Ambrose Burke
Monsignor Ambrose J. Burke was an English professor and Catholic priest who served as the eighth president of Saint Ambrose University from 1940 through 1956. A native of Iowa, he attended the college's high school program, the college itself, but was expelled from the seminary for a year and a half by the school's administrator for planning an evening of carousing, he acquired a master's degree and a doctorate in English from Yale University and returned to St. Ambrose in 1921 as an instructor, he was appointed the school's president in 1940 and served for sixteen years the longest tenure of any St. Ambrose president, he worked as a pastor and a chaplain for many decades after and remained active until shortly before his death in October 1998, at the age of 102. Burke was born November 1895 in Sigourney, Iowa. At the age of 14 he attended St. Ambrose Academy in Davenport, the high school program for Saint Ambrose University and has now been merged into Assumption High School, he moved on to St. Ambrose College, but was expelled in his second year when his plans to go carousing were discovered by the school authorities.
He was not permitted to return to the seminary for a half. He was ordained a priest of the Catholic Church in 1921 in Baltimore, Maryland. Burke had obtained his master's degree and doctorate in English studies from Yale University and returned to St. Ambrose in 1921 as an English instructor becoming the head of the department. In 1940 he was appointed to the presidency of the college by Henry Rohlman Bishop of the Diocese of Davenport, replacing Carl Meinberg after the latter's retirement. Although he claimed original that he did not want the job, as he would have preferred to continue teaching instead, he served in this capacity for sixteen years, the longest tenure in the post until Edward Rogalski's. During his presidency a library, an administrative building, the Christ the King Chapel were constructed and enrollment reached a then-peak of over 1500 students. During this time he hosted a three-part series on NBC's Catholic Hour entitled Sainthood, the Universal Vocation, he left the school in 1956 after accepting a position as pastor of St. Mary's Catholic Church.
Burke remained at St. Mary's until 1973, when he reached his mandatory retirement, served for over a decade as chaplain at the city's Mercy Hospital. Although he was retired by 1986, he remained active into his late 90s and continued to attend conventions on Catholicism in Clinton. For his 100th birthday he celebrated a public mass in Clinton and attended a party the following day at St. Ambrose, he died on October 6, 1998, at the age of 102, in Clinton and was buried in Mount Calvary Cemetery in Davenport. Archived copy of Ambrose Burke's obituary
The Reverend
The Reverend is an honorific style most placed before the names of Christian clergy and ministers. There are sometimes differences in the way the style is used in different countries and church traditions; the Reverend is called a style but is and in some dictionaries called a title, form of address or title of respect. The style is sometimes used by leaders in non-Christian religions such as Judaism and Buddhism; the term is an anglicisation of the Latin reverendus, the style used in Latin documents in medieval Europe. It is the gerundive or future passive participle of the verb revereri, meaning " to be revered/must be respected"; the Reverend is therefore equivalent to The Venerable. It is paired with a modifier or noun for some offices in some religious traditions: Anglican archbishops and most Roman Catholic bishops are styled The Most Reverend. With Christian clergy, the forms His Reverence and Her Reverence is sometimes used, along with its parallel in direct address, Your Reverence; the abbreviation HR is sometimes used.
In traditional and formal English usage, both British and American, it is still considered incorrect to drop the definite article, before Reverend. In practice, the is not used in both written and spoken English; when the style is used within a sentence, the is in lower-case. The usual abbreviations for Reverend are Rev'd; the Reverend is traditionally used as an adjectival form with first names and surname. Use of the prefix with the surname alone is considered a solecism in traditional usage: it would be as irregular as calling the person in question "The Well-Respected Smith". In some countries Britain, Anglican clergy are acceptably addressed by the title of their office, such as Vicar, Rector, or Archdeacon. In the 20th and 21st centuries it has been common for reverend to be used as a noun and for clergy to be referred to as being either a reverend or the reverend or to be addressed as Reverend or, for example, Reverend Smith or the Reverend Smith; this has traditionally been considered grammatically incorrect on the basis that it is equivalent to referring to a judge as being an honourable or an adult man as being a mister.
