Early life and education

One of eleven children, Michael Curley was born on October 12, 1879, in Athlone, County Westmeath, Ireland to Michael and Maria (née Ward) Curley.^[1][2] He was one of ten children in farming family. He attended a primary school in Athlone that was run by the Marist Brothers.^[3] At age 16, Curley entered Mungret College in Limerick, Ireland. While at Mungret, Curley wanted to eventually become a missionary to the Fiji Islands. However, after speaking with Bishop John Moore during a school visit, Curley decided instead to go to the Diocese of St. Augustine in the United States after his finished his education.^[2][4]

After graduating from Mungret, Curley entered the Royal University of Ireland, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1900. He then travelled to Rome to study at the Urban College of the Propaganda, receiving a Licentiate of Sacred Theology in 1903.^[2] His ordination was postponed until 1904 due to stress.^[4]

Priesthood

On March 19, 1904, Curley was ordained to the priesthood for the Diocese of Saint Augustine by Cardinal Pietro Respighi in the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome.^[5] He arrived in Florida in 1904, and was named pastor of St. Peter's Parish in DeLand, Florida. He lived in a rented room above a store and ate in a local diner.^[2][6]

In 1914, Bishop William Kenny appointed Curley as chancellor of the diocese and as his personal secretary.^[1]

Bishop of Saint Augustine

Curley as Bishop of St. Augustine

On April 3, 1914, Pope Pius X appointed Curley as the fourth bishop of St. Augustine.^[5] He received his episcopal consecration at the Cathedral of Saint Augustine on June 30, 1914, from Bishop Benjamin Keiley, with Bishops Patrick Donahue and Owen Corrigan serving as co-consecrators.^[5] At age 34, Curley was the youngest bishop in the country.^[3] He spent eight months out of every year on journeys throughout the diocese.^[1]

In 1913, the Florida Legislature passed legislation prohibiting white women from teaching African-American children in schools. At that time, the diocese had white nuns teaching in four schools for African-Americans in St. Augustine, Fernandina, Jacksonville, and Ybor City. Considering the law unconstitutional, the bishop at the time, William John Kenny, told the sisters to ignore it.^[7] In a 1915 letter to the parishes in the diocese, Curley wrote:

We Catholics of the United States are victims of organized vilification and the government itself [through the mails] takes a hand by the distribution of lewd and lascivious anti-Catholic filth. It is high time for the sixteen million Catholics of the United States to assert their rights and claim that protection which their citizenship and demonstrated loyalty should guarantee them.”^[7]

On April 24, 1916, Florida Governor Park Trammell ordered the arrest of three Sisters of St. Joseph for violating the law. When one of the sisters refused to post bond, she was put under house arrest at her convent. Curley vigorously attacked the sisters' arrests, portraying it as a state-sponsored campaign against Catholic schools in Florida. He gained strong support from other Catholic prelates in the United States.^[7][6] Curley attracted national attention in 1917 by battling a bill in the Florida Legislature mandating state inspections of convents.^[2][1] Curley refused to comply with it.^[6] He led a successful legal campaign to have the law declared unconstitutional.^[1] He also sought to educate Floridians about Catholicism and demonstrate the bigotry of the Ku Klux Klan.^[6]

During World War I, Curley was a strong supporter of the American war effort. In 1917, he established the diocesan Catholic War Council, a group that gave spiritual guidance to Florida's Catholic soldiers heading off to war.^[6] He spoke at Liberty Bond rallies. At the end of the war, Curley celebrated a large memorial mass for soldiers who died in the war at Battery Park in New York City.^[6] By the end of his tenure as bishop of St. Augustine, the Catholic population in the diocese had grown from 39,000 to 41,000, with 40 new churches built.^[1]

In 1919, Curley appealed to Bishop Giovanni Bonzano, apostolic delegate to the United States, to end an agreement between the diocese and the Society of Jesus. In 1889, Bishop John Moore had asked the Jesuits to take over Southwest Florida from Tampa Bay to Key West. Curley wanted them to surrender control of the area, along with Jesuit property, to the diocese. In 1921, the Vatican approved an agreement that gave the diocese jurisdiction over the region, but allowed the Jesuits to keep their property.^[4]

Archbishop of Baltimore

On August 10, 1921, Pope Benedict XV named Curley as the tenth archbishop of Baltimore.^[5] His installation took place on November 30, 1921.^[5] His arrival in his new city was described as "one of the greatest welcomes ever tendered a new citizen of Baltimore."^[8] During his tenure in Baltimore, Curley spent $30 million building 66 schools in 18 years, placing the importance of constructing schools over churches.^[1][4] In 1926, he declared,

"I defy any system of grammar school education in the United States to prove itself superior to the system that is being maintained in the Archdiocese of Baltimore."^[2]

