CUMMINGS, JEREMIAH WILLIAMS. – Priest, born in Washington in Apr. 1814, died in New York on 4 Jan. 1866. He completed his theological studies at the College of Propaganda Fide in Rome. Upon returning to his homeland, in 1848 he was entrusted by Bishop J. Hughes with the administration of the parish of St. Stephen, then newly established. C. belonged to a circle of priests who, opposed to the so-called “Europeanization” of the Church in the United States, resisted teachers and professors from overseas and their teaching methods. These ideas, expressed publicly by C. in the press, gave rise to a lively controversy, in which Archbishop J. Hughes also took part with the essay Reflections of the Catholic press.
BIBL.: T. F. Meehan, s. v.' in Cath. Eur., IV, pp. 567–68. Silvio Furlani