John Neumann

This article is about the Bohemian-American bishop. For the English cardinal and also Saint, see John Henry Newman. For other people with the same name, see John Neumann (disambiguation). For the Hungarian-born mathematican, see John von Neumann.

"Saint John Neumann" redirects here. For other uses, see Saint John Neumann (disambiguation).

John Nepomucene Neumann (German: Johann Nepomuk Neumann, Czech: Jan Nepomucký Neumann, Latin: Ioannes Nepomucenus Neumann; March 28, 1811 – January 5, 1860) was a Bohemian-born American prelate of the Catholic Church.

Saint John Nepomucene Neumann CSsR
Bishop of Philadelphia
Native name	Johann Nepomuk Neumann
Church	Latin Church
See	Philadelphia
Appointed	February 5, 1852
Installed	March 28, 1852
Term ended	January 5, 1860
Predecessor	Francis Kenrick
Successor	James Frederick Wood
Orders
Ordination	June 25, 1836 by John Dubois
Consecration	March 28, 1852 by Francis Kenrick
Personal details
Born	(1811-03-28)March 28, 1811 Prachatitz, Kingdom of Bohemia, Austrian Empire
Died	January 5, 1860(1860-01-05) (aged 48) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
Buried	National Shrine of St. John Neumann in Philadelphia
Alma mater	Charles University in Prague
Signature
Coat of arms
Sainthood
Feast day	January 5 June 19 (celebrated in the Czech Republic)
Venerated in	Roman Catholic Church (United States and Czech Republic)
Title as Saint	Missionary, religious and Bishop
Beatified	October 13, 1963 Vatican City, by Pope Paul VI
Canonized	June 19, 1977 Vatican City, by Pope Paul VI
Attributes	Redemptorist habit with a pectoral cross
Patronage	Catholic education
Shrines	National Shrine of Saint John Neumann, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States

Ordination history of John Neumann
History Diaconal ordination Ordained by John Dubois Date June 24, 1836 Place St. Patrick's Old Cathedral, New York, New York, United States Priestly ordination Ordained by John Dubois Date June 25, 1836 Place St. Patrick's Old Cathedral, New York, New York, United States Episcopal consecration Principal consecrator Francis Kenrick Co-consecrators Bernard O’Reilly (Hartford) Date March 28, 1852 Place National Shrine of St. Alphonsus Liguori, Baltimore, Maryland, United States

An immigrant from Bohemia, he came to the United States in 1836, where he was ordained, joined the Redemptorist order, and became the fourth bishop of Philadelphia in 1852. In Philadelphia, Neumann founded the first Catholic diocesan school system in the United States. Canonized in 1977, he is the only male American citizen to be named a saint.

Early life and education

Neumann's father and mother, Philip and Agnes

Neumann's father, Philip Neumann, was a stocking knitter from Obernburg am Main in the Electorate of Mainz. He moved to Prachatitz in the Kingdom of Bohemia (then part of the Austrian Empire, now in the Czech Republic) in 1802 at age 28 with his wife, Antonie Strakotinská. Antonie died in November 1804 during childbirth. Philip then married the daughter of a Czech harness maker, Agnes Lepší, on July 17, 1805; John Neumann was the third of their six children: Catherine, Veronica, John, Joan, Louise, and Wenceslaus (aka Wenzel).

Neumann's birthplace

Neumann was born on March 18, 1811, and was baptized in the village church on the same day. He began his education in the town school when he was age six. He was a studious and hardworking child, whom Agnes called "my little bibliomaniac" for his love of books and reading. Neumann spoke German at home and at school, and had a passing knowledge of Czech during his childhood.

Portrait of St. John Neumann painted by a friend when he was about ten years old

At age ten, Philip and Agnes told Neuman that they would allow him to continue his studies after grammar school. During this time period, most boys were sent to work upon reaching that age. The catechist of Prachatitz helped prepare boys who hoped to pursue higher studies by offering them evening lessons in Latin at his home. Neumann amd eight or ten other boys studied with the catechist for the last two years of their term at grammar school. In the autumn of 1823, Neumann passed the entrance examination with distinction for a school in Budweis in South Bohemia that was operated by the Piarist Fathers.

Adolescence

Piarist School

Neumann entered the Piarist School in Budweis as part of a class of 103 students; fewer than 50 would ultimately complete the six-year gymnasium course. The curriculum covered Latin, mathematics, geography, history, and Christian doctrine in the first four years, then concentrated on Latin and Greek classical authors during the final two years. Neumann was disappointed with the course's slow pace in his first years. He believed that he could easily advance to the third year, but that was not allowed.

In the middle of Neumann's third year at the Piarist School, his professor was dismissed for appearing before a public gathering while intoxicated. The school replaced him with a much stricter professor who increased the pace of instruction to make up for lost time. The new professor also believed in rote learning, which Neumann disliked. Approximately 20 of Neumann's classmates dropped out, but he passed the final examination with a fair average, like had the two previous years.

