Charles Constantine Pise (November 22, 1801 – May 26, 1866) was an American

Roman Catholic priest The priesthood is the office of the ministers of religion, who have been commissioned ("ordained") with the holy orders of the Catholic Church. Technically, bishops are a priestly order as well; however, in common English usage ''priest'' re ...

and writer. Born in

Annapolis Annapolis ( ) is the capital of the U.S. state of Maryland. It is the county seat of Anne Arundel County and its only incorporated city. Situated on the Chesapeake Bay at the mouth of the Severn River, south of Baltimore and about east o ...

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It borders the states of Virginia to its south, West Virginia to its west, Pennsylvania to its north, and Delaware to its east ...

, on 22 November 1801, "the son of an Italian father and a mother who came from an old Philadelphia family," he was educated at

Georgetown College Georgetown College is a private Christian liberal arts college in Georgetown, Kentucky. Chartered in 1829, Georgetown was the first Baptist college west of the Appalachian Mountains. The college offers over 40 undergraduate degrees and a Mas ...

in Washington, D.C., sent to Rome to continue studies, and entered the

Society of Jesus The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rome. It was founded in 1540 ...

as a novice. He left the Jesuits when the death of his father caused him to return to the United States and was

ordained Ordination is the process by which individuals are Consecration in Christianity, consecrated, that is, set apart and elevated from the laity class to the clergy, who are thus then authorized (usually by the religious denomination, denominationa ...

a diocesan priest in 1825. From 1821-22 he attended Mount St. Mary's College and Seminary in

Emmitsburg, Maryland Emmitsburg is a town in Frederick County, Maryland, United States, south of the Mason-Dixon line separating Maryland from Pennsylvania. Founded in 1785, Emmitsburg is the home of Mount St. Mary's University. The town has two Catholic pilgrim ...

. During his stay there, his classmates included three future archbishops:

John McCloskey John McCloskey (March 10, 1810 – October 10, 1885) was an Catholic Church in the United States, American Catholic prelate who served as the first American-born Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, Archbishop of New York from 1864 until his ...

John Baptist Purcell John Baptist Purcell (February 26, 1800 – July 4, 1883) was an American prelate of the Catholic Church. He served as Bishop of Cincinnati from 1833 to his death in 1883, and he was elevated to the rank of archbishop in 1850. He formed the b ...

, and

John Hughes John Hughes may refer to: Arts and Entertainment Literature *John Hughes (poet) (1677–1720), English poet *John Hughes (1790–1857), English author *John Ceiriog Hughes (1832–1887), Welsh poet *John Hughes (writer) (born 1961), Australian au ...

.Thorp, Willard. ''Catholic Novelists in Defense of Their Faith, 1829-1865.'' New York: Arno Press, A New York Times Company (1978) A single volume in the complete set ''The American Catholic Tradition''; . He wrote several works in prose and verse, and was a distinguished lecturer and preacher. Among his many literary works, he wrote three Catholic devotional novels and one semi-fictional work, ''Letters to Ada.'' Between 1827-30, he published a five-volume ''History of the Church from Its Establishment to the Present Century'' (although the work stopped at the 16th century). In honor of this effort,

Pope Gregory XVI Pope Gregory XVI (; ; born Bartolomeo Alberto Cappellari; 18 September 1765 – 1 June 1846) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 2 February 1831 to his death in June 1846. He had adopted the name Mauro upon enteri ...

made him a knight of the Sacred Palace and Count Palatine, "the first time these honors had come to an American." At this point, he was also made a knight of the

Holy Roman Empire The Holy Roman Empire, also known as the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation after 1512, was a polity in Central and Western Europe, usually headed by the Holy Roman Emperor. It developed in the Early Middle Ages, and lasted for a millennium ...

and was granted a Doctor of Divinity degree by examination. During these years, Pise was an assistant at St. Patrick's Church in Washington, DC.

Henry Clay Henry Clay (April 12, 1777June 29, 1852) was an American lawyer and statesman who represented Kentucky in both the United States Senate, U.S. Senate and United States House of Representatives, House of Representatives. He was the seventh Spea ...

arranged for him to be appointed

Chaplain of the Senate The chaplain of the United States Senate opens each session of the United States Senate with a prayer, and provides and coordinates religious programs and pastoral care support for senators, their staffs, and their families. The chaplain is appoi ...

