John Neumann - Bishop of Philadelphia

Bishop of Philadelphia

On 5 February 1852 Neumann was appointed as Bishop of Philadelphia by the Holy See and was consecrated on 28 March by Bishop Dubois. He was the first bishop in the country to organize a diocesan school system and served a large and expanding Irish immigrant population of Catholics, to be followed by Italians and other Catholic Europeans. During his administration, he increased the number of parochial schools in his diocese from one to two hundred. His construction campaign extended to parish churches as well. He established and built so many new parish churches within the diocese that they were completed almost at the rate of one a month.

Neumann actively invited religious institutes to establish new houses within the diocese. In 1855, he supported the foundation of a congregation of religious sisters in the city, the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia. He brought the School Sisters of Notre Dame from Germany to assist in religious instruction and staffing an orphanage. He also intervened to save the Oblate Sisters of Providence, a congregation for African-American women, from dissolution.

His facility with languages endeared him to the many new immigrant communities in the city. As well as ministering to newcomers in his native German, he also spoke Italian fluently and ministered personally to a growing congregation of Italian-speakers in his private chapel. He eventually established the first Italian national parishes in the country for them.

Neumann was notorious for his frugality. He kept and wore only one pair of boots throughout his residence in the United States. When given the gift of new vestments, he would often use them to fit the newest ordained priest in the diocese.

Neumann's efforts to expand the Catholic Church throughout his diocese was not without opposition. The Know Nothings, an anti-Catholic political party representing descendants of earlier immigrants to North America, was at the height of its activities. They set fire to convents and schools. Discouraged, Neumann wrote to Rome asking to be replaced as bishop, but Pope Pius IX insisted that he continue. In 1854, Neumann traveled to Rome and was present at St. Peter's Basilica on December 8, along with 53 cardinals, 139 other bishops, and thousands of priests and laity, when Pope Pius IX solemnly defined, ex cathedra, the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

While doing errands on 5 January 1860, Neumann collapsed and died on a city street, due to a stroke. He was 48 years old. Bishop James Frederick Wood, who had been appointed his coadjutor with right of succession, took office as Bishop of Philadelphia.