Thomas Frederick Price
Father Thomas Frederick Price was the American co-founder of the Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America, better known as the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers.
Youth and education
Thomas Frederick Price was born in Wilmington, North Carolina, the eighth child of Alfred and Clarissa Bond Price. His parents were converts to the Catholic faith, and he was raised as a devout Catholic in the midst of Southern apathy toward Catholicism. As a youth, Price was deeply influenced by the priests of his parish. One cleric who figured prominently in his early life was James Gibbons, newly appointed the first Vicar Apostolic of North Carolina. Gibbons established his headquarters at St. Thomas Church; Price often served Mass for Gibbons and accompanied him on official trips throughout the Vicariate.With his religious background, Price soon felt an attraction to the priesthood. He confided his interest to the parish priest, the Rev. Mark Gross, and arrangements were made for him to enter St. Charles College at Catonsville, Maryland, in August 1876. En route to the seminary by ship, Price escaped death in the shipwreck of the Rebecca Clyde. Price attributed his survival to the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary. After the accident, he returned home until January 1877.
Price attended St. Charles College from January 1877 until his commencement on June 28, 1881. In September 1881, he entered St. Mary's Seminary in Baltimore. He was ordained to the priesthood on June 20, 1886, by Gibbon's successor, Henry P. Northrop, at the pro-cathedral in Wilmington, North Carolina. Price was the first native North Carolinian to be ordained to the priesthood, and he was assigned to missionary work in the eastern section of his home state.
Early priesthood
Within the first year of his ordination, Price was appointed pastor of the few Catholics in and around the towns of Asheville and New Bern. He later obtained permission from Leo Haid, O.S.B., the current Vicar Apostolic, to begin a statewide evangelization program. His methods were influenced by Fr. Walter Elliott, a famous Paulist preacher.One of Price's tools for evangelization was the publication of the magazine Truth, which he began to edit and publish in April 1897.
A second tool was the establishment of Nazareth Orphanage in 1898. Price's plan was first to help the underprivileged of an area and thereby win the favor of the general population, who would then be more inclined to listen to the message of the missioner.
Following the success of the Nazareth Orphanage, Price organized summer catechizing teams of seminarians. Finally, in 1902, Price opened a missionary training house at Nazareth. It was a preparatory seminary whose sole purpose was the education and formation of missioners for the home missions. It was called Regina Apostolorum. Price directed the Regina Apostolorum and acted as its primary teacher and spiritual director.
Plans for a foreign mission seminary
As time went on, Price began to emphasize more and more often, in the pages of Truth, the need of a seminary for the training of young American men for the foreign missions. At the same time, Rev. James Anthony Walsh, of Boston, was developing the same idea in the pages of The Field Afar. At the Eucharistic Congress in Montreal in 1910, the two priests met and began to formulate plans for the establishment of a seminary for foreign missioners. With the approval of the American hierarchy, the two priests traveled to Rome in June 1911 tto receive final approval from Pope Pius X for their project.After meeting with the Pope, Price traveled to Lourdes for the first time. During his stay at Lourdes, Price had a spiritual experience that he refers to in his personal diary: he maintained a special devotion to Our Lady of Lourdes and to St. Bernadette Soubirous until his death.
Returning to the United States, Price and Walsh began the plans for the establishment of the new seminary and the foreign mission society. After a brief stay at Hawthorne, New York, property was purchased at Ossining, New York, for the site of the new foundation, the Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America.
Foreign missions begin
Price made a countrywide tour of America to gain support for the new endeavor. By 1918, three young priests were ready for the foreign missions in China. On September 7, Price went with them as superior to the new mission. From the time of the foundation of Maryknoll, Price had understood that Walsh was the one capable of administering and directing the seminary itself. Price himself had always hoped to be chosen as one of Maryknoll's first missioners, and his dream was realized.This group of first four American missioners in China arrived in Hong Kong in October 1918. They then settled down in Yeungkong on the South China Coast. Because of his age and its complexity, Price had great difficulty learning the Chinese language
Price also suffered from physical ailments. Towards the latter part of 1919, Price became seriously ill. As there were no adequate medical facilities in that area, he was brought to Hong Kong for hospitalization. After a trying trip, Price arrived in the British Colony and was immediately taken to St. Paul's Hospital in Causeway Bay, an institution conducted by the Sisters of St. Paul de Chartres. The long and arduous journey from Yeungkong to Hong Kong by primitive means of travel aggravated Price’s advanced and serious case of appendicitis. He entered the Hospital on 19 August 1919 and was operated on 8 September 1919. However, it was too late and on 12 September, the Feast of the Holy Name of Mary, he died as a result of a burst appendix. His body was buried in the priests’ plot in St. Michael’s Cemetery in Happy Valley, Hong Kong. The date of his death was rather significant, as he had great devotion to Our Lady. He was only 59.
A solemn requiem Mass was celebrated on 18 September 1919 at the Immaculate Conception Cathedral for the happy repose of his priestly soul. At this ceremony, Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong, Fr Pozzoni, gave the last absolution and a large concourse of priests and Sisters attended
In 1923, a French missioner returned to France with Price's heart and gave it to St. Bernadette's religious order, the Sisters of Charity of Nevers. It was placed in a niche in the wall near the saint's body in the Motherhouse of the Sisters of Nevers. It was Price’s own request for he had a very great devotion to Sister Bernadette. Price's body was exhumed in 1936 and transferred to Maryknoll Cemetery in Ossining, New York. In 1955, his remains, together with those of Bishop James A. Walsh, were finally interred in the crypt below the Maryknoll Seminary Chapel.