Michael Augustine Corrigan (August 13, 1839May 5, 1902) was an American

prelate A prelate () is a high-ranking member of the Christian clergy who is an ordinary or who ranks in precedence with ordinaries. The word derives from the Latin , the past participle of , which means 'carry before', 'be set above or over' or 'pref ...

of the

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who served as the third

archbishop of New York The Archbishop of New York is the head of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, who is responsible for looking after its spiritual and administrative needs. As the archdiocese is the metropolitan bishop, metropolitan see of the ecclesiastic ...

from 1885 to 1902.

Early life

Michael Augustine Corrigan was born August 13, 1839, in

Newark, New Jersey Newark ( , ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the seat of Essex County and the second largest city within the New York metropolitan area.St. Mary's College in

Wilmington, Delaware Wilmington ( Lenape: ''Paxahakink /'' ''Pakehakink)'' is the largest city in the U.S. state of Delaware. The city was built on the site of Fort Christina, the first Swedish settlement in North America. It lies at the confluence of the Christina ...

, from 1853 to 1855,

Mount Saint Mary's University Mount St. Mary's University (The Mount) is a private Roman Catholic university in Emmitsburg, Maryland. It includes the largest Catholic seminary in the United States. The undergraduate programs are divided between the College of Liberal Arts, ...

Emmitsburg, Maryland Emmitsburg is a town in Frederick County, Maryland, United States, south of the Mason-Dixon line separating Maryland from Pennsylvania. Founded in 1785, Emmitsburg is the home of Mount St. Mary's University. The town has two Catholic pilgrima ...

from 1855 to 1857, spent a year in Europe, and received his bachelor's degree from Mount Saint Mary's in 1859. He became a member of the first class at the North American College in Rome, was ordained to the priesthood in September 1863 at the

Basilica of St. John Lateran The Archbasilica Cathedral of the Most Holy Savior and of Saints John the Baptist and John the Evangelist in the Lateran ( it, Arcibasilica del Santissimo Salvatore e dei Santi Giovanni Battista ed Evangelista in Laterano), also known as the Papa ...

, and received a doctorate of divinity in 1864.Mooney, Joseph. "Michael Augustine Corrigan." ''The Catholic Encyclopedia''
Vol. 4. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1908. October 8, 2015 Corrigan returned to New Jersey in 1864, where he joined the faculty at

Seton Hall College Seton Hall University (SHU) is a Private university, private Catholic research university in South Orange, New Jersey. Founded in 1856 by then-Bishop James Roosevelt Bayley and named after his aunt, Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, Seton Hall is the ...

and the Immaculate Conception Seminary, both in

South Orange South Orange, officially the Township of South Orange Village, is a suburban township in Essex County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the village's population was 16,198, reflecting a decline of 766 (4.5%) fro ...

, as professor of theology and history. He soon achieved a reputation within the hierarchy for sound scholarship, and he also provided pastoral care to Catholics in the Seton Hall vicinity. When Bernard J. McQuaid left Seton Hall in 1869 to assume his duties as bishop of the

Diocese of Rochester The Diocese of Rochester is a Church of England diocese in the English county of Kent and the Province of Canterbury. The cathedral church of the diocese is Rochester Cathedral in the former city of Rochester. The bishop's Latin episcopal signat ...

, Corrigan succeeded him as college president and also became vicar general of the Diocese of Newark.

Bishop of Newark

Corrigan succeeded

James Roosevelt Bayley James Roosevelt Bayley (August 23, 1814 – October 3, 1877) was an American prelate of the Catholic Church. He served as the first Bishop of Newark (1853–1872) and the eighth Archbishop of Baltimore (1872–1877). Early life and educat ...

as bishop of Newark, becoming the second ordinary of the diocese. He was consecrated bishop on May 4, 1873. The diocese encompassed the entire state of

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

during Corrigan's tenure. He administered diocesan affairs during a time of rapid population growth, Roman Catholic institutional development, immigration from Ireland and Germany, and considerable urbanization in the northern part of the state.

Archbishop of New York

Corrigan was appointed Coadjutor Archbishop to

John Cardinal McCloskey John McCloskey (March 10, 1810 – October 10, 1885) was a senior-ranking American prelate of the Catholic Church. He was the first American born Archbishop of New York from 1864 until his death in 1885, having previously served as Bishop of ...

of New York on October 1, 1880, with the

titular see A titular see in various churches is an episcopal see of a former diocese that no longer functions, sometimes called a "dead diocese". The ordinary or hierarch of such a see may be styled a "titular metropolitan" (highest rank), "titular archbish ...

of Petra, and succeeded to the archbishopric on October 10, 1885, serving as archbishop until his death. Corrigan's career in New York proved controversial on a number of levels. He aligned himself closely with his former mentor, Bernard J. McQuaid and has been considered one of the leaders of the "conservative" movement within the American Catholic hierarchy. He proved to be a strong supporter of

national parish National parish is a type of Catholic parish distinguished by liturgical rites or nationality of the congregation; it is found within a diocese or particular Church, which includes other types of parishes in the same geographical area, each parish ...

es and

parochial schools A parochial school is a private primary or secondary school affiliated with a religious organization, and whose curriculum includes general religious education in addition to secular subjects, such as science, mathematics and language arts. The wo ...

, a vocal opponent of

John Ireland John Benjamin Ireland (January 30, 1914 – March 21, 1992) was a Canadian actor. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance in ''All the King's Men'' (1949), making him the first Vancouver-born actor to receive an Oscar nomina ...

