John Hughes
Fourth bishop and first Archbishop of New York, born at Annaloghan, Co. Tyrone, Ireland, 24 June, 1797 of Patrick Hughes and Margaret McKenna: died in New York, 3 January, 1864. His father, a farmer of limited means, emigrated to the United States in 1816, and settled in Chambersberg, Pa. Johns's early education was received at Aligher, and later at Auchnacloy, near his native village. Though he felt called to the priesthood, circumstances did not permit him to continue his studies: being disinclined to farm life, he was placed with a friend of his father to study horticulture. He followed his father to America in 1817, landed at Baltimore, and soon after went to Chambersburg where he aided his family for a year or more. His ardent desire to become a priest brought him in 1819 to Mount St. Mary's College, Emmitsburg. Md., which he entered as an employee, being received a year later as a student. Ordained to the priesthood 15 October, 1826, by Bishop Conwell, in St. Joseph's Church, Philadelphia, he laboured first at St. Augustine's, Philadelphia, later at Bedford, Pa., finally returning to Philadelphia to become pastor of St. Joseph's, and afterwards of St. Mary's whose trustees were in open revolt against the bishop, and were subdued by Father Hughes only when he built St. Joseph's church, 1832, then considered one of the finest in the country. Previous to this, in 1829, he founded St. John's Orphan Asylum. About this period he was engaged in a religious controversy with Rev. John A. Brekenridge, a distinguished Presbyterian clergyman, with the result that Father Hughes's remarkable ability attracted widespread attention and admiration. His name was mentioned for the vacant see of Cincinnati and for the Coadjutorship of Philadelphia. On 7 Jan, 1838, however, Father Hughes was consecrated Bishop of Basileopolis and Coadjutor of New York, by Bishop Dubois, in St. Patrick's Cathedral, Mott Street, New York. In 1839 he became administrator-Apostolic of New York, and on the death of Bishop Dubois succeeded to the vacant see, 20 Dec. 1842. He was raised to the dignity of first Archbishop of New York, 19 July, 1850, receiving the pallium personally from Pius IX at Rome, 3 April 1851.
The abolition of trusteeism In New York marked the beginning of his episcopate. He confronted a critical diocesan condition arising from differences between Bishop Dubois and the lay trustees whose control of the church revenues was working injury to religion, and had encumbered the 10 churches then in the city with a debt of $300,000, a crushing burden in those days. Bishop Hughes's in Philadelphia with trusteeism served him well in taking up the defense of Bishop Dubois. He appealed directly to the people, before whom he forcefully defended the Divine authority to govern granted by Christ to the hierarchy, and clearly exposed the viciousness of lay domination in administration of church matters. The people readily passed a resolution condemning the cathedral trustees who gave way to a new board well disposed to obey ecclesiastical authority. The bishop convoked in 1841 the first Diocesan Synod of New York, which enacted timely legislation affecting spiritual matters, and advised for tenure and administration of church property wise regulations which placed the rector of the church in control of temporals as well as spirituals. His triumph over the trustee system would have been complete and final at the very outset had the trustees of St. Louis's church, Buffalo, been as prompt to submit as all others. Their attitude brought the archbishop, as late as 1855, into a controversy with Erasmus Brooks, editor and state senator, who assailed in the Legislature the archbishop's plan of holding church property. Unfavorable legislation followed, but was soon repealed, and prepared the way for the present satisfactory religious corporation law of the State of New York.
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