Although it is formally an incorrect use of the term, Reverend is sometimes used alone, without a name, as a reference to a member of the clergy and treated as a normal English noun requiring a definite or indefinite article but such usage is incorrect. It is incorrect to form the plural Reverends; some dictionaries, however, do place the noun rather than the adjective as the word's principal form, owing to an increasing use of the word as a noun among people with no religious background or knowledge of traditional styles of ecclesiastical address. When several clergy are referred to, they are styled individually. In some churches Protestant churches in the United States, ordained ministers are addressed as Pastor. Pastor, however, is considered more correct in some churches when the minister in question is the head of a church or congregation. Male Christian priests are addressed as Father or, for example, as Father John or Father Smith. However, in official correspondence, such priests are not referred to as Father John, Father Smith, or Father John Smith, but as The Reverend John Smith.
Father as an informal title is used for Roman Catholic and Old Catholic priests and for many priests of the Anglican and Lutheran churches. In England, however Roman Catholic priests were referred to as "Mr" until the 20th century except when members of a religious order. "Mr" is still not incorrect for priests of the Church of England. Some female Anglican or Old Catholic priests use the style The Reverend Mother and are addressed as Mother; the Reverend may be modified to reflect ecclesiastical rank. Modifications vary across religious countries; some common examples are: Religious sisters may be styled as Reverend Sister, though this is more common in Italy than in, for example, the United States. They may be addressed as Sister. Deacons are addressed as The Reverend Deacon, or Father Deacon, or Deacon, if ordained permanently to the diaconate; the Reverend Mister may be used for seminiarians who are ordained to the diaconate, before being ordained presbyters. Priests, whether diocesan, or in an order of canons regular, in a monastic or a mendicant order, or clerics regular The Reverend or The Reverend Father.
Protonotaries Apostolic, Prelates of Honor and Chaplains of His Holiness: The Reverend Monsignor. Priests with various grades of jurisdiction above pastor (e.g. vicars general, judicial vicars, ecclesiastical judges, episcopal vicars, provincials of religious orders of priests, rectors or presidents of colleges and universities, priors of monasteries, d
Sacred Heart Cathedral (Davenport, Iowa)
Sacred Heart Cathedral, located in Davenport, United States, is a Catholic cathedral and a parish church in the Diocese of Davenport. The cathedral is located on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River to the east of Downtown Davenport, it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Cathedral Complex. This designation includes the church building and the former convent, torn down in 2012; the cathedral is adjacent to the Cork Hill Historic District on the National Register. Its location on Cork Hill, a section of the city settled by Irish immigrants, gives the cathedral its nickname Cork Hill Cathedral; the parish traces its history back to 1856, when population growth in the city of Davenport led the Dubuque Diocese to establish a new parish on top of the hill on the east side of Davenport. Antoine and Marguerite LeClaire donated the parcel of land and funds to build the church. Before this time parishioners attended St. Anthony's Church in downtown Davenport.
On June 29, 1856, Bishop Mathias Loras of Dubuque laid the cornerstone for the church. Antoine LeClaire directed the construction of the church, named St. Margaret in honor of St. Margaret of Scotland and Marguerite LeClaire; the church was built of red brick in the Romanesque Revival style. A frame rectory was built next to the church, it was moved to the back of the parish property in 1859 and a brick rectory replaced it. Once again Antoine LeClaire provided the money. A year a brick building was built on the west side of the church, it was meant to be a part of a future expansion of the church. The upper floor housed a Sodality Chapel and the main floor included a sacristy and school rooms for boys; the Rev. Andrew Trevis was named the parish's first pastor. In 1857 the Rev. Henry Cosgrove was assigned to St. Margaret's after his ordination and became the pastor in 1861, he was destined to spend the rest of his life associated with the parish. During the American Civil War from 1861–1865 the Union Army established a headquarters in Davenport.
There were five army camps in the city and four of them were within St. Margaret's parish boundaries. Undoubtedly, this affected the pastor's ministry. After the war an addition was made to the church building in 1866 forming a wing on the right side of the original church structure; the 1860 building on the left side was incorporated into the church. An unusual feature of the church was that the roofline of the addition was higher than that of the original church. An arsonist, never caught, set fire to the church on May 2, 1873. Damage was limited to the altar. A new altar was installed that year with a painting of St. Margaret that still hangs in the present cathedral. Another criminal act affected the parish in the early hours of the morning of March 31, 1878, when two gunmen and a third individual attempted to rob the parish of a collection from the Forty Hours' Devotion the night before. One of the gunman shot at, but missed, Father Cosgrove, still in bed, they escaped with jewelry from the housekeeper's daughter.
