Pioneer Bishops of Missouri

This blog will discuss bishops that served in Missouri up to 1900.  For more information about Missouri, see my blog of November 25, 2018.

Louis Joliet and Father Jacques Marquette had explored the Mississippi River near what is now Missouri in 1673; and LaSalle claimed the Mississippi River valley for France in 1682; but the first French settlements in the area were on the east side (Illinois) of the river.  A French mining engineer, Phillippe Renault, came to the west side of the river to conduct mining operations in what is now Old Mines in 1723.  He built a Catholic chapel and priests from Illinois would periodically come to minister to the miners.  Ste. Genevieve was founded in 1735 and was the first permanent settlement in what is now Missouri.  The Treaty of Paris in 1763 ended French colonization in what is now the United States and the Mississippi River became the dividing line between English territory on the east and Spanish on the west.  St. Louis was established as a trading post in 1764 and received an influx of French-speaking people who preferred to live under the rule of Catholic Spain rather than that of Protestant England.

Missouri became part of the United States as a result of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803.  At that time, Missouri also became part of the Diocese of Louisiana and the Two Floridas.  This Diocese stretched from Florida to the Canadian border and from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains covering almost 900,000 square miles and for many years it had no bishop.  Archbishop Carroll of Baltimore administered the Diocese until 1812, when he appointed Louis Dubourg as diocesan administrator.  Dubourg was consecrated Bishop of the Diocese in 1815 in Europe and remained in Europe until 1818 raising money and recruiting priests and nuns for his Diocese.  When he returned to the United States, he chose not to live in New Orleans, the seat of the Diocese, but rather in St. Louis, due to conflicts with some members of the clergy and laity in New Orleans.  He resided in St. Louis until 1823 when he moved to New Orleans.

While in St. Louis, Dubourg started what is now Kenrick-Glennon Seminary and St. Louis University, built a brick St. Louis Church, and invited several religious orders to the Diocese including Vincentian and Jesuit priests and Sacred Heart nuns.  The Jesuits started missions to the Native American peoples and the Sacred Heart sisters started schools and did missionary work among the Native Americans.  The Sisters were led by Mother Rose Duchesne, who was canonized in 1988.

Missouri was organized as a Territory in 1812 and it became the 24th State in 1821.  Missouri had about 70,000 people when it became a State and over 10,000 of those people lived in St. Louis.  By 1821, St. Louis was becoming less French and more Irish and German.  The Diocese of St. Louis was established in 1826—the 10th diocese in the United States.  By the late 1840s, Missouri had over 600,000 residents and St. Louis had a population of about 75,000.  Pope Pius IX raised St. Louis to an Archdiocese in 1847—the third in the United States.

Catholic fur traders had been coming to Western Missouri since at least the early 1700s and missionaries had traveled through the area as well.  Kansas City and St. Joseph both began as trading posts—Kansas City in 1821 and St. Joseph in 1826.  Both were founded by French Catholics.  In 1860, St. Joseph had a population of 9,000 and Kansas City of 4,000.  In 1868, Pope Pius IX created a new Diocese for Western Missouri—the Diocese of St. Joseph.  By 1880, Kansas City had grown significantly larger than St. Joseph—56,000 people versus 32,000—and Pope Leo XIII created a second diocese in Western Missouri in 1880—the Diocese of Kansas City.  Missouri continued to grow—from 2.2 million people in 1880 to 4 million in 1950.  Pope Pius XII created two new dioceses in Missouri in 1956—the Diocese of Jefferson City and the Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau—and merged the Dioceses of Kansas City and St. Joseph into a single diocese.

Joseph Rosati was born in Italy in 1789 and joined the Vincentian Order in 1807.  He was ordained a Vincentian priest in 1811 and was recruited by Bishop Louis DuBourg of the Diocese of Louisiana and the Two Floridas to become a missionary in the United States.  Rosati left in 1816 to sail from France to Baltimore, a journey of 43 days, during which time he was continuously seasick.  Rosati eventually made his way to Kentucky where he taught in a seminary and perfected his English.  In 1818, Rosati was put in charge of the church in Perryville, Missouri.  While there, he opened St. Mary of the Barrens Seminary to train new priests for the Vincentian Order.  He was appointed Vincentian Provincial Superior for the United States in 1820.

Pope Pius VII appointed Rosati as Vicar Apostolic of Mississippi and Alabama in 1822, but Rosati declined, and the appointment was rescinded.  He was appointed coadjutor bishop of Louisiana in 1823 and then was appointed the first Bishop of St. Louis in 1827.  (He also served as Apostolic Administrator of New Orleans from 1826 to 1829).  The new Diocese of St. Louis covered territory from Arkansas to the Canadian border and from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains.  It also included western Illinois.  At the time of its creation, this vast territory had about 25,000 Catholics served by about 40 churches and 20 priests. Rosati invited additional religious orders to the Diocese (including the Jesuits who administered St. Louis University), opened the first hospital west of the Mississippi River, and started a Catholic newspaper published in both English and French (Rosati spoke seven languages).  He also built what is now called the Basilica of St. Louis, King of France (Old Cathedral).  He attended several Provincial Councils in Baltimore (and wrote many of the resulting documents) and along with another bishop translated St. Robert Bellarmine’s catechism into English.  He traveled to Europe in 1840 to raise funds and recruit priests and nuns for his Diocese and died in Rome in 1843.

