PEI's Prince: James McGuigan

Event

1996 no other date provided

01:14:04

Charles Campbell presents the topic “Prince Edward’s Prince: James C. McGuigan (1894-1974)” to the B.I.S. Irish Heritage Lecture Series. Campbell speaks about the early life of Cardinal McGuigan growing up in Hunter River Parish where he was educated as young boy. He then discusses post-school education where he was educated at Prince of Wales College and thereafter entered seminary in Quebec. Charles Campbell then gives a detail timeline of Cardinal McGuigan serving as assistant Bishop to Bishop O’leary and then onto being “crowned” Archbishop of Regina until his death.

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Held by Benevolent Irish Society

Fifty years ago, on Ash Wednesday on February 21st, 1946, the speaker recalls when 51 year-old James Charles McGuigan who was native of Hunter River PEI was crowned to be a Cardinal by Pius XII in the City of Rome. Cardinals were called “Princes of the Church”. The author lays out all the sources that he referred to in preparing this lecture. He relies heavily on a cousin of James McGuigan’s, Peter McGuigan who has written a thesis that is now available at the University of Prince Edward Island and can be read only at the library. That thesis was summarized in the number 36 in the Island Magazine in the fall/winter of 1994. A second source particularly from the Monaghan genealogy is a book by a first cousin of the cardinal, Reverand Sinclair Monaghan who is a Jesuit priest still alive in Montreal when the speaker speaks of him. He traced the Monaghans from their arrival from Ireland in 1838 in PEI. The speaker also refers to Father O'Shea's book and the Brothers O'Leary’s book, particularly for Cardinal McGuigan’s work with O’Leary in Edmonton. Another source was written in 1948 by Claude Lang Fisher covering McGuigan’s time in Rome when he was receiving his red hat. It was not a scholarly book because it seemed to have been written in a hurry. Other information comes from memories of the author’s family (father, grandmother, uncle who served with McGuigan in Regina) including Brendan Campbell who dug up genealogical information about James McGuigan. He will talk about first, James McGuigan’s family background and his 25 years spent on PEI. Second, the years he served under O’Leary in Edmonton. Third, his turbulent years serving as Archbishop of Regina. Fourth, his time in Toronto first as Archbishop (1935-1945) and then as Cardinal at a diocese in the post-war era.
Begins speaking about Cardinal McGuigan. He first talks about his late relatives and then his intermediate relatives. Cardinal McGuigan is the great great grandson of David Johnston who converted to Catholicism in county Monaghan around 1770 and contributed greatly to the construction of St. Mary's church in that county. David’s granddaughter, Catherine Johnson was born in 1797 and was one of five of his grandchildren to have emigrated to PEI. She married Patrick Monaghan in Ireland and came to PEI in 1838. They settled in South Melville, Kellys Cross Parish. She walked 50 miles to South Rustico to attend Sunday mass. It is noteworthy that many years later, her great-grandson will be ordained at the same church. Cardinal McGuigan was born in Hunter River on November 22nd, 1894. He was the third child of George McGuigan and Annie Monaghan. His older brother Martin died in infancy. He had an older sister, Mary, and two younger sisters: Gertrude went through the order of sisters and was known as Sister St. George, and Alice married John MacLeod and lived in Detroit. He also had three younger brothers. Martin was named after the older diseased son. Martin and John both became medical doctors whereas Peter died at an early age. All of the Cardinal’s immediate family are now deceased, but he has some close relatives. His first cousin, Lillian McGuigan was at the lecture. The two first cousins on his mother’s side are Mary Coneck and Anne O’Reilly both in Kinkora. Another first cousin of his is Hope McMahon from Charlottetown who was also at the lecture. He has first cousins living outside of PEI such as St. Clair Monaghan in Toronto, and Genevieve, a sister in the US.
The speaker discusses his extended family on his father's side. Father Peter Dunstan McGuigan is James’ uncle. Fr. Elliot McGuigan was a distant cousin. On his mother's side, he had two uncles who were priests: Father Martin Monaghan and Father Joseph Monaghan who was a member of the Jesuit order for over 70 years prior to his death in 1980. He had six first cousins(all brothers) on his mother's side who became priests, Gavin, Martin Jr., Joe, Alfred, Maurice, and Sinclair Monaghan. Also, he had a few second cousins that became priests Father Russell and Fr. Lorne Smith, Father Eugene Murray, and Father Frank Campbell(the speaker’s uncle). It indicates the kind of family he was born into where religion played a big role. James McGuigan’s father, George McGuigan ran a small grocery store in Hunter River and owned a 40-acre farm, and ran the Globe Hotel. His family was neither considered rich nor poor compared to others at that time. Although the biographer Lang Fisher portrayed the Cardinal as a poor boy from the country who walked 15 miles to school and read Longfellow in the hay loft. Poverty is a relative thing. Though some of that biography may be true, a lot was historical revisionism writing.

