Michael Joseph Curley
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Michael Joseph Curley (October 12, 1879 - May 16, 1947), son of Michael Curley and Mary Ward, was a leader in the Roman Catholic Church. After being born in Athlone, Ireland, he was educated by the Marist Brothers and later entered the Apostolic School in Mungret College in Limerick in 1896.
He moved to the U.S. in 1904, when he went to Florida. There, he was named the first resident pastor of DeLand, Florida. He was consecrated bishop of St. Augustine, Florida in 1914 at age 34, the youngest in the Church. After becoming a bishop, Curley wrote home to Athlone saying, "I leave it to you to bring it home to your people that their place is at home with their shoulders to the wheel to give us a greater and better Ireland. This is the message I want to leave you, not that I love America less, but because I love Ireland more."
In 1921, Curley left St. Augustine to become the 10th Archbishop of Baltimore, following the death of Archbishop James Cardinal Gibbons. Becoming archbishop was a great honor for Curley. In 1932, he celebrated the High Mass in Dublin's Phoenix Park at the close of the Eucharistic Congress, at which John McCormack, his fellow parishioner and school friend, gave his immortal rendering of Panis Angelicus. In July, 1939, still serving as archbishop of Baltimore, he also became the first ever Archbishop of Washington D.C..
Remembered primarily as an educationalist, he founded 66 new schools. After his death in 1947, he was buried in the Basilica of the Assumption in Baltimore. Curley is now more famous for having a private high school named for him. Archbishop Curley High School in Baltimore is a small school that specializes in recruiting students for extra-curricular activities.
External links
- Archbishop Curley High School Website (http://www.archbishopcurley.org/index.asp)