John Bernard Fitzpatrick

{{Short description|American Roman Catholic bishop (1812–1866)}} {{Use mdy dates|date=November 2020}} {{Infobox Christian leader | type = Bishop | honorific-prefix = The Right Reverend | name = John Bernard Fitzpatrick | title = Bishop of Boston | image = John Bernard Fitzpatrick.png | alt = | caption = | church = Roman Catholic Church | archdiocese = | diocese = | see = Boston | enthroned = August 11, 1846 | ended = February 13, 1866 | predecessor = Benedict Joseph Fenwick | successor = John Joseph Williams | ordination = June 13, 1840 | ordinated_by = | consecration = March 24, 1844 | consecrated_by = | rank =  | birth_date = {{birth date|1812|11|1}} | birth_place = Boston, Massachusetts, United States | death_date = {{death date and age|1866|2|13|1812|11|1}} | death_place = Boston, Massachusetts, United States | previous_post = Coadjutor Bishop of Boston (1844–1846) | education =Petit Seminaire<br>Seminary of St. Sulpice }} '''John Bernard Fitzpatrick''' (November 1, 1812 – February 13, 1866) was an American Catholic prelate who served as Bishop of Boston from 1846 until his death in 1866.

==Biography==

=== Early life === John Fitzpatrick was born on November 1, 1812, in Boston, Massachusetts, to Bernard and Eleanor Flinn. A tailor, Bernard Flinn had emigrated in 1805 to the United States with his family from King's County in Ireland.<ref name="catholic">{{cite news |title=Boston |work=Catholic Encyclopedia - New Advent |url=https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02703a.htm |access-date=December 30, 2023}}</ref> John Fitzpatrick's maternal grandfather served in a Massachusetts regiment during the American Revolution.<ref name="oconnor">{{cite news|title=Boston Catholics|last=O'Connor|first=Thomas H.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Lester |first=Thomas |date=February 26, 2016 |title=The 150th anniversary of Bishop Fitzpatrick's death |url=https://www.thebostonpilot.com/Opinion/article.asp?ID=175878 |access-date=2023-12-31 |website=The Boston Pilot}}</ref> As a young child, he served as an altar boy and attended the local primary schools.<ref name="clarke" />

After attending local primary schools, Fitzpatrick was a pupil at the Boston Latin School from 1826 to 1829, during which time he distinguished himself for his studies and conduct.<ref name="clarke">{{cite news|work=Lives of the Deceased Bishops of the Catholic Church in the United States|title=RIGHT REV. JOHN BERNARD FITZPATRICK, D.D.|last=Clarke|first=Richard Henry}}</ref>

At the suggestion of Bishop Benedict Fenwick, Fitzpatrick then enrolled at the Petit Seminaire, run by the Sulpician Fathers, in Montreal, Quebec.<ref name="clarke" /> In addition to his studies, Fitzpatrick was named professor of rhetoric and ''belles-lettres'' during his fourth year in the seminary.<ref name="byrne">{{cite news|work=History of the Catholic Church in the New England States|title=BISHOP FITZPATRICK|last=Byrne|first=William and William Augustine Leahy}}</ref> He also became fluent in Latin, Greek, and French by this time.<ref name="byrne" /> After graduating from the Petit Seminaire in 1837, Fitzpatrick entered the Seminary of St. Sulpice in France, where he did his theological studies.<ref name="catholic" />

=== Priesthood === While still in Paris, Fitzpatrick was ordained to the priesthood for the Diocese of Boston by Archbishop Pierre-Dominique-Marcellin Bonamie on June 13, 1840.<ref name="hierarchy">{{catholic-hierarchy|bishop|bfitjb|Bishop John Bernard Fitzpatrick}}</ref> After Fitzpatrick returned to Boston in November 1840, the diocese assigned him as a curate at Holy Cross Cathedral in Boston and St. Mary's Parish in the North End of the city.<ref name="clarke" /> At that time, St. Mary's was troubled by two contending pastors; Fenwick had placed the parish under interdict after one faction interrupted a mass of the opposing priest.<ref name="oconnor" /> In 1842, Fenwick named Fitzgerald as pastor of a new parish in East Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he erected a church.<ref name="clarke" />

