Dennis Joseph Dougherty (August 16, 1865 – May 31, 1951) was an American Catholic prelate who served as archbishop of Philadelphia from 1918 until his death in 1951. He was made a cardinal in 1921. He was Philadelphia's longest-serving archbishop and its first cardinal.
Dougherty previously served as bishop of Buffalo from 1915 to 1918, and bishop of the Diocese of Jaro (1903–1908) and Diocese of Nueva Segovia (1908–1915) in the Philippines.
Early life and education
Dennis Dougherty was born on August 16, 1865, in the Homesville section of Butler Township in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania. Nicknamed "Dinny" by his parents, he was the sixth of ten children of Patrick and Bridget (née Henry) Dougherty, who were natives of County Mayo in Ireland. The family lived in the Coal Region of Pennsylvania, with Dougherty's father working as a coal miner and Dougherty himself spending his summer vacations as a breaker boy in the mines. As there was no Catholic church or parochial school in Homesville, the family worshiped at St. Joseph's Church in nearby Girardville, Pennsylvania, and Dougherty attended public school there as well.
At age 14, having decided to become a priest, Dougherty applied to enter St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He passed the entrance examination, but was denied admission due to his young age. On the advice of his pastor in Girardville, Dougherty enrolled instead at the Collège Sainte-Marie in Montreal, Quebec, where he studied under the Jesuits for two years.
In 1881, Dougherty reapplied to St. Charles Borromeo and now was accepted, allowed to skip the first two years of instruction. In 1890, Dougherty received a Doctor of Divinity degree. Dougherty celebrated his first Mass the next day at the altar of the Chair of Saint Peter at St. Peter's Basilica. Over the next 13 years, he also taught Greek, French, and Hebrew before being promoted to the chair of dogmatic theology. He also established a reputation as a scholar with his translation into English of the works of the Italian archeologist Orazio Marucchi and his publication of a series of articles on Anglican ordinations.
Bishop in the Philippines
Nueva Segovia
On April 7, 1903, Dougherty was notified of his appointment as bishop of Nueva Segovia in the Philippines. The United States had occupied the Philippines during the Spanish-American War of 1898. The 1898 Treaty of Paris had rejected Filipino independence, fueling the Philippine–American War of 1899 to 1902. During this conflict, the Filipino priest Gregorio Aglipay broke with Vatican and founded the nationalist Philippine Independent Church, taking over Catholic properties in that nation. After the insurgency ended with an American victory in 1902, Pope Leo XIII appointed Dougherty and three other American bishops to administer the Filipino dioceses.
Dougherty received his episcopal consecration on June 14, 1903, from now Cardinal Satolli with Cardinal Pietro Gasparri and Archbishop Enrico Grazioli serving as co-consecrators, at the church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo al Celio in Rome. The bishop and his priests sailed from Philadelphia on August 24, 1903 and arrived at the diocesan seat in Vigan in the Philippines on October 22. As a result, Dougherty received a cold welcome. In September 1904, Bishop Thomas Augustine Hendrick told US President Theodore Roosevelt that "three attempts have been made to murder Bishop Dougherty of Vigan..." To regain the church properties in Nueva Segovia, Dougherty got a court order forcing Aglipay to relinquish them. Dougherty then made house-to-house visits in Vigan to solicit funds to repair the cathedral.
Dougherty reopened the diocesan seminary in 1904, which had been occupied by American troops during the insurgency, and staffed it with the Jesuits. A girls' academy was also reopened under the care of the Sisters of Saint Paul of Chartres, who established a second academy in Tuguegarao, To combat the efforts of Protestant missionaries in the diocese, Dougherty operated a movie theater where the price of admission was a Protestant Bible. Dougherty wanted the appointment, but it was vetoed by Cardinal Rafael Merry del Val, who believed that Dougherty was needed more in the Philippines. Bishop Charles H. Colton of the Diocese of Buffalo had died in May 1915, followed by Archbishop James Edward Quigley of the Archdiocese of Chicago in July 1915. Pope Benedict XV initially wanted to send Dougherty to Chicago and Bishop George Mundelein to Buffalo. However, these plans changed when the British government heard about the Vatican's intentions. Fighting the German Empire in World War I, Britain reportedly objected to having Mundelein, an American citizen of German descent, stationed in Buffalo, which was on the Canadian border. To placate the British, Benedict XV allegedly switched the appointments by sending Mundelein to Chicago and naming Dougherty as bishop of Buffalo on December 9, 1915. At the time of Dougherty's arrival, the diocese was burdened with a debt of $1.6 million from the construction of the new cathedral. During his tenure, he also established 15 new parishes. After the United States entered World War I in 1917, Dougherty supported the war effort through liberty bond campaigns to fund the war effort and Red Cross drives.
Similar to his time as a seminary professor, Dougherty was known as the "strictest disciplinarian...[who] rules his clergy with an iron hand, insists on punctuality, obedience, deference." for his massive expansion of the archdiocese. During his 33-year tenure in Philadelphia, the number of Catholics in the archdiocese increased from approximately 710,000 to 1,031,866; priests from 779 to 1,910; religious sisters from 3,884 to 6,819; churches from 327 to 397; hospitals from six to 18; parochial schools from 180 to 325; high schools from three to 56; and colleges from three to seven. The Philadelphia Liberty Loans Parade, held nearly three months after Dougherty's arrival, resulted in 12,000 deaths alone.
