Pioneer Bishops of Minnesota

This blog will discuss bishops that served in Minnesota up to 1900.  For more information about Minnesota, see my blog of March 12, 2017.

The first Catholics to come to what is now Minnesota were French fur traders, including Groseilliers, Radisson, and Du Lhut in the mid- to late-17th century.  Father Louis Hennepin accompanied a party of fur-traders to the Falls of St. Anthony in 1680 (today’s Minneapolis).  Other Frenchmen explored northern Minnesota the same year and the area was claimed by France in 1689.  The French soon established forts on Lake Pepin, one of which, Fort Beauharnois, was established in 1727 near what is now Old Frontenac.  Jesuit missionaries, Michel Guignas and Nicholas de Gonnor, built a small Catholic chapel dedicated to St. Michael the Archangel within the fort, and celebrated the first Mass in Minnesota.  Over the next century, missionaries would occasionally visit the area to attend to the spiritual needs of the few Catholics, including those among the Dakota and Ojibwa tribes. 

Minnesota became part of the United States in three phases—the last of which included northwestern Minnesota in 1818.  The United States Army established Fort Snelling in 1819 at the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers.  A Swiss Catholic colony (Mendota) was established near Fort Snelling in the 1830s and Bishop Mathias Loras of Dubuque, whose diocese included a portion of Minnesota, visited this area in 1839.  The next year, Loras sent a missionary to Minnesota, Father Lucien Galtier, to minister to the 200 or so Catholics in the area.  In 1841, Father Galtier built a log chapel dedicated to St. Paul in a village known as Pig’s Eye, located on a bluff along the northern side of the Mississippi River.

Father Galtier, not surprisingly, did not like the name Pig’s Eye, so he started to call the town St. Paul—after the name of his church.  The name became popular, and the City of St. Paul grew up around this small chapel.  In 1850, shortly after Minnesota became a Territory, Pope Pius IX created the Diocese of St. Paul, which consisted of the current states of Minnesota, and portions of North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.  Minnesota became the 32nd State in 1858.

Meanwhile, in northern Minnesota, in 1835, Bishop Frederick Baraga of Marquette, Michigan, landed on the north shore of a river at the site of present-day Duluth.  Bishop Baraga named the river, Cross River, because he had erected a cross at the site in thanksgiving for a safe crossing of Lake Superior.  German Catholics started settling near St. Cloud in the 1850s and in 1875 Pope Pius IX created the Vicariate of Northern Minnesota to provide the spiritual needs of immigrants and Native Americans.  Rupert Seidenbusch, a Benedictine priest from Germany, served as vicar apostolic of Northern Minnesota from 1875 until 1888.  The following year, Pope Leo XXIII split the Vicar Apostolic of Northern Minnesota into the Dioceses of Duluth and St. Cloud.  Catholic settlement in Southern Minnesota dates to 1683 when Nicolas Perrot established a trading post near what is now Wabasha, but few towns were established in the area until the 1850s.  Bishop Cretin, the first Bishop of St. Paul, established parishes in Mankato and Winona in the mid-1850s.  By 1860, with an influx of immigrants from Ireland, Germany, Poland, and Eastern Europe, there were about 10 parishes.

The population of Minnesota almost doubled between 1880 and 1890.  Minneapolis’ population grew from 47,000 to 165,000 during the decade to become the nation’s 18th largest city.  Similarly, St. Paul’s population increased from 41,000 to 133,000.  The population of the Dakotas tripled during the decade.  In response to this growth, Pope Leo XIII raised the see of St. Paul to the level of an archdiocese in 1888.  The new Province of St. Paul included the states of Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota.  The following year, the Pope created the Dioceses of Duluth, St. Cloud, and Winona, as suffragan sees of the Archdiocese of St. Paul.  Pope Pius X created the Diocese of Crookston in 1909 and Pope Pius XII created the diocese of New Ulm in 1957.  The Archdiocese of St. Paul was renamed as the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis in 1966.  The Diocese of Winona was renamed Winona-Rochester in 2018.

Joseph Cretin was born in France in 1799 and ordained a priest there in 1823.  He had success reviving the Faith among his parishioners, but he longed to be a missionary.  His friend, Mathias Loras, the Bishop of Dubuque, Iowa, invited Cretin to come to the United States.  Cretin did so in 1838.  Cretin served in parishes in Iowa and western Wisconsin until his appointment as the first Bishop of St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1850. 

Bishop Cretin’s new Diocese covered Minnesota and both Dakotas.  There were 1,000 Catholics served by four log churches (in St. Paul, Mendota, and St. Anthony, in Minnesota, and Pembina in North Dakota).  He actively recruited Irish, German, and Canadian Catholics to settle in Minnesota and the Dakotas and he built new churches and schools for them.  He established St. Joseph’s Hospital—the first in Minnesota.  He brought in religious orders, including Benedictine priests and sisters and the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, to teach in the schools and staff hospitals.  He was a leader in the temperance movement, and he built the second and third Cathedrals of St. Paul.  (The current cathedral is the fourth.)  At the time of his death, there were about 50,000 Catholics, 29 churches, and 35 stations in the Diocese.  Bishop Cretin died in 1857.

Thomas L. Grace was born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1814.  He studied in Cincinnati, Kentucky, and Rome, and was ordained a Dominican priest in Rome in 1839.  Grace was the first South Carolinian to be ordained a Catholic priest.  Grace returned to the United States in 1844 and served in churches first in Kentucky and then for 13 years in Memphis.  Grace was appointed Bishop of St. Paul in 1859.

Bishop Grace was a skilled administrator who worked to increase vocations, improve Catholic education, and he wrote a constitution to govern the Diocese.  He also built schools, hospitals, and homes for orphans and the elderly, and gave special attention to Native Americans and immigrants.  Grace established lay organizations and a Diocesan newspaper to counter anti-Catholic attacks by the Know-Nothing party.  The Catholic population continued to grow and at the time of the Bishop’s resignation in 1884 due to poor health, numbered 130,000 served by 195 churches and 51 missions.  Grace was given the personal title of Archbishop in 1889 and he died in 1897.

John Ireland was born in Ireland in 1838, moved with his parents to the United States in 1848 and came to St. Paul, Minnesota in 1852.  Ireland was ordained a priest for the Diocese of St. Paul in 1861 and served as a chaplain during the Civil War and then as cathedral rector.  Pope Pius IX appointed Ireland as Vicar Apostolic of Nebraska in 1875, but Bishop Thomas Grace of St. Paul convinced the Pope to appoint Ireland as coadjutor bishop of St. Paul instead.  Thus, Ireland became Bishop of St. Paul upon Bishop Grace’s retirement in 1884.  He became the first Archbishop of St. Paul in 1888.

Archbishop Ireland worked with railroad magnet, James Hill (whose wife was Catholic), to establish Catholic colonies in rural areas, especially for the Irish living in urban slums, along railroad lines.  Ireland, an advocate for total abstinence, banned saloons in the towns.  More than 4,000 Catholic families were resettled in rural Minnesota.  Ireland built both the current Cathedral of St. Paul and the Basilica of St. Mary, helped establish the University of St. Thomas and St. Catherine’s College, founded St. Paul Seminary, and promoted the Catholic University of America.  He devised a creative, though unsuccessful method of public funding for Catholic schools.  He was a leading figure in the Americanist movement—a movement that sought to show that Catholics could be good American citizens while remaining Catholic.  Ireland took progressive stands on labor and race relations.  Ireland gave a sermon in 1890 at St. Augustine’s Church in Washington, DC, an African-American parish, and argued that people should be judged on their own merits and not on their race—a radical concept at the time.  Ireland was not as tolerant of Eastern-rite Catholics.  Ireland would not allow Alexis Toth, a Ruthenian-rite Catholic priest to serve Ruthenian-rite Catholics in Minnesota.  As a result, Toth and many other Ruthenian-rite Catholics left the Church and became Orthodox Christians.  Ireland was regarded as one of the most prominent U.S. Catholics of his time and he eloquently presented his thoughts orally and in writing.  Archbishop Ireland died in 1918.

