Benedict Joseph Fenwick | |
|---|---|
| Bishop of Boston | |
 | |
| See | Boston |
| Appointed | May 10, 1825 |
| Installed | December 21, 1825 |
| Term ended | August 11, 1846 |
| Predecessor | Jean-Louis Lefebvre de Cheverus |
| Successor | John Bernard Fitzpatrick |
| Orders | |
| Ordination | March 12, 1808 by Leonard Neale |
| Consecration | November 1, 1825 by Ambrose Maréchal |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1782-09-03)September 3, 1782 Leonardtown, Maryland, U.S. |
| Died | August 11, 1846(1846-08-11) (aged 63) Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Buried | College of the Holy Cross Cemetery |
| Denomination | Catholic Church |
| Alma mater | |
| Signature |  |
Benedict Joseph FenwickSJ (September 3, 1782 – August 11, 1846) was an AmericanCatholicprelate,Jesuit, and educator who served as theBishop of Boston from 1825 until his death in 1846. In 1843, he founded theCollege of the Holy Cross inWorcester, Massachusetts. Prior to that, he was twice the president ofGeorgetown College and established several educational institutions in New York City andBoston.
Born inMaryland, Fenwick entered theSociety of Jesus and began his ministry in New York City in 1809 as the co-pastor ofSt. Peter's Church. He then became pastor of theoriginal St. Patrick's Cathedral and later thevicar general anddiocesan administrator of theDiocese of New York. In 1817, Fenwick became thepresident of Georgetown College, remaining just several months before he was tasked with resolving a longstandingschism atSt. Mary's Church inCharleston, South Carolina. He remained in the city as vicar general for theArchdiocese of Baltimore until 1822, when he returned to Georgetown as acting president.
Fenwick became the Bishop of Boston in 1825, during a period of rapid growth of the city's Catholic population due to massiveIrish immigration. At the same time, Catholics faced intensenativism andanti-Catholicism, culminating in theburning of the Ursuline Convent in 1834, threats against Fenwick's life, and the formation of theMontgomery Guards. Fenwick also addressedparochial conflict, ultimately placing a Boston church underinterdict. He established churches, schools, charitable institutions, and newspapers throughout the diocese, which encompassed all ofNew England. Among these wereThe Pilot newspaper and the College of the Holy Cross.
Benedict Joseph Fenwick was born on September 3, 1782, at Beaverdam Manor inLeonardtown, Maryland,[1] to George Fenwick II, a planter andsurveyor, and Margaret Fenwick,née Medley.[2] His paternal ancestors hailed fromNorthumberland inNorth East England. Benedict's great-great-great-grandfather, Cuthbert Fenwick, emigrated to America in the 1633 expedition of theArk and theDove, and was one of the original Catholic settlers of the BritishProvince of Maryland.[3] Benedict's elder brother wasEnoch Fenwick, who would also become a prominentJesuit,[4] and his cousin wasEdward Fenwick, who would become aDominican andBishop of Cincinnati.[5]
When Fenwick's family moved from Leonardtown toGeorgetown in theDistrict of Columbia, Fenwick was enrolled atGeorgetown College in 1793.[2] Intending to enter thepriesthood, he began his study oftheology in 1801,[1] and proved to be a good student, earning highest academic honors. Upon completing his study ofphilosophy, he was made a professor at the college,[6] where he taught until 1805.[2]
That year, Fenwick enteredSt. Mary's Seminary inBaltimore, but remained for only a year,[1] before theSociety of Jesus, which had beensuppressed by the pope, was restored in the United States.[7] Therefore, he and his brother became among the first six to enter the newly restored Jesuitnovitiate on October 10, 1806.[1][7] On March 12, 1808, Fenwick wasordained a priest at Georgetown College byLeonard Neale, thecoadjutor bishop of theArchdiocese of Baltimore.[7]
In November 1808,[8] Fenwick was sent withAnthony Kohlmann to minister to the Catholics ofNew York City, where they were put in charge ofSt. Peter's Church, the only Catholic church in the city.[7] He assisted in establishing the New York Literary Institution, the second Jesuit school in New York City.[9] As an offshoot of Georgetown College, the institution was staffed by four Jesuitscholastics from Georgetown,[10] with Fenwick as president.[8] The school was opened in 1808, in a house onMulberry Street,[10] across the street from the future site of theoriginal St. Patrick's Cathedral.[11] It remained there only briefly, before relocating toBroadway in September 1809; it moved again in March 1810 to a plot of land "far out in the country,"[10] north of the New York City limits. This new site would eventually become the location of thenew St. Patrick's Cathedral, inMidtown Manhattan.[9]
The school grew quickly, enrolling the sons of several prominent Catholic andProtestant families, and its curriculum emphasized the study ofLatin,Ancient Greek, andFrench. However, the Jesuit superior in the United States,Giovanni Antonio Grassi, determined that there were not enough Jesuits in the United States to sustain both Georgetown and the New York Literary Institution.[9] Despite Kohlmann desiring to close Georgetown, Grassi sided with the bulk of Jesuits who were native to Maryland and ordered the New York school closed in 1813,[12] with it officially disbanding in April 1814.[9] Responsibility for the facility was transferred to theTrappist order.[11]
