to Armagh, offering Conwell instead a choice of the sees of Philadelphia or Madras; Conwell chose Philadelphia. Now more than 70 years old, he was ordained bishop in London on September 24, 1819, by Bishop William Poynter, the Vicar Apostolic of the London District, assisted by Fathers James Bramston and Joseph Francis Carpue. The see of Philadelphia had been vacant since the death of Bishop Michael Francis Egan in 1814, despite several efforts to fill it. Archbishop John Carroll of Baltimore, whose province included Philadelphia, had considered no fewer than fifteen priests for the position; some had been ruled out for one reason or another, and others (including the apostolic administrator, Louis de Barth) had turned the job down. Part of the delay was logistical—Carroll was unsure of the exact procedure for selecting a candidate in the recently erected province—but part was due to the perceived undesirability of the post, which oversaw only a few small churches in a part of the nation with few Catholics. There was also a significant dispute (known as trusteeism) over the rights of churches' lay trustees that was likely to complicate the job of running the diocese. In Europe, the Church owned property and directly controlled its parishes through the clergy. In the United States, however, early Catholic churches were typically founded by laymen who purchased the property, and erected the church buildings. Those laypeople accordingly demanded some control over the administration of the parish, even after the arrival of clergy from Europe who held the traditional view of parish organization. In a larger sense, the dispute represented a difference in understandings of authority between Americans and Europeans. Hogan schism Conwell arrived in Philadelphia on December 2, 1820. The trusteeism dispute had only grown more bitter during the vacancy preceding his arrival. Shortly before Conwell reached the diocese, a priest, William Hogan, approached de Barth (then administering the diocese until a bishop was appointed) about securing an assignment to preach in Philadelphia. After only a cursory investigation of his past, de Barth agreed, and Hogan was assigned to St. Mary's Church. Hogan quickly ingratiated himself with the laymen who made up the board of trustees, siding with them in their dispute with the other clergy. Hogan's general conduct created tension with Conwell. When Conwell arrived, Hogan had already moved out of the priests' residence at Old St. Joseph's Church to a house across the