Patrick William Riordan

“ His episcopal labours were to begin among a population composed of almost all nationalities. Born in Spain, educated in Rome, and long resident in America, his experience and his command of several languages put him in touch and in sympathy with all the elements of his diocese. His humility and simplicity of manner, though by nature retiring, drew to him the hearts of all classes. Naturally his first thought was to secure a body of priests and nuns as co-labourers in his new field ”

“ Before an infidel spirit had poisoned the minds of many in power, even in Catholic countries, it had been the custom in Spain, as in other Catholic lands, for priests to wear their sacerdotal dress in the streets. ”

“ When he began his work, there were but twenty-one adobe mission-churches scattered up and down the State, and not more than a dozen priests in all California. He lived to see the State divided into three dioceses with about three hundred thousand Catholic population, many churches of modern architecture and some of respectable dimensions, a body of devoted clergy, secular and regular, charitable and educational institutions conducted by the teaching orders of both men and women, such as to meet, as far as possible under the circumstances, the wants of a constantly growing population. ”