Young James Charles attended the local school and progressed rapidly. He passed the entrance examination of Prince of Wales College when he was 12 years old. His parents thought he was too young so he attended it one year later in the fall of 1908. He attended Prince of Wales for 3 years graduating in 1911 with the Governor General’s Bronze medal and his first class teaching license. He taught for one year in Stanley Bridge 1911-1912 saving his money for his future education. He enrolled in St. Dunstan's University in 1912. After discussing the matter with his former pastor, Father John Chaisson, he was undecided whether he wanted to study medicine or take an arts degree at St. Dunstans. He excelled academically and was active in extracurricular activities. He played on the rugby team and served as a lieutenant in the college militia, and was a staff of the College magazine Red and White. He graduated from St. Dunstan’s University in 1914. It was at St. Dunstan’s where McGuigan first came in contact with his future mentor, Bishop Henry O'Leary.
In the fall of 1914, he entered the Grand Seminary in Quebec to study theology and displayed high academic success by winning high honours in philosophy and theology. Most of his studies were in Latin or French. His French was considered excellent. He had French experience from an early age in his Parish church in South Rustico. One of his professors at the Seminary remarked that “this red-haired Irishman speaks better French than many of his Quebec-born classmates”. On May 26, 1918, McGuigan was ordained a priest at St. Augustus Church in South Rustico by Bishop O'Leary when he was not yet 25 years old. The speaker orally learned the story that the dispensation had to be received from Rome because the rules at that time dictates that the minimum age of being a priest was 25. At the date of ordination, he would have been 24 years and 6 months old.
He was assigned to teach at St. Dunstan’s University to teach physics and mathematics from 1918-1919. During the summer of 1919, he went to Winnipeg to assist Archbishop Sinnott. Sinnott was so impressed with the young priest that in August 1919 he wrote to Bishop O’Leary. The speaker reads Sinnott’s letter that praises McGuigan’s productivity and how he will be missed at the end of the summer. It was said that Sinnott would make McGuigan a bishop if he were allowed to.
When McGuigan returned to Charlottetown in 1919, Bishop O’Leary assigned him to be his secretary at the Bishop’s Palace. One year later, when O’Leary was appointed the Bishop of Edmonton to succeed Bishop LeGalle who had passed away, he took McGuigan with him.
Sinnott was not very happy about McGuigan leaving to go home to PEI at the end of the summer and wrote to O’Leary that he wanted McGuigan to permanently stay at his diocese and was willing to trade McGuigan with another priest. Then the speaker speaks about the 9 Edmonton years Mcguigan spent with O’Leary. Most of the priests in Edmonton came from French-speaking Quebec and were unable to adapt to Edmonton's rapidly growing English-speaking population. O'Leary and McGuigan spoke both English and French so they communicated better with their priests than the priests could with their people. O’Leary addressed the problem by writing to his brother Louis O’Leary about getting priests from PEI to go to Edmonton and many did. He established a St. Joseph Seminary for English-speaking priests. They recruited many PEI islanders to study in Edmonton including some who were already studying in the Grand Seminary in Quebec. McGuigan’s apprenticeship was a great training ground for his duties in the future. O’Leary in time gave McGuigan more and more responsibilities. He became Victor General in 1923, and Chancellor of the diocese in June 1924 to get finances in order. Then in 1925, he was appointed rector at St. Joseph's Cathedral. He was named Monsignor at the age of 29. in 1927 he was sent to the Catholic University of America in Washington DC, USA to get his doctorate in Canon Law. In 1928, back in Edmonton, he was appointed a Rector of the newly established St. Joseph’s Cathedral and taught canon law. In 1928, he was appointed Prothonotary. Apostolic by the pope. He could argue cases about canon law as a delegate of the pope.
