No mistake about it. Francis Kenrick had his work cut out for him. It was 1830 and he had just been appointed as Coadjutor Bishop to Henry Conwell of Philadelphia. Conwell was in an enfeebled state of old age, truculent in spirit, and suspicious of his colleague's authority. The diocese of Philadelphia was badly disorganized because episcopal government was in a state of near collapse. There was no seminary or college, a single orphanage, few schools, and “a disheartened people.” In particular, the problem of “trusteeism” had created religious havoc in the diocese during the 1820's. A reserved, scholarly, and cautious person, Kenrick could not have found a less propitious vineyard in which to begin his episcopal career.