Michael Anthony Fleming

Michael Anthony Fleming, O.F.M. ( – July 14, 1850) was an Irish-born Franciscan who served as the Roman Catholic Church bishop of the Diocese of St. John's, Newfoundland. He was principally responsible for changing a small mission with several priests in four parishes into a large diocese with over 40,000 congregants and was the single most influential Irish immigrant to come to the Colony of Newfoundland in the 19th century. He was the principal force behind the creation of the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in St. John's.

Biography

Early life Fleming was born about three miles from Carrick-on-Suir, County Tipperary, Ireland. As a boy, Fleming studied the classics for two years at Stradbally, County Waterford, under a Protestant pastor. Encouraged by his uncle, Martin Fleming, O.S.F., he entered the novitiate of the friars in Wexford, and then entered the Franciscan seminary there.

Newfoundland tricolour

In popular legend, Fleming is credited with creating the "Pink, white and green" tricolour flag of Newfoundland. It is told that during annual wood hauls for the Anglican cathedral and Roman Catholic cathedral, considerable rivalry developed between the two groups involved. The Protestant English marked their wood piles with the pink flag of the Natives' Society, while the Catholic Irish used green banners. The threat of violence was such that Bishop Fleming intervened, and persuaded them to adopt a common flag, on which the pink and green would be separated by a white stripe to symbolize peace. The pink symbolized the Tudor Rose of England (The Protestants) and the Green symbolized St. Patrick's Emblem of Ireland (The Catholics). The White is taken from St. Andrew's Cross (St. Andrew is the Patron Saint of Fishermen and Scotland). This legend, its symbolism and origins, have all been disproven by historical evidence. In reality, the Newfoundland "pink, white and green" tricolour did not appear until at least 41 years after the inception of the Irish tricolour and was almost certainly based on the Irish flag. There is no primary source documentary historical evidence contemporary to Fleming's time linking Fleming with the creation of the tricolour. Any such associations are purely fanciful, and can be seen to have largely originated in the writings of the entertainer and writer Paul O'Neill.

Expansion Fleming's greatest domestic projects, the ones for which he became best remembered, were the recruiting of two orders of Irish religious women to work as teachers, and the construction of a new cathedral for St. John's. In 1833 at Fleming's request, the Presentation Sisters came to Newfoundland from Galway and opened a school for children.

Fleming died in 1850 and was buried in his cathedral.

Honors

On 9 September 2005, the 150th anniversary of the consecration of Fleming's cathedral, a plaque was unveiled by the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada designating Fleming as a person of Canadian National Historic Significance. At the time of its consecration, the Roman Catholic Cathedral of St. John's was the largest Irish Neoclassical cathedral in the New World.