O'GORMAN, THOMAS

Bishop, educator; b. Boston, Mass., May 1, 1843; d. Sioux Falls, S. Dak., Sept. 18, 1921. He was the first of four children born to John and Margaret (O'Keefe) O'Gorman. The family moved west to Chicago, Ill.(1848); with John O'Gorman's childhood friend Richard Ireland and his family, among whom was the future Abp. John ireland, they resumed their westward trek to St. Paul, Minn. (1852). That same year Thomas O'Gorman and John Ireland enrolled among the first students of Bp. Joseph Cretin's Latin School on the upper floor of the frontier Cathedral of St. Paul—the first seminarians of the diocese. When O'Gorman was ten years old and Ireland 15, they were sent to the minor seminary of the Marists at Meximieux, France, and subsequently to the major seminary at Montbel. O'Gorman returned to St. Paul and was ordained by Bp. Thomas Grace on Nov. 5, 1865. He was first assigned to Rochester, Minn., where he built St. John's church and became known as a preacher and organizer. In 1877 he resigned to join the Society of St. Paul, continuing his preaching in the New York area and converting the financier Thomas Fortune Ryan to the Catholic Church. He was recalled (1882) to St. Paul by his friend, now Bp. John Ireland, and assigned to Faribault as pastor, and later (1885) as first rector of the newly established St. Paul Seminary and president of St. Thomas College there. After ten years he resigned to teach dogmatic theology, English, and French in the college. During these years he wrote several articles and deepened his knowledge of ecclesiastical history. In 1890 he was appointed professor of church history in The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C., where he actively supported the liberal policies of the Americanists during the several controversies of the late 19th century in American Catholicism (see americanism). He wrote A History of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States (1895), a summary of the original research of John Gilmary shea.

On Jan. 24, 1896, O'Gorman was appointed bishop of Sioux Falls, a suffragan see of the Province of St. Paul, where his friend John Ireland was the first archbishop. The new bishop was consecrated by Abp. Francesco Satolli, first Apostolic Delegate to the U.S., in St. Patrick's Church, Washington, D.C., on April 19, 1896, and installed in the procathedral of his see on May 2, 1896. At that time the diocese had 51 diocesan and 14 regular clergy, 50 churches with resident priests, 61 missions with churches, 100 stations, ten chapels, 14 parochial schools, 61 Indian schools, two orphanages, and one hospital. There were three communities of religious men and six of women in the diocese; and the total Catholic population, both Indian and white, was estimated at 30,000.

O'Gorman, who began his active pastoral apostolate with energy, wrote to his friend Denis O'Connell from "Avignon": "I fear I must resign myself to being the routine Bishop of an unknown Western diocese, and I assure you I find enough work to do as such." New hospitals were opened at Yankton and Pierre (1897), Aberdeen (1901), Sioux Falls (1910), and Mitchell and Milbank (1921). The vast extent of the diocese and growth in population encouraged an east-west division in South Dakota in 1902 between Sioux Falls and Lead (changed to Rapid City in 1930). During his administration in Sioux Falls, O'Gorman continued his Roman contacts and visits and was appointed (1902), through the offices of Archbishop Ireland, to the Taft Commission to deal with Rome regarding the friars' land problem in the Philippine Islands. St. Joseph's Cathedral in Sioux Falls was completed in 1919, and Columbus College was begun in 1909, first in Chamberlain and after 1921 in Sioux Falls, and continued until it was closed in 1939 because of financial difficulties. At the close of O'Gorman's 26 years as bishop of Sioux Falls, the Catholic population had doubled to 69,164 and there were 127 diocesan and 13 religious priests serving 114 churches and 83 missions in his jurisdiction.

[c. barry]