page_title: Benedict Joseph Fenwick
section_title: Ministry in New York
hierarchical_section_title: Benedict Joseph Fenwick / Ministry in New York
caption_attribution_description: English: Etching of St. Patrick's Old Cathedral on Mott Street in Little Italy, Manhattan, New York City, before its demolition and reconstruction in 1840
context_page_description: Benedict Joseph Fenwick was an American Catholic bishop, educator, and Jesuit who served as the Bishop of Boston from 1825 to his death in 1846. He was twice the president of Georgetown College, established the College of the Holy Cross, and founded several educational institutions in New York City and Boston.
  Born in Maryland, Fenwick's family traced its lineage to the early settling of the colony. He was educated at Georgetown College and St. Mary's Seminary in Baltimore, before deciding to enter the Society of Jesus, following its restoration in the United States in 1806. After being ordained a priest in 1808, he began his ministry in New York City, where he worked closely with Anthony Kohlmann in establishing the New York Literary Institution, and as pastor of St. Peter's Church and the original St. Patrick's Cathedral. Eventually, Fenwick became the vicar general and apostolic administrator of the Diocese of New York.
  In 1817, Fenwick became the president of Georgetown College, remaining just several months before he was tasked with resolving a longstanding schism at St. Mary's Church in Charleston, South Carolina.
context_section_description: In November 1808, he was sent with Anthony Kohlmann to minister to the Catholics of New York City, where they were put in charge of St. Peter's Church, the only Catholic church in the city. He assisted in establishing the New York Literary Institution, the second Jesuit school in New York City. As an offshoot of Georgetown College, the institution was staffed by four Jesuit scholastics from Georgetown, with Fenwick as president. The school was opened in 1808, in a house on Mulberry Street, across the street from the original St. Patrick's Cathedral. It remained there only briefly, before relocating to Broadway in September 1809; it moved again in March 1810 to a plot of land "far out in the country," north of the New York City limits. This new site would eventually become the location of the new St. Patrick's Cathedral, in Midtown Manhattan.
  The school grew quickly, enrolling the sons of several prominent Catholic and Protestant families, and its curriculum emphasized the study of Latin, Ancient Greek, and French. However, the Jesuit superior in the United States, Giovanni Antonio Grassi, determined that there were not enough Jesuits in the United States could not sustain both Georgetown and the New York Literary Institution. Despite Kohlmann desiring to close Georgetown, Grassi sided with the bulk of Jesuits who were native to Maryland and ordered the New York school closed in 1813, with it officially shuttering in April 1814. Responsibility for the facility was transferred to the Trappist order.
  While in New York, Fenwick and Kohlmann were called for by the dying Thomas Paine, to his house in Greenwich Village. Having been unsuccessfully treated by several physicians, Paine sought to priests to heal him. They attempted to convince him to renounce a lifetime of writings denouncing Christianity, to which he angrily dismissed them from his house.
  Fenwick served alongside Kohlmann as pastor of Old St. Patrick's Cathedral in 1809, an office he held until 1815. When Kohlmann was recalled to Maryland in 1815, Fenwick succeeded him as pastor of St. Peter's Church as well. He also replaced Kohlmann as the apostolic administrator of the Diocese of New York. He was successful in prompting hundreds of conversions to Catholicism throughout the diocese during his tenure. Fenwick was present at the formal dedication of Old St. Patrick's Cathedral in 1816. He also drew up designs for the new St. Patrick's Cathedral, whose construction would be completed after he left New York. The Dominican priest, Charles Ffrench, succeeded Fenwick as pastor of St. Peter's, and John Power would become the next pastor of Old St. Peter's in 1825. Fenwick became vicar general of the diocese for Bishop John Connelly in 1816, in which post he remained until April 1817.
caption: The original St. Patrick's Cathedral, as it appeared during Fenwick's time there
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