John Ireland (1838-1918), Archbishop of St. Paul, Minnesota, from 1888 until his death, spoke for liberal Catholics who sought to harmonize Catholicism with American institutions.

John Ireland was born on Sept. 11, 1838, in Kilkenny, Ireland. His family migrated to America in 1849, finally settling in St. Paul, Minn. Ireland attracted the attention of Bishop Joseph Cretin and was sent to France, where he studied under liberal Catholic professors. He returned to America in time to be a chaplain in the Civil War.

Ireland's residence was St. Paul, and for 50 years he was the dominating Catholic influence in the upper Mississippi Valley. His fondest dream was to bring Catholic immigrants out of the tenements of the East to the broad prairies of the West, and he worked in cooperation with the railroads in this colonization enterprise. Although immigrants continued to cluster in the cities, enough of them answered Ireland's appeal to make...