John Dubois

His Excellency John Dubois
Bishop of New York
Third Bishop of New York
See	Diocese of New York
Term ended	December 20, 1842
Predecessor	John Connolly, O.P.
Successor	John Hughes
Orders
Ordination	September 28, 1787 by Antoine-Eléonore-Léon Le Clerc de Juigné
Consecration	October 29, 1826 by Ambrose Maréchal, S.S.
Personal details
Born	(1764-08-24)August 24, 1764 Paris, Kingdom of France
Died	December 20, 1842(1842-12-20) (aged 78) New York, New York, United States
Buried	Old St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York, New York, United States
Signature

John Dubois (French: Jean Dubois) was a French-born prelate of the Roman Catholic Church who served as the third bishop of the Diocese of New York from 1826 until his death in 1842.

Dubois was the first bishop of New York who was not Irish-born and, as of 2024, remains the only bishop or archbishop of New York of non-Irish ancestry.

Life

Early life

John Dubois was born in Paris, France, on August 24, 1764. As a teenager, he attended the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris. Deciding to become a priest, he studied theology at the Oratorian Seminary of Saint-Magloire in Paris.

Priesthood

Dubois was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Parish on September 22, 1787, by Archbishop Antoine-Eléonore-Léon Le Clerc de Juigné. After his ordination, ubois served as an assistant to the curé of the Church of Saint Sulpice in Paris. He also served chaplain to the Hôpital des Petites-Maisons (the Hospital of Small Houses), a mental hospital run by the Daughters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul.

By 1790, the French Revolution was causing huge upheaval in France. In November 1790, the National Constituent Assembly decreed that all clergy must swear an oath of loyalty to the government of France, ahead of loyalty to the pope. Failure to sign the oath mean loss of income, military conscription or death.

Many priests of the Order of Sulpice fled to England. In early 1791, Reverend Charles Nagot led a group of Sulpicians to Baltimore, Maryland, where they openen Saint Mary's Seminary. Dubois had attended the Collège Louis LeGrand with Maximilien Robespierre, a leader of the revolution. Robespierre helped Dubois flee France to America.

Present-day Mount St. Mary's University, Emmitsburg, Maryland

Emigration to America

Dubois landed at Norfolk, Virginia in August, 1791, and traveled to Richmond, He was carrying a letter of recommendation from the Marquis de Lafayette, a French hero of the recently concluded American Revolution. Dubois was warmly received in Richmond by Colonel James Monroe, the legislator Patrick Henry and other prominent families. Henry helped Dubois learn English. The Richmond families hosted Dubois until he was able to rent a house in the city and open a school to teach French, the classics and arithmetic.

Virginia had disestablished the Episcopal Church as the official church by statute in 1786. That same law also guaranteed freedom of religion, releasing the Commonwealth's small Catholic population from civil restrictions. Dubois soon became friends with the Episcopalian John Buchanan and the Presbyterian John Blair,.two ministers who alternated holding religious services in the Virginia State Capitol. On one occasion, the Virginia General Assembly invited Dubois to celebrate mass in the Capitol courtroom. However, for his first two years in Virginia, Dubois mainly celebrated mass s in rented rooms or at the homes of the city's few Catholic families.

In 1788, the Vatican appointed Reverend John Carroll, the superior of the American mission, as bishop of the Diocese of Baltimore, the first Catholic diocese in the United States. In 1794, Carroll sent Dubois to Frederick, Maryland,to tend to the growing Catholic population in that region. He was also responsible for the church presence in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and the frontier regions westward to the Mississippi River. The Society of Jesus had previously supervised missions in these areas, but Pope Clement XIV had suppressed the order in 1773, forcing them to surrender all their holdings. In May 15, 1800, Dubois consecrated the cornerstone of a new brick church in Frederick, naming the parish after John the Evangelist. For the next eleven years, Dubois served as pastor of St. John the Evangelist Church, as well as traveling out into the frontier.

In 1808, Dubois founded Mount St. Mary's College in Emmitsburg, Maryland and became its first president. Later that same year, in November 1808, he joined the Sulpician Order. The seminary trained missionaries, and was located on one of the major trans-Appalachian routes. During his presidency and with his support, a young New York widow, Elizabeth Bayley Seton, moved to Emmitsburg and founded the country's first Catholic girls' school as well as the first religious institute of teaching sisters in the nation. Seton was canonized a saint in 1975.

In 1824, Dubois formally left the Sulpician Order, and carried on operating Mount St. Mary's and supporting Seton's fledgling order until he was appointed Bishop of New York.

Episcopate

Dubois' grave

On May 23, 1826, the Vatican appointed Dubois as bishop of New York. This was with on the recommendation of Reverend Anthony Kohlmann, former pastor of St. Peter's Church, the first Catholic church in New York City. Dubois was consecrated at the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Baltimore by Archbishop Ambrose Maréchal, on October 29, 1826.

The primarily Irish clergy in the diocese did not appreciate the appointment of a French bishop. Although Dubois had acquired an adequate command of English, he spoke with an accent and was therefore viewed as a "foreigner". Many of the clergy believed that Monsignor John Power, the Irish-American vicar general, should have become bishop. There were suspicions that Maréchal, also French-born, had influenced the pope to select Dubois. At one point the trustees of St. Patrick's Old Cathedral withheld contributions for food and shelter.

In 1837 Dubois traveled to Salina near Syracuse, to perform the marriage of Silas Titus and Eliza McCarthy, daughter of Thomas McCarthy (nominated first Mayor of Syracuse, New York) and sister of Dennis McCarthy. The marriage certificate became the first record of a Catholic service in Onondaga County. John McCloskey, later to become the first Archbishop of New York to be created cardinal, accompanied Dubois to Salina as a guide. Feeling the weight of age and care, in 1837 Dubois, asked for a coadjutor.

During his tenure, six new parishes were established in the city. He also commissioned Phillip O’Reilly O.P. to serve the "Congregation of the Hudson" north of Manhattan. Dubois ordered that all church collections on Christmas Day be directed to the care of orphans. In 1838, he extended this to include the collection at Easter.

Dubois is buried under the sidewalk at the entrance to the Old St Patrick's Cathedral on Mott Street, which he requested, so that people could "walk on me in death, as they wished to in life". A plaque at the church's entrance memorializes the early bishop.

References

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "John Dubois". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.

External links

• Bishop Dubois High School of New York City at the Wayback Machine (archived May 31, 2008)
• St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church of Frederick, Maryland