Bernard O'Reilly

Bernard O'Reilly (1 March 1803 – after 23 January 1856) was an Irish-born Catholic prelate. Known for his service during the 1832 cholera outbreak in New York, he later served as Bishop of Hartford from 1850 until his death in 1856.

Biography

Early life Bernard O'Reilly was born on 1 March 1803 in Columcille, County Longford, in Ireland. His brother was Reverend William O'Reilly, who eventually became vicar general of the Diocese of Hartford.

Priesthood O'Reilly was ordained a priest for the Diocese of New York in Philadelphia by Bishop Francis Kenrick on 13 October 1831. After his ordination, the diocese assigned O'Reilly to the pastoral staff at St. James Parish in Brooklyn, New York. During the cholera epidemic in New York during the summer of 1832, O'Reilly distinguished himself caring for the sick; he contracted the disease twice.

The diocese in December 1832 transferred O'Reilly to serve as pastor at St. Patrick Parish in Rochester, New York, then the only Catholic parish in that city. Under O'Reilly's direction, the parishioners purchased a larger Methodist church to replace their current one. In 1834, O'Reilly was sent to a new Catholic parish in Rochester, St. Mary's Church of the Assumption. However, a financial collapse in Rochester forced the closure of St. Mary's later in 1834 and O'Reilly returned to St. Patrick.

One night in December 1839, O'Reilly was attacked while sleeping by a priest he had suspended. O'Reilly was injured, but was sufficiently recovered to deliver a speech on Valentine's Day in February 1840

During the 1850s, there were few American priests and religious sisters in New England to serve the growing Irish Catholic immigrant populations. As a result, bishops were forced to recruit them from other American states and from Ireland. In 1851, O'Reilly persuaded the Sisters of Mercy in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to send a contingent of religious sisters to Providence. They started teaching Sunday school and recruiting other sisters. They then began providing food to the poor and took over the school at the Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul. Also in 1851, the sisters, with O'Reilly's help, opened the first Catholic orphanage in Rhode Island, the second in the entire New England region.

In 1852, during a trip to Ireland, O'Reilly convinced several newly graduated priests from All Hallows College in Dublin to come to the United States. He also recruited Reverend Thomas Hendricken from St. Patrick's College in Maynooth, Ireland, a future bishop of the Diocese of Providence.

The Pacific never arrived in New York; the speculation then was that the ship hit an iceberg and sank off the coast of Newfoundland.