Curley also established archdiocesan offices for Catholic Charities (1923) and for the Society for the Propagation of the Faith (1925).^[2] In 1922, during the Irish Civil War, Curley criticized the Irish politician Éamon de Valera, comparing him to the Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa.^[9] In March 1926, Curley criticized the expropriation of Catholic Church property by the Mexican Government and the expulsion of foreign priests and nuns from Mexico:^[10]

In order to preach the doctrine of Jesus Christ in Mexico, one must be a Mexican by birth. If the Savior of the world came back to Mexico, he would be exiled forthwith...because he is not a born Mexican.^[10]

In the mid-1920s, many clergy became concerned about the spiritual well-being of the large number of Catholic students attending non-Catholic colleges. This prompted the establishment of Newman Club movement, Catholic centers at these institutions. However, Curley was a part of a group that denounced the movement, believing that Catholic youth belonged in Catholic universities only.^[11] He made these remarks in 1925:

The men backing the so-called Catholic Foundation Plan are waging a secret hypocritical warfare against the best interests of the Church in America. They are honest. They remind us of the Modernists who were bent on destroying the Church from within. The latter attacked the Church's teachings. The Foundationists attack the Church's right to educate. In fact, they pose as friends of the Church when they tell her to throw her millions of children into an atmosphere of destructive secularism in order that they may be educated.^[11]

In 1931, Pope Pius XI appointed Curley as an assistant to the papal throne, becoming later a member of the College of Patriarchs and Bishops. The next year, Curley celebrated the mass at the end of the Eucharistic Conference in Dublin.^[12] Combative by nature, Curley exemplified the militancy of many American bishops and archbishops during the 1920s and 1930s:

• Condemning the foreign policy of US President Franklin Roosevelt^[12]
• Protesting the anti-Semitic policies of Nazi Germany in 1933^[13]
• Criticizing the American film industry in 1934 for producing what he called filthy films and vigorously fought efforts in Baltimore to open movie theaters on Sunday.^[12][14]
• Denouncing the opening of Newman Centres at secular universities, saying that they undermined Catholic schools.^[2]
• Calling upon American bishops to conduct a study of the influences of communism in the United States.^[2]
• Terming policies of the Second Spanish Republic in 1939 as anti-clerical, blaming it for the deaths of hundreds of Spanish priests and nuns.^[12]

In 1934, a reporter with The Baltimore Sun compared the ruthlessness of Adolf Hitler to the Catholic theologian Ignatius of Loyola in article. After receiving complaints from several Jesuit priests, the Sun printed an apology. Unhappy over what he perceived were slights by the newspaper, Curley demanded a fuller apology and threatened a subscriber boycott. While Curley was visiting Ireland, the Sun worked out a quiet settlement with the archdiocese.^[4]

Archbishop of Baltimore and Washington

On July 22, 1939, Pope Pius XII separated Washington, D.C., from the Archdiocese of Baltimore to form the new Archdiocese of Washington.^[2][15] While allowing Curley to retain his position as archbishop of Baltimore, the pope appointed him as the first archbishop of Washington. He governed the two archdioceses as a single unit.^[2][15]

In March 1941, Curley sued Loyola College in Baltimore and its president, Reverend Edward Bunn, over a bequest in a will. In 1937, Frances Stuart had made a will that named the archdiocese as a beneficiary. When Bunn arrived in Baltimore in 1938, he became a spiritual counselor to Stuart. On January 9, 1940, in declining health, she revised her will using a lawyer suggested by Bunn. In the new will, Stuart added Loyola College as a beneficiary and dropped the archdiocese. She died a few days later.^[4] In early 1940, Bunn tried to negotiate a settlement with Curley, but he was not receptive to him. In February 1941, Curley demanded Bunn's firing as part of a settlement. In May 1941, a jury ruled that Stuart's second will was valid.^[4]

In December 1941, Curley made an inappropriate remark to a reporter about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7. His opponents in the Catholic hierarchy persuaded the apostolic delegate to the United States, Bishop Amleto Giovanni Cicognani, to reprimand him. From then on, Curley avoided any political comments^[2]

Although his predecessor Archbishop James Gibbons was appointed cardinal, Curley never received the same distinction.

Coat of Arms of Most Rev. Michael Joseph Curley

Death and legacy

By 1943, after an operation for a detached retina, Curley had given up his public appearances. Curley suffered from sinusitis, shingles, and high blood pressure. A series of strokes caused him to have partial paralysis and blindness.^[12]

Michael Curley died at Bon Secours Hospital in Baltimore from a stroke on May 16, 1947, at age 67.^[12] He is interred in the Basilica of the National Shrien of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Baltimore.^[1] After Curley's death, Pius XII appointed separate archbishops for Baltimore (Bishop Francis Keough) and Washington (Bishop Patrick O'Boyle).^[5]

Archbishop Curley High School in Baltimore, founded in 1960, was named after Michael Curley.^[16]