Michael Francis Egan | |
|---|---|
| Bishop of Philadelphia | |
 | |
| Province | Baltimore |
| Diocese | Philadelphia |
| Appointed | April 8, 1808 |
| Installed | October 28, 1810 |
| Term ended | July 22, 1814 |
| Predecessor | New diocese |
| Successor | Henry Conwell |
| Orders | |
| Ordination | 1785 or 1786 |
| Consecration | October 28, 1810 by John Carroll |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1761-09-29)September 29, 1761 Ireland |
| Died | July 22, 1814(1814-07-22) (aged 52) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States |
| Denomination | Roman Catholic |
Michael Francis EganOFM (September 29, 1761 – July 22, 1814) was an Irish AmericanCatholic prelate who served as theBishop of Philadelphia from 1808 until his death.
Egan was born in Ireland in 1761 and joined theFranciscan Order at a young age. He served as a priest in Rome, Ireland, and Pennsylvania and became known as a gifted preacher. In 1808, Egan was appointed the first Bishop of Philadelphia.[1] Egan's tenure as bishop saw the construction of new churches and the expansion of the Catholic Church membership in his diocese. Much of his time was consumed by disputes with the lay trustees of hispro-cathedral,St. Mary's Church inPhiladelphia. He died in Philadelphia, probably oftuberculosis, in 1814.
Michael Francis Egan was born in Ireland on September 29, 1761.[2] The exact location of his birth is disputed. Early biographers believed that Egan was possibly born inGalway;[3] more recent scholarship suggests it wasLimerick.[1][4] He joined theOrder of Friars Minor (commonly known as the Franciscans) and studied at theOld University of Leuven andCharles University in Prague.[1] Egan receivedminor orders,subdiaconate, anddiaconate atMechelen, in modern-day Belgium.[5] He wasordained apriest, probably inPrague, in 1785 or 1786.[1][2] While studying on the continent, Egan became fluent in German.[5]
Egan advanced rapidly to positions of responsibility in the Franciscan order.[6] He was appointedcustos ("guardian") of the province ofMunster in Ireland in March 1787.[7] Later that year, he was also appointedcustos of thePontifical College atSant’Isidoro a Capo le Case, the home of Irish Franciscans inRome.[7] Egan remained there until 1790, when he returned to Ireland and was appointedcustos ofEnnis. He remained in Ireland until 1787 or 1788, when he may have made a visit to the United States.[7] After several more years as a missionary in Ireland, Egan came (or returned) to the United States in 1802.[6]
Accepting an invitation from the Catholics nearLancaster, Pennsylvania, Egan arrived in the United States in January 1802 to serve as assistantpastor toLouis de Barth atConewago Chapel inAdams County.[8] When thestate legislature sat in Lancaster that year, word of Egan's preaching abilities traveled back toPhiladelphia, and soon, the parishioners of that city'sSt. Mary's Church petitioned BishopJohn Carroll ofBaltimore to send Egan to them. (At the time, the Bishop of Baltimore had jurisdiction over the entireCatholic Church in the United States.)[9]
In 1803, Egan became one of the pastors of St. Mary's Church at Philadelphia.[9] The move coincided with ayellow fever outbreak in Philadelphia. Though less virulent than Philadelphia's famous1793 outbreak of the disease, there were nonetheless many deaths, and Egan presided over many funerals that year—St. Mary's had 77 interments between June and November 1803.[10] In 1804, Egan received permission to establish a province of Franciscans in the United States for the first time, independent of the Irish Franciscans who were then supervising the American mission.[11][12] Two years later, a parishioner willed Egan some land along theYellow Creek inIndiana County, for the establishment of a Franciscan church.[12] Due to the order's vows of poverty, Egan asked Carroll to hold the land in his name.[13] Egan's dream was never realized, as he was unable to attract Franciscans from Europe to establish the planned church.[14]
Egan and the trustees of St. Mary's established a singing school in 1804, with the goal of improving the quality of the choir there.[15] The following year was consumed by another outbreak of yellow fever, and Egan joined John Rossiter, the pastor of another of Philadelphia's four Catholic churches,St. Joseph's, in ministering to the sick.[16] In 1806, they worked with the parishioners of a third church,Holy Trinity, to found anorphanage, as the problem of orphaned children had been made worse by the yellow fever deaths.[17]
The Catholic population in the United States was growing, and Bishop John Carroll had for some time wished for his vast diocese to be divided into more manageable territories.[18] On April 8, 1808,Pope Pius VII granted Carroll's request, erecting four newsees in the United States and elevating Baltimore to an archdiocese. Among the new sees was theDiocese of Philadelphia, which included the states ofPennsylvania andDelaware as well as the western and southern parts ofNew Jersey.[18] Even before the diocese was created, Carroll had determined to recommend Egan for the post, writing to Rome that Egan "was truly pious, learned, religious, remarkable for his great humility, but deficient, perhaps, in firmness and without great experience in the direction of affairs".[19]
