John Possidius O'Dwyer, O.S.A.
(1816-1850)
First and Third President
1843-1847 and 1848-1850
Father John Possidius O'Dwyer was born in
Callan, County Kilkenny, Ireland, in 1816. His early education in Kilkenny
led to his entrance into the Augustinian novitiate at Grantstown, Wexford,
in 1835. After his profession of vows in 1836 he was sent to Italy for
higher studies.
After two years of labor at Saint Augustine's Church there, he returned to
Italy to recover his endangered health. On his return in the summer 1843, he
with the permission of the Prior General brought with him to America, Father
Francis Ashe of the Irish Province and William Harnett (then a sub-deacon --
the first native born American vocation for the Province who had been sent
to Italy in 1837).
Father O'Dwyer formed the first Augustinian community at Villanova, in
August 1843. He offered the first Mass there, blessed the new foundation,
and placed it under the patronage of Saint Thomas of Villanova. He was the
first President of the College, and taught Latin and Greek in its early
years. In 1844 he constructed the first
separate building for students: a combined chapel/study hall and upper-level
dormitory. And in 1848-1849 he built the east wing of the present Alumni
Hall. The destruction of Saint
Augustine's Church in Philadelphia by fire in 1844, combined with the
departure of Father Patrick Eugene Moriarty, the Superior, and of Father
Thomas Kyle, the senior priest, left Father O'Dwyer with the enormous tasks
of continuing the College, of constructing a new chapel in Philadelphia for
the congregation of Saint Augustine's, and of pursuing the long, difficult
legal struggle for justice against bitter opposition. The church of Saint
Augustine was rebuilt during the year 1847 and 1848. Early in 1850, his
health gave signs of failing, and on 2 April he entered the hospital of the
Sisters of Charity in Baltimore. Despite constant care, and the spiritual
assistance of Saint John Neumann, C.SS.R., then chaplain of the hospital, he
died 24 May 1850, at the age of 34. At
the Provincial Council of Baltimore in 1849, he had been recommended to the
Holy See, in the "terna" sent to Rome regarding the appointment of a new
Bishop for the diocese of Savannah -- as being a "vir doctrina, pietate,
peritia in rebus agendis plane insignis." Saint John Neumann confirmed this
testimony to Father O'Dwyer's piety when he told Father Patrick Augustine
Stanton, O.S.A., that "in his last illness Father O'Dwyer, in humble
reverence for his Savior, insisted on not receiving the Holy Eucharist in
bed but, rising and kneeling on the floor, thus would receive his Viaticum."
His ten years in America had been indeed full and fruitful. He died on 24
May 1850.
Source: Necrology of the Augustinian Provinces of the
United States of America
(Revised, May 2000).
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