Leonard Neale
Roman Catholic archbishop
Died when: 70 years 246 days (848 months)Star Sign: Libra
Leonard Neale SJ (October 15, 1746 – June 18, 1817) was an American Catholic prelate and Jesuit who became the second Archbishop of Baltimore and the first Catholic bishop to be ordained in the United States.
While president of Georgetown College, Neale became the coadjutor bishop to John Carroll and founded the Georgetown Visitation Monastery and Academy.
Neale was born in the British Province of Maryland to a prominent family that produced many Catholic leaders, including his brothers, Francis and Charles.
He was educated in Europe, where he entered the Society of Jesus in 1767.Neale then volunteered to become a missionary to British Guiana in 1779.
He spent four years there, before becoming discouraged by the resistance from both the British colonists and indigenous people to his proselytism.
He returned to Maryland, where he rejoined the former Jesuits at St.Thomas Manor.In 1793, Neale become the pastor of Old St.
Joseph's and Old St.Mary's Churches in Philadelphia.Bishop Carroll also made him vicar general for Philadelphia and the northern states.
During the yellow fever epidemic, Neale established the first Catholic orphanage in Philadelphia to care for the many orphaned children, and he contracted the disease.
Neale was the president of Georgetown College from 1799 to 1806, where his imposition of strict discipline caused declining student enrollment.Though he had been appointed in 1795, he was consecrated as the coadjutor bishop of Baltimore in 1800.
Neale supported the restoration of the Jesuits in the United States, which occurred in 1805.He also established the Georgetown Visitation Monastery and Academy in 1799.
Neale became the Archbishop of Baltimore in 1815, and was faced with several lay trustee conflicts, the most severe of which resulted in a temporary schism in Charleston, South Carolina.
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