Background
John Shanley was born in Albion, New York, the youngest son of John and Nancy (née McClean) Shanley.
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John Shanley
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Education
He was a student of noticeable ability at Saint John"s College in Collegeville, where was trained in the classics and graduated in 1869.
Career
At age 5 he and his family moved to Faribault, Minnesota, and soon afterward to Saint Paul, where he received his early education, much of it from association with frontier priests who visited Saint Paul during his service as a sanctuary boy at Saint Paul Cathedral from 1858 to 1867. Bishop Thomas Grace, Ordinis Prcpdieatorum = of the Order of Preachers (Dominican Ecclesiastical Title), then sent him to the College of Propaganda in Rome. Shanley made the journey with Review
John Ireland (the future Archbishop of Street Paul and Minneapolis).
While in Rome, Shanley was ordained to the priesthood by Cardinal Costantino Patrizi Naro on May 30, 1874. At age 22, he was below the age requirement for ordination but was granted a dispensation on account of his frail health.
Upon his return to Minnesota, he became an assistant pastor at Saint Paul Cathedral under Review Ireland, whom Shanley succeeded as pastor in 1884.
He also served as secretary of the Archdiocese and editor of the weekly Northwestern Chronicle.
On November 15, 1889, Shanley was appointed the first Bishop of the newly erected Diocese of Jamestown, North Dakota, by Pope Leo XIII. He received his episcopal consecration on the following December 27 from Archbishop Ireland, with Bishops Grace and Martin Marty, Order of St. Benedict, serving as co-consecrators. He established Saint John"s Academy at Jamestown, under the charge of the Sisters of Saint Joseph, in 1890. Hosted the convention of Catholic Laymen in 1896.
And completed the construction of a cathedral in 1899.
At the beginning of his tenure, there were 60 churches, 33 priests, 14 schools and one hospital in the diocese. By the time of his death, there 106 priests, 225 churches, six academies, 34 schools and four hospitals.
He went to Washington, District of Columbia in 1906 to protest against divorce and established Total Abstinence Societies in the diocese. The Bishop later died in Fargo, aged 57.
