Rhode Island’s First Catholic Bishop

RIGHT REV. THOMAS F. HENDRICKEN (1827-1886), First Bishop of Providence.

PROVIDENCE was for a time the residence of the Bishop of Hartford, but, a division being made in the diocese, the Rhode Island capital became an episcopal see. Right Rev. Thomas F. Hendricken, the first Bishop of Providence, was born in the cathedral parish of the city of Kilkenny, Ireland, on the 5th of May, 1827, his parents being John Hendricken and Anne Maher. After preliminary studies in McDonald’s Academy, Kilkenny, he entered St. Kyran’s College in that city, and showed such ability that he was selected as one of the few to enter the great theo logical seminary at Maynooth in 1847.

He was ordained at All Hallows’ College, Dublin, April 29, 1853, by the Right Rev. Ber nard O’Reilly, of Hartford, to whom he had offered his services His earliest missions in America were at the cathedral in Provi dence, at St. Joseph’s, in the same city, at Woonsocket and New port. On the 17th of January, 1854, he was appointed pastor of St. Joseph’s, West Winsted, Conn., and on the 5th of July in the ensuing year was stationed at Waterbury, in the same State. This became a permanent field of labor, and for seventeen years he was the zealous pastor of Waterbury and of the missions dependent on it.

What he accomplished in this parish commended him to a higher appointment, and on the division of the diocese; of Hartford he was selected as Bishop of Providence. The district placed under his charge comprised the State of Rhode Island, together with Bristol, Barnstable, and part of Plymouth County in Massachusetts, and the islands of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. Bishop Hendricken was consecrated bishop on the 28th of April, 1872, and proceeded to organize his diocese.

During the Revolutionary war the chaplains of the French army and navy officiated in Rhode Island. The famous convert, Rev. John Thayer, had visited Newport as early as 1791, and ministered to the Catholics there, and they were occasionally visited in later years; but it was not till 1828 that Rev. Robert D. Woodley, purchasing an old school-house, opened the first church in that city. In the same year a lot was given for a church in Providence.

From such small beginnings the faith grew, and when Bishop Hendricken assumed the direction of his diocese Providence had ten churches, that of St. Peter and St. Paul becoming his pro-cathedral, and there were thirty-three churches outside the limits of his episcopal city. The Catholic body had grown to the imposing strength of 125,000, and there were institutions directed by Brothers of the Christian Schools, Sisters of Mercy, and Sisters of Charity.

Yet there was work to be done, and the bishop zealoiisly undertook it. CanadianFrench had settled in the factory-towns, and Portuguese in the fishing-villages on the coast, once the nursery of hardy New England seamen. These needed priests able to address them in their own language. Ladies of the Sacred Heart and Ursuline nuns established academies of a higher grade than any yet in the diocese, Sisters of the Holy Names and of the Holy Cross increased the number of teachers, while the Little Sisters of the Poor opened a Home for the Aged.

Nearly a hundred priests were laboring in 1884 in this diocese, and there were fifty-five churches; parochial schools are numerous, and the attendance reaches nearly ten thousand, the whole Catholic population being estimated at 156,000, the baptisms in Rhode Island in 1883 being 3,602, and in Massachusetts 2,500. A large and imposing cathedral, worthy of the diocese, was nearly completed in 1884.

John Gilmary Shea, The Hierarchy of the Catholic Church in the United States, Embracing Sketches of All the Archbishops and Bishops from the Establishment of the See of Baltimore to the Present Time; Also, an Account of the Plenary Councils of Baltimore, and a Brief History of the Church in the United States (New York: The Office of Catholic Publications, 1886), 347-348.