American Roman Catholic bishop (1812–1866)
John Bernard Fitzpatrick (November 1, 1812 – February 13, 1866) was an American bishop of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as bishop of the Diocese of Boston in Massachusetts from 1846 until his death.
Biography
Early life
John Fitzpatrick was born on November 1, 1812, in Boston, Massachusetts, to Bernard and Eleanor Flinn. A tailor, Bernard Flinn emigrated in 1805 with his family from King's County in Ireland.[1] John Fitzpatrick's maternal grandfather served in a Massachusetts regiment during the American Revolution.[2][3] As a young child, he served as an altar boy and attended the local primary schools.[4]
After attending local primary schools, he was a pupil at the Boston Latin School from 1826 to 1829, during which time he distinguished himself for his studies and virtue.[4]
At the suggestion of Bishop Benedict Joseph Fenwick, Fitzpatrick then enrolled at Petit Seminaire, run by the Sulpician Fathers, in Montreal, Quebec.[4] In addition to his studies, Fitzpatrick was named professor of rhetoric and belles-lettres during his fourth year.[5] He was also fluent in Latin, Greek, and French by this time.[5] After graduating from Montreal in 1837, he entered the Seminary of St. Sulpice in Paris, France, where he did his theological studies.[1]
Priesthood
While still in Paris, Fitzpatrick was ordained to the priesthood by Archbishop Pierre-Dominique-Marcellin Bonamie on June 13, 1840.[6] After Fitzpatrick returned to Boston in November 1840, the diocese assigned him as a curate at Holy Cross Cathedral and St. Mary's Church in the North End.[4] At that time, St. Mary's was troubled by two contending pastors and even placed under interdict after one faction interrupted a mass of the opposing priest.[2] In 1842, Fenwick named Fitzgerald as pastor of a new parish in East Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he erected a church.[4]
Coadjutor bishop and bishop of Boston
On November 21, 1843, Pope Gregory XVI appointed Fitzpatrick as titular bishop of Callipolis and coadjutor bishop to assist Fenwick.[6] Fitzpatrick received his episcopal consecration on March 24, 1844, from Fenwick, with Bishops Richard Vincent Whelan and William Tyler serving as co-consecrators, at Georgetown.[6] Fitzpatrick then assumed many of Fenwick's duties, including administering Confirmation, conducting episcopal visitations, investigating parish affairs, and preaching at the cathedral.[2] In 1844, he received philosopher and author Orestes Brownson into the Catholic Church.[7] He also attended the Sixth Provincial Council of Baltimore (1846) in Fenwick's absence.[1]
When Fenwick died on August 11, 1846, Fitzpatrick automatically succeeded him as the third bishop of Boston.[6] The native Bostonian was warmly received his parishioners, and became popularly known as "Bishop John."[2] His visitations in 1847 extended over nearly all his diocese,[7] which then included all of Northern New England. Following the outbreak of the Great Famine in Ireland Fitzpatrick strongly encouraged Catholics to contribute to the relief effort there. He declared "Apathy and indifference, on an occasion like this, are inseparable from crime!"[2] Fitzpatrick later sent $20,000 from the archdiocesan funds to Archbishop William Crolly of the Archdiocese of Armagh in Ireland.
Fitzpatrick's tenure also coincided with the anti-Catholic Know Nothing movement. He petitioned Mayor Josiah Quincy, Jr. to allow Catholic priests to visit dying inmates at Deer Island, and protested when Catholics were either forced to pay an extra tax or outright rejected when purchasing cemetery plots. On March 14, 1859, a staff member at a Boston public school whipped a Catholic boy for refusing to recite the Ten Commandments from a Protestant bible. Fitzpatrick filed a strong complaint with the Boston School Committee and urged the parents to sue them. As a result of this incident, several Catholic laymen and a priest were added to the Committee.[2] Priests, such as Johannes Bapst of Ellsworth, were tarred and feathered, and churches were burned at Dorchester, Manchester, and Bath.[4][5] Fitzpatrick cautioned Catholics to take non-violent forms of opposition to this discrimination, lest they should add more fuel to the Know Nothing movement.[2] In 1853 the Dioceses of Burlington and Portland were carved out of the Diocese of Boston.[8]
In June 1855 Fitzpatrick appointed Rev. James Augustine Healy, the first African American to be ordained a priest, as the first chancellor of the Boston Diocese.[2] During the Civil War (1861–1865), he supported President Abraham Lincoln and the Union, and made a special effort to provide Catholic chaplains for the Massachusetts regiments.[2] He visited Belgium in 1862 for what he claimed as health reasons;[4] however, others (including Ambrose Dudley Mann and Henry Shelton Sanford) believed he was working for the Union cause in Europe.[2] The diocesan newspaper declared, "Boston participates in the joy that pervades the whole country" when General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Lt. General Ulysses S. Grant at the Appomattox Court House.[2]
Death and legacy
During his 20-year tenure, Fitzpatrick raised the number of both priests and churches from 40 to 300; established an orphanage, hospital, college; and increased the number of religious communities fivefold.[4] After his health began to fail, he received John Joseph Williams as his coadjutor, and he died at age 53.[4]
