Portal:Catholicism/Patron Archive/January 5

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Saint John Nepomucene Neumann (German: Johannes Nepomuk Neumann; March 28, 1811 – January 5, 1860) was a Bishop of Philadelphia (1852-60) and the first American bishop to be canonized. His surname is properly pronounced "Noi-mahn" as opposed to "New-man," although he is said to have come to prefer the latter, "English," pronunciation.

Neumann was born in Prachatice, Bohemia. He attended school in Budweis before entering seminary there in 1831. He intended to be ordained, but his bishop, in 1835, decided there would be no more ordinations, as Bohemia had a high number of priests already.

In 1836, he arrived in the United States and was ordained to the priesthood there. He was assigned to work with recent German immigrants in mission churches in the Niagara Falls area, where he visited the sick, taught catechism, and trained teachers to take over when he left. After four years of service there, he applied to the Redemptorists. He was accepted, and entered the novitiate of the order in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In January, 1842, he took the vows to enter the order in Baltimore, Maryland, and became the first Redemptorist in the New World. After six years of difficult but fruitful work with the order, he was appointed the order's provincial superior in the United States. Neumann was naturalized as a citizen of the United States in Baltimore on February 10, 1848.

In March 1852, Neumann was consecrated in Baltimore, as Bishop of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was the first to organize a Catholic diocesan school system and increased the number of Catholic schools in his diocese from one to two hundred. He also introduced the School Sisters of Notre Dame to the New World to assist in religious instruction and staffing the orphanage.

Neumann was not a popular bishop and received criticism. He had to deal with the Know Nothings, a political group determined to deprive foreigners and Catholics of their civil rights; the group burnt down convents and schools. Discouraged, Neumann unsuccessfully wrote to Rome and asked for someone else to take his place. Neumann wrote in many Catholic newspaper and magazine articles.

In 1860, Neumann died due to a stroke at the age of 48 while walking down a street in Philadelphia. After his death people began to talk of how great he had been.
Attributes: Redemptorist habit, Episcopal vestments
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