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William Stang

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German-born American prelate
His Excellency, The Most Reverend
William Stang
Bishop of Fall River
SeeDiocese of Fall River
In officeMay 1, 1904 -
February 2, 1907
SuccessorDaniel Francis Feehan
Orders
OrdinationJune 15, 1878
ConsecrationMay 1, 1904
by Matthew Harkins
Personal details
Born(1854-04-21)April 21, 1854
Langenbrücken, Grand Duchy of Baden, Germany
DiedFebruary 2, 1907(1907-02-02) (aged 52)
Rochester, Minnesota, US
NationalityGerman
DenominationRoman Catholic
EducationSint-Niklaas minor seminary
American College of Louvain
Street name in Bad Schönborn / Langenbrücken

William Stang (April 21, 1854 – February 2, 1907) was a German-born American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as the first bishop of the Diocese of Fall River in Massachusetts from 1904 until his death in 1907.

Biography

Early life

William Stang was born on April 21, 1854, in Langenbrücken in the Grand Duchy of Baden (in present-day Germany). He received his early education at the local gymnasium and then attended the minor seminary of Sint-Niklaas in Belgium.

Stang entered the American College of Louvain in Leuven, Belgium, in 1875, where he completed his theological studies.During this period, American dioceses were actively looking for priests in Europe. While at the American College, Stang was recruited by Thomas Hendricken, bishop of the Diocese of Providence in the United States, to minister to German-speaking Catholics in Rhode Island.

Priesthood

Stang was ordained to the priesthood in Mechelen, Belgium, by Cardinal Victor-Auguste-Isidore Dechamps for the Diocese of Providence on June 15, 1878. After his ordination, Stang taught for a few months at the Catholic University of Leuven in Leuven.

Stang immigrated to the United States in September 1878, settling in Providence, Rhode Island. The diocese assigned him primarily to minister to the German Catholic community while also serving as a curate at the Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul in Providence. He was named pastor of St. Anne's Parish in Cranston, Rhode Island, in 1884. Hendricken named Stang as rector of Sts. Peter and Paul Cathedral, celebrating mass in German there. Stang's ambition was to establish a German-language parish in the diocese, but the small German population of the diocese was unable to fund it.

When the Vatican appointed Reverend Matthew Harkins as bishop of Providence in 1886, Stang became one of his closest advisors. In 1887, Stang received a Doctor of Theology Degree from Georgetown University in Washington D.C. After returned to Providence, Stang was a driving force behind the founding in 1892 of St. Joseph's Hospital in Providence.

In 1895, Stang travelled to Belgium to serve at the Catholic University of Leuven as vice-rector and professor of moral theology. At Harkins' urging, Stang returned to Providence in 1899. While supervising St. Joseph's Hospital, he also became head of the diocesan Apostolate band. He was named pastor of St. Edward Parish in Providence in 1901 and also served as chancellor of the diocese.

Bishop of Fall River

On March 12, 1904, Stang was appointed the first bishop of the newly created Diocese of Fall River by Pope Pius X. He received his episcopal consecration on May 1, 1904, from Harkins, with Bishops Michael Tierney and John Brady serving as co-consecrators, at Sts. Peter and Paul Cathedral. On May 8, 1904, the new St. Mary Cathedral in Fall River was packed with worshippers for Stang's first mass. Police detachments had to control the crowd, estimated at 25,000 people, outside the building.

Throughout the 19th century, very few American religious sisters were available to teach in parish schools; they had to come from Europe and Ireland. During Stang's tenure, teaching sisters from the Holy Union order in France, fleeing secular regulation in that country, came to Rhode Island to minister to the growing Catholic French-Canadian population. Other Holy Union sisters came from Ireland to the diocese. Stang made it clear that he welcomed religious sisters of all nationalities. In his opinion, it was the priests who were most guilty of raising tensions between the ethnic groups in the diocese.

