Catholic Priests of the Diocese of Wilmington: A Jubilee Year 2000 Commemoration (review)

Catholic Priests of the Diocese of Wilmington: A Jubilee Year 2000 Commemoration. Compiled by Thomas J. Peterman. (Devon, Pennsylvania: William T. Cooke Publishing, Inc. 2000. Pp. iv, 400. $35.00.)

The Diocese of Wilmington, Delaware, is fortunate to have among its priests Father Thomas Peterman, who has such an interest in and dedication to the craft of history. The work reviewed is a successor to his first book on diocesan priests in Wilmington, which was published shortly after the diocesan centennial in 1968, Priests of a Century, 1868-1968 (Cooke Publishing Company, Devon, Pennsylvania). That book included 125 biographical sketches on priests who were either deceased or retired from active ministry. The new book has 346 entries and includes priests in active ministry at the time of publication.

This work does not attempt to study these lives in the context of either diocesan, national, or universal church history. It simply gathers in one place the key facts about diocesan priests, and a few religious priests with long service in the diocese, e.g., Adrian Fuerst, O.S.B., the late Rector of St. Meinrad Seminary, Indiana. Each essay has an accompanying picture and the details of birth, education, ordination, and pastoral assignments. When sources of personal knowledge give the author insight on significant events involving the priest, Father Peterman mentions them. For the eight ordinaries, one coadjutor, and one "assisting" bishop (James Burke, Dominican, who helped Bishops Thomas Mardaga and Robert E. Mulvee from 1978 until his death in 1994) there are more details and some commentary.

For each essay, the first book contained source references and these are absent from the present work. This might limit its immediate usefulness to diocesan historians, but it does not take away from its assistance to priests and people in the diocese today. The reviewer knows of a priest who, at daily Mass, uses the Ordo "necrology" in congruence with this book in encouraging his congregation to remember and pray for those who once stood at the same altar. In providing for history's great task of letting memory serve the needs of today, Father Peterman and those who helped him have given something important for this diocese. The Diocese of Wilmington from 1868 to 1974 served the spiritual needs of Catholics in three states (all of Delaware, nine counties in Maryland, and two in Virginia). With the establishment of the Diocese of Arlington in 1974, the two Eastern Shore Counties in Virginia became part of the Diocese of Richmond. Father Peterman, in his introduction, acknowledges that this is only a small part in the ministry of the whole church, but the lives of the priests described were and are vital to those served.

 

Joseph R. McMahon
Wilmington, Delaware

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