Neumann's school grades suffered in his fourth year. He found it difficult to study in his boarding house because the landlady's son kept distracting him. Philip, thinking that his son was losing interest in his studies, encouraged him to come home and learn a trade. However, Agnes and sister Veronica told him to persevere. Philip then asked a professor who vacationing in Prachatitz to judge his son's academic progress. After speaking with Neumann, the professor told the familty that Neumann had made greater academic progress than was reflected in his grades.

Now convinced that he son could do better in school, Philip moved him to a quieter and less distracting boarding house. Neumann's grades distinctly improved, except in mathematics, his weak subject. Though the classics professor was stricter than Neumann's second year professor, the boy enjoyed the humanities. Neumann achieved his highest grades at the Piarist School during his sixth and final year. Neumann's hobbies at this time included playing the guitar and making images with a pantograph.

Philosophical Institute

After completing the gymnasium course at the Piarist School in 1829, Neumann began two years of study at the Philosophical Institute there. He was instructed by the Cistercian monks of Hohenfurth Abbey in Vyšší Brod. His subjects included philosophy, religion, higher mathematics, the natural sciences, and Latin philology. Neumann attained a better than fair grade average in philosophy, philology, and mathematics, improving in the latter subject. He excelled in botany and astronomy, forming a club with fellow students to discuss scientific subjects in their spare time.

After graduating from the Philosophical Institute in the late summer of 1831, Neumann was faced with deciding to become a physician, lawyer, or priest. It seemed like becoming a priest was unlikely. Neumann enjoyed science and secular poetry than theology and the mystics. On a practical level, admission to the diocesan seminary was difficult, especially having no influential friends to recommend him.

Neumann decided to study medicine and Philip prepared to pay the tuition for medical school. However Agnes, sensing that her son really wanted to enter the priesthood, encouraged him to apply to the seminary. To Neumann's surprise, the seminary accepted him.

Seminary studies

Theological seminary of Budweis

Neumann entered the theological seminary of the Diocese of Budweis in Budweis on November 1, 1831. Neumann spent his first two years studying theology, which he enjoyed tremendously. During the first year, his course work included ecclesiastical history, Biblical archaeology, and introduction to and exegesis of the Old Testament. He received the highest possible grade, eminentem, in every subject, including diligence and conduct. At the end of his first year, Neumann was one of the few men in his class permitted by the seminary to take tonsure and minor orders.

In his second year at Budweis, Neumann studied Biblical hermeneutics, philology, Greek, pedagogy, introduction to and exegesis of the New Testament, and canon law. His grades were again very good, receiving the highest grade in every subject except in one semester of pedagogy. In his spare time, Neumann began to study French as well as to improve his Italian and Czech.

During his second year, Neumann began to read the reports of the Leopoldine Society, a missionary society based in Vienna. The Society spoke of the need for European priests in the United States, especially to serve the increasing population of Catholic German immigrants. Neumann and his fellow seminarian Adalbert Schmidt attended a lecture by the seminary director on the missionary activities of Paul the Apostle. Neumann and Schmidt each decided to become missionaries after completing their seminary studies. Neither mentioned this plan to the other until Schmidt finally did a few weeks after the lecture. Neumann teased Schmidt for the whole month before finally admitting, "I am going with you."

Neumann needed to learn English to go to the United State, but it was not taught in Budweis. In early 1833, Neumann successfully petitioned Bishop Arnošt Konstantin Růžičkato of Budweis to allow him to completed his studies at diocesan seminary affiliated with the Charles-Ferdinand University (now known as Charles University) in Prague in the Austrian Empire. Neumann hoped to study both French and English there.

Charles-Ferdinand University seminary

There is some indication that Neumann began to attend the French lectures at Charles-Ferdinand. However, that became impossible when the state in 1834 restricted the activities of seminarians. Nevertheless, Neumann continued to study French independently and took the French language examination. He passed the examination with a very high grade despite missing some of the lectures. Unfortunately, the Charles-Ferdinand University did not offer instruction in English. Instead, Neumann studied an English language book and conversed with English workmen at a nearby factory. After a year, he could write portions of his diary in English.

Neumann found the lectures in Charles-Ferdinand disagreeable because of the Febronian views of his professors. Febronism favored a reduction in the power of the pope in favor of more control by national churches. Neumann regarded this doctrine as being heretical. The lector in dogmatic theology, Jerome Zeidler, denied papal infallibility.There is no evidence that Neumann challenged Zeidler's beliefs in class. Neumann said of Zeidler had little influence among his students and could therefore inflict little harm on them. However, Neumann did write a treatise on papal supremacy that he sent to an friend in Budweis.

