Patrick Feehan
| The Most Reverend Patrick A. Feehan |
|
|---|---|
| Archbishop of Chicago | |
 |
|
| Church | Roman Catholic Church |
| See | Chicago |
| In office | September 10, 1880 – July 12, 1902 |
| Predecessor | James Duggan |
| Successor | James Edward Quigley |
| Orders | |
| Ordination | November 1, 1852 |
| Consecration | November 12, 1865 |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
August 28, 1829 Killenaulee, Ireland |
| Died | July 12, 1902 (aged 72) Chicago, Illinois |
| Previous post | Bishop of Nashville |
Patrick Augustine Feehan (August 28, 1829 – July 12, 1902), was an Irish-born American Catholic bishop. He served as the fifth Bishop and first Archbishop of Chicago between 1880 and 1902, during which the church in Chicago was elevated to an archdiocese.
Patrick Augustine Feehan was born in Killenaulee, County Tipperary, in Ireland, to Patrick and Judith Cooney Feehan. His father was a gentleman farmer. At the age of ten he was sent to live with his paternal grandfather in order to attend school in Fethard. He returned to Killenaullee two years later when a school opened there, and at the age of fourteen took up the study of Gaelic. In 1845 he entered Castleknock College as an ecclesiastic student, where he befriended Charles Russell. In January 1847 he entered Maynooth College where he spent five years.
Archbishop Peter Richard Kenrick of St. Louis, Missouri had opened a seminary in Carondelet. Himself a graduate of Maynooth, Kenrick made a request of the faculty that Feehan, who was scheduled to become a professor, be transferred to the archdiocese of St. Louis. In 1852 Feehan left for the United States; his family had emigrated there two years earlier.
Feehan was ordained on November 1, 1852 and assigned to teach at the diocesan seminary. In July 1853 he was assigned to St. John's parish in St. Louis, where during a cholera epidemic he tended the sick and coffined the dead. The following year he became President of the Theological Seminary in Carondelet. In 1858 he was appointed pastor of St. Michael's in St. Louis, and a year later pastor of the Church of the Immaculate Conception were he established the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul to aid the poor. During the Civil War, the Sisters of Charity were given charge of a hospital located in the parish, where Feehan spent long hours comforting the sick and wounded. After the Battle of Shiloh in April 1862, boatloads of wounded soldiers were brought to the city. For three days in succession, Feehan moved along the wharf and the stretchers laid in rows on the street administering last rites to those who would not make it to hospital.
...
Wikipedia