James O'Reilly (1836 – July 26, 1887) was an American

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

priest. From

Topeka, Kansas Topeka ( ) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Kansas and the county seat of Shawnee County. It is along the Kansas River in the central part of Shawnee County, in northeastern Kansas, in the Central United States. As of the 2020 cen ...

, O'Reilly was appointed the first bishop of the

Roman Catholic Diocese of Wichita The Diocese of Wichita () is a Latin Catholic ecclesiastical territory, or diocese, of the Catholic Church in Kansas in the United States. It is a suffragan diocese in the ecclesiastical province of the metropolitan Archdiocese of Kansas City i ...

Kansas Kansas ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the west. Kansas is named a ...

in 1887, but died on July 26, 1887, before his consecration.New Advent-Diocese of Wichita
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Notes

1836 births 1887 deaths People from Topeka, Kansas Roman Catholic Diocese of Wichita Religious leaders from Kansas Catholics from Kansas 19th-century American Roman Catholic priests {{US-RC-clergy-stub