Neumann privately studied the Roman Catechism, along with works of the Italian cardinal Robert Bellarmine and the Dutch doctor of the church, Peter Canisius. Neuman also read the writings of the church fathers, especially the theologian Augustine of Hippo and Pope Gregory the Great.

Neumann's grades at the end of the 1833 to 1834 academic year at Charles-Ferdinand were again very high, though not as high as at Budweis. In his final year at Prague, Neumann studied pastoral theology, homiletics, pedagogy, and catechetics. His grades, while good, were the lowest of his four years studying theology. By this time, Neumann was able to use German, Czech, French, English, Spanish, and Italian, as well as Latin and Greek.

Journey to America

Leaving Bohemia

Bishop Růžička

While Neumann was in Prague, Schmidt was continuing his studies at the seminary in Budweis. He told his confessor, Hermann Dichtl, of their intentions to become missionaries. Through his correspondence with Andreas Räss, the director of a seminary in Strasbourg, Dichtl learned that Coadjutor Bishop Francis Kenrick wanted to recruit two German-speaking priests to serve in the Diocese of Philadelphia in the United States. Dichtl sent a letter to Kenrick recommending Neumann and Schmidt for the positions. However, correspondence between Europe and the United States was slow, and Dichtl received no definite response from Kenrick.

Neumann expected Bishop Ernest Růžička of Budweis to ordain him to the priesthood at the end of the academic year in 1835, but he became seriously ill in June. Neumann returned to Budweis from Prague for his canonical examination for the priesthood, which he easily passed. However, the Diocese of Budweis then cancelled all the ordinations of the graduated seminarians because it had no need for more priests, being unable to assign priests it had ordained in 1834. The cancellation was a blow to Neumann as he would be unable to give the traditional first priestly blessing to his parents, nor have his family present at his first mass.

When Neumann told his family that he was becoming a missionary, they were shocked and saddene; his sisters cried. In his diary, Neumann wrote that the bishop and canons of the Diocese of Budweis "more or less approved" of his plans to go to the United States. Dichtl still intended to send both Schmidt and Neumann to Philadelphia, but did not have the money for ship passage. In addition, the Leopoldine Society was unwilling to fund Schmidt and Neumann without a confirmation letter from Kenrick. Neumann decided to start his trip to the United States anyway.

Neumann left his house in Prachatitz on February 8, 1836 only telling Veronica that he was going overseas; his mother believed he was traveling to Budweis. He departed with 200 francs (approximately $40 (USD)). At this point, Schmidt had given up his plan to become a missionary, remaining in Budweis to serve as a diocesan priest, He did accompany Neumann from Bohemia to Einsiedeln in Switzerland. Neumann arrived on February 16th in Linz in the Austrian Empire. Bishop Gregory Ziegler of Linz extended his hospitality to Neumann and provided him with a letter of introduction. Neumann departed on February 18th for Munich in the Kingdom of Bavaria.

Munich and Strasbourg

Bischof Räss

In Munich, Neumann was introduced to the Swiss priest John Henni, who was serving in the Diocese of Cincinnati in the United States. Henni told Neumann that Kenrick did not need any more priests in Philadelphia. However, Henni reassured him that he could find a position in many American dioceses, including Detroit, New York, and Vincennes. Henni also told him that he should stay in Europe until he received his dimissorial letters. The next morning, a professor at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München advised Neumann to speak with the French Bishop Simon Bruté. He was currently visiting Paris, trying to recruit priests for the Diocese of Vincennes in the United States. Henni provided Neumann with Bruté's Paris address; Neuman sent him a letter.

Neumann traveled to Strasbourg in France on February 26th. He spoke with Andreas Räss, canon of the Diocese of Strasbourg, who confirmed the bad news from Philadelphia. Räss also said that he had no money to give Neumann; the money allocated for Neumann had been given to missionaries from Alsace-Lorraine. However, Räss gave him a letter of introduction to a wealthy merchant in Paris who would assist Neumann financially. Räss also said he would write to Bishop John Dubois of New York, urging him to accept Neumann.

Neumann noted that Räss seemed cold and stiff towards him. However, Räss did assist him on his journey and gave him many books. Neumann left Strasbourg for Nancy in France, where he spent four days residing with the Sisters of St. Charles He continued to Paris by way of Châlons-en-Champagne and Meaux. Another missionary bound for the United States, a priest surnamed Schaefer, accompanied Neumann on this stage of his trip.

Parish and LeHarve

Neumann stayed a month in Paris, awaiting news from Bruté. Neumann spent his time browsing book stalls and visiting attractions such as the Panthéon, the churches in Montmartre, and the Louvre. During Lent, he attended a mass celebrated by the prominent French priest Henri-Dominique Lacordaire at Notre-Dame de Paris. Two weeks after Neumann and Schaefer arrived in Paris, Schaefer received a letter from Bruté accepting him for Vincennes. Neumann heard nothing. The hope of funds from the Paris merchant did not materialize and Neumann was running out of money. Finally, Neumann decided to sail to New York City without a postion or his dimissorial letters .

