THOMAS SCOTT PRESTON. - Priest, b. 23 July 1824 at Hartford, Connecticut (U.S.A.), d. 4 Nov. 1891 at New York. Of strong character and deep piety, he studied at the General Theological Seminary of the Protestant Episcopal Church.
Having received the diaconate in 1846, he was strongly influenced by the Oxford Movement and made no secret of his views, for which reason his bishop refused to ordain him priest; he therefore received the priestly Orders in 1847 from Bishop Delancey of New York West. Convinced that he belonged to the communion of the Catholic Church, of which he regarded the Church of England—and thus the Protestant Episcopal Church under its influence—as a branch, he abjured the confession he had hitherto professed and converted to Catholicism. Baptized in Nov. 1849, he was ordained priest the following year and carried out his pastoral ministry in the cathedral of New York. Secretary to Archbishop Hughes and chancellor of the diocese in 1853, he became vicar general in 1872. In 1890, during the absence of Archbishop Corrigan, he governed the diocese. Principal works: The Protestant Reformation (1879); Protestantism and the Church (1882); Protestantism and the Bible (1888).