James Charles McGuigan, beggar bishop and cardinal: after a delay of several years Catholic Insight is resuming its history of the Catholic Church in English-speaking Canada. The first instalment will consist of three articles by Mr. Peter McGuigan of Halifax, N.S. Mr. McGuigan is a nephew of Cardinal McGuigan.

James C. McGuigan (1894-1974), appointed Archbishop of Regina when only 35, saved the financial credit of the Catholic Church during the Great Depression by refusing to declare his see bankrupt. Instead, he became a "beggar bishop", travelling to Ontario gathering contributions to keep Regina solvent. His financial acumen, conformity to doctrine and charity were such that at 40, the Vatican appointed him Archbishop of Toronto, English Canada's most prestigious see. Here he paid down a debt three times as large as Regina's, tamed a postwar immigration wave that threatened to overwhelm Toronto, and made Catholicism respectable in this Orange town. Also, he was appointed Canada's first English-speaking cardinal, breaking the Quebec monopoly. As an old man, McGuigan found the Second Vatican Council disturbing and died disappointed, having seen the triumph of secularization.

Prince Edward Island 

The cardinal was the third of eight children born to Annie Monaghan and George McGuigan in Hunter River, Prince Edward Island in 1894. His father was a local merchant. The McGuigans and Monaghans were both descended from the "Monaghan Settlers," those Irish who had fled County Monaghan for Prince Edward Island immediately before the Great Famine. Also, he was proud that a remote ancestor, the Protestant David Johnston, had brought his family into the Church of Rome.

"Jimmy Charlie" attended the local public school. As there were only Protestant churches in Hunter River, the family attended mass at L'Eglise St. Augustine in Rustico. This meant taking the horse and buggy nine kilometres over clay roads that were usually dusty, muddy or frozen. But the service gave the young redhead a chance to improve his school French. He became totally bilingual.

In 1908, at 13, Jimmy Charlie entered Charlottetown's Prince of Wales College. When he graduated three years later, he decided to get a degree at nearby St. Dunstan's College, but had to teach school for a year to finance his further education. Finally, in September 1912, McGuigan enrolled in his first Catholic school, St. Dunstan's. Here he shone, graduating as top student in the spring of 1914. In the audience was the new Bishop of Charlottetown, Henry O'Leary, who would play such an important role in McGuigan's life.

As the "Guns of August" roared at the outbreak of the Great War in 1914, McGuigan, having decided not to pursue medicine at Dalhousie University, prepared to enter the Grand Seminary of Quebec. The local Orange Order was not happy, criticising O'Leary for sheltering this protege from the glorious war (seminarians were exempt from military duty).

Four years later James Charles received his Doctorate in Theology. His rector would recall much later that the young man was "one of the best students we ever had." Returning to P.E.I., McGuigan was ordained on May 26, 1918 by O'Leary at Saint Augustine's Church in Rustico. That fall, with Germany collapsing, the young priest became professor of mathematics, chemistry and physics at St. Dunstan's College.

Unfortunately, he was just in time for the Spanish Flu which was ravaging the world. Twenty-one million would die. On October 7, 1918, the P.E.I. government ordered the closure of all schools, theatres and churches. St. Dunstan's College, located several kilometres outside the capital, established a curfew, but it was too late. McGuigan, now a soldier of Christ, had been serving in the front lines tending the dying students, staff and professors. Now, he himself became desperately ill. After hovering near death, the young cleric finally recovered but had lost much of his hearing, a burden he would have to endure the rest of his life.

In the fall of 1920 when O'Leary moved to Edmonton as archbishop, McGuigan went with him. Here, in the "big sky country," the young administrator's rise was meteoric. He became chancellor of Edmonton, then rector of the new cathedral and of the new seminary, and in 1927, he was appointed monsignor. He was only 32.

Three years later in early 1930, the Vatican stunned the monsignor by appointing him Archbishop of Regina. Only 35, he supposedly was the youngest in the Catholic world. This appointment also completed the demise of the French-speaking hierarchy in the West, a process that had started in 1910 when Bishop Neil McNeil of St. George, Newfoundland, was appointed Archbishop of Vancouver. The other dioceses where French-speaking prelates were replaced by Irish-Canadians were Calgary (1913), Winnipeg (1915) and, of course, Edmonton (1920) [See my upcoming: The Episcopal Diaspora of the Maritime Irish into the Canadian West 1910-1930].