A $3,000 reward was offered and the three men were caught and sentenced to prison terms at the Anamosa State Penitentiary. On May 8, 1881, Pope Leo XIII established the Diocese of Davenport; the Very Rev. John McMullen, the vicar general of the Archdiocese of Chicago and rector of Holy Name Cathedral, was chosen as the first bishop, he made St. Margaret's his cathedral. Father Cosgrove became the vicar general of the diocese. On July 11, 1884, Father Cosgrove was named by Pope Leo XIII to replace Bishop McMullen as Bishop of Davenport, he was the first of three rectors to be named a bishop. In 1889, Bishop Cosgrove decided; the parish was out-growing the old church and there was a desire for a structure with more of a cathedral image. The church property sits in a residential area where the city's Irish community resided from the 1850s to 1900; because a disproportionate number of people had their origins in County Cork the neighborhood became known as Cork Hill. The initial planning for the new cathedral was carried out by Father Trevis, once again assigned to St Margaret's after Cosgrove was named bishop.
The assignment became too much for him, he was replaced by the Rev. James Davis. James J. Egan, an architect from Chicago, was chosen to design the new cathedral. At the same time, he designed St. Ambrose Church in Des Moines, which became a cathedral in 1911; the Ecclesiological Society, which had a mission of preserving Gothic architecture, was an influence in the church design. The cathedral was built on the English parish church model. Walsh & Edwards of Davenport were chosen to be the contractor, Davenport architect Victor Huot as supervising architect. On April 27, 1890, the cornerstone for the new cathedral was laid. Gas pipe, to be used for interior lighting was laid in February 1891; that same month lathing was applied and the walls and ceiling were plastered in April. The woodwork was completed by June; the frames for the windows were manufactured at a mill across the river in Illinois. The frame for the large window in the apse weighs 3½ tons; the windows were donated by groups. The new cathedral was finished in 1891, it was dedicated on November 15 of that year.
It was Father Trevis. He had visited Paray-le-Monial in France where St. Margaret Mary Alacoque had the visions of the Sacred Heart; the devotion was popular within St. Margaret's parish. Bishop Cosgrove had a devotion to the Sacred Heart and had the image emblazoned on his coat of arms; the bishop request
Doctor of Divinity
Doctor of Divinity is an advanced or honorary academic degree in divinity. Doctor of Divinity should not be confused with the Doctor of Theology degree, a research doctorate in theology awarded by universities and divinity schools, such as Duke Divinity School and others. However, many universities award a PhD rather than a ThD to graduates of higher-level religious studies programs. Another research doctorate in theology is the Doctor of Sacred Theology, in particular awarded by Catholic pontifical universities and faculties; the Doctor of Ministry is another doctorate-level religious degree, but is a professional doctorate rather than a research doctorate. In the United Kingdom, the degree is a higher doctorate conferred by universities upon a religious scholar of standing and distinction for accomplishments beyond the PhD level; the candidate will submit a collection of work, published in a peer-reviewed context and pay an examination fee. The university assembles a committee of academics both internal and external who review the work submitted and decide on whether the candidate deserves the doctorate based on the submission.
Most universities restrict candidacy to academic staff of several years' standing. In the United States, the degree is conferred honoris causa by a church-related college, seminary, or university to recognize the recipient's ministry-orientated accomplishments. For example, Martin Luther King subsequently received honorary Doctor of Divinity degrees from the Chicago Theological Seminary, Boston University, Wesleyan College, Springfield College. Billy Graham was addressed as "Dr. Graham", though his highest earned degree was a Bachelor of Arts degree in anthropology from Wheaton College. Under federal law, a 1974 judgement accepted expert opinion that an "Honorary Doctor of Divinity is a religious title with no academic standing; such titles may be issued by bona fide churches and religious denominations, such as plaintiff, so long as their issuance is limited to a course of instruction in the principles of the church or religious denomination". However, under the California Education Code, "an institution owned and operated and maintained by a religious organization lawfully operating as a nonprofit religious corporation pursuant to Part 4 of Division 2 of Title 1 of the Corporations Code" that offers "instruction... limited to the principles of that religious organization, or to courses offered pursuant to Section 2789 of Business and Professions Code" may confer "degrees and diplomas only in the beliefs and practices of the church, religious denomination, or religious organization" so long as "the diploma or degree is limited to evidence of completion of that education".
