Peter Richard Kenrick

Peter Richard Kenrick

Peter Richard Kenrick (born August 17, 1806 in Dublin , Ireland , † March 4, 1896 in St. Louis , Missouri ) was the first Archbishop of St. Louis .

Life

On March 6, 1832, he received by the Dublin Archbishop Daniel Murray the priesthood . He then traveled to the United States with his brother Francis Patrick Kenrick , who later became Archbishop of Baltimore . In his early years in Philadelphia he wrote some papers on Catholic theology and church history . In 1841 he published his work The validity of the Anglican consecrations examined . In the Archdiocese of Philadelphia he held a few offices until he was on April 30, 1841 by Pope Gregory XVI. was appointed Coadjutor Bishop of St. Louis and Titular Bishop of Drasus .

On November 30, 1841 Joseph Rosati , Bishop of St. Louis donated him episcopal ordination . Co-consecrators were his brother Francis Patrick Kenrick, coadjutor of Philadelphia, and the coadjutor of Detroit , Peter Paul Lefevère . Two years later, with Rosati's death on September 25, 1843, he became Bishop of St. Louis. Pope Pius IX appointed him on July 12, 1847 Archbishop of St. Louis and on July 20 raised the diocese to the rank of archbishopric. During his tenure, he visited several parts of the State of Missouri and was actively involved in building Catholicism and ecclesiastical institutions in his archdiocese. He founded a Catholic newspaper, opened a seminary in Carondelet, Missouri, and brought religious orders to the archdiocese to work.

He attended the second synod in Baltimore, which brought together all US bishops under the presidency of the Archbishop of Baltimore. There he demanded that the affairs of the Catholic Church in the USA should not be dealt with centrally but rather locally. Because of this position, he received a lot of criticism from his opponents. During the First Vatican Council , he opposed the centralization of ecclesiastical authority in Rome and rejected the dogma of the Pope's infallibility . He explained his rejection to the Pope and the bishops present. When the dogma was defined, he accepted the dogma despite personal rejection. He never spoke or wrote about this subject. Because of this behavior at the Council, he received particularly sharp criticism from the Curia .

In 1893, his preferred candidate for the office of coadjutor was not appointed, but his compatriot John Joseph Kain . His conflicts and the bad relationship with Cain damaged his reputation for the rest of his life. On May 21, 1895, he resigned his office as archbishop and was appointed titular archbishop of Marcianopolis .

He died on March 4, 1896 and was buried in Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis, a cemetery which he himself initiated.

Web links

Commons : Peter Richard Kenrick  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Of the Archdiocese of Saint Louis Homepage (English)
• Entry on Peter Richard Kenrick on catholic-hierarchy.org ; accessed on December 13, 2016.

predecessor	Office	successor
Joseph Rosati	Archbishop of St. Louis 1843–1895	John Joseph Cain