John Hughes (archbishop of New York)
John Joseph Hughes ( * June 24, 1797 in Annaloghan, County Tyrone, Ireland, † January 3, 1864 in New York City, United States) was an American clergyman and the fourth Bishop and first Archbishop of the Archdiocese of New York.
He was from a person of national prominence and exercised great moral and social influence. He stood at the head of the diocese and archdiocese during a period of explosive growth of Catholicism in New York. Hughes was regarded as " the most famous, if not the most popular Catholic bishop of the country". Hughes was also known as " Dagger John ", on the one hand because of its habit to provide his signature with a dagger-like cross, on the other hand because of his aggressive personality.
Childhood, Youth and Education
John Hughes was born in Annaloghan in County Tyrone as the third of seven children of Patrick and Margaret (nee McKenna ) Hughes. With respect to the anti-Catholic penal laws in Ireland at that time, he noted later that he lived during the first five days of his life in " social and civic equality with the most favored subjects of the British Empire " before his baptism. He and his family suffered from religious persecution in their home country; his deceased sister was denied a by a Catholic priest conducted the funeral, and Hughes himself was almost attacked by a group of Orangemen, when he was about fifteen years old. He was sent along with his older brothers in a school in Augher and then attended a Grammar School in Aughnacloy.
His father was a poor but respected sharecroppers, who was forced to withdraw from school and Hughes use in his farm. Since he was not inclined towards life as a farmer, he became an apprentice of Roger Toland, the gardener of Favour Royal, to learn horticulture.
His father emigrated in 1816 to the United States, and Hughes followed a year later that decision and settled with his parents in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, where he lived until 1819. During this time he made several attempts at Mount St. Mary's College in Emmitsburg, Maryland enroll. Finally, it Bishop John Dubois hired as a gardener. During this time he became friends with Mother Elizabeth Bayley Seton Anna, who was impressed by Hughes and Dubois convinced that the rejection Hughes to reconsider ' as a student. Hughes was admitted to Mary's College in September 1820 as a full-time student of Mount St.. Besides his studies he oversaw continue the garden of the school and worked as a tutor in Latin and mathematics.
Priesthood
As a deacon, he was able to join the Diocese of Philadelphia, the then Bishop Henry Conwell board. Bishop Conwell was on a trip to visit the diocese when he met Hughes in his parents' home in Chambersburg, inviting him to accompany him on the remainder of his journey. On October 15, 1826 Hughes received by Bishop Conwell in the St. Joseph 's Church in Philadelphia ordination.
His first appointment was that of an auxiliary priest at St. Augustine Church in Philadelphia, where he assisted Rev. Michael Hurley at the acceptance of the confession, preaching and other pastoral duties. Before the year he was sent as a missionary to Bedford, Pennsylvania, where he effected the conversion of several Protestants. In January 1827 he was recalled to Philadelphia and was appointed pastor of St. Joseph 's Church. In 1829 he founded the orphanage of St. John's. At this stage he was involved in a controversy with the Presbyterian pastor John A. Brekenridge who gave Hughes widespread attention and recognition. As a result, his name for the vacant bishopric Cincinnati and as Coadjutor Bishop of Philadelphia was brought into play.
Episcopacy
On August 8, 1837 Hughes was appointed Coadjutor Bishop in the Diocese of New York with the titular Basilinopolis and consecrated bishop of New York Bishop John Dubois on January 7, 1838. Co-consecrators were the bishop of Boston, Benedict Joseph Fenwick, SJ, and the coadjutor of Philadelphia, Francis Patrick Kenrick. With the death of Bishop Dubois ' on December 20, 1842 Hughes became his successor at the head of the Diocese of New York; with the elevation of the bishopric to an archbishopric on 19 July 1850, he became its first archbishop.
Hughes campaigned primarily for the benefit of Irish immigrants and tried to state support for religious schools to secure. He protested against the government of the United States because of the use of the King James Bible in public schools. He justified this by saying that it constituted an attack on the constitutional rights of Catholics. He argued that the Catholics would thus taxed twice because they would pay taxes on the one hand for the public schools and on the other hand, to avoid the Protestant translation of the Bible for private schools to which they would have to send their children. When his attempts failed to enforce state funding, he founded an independent Catholic school system, which was anchored to the Plenary Council of Baltimore in 1884 in the American Catholic Church. From then on, all parishes had set up a Catholic parish school in the United States, which had to be attended by all the Catholic school children.
Hughes founded the ultramontane newspaper New York Freeman and educational institutions Manhattan College, St. John's College (now Fordham University), the Academy of Mount St. Vincent (now the College of Mount Saint Vincent ) and Marymount College. He also started the construction of the present St. Patrick 's Cathedral. He was up to his death in the service of the Roman Catholic Church and was initially buried in the old St. Patrick 's Cathedral. He was later exhumed and reburied under the altar of the new cathedral.