Drought on the prairies

Unfortunately, 1930 was the worst of times to be in Saskatchewan. The previous year another major Prairie drought had begun and that autumn of 1929 brought the stock market crash. No province suffered like Saskatchewan, with two-thirds of the farmers on welfare. Everything appeared to be piling up against the newcomer, even a new anti-Catholic government that had just been elected following considerable agitation by the Klu Klux Klan.

McGuigan's "enthronement" took place in Regina on May 21, 1930 as "the dying sunset sent streamers of dusky light across the sanctuary." Present were O'Leary and Archbishop Alfred A. Sinnott, whom McGuigan had so impressed in Winnipeg a decade earlier. The young archbishop, now separated from his mentor, struggled desperately to stop the growing debt and threatened bankruptcy of his see. Throughout the 1920s, McGuigan had taken on more and more responsibility--which increased his reputation, but pressed him to his limits. Now, he was set for a fall; following four months of sleepless nights and worry-filled days, he suffered a nervous breakdown. O'Leary took his stricken protege back to Edmonton, and eventually sent him to a clinic in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In the late winter of 1931, after he had tried to resign his charge, he was well enough to make a trip to Rome, where he consulted with Pope Pius XI, who convinced him to try again. McGuigan returned to Regina. With his faith in himself restored, he made a gentle re-entry into his duties during February, 1932, before holding a public reception in March. But never again would he be the happy person he had appeared to be; moody as he now was, he could at least function.

Archbishop McGuigan came back to familiar financial problems. He placed severe restrictions on his clergy's spending: the parish priest had to pay his parish's insurance, he could not borrow any amount without permission, and could not "under pain of sin" take his full salary unless he first paid all interest on the parish debt. The archbishop contacted the Catholic Church Extension Society of Canada in Toronto which promised him $6,000-$10,000 per year. That summer, with the help of O'Leary and Sinnott, he wrote every diocese in Canada, asking them to pay an assessment toward the $40,000-$50,000 yearly interest on his $1,200,000 debt. With his own people and priests paying about half the interest and outside organizations much of the rest, the young archbishop was still left a debt burgeoning by $13,000 per year. So in the fall he became a "beggar bishop", travelling to Ontario addressing rallies, soliciting door-to-door and speaking at Masses. That is how he met his interest payments for 1931.

The next year, conditions improved markedly. The summer of 1932 produced the first reasonable wheat crop since 1928. In February, McGuigan had amazed Extension by sending them $400, saying that he was "confident God will bless our diocese." Of course, he also included a list of projects desperately needing financing and asked if individuals could help. The very next week, he announced an appeal named "Salve Regina," after the Latin hymn "Hail, Queen ..."--the name itself suggesting "Save Regina. "It appeared on the Extension page of the Catholic Register. This was an initial success. Also, to reduce the cost of training priests, he established a local seminary, Regina Cleri (Queen of the clergy), which opened in September 1932.

The next two years, however, were difficult. The crops failed in both 1933 and 1934; the latter became the worst year yet. Though his payments were again in jeopardy, somehow McGuigan muddled through.

Toronto

Then, in December 1934, just after his 40th birthday, the Vatican again shocked McGuigan by appointing him Archbishop of Toronto. The prospect was daunting. Toronto's debt was $4,000,000, three times Regina's; the Orange Order ran the city and the Communist Party was strong. As well, McGuigan was worried about O'Leary. Suffering from the infamous O'Leary heart that cut the males down before their time, the Archbishop of Edmonton was dying. McGuigan rushed off to him before consulting again with Pins XI.

Once more accepting his burden, the young prelate returned to Canada. On March 20, 1935 he arrived in Toronto to a tremendous welcome from the Catholic minority in this "Belfast of Canada". His reputation as the "young Lochinvar come from the West" had preceded him.

The first thing he attacked was the debt. As in Regina, McGuigan restricted the financial independence of his parish priests. He also toughened up the seminarians: no more Sunday morning bacon and eggs, and laundry now cost them $80 per year.

Helping his finances were several Catholic millionaires, including Senator Frank O'Connor. He gave his archbishop $200,000 in 1936. This enabled the archbishop to meet his obligations and have a small surplus. The next year, despite a setback in the economy and no special donations, McGuigan again balanced his budget.

