Page 176 - March On! God will Provide by Brother Aubert

BROOKLYN AND BOSTON I55
part of the correct procedure in withdrawing a reli-
gious community from a diocese.
One possibility that Brother Ryken inquired into
was the diocese of Brooklyn, detached from the parent
diocese, New York, by Pope Pius IX on July 29, 1853.
Most Rev. John Loughlin, former vicar general of New
York, had been installed on November 9, 1853, as the
first Bishop. To assist him in caring for the Catholics
on Long Island, about 15,000, he had twenty-three
priests. Most of his flock were his neighbors in Brook-
lyn proper, then a small community of about 10,000
souls. On Long Island there were twenty-two churches,
and five of these parishes supported parochial schools
of a sort. The newly-built St. James School in the pro-
Cathedral parish };rad 325 boys taught by the Brothers
of the Christian Schools. In 1854 these Brothers lived
on Jay Street but from 185l-1854 they had been com-
muting on the Fulton Street ferry, leaving each school-
day in the morning and returning each evening to the
community house on Canal Street, New York City.
Brother Ryken called on Bishop Loughlin and found
out among other things that His Excellency planned to
build at once an orphanage that would house boys only.
For twenty years the Sisters of Charity had been caring
for both boys and girls. The Sisters wanted the situa-
tion remedied, and the Bishop was in complete agree-
ment with their wishes.
Bishop Loughlin either escorted Brother Ryken to
the proposed site or told him how to reach it, for the
visitor from Bruges reported to him that he regarded
the site as being too far out in the country. This may
have been a polite excuse. Brother Ryken's interests
Iay elsewhere.
Brother Ryken had learned about Boston, probably
from talking to the two German Jesuits who had been