More than 400 men have served as Maryknoll Brothers since the founding of the Maryknoll Society, and each one is associated with unique stories from personal lives and from service to Maryknoll. The following anecdotes feature several of the men who have dedicated their lives to Maryknoll.
The cause for beatification of Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers co-founder Father Thomas F. Price opened in the Diocese of Raleigh, North Carolina, with a prayer service at Raleigh’s Sacred Heart Cathedral on Friday, March 9, 2012.
The year commemorating the centennial of the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers has again been blessed. The Maryknoll Society is rejoicing for the cause for beatification and canonization of Maryknoll Society co-founder Bishop James A. Walsh.
On Wednesday, November 9, 2011 at the Archdiocese of New York in New York City, the cause for beatification and canonization of Bishop Walsh was formally opened by the diocesan tribunal led by Monsignor Douglas Mathers. Receiving official approval from the Vatican to begin, the procedure now is formally in place to pursue the cause for beatification of Bishop Walsh in the Archdiocese of New York.
Attendees at the ceremony included Father Edward M. Dougherty, superior general of the Maryknoll Society who has served the mission of the Church in Africa. All official witnesses took their oaths on the Bible to discharge their respective obligations with integrity and honesty.
The next steps in the process include:
• Obtaining formal witness testimony.
Since few people today actually met Bishop Walsh, who died during 1936, his cause is considered, technically, an “historical” cause. Most evidence will be textual. Witnesses to be called will be faithful Catholics willing to testify as to their belief in Bishop Walsh’s reputation for sanctity and heroic virtue.
A second class of witnesses will be divided into groups of historians and theologians. Historians are charged with gathering and guaranteeing the authenticity of any documentation on the life, works and faith of Bishop Walsh that includes all published and unpublished writings. They will submit reports about his writings along with a biographical sketch. The theologians will examine the papers and then issue reports verifying the integrity of the candidate and absence of any defect of faith and morals.
• Documentation delivered to Rome.
Once the cause is complete at the diocesan level, all documentation will be delivered to Rome for the second phase of the process. Reports and documentation again will be examined. Further documentation, including any possible testimony of miraculous intervention, will be gathered.
• Prayers and inquiries of others.
During the process, anyone interested in the cause of Bishop Walsh is welcome to inquire about him at Maryknoll, offer pertinent faith experience and offer prayers of support of the cause, and, especially, of the mission of the Church to which Bishop Walsh dedicated his life.
Monsignor Douglas Mathers, second from left, vice chancellor of the archdiocese and episcopal delegate for the cause, joins Auxiliary Bishop Dennis Sullivan, the archdiocese’s vicar general, right; Father Edward M. Dougherty, M.M, superior general of the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers, second from right; and Father Michael P. Walsh, M.M., member of the historical commission, left, at the swearing-in ceremony for the opening of the sainthood cause of Maryknoll co-founder Bishop James A. Walsh at the Catholic Center in Manhattan on November 9. Photo courtesy of Catholic New York.
Beatification and Canonization Witnesses
• Postulator: Dr. Andrea Ambrosi
• Episcopal Delegate: Reverend Msgr. Douglas J. Mathers
• Promoter of Justice: Reverend Richard Welch C.Ss.R.
• Actual Notary: Maryknoll employee Marie Ray
• Adjunct Notary: Maryknoll employee Maureen Foster
• Copyist: Maryknoll employee Holly E. Brown
• Members of the Historical Commission (3): Reverend Michael P. Walsh, M.M. (who has served the mission of the Church in South China), Alan B. Delozier and Paul F. Gibbons
• Members of the Theological Commission (2): Patrick Hayes and Reverend Mark Francis O’Malley
About Bishop James A. Walsh
James Walsh was born to middle-class parents (James Walsh and Hanna Shea) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on February 24, 1867. After attending public elementary school, he graduated from Boston College High School with skills in debating and journalism. He attended Boston College but later transferred to Harvard College to study bookkeeping. Studies were completed at St. John’s Seminary in nearby Brighton.
At the seminary, Father Walsh was inspired by a rector, a Sulpician (a society of secular priests founded during 15th century France) whose classmate in Paris, Theophane Venard, had died as a famous martyr in Indochina. A decade after his 1892 ordination at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, Father Walsh retraced Venard’s steps in France along with those of other French martyrs, and he became convinced that the blood of martyrs is the seed of the church.
Father Walsh served as curate at St. Patrick’s Church in Roxbury until he was appointed diocesan director of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith during 1903. Among his responsibilities was to raise money to support overseas mission, and during this time, he began to develop his vision, a modernized version of mission, for a mature U.S. Church that was eager to fulfill exciting and joyful missionary responsibilities around the world.
Along with the Catholic Foreign Mission Bureau, Father Walsh founded The Field Afar magazine, a monthly publication about the foreign missions of the Catholic Church. Years later, this magazine would become the Maryknoll magazine that continues to be published today (along with its bilingual counterpart Revista Maryknoll) by the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers.