The archbishop was not only challenged by debts, but also by the "isms" In the 1930s. The choice seemed to be between Fascism and Communism. The Church, which had been appalled by the establishment of Godless Bolshevism in Russia in 1917, initially favoured the devil it knew: Italian Fascism. Toronto had many Italians and Germans, some of whom were both Catholic and Fascist. At a Holy Name rally in 1936, the archbishop was surprised to see German-Canadians goose step past him and Italian-Canadians give him the Fascist salute. In 1938, Toronto Catholics were to march against both the Fascists and Communists, but McGuigan, afraid to lose the ethnic support, cancelled the anti-Fascist rally, claiming that, "there certainly never was an intention to condemn any ... form of Fascism now existing ..." Events finally forced him to act. In 1939, when the Marxists revealed that some fascist indoctrination was taking place in the Catholic schools, the archbishop barred the rightists. With the war nearing, Fascist interference was gone, and McGuigan had recognized the twin evils of the extreme left and right.

As the Second World War approached, his finances continued to improve. The war boom enabled him to cut his encumbrance in half by 1942, and by less than 20% six years later. The scene was now being set for his massive postwar "brick and mortar" work.

Catholic education

Of course, the archbishop's concerns were not just financial and political. Catholic education was one of his preoccupations. The Ontario government was obliged to fund only the first six separate school grades. However, on February 4, 1936, the Globe became aware that Liberal Premier Mitchell Hepburn would introduce a bill giving Catholic Schools a portion of the long-sought business tax. The paper screamed, "SEPARATE SCHOOLS SHARE CORPORATION TAX." This would mean a windfall of $5,000,000.

Protestant outrage knew no bounds. The Orange Order claimed the legislation was due to the friendship between Senator O'Connor and the premier. The Tortes at Queen's Park attacked Hepburn for "undermining" the common school. A joint letter from the Anglican, Baptist, Presbyterian and United Churches branded the legislation as "unfair."

Ten months later, in December 1936, the Liberals lost a byelection in East Hastings. Hepburn, chastised, withdrew his legislation, claiming faulty drafting. McGuigan, disappointed, accepted the reality, while the Globe and Mail termed the repeal an act of statesmanship. The premier, despite pressure from the Catholics, never tried again. It would be another half century before the separate system received something approaching equal funding.

Even though the government did not increase support of his schools, the archbishop's own educational endeavours were more successful. For example, in 1943 McGuigan appealed for $900,000 for the archdiocesan high schools, saying it was "more important to build Christianity into the hearts of boys than to build the greatest cathedral." The campaign was a wonderful success, gaining $1,700,000. After the war, however, when the work finally began, costs had increased to $4,500,000! Fortunately, religious orders kicked in money, and ultimately, three new high schools for boys and two for girls were opened.

In 1945, however, a very serious threat to the Catholic school system arose when the Hope Commission was appointed to reform Ontario's education system. With few Catholic members and a commissioner described as a "stuffed shirt bigot," there were fears that the separate schools would be lucky to hold the first six grades. Five years later, the Toronto Star headlined the final report: "LIMIT SEPARATE SCHOOLS--HOPE." Catholics who had been able to get elementary level funding for grades as high as 10 would now only have government money for the first six. Fortunately the report was laughed out of Queen's Park as politically naive.

International politics

While the archbishop struggled with political and educational problems, the Second World War erupted. The spring of 1940 brought the loss of that "first daughter of the Church," France, and the trapping of the Allies at Dunkirk. Fervent prayers throughout the Empire, including Toronto's St. Michael's Cathedral, were credited with the "Miracle of Dunkirk." After 300,000 troops were rescued, McGuigan also credited a similar storm of prayer for the defeat of the Luftwaffe over Britain in the fall of 1940.

The German invasion of Russia in 1941 raised the question of the Axis reinforcement by the conquest of the vast resources of the Soviet Union. The Ontario government organized great pro-Russian rallies at Maple Leaf Gardens, gatherings that drew both Hepburn and the lieutenant governor. McGuigan felt obliged to send a representative. Fr. Thomas Manley was designated, and was promptly photographed shaking hands with the Soviet ambassador. The furious Apostolic Delegate, Ildebrando Antoniutti, reminded the archbishop that priests were still being killed in the Soviet Union. McGuigan made sure there were no more embarrassments.

The defeat of the Axis four years later was followed by the dashed hopes of true peace at Christmas 1945. Paradoxically, McGuigan then received the greatest surprise of his life: he had been appointed the first Cardinal from English-speaking Canada. At last the English-speaking Catholics were now on a par with the French! Also, Orange Toronto was almost agog, with the three dailies running stories day after day. The only sour note occurred when the new Cardinal returned from Rome and several Orange city counsillors tried to delay an official reception to "a more appropriate time." The time was now. They lost.