On January 5th, 1930, the Charlottetown Guardian carried the headline that Monseigneur McGuigan is now the Archbishop of Regina, which brings him into another phase of his career. These are turbulent years, the speaker says. On April 28th, 1930, McGuigan was consecrated as Archbishop of Regina by his long-time mentor, Bishop O'Leary. At age 35 he was said to be the youngest Archbishop in the world. With this appointment, the so-called takeover of the Catholic Church in Western Canada by the PEI Irish was complete. The speaker refers to a picture of O'Leary– the former bishop of Charlottetown from Richibucto, NB who became bishop in Edmonton, Sinnott– Archbishop in Winnipeg, and McGuigan– Archbishop in Regina. Bishop McNally had served in Calgary from 1913 to 1927. The Catholic Church in Canada was to a great extent, a French Catholic Church up until the early part of this century, except for Atlantic provinces and possibly British Colombia. As Canada was discovered by the French, and the French moved westward, the priests had moved with them. Therefore, there were many French-speaking priests and bishops in the Canadian dioceses. But with the opening of the west and the large migration from Europe, many English populations were served by French priests. Getting English-speaking bishops became a problem, and the dioceses didn’t want to be insulting by importing them from Europe. So naturally, they came from other parts of Canada where the Catholic Church was established as a non-French church. The reason for the “Irish invasion” was not a cynical one, but rather out of historical needs. McGuigan who had risen rapidly within the church and who was blessed with success at an early age was about to receive his baptism of fire. Regina could’ve been his Waterloo, but he did not come out of it as Napoleon did but rather as Wellington did. Regina was like what Saskatchewan was in the 1930s. The tasks in Regina in the 1930s faced by the newly appointed bishop were gigantic.
First, there was a massive debt load of 1.2 million dollars at that point in Regina. The diocese faced the imminent risk of defaulting on paying the interest. McGuigan thought that the credit rating of the whole Catholic Church in Canada was at stake should Regina default on the payment. Second, there was a growing English-speaking population that wanted to be served in English instead of by the French-speaking priests. The population of Saskatchewan had grown from 91,000 in 1901 to 930,000 by 1930 which is roughly the population of Saskatchewan today because it had a steady and sometimes out movement of population. ⅓ of that population was Roman Catholic. Thirdly, there was a problem with the French who weren’t satisfied with the fact that a non-Francophone bishop had not been appointed to succeed Bishop Mathieu between 1911-1930. Fourthly, there were political problems which can be divided into two parts. First, there was the oppression of the Catholics by the provincial conservative government of James T. Anderson elected in 1929 and which lasted until 1934. Also, there was the emergence of the CCF Party after the proclamation of the Regina Manifesto in 1933. Initially, James McGuigan had a big deal of difficulty coping with these problems. Now that he stopped working for O’Leary, he had to make major decisions. During the summer of 1930, he took action on some of the issues, he seemed to be overwhelmed by others. In order to satisfy the French, he recommended to Rome that a bishop be appointed for the French southern area of the province which makes it a diocese within the archdiocese. This was accepted but still did not prevent two of the French Monsignors from resigning. While dealing with the French issue, he worried greatly about the other issues. So much so that on September the 11th, 1930, scarcely 5 months since taking office, he experienced a nervous breakdown while attending the consecration of the new bishop for the Gravelburg diocese. He had just completed his sermon in French and collapsed before giving the English version. He was escorted back to Edmonton by Archbishop O’Leary who had also attended the Ottawa ceremony. O’Leary placed him in the care of the Sisters of Charity who ran an orphanage in Edmonton. Apparently, the Sisters helped him cope with his problem so Archbishop McGuigan was well enough after several weeks to travel to Rome in January 1931. In his meeting with Pope Pius XI, it was said that McGuigan begged to be relieved from the burden of Regina. However, the Pope convinced him to return and face the issues. He returned to Regina in February.
While the problems at the archdiocese still existed, he was in a much better frame of mind and resolved the problems with renewed vigor. First, he sold the Archbishop’s Palace to the Franciscans to tackle the debt issue. He was given a modest apartment then to reside in. He launched a series of appeals across Canada. First, he obtained a five-year contribution of between $6,000 to $10,000 per annum. from the Catholic Extension Society. Second, he commandeered Bishops O’Leary, Sinnott, and King who were now in Calgary to organize a campaign aimed at all the bishops in Canada to get them to agree to help pay the interest on that proportion of Regina’s debt that exceeded its capacity to pay. In addition, he launched the Salway Regina Fund (same region) which was directed toward individual Catholics in other parts