CORRIGAN, MICHAEL AUGUSTINE. - Archbishop, b. at Newark (New Jersey), 13 Aug. 1839, d. at New York, 5 May 1900. President of Seton Hall College and vicar general of the diocese of Newark, he was consecrated bishop in 1873 and, owing to his great administrative abilities, was transferred to New York as coadjutor to Archbishop Cardinal McCloskey, whom he succeeded in 1885.
A strict defender of the rights of the Church, during the municipal elections of 1886 he expressed his disapproval of a candidate professing ideas contrary to the Catholic religion on the question of property. When the parish priest of the church of St. Stephen, E. Mc Glynn, intervened in favour of the candidate, the archbishop was obliged to suspend him a divinis. The rebellious priest, after making an act of submission, was reinstated in his status. During the 17 years of his governance, the diocese of New York was adorned with new churches, enriched by a theological seminary built at Dunwoodie in 1896, and prospered both through the increase of buildings and structures intended for religious and charitable use and through the abundant harvest of pastoral activity.