HORSTMANN, IGNATIUS FREDERICK (16 Dec. 1840-13 May 1908), third bishop of Cleveland, was born in Philadelphia, Pa., to Frederick and Catherine Weber Horstmann. He was educated at the Jesuit College of St. Joseph and St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia, became one of the first students at North American College in Rome in 1860, and was ordained a priest in 1865 in Rome. Returning to Philadelphia, he taught philosophy, German, and Hebrew at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary. In 1877 he became pastor of St. Mary Church in Philadelphia, gaining a reputation as a careful administrator and excellent preacher. In 1885 Horstmann was named chancellor of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. He was also assistant editor of the American Catholic Quarterly Review and a founding member of the American Catholic Historical Society.
Horstmann was installed as bishop of Cleveland in ST. JOHN CATHEDRAL in 1892, when European immigration was swelling Cleveland's population. Horstmann recruited priests, seminarians, and religious to serve their countrymen, starting 22 of the 30 new parishes for the benefit of various nationalities, although he faced crises with various nationalistic schismatic groups (e.g., the POLISH NATIONAL CATHOLIC CHURCH and others). He expanded Catholic hospitals and orphanages, started St. Anthony Home for Working Boys and the CATHERINE HORSTMANN HOME, and endorsed compulsory parochial schools, demanding that high standards be maintained. In 1894 he encouraged the formation of the Cleveland Apostolate, a group of missionary priests under Paulist father Walter Elliott, who spoke on Catholic doctrine and practices to non-Catholics. Horstmann died in Canton of a heart condition.
Lackner, Joseph, HSM. "Bishop Ignatius F. Horstmann and the Americanization of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States" (Ph.D. diss., St. Louis University, 1977).