Peter R. Kenrick was born in Ireland in 1806 and ordained a priest there in 1832.  He came to Philadelphia the following year with his older brother Francis (who also  became a bishop).  While in Philadelphia, in addition to his priestly duties, Kenrick wrote papers on theology and church history.  Kenrick was appointed coadjutor bishop of St. Louis in 1841 and became bishop upon the death of Bishop Rosati in 1843.  His diocese initially consisted of much of the Louisiana Purchase.  He was named the first Archbishop of St. Louis in 1847.  

Kenrick inherited a large diocesan debt, which he paid off despite little help from prominent local Catholics.  In 1845, Kenrick established the first U.S. chapter of the Saint Vincent de Paul Society at the Old St. Louis Cathedral in 1845 and the first U.S. chapter of the Ladies of Charity at St. Vincent de Paul parish in St. Louis in 1857.  After becoming archbishop, he immediately began a 10-week trip to parishes throughout Missouri.  Immigrants, especially from Germany, were coming to St. Louis in large numbers during the middle of the 19th Century and Kenrick invited religious orders to build parishes, schools, and charitable organizations for them and he also established a successful immigrants’ bank.  He also opened a seminary and started a Catholic newspaper.  Kenrick remained neutral during the Civil War but took a strong stand against the doctrine of papal infallibility on matters of Faith during the First Vatican Council in 1870.  His argument was based on the theological point that infallibility was shared by the Pope with the other bishops and on the practical point that such a proclamation would be unpopular in countries, such as the United States, where Catholics were a minority.  He left before the vote.  His opposition led him to cede management of the Archdiocese to Patrick Ryan, who was appointed coadjutor Archbishop in 1872.  For twelve years, until Ryan was appointed Archbishop of Philadelphia in 1884, Kenrick spent much of his time devoted to spiritual and scholarly activities.  Kenrick resumed his role as Archbishop after the departure of Ryan.  John Kain was appointed coadjutor archbishop in 1893 (at the request of some of the Archdiocese’s priests), but the two did not enjoy a good relationship.  Kenrick resigned in 1895 (upon orders from Pope Leo XIII) and died the next year.  Kenrick served as Bishop and Archbishop of St. Louis for almost 52 years—longer than any other U.S. bishop in a single diocese.  Even though the Archdiocese was much smaller in geographic size, the number of Catholics doubled to 200,000 in the period from 1843 to 1895 and the number of parishes increased from 75 to 175.

John J. Kain was born in what is now Martinsburg, West Virginia in 1841.  He was educated in Maryland and was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Wheeling, West Virginia, in 1866.  He was assigned to Harper’s Ferry where his parish consisted of eight counties in West Virginia and four in Virginia.  He restored several churches destroyed during the Civil War.  One of his sisters was a religious sister in Wheeling and another served as his housekeeper.  Kain was appointed Bishop of Wheeling in 1875, coadjutor Archbishop of St. Louis in 1893 and became Archbishop of St. Louis two years later.

Archbishop Kain faced a crisis in 1896 when a tornado damaged much of St. Louis, including several Catholic churches and other Catholic properties, which Kain rebuilt.  Kain implemented several of the decrees of the Third Plenary Council of the U.S. bishops held in Baltimore in 1884.  These included establishing parochial schools in each parish, if possible, and granting full parish status to National (ethnic) churches.  He also required each parish to submit an annual report on its activities.  Kain called for the building of a new cathedral, bought the land on which the current St. Louis Cathedral is located and donated his estate to the building fund.  Kain died in 1903 in Baltimore after a long illness.

John J. Hogan was born in Ireland in 1829 and came to St. Louis in 1847.  He attended seminary there and was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of St. Louis in 1852.  He was initially sent to minister to slaves working in lead mines southwest of St. Louis before being assigned parish work at various Missouri locations.  These locations usually had larger numbers of Catholic settlers and transient Irish railroad workers.  Hogan was appointed the first Bishop of Saint Joseph in 1868.

There were only about 3,000 Catholics in his northwest Missouri Diocese in 1868, but Bishop Hogan built new churches (including the current Co-Cathedral of St. Joseph), schools, and charitable institutions.  Hogan was appointed the first Bishop of Kansas City in 1880 but continued to administer the Diocese of St. Joseph until 1893.  In Kansas City, the number of priests and Catholics increased, new religious communities came to the diocese, and new churches, including the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, were built. Hogan also wrote two books.  He died of pneumonia in 1913.

Maurice F. Burke was born in Ireland in 1845 and came with his family to Chicago when he was four years old.  He was educated in Illinois, Indiana, and in Rome before being ordained a priest for the Diocese of Chicago in 1875.  He served at parishes in Chicago and Joliet before his appointment as the first Bishop of Cheyenne, Wyoming, in 1887.  Burke was appointed the second Bishop of St. Joseph in 1893.

Bishop Burke paid off the debt for the construction of the Co-Cathedral of St. Joseph and built new churches and schools for a Diocese that covered all of northern Missouri.  Burke was considered an authority on Dante Alighieri and served as president of the American Dante Society.  Bishop Burke died in 1923 after a long illness and his collection of 3,000 books were donated to the Catholic University of America.