From The New England Historical Society:
ShareJames Healy and two younger brothers, Hugh and Patrick, attended Quaker schools in Flushing, N.Y. Their father came to know Bishop John Fitzpatrick of Boston. Fitzpatrick then arranged
for the boys to enroll
in the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass.
James Healy earned
a B.A. from Holy Cross in 1849 and declared his intention to enter the priesthood. But he couldn’t study
at the Jesuit seminary in Maryland, a slave state. Fitzpatrick, who knew of his parentage, helped him enroll
in a Montreal seminary. Then he helped James enroll in the Sulpician Seminary in Paris. In 1854 he was ordained at the Cathedral of Notre Dame.
Fitzpatrick stepped
up to help Healy again and made him his secretary and chancellor of the Diocese of Boston. Neither revealed that James Healy had African-American blood.
In 1866 James Healy became pastor of St. James Church, Boston’s largest Roman Catholic congregation. In that post, he spoke out against the General Court’s attempts to tax
Catholic Churches. He also founded several Catholic charities to aid Irish immigrants who arrived in Boston during the famine years.
James Healy bought a wooden frame house in Newton, Mass., where he lived with his brothers and sisters. The siblings remained close over the years. (Read more.)
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