McOLOSKEY
186
McOLOSKET
ecclesiastics of the Eternal City, which brought him
into personal relations with men ^ho were making
history. Amongst his lifelong friends were Cardinals
Fesch and Weld, and others who were raised to the
Eurple later, as Monsignori Keisach, Angelo Mai, [ezzofanti, Wiseman, and Dr. Cnllen. He saw much of the young P6re Lacordaire during this time, for whom he formed a warm friendship. His delicate health would not permit him to enter any of the col- leges, but he took rooms in the Convent of the Thea- tines at S. Andrea della Valle and entered as a student of the Gregorian University under the Jesuits. Here he had as professors men like Perrone and Manera and others worthy to sit in the chairs of Bellarmine and Suarez. His health did not prevent hard study, as he has left reams of written notes and comments on class lectures and the monuments of Rome during ihe two years of his stay in the centre of the Christian world. From these manuscripts one sees that no influence of that "city of the soul failed to leave its impression on him; its Christian monuments and pagan ruins, its city and country life, the influence of foreigners on the people of Italv — not always for good — ^he has left iudiciotisly noted in letters and diaries. "Each day", he writes in a letter to a friend, "affords new sources of pleasure and an intellectual banquet, of which one can never partake to satiety. . . . Oh, what cannot one enjoy who comes to this great classic and holy city with a mind prepared to appreciate its historic and religious charms! The balance of three years of absence he passed in travel through Italy, Germany, Belgium, France, England, and Ire- land.
In Rome his love for and devotion to the Holy See was deepened and became a cult of his after years. As an Ainerican he was naturally broad and capable of taking a wide view of peoples and institutions. This was balanced by the events of the time and made him the conservative force he proved to be later on. A spirit of renewed loyalty to the Church was strongly moving European centres of thought. Lacordaire had in 1835 begun his Notre Dame "Conferences", which com- manded the attention of all France and drew around his pulpit the sceptical youth of Paris; Dr. Wiseman, as rector of the English College in Rome, was giving his "Lectures on the connexion between Science and Revealed Religion", which gained him the ear of all England; DolTinger by the first and second parts of his "History of the Church", Gorres by his "Chris- tian Mysticism", and Mohler by his "Symbolism" had begun to fix the attention of Germany on the power of the Church to hold men of ability. The Cath- olic Movement under Newman had be^un at Oxford; Montalembert had succeeded in forming a Catholic
SLrty in France with himself as president. Father cCloskey's intimate knowledge of all these forces, focussed as they were in the Eternal City, gave him ever after a broader and more intelligent interest in the affairs of the Church, especially in Europe, and made his forecast of things singularly accurate m after life. These advantages were enjoyed by few other American cler^nien of his time, so that, on his return to his native diocese in the autumn of 1837, his posi- tion was determined. Although only twenty-seven and without any experience in administration, he was placed in charge, as pastor, of one of the most im- portant parishes of the diocese, St. Joseph's, Sixth Avenue, New York. Hero was one of the strongholds of what was known as " Trusteeism ", a form of church government which made bishop and pastor subordi- nate in all matters not purely spiritual to the laity. Father McCloskey now found a field for the exercise of a marked featiu^ of the man — self-control, the key to the successful control of others with the minimum of friction which distinguished him all through his life. The trustees of St. Joseph's refused to receive him, tlemanding a pastor of their choice. The pews were
riven up. " Sunday after Sunday for nine months did
preach when there were not a dozen persons between
pulpit and porch in the centre aisle ", said the cardinal
m telling of those early days. The trustees refused to
pay him any salary, and, unwilUng to beUeve that he
was the writer of Ins forcible and eloquent sermons^
said they were composed by an older and abler priest.
To all this he paid no heed, never even making a pass-
ing allusion to it from the pulpit. ' * Father MdDloskey
wul not fight, but he will conquer", said an old college
companion at the time. He did overcome by that
"charity which seeketh not its own"; his opponents
became his best supporters, and he was wont to say
in his old age that the. years that followed in St.
Joseph's were the happiest of his life.
In 1841 Father McCloskey was appointed hy Bishop Huffhes first president of St. John's College, Fordham, still retaining charge of St. Joseph's, to which he re- turned in 1842 after organizing the new college. At the petition of Bishop Hughes for an assistant in his advancing years, Gregory XVI appointed Father McCloskcjy, and on 10 March, 1844, he was consecrated titular Bishop of Axiere and Coadjutor of New York with the right of succession. During the three years that followed, the young bishop lent efficient aid to the head of the diocese in making the visitations of the vast territory then comprising the whole State of New York and most of New Jersey. The steady ^wth of the Church in this territory called for a division of the diocese, and the two new sees of Albany and Buffalo were erected, to the former of which Bishop McCloskey was transferred 21 May, 1847. Here his great life- work began, for which he was well prepared by his priestly zeal and scholarship, his eloquence and suc- cessful experience in administration. It was no small work to organize a diocese of 30,000 square miles in extent, containing less than 25 churches and 34 priests, 2 orphan asylums and 2 free schools (Shea, voL 4, p. 126; and " Cath. Ahnan.", 1848). The Catholics, scat- tered and poor, numbered 60,000. After seventeen years of his administration of Albany he left behind as a result a noble cathedral, eighty-four priests, one hun- dred and thirteen churches, eight chapels, forty-four minor stations, eighty-five missionaries, three acade- mies for boys, one for girls, six orphan asylums, fifteen parochial schools, and St. Josepn's Provincial Semi- nary, Troy, which he, with Arcnbishop Hughes, was largely instrumental in securing and equipping. He also introduced into the diocese several religious communities, amongst others, the Augustinians, the Jesuits, the Franciscans, the Capuchins, and Oblates. For the care of the young ^irls under his charge, he provided by inviting the Religious of the Sacred Heart to Kenwood-on-the-Hudson; the Sisters of Charity, the Sisters of Mercy and the Sisters of St. Joseph; and for the boys the Christian Brothers were also intro- duced.
In January, 1864, the Metropolitan See of New York became vacant by the death of its first Archbishop, John Hughes, and all looked to the Bishop of Albany as the successor. His name was placed first on the tema sent to Rome by the bishops of the province. Amongst the bishops, priests and laity, there was only one dissenting voice, that of Bishop McCloskey him- self. An impression obtained very generally at the time and for years afterwards as to the bishop's atti- tude. It was said that, having been consecrated coad' jutor with the right of succession to the see of New York, twenty years before, he claimed the right on the vacancy of the see. The injustice of such a suspicion will appear from the following extract of a letter writ ' ten by him to one of the most influential members of the Congregation of the Propaganda, Cardinal Reisach, the friend of his youth: "I write to implore your Eminence ", he says, " in case there should be any dan- ger of my appointment or of my being transferred from Albany to New York, to aid roe in preventing
