Neale was born in the British Province of Maryland to a prominent family that produced many Catholic leaders, including his brothers, Francis and Charles.

During the yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia, Neale established the first Catholic orphanage there to care for the many orphaned children.

Neale served as president of Georgetown College in Washington from 1799 to 1806, where his imposition of strict discipline helped cause declining student enrollment.

He faced several conflicts with lay trustees, one resulting in a temporary schism at a parish in Charleston, South Carolina.

[1][2][3] His ancestors included Captain James Neale, who arrived from England in 1637 after receiving a royal grant of 2,000 acres (810 ha) in the future Port Tobacco.

[3] Anne Neale wanted to further her sons' education in a Catholic college in Maryland, but the provincial government had banned them.

[10][11][12] When the college relocated a second time to Liège in the Austrian Netherlands, Neale completed his study of philosophy and theology in that city.

[1] Neale was ordained a priest for the Society of Jesus in Liège on June 5, 1773, by Bishop Franz Karl von Velbrück.

[3] On July 7, 1773, Pope Clement XIV published Dominus ac Redemptor, which ordered the worldwide suppression of the Jesuits.

Neale spent his final time in Europe working as a chaplain at the convent of the Canonesses Regular of the Holy Sepulchre in Bruges.

[16] In 1779, at Neale's request, the Jesuit Order sent him to Demerara, a Dutch West India Company colony that is part of present-day Guyana, to serve as a missionary.

[17] Neale initially worked on evangelizing the European colonists, but they rejected his attempts and barred him from building a chapel in the colony.

[19] However, the indigenous people generally resisted Neale's efforts and also refused to permit construction of a chapel on their lands.

[20] His voyage was delayed briefly when the Royal Navy seized his ship near Demerara during the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War.

[21][22] Once back in Maryland, Neale started serving at St. Thomas Manor near Chandler's Hope, the family estate.

At Old St. Joseph's Church, the pastor, Dominic Graessel, two assistant priests and hundreds of parishioners had died during the epidemic.

[27] Carroll also named Neale as vicar general, responsible for supervising Catholics in Philadelphia and all the northern states.

Before coming to the United States, Lalor had promised to help her bishop in Ireland found a religious order in Kilkenny.

[32] After yellow fever broke out again in Philadelphia in 1797 and 1798, Neale established the first Catholic orphanage in the city to care for children orphaned by the disease.

[13] Neale's tenure as pastor of St. Joseph's and St. Mary's ended in March 1799 when he left Philadelphia to become president of Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.[27][41] Due to the ongoing turmoil in Europe resulting from the French Revolution,[22] the bulls of appointment were twice lost in transit.

Carroll complained that Neale's strict rules were driving lay students away from Georgetown, causing the financial problems.

Neale responded by expanding the course of studies at Georgetown, adding philosophy in 1801 as the final course in the full Jesuit curriculum.

He and Leonard Neale then petitioned Reverend Gabriel Gruber, the Jesuit Superior General, to make the affiliation.

[49] In 1805, the Society of Jesus was allowed to reestablish in the United States, with two new Jesuit priests arriving from Europe that same year.

[49] Carroll succeeded in recruiting several European Jesuits, such as Reverend Anthony Kohlmann, to come to Georgetown to serve as priests and teach.

Neale suggested to Lalor, his friend from Philadelphia, that she start a religious community to operate a girls school in Washington.

When Clorivière went to France to visit family and Gallagher left on a trip up north, Carroll brought in Reverend Robert Browne from Augusta, Georgia, to serve as interim pastor.

Cardinal Lorenzo Litta, the prefect of the Propaganda Fide, lifted the St. Mary's interdict and allowed Browne to remain as pastor there.

Clorivière, at his own request, was later assigned to the Visitation school in Washington as chaplain, Browne remained pastor at St. Mary's and the trustees submitted to the new archbishop's authority.

[59] Due to his declining health, Neale requested that the Vatican appoint Bishop Jean-Louis Lefebvre de Cheverus as coadjutor archbishop of Baltimore to assist him.