Bernard John McQuaid (December 15, 1823 – January 18, 1909) was an American prelate of the Catholic Church. He was the first and longest-serving bishop of the Diocese of Rochester in New York State, serving from 1868 until his death. He previously served as the first president of Seton Hall University in New Jersey (1856-1868).
As a bishop, McQuaid was a leading voice of the American church's conservative wing. He publicly clashed with the liberal-minded Archbishop John Ireland and vigorously opposed Americanism.
Early life and education Bernard McQuaid was born on December 15, 1823, in New York City to Bernard and Mary (née Maguire) McQuaid, both natives of Ireland. Shortly after his birth, he moved with his parents to Paulus Hook, New Jersey (later incorporated as Jersey City), where his father worked in a glass factory operated by the brothers George and Phineas C. Dummer. Bernard's mother died in 1827, when he was three years old. The first Mass in Paulus Hook was celebrated in the McQuaid home in 1829.
In 1832, McQuaid's father was killed by a fellow factory worker; the eight-year-old Bernard was placed in the Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum in Lower Manhattan, staffed by the Sisters of Charity. In 1839, McQuaid left the orphanage to prepare for the priesthood at the Mary Immaculate Juniorate, the minor seminary in Chambly, Quebec. McQuaid returned to New York City in 1843, entering St. Joseph Seminary in the Bronx.
As a seminarian, McQuaid suffered from a severe case of tuberculosis. Many years later, he recounted that "friends expected to put me under the sod." However, McQuaid eventually recovered and noted "I have downed them all." In addition to his studies at the seminary, he served as a tutor at St. John's College in Queens, New York.
Priesthood
McQuaid was ordained a priest for the Diocese of New York on January 16, 1848, by Bishop John Hughes at St. Patrick's Old Cathedral in Manhattan. At that time, the Diocese of New York included Northern New Jersey. Hughes initially planned to assign McQuaid to St. Mary's Parish in Manhattan. However, Hughes's secretary, Reverend James Roosevelt Bayley, convinced Hughes that a posting outside the city would be better for McQuaid's health. Hughes then named McQuaid as an assistant pastor at St. Vincent's Parish in Madison, New Jersey. Four months later, Quaid was named pastor at St. Vincent.
St. Vincent's Parish in the late 1840s covered all of Morris, Sussex, and Warren Counties in New Jersey as well as parts of Union and Essex Counties. McQuaid bought two horses and carriages to travel through this expansive territory. In town without Catholic churches, he celebrated masses in private homes and hotel ballrooms. He erected Assumption Church, the first Catholic church in Morristown, New Jersey, in 1848 followed by St. Rose of Lima Church in Springfield, New Jersey, in 1852. In 1849, McQuaid opened the first permanent Catholic parochial school in New Jersey at St. Vincent's, with another school the next year in Assumption Parish. Of these two accomplishments, McQuaid later wrote,"I feel prouder...that so many years ago I founded and established, and carried along successfully the humble parochial schools of Madison and Morristown than I ever felt at having established Seton Hall College and Seminary."In July 1853, Pope Pius IX erected the Diocese of Newark, including all of New Jersey. McQuaid was incardinated, or transferred, from the Archdiocese of New York to this new diocese. The pope named Bayley as its first bishop. Bayley appointed McQuaid in September 1853 as rector of St. Patrick's Pro-Cathedral in Newark. In one of his first acts as rector, McQuaid recruited the Sisters of Charity to operate the orphanage attached to the cathedral. He also played a leading role in establishing the Sisters of Charity of Saint Elizabeth as a diocesan community at Newark in 1859, becoming the Sisters' first superior general.
President of Seton Hall College
When Seton Hall College opened in Madison in September 1856, McQuaid was appointed as its first president. Today it is Seton Hall University. In the beginning, McQuaid directed a staff of three priests and five lay instructors teaching five seminarians. The enrollment grew to 54 by the end of the college's first year. After serving one year as president of Seton Hall, McQuaid resigned to return to his position as rector at St. Patrick's Pro-Cathedral.
In 1859, Bayley allowed McQuaid to resume the presidency of Seton Hall while remaining rector of St. Patrick's Pro-Cathedral. He also served as professor of rhetoric at the college, and was known as "a rigid disciplinarian [who] insisted on promptness and exactness in every detail." In 1860, McQuaid moved Seton Hall from the Madison campus to South Orange, New Jersey, which was closer to the City of Newark. McQuaid converted a large mansion on the new campus into a seminary and constructed a new brick building for the college. The cornerstone of the new building was laid in May 1860 and the college reopened in September 1860 with 50 students.
The American Civil War started on April 12, 1861, with the two-day Battle of Fort Sumter in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. On the following Sunday, McQuaid addressed the congregation at St. Patrick's Pro-Cathedral, expressing his support for the federal government in this conflict. The following week, the American flag was raised above the cathedral. McQuaid was invited to address a public meeting at the Rochester courthouse, where he declared that "this glorious Union would be sustained against any enemy, whether in our land or from a foreign country."
