Benedict Joseph Fenwick S.J. (1782 - 1846)

Born 3 Sep 1782 in Beaverdam Manor, St. Mary's, Maryland, United States

Ancestors

Died 11 Aug 1846 at age 63 in Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts, United States

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Biography

Benedict Fenwick S.J. has English ancestors.

Benedict Joseph Fenwick was born on 3 September 1782 at Beaverdam Manor, Leonardtown, Saint Mary's County, Maryland, to George F. Fenwick, II, a planter and surveyor, and Margaret Medley. He was baptised at Saint Aloysius parish in Leonardtown.

Benedict's paternal ancestors hailed from Northumberland in North East England. Benedict's great-great-great grandfather, Cuthbert Fenwick, emigrated to America in the 1633 expedition of the Ark and the Dove, and was one of the original Catholic settlers of Maryland. Benedict's older brother Enoch Fenwick became a prominent Jesuit. Their kinsman was Bishop Edward Dominic Fenwick, the first bishop of Cincinatti, Ohio.

Benedict entered the Jesuit novitiate on 10 October 1806 at Georgetown. He and his brother Enoch were amongst the first six to enter the novitiate of the restored Jesuit Order. On 12 March 1808, Fenwick was ordained a priest at Georgetown College by Leonard Neale, the coadjutor bishop of the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

On 10 May 1825, Benedict was appointed the second Bishop of Boston, Massachusetts, by Pope Leo XII. He received his episcopal consecration on the following 1 November from Archbishop Ambrose Maréchal, S.S., with Bishops John England and Henry Conwell serving as co-consecrators, at the Cathedral of Baltimore.

After many years of dedicated service to God and the Catholic Church in the United States, Bishop Benedict Joseph Fenwick died on 11 August 1846 at the age of 63 and is buried at the College of the Holy Cross in Central Massachusetts.

Sources

• Wikipedia Article Bishop Benedict Joseph Fenwick