The Paulists and the First World War

When war was declared by the United States on April 6, 1917, the Paulits responded to support the war effort in several different ways. Paulists Lewis O'Hern and John J. Burke would work on the national level as liaisons to the federal government to support Catholic chaplains and five Paulist priests would don the uniform of the United States to serve as military chaplains for the first time.

Paulists on the National Level

Paulist Father Lewis J. O'Hern had been appointed by the bishops in 1913 to administer the Catholic Army and Navy Chaplain Bureau. Until the war, Father O'Hern had run the bureau by himself out of a small office in Washington, D.C. Acting primarily as a liaison between the bureau's board of archbishops and the newly commissioned priests, Father O'Hern had overseen the appointment of 28 chaplains to the armed services. The demands placed on the bureau by the U.S. declaration of war, however, would dramatically alter his responsibilities. Issues such as chaplain recruitment and training, fair regimental distribution of chaplains, and their supply and financing now had to be addressed. Recognizing that he would be unable to handle these new responsibilities without additional financial and administrative support, as well as a radical restructuring of the bureau's organization, O'Hern turned to fellow Paulist John J. Burke for help.

It was Fr. Burke who first recognized the urgency of the moment. The appointment of chaplains, for him, represented just one of the many problems Catholics would be confronted with while trying to organize the community's war effort. The solution to their difficulties, Burke was convinced, rested in the founding of a national organization to coordinate the community's more than 14,000 lay and religious organizations. If American Catholics were ever to provide a united front in support of the war, together with a successful war effort, the founding of a national organization was critical. Fr. Burke, in fact, had envisioned coordinating a central organization for the American church for a number of years. The war proved to be the impetus to initiate these efforts. He approached James Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore with his idea shortly after the U.S. entered the war. With Cardinal Gibbons's blessing, Burke set out to enlist the support of Catholic America. In August 1917, on the campus of The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., Burke convened a meeting to discuss organizing a national agency to coordinate the war effort of the American Catholic community. One hundred and fifteen delegates from sixty-eight dioceses, together with members from the Catholic press and representatives from twenty-seven national Catholic organizations attended this first meeting. Out of this effort was born the National Catholic War Council (NCWC), the forerunner of the National Catholic War Conference, known today as the National Conference of Catholic Bishops.

To address the issues surrounding the appointment of military chaplains, the NCWC created the Committee on Special War Activities and named John J. Burke as its chair. One of Fr. Burke's first acts as chair was to call for a national census among the community's parishes in order to determine the actual number of Catholics serving in the military. An accurate count would not only serve to identify what percentage of the services was made up of Catholics and thus answer critics who charged that Catholics were unsupportive of the war effort but it would also give the Committee an official number when requesting fair regimental distribution of chaplains in the services. Before the war, it was widely believed that Catholics made up 35 percent of armed services, yet were only assigned 23.7 percent of the chaplaincies by the Secretary of War. The results of the national census confirmed the community's beliefs, showing that Catholics made up almost 39 percent of the services. With this information in hand, the Committee was able to persuade the Secretary of War to increase the number of Catholic chaplaincies to 36.6 percent.

The issue of supplying chaplains with the materials necessary to carry out their ministerial duties was another area of concern for the Committee on Special War Activities. Fr. Burke had already initiated efforts to supply chaplains with these much needed materials in April 1917 when he founded the Chaplains' Aid Association. This organization grew out of an effort to supply chaplains with altar breads. In a small room in the basement of Cenacle Chapel in New York City, Fr. Burke, with the assistance of five women volunteers, made and shipped out altar breads to Catholic chaplains serving in the military. Shortly after its founding, Fr. Burke wrote to John Cardinal Farley of New York to inform him of this new association as well as to ask him to become its honorary president. The Cardinal accepted his offer and immediately appointed Burke to chair the association. The New York City office became the first established chapter of the Chaplains' Aid Association. Dioceses all over the country soon formed their own chapters. Within a few months, fifty-five chapters had been organized nationally. In the spring of 1918, the association was brought under the direction of the National Catholic War Council, where it received additional funding and administrative support. The association provided every Catholic chaplain with a complete outfit for celebrating mass. Fr. Burke supervised the design of the portable "mass kit," which included, among other things, altar linens, a chalice, ciborium, altar breads, sacred vessels, a crucifix, and altar wine. By the war's end, the Chaplains' Aid Association had supplied 1800 mass kits to the 1525 Catholic chaplains who served in the military, both here and abroad.

