Redemptorist Biographers: Digging into the Lore and Legend of the Baltimore Province

Within many of today's communities of vowed religious the archivist sometimes doubles as the institute's (un-)official historian. That has been the case with several of the archivists appointed to serve the Baltimore Province of the Redemptorists, a group whose initial forays into the American mission began in 1832. ¹ It fell to the house chronicler to keep the historical record of each foundation where Redemptorists established themselves. These books eventually came into the possession of the province archivist, whose sole duty was to collect and preserve the memory of their confreres for future generations. Archivists had further assistance from talented writers through the apostolate of the pen, men who tried to articulate the depth of their forebears' work. This is particularly true of three Redemptorist priests of the Baltimore Province: Michael J. Curley, James A. Galvin, and Carl W. Hoegerl.

In important ways, Curley, Galvin and Hoegerl have been instrumental in the promotion of Redemptorist saints and the transmission of the manner and method of religious biography both for their confreres and the wider public. In this essay, I take a page from their work, offering brief biographical data on each priest, as well as an exposition of the more salutary effects their biographies have had in building the reputation of deceased confreres. Their work spans the early 1940s to the present. Each built on the shoulders of giants and each, in turn, bequeathed to his confreres a lasting legacy. All of their papers are held presently at the Provincial Archives in Brooklyn, New York.

Michael J. Curley, C.Ss.R.

Among the most dedicated researchers of Redemptorist history in the United States, Curley's labors display a diligent mind coupled with a lively writing style. Getting the facts straight was a sine qua non, and the lengths to which he went to establish those facts is a model of the historian's craft. Curley amassed an enormous amount of research material for his history of the Baltimore Province, which necessarily meant culling the files for information on Father Francis Xavier Seelos, Father Isaac Hecker, and Bishop John N. Neumann. Additionally, Curley had been gathering material for use in developing a life of Father Joseph Murphy, C.Ss.R. (d. 1965), whose reputation for holiness Curley believed ranked him among the saints. Insofar as his efforts helped support two other major collections in the Redemptorist Archives of the Baltimore Province—the Neumann Papers and the Seelos Papers—his own collection's importance may be measured against so much else gathered up in the province's story.

Michael Joseph Curley was born in Brooklyn on April 28, 1900. The story is told of how his mother, while still pregnant with Michael, attended a mission given by Fathers John Hanley and Eugene Mulheran, C.Ss.R. In giving a blessing on the expectant mother, it was remarked that perhaps the child would be a boy and a future Redemptorist. In the following year his parents, Michael and Rosanna (Hurson) Curley, moved the family to Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, establishing themselves in Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish, today a minor basilica and Redemptorist foundation. In 1914, when he was in ninth grade he was one of 127 applicants accepted for 60 slots for entrance into the Redemptorist juniorate at St. Mary's College, North East, Pennsylvania. There, he evinced a scholar's mind early on. He graduated in 1920 and began the novitiate at Ilchester, Maryland, where he was professed on August 2, 1921. After completing seminary studies at Mt. St. Alphonsus, Esopus, New York, he was ordained June 13, 1926. ² Shortly thereafter, he underwent the first of several surgeries to correct decaying cranial bones.

In April 1928 he was assigned to missionary work at Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, where he spent the next 47 months and volunteered for service in Matto Grosso, Brazil, out of which "no white man had ever made it out alive." In his letters home (he kept a daily log of events), he often mentioned the activities of two future bishops from the province, James McManus and...