James Gibbons James Cardinal Gibbons (July 23, 1834 – March 24, 1921) was a senior-ranking American prelate of the Catholic Church who served as Apostolic Vicar of North Carolina from 1868 to 1872, Bishop of Richmond from 1872 to 1877, and as ninth ...

and other bishops who advocated "

Americanization Americanization or Americanisation (see American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization), spelling differences) is the influence of American culture and business on other countries outside the America, United ...

" within the Catholic Church. Within the American hierarchy, he was the closest supporter of Pope Leo XIII on ''

Testem benevolentiae nostrae ''Testem benevolentiae nostrae'' is an apostolic letter written by Pope Leo XIII to Cardinal James Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore, dated January 22, 1899. In it, the pope addressed a heresy that he called Americanism and expressed his concern th ...

''. He also proved unpopular with many bishops for his involvement in backstage intrigue at the Vatican. Within the

Archdiocese of New York The Archdiocese of New York ( la, Archidiœcesis Neo-Eboracensis) is an ecclesiastical territory or archdiocese of the Catholic Church ( particularly the Roman Catholic or Latin Church) located in the State of New York. It encompasses the boroug ...

his most serious controversy involved his conflict with Father

Edward McGlynn Edward McGlynn (September 27, 1837 – January 7, 1900), American Catholic priest and social reformer, was born in New York City of Irish parents. He was controversial in Catholic circles for his acceptance of public schools. He actively prom ...

. During the 1886 mayoral campaign in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, the outspoken McGlynn supported

Henry George Henry George (September 2, 1839 – October 29, 1897) was an American political economist and journalist. His writing was immensely popular in 19th-century America and sparked several reform movements of the Progressive Era. He inspired the eco ...

, the candidate of the

United Labor Party The South Australian Labor Party, officially known as the Australian Labor Party (South Australian Branch) and commonly referred to simply as South Australian Labor, is the South Australian Branch of the Australian Labor Party, originally formed ...

who proved popular with labor organizers, radicals, socialists, and Irish nationalists. Corrigan himself had been very close to

Tammany Hall Tammany Hall, also known as the Society of St. Tammany, the Sons of St. Tammany, or the Columbian Order, was a New York City political organization founded in 1786 and incorporated on May 12, 1789 as the Tammany Society. It became the main loc ...

and ordered McGlynn to refrain from politics. McGlynn refused, continued to clash with the bishop, and ultimately was removed as pastor of St. Stephen's Church in New York. McGlynn was summoned to Rome but refused on the grounds of ill health and was excommunicated in 1887. The censure was eventually lifted in 1892. This highly public scandal took its toll on Corrigan and contributed to his poor relationships with an influential group of New York intellectual priests. His greatest accomplishment probably involved the building of a new seminary, St. Joseph's Seminary, Dunwoodie. In 1897,

Edgardo Mortara The Mortara case ( it, caso Mortara, links=no) was an Italian ''cause célèbre'' that captured the attention of much of Europe and North America in the 1850s and 1860s. It concerned the Papal States' seizure of a six-year-old boy named Edgardo ...

preached in St. Patrick's Cathedral

, but the Archbishop of New York told the Holy See that he opposed Mortara's efforts to evangelize the Jews on the grounds that such efforts might embarrass the Church in the view of the United States government. Corrigan was rebuked by the Vatican in 1887 for neglecting the spiritual needs of the surge of

Italian immigrants The Italian diaspora is the large-scale emigration of Italians from Italy. There were two major Italian diasporas in Italian history. The first diaspora began around 1880, two decades after the Risorgimento, Unification of Italy, and ended in the ...

settling in New York and for treating them in a humiliating way. Italians were neither permitted to attend Mass at Irish churches nor construct their own churches, instead being permitted to say Mass only in the basements of Irish churches. Corrigan justified this exclusion on the grounds that the Italians were "not very clean" and would drive down revenues unless segregated from the Irish. He also had invited Mother Cabrini to New York, but had to withdraw his invitation. By then Mother Cabrini and her missionaries had already embarked on their sea voyage to New York. Corrigan slipped and fell when inspecting the excavation of the seminary in 1902. He contracted pneumonia during his convalescence and died. He was interred in the crypt under the altar of St. Patrick's Cathedral. Michael Corrigan

References

Sources

*Joseph F. Mahoney and Peter J. Wosh, ''The Diocesan Journal of Michael Augustine Corrigan, Bishop of Newark, 1872–1880'' (Newark: New Jersey Historical Society, 1987) *Carl D. Hinrichsen, "The History of the Diocese of Newark, 1873–1901," (Ph.D. diss., Catholic University of America, 1962) *Robert Emmet Curran, ''Michael Augustine Corrigan and the Shaping of Conservative Catholicism in America, 1878–1902'' (NY: Arno Press, 1978) *Thomas Shelley, ''The Archdiocese of New York: A Bicentennial History, 1808–2008'' (France: Editions du Signe, 2007) {{DEFAULTSORT:Corrigan, Michael 1839 births 1902 deaths 19th-century Roman Catholic archbishops in the United States 20th-century Roman Catholic archbishops in the United States American Roman Catholic clergy of Irish descent St. Mary's College (Delaware) alumni Mount St. Mary's University alumni Seton Hall University faculty Clergy from New York City Roman Catholic archbishops of New York Burials at St. Patrick's Cathedral (Manhattan) Roman Catholic bishops of Newark

Early life

Bishop of Newark

Archbishop of New York

See also

References

Sources