John Hughes (archbishop of New York)

137
John Hughes (archbishop of New York) bigraphy, stories - Catholic bishop

John Hughes (archbishop of New York) : biography

June 24, 1797 – January 3, 1864

John Joseph Hughes (June 24, 1797 – January 3, 1864), was an Irish-born prelate of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States. He was the fourth Bishop and first Archbishop of the Archdiocese of New York, serving between 1842 and his death in 1864.

A native of Ireland, Hughes was born and raised in the south of County Tyrone. He emigrated to the United States in 1817, and became a priest in 1826 and a bishop in 1838. A figure of national prominence, he exercised great moral and social influence, and presided over a period of explosive growth for Catholicism in New York. He was regarded as "the best known, if not exactly the best loved, Catholic bishop in the country." He became known as "Dagger John", both for his following the Catholic practice wherein a bishop precedes his signature with a cross, as well as for his aggressive personality.

Life

Early life

Hughes was born in the hamlet of Annaloghan, near Aughnacloy, in County Tyrone, part of the Province of Ulster in the north of Ireland. He was the third of seven children of Patrick and Margaret (née McKenna) Hughes. In reference to the anti-Catholic penal laws of Ireland, he later observed that, prior to his baptism, he had lived the first five days of his life on terms of "social and civil equality with the most favored subjects of the British Empire." He and his family suffered religious persecution in their native land; his late sister was denied a Catholic burial conducted by a priest, and Hughes himself was nearly attacked by a group of Orangemen when he was about fifteen. He was sent with his elder brothers to a day school in the nearby village of Augher, and afterwards attended a grammar school in Aughnacloy.

Patrick Hughes, a poor but respectable tenant farmer, was forced to withdraw John from school and sent him to work one of his farms. However, being disinclined to farm life, he was placed as an apprentice to Roger Toland, the gardener at Favour Royal Manor, to study horticulture. His family emigrated to the United States in 1816 and settled in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. Hughes joined them there the following year. He made several unsuccessful applications to Mount St. Mary’s College in Emmitsburg, Maryland, where he was eventually hired by its Rector, the Abbé John Dubois, S.S., as a gardener. During this time he befriended Mother Elizabeth Ann Seton, who was favorably impressed by Hughes and persuaded Dubois to reconsider his admission. Hughes was subsequently admitted as a regular student of Mount St. Mary’s in September 1820. In addition to his studies, he continued to supervise the garden, and served as a tutor in Latin and mathematics, as well as prefect over the other students.

Priesthood

As a seminarian, Hughes resolved to serve his home Diocese of Philadelphia, then governed by Bishop Henry Conwell. The bishop, while performing a canonical visitation of his diocese, met Hughes at his parents’ home in Chambersburg and invited him to accompany him on the remainder of his visitation. On October 15, 1826, Hughes was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Conwell at in Philadelphia.

Hughes’ first assignment was as a curate at St. Augustine’s Church in Philadelphia, where he assisted its pastor, the Rev. Father Michael Hurley, O.E.S.A., in hearing confessions, preaching sermons, and other duties in the parish. Later that year he was sent to serve as a missionary in Bedford, where he secured the conversions of several Protestants. In January 1827, he was recalled to Philadelphia and named pastor of St. Joseph’s Church. He laboured afterwards at St. Mary’s Church, whose trustees were in open revolt against the bishop, and were subdued by Hughes only when he built St. John the Evangelist Church in 1832, then considered one of the finest in the country. Previous to this, in 1829, he founded St. John’s Orphan Asylum.

About this time Hughes became engaged in a public controversy over Catholic beliefs with the Rev. John A. Brekenridge, a distinguished Presbyterian clergyman, with the result that Hughes’s abilities attracted attention. His name was mentioned for the vacant see of Cincinnati and as a coadjutor for Philadelphia.