In a 1976 interview with Morley Safer of the TV newsmagazine 60 Minutes, Universal Life Church founder Kirby J. Hensley professed that the church's honorary Doctor of Divinity degree was "...just a little piece of paper. And it ain't worth anything, you know, under God's mighty green Earth—you know what I mean?—as far as value." In 2006, Universal Life Church minister Kevin Andrews advised potential degree recipients not to misrepresent the title as an educational achievement to employers, recommending instead that it would be appropriate to list such credentials "under the heading of Titles, Awards, or Other Achievements" on curricula vitae. As of 2009, 20 U. S. states and Puerto Rico had some form of exemption provision under which religious institutions can grant religious degrees without accreditation or government oversight. In the Catholic Church, Doctor of Divinity is an honorary degree denoting ordination as bishop. Christopher St. Germain's 1528 book The Doctor and Student describes a dialogue between a Doctor of Divinity and a law student in England containing the grounds of those laws together with questions and cases concerning the equity thereof.
Bachelor of Divinity Doctor of the Church Master of Divinity Lambeth degree The Doctor and Student pdf files
University
A university is an institution of higher education and research which awards academic degrees in various academic disciplines. Universities provide undergraduate education and postgraduate education; the word university is derived from the Latin universitas magistrorum et scholarium, which means "community of teachers and scholars". While antecedents had existed in Asia and Africa, the modern university system has roots in the European medieval university, created in Italy and evolved from cathedral schools for the clergy during the High Middle Ages; the original Latin word universitas refers in general to "a number of persons associated into one body, a society, community, corporation, etc". At the time of the emergence of urban town life and medieval guilds, specialized "associations of students and teachers with collective legal rights guaranteed by charters issued by princes, prelates, or the towns in which they were located" came to be denominated by this general term. Like other guilds, they were self-regulating and determined the qualifications of their members.
In modern usage the word has come to mean "An institution of higher education offering tuition in non-vocational subjects and having the power to confer degrees," with the earlier emphasis on its corporate organization considered as applying to Medieval universities. The original Latin word referred to degree-awarding institutions of learning in Western and Central Europe, where this form of legal organisation was prevalent, from where the institution spread around the world. An important idea in the definition of a university is the notion of academic freedom; the first documentary evidence of this comes from early in the life of the University of Bologna, which adopted an academic charter, the Constitutio Habita, in 1158 or 1155, which guaranteed the right of a traveling scholar to unhindered passage in the interests of education. Today this is claimed as the origin of "academic freedom"; this is now recognised internationally - on 18 September 1988, 430 university rectors signed the Magna Charta Universitatum, marking the 900th anniversary of Bologna's foundation.
The number of universities signing the Magna Charta Universitatum continues to grow, drawing from all parts of the world. According to Encyclopædia Britannica, the earliest universities were founded in Asia and Africa, predating the first European medieval universities; the University of Al Quaraouiyine, founded in Morocco by Fatima al-Fihri in 859, is considered by some to be the oldest degree-granting university. Their endowment by a prince or monarch and their role in training government officials made early Mediterranean universities similar to Islamic madrasas, although madrasas were smaller, individual teachers, rather than the madrasa itself, granted the license or degree. Scholars like Arnold H. Green and Hossein Nasr have argued that starting in the 10th century, some medieval Islamic madrasas became universities. However, scholars like George Makdisi, Toby Huff and Norman Daniel argue that the European university has no parallel in the medieval Islamic world. Several other scholars consider the university as uniquely European in origin and characteristics.
Darleen Pryds questions this view, pointing out that madaris and European universities in the Mediterranean region shared similar foundations by princely patrons and were intended to provide loyal administrators to further the rulers' agenda. Some scholars, including Makdisi, have argued that early medieval universities were influenced by the madrasas in Al-Andalus, the Emirate of Sicily, the Middle East during the Crusades. Norman Daniel, views this argument as overstated. Roy Lowe and Yoshihito Yasuhara have drawn on the well-documented influences of scholarship from the Islamic world on the universities of Western Europe to call for a reconsideration of the development of higher education, turning away from a concern with local institutional structures to a broader consideration within a global context; the university is regarded as a formal institution that has its origin in the Medieval Christian tradition. European higher education took place for hundreds of years in cathedral schools or monastic schools, in which monks and nuns taught classes.
The earliest universities were developed under the aegis of the Latin Church by papal bull as studia generalia and from cathedral schools. It is possible, that the development of cathedral schools into universities was quite rare, with the University of Paris being an exception, they were founded by Kings or municipal administrations. In the early medieval period, most new universities were founded from pre-existing schools when these schools were deemed to have become sites of higher education. Many historians state that universities and cathedral schools were a continuation of the interest in learning promoted by The residence of a religious community. Pope Gregory VII was critical in promoting and regulating the concept of modern university as his 1079 Papal Decree ordered the regulated establishment of cathedral schools that transformed themselves into the first European universities; the first universities in Europe with a form of corporate/guild structure were the University of Bologna, the University of Paris, the University of Oxford.