During 1910, at the 21st Eucharistic Conference in Montreal, Father Walsh shared his vision of U.S. Catholic mission with Father Thomas Frederick Price of North Carolina. Realizing they shared a common call to mission, the urbane Father Walsh and the more rural Father Price collaborated on plans for a mission society within the U.S. Catholic Church. Soon after, the bishops of the United States formally sanctioned the pursuit of their vision to recruit, send and support U.S. missioners around the world.
With this approval, Father Walsh and Father Price traveled to Rome to present their vision of mission. They received the blessing of Pope Pius X on June 29, 1911 (the feast of Saints Peter and Paul), which is the founding day of the Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America that, over the years, has become more well-known as Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers.
Father Walsh was a model priest and a natural leader. He was the first Superior General of the Society, the treasurer, the editor of its publication, rector of the seminary, spiritual director of the Maryknoll Sisters that was formed during 1912, along with master organizer, fundraiser, publicist and overseer of plans and building for the Society. It is difficult to find any aspect of the foundation of Maryknoll that did not benefit from the direction and oversight of Father Walsh.
Father Walsh’s contributions to the Catholic Church in the U.S. and to the growth of mission were celebrated when he was ordained as bishop on June 29, 1933 by Pope Pius XI in Rome. Only a few years later, on April 14, 1936, Bishop Walsh passed away.
Causes for Father Price and Father Capodonno
The cause for beatification and canonization of Bishop Walsh is the third for the Maryknoll Society.
Causes have been established for Maryknoll co-founder Father Thomas F. Price (pending) and for Maryknoll Father Vincent R. Capodanno.
Thomas Price was born in Wilmington, North Carolina, the eighth child of Alfred and Clarissa Bond Price, on August 19, 1860. Having converted to the Catholic faith, his parents raised their children to be devout Catholics in the midst of Southern apathy toward the religion.
During his formative years, Thomas Price was deeply influenced by priests from his Wilmington parish of St. Thomas. With a religious upbringing that included profound understanding of the deep devotion his mother held for the Blessed Virgin Mary, the young Price soon became attracted to the priesthood. Father Price became the first Catholic priest born in North Carolina.
Vincent R. Capodanno was born on February 13, 1929 in Staten Island, New York. During the 1960s, he asked to be reassigned from his Maryknoll mission in Formosa to serve as a U.S. Navy chaplain. He served with a unit of the U.S. Marines in Vietnam and, though mortally wounded during an ambush on September 4, 1967, he continued to administer to others who were injured.
Father Capodanno is the only chaplain to receive the Medal of Honor for service with the Marine Corps. During 2011 in Triangle, Virginia, the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation dedicated the “Sacrifice Window” to Father Capodanno in the Semper Fidelis Memorial Chapel at the National Museum of the Marine Corps.
Watch a video about Bishop Walsh click here.
Watch this same video on Youtube by clicking here.
Bradley Hilltopics magazine is published quarterly for alumni, faculty, staff, parents of students, and friends of Bradley University. Founded by Lydia Moss Bradley in 1897, Bradley University is a private, independent university located in Peoria, Illinois. Father Bill Donnelly, a graduate of the class of 1955, used his Bradley degree in art to serve his Church in Guatemala, to provide art for Maryknoll filmstrips, and to illustrate novelettes based on the lives of prominent Catholics.
The U.S. Hispanic population is over 48 million strong making people of Hispanic origin the nation’s largest ethnic or race minority. Hispanics constitute 16 percent of the nation’s total population, not including the 3.9 million residents of Puerto Rico. Hispanic youth are the fastest growing segment of the population and Hispanic Catholics are the fastest growing segment of the U.S. Catholic Church. The Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers are pleased to celebrates Hispanic Heritage month with a story about our latest priest, Guatemala-born Rodrigo Ulloa-Chavarry.
72-Year-Old Maryknoll Fundraising Letter Found in Massachusetts
During June of 2011, the centennial year of the Maryknoll Society, a surprise phone call was received from a homeowner who wanted to share her discovery of a piece of Maryknoll history.
The call came from Massachusetts. The discovery of an old fund-raising letter was made in a home in Malden, about five miles away from the Cambridge birthplace of Society co-founder Father (later Bishop) James A. Walsh.
Julianne Orsino advised Maryknoll that she had found a discolored piece of stationary from The Maryknoll Fathers that contained a letter dated June 1939. The approximate seven-and-one-quarter inch square letter was addressed “Dear Maryknoll Friend.” It carried the signature of the “Titular Bishop of Sata, Sup’r Gen’l – Maryknoll” — Bishop James E. Walsh.