Two years later, the Cardinal was appointed papal delegate to the Marian Congress in Ottawa. McGuigan met with prelates from Eastern Europe, including Cardinal Josef Mindszenty of Hungary, whose stories of Soviet repression made the Canadian's blood "run cold." Mindszenty was to be jailed shortly, along with many others. All the Church could do was rage and pray, and McGuigan wailed that the Reds "lacked truth and justice." During 1950, in consolation, perhaps, Plus XII had the dogma of Mary's Bodily Assumption declared, thereby inadvertently erecting a barrier to ecumenism, or so it was claimed. Protestants dismissed this declaration as "un-Biblical."

The Cardinal's activity in the 1950s seemed a combination of continued anti-Communism and more "brick and mortar" work. With both East and West having the Bomb, the threat of mutual annihilation continued to be a source of anxiety. Not only was Eastern Europe under Stalin's domination, but Marxism was still flourishing in Toronto. It was known that certain Slovene priests were associated with the Communist Party. As well, the head of a Slovene Holy Name Society was using an assumed name and had been a Communist in Europe! These types of problems led to a continuation of the pre-War cooperation between the Archdiocese of Toronto and the city and national police. In the mid 1930s, McGuigan had used the expertise of the Russian-born, multilingual Catherine de Hueck, but after a falling out she was dismissed. This led McGuigan, after the War, to recommend the anti-Communist Toronto Alert, an organization run by another woman, Majorie Lamb.

Bricks and mortar 

Many new parishes had to be built to handle the unprecedented wave of immigrants. Money came from McGuigan's successful $3,000,000 "Jubilee Fund," oversubscribed in 1955 by more than one million. Next, he built a new reform school, St. John's, for those boys "more sinned against than sinning," and finally in 1958 a grand new home for the aged, the House of Providence. McGuigan raised $3,000,000 of the $8,000,000, the rest coming from government.

In 1958, Pope Pius XII died. Angelo Roncalli succeeded as Pope John XXIII. It was John who, fearing that the Church was being left behind, convened the Second Vatican Council on October 11, 1962. Although retired the year before, McGuigan attended the first three council sessions, where he became upset with challenges to the pontiffs authority, the softening of the veneration of Mary, and the calling for a reassessment of contraception. Especially galling was the fact that his successor, Archbishop Philip Pocock, had been allowing "the pill" to be used for up to 18 months after birth, supposedly to space children. McGuigan, however, seeing the "thin edge of the wedge" wrote John XXIII. To his consternation, his letters never were answered. Apparently they had been intercepted on Pocock's orders.

Completing his frustration was the terrible stroke that he suffered in 1965. The Cardinal died on April 8, 1974, released from almost a decade of helplessness.

Born in the Victorian era, Cardinal McGuigan lived to see the widespread abandonment of the Church in the Age of Aquarius. He had become a hero to more than Saskatchewan, overcoming a nervous breakdown to save the financial credit of the Church. In fact he had a genius for financial management. In Toronto he became the great 'brick and mortar' bishop, paying down a debt three times that of his first charge, handling an unprecedented influx of immigrants, and becoming the country's first English-speaking Cardinal. He also guided the Church into a new stage of acceptance and recognition in a city which had previously been known for its hostility to Catholicism. He had done his best. For this we must be grateful.

Bibliography

McGowan, Mark George and Brian P Clark. editors. Catholics at the "Gathering Place." Historical Essays on the Archdiocese of Toronto 1841-1991. Toronto. The Canadian Catholic Historical Association. 1993.

McGuigan, Peter T. "Cardinal James McGuigan, Tormented Prince of the Church." M.A. dissertation. St. Mary's University, Halifax, N.S. 1995.

Moir, John S. editor. Church and Society. Documents on the Religious and Social History of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Toronto. Toronto. The Archdiocese of Toronto. 1991.

Maurutto, Paul. "Private Policing and Surveillance of Catholics: Anti-Communism in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Toronto. 1920-1960" Labour/Le Travail, 40(Fall 1997), 113-36.

Walker, Franklin A. Catholic Education and Politics in Ontario, Volume III. From the Hope Commission to the Promise of Completion 1945-1985. Toronto. Catholic Education Foundation of Ontario. 1986.

Mr. Peter McGuigan lives in Halifax NS. He is the nephew of the late Cardinal James McGuigan