When the White House hosted a Catholic wedding, and then a baptism

(OSV News) — U.S. President Andrew Jackson had a reputation as a violent man: While still a teenager he fought the British during the American Revolution; as an adult he became a skillful Indian-fighter in the South; and he became famous as a military commander after his bloody victory over the British outside New Orleans at the end of the War of 1812.

Even off the battlefield Jackson was aggressive — he fought 13 duels (although only one of these ended with the death of his opponent).

Yet in spite of his hair-trigger temper, Jackson was a soft touch when it came to children, a quality made all the more poignant because he and his wife, Rachel, were childless. Often Jackson concluded his letters with a paragraph asking after each of his friend’s children by name.

The Jacksons adopted or served as guardians to nearly a dozen children. One of these was Mary Anne Lewis, the daughter of Major William B. Lewis, Jackson’s quartermaster at the Battle of New Orleans, who became one of his closest friends.

When the major’s life was beset by tragedy — he lost his wife and several of his daughters in swift succession — the Jacksons offered to raise his surviving child, Mary Anne Lewis.

The Jacksons doted on the little girl, and at Andrew’s election to the presidency in 1829, Mary Anne, now in her teens, came to live with him in the White House.

The Lewis family was Catholic, and although the Jacksons were Presbyterians, they made certain that Mary Anne attended Mass and continued her education in the Catholic faith.

By 1832 the president’s ward was in love. When she became engaged to Joseph Pageot, the secretary for the French Legation in Washington and a fellow Catholic, President Jackson was delighted and offered to host the wedding ceremony in the White House.

On Nov. 29, 1832, the guests assembled at the Executive Mansion where an altar had been set up in the Green Room. The priest who came to marry the couple was Father William Matthews, pastor of St. Patrick’s Church, the first Catholic parish in the nation’s capital. (Father Matthews served the people of St. Patrick’s from 1804 until his death in 1854).

As the first Catholic ceremony conducted in the White House, the Lewis-Pageot wedding was a landmark moment in the history of the Church in the United States.

The second Catholic ceremony occurred a year later when Father Matthews returned to the White House to baptize the Pageots’ son. This time the rite took place in the Red Room.

As a token of affection and respect for the man who had become a second father to her, Mary Anne named her son Andrew Jackson Pageot.

Then came the point in the ceremony when the priest asks the baptismal candidate, through his godparents, the ritual questions. This was all new to President Jackson, so when Father Matthews said, “Andrew Jackson, do you renounce Satan?” Jackson, believing the priest was addressing him, replied in a loud voice, “I do! Most indubitably!”

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