James McGolrick was born in Ireland in 1841.  Two of his brothers became priests and two of his sisters became religious sisters.  Recruited by Bishop Thomas Grace to come to Minnesota while he was still in seminary, McGolrick completed his studies in Ireland and was ordained a priest for the Diocese of St. Paul in 1867.  Arriving in Minnesota in 1867, he served first at the Cathedral of St. Paul before being assigned as pastor of the new Immaculate Conception parish in Minneapolis.  While in Minneapolis, McGolrick built a new parish church, started an orphan asylum, an abstinence group, and became a trustee of the Minnesota Academy of Science.  McGolrick was appointed first Bishop of Duluth in 1889.

Bishop McGolrick’s new diocese had a Catholic population of 20,000 served by 32 churches and 22 priests.  At the time of his death from acute indigestion in 1918, there were 60,000 Catholics in almost 90 churches served by 59 priests.  There were also 11 parochial schools.  He built a new cathedral in 1894 to replace one destroyed by fire and he also founded St. Mary’s Hospital and St. James Orphanage.  McGolrick also served on Duluth’s library board and park board.

Rupert Seidenbusch was born in 1830 in Munich and came to the United States in 1850.  He finished his seminary training at Saint Vincent Abbey in Pennsylvania and joined the Benedictines in 1852.  He was ordained a priest the following year.  He served at parishes in Pennsylvania until 1857 when he was assigned to a Germany parish in Newark, New Jersey.  He came back to Saint Vincent Abbey as prior in 1862.  In 1866, he became the first abbot of what is now St. John’s Abbey in Minnesota.  He authorized the construction of several Abbey-related buildings and increased the enrollment of St. John’s College from 28 to 150.  Seidenbusch was appointed first (and only) Vicar Apostolic of Northern Minnesota in 1875.

Seidenbusch’s Vicariate was the frontier and consisted of all of northern Minnesota.  One source says that there were more bears and coyotes than people.  Primitive roads were often impassable in winter.  That did not deter Bishop Seidenbusch who traveled throughout the vicariate.  He also built Holy Angels Cathedral in 1884—the original cathedral in St. Cloud.  At the time of his resignation in 1888, the Vicariate had 45,000 people, 70 priests, 140 churches and chapels, 14 convents, and one hospital.  Bishop Seidenbusch died in Virginia in 1895.

Otto Zardetti was born in Switzerland in 1847 although his family was originally from Italy.  He studied in Switzerland and Austria and became fluent in French, English, German, and Italian.  He was ordained a priest in 1870 and was appointed director of an abbey library in Switzerland.  He visited the United States in 1879 and was accepted a teaching position at the seminary in Milwaukee in 1881.  He was appointed the first Bishop of St. Cloud in 1889.  Pope Leo XXIII split the Vicariate of Northern Minnesota into the new Dioceses of St. Cloud and Duluth in 1889.

In 1889, and appointed Otto Zardetti as the first Bishop of St. Cloud.  Bishop Zardetti established a monthly newspaper, promoted Catholic schools, imported priests, and brought Franciscan sisters to Little Falls.  Most Catholics were German, but there were Poles, French-Canadian, and Irish as well.  Nearly all were poor and were often in isolated parishes serving a particular ethnic group.  Churches and schools were built through hard work and sacrifice by these good people.  Bishop Zardetti worked to unite his Diocese and was also known as being a good homilist.  Bishop Zardetti grew tired of the difficulties of travel within his Diocese, and he had health issues that were aggravated by the Minnesota climate.  He returned to Europe in 1894 and was named Archbishop of Bucharest, Romania, the same year.  His health led him to resign as archbishop in 1895 and he accepted a position in Rome.  He wished to return to St. Cloud but was not healthy enough to do so and he died in 1902. 

Martin Marty was born in Switzerland in 1834 and was ordained a Benedictine priest there in 1856.  His Swiss abbot sent him to take charge of St. Meinrad’s Abbey in Indiana in 1860.  He was successful there and in 1876 was sent to the Dakota Territory to work in the Native American missions.  The Native Americans referred to him as Black Robe Lean Chief and he often traveled long distances in harsh conditions.  Pope Leo XIII appointed him Vicar Apostolic of the Dakota Territory in 1879 and he became the first Bishop of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, in 1889.  He was named Bishop of St. Cloud, Minnesota, in 1894.  Bishop Marty served slightly more than a year in St. Cloud before his death in 1896.  His major contribution there was the incorporation of parishes.  At a time and place when churches and schools were often built by the labor and funds of the parishioners, there was often confusion about parish ownership and finances.  Incorporation legally brought the parishes into control of the Diocese.

James Trobec was born in Slovenia in 1838 as Jakob Trobez.  He initially entered seminary in his native land, but he and 15 other seminarians were recruited to come to America.  Trobec arrived in 1864 and completed his training in Pennsylvania.  He was ordained a priest for the Diocese of St. Paul in 1865 and served in parishes n Belle Prairie and Wabasha until 1887.  He was then assigned by Archbishop Ireland to establish a new parish—St. Agnes for German-speaking people in St. Paul.  He built a church and a school and was in the process of building a larger church when he was appointed Bishop of St. Cloud in 1897.

Bishop Trobec found a Diocese that was no longer on the frontier—transportation and commercial systems were well in place.  It was a period of great growth and the number of parishes, priests, and Catholic students nearly doubled while he was Bishop.  Trobec retired in 1914 due to ill health at which time the Diocese had 123 parishes and 25 schools.  He spent his retirement living with his sisters and a nephew, who was the pastor of the parish in St. Stephen, Minnesota.  Trobec had two other nephews who were priests in Minnesota.  Trobec died in 1921.

Joseph B. Cotter was born in England in 1844 and moved with his family to the United States in 1849.  The family lived in New York City and Cleveland before settling in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1855.  Cotter attended seminaries in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota, before being ordained a priest for the Diocese of St. Paul in 1871.  Cotter was serving as pastor of what became St. Thomas Cathedral in Winona when he was named the first Bishop of Winona in 1889.

As bishop, he increased the number of parishes in the diocese from 45 to 72, the number of diocesan priests from 45 to 85, and the number of Catholic school students from 2,700 to 4,600.  Bishop Cotter also invited orders of religious sisters to work in the Diocese.  Mother Alfred Moes had already moved her Sisters of St. Francis to Rochester, Minnesota, in 1882.  They opened what later became the College of St. Teresa in Winona in 1894.  Mother Alfred also wanted to build a hospital in Rochester and worked with local physicians William Mayo and his sons William and Charles to open St. Mary’s Hospital 1889.  This hospital evolved into the Mayo Clinic.  Bishop Cotter died in 1909 of a heart condition.

Basilicas in Western Belgium

Basilica of Our Lady of Dadizele, Dadizele, West Flanders

Declared a minor basilica by Pope Leo XIII in 1882.

The neo-Gothic Basilica was built between 1857 and 1867 and replaced a 15th Century Gothic church that was a pilgrimage destination.  The Basilica has a 15th Century Madonna made of alabaster.

All pictures are from Wikipedia.

Basilica of Our Lady of Good Help, Bon-Secours, Hainaut

Declared a minor basilica by Pope Pius X in 1910.

The Neo-Gothic Basilica was built between 1885 and 1892 on the site of an oak tree that once had a statue of Our Lady.  Pilgrimages date to the Middle Ages.  The current statue was carved from the wood of the oak tree that died in the 17th Century.

All pictures are from the Basilica website.

Holy Savior Cathedral Basilica, Bruge, West Flanders

Declared a minor basilica by Pope Pius XI in 1921.

The Basilica is the Cathedral for the Diocese of Bruges.  The Romanesque church was constructed over a one-hundred-year period starting in 1250.  Originally a parish church, it did not become the Cathedral until 1834 at which time improvements were made.  It has artwork from the former cathedral which was destroyed by the French in the 19th Century.

The first picture is from a local website and the others are from Wikipedia.

Basilica of the Holy Blood, Bruge, West Flanders

Declared a minor basilica by Pope Pius XI in 1923.