Neumann left Paris and arrived in Le Havre on April 7, 1836. He saw the ocean for the first time. Neumann chose to sail on the Europa, a 210 foot (64 m) three-master with a 60 foot (18 m) beam. He preferred a larger ship as it would be less crowded with passengers. It took Neumann four days to embark on the Europa. He spent the time praying in the local parish church and reading Francis de Sales' Introduction to the Devout Life. He also practiced his English and French with the locals.

The voyage to New York lasted 40 days. Neumann was seasick for three days, then recovered. For three more days, the Europa was becalmed and made no progress. When icebergs were spotted off the banks of Newfoundland, Neumann became chilled by the thought of what might happen if the ship should collide with one of them.

Priesthood

Arrival and ordination

Vicar General Raffeiner

The passengers of the Europa sighted land on May 28, 1836. The captain anchored the ship outside New York Harbor for another three days. This was due to bad weather to abate and for some sick people aboard to recover. If these people were still sick when the ship arrived, the American quarantine officials would require the Europa to transport them back to Europe. Neumann, anxious to get ashore, was refused permission to disembark by the captain six times. Finally, the captain allowed Neumann to take rowboat to Staten Island. Several hours later, he took the small steamer Hercules to lower Manhattan.

Neumann arrived in New York City with one tattered suit of clothes and one dollar in his pocket. A Swiss innkeeper directed him to a Catholic church. Its pastor, Joseph A. Schneller, gave him the address for Dubois and John Raffeiner, the vicar-general of the Germans Catholics in New York.

Neumann immediately met with Raffeiner, who said that the diocese has sent a note to Räss three weeks accepting him. The two priests went to Dubois' residence. Dubois greeted Neumann warmly. After seeing sufficient guarantees of Neumann's education in Europe, Dubois him to immediately prepare for ordination. Neumann asked for some time for preparation, which Dubious granted, as he was l;eaving New York City for a visitation. When Neumann mentioned his lack of dismissorial letters, Dubois swept that difficulty aside, saying, "I can and must ordain you quickly for I need you." After the meeting with Dubois, Raffeiner took Neumann to his parish, St. Nicholas Kirche in Manhattan, and put him to work teaching catechism to the children preparing for their first communion.

Dubois ordained Neumann at St. Patrick's Old Cathedral in Manhattan to the subdiaconate on June 19th, the diaconate on June 24th, and to the priesthood on June 25th. Neumann celebrated his first mass the next morning, June 26, at St. Nicholas. During that mass, Neumann maked the following remarks

"Oh Jesus, You poured out the fullness of your grace over me yesterday. You made me a priest and gave me the power to offer You up to God. Ah! God! This is too much for my soul! Angels of God, all you saints of heaven, come down and adore my Jesus because what my heart says is only the imperfect echo of what Holy Church tells me to say." "I will pray to You that You may give to me holiness, and to all the living and the dead, pardon, that someday we may all be together with You, our dearest God!"

New York City

Bishop DuBois

The Diocese of New York in 1836 encompassed all of the State of New York and the upper third of New Jersey. The diocese at that time was home to 200,000 Catholics whose numbers were rapidly being swelled by immigrants. The diocese had 33 churches and several oratories, while 50 private homes served as temporary places of worship due to the lack of more suitable buildings. The diocese had 36 priests, 31 Irish and three German. The diocese needed at least 15 more priests. Räss had promissed Dubois three priests, but Neumann was the only one who arrived.

The Vatican had established the Catholic hierarchy in the United States after the end of the American Revolution in 1783. Pope Pius VI had appointed John Carroll as prefect-apostolic of the United States in 1784 and then in 1789 as bishop of the Diocese of Baltimore, the first diocese in the nation.Until 1808, the Vatican regard all of the United States as mission territory, under the jurisdiction of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith (or Propaganda). There were no parishes in the strict sense. In his writings, Neumann always observed correct technical usage in referring to a portion of a diocese as a "mission," "congregation," or "quasi-parish." However, places where he worked are often described by more recent writers as parishes.

Rochester

After his ordination, Dubois assigned Neumann to Buffalo, New York, to assist the priest Alexander Pax in serving recent German immigrants. The more senior priest in Buffalo, John Nicholas Mertz, was in Europe doing fund raising. Neumann departed for Buffalo on June 28th, traveling up the Hudson River by ship. Raffeiner had outfitted him with new clothes and provided money for travel expenses. While Neumann was traveling west on the Erie Canal, Dubois had asked him to stop briefly in Rochester, New York.. The German Catholics in Rochester were then holding services in the basement of St. Patrick's Church under the direction of Bernard O'Reilly. However, they were raising money to build a national parish for German-speakers.

