VII. VINE STREET AND ETERNITY
Christmas of 1859 found Bishop Neumann at home in Philadelphia. He conducted the midnight Mass in the Redemptorist Church of St. Peter's and celebrated a Pontifical Mass in his pro-Cathedral of St. John at ten o'clock the next morning. The rest of the week and into the New Year he was at home attending to his correspondence and administrative chores. He seemed to be in good spirits with no particular worries. However, he gave no sign of his usual desire to be off visiting far-flung parishes in the wilds of Pennsylvania or New Jersey.
On January 4th, he wrote to a nun in Reading that he was not feeling very well, but gave no cause for alarm. The next day, he had a visit from Father Urban, the Redemptorist Superior in St. Peter's, and confided, "I have a strange feeling today." He said he had an errand to do and felt a walk in the cool air would do him some good. Then he added, "One must always be ready - Death comes when and where God wills it." Father Urban thought nothing of the remark, and hurried off about his business.
Neumann left his residence, walked to his lawyer's office a few blocks away, discussed some property matters, then took his leave. He crossed Vine Street near Thirteenth, but as he mounted the curb, he staggered. Reaching a stoop, his knees buckled under him, and he fell over. Two men rushed to help him. They carried his inert form into the house and placed him before the fireplace. Some one recognized his pectoral cross and ran over to the cathedral residence to inform Bishop Wood. A young priest hurried to the house with the oils for the last anointing, and found Neumann dead. The short stocky Bohemian prelate with the large brown eyes and shy smile had died as he wished - while busy at his duties. He was forty-eight years old and had been Bishop of Philadelphia for almost eight years. Word spread quickly through the city and the diocese; their bishop was dead.
The next day, Friday, January 6th, was a Holy Day, the Feast of the Epiphany or the Wise Men from the East. At all the Masses throughout the diocese, Neumann's death notice was read. And on Sunday, funeral orations were preached in all the churches.
The interior of St. Peter's Church in Philadelphia, where Neumann's body is now enshrined.
Arrangements were made to hold his obsequies in the pro-Cathedral of St. John and his burial in the cemetery next door. But Father John De Dyker, the Redemptorist Provincial Superior, recalled that Neumann had often expressed the wish to be buried in St. Peter's Church among his Redemptorist confreres. De Dyker asked if that desire might not be honored. Bishop Wood was agreeable to the suggestion and when Archbishop Kenrick of Baltimore, the metropolitan of the province, arrived, he authorized the arrangement. "The Little Bishop," he remarked, "would be home at last, finding a resting place in death where he could not find it in life."
On Monday morning, January 9th, the whole of Philadelphia seemed to have assembled on Logan Square. Religious and civic organizations, including a brass band in mourning, a company of rifles, city and church officials, joined by a large group of Baltimoreans and prelates from the surrounding Sees, had come to pay their final respects.
Bishop Wood chanted the Requiem Mass and Archbishop Kenrick preached. Then a hushed crowd marched across the city to the Church of St. Peter on Fifth and Girard Streets where the body was exposed in full episcopal regalia and the clergy of the diocese chanted the Divine Office for the Deceased. The next morning, Bishop Wood celebrated a Second Mass of Repose for his deceased predecessor, and the body was lowered into a vault in the sanctuary of the basement chapel. Word was sent to Rome, "The Church in America has suffered a great loss."
Writing to Archbishop Kenrick in Baltimore a short while later, Mrs. Mary Allen, a convert and close friend of both prelates, confided, "We miss our bishop greatly. We go to his tomb often to pray to him." This sentiment was shared by hundreds of people from in and around Philadelphia. Gradually word spread that Neumann's holiness was working miracles at his tomb.
To accommodate the crowds converging on the tomb to pray to their former Bishop for spiritual consolation and favors, the Redemptorists instituted a series of Masses and the hearing of confessions; but great care was taken that there should be no attempt at organizing public veneration of the deceased prelate.
Despite the rumors and occasional concern regarding claims of miraculous intercessions, the Church took no official notice of the increasing crowds and the conviction of the people that the prelate buried in the crypt of St. Peter's was truly a holy man. In 1889, however Archbishop Patrick J. Ryan was persuaded to begin a canonical investigation of Neumann's life and writings to discover whether he could be considered for eventual canonization. Neumann's effects had been carefully guarded by the Redemptorists; and his nephew, Father John Berger, had been encouraged to collect material for a biography. In 1882, the German version of the book appeared with priceless details of Neumann's earlier life. It was translated into English two years later, and did much to convince both people and clergy that Bishop John Neumann had really lived and died as a saint.
