Background
Robert Harding was born on October 6, 1701, in Nottinghamshire, England.
Robert Harding was born on October 6, 1701, in Nottinghamshire, England.
Robert pursued his ecclesiastical studies on the Continent.
Robert Harding entered the Society of Jesus, September 7, 1722. His missionary zeal not less than the demand for priests in the colonies led to his coming to America (1732) before he had completed the post-ordination cursus of his order, for he made on April 2, 1735, a solemn profession of the Tertianship vows which he had taken two years earlier without submitting the customary fourth vow. For seventeen years he labored in Maryland with such devotion and success that in 1749, when Father Joseph Greaton, retired from the pastorate of St. Joseph’s, Philadelphia, because of failing health, Father Harding received the position.
When in 1755 Franklin promoted the founding of the Pennsylvania Hospital, Father Harding’s name was on his subscription list. The same year he was prominently identified with the movement to aid the exiled Acadians in the city. Nevertheless, Catholics in 1755 were the target of a series of letters questioning their loyalty to the English cause in the war which had begun. The letters attracted attention in London and an investigation set on foot in the colonies revealed the presence of an “ingenious Jesuit in Philadelphia, ” upon whom the suspicions of disloyalty were centered.
Father Harding promptly cleared himself of these suspicions, however, declaring that he was English by birth and sentiment; and assuaged the anxiety of the Protestant population by stating that there were not above 2, 000 Catholics in the whole province of Pennsylvania. So convinced were Philadelphians of his integrity that when in 1763 he built St. Mary’s Church on land he had bought for cemetery purposes in the generosity of the Protestants matched that of the Catholics. The English authorities, too, manifested confidence in him and in 1760 solicited him for a priest to work among the Indians of Illinois. Harding was active in the colonial cause and an intimate friend of George Meade, the Revolutionary patriot.
Harding was a member of the American Philosophical Association.
Intellectually Harding was held in high repute: Ezra Stiles, president of Yale College, attended his chapel to hear him preach.