The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1911-12-22
From Mondays Daily.

Archbishop John ireland will cele-
brate the fiftieth anniversary of his
| ordination to the priesthood Thurs
day, December 81. The occasion will
be without any general public OBJ
servance, this being the wish Of
the archbishop. Other than such
quiet ceremony as the archbishop
may participate in to commemorate
the day, there will be no religious
celebration. The archbishop will have
past his seventy-third birthday an
niversary by more than three months
when the day arrives. He will have
been fifty years a priest, thirty-five
years a bishop and twenty-four years
an archbishop.
Born at Burnchurch, Kilkenny
county, Ireland, September II, 1888,
John Ireland, at the age of eleven,
came with his parents to the United
States, reaching here in 1849. His
parents lived three years at Chicago,
and then came to st. Paul, where
the boy studied in the cathedral
school for a year. In 1853 he was
sent to Bishop Cretin to the Petit
seminaire, Maximeux, near Lyons,
France, where he studied the classic
for four years.
Rt. Rev. Thomas l.. Grace succeed
ed Bishop Cretin in charge of the
see of st. Paul, and in 1861, when
the young cleric returned to the
United States, having first entered
the scholasticate of the tMarist faith
ers at Montbel, near Hyeres, where
he completed his studies in the year
that the great Civil war began in
this country, he found the north in
vOlved in the great conflict. His
aged benefactor, Bishop Grace, or
dained him to the priesthood Deem
Der q, 1861, and in January, 1912,
Father Ireland was appointed chap
plain of the Fifth Minnesota Volun-
south
Was Chaplain in Civil War.
He accompanied the regiment into
the field and served through the
hard campaigning and heavy fighting
of the year 1852 in the mississippi
valley. He came out of the campaign
with a splendid war record, report
ed to st. Paul for clerical duty and
was assigned to the rectorship of
the cathedral and named secretary
of the diocese.
When the Civil war had ceased
and the great period of development
| of the northwest began, Father Ire
| land became identified with it and
| his name soon became known out
| side the confines of the state. In
1859 he became president of the
Total Abstinence Union of America
and thence dates his fame as \
worker in the temperance cause.
Father Ireland attended the vati-
can council in 1870 as the represent
alive of Bishop Grace, and when
Rt. Rev. James NJ. O'Gorman, vicar
apostolic of Nebraska, died in 1875,
was named to succeed him.
Bishop Grace appealed to the vati-
can and had the appointment annuli-
ed, but had Father Ireland made CO.
adjutor bishop of st. Paul, instead,
with teh right Of succession. To this
office he was consecrated December
81, 1875, on the date corresponding
1 to that of his ordination fourteen
years before.
No sooner had Father Ireland be-
| come Bishop Ireland than he began
the work of colonizing the north
| west. In this cause he worked
through the National Colonization as
ISOLATION. In 1876 he brought 900
| Catholic colonists to Minnesota and
in 1877 he bought, from the old ST.
| Paul and Pacific Railway company,
I about $4,000 acres of agricultural
4 lands which were devoted to the
same purpose.
How He Colonized Northwest.
He became colonist and agricul-
! turist on a large scale, studied deep
i ly the needs of the country and of
1 the settlers and made himself an i'm
| portant part of the great work that
was filling the country with homes
1 and building up towns and cities.
| Bishop Grace resigned July 81,
i 1884, and Bishop Ireland took com
| plete control of diocesan affairs. On
May 4, 1884, Rome sent the recogni-
ton of st. Paul as of Importance
/ warranting the raising of the city to
/ the archiepiscopacy May 4, 1884, and
1 on May Is John Ireland received the
/ appointment of archbishop.
i The influence of Archbishop Ire
/ land thereafter extended far and
wide. He was president of the st.
Paul Law and Order league, and was
| said to have been an influence in in
spring the famous encyclical of Pope
| Leo XIII on capital and labor, was
/ prominent in 1898 in an effort to
i settle the differences between the
/ Y,n:t C%nt