St. John Neumann

Born in Bohemia, John Neumann arrived in New York in 1836 as a twenty-five-year-old seminarian with one suit and one dollar. No diocese in Europe would ordain him because there were too many priests; in America, Bishop John Dubois of New York ordained him within weeks. He spent his first years as a missionary in the forests of western New York, traveling on foot between scattered German-speaking settlements.

He joined the Redemptorists and in 1852, to his dismay, was appointed Bishop of Philadelphia at age forty-one. He built nearly a hundred churches, established the first diocesan Catholic school system in the country, and introduced the Forty Hours' Devotion to the United States. He spoke eight languages and personally taught catechism to children in their own tongues.

He died suddenly at forty-eight, collapsing on a Philadelphia street. Canonized in 1977, he was the first male American citizen to be declared a saint. His body rests beneath the altar of St. Peter the Apostle Church in Philadelphia, and the Catholic school system he built remains his most visible legacy.