While in New York, Fenwick and Kohlmann were called for by the dyingThomas Paine, to his house inGreenwich Village.[13] Having been unsuccessfully treated by several physicians, Paine sought priests to heal him. They attempted to convince him to renounce a lifetime of writings denouncing Christianity, to which he angrily dismissed them from his house.[14]
Fenwick served alongside Kohlmann aspastor of Old St. Patrick's Cathedral from 1809 to 1815.[15] When Kohlmann was recalled to Maryland in 1815,[12] Fenwick replaced him as pastor of St. Peter's Church and as thediocesan administrator of theDiocese of New York.[16][17] He was successful in prompting hundreds ofconversions to Catholicism throughout the diocese during his tenure.[18] Fenwick was present at the formal dedication of Old St. Patrick's Cathedral in 1816.[19] He also drew up designs for the new St. Patrick's Cathedral, the construction of which would be completed after he left New York.[18] The Dominican priest, Charles Ffrench, succeeded Fenwick as pastor of St. Peter's,[16] andJohn Power would eventually become the next pastor of Old St. Patrick's in 1825.[15] Fenwick becamevicar general of the diocese for BishopJohn Connelly in 1816,[18] replacing Kohlmann,[16] and remained at the post until April 1817.[8]
Fenwick became thepresident of Georgetown College and the pastor ofHoly Trinity Church on June 28, 1817,[20] succeeding Grassi at the former,[21] andFrancis Neale at the latter.[22] The college's first degrees were conferred during his brief term.[20] Later that year,Ambrose Maréchal, theArchbishop of Baltimore, sent Fenwick toCharleston, South Carolina, where there was a long-standingschism at a local Catholic church.[23] He was replaced at Georgetown by Anthony Kohlmann,[24] and at Holy Trinity by Theodore M. DeTheux.[22]
Fenwick arrived in Charleston in the fall of 1818 as vicar general of the Archdiocese of Baltimore for the city. His mission was to resolve the ecclesiastical dispute,[25] where thelay trustees at the predominantly IrishSt. Mary's Church refused to accept a French priest as their pastor, and defied the orders of Archbishop Leonard Neale to have their desired pastor move to another parish.[26] With tensions long-standing, the French- and English-speaking parishioners refused to attend services said in the others' language. Fenwick resolved the dispute by preaching the sermons himself, in which he would alternate between French and English.[25] As vicar, he traveled throughout the Carolinas to minister. Fenwick remained in Charleston one year beyond the erection of the newDiocese of Charleston and the appointment ofJohn England as the first bishop in 1820.[27]
In May 1822, Fenwick returned toWashington, D.C. as the minister of Georgetown College and theprocurator of the Jesuits in the United States.[27] On September 15, 1825,[28] the Jesuitmission superior,Francis Dzierozynski, again made Fenwick acting president of the college and vicerector, as the incumbent president—his brother, Enoch—refused to return to the college after leaving forSt. Thomas Manor.[29] His term as acting president lasted for just several months before he was replaced byStephen Lariguadelle Dubuisson.[30] Fenwick then briefly became thespiritual director of theMount Carmel Monastery inPort Tobacco, Maryland.[31]
Fenwick was appointed the secondBishop of Boston byPope Leo XII on May 10, 1825, succeedingJean-Louis Lefebvre de Cheverus. Thepapal bull notifying him of his appointment arrived in July 1825, and he embarked on an eight-dayspiritual retreat.[31] Upon its completion, Fenwick was consecrated a bishop in theCathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Baltimore on November 1.[32] Archbishop Ambrose Maréchal served asprincipal consecrator, while Bishops John England andHenry Conwell were co-consecrators.[31] Fenwick arrived in Boston on December 3, and formally took canonical possession of the Diocese of Boston at theoriginal Cathedral of the Holy Cross, on December 21, 1825.[33]
Though the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the diocese encompassed all ofNew England, Bishop Fenwick had only two priests under his charge, who served three Catholic churches, besides the cathedral, in all of New England:Saint Augustine's Chapel in Boston,St. Patrick's Church inNewcastle, Maine, and a small church inClaremont, New Hampshire.[34] Throughout New England, there were approximately 10,000 Catholics.[35] Due to significant Irish immigration, the Catholic population in the diocese grew to at least 30,000 by 1833.[36] Fenwick traveled throughout the large territory to manage the diocese and administer the sacrament ofconfirmation.[37] This included visitingPenobscot andPassamaquoddy tribes inMaine,[38] who were largely Catholic,[39] and were the subject of intensiveproselytism by Protestant evangelists. Fenwick ordered the construction ofSt. Anne's Church inOld Town, Maine, for them in 1828,[40] and sought to improve their schools.[38]
