Illinois becomes a diocese in 1843

As Illinois celebrates its bicentennial this year, The Observer will present occasional features from Rockford Diocese history books.

The Provincial Council that assembled in Baltimore in May, 1843, finding that from the very great spread of the Catholic Church several additional Bishops were needed, passed a decree recommending the formation of the new Sees of Chicago, Illinois; Little Rock, Arkansas; Hartford, Connecticut; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and the Apostolic Vicariate of Oregon Territory. The recommendation of this Council was immediately acted upon in Rome, and accordingly in the following year the Apostolic letters for the consecration of the three new Bishops arrived in New York. They were consecrated on March 10, 1844 (including) the Rt. Rev. William Quarter, D.D., for the Diocese of Chicago.
When the new Bishop arrived in Chicago, accompanied by his brother, the Rev. Walter J. Quarter, the almost total absence of priests presented a disheartening problem, (says) the author of the Life of the Rt. Rev. William Quarter, D.D. (p. 48) ... .

Exerpts from the bishop’s diary  tell some of the early history of Catholicism in northern Illinois.

First Bishop of Illinois

August 8 (1844). The Bishop set out in company of Rev. Walter J. Quarter for Galena; arrived about 12:30 a. m. Saturday morning. The Rev. Ostlangenberg said an early Mass; after Mass saw the Rev. Petiot; preached on Sunday at 10 o’clock and in the afternoon. On Monday morning at 9 o’clock administered the Sacrament of Confirmation in the Church of Galena to about forty-two persons. It was the first time the Bishop administered this Sacrament; some were converts to the Catholic faith.
August 18. On Sunday morning, the feast of St. Joachim, the Bishop officiating pontifically at 6:30 o’clock Mass, conferred the order of Deacon on the Rev. Thomas O’Donnell and at the same Mass raised to the dignity of the priesthood the Rev. Messrs. John Brady and John Ingoldsby.
August 27. Today the Rev. John Brady set out for Galena, where he is to officiate as assistant pastor to the Rev. Mr. Petiot.
September 8. Rev. Mr. Ingoldsby left in the afternoon on a mission to Aurora.
April 7 (1845). The Rev. John Brady of Galena and the Rev. P. McMahan of Donnelly’s Settlement are here on a visit.
September 27. Died on Saturday morning, the 27th of September, the Rev. John Faughan, pastor of Elgin, in the forty-second year and three months of his age. R. I. P.
Source: 1924 Complete History Book of the Diocese of Rockford

Galena sees first Catholics in northwest Illinois

As Illinois celebrates its bicentennial this year, The Observer will present occasional features from Rockford Diocese history books.

In 1820, just two years after Illinois was made a state, rich lead mines in northern Illinois gave rise to the town of Galena, “the cradle of organized Catholicity in the Diocese of Rockford.” Pioneers in the area were Irish Catholic immigrants. Bishop Joseph Rosati, D.D., had barely settled in St. Louis when the Catholics of Galena, also called Fever River, sent a letter dated April 29, 1827.  In the phrasing and spelling of an older English, it read in part, “The solicitude of the numerous body of Catholics assembled in this section of country inspires them with a confident hope that their numbers and their zeal for our holy Religion will entitle them to your favorable notice.
“Their means, to support a Priest, are ample, their dispositions are, certainly, corresponding with their means, and they rely with confidence, that, considering these two essential requisites, they are entitled to that favourable notice.”
It was signed by a committee of Patrick Walsh, Patrick Hogan, James Foley, John Foley and Michael Byrne, several names still common in the diocese.
After the exchange of several letters, in September, 1830, Father Joseph Lutz was sent to Galena and Prairie du Chien, Wis. When Father Lutz came to the territory that is now the Rockford Diocese, he was sent as a missionary.
The bishop of St. Louis sent the first regular pastor, Father John McMahon, to Galena on Aug. 22, 1832.
Source: 1924 Complete History Book of the Diocese of Rockford

Drawing of Galena in the19th Century.

The first Catholics in Illinois were French

As Illinois celebrates its bicentennial this year, The Observer will present occasional features from Rockford Diocese history books.

As long as Illinois and the vast territory east and west of the Mississippi was a possession of France and its civil government under the jurisdiction of France, the language, customs and institutions of the Illinois settlements were French, and the priests who labored in these missions were French. They were the Jesuits and the Fathers of the Foreign Missions or Seminary of Quebec.
The Illinois church was under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Quebec until the year 1784, when, on June 9, by a decree of the Propaganda de Fide of Rome, the newly federated United States became a separate ecclesiastical division, and the Very Rev. John Carroll was appointed Prefect Apostolic. In the year 1810 Illinois came under the jurisdiction of the new Bishop of Bardstown, Ky., and in 1827 of the new Bishop of St. Louis, the Rt. Rev. Joseph Rosati, D.D.
Source: 1924 Complete History Book of the Diocese of Rockford