To deal with the crisis, Dougherty authorized the use of church facilities as temporary hospitals. Many nuns worked as nurses and Dougherty asked for volunteer gravediggers among the students at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary. In compliance with the Pennsylvania State Board of Health's order in October 1918, Dougherty closed all churches and schools to public gatherings. When the pandemic subsided, Philadelphia Mayor Thomas B. Smith expressed his gratitude to Dougherty by saying, <blockquote>"I look upon the services rendered by the Archbishop and the nuns as one of the most potent aids in making the headway we have toward getting control of the epidemic."</blockquote>
Cardinal
On February 13, 1921, the Vatican announced that Benedict XV would elevate Dougherty to the College of Cardinals. As a cardinal, Dougherty served as a member of the congregations for Discipline of the Sacraments, for Rites, for Propagation of the Faith, and for Oriental Churches. After quickly returning to Philadelphia, he sailed from New York City to Europe with Cardinal Louis-Nazaire Bégin of Quebec on January 28th. However, Dougherty noted that he did not expect to arrive in time for the start of the conclave on February 2nd. Their ship was delayed by severe storms, and the two cardinals received news of the election of Pope Pius XI while at sea. After finally arriving in Rome on February 9th, Dougherty was granted a private audience with the new pope, who had relatives living in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania. After the death of Pope Pius XI, Dougherty was able to participate in the 1939 conclave that elected Pope Pius XII.
Catholic education
Dougherty, whose entire time as a priest was spent in teaching, insisted on the establishment of a parochial school at every parish. He frequently threatened to suspend priests who were unwilling to follow this directive, believing, <blockquote>"A parochial school is a necessity, especially in this country where our children breathe in an atmosphere of heresy, unbelief, and sometimes irreligion...Priests and parents are bound to provide a religious education for children."</blockquote>In an address to the graduating class of Villanova University in Villanova, Pennsylvania, in June 1921, Dougherty denounced plans for a federal Department of Education, saying, "We give notice that we will never permit our Catholic schools to be controlled by a clique of politicians in Washington."
Ethnic groups
To offset the intensifying efforts of Protestant evangelization among Italian Philadelphians, Dougherty introduced Italian classes at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary and placed priests who had studied in Rome at Italian churches. However, he also discouraged Italian religious festivals like the Feast of San Gennaro, which were popular elsewhere in the country, to encourage assimilation. Tensions between Dougherty and the Italian Catholic community reached a high point in 1933, when the cardinal's plan to close the Italian parish of Our Lady of Good Counsel in South Philadelphia sparked a riot. On the eve of the parish's closure, thousands of parishioners occupied the church and even held a priest hostage for five months. He encouraged the work of Mother Katharine Drexel among Native Americans and African Americans, and once wrote, <blockquote>"Perhaps the greatest problem confronting the nation is that of the colored race, who were brought here as slaves and have been abandoned to their fate." </blockquote>In 1923, Dougherty declared that elementary school admissions would be based on parish residence, regardless of race, ending a policy of segregating African-American children to schools in predominantly African-American parishes. The following year he established Holy Savior Parish (now St. Ignatius) in West Philadelphia, where the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament also opened a convent in 1925. Holy Redeemer Parish for Chinese Catholics was opened in 1941.
Movie theater ban
In May 1934, Dougherty forbid Catholics in the archdiocese from entering movie theaters. He declared that the film industry's focus on "sex and crime" was a "vicious and insidious attack...on the very foundations of our Christian civilization." He added: "The only argument likely to be heard now is that which affects the box office." Dougherty twice refused to arrange a meeting with Harry Warner, the president of Warner Bros. Dougherty never revoked his ban, but over time Catholics in the archdiocese started ignoring it. In June 1934, one Philadelphia Catholic, Joseph Breen, was appointed to head the newly created Production Code Administration and apply the Hays Code, a set of censorship rules, to American film production. A 2005 grand jury report included at least two priests during Dougherty's tenure (1918–1951) who were accused of sexual abuse and transferred to other parishes:
- Reverend Gerard W. Chambers was accused of molesting numerous altar boys during his 40 years as a priest in the archdiocese. During that time, he was transferred to 11 different parishes under Dougherty's tenure between 1934 and 1949.
- Reverend Joseph P. Gausch wrote letters to another priest detailing his abuse of young boys. These letters were brought to Dougherty's attention in 1948. Dougherty sent Gausch to a hospital in Wisconsin to do "penance," then reassigned him to St. Anthony of Padua Parish in Easton, Pennsylvania in 1949. In February 1949, he held his first press conference since becoming a cardinal in 1921 to denounce the treatment of Cardinal József Mindszenty by the communist government of Hungary. Dougherty labeled the trial a "mockery of justice." His funeral Mass was celebrated by Bishop J. Carroll McCormick, Dougherty's nephew and an auxiliary bishop of Philadelphia.