Newark

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(NOVARCENSIS)

Diocese created in 1853, suffragan of New York and comprising Hudson, Passaic,Bergen, Essex,Union, Morris, and Sussex counties in theState of New Jersey, U.S.A., an area of 1699 square miles. The diocese originally included the whole State, but the fourteen other counties were taken (15 July, 1881) to from theDiocese of Trenton. As early as 1672 the records show that there wereCatholics at Woodbridge and at Elizabethtown, the capital of East Jersey, and theJesuit Fathers Harvey and Gage,Governor Dongan'schaplains in New York, visited them. Otherpriests came at a later period. Several of these pioneers were Alsatians who had come over with Carteret to engage in the salt-making industry. William Douglass, elected fromBergen, was excluded from the first General Assembly held at Elizabethtown, 26 May, 1668, because he was aCatholic. Two years later he was arrested and banished to New England as a "troublesomeperson". The whole atmosphere of the colony was intensely anti-Catholic. Thelaw of 1698 grantedreligious toleration in East Jersey, but "provided that this should not extend to any of the Romish religion theright to exercise their manner of worship contrary to thelaws andstatutes ofEngland". In West Jersey, the pioneers wereQuakers and more tolerant. It is claimed that John Tatham, appointed Governor of West Jersey in 1690, and the founder of its great pottery industry, was really an EnglishCatholic whose name was John Gray. Father Robert Harding andFather Ferdinand Farmer (Steinmeyer) from theJesuit community in Philadelphia, made long tours across the State in the eighteenth century ministering to the scattered groups ofCatholics at Mount Hope, Macopin, Basking Ridge,Trenton, Ringwood, and other places. The settlement at Macopin (now Echo Lake) was made by some GermanCatholics sometime before the Revolution and their descendants make up theparish today.

During the Revolution Washington's army brought manyCatholics through the State. In the camp at Morristown the Spanish agent Don Juan de Miralles, died 28 April, 1780, and his funeral was conducted by Father Seraphin Bandol,chaplain of the French Minister, who came specially from Philadelphia to administer the lastsacraments to the dyingSpaniards. Washington and the other officers of the army attended theceremony. When in the following May the remains were removed to Philadelphia, Congress attended the Requiem Mass in St. Mary's Church. It was at Morristown in 1780, that the first official recognition of St. Patrick's Day is to be found in Washington's order book, still preserved there at his headquarters. Marbois, writing from Philadelphia, 25 March, 1785, gives the number ofCatholics in New York and New Jersey as 1700; more than half of these were probably inNew Jersey. There were many French refugees from the West Indies in Princeton, Elizabeth, and its vicinity, and Fathers Vianney, Tissorant, and Malou used to minister to them from St. Peter's, New York, in the early years of the last century. Mines, furnaces, glass works, and other industries started in various sections of the State, broughtCatholic immigrants. The Augustinian Missionary, Father Philip Larisey, visited Paterson about 1821, and the firstparish in the State, St. Francis,Trenton, was established in 1814. Newark's first church, St. John's, was opened in 1828, thepastor being the Rev. Gregory B. Pardow of New York, and the first trustees Patrick Murphy, John Sherlock, John Kelly, Christopher Rourke, Morris Fitzgerald, John Gillespie, and Patrick Mape. The first native of Newark to beordained to thepriesthood was Daniel G. Durning, so of Charles Durning, in whose house Mass used to be said before the first church was built. In 1820 Father Richard Bulger erected the first church in Paterson. In New Brunswick the first Mass was said by Rev. Dr. Power of New York in 1825, and the first church was opened by Rev. Joseph A. Schneller, 19 December, 1831. In Jersey City, originally called Paulus Hook, Mass was first said in 1830, and the first church opened by the Reverend Hugh Mohan in 1837. At Macopin the little band of GermanCatholics before mentioned had a church as early as 1829. Thus during the first half of the nineteenth century there was a slow but steady growth of the Faith all over the State, and as it was receiving a substantial share of the great inflow ofCatholic immigrants, theHoly See deemed the time opportune to separate it from the Diocese of New York, and the See of Newark was erected. The Reverend James Roosevelt Bayley, then secretary to Bishop Hughes of New York, was chosen the firstBishop of Newark, andconsecrated 30 October, 1853. There were then between fifty and sixty thousandCatholics in hisdiocese, for the most partIrish and Germans.

