Background
William George McCloskey was born on 10 November, 1823 in Brooklyn, New York. His father, George, was a dairy farmer and long trustee of St. James's Church.
William George McCloskey was born on 10 November, 1823 in Brooklyn, New York. His father, George, was a dairy farmer and long trustee of St. James's Church.
In New York he received his early schooling. In 1835, the boy was enrolled in Mount St. Mary's College, Emmitsburg, Md. Later he studied law in New York prior to his entrance into the seminary at Mount St. Mary's, where he served as a prefect and teacher and received his master's degree.
Ordained by Archbishop Hughes, October 6, 1852, he was assigned as an assistant to his brother George, pastor of the Church of the Nativity, New York. A year later he was recalled to Emmitsburg as a teacher of Latin, scripture, and moral theology. In 1857 he was promoted to the directorship of the seminary, and in that capacity became known in clerical circles as a man of distinguished appearance and some administrative ability. Two years later, when the American College in Rome was established, the American hierarchy submitted a list of fifteen candidates for the rectorship, from which the cardinals of the Sacred College of the Propaganda, with the assent of the Holy Father, selected McCloskey (December 1, 1859). The selection was well received and McCloskey proved an excellent rector. Under his guidance the enrolment of students increased greatly, indicating that he had the confidence of the American bishops who furnished the seminarians. Tact was essential in the Civil War days, when the students separated into northern and southern factions. Then too there were financial difficulties as the war economies dwarfed diocesan allocations. Nevertheless, the institution was in a flourishing condition when McCloskey resigned to accept the bishopric of Louisville, left vacant by the death of Bishop Peter J. Lavialle. Consecrated by Cardinal Count August de Reisach of Munich in the college chapel (May 24, 1868), McCloskey is said to have been the first American so consecrated in Rome. For forty-one years he ruled the Louisville diocese which, during that time, saw an increase of from eighty to 200 priests and from sixty-four to about 165 churches, of which a large number had schools attached. With a pontifical requiem mass by Archbishop Moeller and a eulogy by Bishop Denis O'Donaghue, at the Cathedral of the Assumption, he was buried in the cemetery of the Sisters of Charity at Nazareth, Ky.
In no work was he more concerned than in the charitable and reformatory institutions of the Sisters of the Poor and of the Good Shepherd. This interest led him to translate from the Italian a Life of St. Mary Magdalen (1900).