Catholic bishops of this era became concerned about the attraction of socialism to Catholic workers. A writer of several religious works, Stang authored a book titled Socialism and Christianity. It supported the rights of workers to organize in labor unions, but condemned socialism as anti-Catholic. In 1905, Stang addressed 4,000 attendees of the New York German Catholic State Federation meeting in Carnegie Hall in New York City. Speaking in German, Stang lamented the Catholic working men who had allegedly thrown down the bible and embraced socialism. He urged all Catholic societies to combat this menace.

During his short tenure as bishop, Stang established eleven parishes in the diocese. One new parishe was St. Boniface, a German-language parish in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Stang once described divorce as a pernicious practice...contrary to the moral order and the law of Christ, and condemned Saturday dances as a source of scandal must be stopped at once. During Stang's tenure, the Dominican Sisters of the Presentation founded Saint Anne's Hospital in Fall River in 1906.

Death and legacy

In January 1907, Stang travelled to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, for surgery to removed an intestinal tumor. The surgery was successful, but he developed an infection. William Stang died on February 2, 1907, in the Mayo Clinic at age 52.

Bishop Stang High School in North Dartmouth, Massachusetts, founded in 1959, is named in his honor. He is a member of the Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame in East Providence, Rhode Island.

Published works

  • The Life of Martin Luther
  • The Eve of the Reformation
  • More About the Huguenots, a response to a lecture by Professor William Granmell the Huguenots and the Edict of Nantes
  • Germany's Debt to Ireland
  • Pastoral Theology (1896)
  • Historiographia Ecclesiastica (1897)
  • The Business Guide for Priests (1899)
  • Theologia Fundamentalis Moralis
  • The Devil, Who He Is
  • Spiritual Pepper and Salt (1901)
  • Socialism and Christianity (1905)
  • Medulla Fundamentalis Theologiae Moralis (1906).

Stang was also a contributor to the American Ecclesiastical Review

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Carr, Edward (1909). "Fall River". Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. V. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
  2. ^ O'Donnell, John Hugh (1922). The Catholic Hierarchy of the United States, 1790-1922. Washington, D.C.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  3. ^ "Bishop William Stang – Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame". Retrieved 2022-06-02.
  4. ^ Cheney, David M. "Bishop William Stang". Catholic-Hierarchy.org.
  5. ^ Murray, Thomas Hamilton (1907). The Journal of the American Irish Historical Society. Vol. VII. Boston.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  6. "Bishop William Stang – Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame". Retrieved 2025-01-11.
  7. "A Chronology of Rhode Island Hospitals" (PDF). Rhode Island Medical Society. Retrieved January 10, 2025.
  8. "OVATION FOR BISHOP STANG.; Crowds Gather for the Celebration of His First Mass". The New York Times. 1904-05-09. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-06-02.
  9. Fame, Dr Patrick T. Conley, With Contributions by the Rhode Island Heritage Hall of (2019). Leaders of Rhode Island's Golden Age, The. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4671-4148-2.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  10. Donovan, Grace (1991). "Immigrant Nuns: Their Participation in the Process of Americanization: Massachusetts and Rhode Island, 1880-1920". The Catholic Historical Review. 77 (2): 194–208. ISSN 0008-8080.
  11. "GERMAN CATHOLICS MEET.; Urged to Combat Socialism -- 4,000 Attend Convention". The New York Times. 1905-05-29. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-06-02.
  12. "BISHOP APPEALS AGAINST DIVORCE". The Meriden Daily Journal. 1906-03-10.
  13. "BISHOP DENOUNCES DANCING". Providence News. 1906-01-08.
  14. "About Saint Anne's Hospital | Brown University Health". www.brownhealth.org. Retrieved 2025-01-11.
  15. "BISHOR STANG DEAD.; It Well-Known Roman Catholic Churchman Dies Following Operation". The New York Times. 1907-02-03. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-06-02.
  16. "About Us". www.bishopstang.org. Retrieved 2025-01-11.
  17. O'Keefe, Michael J. (March 1907). "The Right Rv. William Stang D.D." The Stylus - Boston College Newspapers. Retrieved 2025-01-11.

