CUMMINGS, JEREMIAH WILLIAMS

CUMMINGS, JEREMIAH WILLIAMS. - Priest, b. in Washington in April 1814, d. in New York on 4 January 1866. He completed his theological studies at the College of Propaganda Fide in Rome. Upon his return to his homeland, in 1848 Bishop J. Hughes entrusted him with the administration of the parish of St Stephen, which had just been established. Cummings was part of a circle of priests who, opposed to the so-called “Europeanization” of the Church in the United States, opposed the teachers and professors coming from overseas and their teaching methods. These ideas, which Cummings publicly expressed in the press, sparked a lively controversy in which Archbishop J. Hughes also intervened with the essay Reflections of the Catholic press.