The University of Bologna began as a law school teach
White
White is the lightest color and is achromatic. It is the color of fresh snow and milk, is the opposite of black. White objects reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White on television and computer screens is created by a mixture of red and green light. In ancient Egypt and ancient Rome, priestesses wore white as a symbol of purity, Romans wore a white toga as a symbol of citizenship. In the Middle Ages and Renaissance a white unicorn symbolized chastity, a white lamb sacrifice and purity, it was the royal color of the Kings of France, of the monarchist movement that opposed the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War. Greek and Roman temples were faced with white marble, beginning in the 18th century, with the advent of neoclassical architecture, white became the most common color of new churches and other government buildings in the United States, it was widely used in 20th century modern architecture as a symbol of modernity and simplicity. According to surveys in Europe and the United States, white is the color most associated with perfection, the good, cleanliness, the beginning, the new and exactitude.
White is an important color for all world religions. The Pope, the head of the Roman Catholic Church, has worn white since 1566, as a symbol of purity and sacrifice. In Islam, in the Shinto religion of Japan, it is worn by pilgrims. In Western cultures and in Japan, white is the most common color for wedding dresses, symbolizing purity and virginity. In many Asian cultures, white is the color of mourning; the word white continues Old English hwīt from a Common Germanic *χwītaz reflected in OHG wîz, ON hvítr, Goth. ƕeits. The root is from Proto-Indo-European language *kwid-, surviving in Sanskrit śveta "to be white or bright" and Slavonic světŭ "light"; the Icelandic word for white, hvítur, is directly derived from the Old Norse form of the word hvítr. Common Germanic had the word *blankaz, borrowed into Late Latin as *blancus, which provided the source for Romance words for "white"; the antonym of white is black. Some non-European languages have a wide variety of terms for white; the Inuit language has seven different words for seven different nuances of white.
Sanskrit has specific words for bright white, the white of teeth, the white of sandalwood, the white of the autumn moon, the white of silver, the white of cow's milk, the white of pearls, the white of a ray of sunlight, the white of stars. Japanese has six different words, depending upon brilliance or dullness, or if the color is inert or dynamic. White was one of the first colors used in art; the Lascaux Cave in France contains drawings of bulls and other animals drawn by paleolithic artists between 18,000 and 17,000 years ago. Paleolithic artists used calcite or chalk, sometimes as a background, sometimes as a highlight, along with charcoal and red and yellow ochre in their vivid cave paintings. In ancient Egypt, white was connected with the goddess Isis; the priests and priestesses of Isis dressed only in white linen, it was used to wrap mummies. In Greece and other ancient civilizations, white was associated with mother's milk. In Greek mythology, the chief god Zeus was nourished at the breast of the nymph Amalthea.
In the Talmud, milk was one of four sacred substances, along with wine and the rose. The ancient Greeks saw the world in terms of darkness and light, so white was a fundamental color. According to Pliny the Elder in his Natural History and the other famous painters of ancient Greece used only four colors in their paintings. A plain white toga, known as a toga virilis, was worn for ceremonial occasions by all Roman citizens over the age of 14–18. Magistrates and certain priests wore a toga praetexta, with a broad purple stripe. In the time of the Emperor Augustus, no Roman man was allowed to appear in the Roman forum without a toga; the ancient Romans had two words for white. A man who wanted public office in Rome wore a white toga brightened with chalk, called a toga candida, the origin of the word candidate; the Latin word candere meant to be bright. It was the origin of the words candid. In ancient Rome, the priestesses of the goddess Vesta dressed in white linen robes, a white palla or shawl, a white veil.