Fenwick attended theFirst Provincial Council of Baltimore convened in 1829.[41] He addressed a shortage of priests in his diocese by sending prospectiveseminarians to Maryland and Canada to be educated, and byincardinating several priests from other dioceses.[36] He also trained several students in a makeshift seminary at his episcopal residence.[42] As a result, the number of priests in the diocese had increased to 24 by 1833.[36] At the same time, many newparishes were founded throughout New England.[43] As in South Carolina, Fenwick was an ardent opponent of lay trusteeism in the Diocese of Boston.[44] With a rapidly expanding Catholic population in the diocese, a portion of the territory was removed to form theDiocese of Hartford in 1843.[45] That year,John Bernard Fitzpatrick was appointed as Fenwick's coadjutor bishop,[46] and would later succeed him as Bishop of Boston.[47]
By the end of Fenwick's episcopate, the number of Catholics in the Diocese of Boston (after the removal of Hartford) had increased to 70,000, in addition to 37 priests, and 44 churches.[45] In December 1845, Fenwick's health began to decline, due to an ailment of the heart. Eight months later, he died on August 11, 1846,[48] at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston.[49] After the funeral, his body was carried from the Cathedral of the Holy Cross to the train station, from where it was taken to theCollege of the Holy Cross and buried in the school's cemetery.[50]Bishop Fenwick High School inPeabody, Massachusetts, which opened in 1959, was named in his honor.[51] The historicBenedict Fenwick School was apublic school in Boston that operated from 1912 to 1981.[52]
One of Fenwick's primary tasks was the creation of Catholic educational institutions in Boston. He established aSunday school at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, where Fenwick himselfcatechized both children and their parents. This was followed by the establishment of aco-educationalday school.[53] The cathedral was eventually enlarged, which included the construction of two classrooms in the basement for use by these schools.[53] Fenwick also invited theSisters of Charity fromEmmitsburg, Maryland, to Boston to educate the immigrant children of the city in 1832.[54] Three sisters arrived on May 2, 1832, and founded the first Catholic charitable institution inMassachusetts, which consisted of anorphanage, a school for poor girls, and a Sunday school.[55] This institution would beincorporated in 1843 as St. Vincent's Orphan Asylum, and operated until 1949.[56]
By 1830, the establishment of a Catholic college and seminary became Fenwick's highest priority. In April of the following year, he purchased land adjacent to the Boston cathedral, where he planned to open a college, but the project stalled. He desired to have the school run by the Jesuits, but in 1835, they declined his invitation, and his plan for a college was placed on hold.[57]
In the spirit of the ongoingRestoration Movement in the United States, Fenwick purchased 11,000 acres (4,500 hectares) inAroostook County, Maine, in 1835. The compound became known asBenedicta, and on it, lumber andgrist mills as well as agriculture were begun.[57] There, he sought to create a college in the wilderness, which would be part of a largerutopian Catholic community where Irish Catholics of Boston, who lived in squalor, could resettle. However, the Bostonians showed little interest in moving to Maine.[58]
Therefore, Fenwick instead decided to establish a college inWorcester, Massachusetts, on 60 acres (24 hectares) of land owned by the local priest,James Fitton. Fenwick purchased the land from Fitton in 1842, and named the new school the College of the Holy Cross, in honor of the original Boston cathedral.[59] This property was then supplemented, bringing its total to 96 acres (39 hectares), and in 1843, Fenwick entrusted the new college to a party of Jesuits sent from Georgetown College.[46] That year, construction of the college's first building began,[60] which would later become known as Fenwick Hall.[61]
Fenwick established several Catholic newspapers in the diocese. The first wasThe Catholic Press, which was founded in 1829 inHartford, Connecticut, and survived for five years. Another wasThe Expostulator, which was established in 1830, and was written for young people; this publication survived for only two years. Fenwick's most enduring newspaper wasThe Jesuit, or Catholic Sentinel, which was founded in Boston in 1829. It later became known asThe Pilot, which is today the oldest extant Catholic newspaper in the United States.[62]
He also assisted in editing the Catholic Laity's Directory, which was produced by John Power, the vicar general of New York, in 1822. Fenwick wrote a history of the Diocese of Boston from its founding to 1829, titled "Memoirs to Serve for the Future Ecclesiastical History of the Diocess of Boston," but this was never published during his lifetime. He also directed many historical Catholic books to be reprinted for the diocese.[62]