As a result of disruptions caused by theNapoleonic Wars, thepapal bull nominating Egan did not reach the United States until 1810.[6] When it arrived, Egan traveled toSt. Peter's Pro-Cathedral, in Baltimore, where he was ordained bishop by Carroll, assisted byBenedict Joseph Flaget andJean-Louis de Cheverus, who had been appointed to bishoprics but had not yet been consecrated.[a][2] Egan chose St. Mary's to serve as hispro-cathedral in Philadelphia.[1] Even before Egan's installation, Philadelphia Catholics began to raise funds to expand the church under its new prominence in the diocese.[20] After their ordinations, the new bishops planned a council of the American church leadership for the near future; in fact, they did not meet until 1829, long after Egan's death.[14]
Egan's elevation to the episcopate worsened an existing conflict in the American church: the dispute overtrusteeism. In Europe, the Church owned property and directly controlled itsparishes through the clergy. In the United States, however, early Catholic churches were typically founded bylaymen who purchased the property and erected the church buildings. The laymen accordingly demanded some control over the administration of the parish, even after the arrival of clergy from Europe who, like Egan, held the traditional view of parish organization.[21] The dispute also had nationalist elements to it, as the heavily German parish of Holy Trinity resented the imposition of an Irish bishop, instead of one of their own.[22] When Holy Trinity's pastor left for a new assignment inMaryland in 1811, the trustees there were perturbed at Egan's temporary appointment of an Irish priest, Patrick Kenny, to lead the parish, until a German priest could be found (a German priest, Francis Roloff, was assigned the following year).[23][24]
Egan's own research into the issue showed that the trustees had conveyed St. Mary's Church to the previous pastor, Robert Harding, and then to his heirs, but the trustees did not consider that property transfer to have extinguished their role in the church's leadership.[25] By 1811, Egan's worsening health caused him to accept the assistance of two priests at St. Mary's, James Harold and his nephew, William Vincent Harold.[25] Egan and the trustees became further embroiled in a dispute about clerical salaries, a situation possibly made worse by the decline in shipping income in the port city caused by the outbreak of theWar of 1812.[26] Egan also came to believe the Harolds were making the situation worse by taking pro-clergy positions that were more extreme than Egan's own and by the younger Harold's scheming to be named Egan'scoadjutor bishop.[27] He appealed to the trustees for a compromise and offered to bring his cousin (a priest) over from Ireland to replace the elder Harold.[27] By 1813, Egan and the trustees had reconciled and resolved to remove the Harolds, who agreed to resign later that year and relocate to England.[28]
Although the main complaints between the bishop and the trustees were resolved, some salary disputes lingered into 1813.[29] The conditions at St. Mary's worsened in 1814 with the election of new trustees who were more in conflict with Egan than the previous ones.[30] Elsewhere in the diocese, Egan was more successful. In 1811, he made his most extensive visitation of his diocese, travelling as far west asPittsburgh after stopping in Lancaster andConewago.[31] He continued to raise funds for the Catholic orphanage and opened a new parish,Sacred Heart, inTrenton, New Jersey, in 1813, which brought the total number of churches in the diocese to 16.[24][32]
Egan's health continued to decline, and he died on July 22, 1814.[33] While 19th-century chroniclers suggest that it "may be said in all truth that Bishop Egan died of a broken heart,"[33] modern biographers believe that his health troubles more closely resembledtuberculosis.[1][12] Egan was buried in St. Mary'schurchyard.[34] In 1869, after the construction of theCathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul onLogan Square, his remains were removed from there and reburied in a crypt along with those of his successor in the see of Philadelphia,Henry Conwell.[35]Conwell-Egan Catholic High School inFairless Hills, Pennsylvania, is named in honor of Egan and his successor.
| Catholic Church titles | ||
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| New diocese | Bishop of Philadelphia 1808–1814 | Succeeded by |
| International | |
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| National | |