Thierry of Alsace, Count of Flanders, built the current Basilica between 1134 and 1157 as a chapel and to contain a relic of Christ’s Holy Blood.  Thierry had participated in the Second Crusade and obtained the relic from his brother-in-law in Jerusalem.  The church has two chapels.  The Romanesque lower chapel is dedicated to St. Basil the Great.  The upper chapel, which contains the Precious Blood, was originally built in a Romanesque style, but was changed to a Gothic style in the 16th Century and to a Gothic Revival style in the 19th Century.  The reliquary used to hold the phial with the Precious Blood contains 66 pounds of gold and silver and has more than 100 precious stones.

The first picture is from Flickr and the rest from Wikipedia.

Basilica of Our Lady of Lourdes, Oostakker, East Flanders

Declared a minor basilica by Pope Pius XI in 1924. 

A grotto dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes was built on the estate of a member of the royal family in 1873.  Local people requested that they be allowed to visit the Grotto especially after a reputed healing attributed to Our Lady’s intercession in 1875.  As a result, the current neo-Gothic church was completed in 1876 and given to the Jesuits.  It is the most important pilgrimage destination in Flanders.

All pictures are from Wikipedia.

Abbatial Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul, Dendermonde, East Flanders

Declared a minor basilica by Pope Pius XI in 1938.

Dendermonde Abbey is a Benedictine monastery founded in 1837.  The Abbey became a center for a Belgian Liturgical Movement between 1890 and 1910.  The Abbey church was built in 1901-1902 but was heavily damaged by fire in 1914.  It was renovated in a Flemish neo-Renaissance style between 1919 and 1924.

From Wikipedia.

Basilica of Our Lady of Tongre, Tongre-Notre-Dame, Hainaut

Declared a minor basilica by Pope Pius XII in 1951.

An image of the Madonna mysteriously appeared at this site in 1081.  Pilgrims soon started coming to the site and the image was moved to the parish church.  A chapel was later built at the original site and a Gothic church was built in the 13th Century.  The current Baroque church was built in 1777.  Pilgrims, including Belgian royalty and other European royalty, have donated jewels and other precious objects to Our Lady.

 

The first two pictures are from Wikipedia and the last two are from local sources.

Abbatial Basilica of St. Andrew’s, Sint-Andries, West Flanders

Declared a minor basilica by Pope Pius XII in 1952.

St. Andrew’s Abbey is a Benedictine monastery founded in the 12th Century.  The Basilica, which is the Abbey church, was built around 1900 in a neo-Romanesque style.  The church has seven chapels, one for each of the “seven great churches in Rome.” 

From Wikipedia.

Basilica of Our Lady of Good Hope, Vellereille-les-Brayeux, Hainaut

Declared a minor basilica by Pope Pius XII in 1957.

Bonne-Esperance (Good Hope) Abbey was a Premonstratensian abbey that existed from 1130 until the French Revolution in the late 18th Century.  It now serves as a diocesan seminary and the seminary church dates to at least the early 17th Century.

All pictures are from Wikipedia.

Basilica of St. Hermes, Ronse, East Flanders

Declared a minor basilica by Pope Francis in 2018.

There have been several churches on this site to hold relics of St. Hermes.  The first church was built in the 9th Century and was replaced in the 12th Century.  This church was burnt by the English in 1424 and replaced with the current Gothic church over the next century. 

All pictures are from Wikipedia.

 

Pioneer Bishops of Michigan

This blog will discuss bishops that served in Michigan up to 1900.  For more information about Michigan, see my blog of March 31, 2018.

The first Europeans to visit Michigan were the Jesuit priests, Charles Raymbault and (now Saint) Isaac Jogues who came as missionaries to the Native Americans living near what is now Sault Ste. Marie in 1641.  Throughout the rest of the 17th Century, other missionaries, such as Marquette, Menard, Allouez, Nouvel, Dollier, and Hennepin, established missions for the conversion of the Native Americans at various locations including Sault Ste. Marie, St. Ignace, Keweenaw Bay, Thunder Bay, Niles, and Saginaw.  The French established a fort at Detroit in 1701.

The British gained control of Michigan by 1761 and as a result, many of the French settlers left and Catholic missionary activity was curtailed.  Michigan became part of the United States following the American Revolution (except for Detroit and Mackinac which remained British until 1796).  Congress created the Northwest Territory in 1787, which included Michigan.  The Lower Peninsula and part of the Upper Peninsula became the Michigan Territory in 1805, which by 1810 only had a population of about 4,800.  By 1820, the population was only 8,100 (including about 2,000 Catholics), but between 1830 and 1840 the population rose from 32,000 to 212,000 as European immigrants settled in Michigan.  All of what is now Michigan became the 26th State in 1837.

Pope Gregory XVI created the Diocese of Detroit in 1833.  Detroit then was Michigan’s capital and largest city (with over 2,000 people).  The Diocese initially included what are now the states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, and parts of North and South Dakota.  Pope Pius IX established the Vicariate Apostolic of Upper Michigan in 1853, which became the Diocese of Sault Ste. Marie in 1857, the Diocese of Sault Ste. Marie and Marquette in 1865, and the Diocese of Marquette in 1937.  Pope Leo XIII made southwestern Michigan the Diocese of Grand Rapids in 1882.  Michigan’s population grew from 2.4 million in 1900 to 5.3 million in 1940 and in response, Pope Pius XI raised Detroit to an Archdiocese in 1937 and created the Dioceses of Lansing in 1937 and Saginaw in 1938.  By 1970, Michigan’s population has risen to 8.9 million and Pope Paul VI created the Dioceses of Gaylord and Kalamazoo in 1971.

Gabriel Richard will be an exception to my discussion of bishops.  Many expected him to be named the first Bishop of Detroit, but he died while caring for cholera victims during an 1832 epidemic, six months before Detroit became a diocese.  He nevertheless had an interesting life.  Father Richard was born in France in 1767, ordained a Sulpician priest in 1790, and came to the United States in 1792.  After serving in Baltimore and Kaskaskia, Illinois, he was transferred to Ste. Anne’s Church in Detroit in 1798.  He would remain in Detroit for over 30 years.  He opened a school that was destroyed by a widespread fire in 1805 and started a food program to help the people of Detroit who had lost everything.  He then wrote what became Detroit’s official motto: “We hope for better things; it will arise from the ashes.”

Richard’s ministry extended to Native American tribes in the area.  He was imprisoned by the British after they captured Detroit during the War of 1812, because he would not swear an oath of loyalty to the King.  He was released after Shawnee chief Tucumseh refused to fight for the British while Richard was still imprisoned.

Father Richard brought the first printing press to Michigan and in 1809 published a newspaper, which was the first in Michigan and the first Catholic newspaper in the United States.  In 1817, he co-founded what is now the University of Michigan—he served as vice president and taught classes in six of the university’s 13 departments.  He served on the university’s board of trustees until his death.  Richard was elected in 1823 to represent the Michigan Territory in the U.S. House of Representatives—the first Catholic priest so honored.  He only served one term, but managed to secure funding for a highway from Detroit to Chicago—today’s Michigan Avenue in Detroit (and part of U.S. 12).  

Frederick J. C. Rese was born to a poor family in Germany in 1791.  He apprenticed as a tailor and later became a soldier and fought against Napoleon in the 1815 Battle of Waterloo.  After his days as a soldier ended, he went to seminary in Rome where he was ordained a priest in 1823.  Shortly after his ordination, he met Bishop Edward Fenwick of Cincinnati who recruited him for his Diocese.  Rese arrived in Cincinnati in 1825 and soon became the vicar general of the Diocese.  He returned to Europe in 1828 and spent the next three years recruiting clergy and religious and encouraging immigrants to the United States.  Rese was named the first Bishop of Detroit in 1833—the first German-born U.S. bishop.  The Diocese at that time included Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and part of the Dakotas.  There were 8 churches and one mission served by 11 priests.  He established Holy Trinity Church in Detroit for English-speaking Catholics, and other new parishes and schools.  He built a hospital and other charitable institutions and brought the Poor Clares to establish a convent and school.  By 1838, there were about 22,000 Catholics in the Diocese, half of whom were French speaking.  In 1840, Rese began suffering from a mental illness (perhaps caused by alcohol abuse).  He was recalled to Rome and Peter Lefevere was named coadjutor bishop and apostolic administrator.  Rese lived the rest of his life in Germany and officially remained Bishop of Detroit until his death in 1871.

