeline shows that there were no Catholic priests in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1800, before there was even a Catholic church to be found anywhere in Boston.

The exhibit contains various pamphlets of advice from earlier times to remind us of a time when the community looked to their churches for guidance on matters of daily concern.  Titles such as “Negroes in My Parish?” and “The Pope and the Jews” are almost amusingly insensitive-sounding by today’s standards, but they bring us back to a time when both the church and the city were in the throes of racial conflict.  Pamphlets range in topic from the issue race to the concerns of parents and families.

The artifacts behind the exhibit’s glass are even more interesting, although they tend to be more curiosities than items that demonstrate the history of the church.  A small kit that was used in the anointing of the sick rests here alongside a skullcap that was worn by Pope Pius the XII.

The exhibit was “inspired by the popular book of essays Two Centuries of Faith: The Influences of Catholicism on Boston,” which was edited by University Historian Thomas H. O’Connor.  The sentiment of this work is reflected in the exhibit’s desire to preserve and honor the past 200 years.

The path to where Catholics stand today in Boston was certainly not an easy one, and those who take the time to remember it will have a greater appreciation for the current Catholic condition. There was a rich wealth of women Catholic literary figures in Boston in the 20th century, as the exhibit makes plain. This point is all the more impressive when prefaced by a description of the hardships and anti-catholic sentiments faced by the Ursuline sisters, some of the first Catholic women in the area.

As college students, it is common to keep only the present and the future on our minds.  People of all ages envy our present condition; “college” is synonymous in our culture with youth, adventure, and fun.  It is even simpler to see how the future is on the mind of any college student who has a concern for picking classes, majors, careers, and lives.  As we continue to worry about the hectic present and the often intimidating future, The “200 years of Catholicism in Boston” exhibit is a refreshing way to concern our minds with the past, and the history of the tradition from which we are all benefiting today.  It is certainly worth anyone’s time.