Aconvent ofUrsuline nuns, which also conducted a free school for poor girls, was located next to the Boston cathedral.[63] As their facilities were inadequate, Fenwick purchased a new property for the nuns inCharlestown,[64] today located inEast Somerville.[65] The purchase was made on July 17, 1826,[64] and the nuns erected a new convent and school there, completing their move in 1828.[63] They named it the Convent and Academy of Mount Benedict, in honor of the bishop.[64] As the nuns' vow ofenclosure did not allow them to actively manage the construction of the new facilities, or their expansion in 1829, Fenwick oversaw much of the work.[63] With the change in location came a change in mission; the school began charging tuition, and though it admitted some students for free, it sought to primarily educate the daughters of the elite Protestant residents of Charlestown.[66]
Nativism andanti-Catholicism were rampant inGreater Boston at this time.[67] Lurid rumors that Catholic convents were dens of immorality were prevalent; among these were allegations that convents imprisoned women against their will, murdered babies, and concealed sexual deviance.[68] While upper-class Protestants were willing to send their daughters to the Catholic academy, lower-class Protestants, particularlyCongregationalists, were distrustful of the school.[67] These tensions led to theUrsuline Convent riots. On August 10, 1834, posters were displayed in the neighborhood that declared anultimatum: unless the convent were investigated by theboard of selectmen of Charlestown, it would be "demolished" by the "Truckmen of Boston." The following day, authorities were sent to inspect the convent. As they left, a mob of 2,000, wearing masks or painted faces, encircled the convent. They threw bricks through the windows, stole precious objects from the interior, and then lit it ablaze; the nuns fled. The fire department, which largely shared the attitudes of the rioters, arrived but did not attempt to extinguish the fire. The convent's adjacent graveyard was attacked as well.[69] All but one of the perpetrators were acquitted in a subsequent jury trial.[70] The Massachusetts legislature refused to redress the destruction of the convent.[65]
Anti-Catholic sentiment in the city only increased after the convent riots, which caused the Ursuline nuns to flee to Canada.[71] Tensions steadily grew until some feared the outbreak of areligious war.[72] The Charlestown selectmen banned Catholics from being buried in the Catholic cemetery Fenwick established on Bunker Hill.[73] Aneffigy of Bishop Fenwick was shot with guns in 1835, and threats were made on his life. Widespread violence and destruction occurred during theBroad Street Riot of 1837, and Irish Catholics took up arms as theMontgomery Guards. Another burning of a Catholic church occurred in 1838 inBurlington, Vermont.[72]
Fenwick's episcopate involved numerous conflicts both among parishioners over control of their respective churches, and between parishioners and the bishop. Some of these disputes turned violent, and involved calls for leaving the Catholic Church to create new churches.[74]
One such dispute arose at St. Mary's Church in theNorth End of Boston in 1840. That year,Patrick O'Beirne and Thomas J. O'Flaherty were appointed co-pastors of the predominantly Irish church. The parish quickly became polarized, with parishioners supporting either O'Flaherty, who advocated strong lay control of the church, or O'Beirne, who advocated episcopal control. Divisions were further deepened by O'Flaherty's support of thetemperance movement and opposition to theActs of Union 1800, whichunited Ireland and Great Britain. By 1842, the congregation was so divided that Fenwick worried violence might erupt. Therefore, he attempted to restore peace by personally visiting the church, threateningexcommunication for disobedience of church authorities, banning mass protests,[75] and ordering the two pastors to publicly reconcile. Eventually, Fenwick transferred O'Beirne toProvidence, Rhode Island, at O'Beirne's request.[76]
None of these efforts was effective in restoring tranquility, and on February 20, 1842, O'Beirne's supporters began a riot during avespers service over which O'Flaherty presided. The perpetrators were arrested and prosecuted, and Fenwick placed the parish underinterdict for two weeks. He then transferred O'Flaherty toSalem, Massachusetts, and removed O'Beirne from Providence. Though O'Flaherty's supporters demanded his return, and organized regular train rides to visit him, the dispute at St. Mary's came to an end.[76]
| Catholic Church titles | ||
|---|---|---|
| First | Pastor ofSt. Patrick's Old Cathedral 1809–1815 withAnthony Kohlmann | Vacant Title next held by John Power |
| Preceded by | Pastor ofSt. Peter's Church 1815–1816 | Succeeded by Charles Ffrench |
| Preceded by | Diocesan Administrator of theDiocese of New York 1815 | Succeeded byas Bishop of New York |
| Preceded by | Vicar General of theDiocese of New York 1816–1817 | Succeeded by – |
| Preceded by | 2nd Pastor ofHoly Trinity Church 1817–1818 | Succeeded by Theodore M. DeTheux |
| Preceded by | 2ndBishop of Boston 1825–1846 | Succeeded by |
| Academic offices | ||
| Preceded by | 10thPresident of Georgetown College 1817 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | 13thPresident of Georgetown College 1825 | Succeeded by |
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
