| The Most Reverend Dr. John Joseph Hughes |
|
|---|---|
| Archbishop of New York | |
| See | New York |
| Enthroned | December 20, 1842 |
| Reign ended | January 3, 1864 |
| Predecessor | John Dubois |
| Successor | John McCloskey |
| Other posts | Coadjutor Bishop of New York (1838-42) |
| Orders | |
| Ordination | October 15, 1826 |
| Consecration | January 7, 1838 |
| Personal details | |
| Born | June 24, 1797 Annaloghan, County Tyrone, Ireland |
| Died | January 3, 1864 (aged 66) New York, New York, United States |
| Denomination | Roman Catholic Church |
John Joseph Hughes (June 24, 1797 – January 3, 1864), was an Irish-born clergyman of the Roman Catholic Church. He was the fourth Bishop and first Archbishop of the Archdiocese of New York, serving between 1842 and his death in 1864.[1]
A native of Ireland, Hughes was born and raised in the south of County Tyrone. Hughes came to the United States in 1817, and became a priest in 1826 and a bishop in 1838. A figure of national prominence, he exercised great moral and social influence, and presided over a period of explosive growth for Catholicism in New York. He was regarded as "the best known, if not exactly the best loved, Catholic bishop in the country."[2] He also became known as "Dagger John" for his practice of signing his name with a dagger-like cross, as well as for his aggressive personality.[3]
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John Hughes was born in Annaloghan, County Tyrone, part of the Province of Ulster in the north of Ireland. He was the third of seven children of Patrick and Margaret (née McKenna) Hughes.[4] In reference to the anti-Catholic penal laws of Ireland, he later observed that, prior to his baptism, he had lived the first five days of his life on terms of "social and civil equality with the most favored subjects of the British Empire."[2] He and his family suffered religious persecution in their native land; his late sister was denied a Catholic burial conducted by a priest, and Hughes himself was nearly attacked by a group of Orangemen when he was about fifteen.[4] He was sent with his elder brothers to a day school in Augher, and afterwards attended a grammar school in Aughnacloy.[5]
His father, a poor but respectable tenant farmer, was forced to withdraw Hughes from school and set him to work one of his farms.[5] However, being disinclined to farm life, he was placed as an apprentice to Roger Toland, the gardener at Favour Royal, to study horticulture.[6] In 1816, his father emigrated to the United States in 1816 and settled in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.[6] Hughes joined his father in Chambersburg the following year.[6] He made several unsuccessful applications to Mount St. Mary's College in Emmitsburg, Maryland, where he was eventually hired by Father John Dubois as a gardener.[4] During this time, he befriended Mother Elizabeth Ann Seton, who was favorably impressed by Hughes and persuaded Dubois to reconsider his admission.[3] Hughes was subsequently admitted as a regular student of Mount St. Mary's in September 1820.[2] In addition to his studies, he continued to supervise the garden, and served as a tutor in Latin and mathematics as well as prefect over the other students.[5]
As a deacon, Hughes resolved to attach himself to the Diocese of Philadelphia, then governed by Bishop Henry Conwell.[5] Bishop Conwell, while performing a visitation of his diocese, met Hughes at his parents' home in Chambersburg and invited him to accompany him on the remainder of his visitation.[4] On October 15, 1826, Hughes was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Conwell at St. Joseph's Church in Philadelphia.[1]
His first assignment was as a curate at St. Augustine's Church in Philadelphia, where he assisted Father Michael Hurley in hearing confessions, preaching sermons, and other parochial duties.[5] Later that year he was sent to serve as a missionary in Bedford, where he secured the conversions of several Protestants.[4] In January 1827, he was recalled to Philadelphia and named pastor of St. Joseph's Church.[5] He laboured afterwards at St. Mary's whose trustees were in open revolt against the bishop, and were subdued by Father Hughes only when he built St. Joseph's church, 1832, then considered one of the finest in the country. Previous to this, in 1829, he founded St. John's Orphan Asylum. About this period he was engaged in a religious controversy with Rev. John A. Brekenridge, a distinguished Presbyterian clergyman, with the result that Father Hughes's remarkable ability attracted widespread attention and admiration. His name was mentioned for the vacant see of Cincinnati and for the Coadjutorship of Philadelphia.
He was consecrated bishop on January 7, 1838 with the titular see of Basileopolis. He succeeded to the bishopric of the diocese of New York on December 20, 1842 and became an archbishop on July 19, 1850, when the diocese was elevated to the status of archdiocese.
Hughes, influenced by the reactionary stance of Pope Pius IX, was a staunch opponent of Abolitionism and the Free Soil movement. In 1850 he delivered an address entitled "The Decline of Protestantism and Its Causes," in which he announced as the ambition of Roman Catholicism "to convert all Pagan nations, and all Protestant nations . . . Our mission [is] to convert the world—including the inhabitants of the United States—the people of the cities, and the people of the country . . . the Legislatures, the Senate, the Cabinet, the President, and all!"[7]
He also campaigned actively on behalf of Irish immigrants, and attempted to secure state support for religious schools. He protested against the United States Government for using the King James Bible in public schools, claiming that it was an attack on Catholic constitutional rights of double taxation, because Catholics would need to pay taxes for public school and also pay for the private school to send their children, to avoid the Protestant translation of the Bible. When he failed to secure state support, he founded an independent Catholic school system which was taken into the Catholic Church's core at the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore, 1884, which mandated that all Parishes have a parochial school and that all Catholic children be sent to those schools.
He founded Manhattan College, St. John's College (now Fordham University), Fordham Prep, the Academy of Mount St. Vincent (now College of Mount Saint Vincent)and Marymount College. and began construction of St. Patrick's Cathedral. He served until his death. He was originally buried in old St. Patrick's Cathedral and was exhumed and reinterred in the crypt under the altar of the new cathedral. Hughes founded the Ultramontane newspaper the New York Freeman.[8]
| Catholic Church titles | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by John Dubois |
Archbishop of New York 1842-1864 |
Succeeded by John McCloskey |
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