of Canada. He spoke in rallies and churches all across Canada about the situation of his diocese. Despite the fact that the total provincial income in Saskatchewan fell by 90% between 1931 and 1933, Archbishop McGuigan was able to write to Bishop O'Sullivan of Charlottetown in 1934 that he was not only able to meet his interest payments but in fact retired some of the principal of the debt. He also saluted Canadians assisting the needy citizens of Saskatchewan. He not only gathered money but also 60 box cars of relief goods that were shipped from PEI alone, which is second only to the Province of Ontario. This outpouring of Islanders’ generosity in response to the appeal of a native son was reciprocated. In 1932 when Prince of Wales College was burnt, James McGuigan joined with other distinguished alumni such as Lucy Maud Montgomery and Bishop McNally as a part of a foreign executive committee to raise funds for the replacement of the library books and laboratory equipment for the new college. The other problems that McGuigan faced in Regina were political ones. James T. Anderson’s government outlawed all religious symbols in public schools and the sisters had to dress in lay clothes to teach in public schools. This law was directed toward the French but also affected Catholics throughout Saskatchewan. In 1933, the CCF party was established under M. J. Coldwell. While this was a socialist party it was branded by the establishment as communist. Most Catholic bishops accepted the establishment view and at a meeting of Canadian bishops held in Quebec City, the French bishops pushed for an outright condemnation of the CCF Party. McGuigan, while strongly anti-Communist, led a group of English Bishops pushing for a vaguely worded compromise which in effect circumvented the issue. In the 1934 provincial election of Saskatchewan, McGuigan entered a pact with Coldwell that he and his clergy would remain politically neutral and allow Catholics to vote according to their political conscience. This was frowned upon by many of his fellow bishops who wanted him to condemn the so-called Red Menace. Shortly after he announced his neutrality, one of his clergy, Father Athol Murray expelled two students from Notre Dame for joining the CCF. McGuigan was angry after hearing about this incident. He called Father Murray to task and wrote to Coldwell that Father Murry had violated the political neutrality agreement and that this was a stupid move. Although the Liberal Party won the election under James G. Gardiner, religious symbols weren’t allowed in school until the CCF came to power under Tommy Douglas. In December 1934, McGuigan was appointed the Archbishop of Toronto. He accepted this position reluctantly because he did not want to leave the work which he felt he had only begun in Regina. The people of Regina were saddened to hear about his departure. They had experienced trying times but they felt that their bishop had been with them all the way. While being the Bishop of Toronto was considered to be the most prestigious in the English Canadian church, it also presented challenges that were similar to the ones McGuigan faced in Regina. There was a huge debt of 4 million dollars and a lot of religious friction between Catholics and Protestants, the future of the second school system was in question, and there was a rapidly growing ethnic population. However, McGuigan was older and wiser. And because of his Regina experience, he was not daunted by what he faced. He prepared himself well upon arriving in Toronto to deal with the religious friction, which was evident from his speech on March 20th, 1935 at his installation ceremony which took place at St. Michaels Cathedral and was attended by many invited prominent protestants, the chief justice, the mayor, city counsellors, provincial politicians and the heads of the other major religious denominations.
He was met with great favor from the Protestant community. He then began tackling the other problems facing the Archdiocese including the huge debt of 4 million dollars. He had a very methodical and business-like manner. First, he had a financial analysis of the diocese carried out. /mic break/
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Secondly, he instituted an austerity program of cutting wasteful and unnecessary expenditures along with a program which pooled some of the debt from municipal parishes. Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, he committed the diocese to publish annual financial statements. He felt that people were more willing to contribute if they saw how the money was spent. He insisted that every family get a copy of these statements. Through these measures in his first 8 years, he was able to reduce the debt to 2 million dollars while at the same time building churches and schools in an expanding Toronto.

