Henry Conwell was an Irish-born Roman Catholic bishop in the United States. He became a priest in 1776 and served in that capacity in Ireland for more than four decades. He was installed as the second Bishop of Philadelphia in 1819. Conwell spent much of his time there feuding with the lay trustees.
About Henry Conwell in brief
Henry Conwell was an Irish-born Roman Catholic bishop in the United States. He became a priest in 1776 and served in that capacity in Ireland for more than four decades. After the Pope declined to appoint him Archbishop of Armagh, he was instead installed as the second Bishop of Philadelphia in 1819. Conwell spent much of his time there feuding with the lay trustees of his parishes, especially those of St. Mary’s Church in Philadelphia. The two sides partially reconciled by 1826, but the Vatican hierarchy believed Conwell had ceded too much power to the laymen in the process and recalled him to Rome. He remained in Philadelphia and performed some priestly duties, but for all practical purposes no longer ran the diocese. He died there in 1842 at the age of about 94 and is buried at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City, where he was buried with his wife, Mary Conwell, in 1843. The diocese of Philadelphia is now the seat of the Archdiocese of New York and the Diocese of San Francisco, which was founded in 1849. The see of Philadelphia had been vacant since the death of Bishop Michael Francis Egan in 1814, despite several efforts to fill it.
In Europe, the Church owned property and directly controlled its parishes through the clergy. In the U.S. early Catholic churches were typically founded by laymen who purchased the property, and erected the church buildings. Those laypeople demanded some control over the administration of the parish, even after the arrival of clergy from Europe who held the traditional view of parish organization. In a larger sense, the dispute represented a difference in understandings of authority between Americans and Europeans. The dispute had only grown more bitter during the vacancy preceding his arrival in Philadelphia in December 1820, before the diocesan priest, William Hogan, was assigned to preach there. The laymen made up the board of trustees, siding with them in their dispute with Hogan. When Conwell arrived, Hogan had already moved out of the priests’ residence at Old St. Joseph’s Church to a house across the street.
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This page is based on the article Henry Conwell published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 08, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