References

Publications

  • Pastoral theology (New York, 1897)
  • Historiographia Ecclesiastica quam historiae seriam solidamque operam navantibus (Freiburg, 1897)
  • Business Guide for Priests (New York, 1899)
  • The Devil, Who He Is and What He Does (Providence, 1900)
  • Sozialismus und Christentum, with Rudolf Amberg (Socialism and Christendom, Einsiedeln, 1907)
  • The Holy Hour of Adoration (New York, 1907)
  • Medulla fundamentalis theologiae moralis quam seminaristis et presbyteris (Neo-Eboraci, Cincinnati, 1907)
  • Life of Martin Luther
  • The Eve of the Reformation
  • More About the Huguenots
  • Germany's Debt to Ireland
  • Spiritual Pepper and Salt

Episcopal succession

Catholic Church titles
New title Bishop of Fall River
1904–1907
Succeeded byDaniel Francis Feehan
Roman Catholic Diocese of Fall River
Ordinaries
Bishops
William Stang
Daniel Francis Feehan
James Edwin Cassidy
James Louis Connolly
Daniel Anthony Cronin
Seán Patrick O'Malley
George William Coleman
Edgar Moreira da Cunha
Churches
Cathedral
St. Mary's Cathedral
Parishes
St. Anthony of Padua, New Bedford
St. Anne's, Fall River
Education
High schools
Bishop Stang High School
Bishop Feehan High School
Saint John Paul II High School
Closed
Bishop Connolly High School
Coyle and Cassidy High School
Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence
Bishops
Ordinaries
Thomas Francis Hendricken
Matthew Harkins
William A. Hickey
Francis Patrick Keough
Russell McVinney
Louis Edward Gelineau
Robert Edward Mulvee
Thomas Joseph Tobin
Richard Henning
Auxiliaries
Thomas Francis Doran
Denis Matthew Lowney
Thomas Francis Maloney
Bernard Matthew Kelly
Kenneth Anthony Angell
Robert Joseph McManus
Robert C. Evans
Churches
List
List of churches in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence
Cathedral
Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul
Parish churches
St. Joseph Church, Central Falls
St. Matthew's Church, Central Falls
Our Lady of Czestochowa Church, Coventry
St. Paul Church, Cranston
St. Mary's Church, Crompton
St. Joseph's Church, Cumberland
St. Mary's Church, Newport
St. John the Baptist Church, Pawtucket
St. Mary's Church of the Immaculate Conception, Pawtucket
Our Lady of Lourdes Church, Providence
St. Adalbert's Church, Providence
St. Joseph's Church, Providence
St. Michael's Church, Providence
St. Casimir Church, Warren
Church of the Precious Blood, Woonsocket
St. Ann's Church, Woonsocket
St. Charles Borromeo Church, Woonsocket
St. Stanislaus Kostka Church, Woonsocket
Former parish churches
Holy Trinity Church, Central Falls
Trinity Church, Pawtucket
Immaculate Conception Church, Westerly
Education
Higher education
Providence College
Salve Regina University
High schools
Bishop Hendricken High School, Warwick
Bishop Keough Regional High School, Pawtucket
La Salle Academy, Providence
Mount Saint Charles Academy, Woonsocket
Portsmouth Abbey School, Portsmouth
Prout School, Wakefield
St. Mary Academy – Bay View, East Providence
St. Raphael Academy, Pawtucket
Former high school
Our Lady of Fatima High School, Warren
Hospitals
Our Lady of Fatima Hospital, Providence
St. Joseph's Hospital, Providence
Priests
Ernest Bertrand Boland
Austin Dowling
Salvatore Ronald Matano
Daniel Patrick Reilly
Francis Xavier Roque
William Stang
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