William Stang

William Stang (April 21, 1854 – February 2, 1907) was a German Catholic prelate who served as the first Bishop of Fall River from 1904 until his death in 1907.

While at the American College, Stang was recruited by Thomas Hendricken, bishop of the Diocese of Providence in the United States, to minister to German-speaking Catholics in Rhode Island.

[7] In 1895, Stang travelled to Belgium to serve at the Catholic University of Leuven as vice-rector and professor of moral theology.

[1][3] On March 12, 1904, Stang was appointed the first bishop of the newly created Diocese of Fall River by Pope Pius X.

[4] He received his episcopal consecration on May 1, 1904, from Harkins, with Bishops Michael Tierney and John Brady serving as co-consecrators, at Sts.

During Stang's tenure, teaching sisters from the Holy Union order in France, fleeing secular regulation in that country, came to Rhode Island to minister to the growing Catholic French-Canadian population.

Speaking in German, Stang lamented the Catholic working men who had allegedly thrown down the bible and embraced socialism.

[3] Stang once described divorce as a pernicious practice...contrary to the moral order and the law of Christ, and condemned Saturday dances as a source of scandal [that] must be stopped at once.

[12][13] During Stang's tenure, the Dominican Sisters of the Presentation founded Saint Anne's Hospital in Fall River in 1906.