John Bernard Fitzpatrick was an American bishop of the Roman Catholic Church.
Background
John Bernard Fitzpatrick was born in Boston and died there though he had traveled extensively in his lifetime. His parents were Bernard Fitzpatrick and Eleanor Flinn, both natives of Tullamore, Ireland, who settled in Boston in 1805, coming from Baltimore where there had been family connections since colonial days.
Through his father he was kinsman of the Fitzpatricks of Upper Ossory whose coat of arms Pope Pius IX combined with that of the See of Boston when appointing him Assistant at the Pontifical Throne (Ecclesiastical Review, July 1911, p. 5).
His mother was a Daughter of the American Revolution, her father, James Flinn, who lies buried on Boston Common, having served with the Massachusetts militia before his marriage in Baltimore to the beautiful Mary Kinsella, a descendant of William Bard, the founder of Bardstown, Kentucky.
Education
From his mother, who taught for a time at the Boylston School, he received his early training. Later he attended the Adams School and the Boylston School, under Master Fox, where he was a brilliant student.
In September 1826, he entered the famous Boston Latin School from which he was graduated in June 1829. References to his school friendships appear in Early Memories (1913, P- 56), by Henry Cabot Lodge, whose uncle, George Cabot, was a classmate, and also in the Ode on the 250th Anniversary of Boston Latin School (privately printed, n. d. ), by Thomas Parsons, the Dante scholar and poet, who also graduated at the same time. His course was strictly classical and was guided chiefly by Benjamin Apthorp Gould, Frederick Percival Leverett, and Samuel Parker Parker.
College studies were made at the historic Collège de Montréal which he entered in September 1829. Here, after four years of study under the priests of the Société de Saint-Sulpice, most influential of whom was Rev. John Larkin (United States Catholic Historical Society, Historical Records and Studies, vol. IV, pt. 1, 1906, p. 97).
John Fitzpatrick sustained so ably his theses in philosophy at a public disputation, August 1833, in competition with J. U. Beaudry, later the Canadian jurist, and Ambrose Manahan, of New York.
Career
Afterwards a doctor of the Propaganda, Rome, that he was appointed a Régent or tutor on the college faculty. Three years more of study in addition to teaching did not satisfy his own high standard of preparation for the priesthood, so that after a brief visit at home in August 1837 he sailed for Paris.
At the Grand Séminaire de Saint-Sulpice, Paris, where M. Antoine Gamier, the great linguist, who had done parish work in Baltimore while his parents were resident there, was Superior, and the brilliant Abbé Le Hir was professor of Hebrew, he made his final studies for the priesthood (L. Bertrand, Bibliothèque Sulpicienne, 1900, vol. II). Already tonsured at Boston by his bishop, Benedict Fenwick, S. J. , September 8, 1834 (dismissorial letters in Bibliothèque St. - Sulpice, Montreal), he received minor orders December 22, 1838, at the hands of Mgr. de Quélen, Archbishop of Paris ; subdiaconate May 28, 1839, and diaconate December 21, 1839, both from Mgr. Blanquart de Bailleul, then Bishop of Versailles; and priesthood June 13, 1840, sede vacante, in the Church of St. Sulpice, from the hands of Mgr. Pierre Dominique Marcellin Bonamie, titular Archbishop of Chalcedon and second superior of the Picpussiens (Records of the Société de Saint-Sulpice, Paris).
His priestly life in Boston, though brief, was of that superior quality which warranted his advancement to the episcopacy. Accordingly, in the new division of New England following the Fifth Provincial Council of Baltimore, he was consecrated Bishop of Callipolis and coadjutor of Boston March 24, 1844, in the Chapel of the Convent of the Visitation at Georgetown, D. C.
On August 11, 1846, upon the death of Bishop Fenwick, he succeeded to the See of Boston. Fitzpatrick’s episcopal career was a series of worrisome problems and of personal triumphs. His chief duty was the organization of the diocese to meet the needs of the great Irish immigration which began almost immediately after he was enthroned. Out of this underlying problem came many others, including the dispute over Bible reading in the public schools (1859), the inspection of the convents (1854), and the opposition to Catholic schools and colleges (1849 - 65 ).
Plad it not been that the Bishop was especially gifted in diplomacy, the course of church and state in Massachusetts might have been much more uneven than it has been. A man of letters himself, his great care was for the higher education of his clergy, and, through them, of the people.
In 1862 he was invited to become a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Disinclined to ostentation of any kind, simple and retiring in his tastes, Bishop Fitzpatrick would have been glad to have relinquished the dignity and distinctions which he carried so gracefully had he been allowed to choose his own career in the Church.
The exigencies of the period, however, required unremitting service from those most competent, and obedience as well as strong faith was among his virtues. The apostle of temperance, Father Mathew, the Vatican astronomer, Father De Vico, S. J. (A. J. Thebaud, Three-Quarters of a Century, 1904, III, 343), the American philosopher, Orestes Brownson (the Convert, 1877, p. 280), all received from him a gracious reception and warm encouragement. The members of many old New England families, carried into membership in the Catholic Church on the tide of the Oxford movement, turned to him for sincere sympathy and sound advice and found both. Governor Andrew and the statesmen of the time relied upon his loyal integrity and judicious influence.
Yet, although he was appraised by the first personal representative of the Holy Father to visit America, Cajetan, Cardinal Bedini, as one of the three ablest bishops of the United States at the time (1853) his reputation today endures only within the confines of the diocese which he organized in spite of tremendous obstacles, where his personal character forms a great part of the background of the history of the Catholic Church in New England.
His body rests in the crypt of the Cathedral of the Holy Cross which he had planned but was unable to build because of the financial uncertainties of Civil War times.
Membership
In 1862 he was invited to become a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was invited to be a member of the Thursday Evening Club of congenial Bostonians.
Personality
In appearance he was tall and well-poised, with regular features and high forehead. His figure is close to that of Governor Andrew in the bas-relief "Departure for the War” on the Soldiers and Sailors Monument on Boston Common.