St. John Neumann is buried in a parish church in Philadelphia. He was the first bishop in the United States to organize a Catholic diocesan school system, and he increased the number of Catholic schools in his diocese from one to one hundred. He established and built so many new parish churches within the diocese that one was completed almost every month.Neumann's efforts to expand the church throughout his diocese was not unopposed. The Know Nothings, an anti-Catholic political party, was at the height of its activities, setting fire to convents and schools. Discouraged, Neumann wrote to Rome asking to be replaced as bishop, but he received a reply from Pope Pius IX insisting he continue.
Traveling to a parish for Confirmation he was told by the pastor that one of the students wouldn't be able to be confirmed that year because he lived too far away. Bishop Neumann asked, "Does he have a soul?" After the Confirmation service, he walked to the youth's home and confirmed him as well.
In 1854, Neumann traveled to Rome and was present at St. Peter's Basilica on December 8 when Pope Pius IX solemnly defined ex cathedra the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
He collapsed and died in 1860 at the age of 48.
St. John Neumann, pray for us.
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