They protected the penates of Rome. White symbolized their purity and chastity; the early Christian church adopted the Roman symbolism of white as the color of purity and virtue. It became the color worn by priests during Mass, the color worn by monks of the Cistercian Order, under Pope Pius V, a former monk of the Dominican Order, it became the official color worn by the pope himself. Monks of the Order of Saint Benedict dressed in the white or gray of natural undyed wool, but changed to black, the color of humility and penitence. Postclassical history art, the white lamb became the symbol of the sacrifice of Christ on behalf of mankind. John the Baptist described Christ as the lamb of God; the white lamb was the center of one of the most famous paintings of the Medieval period, the Ghent Altarpiece by Jan van Eyck. White was the symbolic color of the transfiguration; the Gospel of Saint Mark describes Jesus' clothing in this event as "shining, exceeding white as snow." Artists such as Fra Angelico used their skill
John McMullen (bishop)
John McMullen was a 19th-century bishop of the Catholic Church in the United States. He was the first bishop of the Diocese of Davenport in the state of Iowa from 1881 to 1883. John McMullen was born in Ballynahinch, County Down, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, to James and Alice McMullen, was one of ten children; when he was a little more than a year old his family immigrated to Canada. In 1837 they moved to Ogdensburg, New York, they moved to Chicago, he was educated in the public school district and parochial schools. He did his secondary and undergraduate studies at the University of St. Mary of the Lake in Chicago, graduating in 1852, he studied for the priesthood at the College of the Propaganda and the Urban College in Rome where he was awarded a Doctor of Divinity degree. McMullen was ordained to the priesthood in Rome on June 1858, for the Diocese of Chicago. Archbishop Antonio Ligi-Bussi, O. F. M. Conv. was the ordaining prelate. He served the diocese, archdiocese, for 25 years.
He was assigned as an assistant at St. Mary's Cathedral. During this time he helped to establish the House of the Good Shepherd, which cared for women, prostitutes, as well as orphanages for both boys and girls, he would go door to door to beg for money to support the institutions. He was well known at a house of corrections. In addition to visiting the inmates, he would bring newspapers and books, he was known for his friendly concern. From 1861 to 1866 McMullen served as president of the University of St. Mary of the Lake, during which time new facilities were built for the school. In 1865 he established the short-lived Catholic Monthly magazine while at the school; the school suffered from a lack of finances and all but the seminary department was closed in 1866. He founded St. Louis and St. Paul's parishes in Chicago. McMullen accompanied Bishop James Duggan as one of his theologians to the Second Council of Baltimore. In 1868 he was sent to the Holy See to represent the interests of the priests of Chicago after Bishop Duggan's mental illness became evident.
He was named the pastor of St. Rose of Lima parish in Wilmington and started a new parish in Braidwood, he was named pastor of the Church of the Holy Name in Chicago and had just spent $19,000 on renovations when the Great Chicago Fire struck the city on October 8, 1871. Every structure McMullen had built in the city was destroyed. Once Father McMullen looked after his parishioners, he and other priests of the diocese traveled across the country and into Canada to raise funds to rebuild Chicago's churches, to help the multitudes who were left homeless, he built the present Holy Name Cathedral, consecrated on November 21, 1875. In 1877 he was named vicar general by Bishop Thomas Foley. After Bishop Foley's death he was named administrator of the diocese, was renamed vicar general after the arrival of Archbishop Patrick Feehan. On June 14, 1881, McMullen was appointed the first bishop of the newly created Diocese of Davenport, he was consecrated bishop by Archbishop Feehan on July 1881, in Holy Name Cathedral.
The principal co-consecrators were Bishops John Hennessy of Dubuque and John Lancaster Spalding of Peoria. Bishop McMullen chose St. Margaret's Church in Davenport to be his new cathedral and with zeal set to work to establish the new diocese, he was known for his simplicity of life. He used those of the late Bishop Foley. Soon after arriving in Davenport he set out on a visitation of his diocese, he traveled by stagecoach, lumber wagon, hand car and passenger coach on the train. While on visitation he administered the sacrament of Confirmation. By December 1881 he confirmed over 7,000 people, by the end of 1882, the number rose to 13,000. McMullen called the diocese's first synod in 1882 to set procedures and regulations for the new diocese. In September of the same year, he founded St. Ambrose, a seminary and school of commerce, for young men. Bishop McMullen's health soon failed, however. To try to find relief from his sufferings he attempted a trip to Rome, but only made it as far as New York.
He traveled to California where he fell gravely ill. A couple of months after his return to Davenport he died from stomach cancer after serving the diocese for a little less than two years. Archbishop Feehan celebrated the Requiem Bishop Spalding preached the sermon, he was buried in the crypt of St. Margaret's Cathedral, his body was transferred to the crypt of Sacred Heart Cathedral after it was built, he and the other bishops, buried in the crypt were transferred to the Bishop's Circle of Mt. Calvary Cemetery in Davenport. Both Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago and Saint Ambrose University in Davenport stand as monuments to his zeal. McMullen Hall, a classroom building at St. Ambrose, was named in his honor; the Life and Writings of the Right Reverend John McMullen, D. D. First Bishop of Davenport, Iowa John McMullen at Find a Grave