In organizing the new diocese Bishop Bayley found he could count on only twenty-fivepriests. There were nodiocesan institutions except smallorphanages, and the people were poor and of little social influence. In the interest ofCatholiceducation, one of his chief concerns, he founded the Madison Congregation of the Sisters of Charity, and to supply the lack of funds for the work of new churches, he obtained assistance from the Association for the Propagation of the Faith ofLyons,France, and the Leopoldine Society ofVienna. Seton Hall College was opened by him in September, 1856, and everywhere the diocese responded to the energy of hiszeal and practical effort. In ten years the churches increased to 67, thepriests to 63, and amonastery ofBenedictines and another ofPassionists were established. The Sisters of Charity became a community of 87 members, conducting 17 different establishments. Other notable additions were 2convents ofBenedictinenuns, 2 of German Sisters of Notre Dame; 2 ofSisters of the Poor of St. Francis; a flourishing college, an academy for young ladies, a boardingschool for boys, andparishschools attached to most of the churches, while old woodenchapels had been replaced by buildings of brick and stone. "All this has been done", thebishop wrote, "in the midst of a population of emigrants, comparatively poor, without incurring a greatdebt!" In twelve years the Association of the Propagation of the Faith gave the diocese $26,600. This progress, too, was made in spite of much local narrowness and bigotry, the culmination of which on 5 November, 1854, resulted in a riot during which an anti-Catholic mobdesecrated and sacked the little Germanchurch of St. Mary in Newark served by theBenedictine Father Nicholas Balleis. In this disturbance aCatholic was killed and several others wounded.

Bishop Bayley was promoted to the Archbishopric ofBaltimore, 30 July, 1872, and his successor as the secondbishop of thesee was theRight Reverend Michael Augustine Corrigan,consecrated 2 May, 1873. He successfully overcame a number of complicated financial entanglements, and established a House of the Good Shepherd for girls 24 May, 1875, in Newark, a protectory for boys about the same time at Denville, and in June, 1880, in Newark a community ofDominican Nuns of the Perpetual Adoration, from Ouillins,France. On 8 and 9 May, 1878, an important synod was held, and in July, 1881, theDiocese of Trenton, which cut off a considerable portion of the Newark territory in the southern section, was established. On 1 October, 1880,Bishop Corrigan was made titularArchbishop ofPetra and coadjutor of New York, and to succeed him as thirdBishop of Newark, the Rev. Dr. Winand M. Wigger, thenpastor at Madison, was chosen andconsecrated 18 October 1881. Bishop Wigger was born of Germanparents in New York City, 9 December, 1841, and made his classical studies atSt. Francis Xavier's College, New York. Histheological course was followed at Seton Hall and at thecollege of Brignole-Sale,Genoa,Italy, where he wasordainedpriest 10 June, 1865. Following the example of his predecessors Bishop Wigger made thediocesanseminary one of the objects of his chief solicitude. In 1883 he removed theCatholic Protectory to Arlington and established the Sacred Heart Union to aid in its maintenance. The Fifth Diocesan Synod was held by him 17 November, 1886, at which strict regulations were enacted in regard to funerals and attendance atparochial and publicschools. On 11 June, 1899, he laid the cornerstone of a newcathedral church at Newark, and soon after was forced to go abroad in search of rest and health. On his return he took up hisduties withzeal, but died of pneumonia, 5 January, 1901. The record of his administration shows a character entirely disinterested and unselfish united to a poverty truly apostolic.

TheVicar-General John J. O'Connor was the choice of theHoly See as fourthbishop, and wasconsecrated 25 July, 1901. Born at Newark, 11 June, 1855, he mad his college course at Seton Hall. In 1873 he was sent to the American College atRome where he spent four years. After another year atLouvain he wasordainedpriest 22 December, 1877, and on his return to Newark, was appointed professor at Seton Hall College where he became Director of the Seminary in which he remained for the following eighteen years. He was then namedvicar-general and on 30 October, 1895,rector of St. Joseph's. Early in his administration he adopted measures for the completion of the newcathedral of the Sacred Heart, begun by Bishop Wigger, making this the special object of the golden jubilee of thediocese. At this it was shown that in the brief of fifty years, there had been an increase of tenfold in the number of churches and ninefold in population, with nearly 50,000 children attending 167Catholicschools and institutions, and 396priests attending the 416churches andchapels throughout the State. Religious communities now represented in thediocese are, men: theJesuits,Passionists,Benedictines,Carmelites,Dominicans,Salesians, Pious Society of the Missions, theChristian Brothers, Alexian Brothers, andXavierian Brothers;women: Sisters of Charity (Newark), Sisters of St. Benedict,Sisters of Christian Charity, Sisters of St. Francis, Sisters of Charity (Gray Nuns),Dominican Sisters of the Perpetual Rosary,Sisters of St. Dominic, Sisters of St. Francis,Sisters of the Poor of St. Francis, Sisters of the Good Shepherd,Sisters of St. Joseph, School Sisters of Notre Dame,Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace,Little Sisters of the Poor,Felician Sisters, Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother,Pallotine Sisters of Charity, Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart, Daughters of Our Lady of Help,Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, Baptisme Sisters.

Statistics (1910)

Priests, 368 (regulars, 88); churches with residentpriests, 162; missions with churches, 36; stations, 10;chapels, 82;seminary, 1, students, 42; students inEurope, 7;seminaries of religious, 3, students, 31; colleges and academies for boys, 6; academies for girls, 12;parishschools, 116, pupils, 52,600;orphan asylums, 12, inmates, 2400; industrial and reformschools, 4, inmates, 450; protectory for boys, 1, inmates, 180; total young people underCatholic care, 56,000;hospitals, 10; houses for aged poor, 2; othercharitable institutions, 8;Catholic population, 365,000.

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