The Germans at St. Patrick's were delighted by the arrival of a German-speaking priest. Some of them planned to ask to Dubois to assign Neumann there permanently. He began to teach the children, who were unable to speak either German or English correctly, and to celebrate the sacraments in German. After administering his first baptism, he wrote in his journal,

"If the child I baptized today dies in the grace of this sacrament, then my journey to America has been repaid a million times, even though I do nothing for the rest of my life."

After a few days in Rochester, Neumann was relieved by the arrival of the German Redemptorist, Joseph Prostl. Neumann's conversations with Prosti prompted him to briefly consider joining the Redemptorist Order. Neumann continued to Buffalo on July 11th.

Buffalo

The missions in Buffalo were headquartered at the Church of the Lamb of God in Buffalo, the first Catholic church in the city. Pax told Neumann that he could select a parish in the City of Buffalo or a rural mission . Neumann chose Sts. Peter and Paul, a mission church in Williamsville. The town had 400 Catholic families,of whom 300 were German. Because the parish lacked a rectory, Neumann took a room at the residence of a wealthy benefactor of the mission, Jacob Philip Wirtz.

The land for the partially built Sts. Peter and Paul church had been donated to the congrepants. The donor had specified the constrution of a stone church that 115 feet (35 m) long ,30 feet (9.1 m) high, and 20 feet (6.1 m) wide. This requirement had been a great financial burden to the largely poor immigrants in Williamsville. As a result, Mertz had only been able to collect sufficient money, materials, and volunteer labor to erect four walls. When Neumann celebrated mass in the roofless church for the first time, some vandal threw stones over the walls, with one landing on the altar. Neumann completed this structure, inducing Wirtz to remit a loan he had made of $400 on the condition that a memorial Mass be said for him every year after his death.

A little school was conducted in a neighboring house by a lay teacher appointed by Mertz. Still, Neumann, finding the man's conduct unsatisfactory, dismissed him and took up the task of teaching himself, two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon, until securing the services of another teacher seven months later. Neumann was a gifted teacher, and his students fondly remembered his stories in catechism class years later. He would often reward good students with small gifts, and when teaching the children to sing in the liturgy, he would induce those who complained of sore throats to return to singing with rock candy, of which he seemed to have an inexhaustible supply. Neumann again had a school after moving his headquarters to North Bush in 1837 and was erecting a third schoolhouse at Lancaster by December 1839.

Although Neumann's principal missions were Williamsville, Lancaster, and North Bush, he was soon caring for Transit, Sheldon, Batavia, Pendleton, and Tonawanda. For over four years, he was always on the move, traveling on foot often over swampy ground, from station to station, from house to house, in the biting cold of winter and the heat of summer, visiting the sick, aiding the dying, baptizing the newborn, instilling faith and zeal into the backsliders. In the three main churches under his care, the baptisms averaged sixty-five a year and the marriages eight. Still, Neumann's workload was heavy, particularly in virtue of the considerable distances to be traversed on foot, with a heavy pack on his back containing his vestments. The nearest out-mission was two hours away, the furthest twelve hours, and it was necessary to return home to North Bush almost every night, as there were no accommodations at the outposts, and besides, Neumann needed to be at home to teach every day.

The figure of the short-statured man of God was familiar to all the countryside. Out of pity for his exhausting labors, they soon induced him to take a horse. People laughed at the clumsy way Neumann rode; because he was only 5 ft 2+1⁄2 in (1.59 m), his feet did not reach the stirrups. Once, Neumann found himself thrown off the horse's back. On several other occasions when the horse wanted to rid himself of his rider, the animal made for the nearby fences and brushed Neumann's legs against them so that the cleric fell ignominiously to the ground. After that, Neumann led the horse along by the bridle instead of riding until he learned to control the stubborn creature. But Neumann did learn to ride, not in the manner of an expert but as a fair horseman. He and his horse eventually became great friends, even though on one occasion the voracious animal ate a precious quantity of botanical specimens the missionary had collected to send home to Bohemia.