Peter Paul Lefevere was born in Belgium in 1804 and came to the United States in 1828.  He was ordained a priest for the Diocese of St. Louis in 1831 and spent the next decade as a missionary priest in Missouri, Illinois, and Iowa.  Lefevere was appointed coadjutor bishop and apostolic administrator of Detroit in 1841, although he never became Bishop of Detroit because he died before Bishop Rese.  Bishop Lefevere took over a Diocese that (by 1843) included only the State of Michigan and had 24,000 Catholics, served by 30 churches and 18 priests.  Lefevere established fiscal control in the Diocese, opened a seminary, and built a new cathedral.  He brought in religious orders to open schools and charitable institutions, including St. Joseph's Retreat in Dearborn, which was run by the Daughters of Charity and was Michigan's first and the nation's second hospital to care exclusively for the mentally ill.  He also established a Diocesan newspaper (now the Michigan Catholic) and was one of the bishops primarily responsible for the American College at Louvain in Belgium—a seminary to train European men to serve as priests in America and to offer training to American priests.  He also gained control of church property under an 1867 Michigan law.  He was especially attentive to the needs of Native American Catholics.  He died in 1869 at which time there were 150,000 Catholics in the Diocese, 80 churches, and 88 priests.

Casper H. Borgess was born in Germany in 1826 and came to the United States as a child.  He was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Cincinnati in 1848 and served in Columbus until 1859, when he was named cathedral rector in Cincinnati.  Borgess was named coadjutor bishop and apostolic administrator of Detroit in 1870 after the death of Bishop Lefevere and was named second Bishop of Detroit in 1871 after the death of Bishop Rese.  Bishop Borgess helped establish what is now the University of Detroit Mercy and SS. Cyril and Methodius Seminary.  He also established the Diocese’s first St. Vincent de Paul Society in 1871 at St. Patrick’s Church.  He attempted to increase the number of U.S.-born priests and bring discipline to all of his priests, which sometimes caused conflict with European-born priests who made up almost half of his clergy.  He also fought the Michigan legislature over its attempts to force lay control of parishes and he established the first Diocesan school board.  At the time of his resignation in 1887, due to poor health, the Diocese, reduced in size by the creation of the Dioceses of Grand Rapids and what is now Marquette, had 120,000 Catholics served by about 90 churches and 60 schools.  He died in 1890.

John S. Foley was born in Baltimore in 1833 to parents who had been born in Ireland.  His older brother, Thomas, served as apostolic administrator and coadjutor bishop of Chicago.  John Foley was educated in Maryland until 1853 when his archbishop sent him to complete his studies in Rome.  He was ordained in Rome for the Archdiocese of Baltimore in 1856.  He returned to Maryland in 1857 and served in parishes in Baltimore and Ellicott City.  A childhood friend of Cardinal James Gibbons of Baltimore, Foley was secretary of the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore in 1884 and co-authored the Baltimore Catechism.  He was nominated to be the Bishop of Wilmington, Delaware, in 1886, but was rejected by the Vatican.  He was appointed the third Bishop of Detroit in 1888.

Bishop Foley was Detroit’s first American-born bishop and he led the Diocese for 30 years during a time when whites came from Europe and African Americans came from the South to work in Detroit’s new automotive industry.  He established the Diocese’s first Eastern-rite Catholic parish in 1908 and the first African American parish in 1911.  He also helped establish the League of Catholic Women in 1906 and what is now Marygrove College in 1910.  Foley established a seminary for Polish Americans and also resolved a schism among Polish American Catholics.  At the time of Foley’s death in 1918, the Diocese had 386,000 Catholics served by 318 priests, 246 churches, and 102 parish schools.

I. Frederick Baraga was born in what is now Slovenia in 1797 to a wealthy family.  Unfortunately, both his parents died by the time he turned 15.  He graduated from the University of Vienna law school in 1821 and then entered the seminary.  He was ordained in 1823 by the Bishop of Ljubljana (Slovenia) and served in parishes in the Diocese.  Bishop Edward Fenwick of Cincinnati requested European priests to come to the United States and Baraga decided to answer the call.  He arrived in Cincinnati in January 1831 and began ministering to German immigrants.  He also began the study of the Ottawa language and in May 1831 was sent to Michigan to master the language.  Baraga spent the next two decades bringing the Faith to the Ottawa and Ojibway tribes and to other Native Americans throughout Michigan and along the southern shore of Lake Superior (modern day Michigan and Wisconsin), traveling on foot and by canoe during the summer and on snowshoes during the winter, which he did well into his sixties.  He wrote several publications in Native American languages, including the first Objibwe grammar and dictionary, catechism, and prayer books, and the first book written in the Ottawa language—a catechism and prayer book.  He wrote many other publications as well—he spoke seven languages—and by the 1840s began to minister to European immigrants who came to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to mine iron and copper. 

Baraga was named Bishop of the Apostolic Vicariate of Upper Michigan (a missionary diocese) in 1853, which became the Diocese of Sault Ste. Marie in 1857 and the Diocese of Sault Ste. Marie and Marquette in 1865.  (Today it is the Diocese of Marquette.)  When he became a bishop in 1853, his apostolic vicariate had three churches and two other priests, but he greatly increased both numbers by the time of his death.  Baraga wrote letters to the Society for the Propagation of the Faith describing his missionary activities.  These letters were widely distributed throughout Europe and inspired John Neumann (later Bishop of Philadelphia and now a canonized saint) and Francis Xavier Pierz (a missionary in Minnesota) to come to the United States.  Baraga was known for his saintliness throughout his life—he got up every morning at 3:30 a.m., to pray for three hours.  Bishop Baraga died in 1868 after suffering several strokes and is buried at St. Peter Cathedral in Marquette.  Baraga was raised to the status of Venerable by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012—the second step toward canonization.  The U.S. Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp honoring Baraga in 1984.

Ignatius Mrak was born in Slovenia in 1810 and was ordained a priest in Ljubljana in 1837.  He served as an assistant pastor and as a tutor to the son of a baron before coming to Detroit in 1845 to be a missionary.  He was sent by Bishop Peter Lefevere to serve at churches in the very northern part of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan.  He soon learned to speak the Ottawa language.  This part of Michigan came under the auspices of the new Apostolic Vicariate of Upper Michigan in 1853 and became the Diocese of Sault Sainte Marie in 1857.  Mrak was appointed vicar general of the Diocese in 1859 and was named Bishop of the newly named Diocese of Sault Saint Marie and Marquette in 1868 after the death of Bishop Baraga.  Reluctant to accept the position, Mrak did not respond to the Pope’s letters for a few months but finally accepted in 1869.

Mrak took over a diocese that had 20,000 Catholics served by 14 priests.  Mrak continued his work with Native American missions, worked to improve the education of his priests, opened schools, and sought lay participation in the administration of parishes.  His health failed—he suffered from rheumatism—and he was allowed to resign as bishop in 1879.  At that time, the Diocese had 27 churches and 20 priests.  He eventually regained his health and returned to the Indian missions where he served until 1891.  Bishop Mrak spent the last years of his life in Marquette serving as a hospital chaplain and he died in 1901. 

John Vertin was born in 1844 in what is now Slovenia.  His father, a merchant, brought the family to Michigan in 1852, but they returned to Slovenia in 1857.  The family returned to the United States in 1863 and Vertin entered seminary in Wisconsin in 1864.  He was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Sault Sainte Marie and Marquette in 1866—he was the last priest ordained by Bishop Baraga.  He served as pastor in Houghton and Negaunee before being named Bishop of Sault Sainte Marie and Marquette in 1879.  He was the youngest U.S. Catholic bishop at the time.

