He was an excellent student, and he was drawn to the religious life when he was very young. After college, John entered the seminary. When time came for ordination, he was very ill. The date of ordination was never set because Bohemia had enough priests at the time. He decided to go to America to ask for ordination. He arrived in Manhattan on June 9, 1836. Bishop John Dubois was happy to see him because there were only 36 priests for 200,000 Catholics in the state of New York. John was ordained a priest 16 days after his arrival and was sent to Buffalo, New York. He was given the choice to work in the city or the country. His strong character began to show when he choose the difficult one-the country. In the country, he lived in many towns. In one town, he had to build himself a log cabin and only lived on bread and water. He only slept a few hours a night. John had to walk long distances to reach his people. He could speak twelve languages, so it was easy for him to communicate. John joined the Redemptorist order and continued his missionary work. He became bishop of Philadelphia in 1852. He built fifty churches and began building a cathedral. He opened almost 100 schools, and the number of parochial school students grew from five hundred to nine thousand. Bishop Neumann's health never improved, but people were very surprised when he died suddenly on January 5, 1860 when he was only 48 years old. He was the first American man and first American bishop to be declared a saint by Pope Paul VI.

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