Here, Neumann had his first difficulties with lay trusteeism. In many American Catholic congregations, the title to the church property was placed in the hands of lay members who formed a majority of the parish corporation and often sought to act independently of the pastor and contrary to the traditional administration of parish concerns. It took the ecclesiastical hierarchy many years to eradicate the disturbances caused by this system. In Neumann's day, the trustees were the important people in a parish, and it was vitally important for a pastor to get along well with them. Neumann refrained from open arguments with contentious trustees, and no matter what they said, he would smile and say nothing, which more than one trustee regarded as disrespectful. One of these resentful trustees once spread gossip concerning the propriety of Neumann's lodging in the home of Wirtz, which was over a tavern and in a room that could only be entered by going through the room of a young servant girl. One day, Neumann was called down to a meeting of the trustees in the tavern below Wirtz's house and informed that the meeting's purpose was to decide whether Wirtz should be obliged to dismiss the servant girl. Neumann, astounded though he was, responded with only a wry smile and a quiet disavowal. The trustees were convinced the bashful and holy priest was entirely innocent and blamed the jealous neighbor who wanted Neumann to lodge with his family instead of Wirtz's. Soon the man lost prestige in the neighborhood. Nevertheless, the danger of such gossip was not lost on Neumann, and he quietly changed his residence in 1837 to North Bush, though the church was not nearly so good as the one in Williamsville. He accepted free lodgings from a friendly Catholic, John Schmidt, who lived a mile and a half from the church, which Neumann had to walk every morning over an almost impassable road to say his daily Mass.

The move from Williamsville to North Bush came when the entire region was sunk in the direst poverty by the depression that followed upon the Panic of 1837. Many of the area's Catholics were without work and often without food and could give little or nothing to support the church. Neumann wrote to a fellow priest in Europe, "If you want to be a missionary, you have to love poverty and be entirely disinterested." Though he found himself $80 in debt at the end of the first year, he was satisfied that thanks to the people's gifts of corn and potatoes; he did not starve. Shortly after the move to North Bush, Bishop Dubois arrived on a visitation tour of the district. He expressed his pleasure upon seeing the more advanced stage of the buildings, the schools, the careful attention to the sick and the dying, and the weekly, even daily rounds made by the young pastor.

Wenzel Neumann, who followed his brother to America

In North Bush, the people got together and bought five acres of land close to the church on which Neumann could build a house and grow some vegetables for his support. Neumann worked at times on this and other buildings with his own hands and rejoiced when he moved into the two-room log cabin. After Neumann had his own house, he cooked his meals, and often he missed meals; observers noticed smoke rarely rose from Neumann's chimney, meaning the stove was not being used. Once, he lived only on bread for four weeks. People also noticed that when he visited the homes of the faithful, he never asked for a meal. Although Neumann's efforts to recruit additional priests from Europe were unsuccessful, in September 1839, Neumann's brother Wenzel came from Bohemia to assist him, taking over the cooking and teaching in the school, as well as helping with the construction of the churches, schoolhouses, and rectories. Wenzel brought Neumann the first news he'd had of his family in three years, for no letter of theirs had reached him since he left Europe. Neumann loved his family intensely, and Wenzel's coming to help him was a godsend.

Neumann began to experience spiritual aridity and feared his love for God was growing less fervent. Neumann saw pride in himself though everyone else said he was humble and thought he was slothful. Still, people around Buffalo said long after that he burned himself out making the rounds of his parish. After Neumann discussed his spiritual difficulties with Prost, Prost wrote to him that living alone is difficult, quoting Ecclesiastes, "woe to him who is alone!" Neumann often revolved that thought in his mind, especially in the summer of 1840 when his health broke down completely, and he was unable to do any pastoral work for three months. Neumann declared that he had an intense longing for the company of other priests. Frequent consultations with his confessor, Pax, followed, and after a long time, Pax advised Neumann that it was his vocation to become a religious.

On September 4, 1840, Neumann wrote to Prost, the Redemptorists' superior in America, asking for admission to the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer. Receiving a favorable reply from Prost on September 16, Neumann immediately wrote to Bishop John Hughes, acquainting him with his desire to enter the Redemptorists and asking him to send one or more priests to take over the churches outside Buffalo. Unbeknownst to Neumann, the bishop was on visitation, so no reply was forthcoming. Still, leaving the negotiations with Hughes in Pax and Prost's hands as they advised, Neumann left the Buffalo area on October 8 or 9, 1840. When Hughes learned of the matter, he was not at all inclined to allow a pastor of Neumann's caliber to depart from his diocese, but Prost later wrote, "I appealed to canon law and pointed out that I could not refuse to accept him, even if I wished to. The Most Reverend Bishop was obliged to yield." His brother, Wenzel, stayed to gather up the few belongings that Neumann possessed in the various mission stations and resolved to follow his brother and become a lay brother of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer.

Redemptorist novitiate

Modernization of the Late 19th Century Photograph of St. John Neumann

The Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, popularly known as the Redemptorists, had been founded in Naples in 1732 by Alphonsus Liguori, and had grown only slowly during its founder's lifetime. Clement Hofbauer established the Congregation north of the Alps. Joseph Passerat, who ran the Congregation from 1820 to 1848, dispatched the first Redemptorist missionaries to America in 1832. They had secured their first foundation in Pittsburgh in April 1839, taking over St. Philomena's Church. When Neumann joined them, they had four foundations: St. Philomena's in Pittsburgh, St. John's in Baltimore, St. Joseph's in Rochester, and St. Alphonsus' in Norwalk, Ohio.