Bishop Vertin built new parishes to keep up population growth caused by ore and timber booms—partially with his own money.  He built the current St. Peter’s Cathedral (after a fire destroyed the previous Cathedral), as well as three high schools and four hospitals.  He also convened a synod in 1889 that created a fund to help infirm priests and that required Catholic children to attend Catholic schools.  Bishop Vertin died in 1899.  Over his 20 years as bishop, the Catholic population rose from 20,000 to 60,000, the number of churches from 27 to 56, and the number of priests from 20 to 62.

Frederick Eis was born in Germany in 1843—the youngest of four children.  His family moved to Wisconsin in 1855, then to Minnesota, before settling in Rockland, Michigan.  He attended seminary in Milwaukee and Quebec before being ordained a priest for the Diocese of Sault Sainte Marie and Marquette in 1870.  He served in parishes in northern Michigan until 1890 when his health failed.  For the next four years, he spent summers in Michigan, but winters in California and Colorado.  In 1894, he resumed pastoral work and in 1899 was appointed Bishop of Sault Sainte Marie and Marquette.  Bishop Eis convened a Diocesan synod in 1905 and built several hospitals and homes for the needy.  He also actively encouraged vocations to the priesthood and religious life.  Eis retired in 1922 and died in 1926.

Henry J. Richter was born in what is now Germany in 1838 and came to Cincinnati in 1854.  He was educated in Ohio and Kentucky before going to the Pontifical North American College in Rome in 1860.  He was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati in 1865.  He spent his first years as a priest as a seminary professor and administrator as well as a chaplain to a religious order.  He was appointed pastor of a Cincinnati parish in 1870 and was named first Bishop of Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1883. 

Bishop Richter organized the new Diocese and established the Seminary of St. Joseph in 1909.  He also helped establish Nazareth College in Kalamazoo and brought in Dominican Sisters from New York to establish an orphanage and Aquinas College in Grand Rapids.  Richter invited the Sisters of Mercy to establish what is now Mercy Health Saint Mary’s Hospital in Grand Rapids and Mercy Health in Muskegon.  During Bishop Richter’s tenure, the number of Catholics in the Diocese increased from 50,000 to 150,000, and Richter was able to increase the number of churches from 33 to 56, the number of schools from 17 to 38, and the number of priests from 36 to 75.  Bishop Richter died after a short illness in 1916.

Pioneer Bishops of Massachusetts

This blog will discuss bishops that served in Massachusetts up to 1900.  For more information about Massachusetts, see my blog of September 17, 2017.

Various European explorers visited what is now Massachusetts, possibly as early as the year 1000, but colonization did not occur until the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth in 1620 and the Puritans established the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1628.  The Pilgrims and the Puritans were Protestant fundamentalists who thought the Church of England had not done enough to rid itself of all vestiges of Catholicism and thus they were highly intolerant of Catholics.  Early laws prohibited any practice of Catholicism, which meant that there were few Catholics in the colony until after the American Revolution.  The Massachusetts colony was a theocracy and anti-Catholic laws were not repealed until well into the 19th Century—well after Massachusetts became the sixth State in 1788.

There were enough French and Irish Catholics in Boston to establish the first parish in New England in 1788.  Pope Pius VII created the Diocese of Boston in 1808—one of the first six U.S. dioceses—to serve all of New England.  Boston was then the fourth largest city in the United States.  Large numbers of Irish came to Massachusetts in the first half of the 19th Century and especially in the 1840s.  By 1853, Catholics made up 40 percent of Boston’s population, and by 1900, well over half the population of Boston was Catholic.  The population of the State doubled between 1810 and 1850 and more than tripled between 1850 and 1910.  Pope Pius IX raised Boston to an Archdiocese in 1875. 

Catholics settled in other parts of Massachusetts as well.  Irish immigrants started arriving in western Massachusetts by the 1820s to build railroads and canals and to work in factories.  Massachusetts Catholics received full political liberty in 1820.  By 1840, parishes had been established in Worcester and Chicopee.  The Irish were followed by other immigrants, including French Canadians, Italians, Lithuanians, and Poles.  Pope Pius IX created the Diocese of Springfield in 1870 to serve the western part of the State.  Pope Pius XII created the Diocese of Worcester in 1950.  Catholics had settled in southeastern Massachusetts as well.  Parishes were established in New Bedford in 1821 and Fall River in 1838.  Large numbers of immigrants, especially from Portugal and Cape Verde, came here around 1900.  Between 1890 and 1910, eight parishes were established in both Fall River and New Bedford to serve the new immigrants.  Pope Pius X established the Diocese of Fall River in 1904—Fall River was the State’s third largest city at that time.

John L. de Cheverus was born in France in 1768 and ordained a priest there in 1790.  He fled to England in 1792 to escape the French Revolution and came to Boston in 1796.  He and another priest ministered to a small number of French and Irish Catholics in Boston and a group of Native American Catholics in northern Maine—he spoke several Native American languages.  Cheverus built Holy Cross Church on Franklin Street in 1803, which became his Cathedral in 1808 when he was named the first Bishop of Boston.  Bishop Cheverus traveled throughout his Diocese, often on foot, which included all of New England, to spread the Faith and administer the Sacraments. As if he wasn’t busy enough, he also served as apostolic administrator of New York from 1810 to 1815.  

Perhaps Cheverus’ greatest accomplishment was gaining the respect of Boston’s Protestants, who had often viewed Catholics negatively.  Cheverus first earned Protestants’ respect for his care of all people during a yellow fever epidemic in 1798.  Over the years, he befriended John Adams and other political leaders and several Protestant ministers—some Puritan ministers invited him to preach in their churches.  Many non-Catholics financially supported the construction of Holy Cross Church.  He also made a number of converts to the Faith.  Cheverus also supported the establishment of the first U.S. chartered savings bank in 1816 to inspire thrift among Catholics.  He returned to France in 1823 at the request of the French king and was appointed Bishop of Montauban, France in 1824.  He later became Cardinal-Archbishop of Bordeaux, and he died in 1836.  

Benedict J. Fenwick was born in 1782 into a Maryland Catholic family that traced its roots to the original Catholic settlers of Maryland.  His older brother became a prominent Jesuit priest, and his cousin Edward became Bishop of Cincinnati.  Fenwick enrolled at Georgetown College (now University) in Washington, DC, in 1793 and eventually became a professor.  He entered seminary in 1805 and was ordained a Jesuit priest in 1808.   Fenwick had a busy priesthood, first serving in New York at St. Peter’s Church, then the only Catholic church in New York City.  He later served as pastor of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York, started a school that was located “far out in the country” and now the location of the current St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and served for a time as apostolic administrator for the Diocese of New York.  He also spent time in Washington, where he served as president of Georgetown College and pastor of Holy Trinity Church, and in Charleston, South Carolina, where he was sent to settle a dispute between English and French parishioners of St. Mary’s Church.

Fenwick was appointed Bishop of Boston in 1825 at which time his diocese consisted of all of New England with less than 10,000 Catholics, four churches, and two other priests.  Unfortunately, much of the goodwill between Catholics and Protestants brought about by Bishop Cheverus was quickly disappearing with the immigration of large numbers of Irish Catholics to the area.  An Ursuline convent and school near Boston was attacked by a mob of 2,000 Protestants in 1834 who burned the convent to the ground causing the nuns to flee and eventually move to Canada.  Riots broke out in 1837 and a Catholic church in Vermont was burned in 1838.  Fenwick received death threats, but tried to diminish the hatred through lectures and the publication of pamphlets explaining Catholicism to Protestants.  Fenwick established a seminary, built schools, and established a Jesuit college—Holy Cross—in Worcester in 1843.  He established a weekly Catholic newspaper (now known at The Pilot)—one of the nation’s first—and invited religious orders, including the Ursuline Sisters and the Sisters of Charity, to establish schools and orphanages and serve the poor.  Fenwick also established rules and procedures for the Diocese.  Fenwick died of a heart condition in 1846 at which time the Diocese, then consisting of the four northern New England States, had 70,000 Catholics served by about 40 priests and 40 churches.

John B. Fitzpatrick was born in Boston in 1812, seven years after his parents left Ireland.  His father was a tailor, and his maternal grandfather was an American Revolutionary War veteran.  Fitzpatrick attended seminary in Montreal and Paris and was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Boston in Paris in 1840.  He served at parishes in the Boston area and was named coadjutor bishop of Boston in 1843 and became the third Bishop of Boston in 1846 upon the death of Bishop Benedict Fenwick.

