John Baptist Purcell

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John Baptist Purcell bigraphy, stories - Roman Catholic archbishop

John Baptist Purcell : biography

26 February 1800 – 4 July 1883

John Baptist Purcell (February 26, 1800 – July 4, 1883) was an Irish-born prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Bishop of Cincinnati from 1833 until his death in 1883, and was elevated to the rank of Archbishop in 1850.

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Biography

John Baptist Purcell was born at Mallow, Ireland. Of his early education but few particulars can be found. His parents, Edward and Johanna Purcell, being industrious and pious, gave their children all the advantages of the education attainable at a time when the penal laws were less rigorously enforced. John displayed remarkable talent and mastered all the branches of the school curriculum before his eighteenth year. Entrance into the colleges of Ireland was an impossibility. He therefore decided to seek in the United States the higher education denied him in his native country. Landing at Baltimore be applied for and obtained a teacher’s certificate in the Asbury College. He spent about one year in giving lessons as private tutor in some of the prominent families of Baltimore. His ambition was to become a priest, and this he never lost sight of while teaching others as a means of obtaining a livelihood. On 20 June 1820, he entered Mount St. Mary’s Seminary, Emmitsburg. His previous knowledge of the classics made it an easy task for him to take charge of important classes in the college, and at the same time prepare himself for the priesthood by the study of philosophy, theology, and other branches of ecclesiastical science, After three years’ study in the seminary he received tonsure and minor orders from Archbishop Ambrose Maréchal, of Baltimore, at the close of 1823. On 1 March 1824, in the company of Rev. Simon Gabriel Bruté, one of the professors of the seminary, afterwards first Bishop of Vincennes, he sailed for Europe to complete his studies in the Sulpician Seminaries of Issy and Paris. On 26 May 1826, he was one of the three hundred priests ordained in the cathedral of Paris by Archbishop de Quelen. After his ordination he continued his studies until the autumn of 1827, when he returned to the United States to enter Mount St. Mary’s Seminary as professor, He afterwards became president, until his appointment as Bishop of Cincinnati, Ohio, to succeed the saintly Fenwick. He received notice of his appointment in Aug., 1833, and was consecrated bishop in the cathedral of Baltimore, 13 Oct., 1833, by Archbishop James Whitfield. He attended the sessions of the Third Provincial Council of Baltimore, which opened on the day of his consecration and continued for one week.

After winding up his affairs in connection with the seminary, he set out for the scene of his life’s work. Going from Baltimore by stage to Wheeling, and from Wheeling to Cincinnati by steamboat, he reached his destination 14 Nov., 1833. Bishops Benedict Joseph Flaget and John Baptist Mary David of Bardstown, Rese of Detroit, and a few priests met him and conducted him to his cathedral, which was on Sycamore Street. He was canonically installed by Bishop Flaget, who made the address of welcome. After the installation Bishop Rese, who had been administrator of the diocese during the vacancy, made the legal transfer of the property in his charge. The site of the first cathedral and at that time the only church in the city, a humble structure, is now occupied by the imposing St. Xavier’s Church, accommodating over one thousand families, under the care of the Jesuit Fathers. On his arrival in 1833 Bishop Purcell found himself in a city of about 30,000 inhabitants and only one church. The diocese embraced the whole State of Ohio. The prospect presented to the young bishop, then in his thirty-third year, was enough to fill his mind with misgiving and dread. The difficulties increased, for soon the tide of immigration turned towards Ohio. Immigrants from Germany and Ireland came in thousands, and as they were all Catholics it became his duty to provide for their spiritual wants, and that had to be done quickly. A seminary had been founded by Bishop Fenwick in the Athenaeum, which stood near the cathedral. The number of students was of course very small, but Bishop Purcell had to rely on this little band to help him in his work. He began his work as a bishop with an energy and earnestness that never flagged during his whole life. He was untiring in his labour, preaching and giving lectures, writing articles for the "Telegraph", a Catholic paper founded by Father Young, a nephew of Bishop Fenwick, the first Catholic paper published in the West. He taught classes in the seminary. At his first ordination he raised to the priesthood Henry Damian Juncker, afterwards first Bishop of Alton, Illinois. He lost no time in providing for the wants of the growing Church in Cincinnati. Holy Trinity on Fifth Street, the first church built for the German-speaking Catholics, was soon followed by another, St. Mary’s, at Clay and Thirteenth Streets. Finding it impossible to provide professors or give his own time to the seminary, he called to his aid the Jesuit Fathers, to whom be gave over the church property on Sycamore Street, and purchased a site for his new cathedral on Plum and Eighth Streets, and Western Row, then the western boundary of Cincinnati. Western Row is now Central Avenue. The new cathedral, a magnificent structure 200 feet long and 80 feet wide, built of Dayton limestone, with its beautiful spire of solid stone rising to the height of 225 feet, is one of the finest in the West. This grand temple was completed and consecrated by Archbishop Samuel Eccleston of Baltimore, 26 Oct., 1846, thirteen years after Bishop Purcell’s arrival at Cincinnati. After trying several locations for his diocesan seminary, he finally located it on Price Hill, west of the city limits. The main building was completed and opened for the theologians in 1851. He called it Mount St. Mary’s of the West, after his own Alma Mater at Emmitsburg. Two orphan asylums were established, St. Aloysius’s for the children of German-speaking parents, and St. Peter’s, now St. Joseph’s, for children of English-speaking people, and provision was made for their maintenance.