John Baptist Purcell
John Baptist Purcell (* February 26, 1800 in Mallow, Ireland, † July 4, 1883 in Brown County (Ohio ) ) was an Irish -born American Roman Catholic priest and from 1833 until his death Bishop - 1850 Archbishop - from Cincinnati. He is one of the prominent figures of the consolidating U.S. Catholicism in the 19th century.
Life
John Baptist Purcell left Ireland at age 18, to pursue his priestly vocation in the United States. Since he was penniless, he took a teaching post at Ashbury College auxiliary in Baltimore. In 1820 he was at Mount St. Mary 's Seminary in Emmitsburg allowed to philosophy and theology, which he finished at the Sulpician College in Paris. In 1926 he received at Notre Dame ordination.
1827 Purcell Professor of Philosophy at Mount St. Mary 's Seminary and a year later its president. In a few years he improved and enlarged the seminar material. 1833 he was appointed by Pope Gregory XVI. the second bishop of the diocese in 1821 erected Cincinnati, which at that time included all Ohio. On October 13, 1833, he received in the Baltimore Cathedral consecrated bishop by the Archbishop of Baltimore, James Whitfield. Co-consecrators were the Bishop of New York, John Dubois, and the Coadjutor Bishop of Philadelphia, Francis Patrick Kenrick.
In Purcell's office in Cincinnati, there was only a small Catholic church in all of Ohio 16 In the following years, the Catholic population grew by German and Irish immigrants quickly. Bishop Purcell pushed for the building of churches and schools, schools and monasteries and established English-and German -speaking communities. 1841-1846 was the St. Peter Cathedral in chains. In 1847 the diocese was separated from Cincinnati Cleveland; more divisions followed until 1868. 1850 was the elevation to the archbishopric of Cincinnati.
As in 1861, the American Civil War broke out, Purcell was the first Catholic bishop in the United States, who advocated the immediate abolition of slavery.
1869 Purcell took part in the First Vatican Council. The dogma of papal infallibility he held to be opportune - like 60 other bishops he left before the voting - but known to the public as to its content.
Purcell's last years in office were marred by a financial scandal. The construction work had required a lot of money to its generation among the Bishop and Vicar General and his brother Edward Purcell accepted deposits. However, to their management, they lacked the financial knowledge and there were millions of losses. Although John Baptist Purcell no personal allegations met - his ascetic lifestyle and unreserved generosity were notoriously - the administration of the diocese in 1880 was transferred to a coadjutor. He retired to a small convent in Brown County, where he died three years later.
In addition to the external construction work succeeded Purcell in several public controversies, to make the content of the Catholic faith for Protestants and non-Christians to understand and overcome prejudices. A seven-day public dispute with the Presbyterian minister and leader of the revival movement, Alexander Campbell in 1837 attracted nation -wide attention.