Thaddeus Amat y Brusi
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Amat was born in the Catalan capital of Barcelona, Spain on December 31, 1810. He was ordained a priest of the religious order of the Congregation of the Missions (Lazarists) in 1838 at Paris, France. Subsequently, he came to the United States as a religious missionary to Louisiana; later serving in Missouri and Pennsylvania.
In 1853, while serving as the rector of St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia, he was appointed bishop of Monterey in California. Monterey's previous bishop Joseph Sadoc Alemany had been promoted to archbishop of the newly created Archdiocese of San Francisco.
Amat was ordained bishop in Rome in 1854. Recognising the growth of Los Angeles and the decline of Monterey, he petitioned the Vatican to move the see to Los Angeles and to be known as Bishop of Los Angeles. On July 7, 1859, the diocese was renamed Diocese of Monterey-Los Angeles. St. Vibiana's Cathedral was founded and consecrated during the episcopacy of Amat, and Amat himself brought back from Rome the remains (relics) of the saint that were housed in a sarcophogus above the cathedral's altar.
Bishop Amat founded some of the first schools in Los Angeles and invited the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul to open St. Vincent's College (now known as Loyola Marymount University). It was the first institution of higher learning in Southern California.
Amat died on May 12, 1878, at Los Angeles, California, and was succeeded by his coadjutor bishop, Mora who (like Alemany and Amat) was also Catalan.
Bishop Amat Memorial High School in La Puente, California is named for him.
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