John Shanley was born in Albion, New York, the youngest son of John and Nancy Shanley. At age 5 he and his family moved to Faribault, Minnesota, and soon afterward to St. Paul, where he received his early education, much of it from association with frontier priests who visited St. Paul, during his service as an altar boy at St. Paul Cathedral from 1858 to 1867. He was a student of noticeable ability at St. John's College in Collegeville, where was trained in the classics and graduated in 1869. Bishop Thomas Grace, O.P., then sent him to the College of Propaganda in Rome; Shanley made the journey with Rev. John Ireland. While in Rome, Shanley was ordained to the priesthood by Cardinal Costantino Patrizi Naro on May 30, 1874. At age 22, he was below the age requirement for ordination but was granted a dispensation on account of his frail health. Upon his return to Minnesota in 1882, he became an assistant pastor at St. Paul Cathedral under Rev. Ireland. Ireland took Shanley under his wing and gave him many responsibilities in the church. Shanley succeeded Ireland as pastor of the Cathedral parish in 1884. He also served as secretary of the Archdiocese and editor of the weekly Northwestern Chronicle. Shanley made it a priority to serve minorities and the destitute, and conducted services for African-American Catholics in the basement of the cathedral.
Bishop
On November 15, 1889, Shanley was appointed the first Bishop of the newly erected Diocese of Jamestown, North Dakota, by Pope Leo XIII. He received his episcopal consecration on the following December 27 from Archbishop Ireland, with Bishops Grace and Martin Marty, O.S.B., serving as co-consecrators. He established St. John's Academy at Jamestown, under the charge of the Sisters of St. Joseph, in 1890. Shanley found running the diocese from Jamestown difficult and moved to Fargo in 1891. While Shanley resided in Jamestown, St. James Church was designated the diocesan cathedral, but when he moved the see to Fargo. As the church building in Fargo proved inadequate, Shanley purchased property for a new cathedral and had plans drawn up. The basement was completed when a fire destroyed most of downtown Fargo in 1893. Shanley donated a large portion of the funds that he had personally raised for the new cathedral to reconstruct the cityafter the fire. Construction on the cathedral was, therefore, delayed. St. Mary's Cathedral was completed and it was dedicated on May 30, 1899. In 1891 Shanley wrote the Fargo Argus defending those on the Turtle Mountain Reservation. He denounced the actions taken by local agents and highlighted positive aspects of Indian culture. He hosted the convention of Catholic Laymen in 1896. On April 6, 1897, the name of the diocese was changed to the Diocese of Fargo. At the beginning of his tenure, there were 60 churches, 33 priests, 14 schools and one hospital in the diocese; by the time of his death, there 106 priests, 225 churches, six academies, 34 schools and four hospitals. Shanley took great interest in the development of the material interests of Fargo and the state, making large subscriptions to whatever contributed to the advancement of the state or of its people. He went to Washington, D.C. in 1906 to protest against divorce and established Total Abstinence Societies in the diocese. The Bishop died in his sleep on July 16, 1909 at Fargo, aged 57.
