John Shaw (bishop)

John William Shaw (December 12, 1863 – November 2, 1934) was an American clergyman of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Bishop of San Antonio (1911–1918) and Archbishop of New Orleans (1918–1934).

One of six children, John Shaw was born in Mobile, Alabama, to Patrick and Elizabeth (née Smith) Shaw. He was a pupil at the parochial school of St. Vincent de Paul Church and the academy of the Brothers of the Sacred Heart in his native city. He later was sent, with one of his brothers, to St. Finian's Seminary at Navan in County Meath, Ireland. He studied at the Urban College of Propaganda and Pontifical North American College in Rome from 1882 to 1888. On May 26, 1888, he was ordained to the priesthood by Cardinal Lucido Parocchi at the Basilica of St. John Lateran.

Upon returning to the Diocese of Mobile, Shaw served as a curate at Immaculate Conception Cathedral until 1889, when he was transferred to St. Peter's Church in Montgomery. In 1891, he returned to Immaculate Conception Cathedral as its rector. He served as chancellor of the diocese from 1898 to 1910.

On February 7, 1910, Shaw was appointed titular bishop of Castabala and coadjutor bishop of the Diocese of San Antonio in Texas by Pope Pius X. He received his episcopal consecration on the following April 14 from Archbishop James Blenk, S.M., with Bishops Edward Patrick Allen and Cornelius Van de Ven serving as co-consecrators. Due to the declining health of Bishop John Anthony Forest, he was made apostolic administrator of the diocese on May 18, 1910. Upon Forest's death on March 11, 1911, Shaw succeeded him as the fourth Bishop of San Antonio. His efforts to provide relief to Mexican refugees in Texas caused the Archbishop of Mexico City to make Shaw an honorary canon of the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe. In 1915, he opened St. John's Seminary in his personal residence. While in San Antonio, he also restored and reopened several historic Spanish missions.

On January 25, 1918, Shaw was appointed the eighth Archbishop of New Orleans, Louisiana, by Pope Benedict XV. He was the first American-born head of the Archdiocese of New Orleans. He founded Notre Dame Seminary in 1923. In response to a rise in anti-Catholicism and growing presence of the Ku Klux Klan, Shaw urged all Louisiana Catholics to support candidates who pledged to uphold the freedom of religion. Thirty-three new parishes were established and more than a score of new churches, many of them of substantial construction, were built.

Shaw died from a heart attack at the age of 71. His heart attack was said to be caused partly by overworking and party by poison pen letters that leveled malicious charges against him and his priests.

Archbishop Shaw High School in Marrero, Louisiana was dedicated in his honor on August 19, 1962, in part for his work in the development of the Catholic community on the West Bank. The late Archbishop had dedicated Hope Haven Institute, an orphanage and foster home, on the property adjacent to the school in 1930.