Bishop James E. Walsh and Maryknoll
James E. Walsh had entered the first class of Maryknoll during 1912. On December 7, 1915, he became the second priest ordained by the Society. Three years later, he was assigned to China. Pope Pius XI named him, at age 36, the first bishop of the Vicariate of Kongmoon. The missioner, to whom the Chinese Catholics gave the name of Wha Lee Son (Pillar of Truth), was ordained Shepherd of the Church on May 22, 1927, on Sancian Island, the place of death of St. Francis Xavier.
During 1936, Bishop James E. Walsh returned to Maryknoll’s home in New York’s Westchester County following the death of co-founder Bishop James A. Walsh. In April of that year, he was elected the second Superior General of the Maryknoll Society and, during his 10-year term, he supervised Maryknoll’s first missions in Latin America and Africa. After the completion of his term, and at the Vatican’s request, Bishop Walsh returned to China in 1948 as head of the Catholic Central Bureau in Shanghai. His assignment was to coordinate the Church’s missionary efforts throughout China.
When the communists came to power during 1949, all foreign clergy were harassed and pressured to leave. The government, during 1951, ordered Bishop Walsh to close his bureau. When Maryknoll superiors expressed concern for his safety, Bishop Walsh betrayed a trace of his Irish temper: “To put up with a little inconvenience at my age is nothing. Besides, I am a little sick and tired of being pushed around on account of my religion.”
Arrested on October 18, 1959, Bishop Walsh was sentenced to 20 years in prison. During those years in jail, he didn’t receive any news reports. Only one non-Chinese visitor was permitted to see him — his brother and former Maryland State Attorney General William C. Walsh.
Without notice, Bishop Walsh was freed from Shanghai’s prison hospital after serving almost 12 years of his sentence. Clad in rumpled khaki trousers and a faded checkered shirt, he walked across Hong Kong’s Lo Wu Bridge to freedom on July 10, 1970.
He returned to Maryknoll in New York and died peacefully on July 29, 1981, completing 66 years as a priest and 54 as a bishop and having celebrated his 90th birthday. A funeral mass was celebrated at St. Patrick’s Cathedral with Terence Cardinal Cooke as principal celebrant.
Letter Resides In Archives
Ms. Orsino indicated that the discovery of the letter was made during home renovations. The letter possibly remained in house rafters for more than 60 years. Other than the discoloration, a few small holes, a tear and a crease mark in the middle that probably was made when it was mailed, the letter is in very good condition.
The three-paragraph letter indicates that 15 American priests would soon sail for the Far East and that assistance would be needed for “their equipment and ocean fare.” To send Maryknollers to China, Japan, Korea, or Manchukuo, $500 was needed for each priest.
The letter, which is pictured here, has been presented to the Maryknoll Archives. Maryknoll’s appreciation has been extended to Julianne Orsino for her discovery and for contacting the Society.
This is a story about the presence of God made so real for me, thousands of other New Yorkers, and for most of the known world on one very memorable day.
Each morning at 7, the Rev. John Hudert can be found on a fertile patch of land at Maryknoll, tending to the rows of cabbage, squash, tomatoes and lettuce that will eventually make their way onto the plates of Westchester’s needy.
A century ago, an attentive subscriber to the Catholic mission magazine The Field Afar might have noticed the following announcement in its pages: “Youths or young men who feel a strong desire to toil for the souls of heathen people and who are willing to go afar with no hope of earthly recompense and with no guarantee of a return to their native land are encouraged to write, making their letter personal, to the Editor of Field Afar.”
God of all compassion,
Comfort your sons and daughters
Who live with HIV.
Spread over us all your quilt of Mercy,
Love and Peace.
Open our eyes to your presence
Reflected in their faces.
Open our ears to your truth
Echoing in their hearts.
Give us the strength
To weep with the grieving,
To walk with the lonely,
To stand with the depressed.
May our love mirror your love
For those who live in fear,
Who live under stress and
Who suffer rejection.
Mothering, fathering God
Grant rest to those who have died
And hope to all who live with HIV.
God of life, help us to find the cure now
And help us to build a world in which
No one dies alone and where
Everyone lives accepted
Wanted and loved.
ABOUT MARYKNOLL
We are a Catholic Society of priests and brothers based in the United States. We are dedicated to missionary work overseas in over 20 countries. Additionally, we animate Catholics in the United States to follow their own baptismal call to share God’s compassion and love with the poor, the sick, and all those in need.
OUR GENERAL COUNCIL
(Fr. Lance P. Nadeau, Fr. James M. Lynch, Fr. Timothy O. Kilkelly, Fr. Juan Montes Zúñiga)
The Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers is overseen by our General Council, led by Superior General Rev. Lance P. Nadeau, M.M.
OUR FOUNDERS
(Our Co-Founders Father Price and Father Walsh)
MISSION MINISTRIES
PLACES WE SERVE
EVANGELIZATION, PARISHES, AND PROJECTS
STORIES OF MISSION
The Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers Africa Region will provide tuition assistance to African clergy, male and female religious at institutes of higher education or specialized training. Read More
NAVIGATE MARYKNOLL VOCATIONS
The calling of a lifetime
