Thomas Francis Hendricken

Hendricken was born on May 5, 1827 in Kilkenny, Ireland, the third child of John and Anne Meagher Hendricken's six children, three of whom died young. His father descended from a German officer who had fought for James Butler, 2nd Duke of Ormonde at the Battle of the Boyne. John Hendricken died in 1835.[1]

He studied in St Kieran's College and in 1847 entered Maynooth, where he met Bishop Bernard O'Reilly, who ordained him in 1853 at All Hallows College, Dublin for the Diocese of Hartford.[2] Onboard the steamer Columbia, Hendricken disobeyed the captain to enter the steerage area to tend to a dying woman who had requested last rites. The captain, president of a Know Nothing lodge in Maine and fearing the spread of contagion, beat Hendricken senseless and would have cast him overboard but for the intervention of a Protestant clergyman who rallied his flock of German immigrants to protest.[3] The Germans kept him safe for the remainder of the voyage.[1]

Upon arrival in Providence, Rhode Island, he was first assigned to the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul (Providence, Rhode Island) (the bishop of Hartford actually resided in Providence at that time), and then to St. Joseph's. He was later assigned to St. Charles Borromeo Church in Woonsocket, and St. Mary's Church in Newport, Rhode Island. In each of these locations, architect Patrick Keely was eventually hired to design a church. St. Joseph's in 1848, St. Mary's in 1851, and St. Charles in 1867; culminating in 1878 with an impressive new cathedral for the newly created Diocese of Providence. In 1854 he was appointed pastor of St. Joseph's Church in West Winsted,[2] before being assigned the following July to St. Peter's in Waterbury, Connecticut.[4] His sister Catherine and brother William later joined him there.[1]

Hendricken hired Patrick Keely to design a new, larger church. Built of red brick, with a tall spire, it stood on East Main Street. When it was dedicated by Bishop McFarland, it was renamed in honor of the Immaculate Conception, the first church in the United States to bear that title since the 1854 decree.[5] It was replaced by a new building in 1926.

In 1869 he persuaded the Congregation of Notre Dame of Montreal to come to the parish, where they established Notre Dame Academy, a day and boarding school for girls.[6] He also purchased land for St. Joseph's Cemetery. In 1868, he accompanied one of his parishioners to the Séminaire de Saint-Hyacinthe in Quebec, where the sixteen-year-old Michael J. McGivney began his studies for the priesthood.[3] In 1870, Hendricken became a naturalized citizen.

Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul, Providence 1886

In 1872, he was appointed the first Bishop of Providence, Rhode Island, United States. At that time, the diocese included all of Rhode Island, as well as the present Diocese of Fall River, Massachusetts, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket with some 125,000 parishioners, 43 churches, 9 parish schools and 1 orphan asylum.[2]

He created 13 English and two French-speaking parishes for growing congregations composed mainly of French-Canadians and Irish. By 1873, the immigration into the diocese slowed and the post-war boom ended with many of his flock unemployed or on reduced wages.

He again hired Keely, this time to design the Cathedral of SS Peter and Paul, although he died before its completion.

Hendricken died at the episcopal residence in Providence on June 11, 1886.[7] His funeral was the first Mass to be celebrated in the cathedral,[5] and he was entombed in a crypt beneath the high altar.

During renovations in 2006, the basement crypt was removed, and the bishops buried there were re-interred in a mausoleum at a nearby diocesan cemetery. Bishop Hendricken, however, was re-entombed on December 8, 2006 in a sarcophagus located on the cathedral's main floor, in the West Transept. Eight seniors from the high school that bears his name carried his remains to a more public resting place facing the high altar of the great cathedral he built.

Bishop Thomas Francis Hendricken High School in Warwick, Rhode Island is named after him. Bishop Hendricken was named to the Rhode Island Heritage Hall in 2006.[5]

• Profile, catholic-hierarchy.org; accessed March 11, 2017.