Neumann arrived in Pittsburgh and presented himself to the Redemptorists on the morning of Sunday, October 18, 1840, where he was invited on the first day to sing the High Mass and preach, which he did despite the fatigue of his long journey from Buffalo. The matter of dimissorial letters having been straightened out with Bishop Hughes, Prost hurried to Pittsburgh to invest Neumann with the Redemptorist habit. As this was the first investiture of a Redemptorist in the New World, the Fathers wished to make it a solemn occasion. Unfortunately, they lacked the ritual of the prescribed ceremonies and prayers, as their only copies of these had been destroyed in a fire in New York. Drawing on their memories of their investitures, they devised a suitable ceremony and proceeded to clothe him in the Redemptorist habit.

He took his religious vows as a member of the congregation in Baltimore, in January 1842. While a novice for the Redemptorists, he served at St. Alphonsus Church in Peru Township, Huron County, Ohio for five months before returning to New York. He was naturalized as a United States citizen in Baltimore on February 10, 1848. He served as the pastor of St. Augustine Church in Elkridge, Maryland, from 1849 to 1851.

Redemptorist superior

After six years of difficult but fruitful work in Maryland, Neumann became the Provincial Superior for the United States. He also served as parish priest at St. Alphonsus Church in Baltimore.

Bishop of Philadelphia

Bishop Neumann, Neumanneum, Prachatice

On February 5, 1852, the Holy See appointed Neumann Bishop of Philadelphia. His predecessor in that office, Francis Kenrick (who had become Archbishop of Baltimore), presided over the consecration on March 28, and Bishop Bernard O'Reilly assisted. The consecration was held in St. Alphonsus Church, Baltimore.

Philadelphia had a large and expanding Catholic immigrant population; Germans who fled the Napoleonic and other Continental wars had been followed by Irish fleeing the Great Famine caused by the potato blight and wars. Soon Italians and other southern and eastern European Catholics would arrive. Some settled in the diocese's rural parts, similar to the rural areas of New York state where Neumann had begun his ministry, but many stayed in the city. At the time, Philadelphia was one of the largest cities in the country.

It was an industrializing mercantile hub with many jobs for people with little command of the English language. The waves of immigration resulted in tensions in the city with native-born residents, who had to compete for work in difficult economic times. Anti-Catholic riots took place in the 1830s and 1844, in the Philadelphia Nativist Riots, occurring as Irish Catholics began to arrive in significant numbers in the city. Soon more riots occurred, mainly since the town was a stronghold of the Know-Nothing political party, known for its anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic prejudices. Bishop Neumann introduced the first Forty Hours Devotion at the Church of St. Philip Neri on May 26, 1853, the Feast of Corpus Christi, in honor of the church's patron, despite the hostility of the Know Nothings.

During Neumann's administration, new parish churches were completed at the rate of nearly one per month. To encourage savings and to support the financial needs of the Catholic community in Philadelphia, he directed the creation of a mutual savings bank, Beneficial Bank, in 1853. As many immigrants settled in close communities from their hometowns and with speakers of the same language, churches became associated with immigrants from particular regions. They were known as national parishes. Their parishioners often did not speak English or know how to obtain needed social services.

Neumann was particularly committed to providing educational opportunities to immigrant children. He became the first bishop to organize a diocesan school system, as Catholic parents wanted their children taught in the Catholic tradition. They feared Protestant influence and discrimination in public schools. Under his administration, the number of parochial schools in his diocese increased from one to 200. His 1852 catechisms became standard texts.

Neumann's fluency in several languages endeared him to the many new immigrant communities in Philadelphia. As well as ministering to newcomers in his native German, Neumann also spoke Italian fluently. A growing congregation of Italian-speakers received pastoral care in his private chapel, and Neumann eventually established in Philadelphia the first Italian national parishes in the country.

Neumann actively invited religious institutes to establish new houses within the diocese to provide necessary social services. In 1855, Neumann supported the foundation of a congregation of religious sisters in the city, the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia. He brought the School Sisters of Notre Dame from Germany to assist in religious instruction and staff an orphanage. He also intervened to save the Oblate Sisters of Providence from dissolution; this congregation of African-American women was founded by Haitian refugees in Baltimore.

The large diocese was not wealthy, and Neumann became known for his personal frugality. He kept and wore only one pair of boots throughout his residence in the United States. When given a new set of vestments as a gift, he would often use them to outfit the newest ordained priest in the diocese. Discouraged by conflict as well as anti-Catholic riots and arson of religious buildings, Neumann wrote to Rome asking to be replaced as bishop, but Pope Pius IX insisted that he continue.

