PURCELL, JOHN BAPTIST. – American prelate, born at Mallow (County Cork, Ireland) on 26 February 1800, died at the Ursuline convent in Brown County (Ohio, U.S.A.) on 4 July 1883. Ordained a priest in Paris on 26 May 1826, he returned to America, where he had already emigrated as a child, and on 13 October 1833 was consecrated bishop of Cincinnati.
(phot. Enc. Cwtt.)
PUNTASECCA — Rain in Venice. Engraving by T. Gnone — Rome, National Calcography.
for the dissemination of Knowledge» (Catholic Society for the Diffusion of Knowledge). Urban and demographic development convinced P. that it was impossible to administer with due care a territory so vast and populous and hence that it was urgent to detach its northern part from his jurisdiction. This proposal also met with the favor of the Holy See, which in Apr. 1847 proceeded to erect the diocese of Cleveland in the northern part of the State of Ohio. Three years later Cincinnati was raised to a metropolitan see, and P. was preconized archbishop in the Consistory of 18 July 1850. Having come to Rome for the First Vatican Council, he was among the members of the anti-infallibilist minority. His position is testified to, among other things, by the letter sent, together with three other American prelates, to the president of the General Congregation, in which he threatened to leave the Council ipso facto should the definition of papal infallibility by acclamation be undertaken. The last years of his life were embittered by the sudden outbreak of a financial scandal, in which his brother and he himself were involved. During the celebration of his priestly jubilee in 1876, he could look with pride upon the development of the diocese under his episcopate: when he had arrived in Cincinnati, it was a small city with a few churches; it now had a population of nearly 300,000 inhabitants, forty parishes, and countless other religious institutions.