Sat, 05/29/2021 - 2:12am tim
Rock Point School and Episcopal Diocese of Vermont remove a prominent portrait of a Bishop who wrote a book in support of slavery
Bishop Shannon MacVean-Brown, Abbey Baker, CJ. Spirito and three student leaders speaking to the Rock Point School community
Vermont Business Magazine Last week, Rock Point School students and faculty removed a large portrait of Bishop John Henry Hopkins, a noted figure in the history of the Episcopal Diocese of Vermont. In 1832, Hopkins became the first Episcopal Bishop of Vermont, and his son built the school building in the late 19th Century to honor his father.
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On Dec. 30, 1840, John M. Hopkins, bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Diocese of Vermont, penned a letter to Bishop Benedict J. Fenwick of the Diocese of Boston. The subject of the letter was the proposed construction of a new Catholic church in Burlington, Vermont. I call your attention, he wrote, to a matter which I think important to the comfort and satisfaction of the Roman Catholic Church in this village, as well as the Church which is under my own pastoral care.
At the time the letter was written, the Catholic Diocese of Boston was expansive, encompassing all New England, yet it was also small in terms of the number of its parishes, priests, and laypeople. It was not unusual for Bishop Fenwick to deal personally with administrative issues as they arose. The letter from Bishop Hopkins merited his careful attention, since it concerned the only extant Catholic parish in Vermont, St. Mary in Burlington.