Trip to Rome and Bohemia

In 1854, Neumann traveled to Rome and was present at St. Peter's Basilica on December 8, when Pius IX solemnly defined, ex cathedra, the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. He visited Prachatice for a week from February 3, 1855. Although he wanted this to be done quietly, the citizens greeted him lavishly on arrival. The visit is noted next to his baptismal record in the parish register alongside a later pencil note about his canonisation in 1977.

Death

While doing errands on Thursday, January 5, 1860, Neumann collapsed and died of a heart attack. He was 48 years old. He was buried, per his request, at St. Peter's Church beneath the undercroft floor directly below the high altar.

Bishop James Frederick Wood, a Philadelphia native who converted to Catholicism in Cincinnati in 1836 and who had been appointed Neumann's coadjutor with right of succession in 1857, succeeded Neumann as Bishop of Philadelphia.

Veneration

National Shrine of St. John Neumann in Philadelphia, PA.

The cause for Neumann's beatification was formally opened on 15 December 1896, granting him the title of Servant of God. Neumann was declared venerable by Pope Benedict XV on December 11, 1921. He was beatified by Pope Paul VI during the Second Vatican Council on October 13, 1963, and was canonized by that same pope on June 19, 1977. His feast days are January 5, the date of his death, on the Roman calendar for the church in the United States of America, and June 19 in the Czech Republic.

After his canonization, the National Shrine of Saint John Neumann was constructed at the Parish of St. Peter the Apostle, at 5th Street and Girard Avenue in Philadelphia. The remains of John Neumann rest under the altar of the shrine within a glass-walled reliquary.

Legacy

In 1980, Our Lady of the Angels College, founded by the congregation of Franciscan Sisters he had founded and located within the archdiocese, was renamed Neumann College. The college was granted university status by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and renamed as Neumann University in 2009.

The St. John Neumann Education Trust was established in 2017 in the Diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire, for the advancement of Catholic education in the state of New Hampshire.

A street is named after him in his hometown of Prachatice.

Jubilee year

In 2011, the Redemptorist Fathers celebrated the 200th anniversary of the birth of Neumann. The Closing Mass for the Neumann Year was held on June 23, 2012, in Philadelphia.

• 
  Monument to Neumann in his hometown of Prachatitz
• 
  St. Peter the Apostle Church (built 1842–47), Philadelphia
• 
  National Shrine of St. John Neumann

Namesake schools

• St. John Neumann Academy (Blacksburg, Virginia)
• St. John Neumann Catholic School, Maryville, IL
• Neumann Preparatory School (Wayne, New Jersey)
• Bishop Neumann Catholic High School in Wahoo, Nebraska
• Neumann Classical School
• Saint John Neumann High School (Pennsylvania)
• St. John Neumann High School (Naples, Florida)
• Neumann University
• Biskupské gymnázium Jana Nepomuka Neumanna (Budweis – Czech Republic)
• Saint John Neumann Catholic School (Knoxville, Tennessee)
• Saint John Neumann Catholic School (Pueblo, Colorado)
• Saint John Neumann Regional Academy (Williamsport, Pennsylvania)
• St. John Neumann Regional Catholic School (Lilburn, Georgia)
• Bishop Neumann High School (Williamsville, New York- Renamed Ss. Peter and Paul School)
• St. John Neumann (Columbia, SC) Grades 3K-6th

See also

• Saint John Neumann, patron saint archive
• Demetrius Augustine Gallitzin, Apostle of the Alleghenies
• John Nepomucene, John Neumann's namesake

Sources

• Curley, Michael (1952). Venerable John Neumann, C.SS.R.: Fourth Bishop of Philadelphia. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press.
• Svoboda, Rudolf. John Nepomucene Neumann in Budweis 1823–1833. Study at Gymnasium, Institute of Philosophy and Episcopal Priestly Seminary, Spicilegium Historicum Congregationis SSmi Redemptoris 71, 1/2023, 67–117.
• Svoboda, Rudolf. Questions about the Priestly and Missionary Vocation and the Ordination of John Nepomucene Neumann, The Catholic Historical Review, vol. 109 no. 3/2023, 515–540.
• Svoboda, Rudolf. Ordinary Informative Process on John Nepomucene Neumann in the Diocese of Budweis in 1886–1888 and Examination of His Written Estate in 1891, Kościół i Prawo 11(24), 2/2022, 267–287.
• Svoboda, Rudolf. Apostolic Process on John Nepomucene Neumann in the Diocese of Budweis 1897–1901, Kościół i Prawo 12 (25), 1/2023, 223–246.

External links

• "Homily preached by Pope Paul VI at the canonization of Saint John Neumann", 1977, Vatican website
• History Making Production's video, “Urban Trinity: The Story of Catholic Philadelphia”