1. William O'Hara was an Irish-born American prelate of the Catholic Church.
18 Facts About William O'Hara
1. 2.
William O'Hara was the first bishop of the Diocese of Scranton in Pennsylvania, serving from 1868 until his death in 1899.
3.
William O'Hara was born April 14,1816, in Dungiven, County Londonderry, in Ireland, to Thomas and Mary Louisa O'Hara.
4.
William O'Hara's mother was a member of the Church of Ireland but converted to Catholicism soon after marriage.
5.
In 1834, having decided to become a priest, William O'Hara applied to Bishop Francis Kenrick for acceptance as a seminarian for the Diocese of Philadelphia.
6.
William O'Hara was ordained to the priesthood on December 21,1842 by Cardinal Giacomo Filippo Fransoni at the Lateran Basilica.
7.
William O'Hara held that position for thirteen years, during which time he was sometimes assigned to help at other parishes in Philadelphia and around the state.
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Francis Kenrick 8.
William O'Hara filled the chair of moral theology at the seminary.
9.
William O'Hara was named vicar general of the diocese in 1860 by Bishop James Wood, leaving the seminary but remaining at St Patrick's Church.
10.
On March 3,1868, William O'Hara was appointed the first Bishop of Scranton by Pope Pius IX.
11.
William O'Hara received his episcopal consecration on July 12,1868, from Bishop Wood, with Bishops William Elder and Patrick Lynch serving as co-consecrators, at the Cathedral of Sts.
12.
When William O'Hara became bishop, the diocese had a Catholic population of 25,000 with 47 churches, 25 priests, and two parochial schools with four students.
13.
Early in his tenure, William O'Hara attended the First Vatican Council in Rome, where he voted in favor of papal infallibility.
14.
William O'Hara spent a decade in court after a priest sued the bishop for removing him from his position as pastor of the Church of the Annunciation Parish in Williamsport, but the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania ruled in O'Hara's favor in 1881.
15.
William O'Hara ordained Francis Hodur, a Polish priest who would later break with the Catholic Church under O'Hara's successor and establish the Polish National Catholic Church.
16.
William O'Hara recognized the golden jubilee of his priestly ordination in 1892 and the silver jubilee of his episcopal consecration the following year.
17.
William O'Hara died in Scranton on February 3,1899, at age 82.
18.
William O'Hara was buried under the main altar of St Peter's Cathedral before being exhumed and reinterred at Cathedral Cemetery in Scranton.