Born in Burnchurch (Ireland) on 11 September 1838.
Died in Saint Paul, Minessota (USA) on September 25, 1918.
The most popular of the American bishops, together with his friend Cardinal Gibbons, was ordained a priest in Saint Paul in 1861, after completing his studies in France. On February 12, 1875, he was elected titular bishop of Maronea and apostolic vicar of Nebraska, but the appointment did not take effect because he was later deputed to auxiliary bishop of Saint Paul, whom he succeeded in 1884. He was promoted archbishop on May 15, 1888 and his seat was later elevated to metropolitan. Ardent and audacious temperament, he decidedly oriented towards current issues and was one of the best interpreters of healthy Americanism as well as the "Christianizer of American progress". He was the author of the volume The Church and the century, translated into all languages, in which he exhorts Catholics of all nations to devote themselves wholly to the Christian conquest of our times.
In an article written for his bulletin, Don Guanella adopted the words spoken by Msgr. Ireland in a conference to the Parisian clergy: «Get out, gentlemen, get out of the sanctuary; be in church, but don't stay there all day! And when you go out, go to the people, speak to them their language, tell them, prove to them that you understand their interests and that you will know how to defend them ... ». He called them "golden words", reiterating on his part that "now it is better to move, to leave the sacristy under pain of remaining in guilty and honorable solitude".
Sources
- Hierarchia catholica medii et modernioris aevi, vol. VIII: 1846-1903, edited by Remigium Ritzler and Pirminum Sefrin, Padua, Editrice «Il Messaggero di S. Antonio», 1878, pp. 369, 445.
- Pietro Palazzini, ad vocim, in Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. VII, Vatican City, Organization for the Catholic Encyclopedia and for the Catholic Book, 1951, cc. 191-192.
- Ch. Lemarié, ad vocim, in Catholicisme hier, aujourd'hui, demain, vol. VI, Paris, Letouzey et Ané, 1967, cc. 76-77.
Guanellian sources
- [Louis Guanella], The Catholic idea, in «The Divine Providence», 1896, pp. 11-12.
Photography
«Pro Familia», 1900, I, p. 30.
AM Dieguez
Guanellian Encyclopaedia
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