Bishop Fitzpatrick served at a difficult time for Irish Catholics in New England.  Many new Irish immigrants came there as a result of the potato famine in the late 1840s and were often met with hostility by non-Catholics.  In 1854, mobs burned three churches in Massachusetts, Maine, and New Hampshire, and tarred and feathered a priest in Maine.  Bishop Fitzpatrick urged Catholics to obey the law and he resorted to legal action to protect the rights of Catholics.  Catholics (especially the Irish) became more socially prominent and financially prosperous after the Civil War and Bishop Fitzpatrick was able to get Catholics to serve on Boston’s school board to prevent further mistreatment of Catholic students in public schools (usually administered by Protestants).  Fitzpatrick established orphanages and over 70 new churches and was responsible for founding Boston College in 1863.  He also established lay organizations in the Diocese such as Sodality and the Society for the Propagation of the Faith and started building more parish schools. Fitzpatrick appointed James Healy, the first African American to be ordained a priest, as the first chancellor of the Diocese in 1855.  Bishop Fitzpatrick died in 1866.

John J. Williams was born in Boston in 1822 to Irish immigrant parents.  He attended a seminary in Montreal from 1833 to 1841 and then attended a seminary in Paris.  He was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Boston in 1845.  Williams served first at Holy Cross Cathedral in Boston and eventually became rector.  He later became pastor of St. James parish and Vicar General of the Diocese.  He was appointed coadjutor bishop of Boston in 1866 and a month later became Bishop upon the death of Bishop Fitzpatrick.  Williams became the first Archbishop of Boston in 1875.

Archbishop Williams spent much of his time accommodating the large numbers of immigrants coming to Massachusetts.  His diocese grew from 300,000 Catholics in 1866 to 600,000 thirty years later, despite the creation of new dioceses, and he often dedicated as many as ten new churches each year.  These immigrants were not only Irish, but included French Canadian, Italian, Portuguese, Scottish, German, Syrian, Lithuanian, and Polish Catholics—all of whom wanted priests that spoke their language and parishes that respected their culture.  Archbishop Williams often stood up to those who oppressed the new immigrants.  A sign of changing times was the election in 1885 of Hugh O’Brien, Boston’s first Catholic mayor.  Williams established many new schools, hospitals and orphanages, St. John's Seminary at Brighton, and dedicated the new Cathedral of the Holy Cross.  He created a marriage tribunal and centralized control of Catholic schools.  He was one of the bishops most responsible for the establishment of the North American College in Rome.  Archbishop Williams died in 1907.

Patrick T. O’Reilly was born in Ireland in 1833 and he and his family later moved to Boston.  He attended seminary in Maryland and was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Boston in 1857.  After ordination, he served at parishes in Worcester and Boston before being named the first Bishop of Springfield in 1870.  At the time, he was the youngest bishop in the United States.  Bishop O’Reilly saw the number of Diocesan Catholics more than double and he ordained 150 new priests, opened 53 parishes, built 28 schools, and invited over 300 nuns to work in the Diocese.  He helped establish the hospital of the Sisters of Providence in Holyoke and the orphan homes in Holyoke and Worcester.  He died in 1892 of nephritis.

Thomas D. Beaven was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1851, and graduated from what is now Holy Cross University in 1870.  After attending seminary in Montreal, he was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Springfield in 1875.  He served as a pastor in Spencer and later in Holyoke before being named the second Bishop of Springfield in 1892.  Bishop Beaven established several organizations to serve the needy, including homes for infants, orphans, single working women, and the elderly.  He built four hospitals, started a monthly diocesan newspaper, and encouraged many priestly and religious vocations.  Beaven also started parishes for Poles, Italians, Lithuanians, Slovaks, and Maronite-rite Catholics.  He traveled around Springfield by trolley rather than by his private carriage.  He died in 1920.

Pioneer Bishops of Maryland

This blog will discuss bishops that served in Maryland up to 1900.  For more information about Maryland, see my blog of February 11, 2017.

Sir George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, converted to Catholicism in 1625.  He dreamed of an English colony in the New World where Catholics could practice their faith without hindrance.  He did not live to see it, but his son, Cecilius, the second Lord Baltimore, did.  King Charles I, a Protestant, granted Cecilius Calvert proprietorship of the Maryland colony in 1632 and named officially after Charles’ queen, Henrietta Maria, a Catholic (but many Catholics know that Maryland is named for the Virgin Mary).  Calvert came to Maryland to secure his property, accompanied by Father Andrew White, who said the first Mass in Maryland on March 25, 1634.  The original colonists consisted of about 20 “gentlemen,” mostly Catholic, and about 250 craftsmen and laborers, mostly Protestant.  At a time when Catholics and Protestants in England rarely got along, this was a noble experiment. 

The good will that existed in Maryland between the religions would wax and wane.  Protestants from Virginia attacked St. Mary’s City, the Maryland capital, in 1644, forcing Calvert and many of his Catholic colonists to flee.  Calvert later regained control, and in 1649, the Maryland legislature enacted the Act Concerning Religion, the first time a government had permitted freedom of worship.  The following year, Puritans, who had been allowed by the Maryland colony to escape persecution in Virginia and to establish a town (now Annapolis), started a rebellion.  They gained control of Maryland and began to persecute Catholics and Anglicans.  The Puritan government, supported by Oliver Cromwell’s rule in England, repealed the Act Concerning Religion in 1654.  Lord Baltimore once again gained control of the colony in 1658 and the Act Concerning Religion was restored.

Religious toleration was allowed in Maryland during the reigns of King Charles II and King James II, but ended with the reign of William and Mary starting in 1689.  Catholics were once again persecuted in Maryland.  Laws prohibited Catholics from voting, from holding public office, or practicing their Faith, and priests were not allowed to exercise their sacred duties.  These laws were not always enforced and Catholics were usually allowed to attend Mass in their homes or in homes owned by priests.  Some Catholics chose to leave Maryland during this time—but many stayed—the Catholic population, estimated to be about 5,000 in 1670, had risen to about 12,000 by 1770.  These Catholics were served by a handful of Jesuit priests.

The American Revolution finally brought lasting freedom of religion for all Americans in the former English colonies.  Pope Pius VI created the Apostolic Prefecture of the United States in 1784 to separate the American church from London authorities.  John Carroll, a Maryland priest, was named the Apostolic Prefect, and in 1789, Pope Pius VI named Carroll to be the first Bishop of Baltimore—the Diocese of Baltimore was the entire United States.  At the time, there were less than 30,000 Catholics in the United States—16,000 in Maryland and 7,000 in Pennsylvania.  Most of these Catholics were English and many were from the middle or upper classes.  The immigrant Church was still several decades away.

Pope Pius VII named Carroll the first U.S. archbishop in 1808.  All of Maryland remained part of the Archdiocese of Baltimore until 1868 when the Eastern Shore counties became part of the Diocese of Wilmington, Delaware.  Five Maryland counties and the District of Columbia became the Archdiocese of Washington in 1939.

John Carroll was born in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, in 1736, and was ordained a Jesuit priest in France in 1761.  He was a cousin of Charles Carroll, the only Catholic to sign the Declaration of Independence.  After ordination, Carroll remained in Europe teaching at a seminary until 1773 when he returned to Maryland.  He established St. John the Evangelist parish in Silver Spring the following year.  At the request of the Continental Congress, he accompanied his cousin Charles, Benjamin Franklin, and Samuel Chase in 1776 to Quebec hoping to have Quebec join the revolution against the English.  The mission was unsuccessful, but Carroll earned a patron in Franklin.  Carroll and other former Jesuits (the order had been suppressed around the world) met at what is now Sacred Heart Church in Bowie starting in 1783 to organize the U.S. Catholic church.  The following year, Pope Pius VI, at the recommendation of Franklin, appointed Carroll as Superior of the Missions in the United States (or Apostolic Prefect) with at least some of the authority of a bishop.