. Pise served as Chaplain from 1832-33. Pise was the first (and, to date, only) Roman Catholic United States Senate Chaplain, coming into that office on December 11, 1832. Answering objections to the presence of a Catholic in such a prominent government role, and prefiguring a similar speech by

John F. Kennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), also known as JFK, was the 35th president of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. He was the first Roman Catholic and youngest person elected p ...

more than 125 years later, on July 4, 1833, Pise made "an eloquent address" before the

Maryland House of Delegates The Maryland House of Delegates is the lower house of the Maryland General Assembly, legislature of the U.S. state of Maryland. It consists of 141 delegates elected from 47 districts. The House of Delegates Chamber is in the Maryland State House ...

describing in what sense he felt an American Roman Catholic owed 'allegiance' to the

Pope The pope is the bishop of Rome and the Head of the Church#Catholic Church, visible head of the worldwide Catholic Church. He is also known as the supreme pontiff, Roman pontiff, or sovereign pontiff. From the 8th century until 1870, the po ...

. In 1849, he was assigned as rector at Saint Charles Borromeo Church in

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

; he died in Brooklyn on May 26, 1866."Pise, Charles Constantine", in

John Julian John Julian (March 26, 1733) was a pirate of multi-racial descent who operated in Americans, as the pilot of the ship '' Whydah''. Julian joined pirate Samuel Bellamy, and became the pilot of Bellamy's '' Whydah'' when he was probably only 16 ye ...

(1907), ''

A Dictionary of Hymnology ''A Dictionary of Hymnology'' (or, more completely, ''A Dictionary of Hymnology: Origin and History of Christian Hymns and Hymnwriters of All Ages and Nations, Together with Biographical and Critical Notices of Their Authors and Translators'') by ...

'', reprint, New York: Dover, Vol. 2, p. 1687. Pise had a career of such prominence that it was unusual he was not made a bishop. One biographer suggests that his friendship with Catholic intellectual

Orestes Brownson Orestes Augustus Brownson (September 16, 1803 – April 17, 1876) was an American intellectual, activist, preacher, labor organizer, and writer. Brownson was also a noted Catholic convert. Brownson was a publicist, a career which spanned his affi ...

may have been the problem, at a time when the American Church was turning away from intellectualism as a result of growing Irish domination. Alternatively, the same biographer suggests that it may have been an anti-Irish, anti-Jesuit streak in

Ambrose Maréchal Ambrose Maréchal, P.S.S. (August 28, 1764 – January 29, 1828) was a French-born Catholic prelate who served as Archbishop of Baltimore from 1817 until his death. He was a member of the Sulpicians. Maréchal dedicated the Cathedral of the As ...

, Bishop of Baltimore, which led him to suppress this logical cap to Pise's career.

Bibliography

Partial list:
''History of the Church from Its Establishment to the Present Century.''
P. Blenkinsop, (1827). * ''Father Rowland: a North American Tale.'' Baltimore: Fielding Lucas, Jr. (1829, 1831) Dublin: (1837, 1846) (a response to the anti-Catholic novel ''Father Clement: A Roman Catholic Story'' by Grace Kennedy, published in 1823). * ''The Indian Cottage, a Unitarian Story.'' Baltimore: Fielding Lucas, Jr. (1831).
''The Pleasures of Religion and Other Poems''
Philadelphia: E. L. Carey & A. Hart, (1833) (dedicated to

Washington Irving Washington Irving (April 3, 1783 – November 28, 1859) was an American short-story writer, essayist, biographer, historian, and diplomat of the early 19th century. He wrote the short stories "Rip Van Winkle" (1819) and "The Legend of Sleepy ...

). * ''Letters to Ada, From Her Brother-In-Law.'' Harper and Brothers (1834).
''Address Delivered Before the Philodemic Society of Georgetown College, July 25, 1837''
Washington: Jacob Gideon Jr., (1837).
''Aletheia: letters on the truth of Catholic doctrines''
New York: E. Dunnigan, 1843.
''Zenosius; or The Pilgrim Convert.''
London: Charles Dolman (1850) (his last novel). * ''Christianity and the Church.'' (1850). * ''First Flow'ret of the Desert Wild'' (1851) ymn for Saint Rose of Lima">Rose_of_Lima.html" ;"title="ymn for Saint Rose of Lima">ymn for Saint Rose of Lima * ''Let the Deep Organ Swell the Lay'' (1851) [hymn for Saint Cecilia]. :Both hymns are in the "Appendix" to the 1851 New York edition of Edward Caswall's ''Lyra Catholica'', pp. 422, 427.
'' The Founders of the Jesuits: Saint Ignatius and His First Companions''
New York: T. McCurtain, (1868).
''Saint Ignatius and His First Companions''
1894.

Bibliography

References

Further reading