During the Battle of Fredericksburg in December 1862, Quaid traveled to Virginia to minister to wounded and dying soldiers; he was the only Catholic priest at the battlefield. While in Virginia, he allegedly converted a Protestant soldier who witnessed him offering whisky to a fellow soldier.
In September 1864, the newly ordained Reverend Michael Corrigan joined the faculty of Seton Hall. The two priests soon developed a lasting friendship. They would later emerge as the two most prominent conservative leaders among the American hierarchy. As one historian described their relationship:
In January 1866, a fire destroyed the seminary building at Seton Hall. McQuaid quickly raised the funds to build the larger Immaculate Conception Seminary, which opened on the Seton Hall campus in 1867. . In addition to his duties as college president and cathedral rector, Bayley named McQuaid as vicar general of the diocese in September 1866. In his two years as vicar general, he became "a terror to delinquents" regularly suspending priests for financial misdeeds, drunkenness, and insubordination.
McQuaid accompanied Bayley to the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore in October 1866, serving as Bayley's theologian and as a member of the Council's committee on bishops, priests, and seminarians.
Bishop of Rochester On March 3, 1868, McQuaid was appointed the first bishop of the newly created Diocese of Rochester by Pope Pius IX. Archbishop John McCloskey of New York noted in a letter to Archbishop Martin John Spalding that McQuaid had been "determined not to accept, [and] had in this the sympathy and encouragement of his own Bishop, but he has finally yielded to considerations." McQuaid received his episcopal consecration on July 12, 1868, from McCloskey, with Bayley and Bishop Louis de Goesbriand serving as co-consecrators, at St. Patrick's Old Cathedral in Manhattan.
McQuaid formally took charge of the Diocese of Rochester on July 16, 1868, when he was installed in a temporary frame building that had been erected to accommodate Rochester's unfinished St. Patrick's Cathedral. At the beginning of McQuaid's tenure in 1868, the diocese contained 54,500 Catholics, 39 priests, 35 parishes, and 29 missions. In his final year as bishop in 1909, there were 121,000 Catholics, 164 priests, 93 parishes, and 36 missions.
Conflicts with priests
Thomas O'Flaherty McQuaid's disputes with other clergymen began early in his tenure. In February 1869, he tried to remove Reverend Thomas O'Flaherty from his position as pastor of Holy Family Parish in Auburn, New York. Concerned about the financial mismanagement of the parish, McQuaid demanded a financial statement from O'Flaherty. When the priest refused to provide it, McQuaid removed him from Holy Family. However, O'Flaherty refused his new assignment, prompting McQuaid to suspend him from ministry. The case received wide media coverage, especially from the New York Freeman's Journal in Manhattan. McQuaid blamed its editor, James McMaster, "for a great deal of the wrong judgment towards myself entertained by many Priests in distant parts of the U.S. with regard to my action in O'Flaherty's case." Flaherty remained suspended until 1892.
Louis Lambert Another prominent conflict involved Reverend Louis Lambert, pastor of St. Mary's Parish in Waterloo, New York. In addition to his pastoral work, Lambert had begun editing the Waterloo Catholic Times in 1877. McQuaid originally approved of Lambert's work at the newspaper. However, his opinion soured after the Catholic Times began to criticize him and other priests in the diocese. In April 1881, McQuaid restricted Lambert's ministry to his own parish, forced him to resign as editor of the Catholic Times. Lambert appealed McQuaid's ruling twice to the Vatican, but lost both times.
In 1888, McQuaid tried to expel Lambert from the diocese. Lambert appealed again to the Vatican, forcing both him and McQuaid to travel to Rome for a hearing. While waiting for a decision, McQuaid complained about the bad publicity to Bishop Richard Gilmour in April 1889, "Here I am like a culprit snarled at by all the cheap Catholic newspapers of America from the Atlantic to the Pacific." In January 1890, the Vatican ruled that Lambert would remain in the Diocese of Rochester, but must accept any assignment by McQuaid. Lambert was then assigned by McQuaid as pastor of Assumption Parish in Scottsville, New York, where he served until his death in 1910.
Edward McGlynn During the late 1880s, McQuaid advised Corrigan, now archbishop of New York, during his high-profile conflict with Reverend Edward McGlynn, a priest in the archdiocese. McGlynn was a social reformer who actively supported the economist Henry George and his "Single Tax" movement. McQuaid and Corrigan believed this philosophy contradicted Catholic teaching on the right to private property. McQuaid encouraged Corrigan to be "clear, strong and bold, and not afraid" when dealing with McGlynn and to prohibit Catholics in the archdiocese from attending meetings of McGlynn's Anti-Poverty Society. Corrigan followed this advice and finally excommunicated McGlynn in July 1887.
Apostolic delegate