Background
John Larkin was born of Irish stock at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England.
John Larkin was born of Irish stock at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England.
He pursued his classical studies under the historian, Dr. John Lingard, at Ushaw College near Durham where Dr. Nicholas Wiseman, later cardinal, was a friend and schoolfellow. On graduation, Larkin traveled in the East with some thought of entering business, but the call of religion brought him to the Seminary of St. Sulpice in Paris where he joined the Sulpicians.
As a deacon, he was assigned to St. Mary's Seminary in Baltimore, Maryland, where he taught mathematics, completed his theological studies, and was ordained (1827). Thereupon he instructed in mathematics and allied subjects at the Sulpician College in Montreal for twelve years.
Challenged by the need of priests in the United States and the opportunity of broader and more intense service in the Society of Jesus, he left Canada for Kentucky where, at St. Mary's College, he enlisted as a Jesuit (1840). Even before he had completed his novitiate, he preached at retreats throughout Kentucky and Ohio.
In 1841 he established St. Ignatius' Literary Institution at Louisville. In 1846 Larkin was summoned to teach at St. John's College, Fordham, New York, which Bishop Hughes had just assigned to the Jesuits, and was placed in charge of the Society's academies and congregations in the New York region.
The following year he founded the College of St. Francis Xavier in New York City and was its first president, 1847-49. In 1850 he was appointed bishop of Toronto. Determined to avoid the burdens of episcopal dignity and an enforced severance from the Society of Jesus, he refused the honor and journeyed to Rome, though he took pains to make his tertianship at Laon in France on the way.
Through Jesuit influence, he was relieved of the appointment by Pope Pius IX and returned as president of of St. John's college in Fordham (1851). In 1854 he was again in England preaching through the north country, when he was commissioned as agent of the father-general to visit the Jesuit houses in Ireland. After his return to New York, about 1856, he served as missionary at the College of St. Francis Xavier until his death.