State's Catholic history available on encyclopedia Web site
At least 14 entries detail Arkansas' earliest missionaries, leaders
Published: June 16, 2007
By Tara Little Associate Editor
Did you know Catholic missionaries were the first to bring the Gospel to Arkansas? Did you know Catholics founded the state's oldest school and hospital? Did you know the Diocese of Little Rock had no bishop for five years in the 1860s? Did you know prejudice against Catholics existed in Arkansas until World War II?
These details and more about the state's Catholic heritage and its impact are found on the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture Web site, www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net.
Nathania Sawyer, project manager and senior editor, said the Web site offers 1,200 articles and more than 1,800 media resources on the history, geography and culture of Arkansas.
The online encyclopedia, launched in May 2006, is a project of the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies at the Central Arkansas Library System. According to the Web site, the information made available is free, accurate and updated regularly.
Sawyer said it was primarily developed to be a reliable resource for teachers, students and researchers.
"Beyond that, Arkansas hasn't had a good, general reference work," she said. "So for the general reader or armchair historian, or someone who just wants to read about things they've never heard of, it's a tremendous resource."
"The beauty of it being a Web site is that we have interlinked entries so you're able to get a lot of information related to an entry," she said.
That is the case with the main article on Catholicism titled, "Roman Catholics." From that entry are links to articles and photos on Catholic schools, religious communities, immigrant settlements, missionaries and bishops.
Dr. James M. Woods, of Georgia Southern University, wrote the Roman Catholics entry. He is the author of "Mission and Memory: A History of the Catholic Church in Arkansas," a book he was commissioned to write by the Diocese of Little Rock for the 1993-1994 diocesan sesquicentennial.
Wood, a Catholic and former Arkansan, also wrote the encyclopedia's entries on Bishops Andrew Byrne, Edward Fitzgerald, Albert Fletcher and John Morris and Swiss-German missionary Father Eugene J. Weibel, who established churches, convents and schools in northeast Arkansas.
Other entries include:
St. Vincent Infirmary, Mount St. Mary Academy, Catholic High School for Boys and Carmelite Monastery of St. Teresa of Jesus, Little Rock
Holy Angels Convent, Jonesboro
Italian missionary Father Pietro Bandini, who brought Italian Catholics to establish Tontitown
St. Scholastica Monastery, Fort Smith
Catholic family-owned wineries in Altus and Paris
St. Joseph Colony, which led to parishes and schools in Conway, Morrilton, Atkins and Saint Vincent.
Guy Lancaster, encyclopedia assistant editor and former Jonesboro correspondent for Arkansas Catholic, said many Catholic-related articles are in progress. These include: Subiaco Abbey, Tontitown Grape Festival, German and Hispanic immigration, Marche and St. Bernard Regional Medical Center in Jonesboro.
Lancaster, who attends Our Lady of Good Counsel Church in Little Rock, joined the encyclopedia's staff in 2005. He said the Web site offers easily accessible information, which is especially beneficial when it is hard to come by, like the state's Catholic history.
Because Catholicism is a minority in Arkansas, the fact that this presence has had a major impact is overlooked, he said.
For example, the entry on Father Weibel refers to him as the "Apostle of Northeast Arkansas," but, Lancaster, who grew up in Jonesboro, said he never heard of the priest before reading that entry.
Sister Therese Stewart, OCD, wrote the entry on the Carmelite monastery in Little Rock. The 75-year-old nun serves as her community's unofficial historian. Her article was posted May 15, the most recent of Catholic entries to appear on the Web site.
Sister Therese said she enjoyed the project, which she considered a challenge. The entry was word limited, had to be on an eighth-grade reading level and understandable to anyone.
Sawyer said each encyclopedia entry is edited, reviewed, fact-checked and usually goes through multiple drafts before being accepted. This process, which typically takes six months, involves both encyclopedia staff and outside reviewers and fact checkers.
The Web site welcomes people to participate through the "Get Involved" link. There volunteers are invited to write, suggest a topic or author, review or fact-check an entry. Sawyer said she estimates the encyclopedia will have 3,000 to 3,500 entries by 2010.
Spanish Catholic priests with Hernando de Soto's expedition led the first Christian service in Arkansas at Casqui Indian village (Cross County) in 1541.
The state's oldest school, Mount St. Mary Academy, was founded in 1851. The oldest hospital, St. Vincent Infirmary (now St. Vincent Infirmary Medical Center) was established in 1888. Both still operate in Little Rock.
Bishop Andrew Byrne died in 1862 during the Civil War. Because of communication problems with the Vatican, he was not replaced until 1867 by 33-year-old Bishop Edward Fitzgerald.
Strong prejudice against Catholic immigrants, particularly German and Irish, sparked the Know-Nothing movement of the 1850s. From that the American Party, a national political group arose and operated in Arkansas during this time. Discriminatory cartoons appeared in the state's newspapers and a Catholic church in Helena was burned down in 1854. The Arkansas General Assembly passed the Convent Inspection Act in 1915, which authorized law enforcement officials to inspect convents, rectories and monasteries until 1937, when the law was repealed.
