Bonaventure Broderick

Bonaventure Broderick was born in Hartford, Connecticut. He was the son of John Harris Broderick and Margaret Healy. Broderick completed his undergraduate seminary studies at St. Charles College in Ellicott City, Maryland. The bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Hartford sent him to the Pontifical Athenaeum S. Apollinare of Propaganda Fide while a seminarian at the North American College. In 1897, Broderick earned his PhD. He also earned a Doctor of Theology at the same university. Under the tutelage of well-known archaeologist Orazio Marucchi, Father Broderick soon became one of the foremost experts on graffiti in the catacombs of Rome. In recognition of his academic accomplishments he became the first American member of The Arcadia, the centuries-old Italian literary society. ==Priesthood==

On July 25, 1896, Broderick was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Hartford by then Bishop Francesco di Paola Cassetta, who was the Patriarch of Jerusalem and Viceregent of Rome. Broderick returned to the diocese and was assigned as a pastor in West Hartford, Connecticut. From 1898 to 1900, he was a faculty member at St. Thomas Seminary at Hartford, Connecticut. When his former Italian instructor, Bishop Donato Sbarretti, was appointed as the ordinary of the Archdiocese of San Cristóbal de la Habana, he appointed Broderick as his secretary. On June 25, 1900, Broderick became the administrator of St. Francis de Sales Church in Cuba. He would later become the administrator of San Carlos and San Ambrosio Seminary. While in Cuba, as secretary to the bishop, Broderick was tasked with settling the question of Church property following the 1898 War with Spain. In recognition of his success in doing so Pope Leo XIII named Broderick a monsignor in 1901. ==Episcopacy==

On September 7, 1903, Broderick was appointed by Pope Pius X as the Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of San Cristóbal de la Habana and Titular Bishop of Iuliopolis. Restoration to episcopal life On the eve of Francis Spellman's May 23, 1939, installation as Archbishop of New York, Cardinal Amleto Cicognani, the apostolic delegate to the United States, asked Spellman to look into the matter of Broderick's long exile. In 1942, at the dedication of a new wing to the Schervier facility, Spellman said: "The greatest thing I have done for my soul and the greatest gift I have brought to the people of the archdiocese has been in bringing Bishop Broderick to New York." Also in 1942, Spellman named Broderick the vicar for religious in the archdiocese. James K. Hanna has written a biography of Broderick, titled "The Remarkable Life of Bishop Bonaventure Broderick: Exile, Redemption, and a Gas Station" (Serif Press, 2022). The Remarkable Life of Bishop Bonaventure Broderick ==Final years and death==

On November 18, 1943, Broderick died with the title of Auxiliary Bishop Emeritus of the San Cristóbal de la Habana Archdiocese. His mortal remains are buried in Gate of Heaven Cemetery, Hawthorne, New York in the Sisters of St. Francis plot. ==References==