The 200th Anniversary of Saint John Neumann's Birth (1811-2011)

This past March 28 marked the 200^th anniversary of the birth of Saint John Neumann (1811-1860), fourth bishop of Philadelphia and America's first male saint. In June, major celebrations of this milestone took place simultaneously in Neumann's birthplace - the village of Prachatitz in Bohemia, which is now part of the Czech Republic - and in Philadelphia - at Saint Peter the Apostle Church where the saint is entombed - to coincide with the anniversary of Neumann's canonization (June 19, 1977), as well as his ordination to the priesthood (June 26, 1836). ¹

Neumann's short life - on January 5, 1860, at age 48, he collapsed from a stroke on an icy sidewalk in front of a house at 1218 Vine Street, and died shortly thereafter ² - had more than its share of unexpected twists and turns. To begin with, what brought Neumann to these shores was a surplus of priests in his homeland, and his bishop's consequent decision not to ordain any more priests since the diocese already had more than it needed. This compelled Neumann to embrace his long-cherished ambition, inspired by Saint Paul's missionary journeys and the ministry of the Slovenian priest Frederic Baraga (1797-1868) among the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, of becoming a missionary in the United States. Arriving in New York on May 29, 1836, Neumann discovered there was a great need for German-speaking priests. Ordained a priest for the Diocese of New York, Neumann was promptly dispatched to the Buffalo-Rochester area to minister to the German community there.

For four years, the young priest carried on a lonely, pastoral ministry on the frontier. Inspired by the Redemptorists at Saint Joseph Church in Rochester and desiring to live as a religious in community (as a seminarian Neumann had considered becoming a Jesuit or Dominican), Neumann joined the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer in 1840. Two years later, he made his religious profession, on January 16, 1842, becoming the first Redemptorist to be professed in the United States.

Neumann's Small and Large Catechisms were his most well-known published works during his lifetime. They were prepared in connection with his pastoral ministry in Pittsburgh and Baltimore, and were used extensively in German-speaking communities in the United States during the mid- and late 1800s. Courtesy of Redemptorist Provincial Archives, Baltimore Province, Brooklyn, New York.

Over the next decade, Neumann served German communities in the Pittsburgh and Baltimore areas. During this period, he wrote his most well-known published works, the Small and Large Catechisms, which were used in German-speaking communities in the United States throughout the remainder of the 1800s. On February 1, 1852, Neumann was named fourth bishop of Philadelphia, succeeding Francis Patrick Kenrick (1797-1863), who, after twenty-one years of episcopal ministry in Philadelphia, had been named sixth archbishop of Baltimore. Ordained a bishop on Passion Sunday, March 28, 1852, Neumann served Philadelphia as an exemplary pastor until his untimely death eight years later.

As revered as Neumann is today, that was not always the case during his lifetime. Some disdained the immigrant bishop's heavy accent. Archbishop Gaetano Bedini, a Roman official who visited this country in 1853-1854, criticized Neumann for being inferior to the position of ordinary of the largest United States diocese in the report made to the Propaganda Fide upon his return to Rome. ³ While profiting from just criticism, Neumann never allowed unjust censorious remarks to keep him from working steadily and steadfastly for the welfare of souls and the common good. And work he did: 18-to-20-hour workdays were the norm for him, and he devoted an average of five months a year to making pastoral visitations of his farflung diocese. Though diminutive in stature and unassuming in bearing, Neumann was a human dynamo, whose work ethic, administrative achievements, and virtues were "a living refutation of the charges leveled against him by his critics." ⁴ For his part, Neumann enjoyed nothing...