Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Limburg an der Lahn, Hesse, Germany
About Peter Cahensly
- Peter Paul Cahensly (1838–1923), a German merchant who lived in the Hessian town Limburg an der Lahn.
- He was a member of the German Reichstag and a wealthy lay officer of the Roman Catholic Church.
- During 1866, Cahensly noted that German immigrants to America were vulnerable due to poverty or cultural isolation, and suggested to the Catholic Congress meeting at Trier that a society should be established for the systematic protection of German emigrants at both the place of departure and the port of landing.
- He claimed that many were ending their relationship with Roman Catholicism, part of the problem being the domination of Roman Catholicism in America by English-speaking Irish clerics who were typically unsympathetic with the idea of preserving German culture among German immigrants, some of whom began attending German-speaking Lutheran congregations. As a result of his urging, the Mainz Katholikentag of 1871 initiated the St.
- Raphaelsverein zum Schutz deutscher katholischer Auswanderer (de), an aid organization for German Catholic emigrants. The activities of the St.
- Raphaelsverein resulted in increased controversy about "Americanism" of the Catholic Church in the United States.
- Cahensly also urged the reorganization of the church in the USA, particularly the formation of ethnicity-based parishes and the appointment of German bishops; such ideas were opposed by many of the Irish-American Catholic clergy.When, during the 1920s, the Vatican administration urged the creation of an African-American seminary, the American hierarchy reacted strongly to what one bishop termed "African Cahenslyism" .
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