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John N. Neumann was born in the Kingdom of Bohemia – which today is known as the Czech Republic – on March 28, 1811. His father was a stocking knitter, and his mother was a homemaker.
When he was about twenty years old, John entered Charles University in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic. There, he studied theology as well as astronomy and botany. John learned six languages by the time he was 24-years old.
In 1835, John completed his priesthood studies. Unfortunately for him, at that time there were too many priests for the available parishes, so the bishop in Bohemia decided he would not ordain more men as priests.
So, in 1836, John went to the United States of America to see if someone would ordain him there. He arrived in New York City with one suit of clothes and one dollar in his pocket.
Three weeks after his arrival, a bishop did ordain John in the old St. Patrick Cathedral in New York City. In those days, the Diocese of New York included all of the state of New York and half of the state of New Jersey. After his ordination, Fr. John was sent to work with German immigrants in the Niagara Falls, New York area.
In is new area, people laughed at the clumsy way Fr. John road a horse. Because he was short, his feet did not reach the stirrups. But he did the best he could, and he loved visiting the sick, teaching catechism, and training teachers to continue whatever education he had begun.
But because his parish was so isolated, Fr. John longed for community. So, in 1840, Fr. John joined the Redemptorist Fathers by entering the novitiate in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was the first candidate in that Order in the New World – the Americas.
As a Redemptorist, Fr. John served in Ohio, New York, and Maryland. Eventually, he became an American citizen in Baltimore, Maryland in 1848.
On February 5, 1852, Fr. John was named the Bishop of Philadelphia. He discovered that that diocese had large numbers of German, Irish, and Italian immigrants.
Although there was much anti-Catholic bigotry in this part of the United States at the time, that did not stop Bishop John from his work. In fact, he founded the first Catholic school system in the United States, wrote a catechism in German, founded many parishes, welcomed many religious communities into his diocese, and established orphanages. In short, Bishop John was an amazing administrator.
Bishop John was also known as being very frugal. He had only one pair of boots throughout his whole time in the United States. And whenever someone would give him a new set of vestments, he would often give them a newly ordained priest in his diocese.
While making his pastoral rounds on Thursday, January 5, 1860, Bishop John Neumann collapsed and died on a Philadelphia street.
Pope Paul VI canonized John Neumann on June 19, 1977. St. John Neumann’s feast day is January 5. His feast day is especially remembered in the United States of America and the Czech Republic. St. John Neumann was the first male American citizen to be canonized. He is a patron saint of Catholic education.
