Culture

Born in Maryland in 1782, Benedict seemed almost destined for prominence in the Catholic Church.

The month of May brings many things: flowers and other signs of spring, graduation season for many high schools and universities, and, in the Catholic Church, "Mary's Month," a period of heightened devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. This month is also of particular significance in the Archdiocese of Boston, as the official appointment of Bishop Benedict Joseph Fenwick, SJ, to the Diocese of Boston took place 200 years ago on May 10, 1825.
Born in Maryland in 1782, Benedict seemed almost destined for prominence in the Catholic Church. He was descended from the original Catholic settlers of the Province of Maryland, and both his brother Enoch and cousin Edward would likewise ascend to respected positions in the church. Enoch, also a Jesuit, served as the 12th president of Georgetown College (now University); and Edward, a Dominican, was the first Bishop of Cincinnati.
A gifted student of theology at Georgetown, Benedict later taught at the college before entering St. Mary's Seminary in Baltimore. When the Society of Jesus was restored in the U.S. after a period of suppression by Pope Clement XIV, Benedict and Enoch became some of the first new Jesuit novices in 1806. Sister Mary Angela, SM, in her 1963 biography of Bishop Fenwick, "Sown in Granite," describes the brothers as "stalwartly Loyolan." Major Jesuit tenets of education and service would resonate throughout Bishop Fenwick's career.

Following his 1808 ordination, then-Father Fenwick moved to New York, serving in St. Peter's Church alongside fellow Georgetown alumnus Anthony Kohlmann. While Kohlmann was called back to Maryland in 1815, Fenwick stayed to become the diocesan administrator for the Diocese of New York and oversaw hundreds of conversions in this role. He would eventually return to Maryland in 1817 to serve as Georgetown's president, prior to the respective tenures of Kohlmann and Enoch Fenwick.
John G. Shea, in "Memorial of the First Century of Georgetown College, D.C." (1891), notes that soon, Father Fenwick's "ability and zeal were . . . Too well known to allow him to remain in the seclusion of college walls." Archbishop Ambrose Marechal of Baltimore sent Father Fenwick to South Carolina to address a longstanding dispute at a local Catholic church. In a bilingual and multicultural disagreement, lay trustees of the predominantly Irish St. Mary's Church refused to accept a French priest: Father Fenwick addressed this by preaching sermons himself in both English and French.
Thus, by the time the papal decree was issued by Pope Leo XII on May 10, 1825, Benedict Fenwick was an eminent Jesuit, capable problem-solver, and compelling preacher. Who better to fill the vacant Boston See following Bishop Cheverus' 1823 return to his native France?
Typical of an era when correspondence was punctuated by weeks and months instead of minutes and seconds, Fenwick received news of his appointment in July of that year. Richard H. Clarke, in "Lives of the Deceased Bishops of the Catholic Church in the United States" (1888), describes Fenwick's spiritual retreat "to prepare himself for the arduous and exalted position to which he had been called," before his consecration in Baltimore in November and eventual arrival in Boston on Dec. 3, 1825. Over the next 21 years, Bishop Fenwick would oversee extensive growth and development of the Diocese of Boston.
Steady population increase prompted Bishop Fenwick to train new priests, build new parishes, and petition for the eventual creation of the Diocese of Hartford, in 1843, to serve Catholics in Connecticut and Rhode Island. The Archive department has previously written for The Pilot about Benedicta, a Catholic settlement in Maine created during the popularity of utopian communities in the 19th century, as well as Bishop Fenwick's handling of the pastoral dispute at St. Mary's Church in Boston. Bishop Fenwick also oversaw the expansion of Catholic education and media in New England: notably, College of the Holy Cross, in Worcester, opened in 1843, and The Pilot was first printed in 1829 as The Jesuit, or Catholic Sentinel.
Progress was not without challenges, perhaps the most prominent of which was the anti-Catholic sentiment that pervaded the region during that period. The Archive has previously covered the 1834 burning of the Ursuline Convent in Charlestown. An undated document from Bishop Fenwick's papers identifies the greatest obstacle to spreading Catholicism in the U.S. as "the zeal and solidarity of the Protestant ministers (who) ... maintain themselves by all possible means and pretexts." Despite this, the document offers its own zeal for Catholicism, ending with the question, "If God is with us, who is against us?" (Translation from the original French).
The Archive acknowledges the significance of slavery to Georgetown University. From its inception to the American Civil War, Georgetown owned and rented enslaved people to perform labor on campus. Margaret Fenwick, Benedict's mother, was one of the most frequent lessors, and Benedict was an actor in these affairs as both a student and later as the college's president. To learn more about this history, visit the Georgetown Slavery Archive: slaveryarchive.georgetown.edu.

REBECCA MAITLAND IS AN ARCHIVIST OF THE ARCHDIOCESE OF BOSTON.

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