A priest of the Congregation of Holy Cross, he served as vice-president of Notre Dame, and later president of the College of St. Mary of the Lake in Chicago.
Senator Thomas Ewing of Ohio, foster father of William Tecumseh Sherman, was also a kinsman.
On September 1, 1851, he entered the novitiate of the Congregation of Holy Cross at Notre Dame, Indiana, made his religious profession August 15, 1853, and was ordained priest June 29, 1856,[2] at Rome, where he had been sent to complete his theological studies.
Returning to America, he filled the post of vice-president and director of studies at Notre Dame (1856–59), and then was appointed president of the College of St. Mary of the Lake, Chicago, Illinois.
He then returned to Notre Dame and assumed the editorship of the Ave Maria Press, which position he filled until his death.