Kenrick, Francis Patrick

Kenrick, Francis Patrick, 1797–1863, American Roman Catholic churchman, b. Dublin, Ireland, educated in Rome. In 1821 he was ordained priest and went to America to teach in the college at Bardstown, Ky. In 1829 he was made bishop coadjutor of Philadelphia. His charitable work in the cholera epidemic in 1832 and his courageous dignity in the anti-Catholic riots of 1844 won him considerable admiration. He was made archbishop of Baltimore and apostolic delegate in 1851. He wrote many works on the Bible. His brother,

Peter Richard Kenrick, 1806–96, was also an American Roman Catholic churchman and was also born in Dublin. He was educated at Maynooth. Called by his brother in 1833 to be pastor of the Philadelphia cathedral and vicar general of the diocese, he was sent in 1841 at the request of the bishop of St. Louis to be coadjutor there. In 1843 he became bishop and in 1847 archbishop. At the First Vatican Council (1870) he at first opposed the enunciation of papal infallibility as a dogma.

Bibliography

See J. J. O'Shea, The Two Kenricks (1904).