In 1921, Pope Benedict XV - in stature a man of Neumann's build - declared that the Bishop of Philadelphia had practiced all the virtues in a heroic degree. In his proclamation he remarked: "Perhaps the simplicity of these virtues will be misunderstood . . . We shall not pause to remark that works - even the most simple when performed with constant perfection in the midst of inevitable difficulties - spell heroism in every servant of God."
Fifty years had gone by since the good bishop's death. In the interim, the vast process of studying Neumann's life, his writings, and his accomplishments along with the opinions of all who knew him had dragged on while every scrap of information about the bishop had been minutely examined.
In the Vatican curial offices, there were champions and antagonists of his claim to holiness of life. While no one challenged his piety and goodness, many felt there was nothing extraordinary about his Christian behavior. Some even felt he was actually deficient as a bishop who had the task of overseeing everything in his diocese, temporal affairs as well as spiritual. There was his own admission that he felt inadequate in many of these spheres.
But the vast majority of the people of Philadelphia who knew about the bishop felt differently. They were convinced that their Bishop Neumann had been a saint and they wanted the whole world to know about it. Gradually this word had been spread by nuns and missionaries, through the schools and church societies, among parish priests and people in various parts of the Catholic world.
Instances of cures attributed to the bishop's intercession began to filter back to Philadelphia; and the Redemptorists at St. Peter's were forced to take note of them. Eventually, they had reported these happenings to Archbishop Ryan, and with Rome's encouragement he had started the process of investigation.
Pope Benedict's decision to declare the heroicity of Neumann's virtues was the first big step toward official recognition that he was a saint - that he had lived and died in direct communion with God.
Like the internal difficulties Neumann faced all his life, the process of proving his sanctity had to overcome every possible hindrance. It was opposed with every imaginable objection by sceptics and officials whose duty it was to challenge all such claims. The miracles offered in evidence of extraordinary cures worked through Neumann's intercession were repudiated time and again by Vatican experts. Nevertheless, the claim to sanctity had a way of disappearing for a while, then resurfacing.
During the first half of the twentieth century, the Church was concerned with great political and spiritual issues - wars, false ideologies, such as communism and fascism, economic depressions and the world's social evils. The men in Rome and Philadelphia charged with promoting the cause for holiness of Bishop Neumann were occupied with other cares. Nevertheless, devotion at the bishop's shrine continued to grow.
With the arrival in Washington of Archbishop Amleto Cicognani as apostolic delegate in the early thirties, matters took a new turn. He was greatly interested in discovering proof of sanctity in America. Through his interest, the Redemptorists were encouraged to begin a mild agitation in Philadelphia and eventually in Rome for the beatification of their confrere and bishop. Under Cicognani's guidance, knowledge of the bishop's life and devotion to his cause spread quickly. Finally, with the appointment of Father Francis Litz in Philadelphia and Nicolo Ferrante in Rome as postulators for the cause, a new impetus was given to both devotion to Neumann's intercession and to the Vatican process in the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.
Shortly after his election as Pope, in 1958, John XXIII evinced a special interest in the cause of the Bishop of Philadelphia. He had it on his calendar to preside at the Beatification in St. Peter's when he himself was called into eternity. His successor, Paul VI, quickly reassumed the cause and beatified the Bishop of Philadelphia, John Nepomucene Neumann, on October 13, 1963.
What was remarkable about this ceremony was the fact that it took place during the second session of Vatican Council II. It was attended by the vast majority of the Church's bishops present for the Council. On most of them, the lesson was not lost that in the eyes of the Church, and the Holy Spirit, their primary objective should be to live holy lives as bishops.
The world-wide interest elicited by the extraordinary fact that Neumann's beatification took place during the Council made it almost inevitable that his cause would advance quickly on the path to canonization. After innumerable meetings and the intense scrutiny of evidence, particularly in reference to the miracles attributed to Neumann's spiritual assistance, Pope Paul was convinced that he should solemnly announce to the world that John Nepomucene was a saint. He should be honored on the church's altars, and his way of life should be held up for imitation.
On June 19, 1977, Pope Paul VI used his prerogative of infallibility to proclaim solemnly that John Nepomucene Neumann of Prachatitz and Philadelphia is enrolled in the Church's roster of saints and is to be honored on the Church's altars. Though frowned upon by the "mainliners" of the City of Brotherly Love, the little prelate with the slight German accent was welcomed into a society whose worth transcended all worldly values. Henceforth he would be referred to as St. John Neumann.