During 1934-1944 McGuigan returned to PEI on several occasions. In 1937, he came to his home to bury his mother. In 1939, he returned to bless a stained glass window in St. Augustus Church, South Rustico which was dedicated to his parents. Then he went back to Toronto by the way of Washington D.C. to receive an honorary Doctorate of Laws from the Catholic University of America. He returned to PEI again in 1944 on his doctor’s order to take things easy. After a rest, he returned to Toronto by the way of Antigonish where he received another honorary degree and spent some time with his old friend Bishop James Morrison who is also a native PEI islander. On December 24, 1945, Archbishop McGuigan was notified of his elevation to the College of Cardinals. Not only islanders, but Canadians of all denominations rejoiced. His appointment was not only a personal achievement but also of symbolic importance because it meant that the Canadian Catholic Church had come of age. Rome had finally realized the duality of Canada that it is a large English-speaking Catholic population in addition to the French. Previously, the cardinals in Canada were French. McGuigan was the first to insist publicly that it was Canada and not himself that was being recognized. Prime Minister, the Right Honorable William Lyon Mackenzie King acknowledged the appointment. On January 8th, 1946, McGuigan sailed to Rome where he received the red hat on February 21st, 1946. He was picked up in Rome by a Royal Canadian Air Force plane flown from England and operated by a Canadian crew. He was taken to Rome and then to England and received by King George XI along with the newly appointed English cardinal from Westminster and a cardinal from Sydney, Australia. They met with King George VI on March 12th that year. He returned to Toronto where he was welcomed by 1700 cheering clapping citizens at Maple Leaf Gardens. He was also invited to the Legislative Assembly at Queen’s Park where he was introduced by the Premier, Hon. George Drew. The hand of friendship that he extended to Toronto Ontario 10 years earlier was now being reciprocated. McGuigan, however, has not reached the pinnacle of his success.
Post-war Toronto presented new challenges. A new wave of immigration flooded the city. Newcomers who spoke languages such as Hungarian, Polish, Italian, German, Portuguese, and Spanish. Their needs created an ongoing crisis for the Archdiocese. McGuigan’s energy in this period went into a building campaign to provide new high schools, churches, and recreation centres for the diocese’s burgeoning population of Roman Catholics. He also struggled to find clergies to minister to the new Canadians in their native languages.
Cardinal McGuigan returned to PEI during the 1950s. In September 1950, he came to dedicate the new church in Hunter River which was named after the Cardinal’s church in Rome, Santa Maria Del Populo (which was built on Emperor Nero’s tomb). The Hunter River church’s title, St. Mary’s of the People, was from that church. In August 1954, he attended a celebration of his Alma Mater, St. Dunstan’s University. He opened that occasion with a celebration of a Pontifical high mass on the university’s campus. During the post-war years, the cardinal spoke out on social issues seeking just solutions to both national and international problems. He called for aid to starving nations and urged Canada to become generous in its attitude to immigration. He said that he was glad to see that Canada had “wisely and firmly committed itself to broad social welfare measures”. He also continued to insist that religious controversy must be laid to rest. On the latter, the speaker quotes a statement of McGuigan’s that honours each individual’s religion as their conscious dictates and says that all who believe in God have a bigger job to do than quarrelling among themselves. On February 19, 1961, McGuigan resigned as the Archbishop of Toronto at the age of 66 in failing health due to overwork. As he indicated in 1935 when he arrived in Toronto, it was the bishop’s job to spend himself on behalf of the people. He was then a truly spent man. He resigned his duties and they were taken over by Archbishop Philip Francis Pocock, Pocock was not named cardinal. However, McGuigan had difficulties resigning himself. He attended the first two sessions in the Vatican in 1962 and 1963. He was very concerned with the actions taken by Pocock, his successor. One of the controversies within the church at that time in which McGuigan was involved as the cardinal in the election of Pope Paul VI. The controversy was whether the pope would authorize the use of contraception pills. Paul VI formed a commission to look into the issue and studied the issue. McGuigan was upset about Pocock’s stance on this issue. Pocock was on the conservative side of this issue not supporting the pills. Mcguigan wrote a letter to Paul VI but it was intercepted by Pocock so Rome never received such a letter in Rome for Vatican2. Father Hawlor attended with McGuigan. In 1964, Cardinal McGuigan received an honorary degree from his Alma Mater, St. Dunstans University but he was too ill to travel to PEI to receive it. In July 1965 he suffered a massive stroke which left him speechless and immobile for the final 9 years of his life. He succumbed to a heart attack on April 8th, 1974 at age 79. But he was still held in great esteem by the people of Toronto which he had served for so many years of his final years

A full page of Toronto Star on the day following his death was dedicated to expressing people’s feelings towards him. Being very practical is one of the characteristics of James McGuigan and he was a good administrator. He was known better for what he accomplished in a practical way than for any great theological treatise. He did write about social issues rather than theological issues. He was loyal as a priest carrying out what his bishops asked him to do. He was loyal as a bishop and was loyal to his priests, the people, the pope and his church. He was hard working and he believed that a good leader must first be a good follower. He did not demand of others anything that he wouldn’t do himself. He was a very charitable man. There is a story in which he walks down the street of Toronto. Somebody asked him for a handout and he passed 2 dollars to them which were the last dollars in his pocket. He was a magnanimous person who was broad-minded and respected other points of view while holding his own. He was humorous and witty. There is a story where because the mayor couldn’t locate him easily, Cardinal McGuigan asked the mayor if he needed his permission to leave Toronto.

Lecture ends, applause, questions, remarks, comments,
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