Michael Corrigan

Michael Augustine Corrigan (August 13, 1839 – May 5, 1902) was an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church, who served as the third archbishop of New York from 1885 to 1902.

Early life

Born in Newark, New Jersey, the fifth of nine children of Thomas and Mary English Corrigan, both of whom had emigrated from Ireland. Thomas Corrigan owned a retail grocery and liquor business in Newark, and the family's well-to-do status allowed Michael to pursue his educational interests. He attended St. Mary's College in Wilmington, Delaware, from 1853-1855, Mount Saint Mary's University in Emmitsburg, Maryland from 1855-1857, spent a year in Europe, and ultimately received his baccalaureate from Mount Saint Mary's in 1859. He thereafter became a member of the first class at the North American College in Rome, was ordained to the priesthood in 1863, and received the doctorate of divinity in 1864.

Corrigan returned to New Jersey in 1864, where he joined the faculty at Seton Hall College and the Immaculate Conception Seminary, both located in South Orange, as professor of theology and history. He soon achieved a reputation within the hierarchy for sound scholarship, and he also provided pastoral care to Catholics in the Seton Hall vicinity. When Bernard J. McQuaid left Seton Hall in 1869 to assume his duties as bishop of the Diocese of Rochester, Corrigan succeeded him as president of that institution and also became vicar general of the Diocese of Newark.

Episcopal career

Bishop of Newark

In 1872, Corrigan succeeded James Roosevelt Bayley as bishop of Newark, becoming the second ordinary of the diocese. The diocese encompassed the entire state of New Jersey during Corrigan's tenure. He administered diocesan affairs during a time of rapid population growth, Roman Catholic institutional development, immigration from Ireland and Germany, and considerable urbanization in the northern part of the state.^[1]

Archbishop of New York

Corrigan was appointed Coadjutor Archbishop of New York on October 1, 1880, with the titular see of Petra, and succeeded to the archbishopric on October 10, 1885, serving as archbishop until his death. He is interred in the crypt under the altar of St. Patrick's Cathedral. Within the American hierarchy, he was the closest supporter of the Pope Leo XIII on Testem Benevolentiae.

Corrigan's career in New York proved controversial on a number of levels. He aligned himself closely with his former mentor, Bernard J. McQuaid and has been considered one of the leaders of the "conservative" movement within the American Catholic hierarchy. He proved to be a strong supporter of national parishes and parochial schools, a vocal opponent of John Ireland, James Gibbons and other bishops who advocated "Americanization" within the Catholic Church, and also proved unpopular with many bishops for his involvement in backstage intrigue at the Vatican.

Within the Archdiocese of New York his most serious controversy involved his conflict with Father Edward McGlynn. During the 1886 mayoral campaign in New York City, the outspoken McGlynn supported Henry George, the candidate of the United Labor Party who proved popular with labor organizers, radicals, socialists, and Irish nationalists. Corrigan himself had been very close to Tammany Hall and ordered McGlynn to refrain from politics. McGlynn refused, continued to clash with the bishop, and ultimately was removed as pastor of St. Stephen's Church in New York and excommunicated in 1887. This highly public scandal took its toll on Corrigan and contributed to his poor relationships with an influential group of New York intellectual priests. His greatest accomplishment probably involved the building of a new seminary, St. Joseph's Seminary, Dunwoodie.

In 1897, Edgardo Mortara preached in St. Patrick's Cathedral New York, but the Archbishop of New York told the Holy See that he opposed Mortara's efforts to evangelise the Jews on the grounds that such efforts might embarrass the Church in the view of the United States government. He also had invited Mother Cabrini to New York, but had to withdraw his invitation. By then Mother Cabrini and her missionaries had already embarked on their sea voyage to New York.

Ironically, Corrigan slipped and fell when inspecting the excavation of the seminary in 1902, and this accident ultimately resulted in his death as he contracted pneumonia during his convalescence.^[2]

References

1. ^ For Corrigan's career in Newark, see Joseph F. Mahoney and Peter J. Wosh, The Diocesan Journal of Michael Augustine Corrigan, Bishop of Newark, 1872-1880 (Newark: New Jersey Historical Society, 1987), and Carl D. Hinrichsen, "The History of the Diocese of Newark, 1873-1901," (Ph.D. diss., Catholic University of America, 1962)
2. ^ Michael Augustine Corrigan - Catholic Encyclopedia article. Corrigan's career in New York is chronicled in Robert Emmet Curran, Michael Augustine Corrigan and the Shaping of Conservative Catholicism in America, 1878-1902 (New York: Arno Press, 1978). Thomas Shelley also provides a good accounting of his New York years in The Archdiocese of New York: A Bicentennial History, 1808-2008 (France: Editions du Signe, 2007), pp. 391-405.

See also

• Archdiocese of New York#Ordinaries