Pope Pius VI allowed U.S. priests to elect a bishop and they voted overwhelmingly for Carroll and he was appointed by the Pope to be the first Bishop of Baltimore in 1789.  He was named by Pope Pius VII to be the first Archbishop of Baltimore in 1808.  He established Georgetown College (now University) in Washington, St. Mary's Seminary in Baltimore, and Mount St. Mary's College and Seminary in Emmitsburg, as well as schools for girls in Maryland, the District of Columbia, and Kentucky, some run by Elizabeth Seton.  He organized the clergy in the United States, which included dealing with a number of “problem” priests, some of whom had come from Europe without an understanding of American ways.  He ordained new priests, including Stephen Badin, the first priest ordained in the United States.  He brought many religious orders to the United States.  Although he later placed more value on episcopal prerogatives, he initially sought to model the Catholic Church in the United States more on the ideals of the American Revolution rather than European traditions, which meant close relations with Protestants and the community in general, more personal methods of worship, and some degree of autonomy from Rome.  He died in 1815.

Leonard Neale was born in Charles County, Maryland, in 1746, to a prominent Catholic family.  He was one of 13 children.  Neale was sent France at the age of 12 to get a Catholic education, as that could not be found in the British colonies.  He joined the Society of Jesus in 1767 and became a Jesuit priest in 1773.  He spent the next six years serving in England, Belgium, and France, before becoming a missionary in British Guiana in 1779.  His efforts there were resisted both by the British and the native peoples and he returned to Maryland in 1883.  John Carroll, the first Bishop of Baltimore, sent Neale to Philadelphia in 1793 to be pastor of St. Mary’s and St. Joseph’s parishes.  Yellow fever had killed ten percent of the City’s population, including three priests.  Neale himself contracted yellow fever and recovered but never fully.  He established an orphanage to care for the children who had lost both parents during the epidemic.  Carroll appointed Neale as president of what is now Georgetown University in 1799.  (Both his brother and his nephew would also serve as president of Georgetown.)  Neale expanded the college’s curriculum, but was criticized for his strictness.  He resigned in 1806 and in 1808 established Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School and served as chaplain the rest of his life.

Bishop Carroll had requested a coadjutor bishop to help him with his Diocese, which then consisted of the entire United States.  The Vatican appointed Neale to that position in 1795, but because of turmoil in Europe, the paperwork did not arrive in Baltimore until 1800.  Neale was consecrated as a bishop that year—the first bishop consecrated in the United States.  Neale became Archbishop of Baltimore in 1815 upon the death of Archbishop Carroll (who had become an archbishop in 1808).  Neale only served as Archbishop for a year and a half before his own death in 1817 and during that time he lived mostly in Georgetown.  During his short time as Archbishop, Neale had to deal with the problem of lay trustees of parishes who often thought that they, not the bishop, should control the assignment of priests.  This was especially a problem in Charleston, South Carolina, where even the priests defied their Archbishop. 

Ambrose Marechal was born in 1868 near Orleans, France, to prosperous parents.  He entered the Sulpician seminary at Orleans and was ordained a Sulpician priest in 1792.  Because of deteriorating conditions in France due to the Revolution, Marechal sailed for Baltimore the day he was ordained.  He served as a priest in southern Maryland and on Maryland’s eastern shore.  He also taught at St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore and at Georgetown College.  The Sulpicians recalled him to France in 1803 and he taught there until they sent him back to Baltimore in 1812.  He returned to St. Mary’s to teach and later became president of the seminary.

Marechal was appointed Archbishop of Baltimore in 1817.  Marechal dealt ably with several problems.  He objected to the creation by the Vatican, without his consent, of the dioceses of Richmond, Virginia, and Charleston, South Carolina, and the appointment of bishops to those dioceses, but eventually won the right of the archbishop to be consulted on these matters.  He also sought to resolve problems caused by the trustee system—many Catholic churches at this time had been built and were owned by the parishioners, not by the bishop.  This also led to a problem with men posing as priests and fooling lay trustees.  A trip to Rome in 1821 helped bring about some resolution to these problems and established the Archbishop of Baltimore as the leader of the U.S. church.  He also dedicated the Basilica of the Assumption in 1821.  Archbishop Marechal died in 1828.

James Whitfield was born in England in 1770.  After his father died in 1787, he and his mother traveled to Italy where she hoped her health would improve with a warmer climate.  Meanwhile, he pursued commercial activities.  Returning to England, they were detained by the French in Lyons, where Whitfield met Father Ambrose Marechal, a Sulpician priest.  Marechal convinced Whitfield to attend seminary in France and he was ordained a priest in 1809.  Whitfield’s mother died shortly thereafter, and he returned to England.  He came to the United States in 1817 at the invitation of Marechal, by this time the Archbishop of Baltimore.  Whitfield was named vicar general of the Archdiocese the following year.  After Marechal’s death in 1828, Whitfield was named to succeed him.

As Archbishop, Whitfield headed not only his archdiocese, but also the Province of Baltimore, which consisted of the entire nation.  By 1828, the United States had 350,000 Catholics and 160 churches.  Whitfield convened two provincial councils to address the needs of an expanding nation.  The First Provincial Council in 1829 directed, among other things, that converts to Catholicism need not be baptized if they had previously received a valid baptism, in mixed marriages the non-Catholic must promise to bring up their children as Catholics, the Douay version of the Bible is preferred, Freemasons cannot receive the sacraments, trustees cannot hire or fire a pastor, future churches should not use the trustee system, and Catholic education should be encouraged.  The Second Provincial Council in 1833 recommended, among other things, that the Jesuits be responsible for Indian missions in the West and the missions to former American slaves in Liberia.  He built new churches, sometimes with his own money.  Whitfield was particularly concerned with the African American community and it distressed him that he could not send missionaries to serve the half a million slaves in Virginia.  Archbishop Whitfield died in 1834.

Samuel Eccleston was born near Chestertown, Maryland, in 1801.  His father was an Episcopal priest who died when Eccleston was a young boy.  Eccleston’s mother later married a Catholic and Eccleston was educated at what is now St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore.  He converted to Catholicism in 1819 and decided to become a priest.  He was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Baltimore in 1825, but later that year joined the Sulpician order.  He studied in Europe for two years before returning to teach at St. Mary’s Seminary, where he became president in 1829.

Eccleston was appointed the fifth Archbishop of Baltimore in 1834 at the age of 33—nine years after his ordination to the priesthood and 15 years after his conversion to Catholicism.  Eccleston convened five provincial councils, which directed, among other things, that Wednesdays in Advent are not to be days of fast and abstinence, priests may not borrow money for church uses without their bishop’s permission, and which also chose the Blessed Virgin Mary, under the title of the Immaculate Conception, as the patron of the United States.  He also founded St. Charles Seminary in Catonsville (the first U.S. preparatory seminary), invited the Redemptorist priests to serve Baltimore’s growing German population, and invited other religious orders to open schools.  He served as archbishop during a time of great growth in Baltimore’s immigrant population, which he attempted to serve.  He was less supportive of the African-American Oblate Sisters of Providence and appointed a spiritual director only after being persuaded to do so by John Neumann, who was then the superior for the Redemptorist order.  Eccleston was the last Baltimore archbishop to be the only U.S. archbishop.  He died in 1851.

Francis P. Kenrick was born in Ireland in 1797 and ordained a priest in Rome in 1821.  Shortly after his ordination and at the invitation of Bishop Benedict Flaget, Kenrick came to serve the Diocese of Bardstown, Kentucky.  He taught at the diocesan seminary and earned a reputation as a theologian and scripture scholar.  This allowed him to be an effective homilist and a defender of the Catholic Faith in a state that was predominantly Protestant.

Kenrick was appointed coadjutor Bishop of Philadelphia and apostolic administrator in 1830 and became the third Bishop of Philadelphia in 1842.  Kenrick was appointed Archbishop of Baltimore in 1851.  Archbishop Kenrick presided over the First Plenary Council of Baltimore in 1852, which was attended by over 40 U.S. bishops and recommended that actions be taken to improve governance of each diocese, that each parish have a school (free and supported by the parish), that each province have a seminary, that Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament be performed in all dioceses, and that the Society for the Propagration of the Faith be encouraged.  Kenrick published an English translation of the New Testament with a commentary.  He was greatly troubled by the Civil War and died in July 1863 shortly after the Battle of Gettysburg.  Kenrick’s younger brother, Peter, served as the first Archbishop of St. Louis.

