John Joseph Williams was an American bishop of the Roman Catholic Church.
Background
John Joseph Williams, the son of Michael and Ann (Egan) Williams, recent immigrants (1818) from King's County and County Tipperary, Ireland, was born on April 27, 1822 in the north end of Boston, Massachussets, where his father labored at blacksmithing.
Education
As a child he attended the Cathedral School, where he profited by the instruction of Father James Fitton and attracted the notice of Bishop Benedict J. Fenwick, who sent him to the Sulpician college in Montreal (1833 - 41). On graduation from college, he studied theology at St. Sulpice in Paris.
Career
In Paris he was ordained a priest (May 27, 1845) by Archbishop Denis Auguste Affre. Appointed a curate at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston (1845), he became a valued assistant of Bishop John B. Fitzpatrick, who named him rector of the cathedral in 1855, and selected him as pastor of St. James' Church and vicar-general of the diocese in 1857.
In this administrative capacity, he displayed commendable tact in compromising difficulties, and in getting along with priests and people. He took an active part in religious and civic affairs during the critical period of the Civil War, and won the respect of the native element in Boston without losing the love of the rapidly increasing Irish population.
At the request of Fitzpatrick, he was made titular bishop of Tripoli and coadjutor bishop of Boston with the right of succession; as the bishop died in the meantime, Williams was consecrated bishop of Boston in his own right by Archbishop John McCloskey, March 11, 1866. Nine years later Boston was made a metropolitan see with Williams as archbishop, and Cardinal John McCloskey conferred the pallium on him (May 2).
As episcopal ruler of the diocese of Boston for forty years, Williams saw the rise of new sees at Springfield (1870), Providence (1872), Manchester (1884), and Fall River (1905). He witnessed not only a tremendous material growth in churches, institutions, and population, but the social and economic rise of the Irish population as the newer groups of French-Canadians, Poles, Italians, and Portuguese appeared in engulfing waves.
Williams had early shown an interest in the poor and afflicted when, as pastor, he founded the first conference of the St. Vincent de Paul Society in New England. In 1868 he established separate parishes for the French-Canadians, and in 1872, for the Italians and Portuguese.
The harmonious relations between the various racial elements were due to his compromising tact and catholic devotion to all his people. Interested in education, he ordered the erection of numerous parochial schools, although he once had hopes that the Faribault plan of Archbishop John Ireland might relieve him of this costly program. To staff his schools and charitable foundations, he introduced such additional communities into the diocese as the Sisters of St. Joseph (1873), the Sisters of the Sacred Heart (1880), the Franciscan Sisters (1884), the Carmelite Sisters (1890), and the Marist Fathers (1883).
He gave ample support to the Jesuits of Boston College, and to such religious orders as the Augustinian and Redemptorist Fathers.
Personality
He was a man of massive proportions and remarkable vigor.
A loyal citizen of blameless life, a pious man, a firm friend of law and order, and a scholar, he was twice offered a doctorate by Harvard University but in humility declined the honor.