Religion / City history
John Samuel Foley
1833–1918 · third Catholic Bishop of Detroit (1888–1918)
Baltimore-born priest who served as Bishop of Detroit for 30 years, the longest tenure in its history, as the auto boom tripled the city's Catholic population.
- Born
Baltimore, Maryland- Died
aged 84- Also known as
- Bishop Foley
- Detroit years
- 1888–1918
- Field
- Religion, City history
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
John Samuel Foley was born in Baltimore in 1833 to Irish immigrants from County Wexford, studied theology and spent three decades as a parish priest in Maryland. On February 11, 1888, Pope Leo XIII named him the third bishop of Detroit. He was Detroit's first American-born bishop, after two German-born predecessors, arriving in a diocese still divided by conflicts over Polish parishes. His long tenure coincided with Detroit's transformation into the capital of the auto industry: as Polish, Italian, Hungarian and other immigrants poured into the city to work in the new factories, the number of Catholics more than tripled, and Foley oversaw the founding of many new ethnic parishes and schools. In 1911 he established St. Peter Claver, the diocese's first parish for Black Catholics. In 1900 he was among the prominent Detroiters who wrote letters for the Detroit Century Box time capsule. He died in January 1918, after 30 years in office, still the longest episcopate in Detroit's history.
Highlights
- Bishop of Detroit, 1888–1918, the longest tenure in its history
- Detroit's first American-born bishop
- Founded St. Peter Claver, the first parish for Black Catholics, in 1911
- Wrote a letter for the Detroit Century Box time capsule in 1900