Martin J. Spalding was born in Marion County, Kentucky, in 1810 and was ordained a priest (in Rome) for the then-Diocese of Bardstown, Kentucky, in 1834.  Spalding served as cathedral rector, editor of the diocesan newspaper, and seminary president and professor prior to being named vicar general of the diocese in 1844.  He was named coadjutor bishop of Louisville (the Diocese had moved from Bardstown to Louisville) in 1848 and became Bishop of Louisville in 1850.  

Spalding was appointed Archbishop of Baltimore in 1864.  He led the Second Plenary Council in 1866 (which dealt with diocesan management, general education, and education of clergy) and which set standards for ecclesiastical law in the U.S. Church.  He supported the rights of laborers to organize unions and founded St. Mary's Industrial School (later attended by “Babe” Ruth) as well as other institutions.  He also led efforts to serve slaves emancipated after the Civil War and to provide aid for needy Southerners.  He established many new parishes and schools within the Archdiocese and was very active at the First Vatican Council in 1869.  The Council approved the doctrine of papal infallibility and Spalding wrote a pastoral letter explaining that some U.S. bishops initially opposed the doctrine, not on religious grounds, but because they thought it would not be well received by non-Catholics in the United States.  He died in 1872.  Spalding was an outstanding speaker, noted author, and skilled canon lawyer and was said to be one of the most influential Catholic apologists of the 19th Century.  His influence was felt in the U.S. Church for decades to come.  

James Roosevelt Bayley was born in New York City in 1814 and raised as an Episcopalian and became an Episcopal priest in 1839.  He was the nephew of St. Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton and a relative of two future presidents (Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt).  Influenced by the Oxford Movement and by reading the early church fathers, and by his acquaintance with Father John McCloskey (later Archbishop of New York and the first U.S. cardinal) Bayley converted to Catholicism in 1842 and was ordained a priest for the Catholic Diocese of New York in 1844.  His ordination resulted in his disinheriting a large fortune from his grandfather.  As a priest, he served as vice president and professor at St. John’s College and served as a pastor at a church on Long Island.

Bayley was appointed the first Bishop of Newark, New Jersey, in 1853, and was named Archbishop of Baltimore in 1872.  Archbishop Bayley implemented several reforms related to the administration of the Archdiocese.  He also established a fund-raising appeal that paid off the debt on the Cathedral and several Catholic societies.  Bayley was never in good health during his time in Baltimore and he died in 1877.

James Gibbons was born in Baltimore in 1834 as the fourth of six children of Irish parents.  The family moved back to Ireland in 1839.  His mother moved the family to New Orleans in 1853 after the death of her husband.  Gibbons entered the seminary in Maryland in 1855 and despite ill health, graduated in 1861 when he was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Baltimore.  He served as a pastor and as a chaplain at Fort McHenry prior to being named private secretary to Archbishop Martin Spalding in 1865.  Gibbons was named the first Vicar Apostolic of North Carolina in 1868 when he was 34 years old.  He was named Bishop of Richmond, Virginia, in 1872, and Archbishop of Baltimore in 1877.

Gibbons was named a cardinal in 1886 by Pope Leo XIII—only the second American to be so honored.  As Archbishop, he presided over the third plenary council of Baltimore in 1884, which begot the Baltimore Catechism, encouraged Catholic schools in each parish, established the Catholic University of America, and set six Holy Days of Obligation.  He supported the right of workers to form unions and convinced the Vatican not to condemn one of the first U.S. labor unions.  He also promoted, like Archbishop Carroll, a Church based on American ideals, rather than the European cultures of new immigrants.  Gibbons authored many books and was recognized by political leaders and many Americans to be the most prominent American Catholic of his time—he was acquainted with every U.S. president from Andrew Johnson to Warren Harding and advised many of them.  Gibbons advocated for the creation of the Catholic University of America and served as its first chancellor.  Gibbons died in 1921.  During his over 50 years as a bishop, he ordained almost 2,500 priests and consecrated 23 bishops. 

Basilicas in Central Belgium

Basilica of the Sacred Heart, Berchem, Antwerp

Declared a minor basilica by Pope Pius IX in 1878—the first in Belgium.

The church claims to be the first basilica in the world dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  The stone basilica was built between 1875 and 1878 using a neo-Gothic architectural style. 

All pictures are from Wikipedia.

Basilica of Our Lady of Scherpenheuvel, Scherpenheuvel, Flemish Brabant

Declared a minor basilica by Pope Pius XI in 1922.

At some point during or before the 16th Century, a shepherd found a statue of the Virgin Mary hanging in an oak tree.  People soon came to the site seeking cures from illnesses and word of miracles quickly spread.  In the 17th Century, the site received royal patronage and the small chapel on the site was replaced by the current Basilica.  The Baroque church was built between 1609 and 1627.  The church is in the shape of a heptagon with the main altar on the site of the oak tree with six chapels surrounding it.  Altarpieces were designed by Theodoor van Loon.  The church remains a major pilgrimage destination in Belgium.

All pictures are from Wikipedia.

St. Martin’s Basilica, Halle, Flemish Brabant

Declared a minor basilica by Pope Pius XII in 1946.

The Basilica was built between 1341 and 1467 and is dedicated to St. Martin of Tours.  It is constructed of white sandstone and employs a Gothic design with Baroque elements.  It has many works of art dating to the time of its construction, most notably a Black Madonna statue dating to the 13th Century, possibly originally owned by St. Elizabeth of Hungary.  Annual processions have been held since 1335.

All pictures are from Wikipedia.

National Basilica of the Sacred Heart, Brussels

Declared a minor basilica by Pope Pius XII in 1952.

King Leopold II, inspired by the Basilica of Sacre Couer in Paris, decided to build a similar church in Brussels to commemorate 75 years of Belgian independence.  Construction of the Art Deco church began in 1905 but was not completed until 1970 due to the two world wars.  Made of brick, reinforced concrete, stone, and terracotta layering, the church can accommodate 3,500 people.  The copper dome rises 292 feet above the ground.

The first picture is from Flickr and the others from Wikipedia.

Basilica of Our Lady of Hanswijk, Malines, Antwerp

Declared a minor basilica by Pope John Paul II in 1987.

A statue of Our Lady has attracted pilgrims since 988.  The current Basilica was built between 1661 and 1683 and features an Italian façade and a Baroque interior with a stucco ceiling.

All pictures are from Wikipedia.

Abbatial Basilica of St. Servatius, Grimbergen, Flemish Brabant

Declared a minor basilica by Pope John Paul II in 1998.

Grimbergen Abbey is a Premonstratensian monastery that was established in 1128 to replace an Augustinian monastery.  The Basilica, which is the Abbey church, was completed in 1660.

All pictures are from Wikipedia.

Basilica of Our Lady of Peace and Concord, Wavre, Walloon Brabant

Declared a minor basilica by Pope John Paul II in 1999.

The Basilica was built as part of a monastic complex in the 16th Century/17th Century on the ruins of a 11th Century Benedictine abbey.  A statue of Our Lady dates to 1640 which has attracted pilgrims for centuries.  

Both pictures are from Wikipedia.

Basilica of Our Lady of Consolation, Vilvoorde, Flemish Brabant

Declared a minor basilica by Pope Benedict XVI in 2006.

The Basilica is the church for a Carmelite monastery that dates back 800 years.  The Baroque church was built in the 17th Century.

Pictures are from Pinterest and Wikipedia.

Basilica of Our Lady of Lourdes, Edegem, Antwerp

Declared a minor basilica by Pope Benedict XVI in 2008.

A local landowner built a replica of the Lourdes Grotto on his property in 1884 and soon pilgrims started visiting the site.  The current church was built between 1931 and 1933 to meet the needs of the pilgrims.  The neo-Byzantine style church has a 167-foot bell tower and copper Stations of the Cross.

From Wikipedia.