=== Coadjutor bishop and bishop of Boston === thumb|Know Nothing Flag thumb|Great Famine, Ireland (1849) thumb|Catholic chaplain ministering to Union Army soldiers (1861) On November 21, 1843, Pope Gregory XVI appointed Fitzpatrick as titular bishop of Callipolis and coadjutor bishop of Boston to assist Fenwick.<ref name="hierarchy" /> 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, Massachusetts.<ref name="hierarchy" /> Fitzpatrick then assumed many of Fenwick's duties, including administering confirmation, conducting episcopal visitations, investigating parish affairs, and preaching at the cathedral.<ref name="oconnor" /> In 1844, he received philosopher and author Orestes Brownson into the Catholic Church.<ref name="shea">{{cite news|title=A History of the Catholic Church Within the Limits of the United States|last=Shea, John Gilmary|author-link=John Gilmary Shea}}</ref> He also attended the Sixth Provincial Council of Baltimore in 1846 in Fenwick's absence.<ref name="catholic" />

When Fenwick died on August 11, 1846, Fitzpatrick automatically succeeded him as the third bishop of Boston.<ref name="hierarchy" /> According to reports, he was warmly received his parishioners, and became popularly known as "Bishop John."<ref name="oconnor" /> His visitations to parishes in 1847 extended over most of the diocese,<ref name="shea" /> which at that time 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!"<ref name="oconnor" /> 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 Catholic inmates at Deer Island, and protested when Catholics were either forced to pay an extra tax or outright rejected when purchasing cemetery plots. In March 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 boy's parents to sue them. As a result of this incident, the School Committee added several Catholic laymen and a priest.<ref name="oconnor" />

During this period, Know Nothing mobs tarred and feathered several priests in the diocese, including Reverend Johannes Bapst of Ellsworth, Maine. They burned Catholic churches in Dorchester, Massachusetts, Manchester, New Hampshire, and Bath, Maine.<ref name="clarke" /><ref name="byrne" /> Fitzpatrick urged Catholics not to attack the Know Nothings as it would only benefit their movement.<ref name="oconnor" />

In 1853, the Vatican erected the Dioceses of Burlington and Portland, taking the States of Vermont and Maine out of the Diocese of Boston.<ref name="boston">{{catholic-hierarchy|diocese|dbost|Archdiocese of Boston}}</ref> In June 1855, Fitzpatrick appointed Reverend James Augustine Healy, the first African-American to be ordained a priest, as the first chancellor of the Diocese of Boston.<ref name="oconnor" />

During the American Civil War, Fitzpatrick supported President Abraham Lincoln and the Union cause, providing Catholic chaplains for the heavily Irish Massachusetts regiments.<ref name="oconnor" /> He visited Belgium in 1862 for what he claimed as health reasons;<ref name="clarke" /> however, others (including the American diplomats Ambrose Dudley Mann and Henry Shelton Sanford) believed he was working for the Union cause in Europe.<ref name="oconnor" /> The diocesan newspaper declared, "Boston participates in the joy that pervades the whole country" when General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Confederate States Army to Lt. General Ulysses S. Grant of the Union Army on April 9, 1865 at the Appomattox Court House in Appomattox, Virginia.<ref name="oconnor" />

=== Death and legacy === During his 20-year tenure, Fitzpatrick raised the number of both priests and parishes from 40 to 300; established an orphanage, hospital, college; and increased the number of religious communities fivefold.<ref name=clarke/> After his health began to fail, he received John Joseph Williams as his coadjutor.<ref name="clarke" />

Fitzpatrick died in Boston on February 13, 1866 at age 53.<ref name="clarke" />

==References== {{Reflist}}

==External links== {{wikiquote}} {{commons category}}

* {{Cite Appletons'|wstitle=Fitzpatrick, John Bernard|year=1900 |short=x |notaref=x}}

==Episcopal succession== {{S-start}} {{s-rel|ca}} {{s-bef|before=Bishop Benedict Joseph Fenwick}} {{s-ttl | title = Bishop of Boston | order = 3rd | years = 1846–1866 }} {{s-aft|after=Archbishop John Joseph Williams}} {{S-end}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fitzpatrick, John Bernard}} Category:1812 births Category:1866 deaths Category:Roman Catholic clergy from Boston Category:American Roman Catholic clergy of Irish descent Category:19th-century Roman Catholic bishops in the United States Category:Roman Catholic bishops of Boston