Concern over the moral environment of the camps led the association to supply religious articles and books to the soldiers. Over the course of the war, the association distributed gratis to the soldiers over five million such items that included New Testaments, prayer books, rosaries, scapulars, medals, and religious books and pamphlets. (Paulist Press would distinguish itself by becoming the largest supplier of Catholic prayer books and New Testaments during the war.) In addition to religious items, the association also provided soldiers with magazines, books, blankets, games, and puzzles.


John J. Burke, CSP

This Herculean effort was undertaken by the Catholic community to support the war effort and attend to the spiritual needs of the over one million Catholic men and women who served in the military during World War I. The contributions of the National Catholic War Council to the life of the American Catholic community were recognized when the hierarchy decided to maintain the Council in peace time. Its successor, the National Catholic Welfare Conference, would soon place on its agenda the issues of social justice, that included the development of a national policy on such issues as the economy and the rights of workers. When the storm clouds of war gathered twenty-five years later, the Catholic community would have in place the infrastructure needed to once again coordinate a national war effort.

Paulists as Chaplains

The great war began a seventy-five year history of Paulists serving as chaplains to the armed forces. Archbishop John Hughes had tried to convince Isaac Hecker to send George Deshon, a West Point graduate, as a chaplain with New York's 69th Regiment during the Civil War.

Deshon politely declined his request. Fr. Hecker would receive requests for chaplains from several other dioceses, but declined to release any of the fathers for fear of "imperilling [sic] . . . the interests of the Missions."

On April 16, 1898, following the U.S. declaration of war on Spain, Alexander P. Doyle wrote to then Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt who was himself about to resign from office and join the Rough Riders about the appointment of a Paulist as an army chaplain, but never received a response.

Shortly after the United States declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917, Paulist Superior General John J. Hughes sent a letter to President Woodrow Wilson via Lewis O'Hern in which he offered the services of the entire order to the country.
Hughes apparently had second thoughts, for only five Paulists would serve as army chaplains during World War I: Thomas Verner Moore, Peter Hoey, Joseph Morris, W. Benjamin Pipp, and Joseph McSorley.

Thomas Verner Moore entered the Paulist novitiate in 1896 at the age of 19. He was ordained a Paulist in 1901 at the age of 24 and in 1903 received his doctorate in psychology at The Catholic University of America working under Edward Pace. After graduation, he traveled to Germany to continue his training under Wilhelm Wundt at the University of Leipzig. Moore would return to Washington, D.C., and by 1910 had accepted a teaching position in the psychology department at Catholic University. Moore concurrently decided to pursue his doctorate in medicine and received his degree from The Johns Hopkins University in 1913.

Thomas Verner Moore

At the time of the war, Moore was conducting a clinic for nervous and mental diseases at nearby Providence Hospital. His pioneering work in this field would distinguish him from his fellow psychologists, making him one of only a handful in this country to have such experience. It was Moore's expertise in nervous and mental diseases that would lead to his service in the U.S. Army. Unlike his other fellow Paulists who served as chaplains, Moore did not volunteer to enlist in the armed services. Involved in his research at the clinic and the university, Moore was reluctant to interrupt his work to serve as a military chaplain.

By midsummer 1917, it was becoming increasingly apparent to Moore that he would be unable to avoid some form of service in the military. He was first contacted by the Army in July 1917 to serve as an army physician. He initially declined the request, but a quickly followed upon second request seemed to weaken his resolve against serving. Torn between a sense of duty to serve his country and a commitment to his own work, Moore anguished over his decision, but again declined the request, basing his decision on the Army's inability to guarantee him the opportunity to act as a chaplain, officially or unofficially, in addition to his medical duties. The Army would have the last say in the matter, however, when in June 1918 they approached the Rector of Catholic University, Thomas J. Shahan, to have Moore released from his teaching duties to accept an Army commission. Shahan, who had offered the services of the university to the U.S. Government upon the U.S. declaration of war, was quick to grant his approval. This time, Moore acquiesced and accepted the Army's offer to be commissioned as a captain in the medical corps.

It would be nearly six months before Moore was able to join the staff of the hospital he had been assigned to near the front lines in France. Taking ill on board ship during the passage over, Moore was sent to a hospital upon reaching France to recover. In a letter sent to Paulist Father Robert Skinner, Moore reported that, having finally reached his assigned post despite reports of his untimely death and the loss of almost all his luggage, he was not only allowed to work in those areas of mental and nervous diseases he had initiated at the university, but that he had also been given permission to minister to the Catholics sent to his hospital.

The experiences of the other four Paulists who served during World War I would differ dramatically from that of Thomas Verner Moore. Answering the call to serve the spiritual needs of the Catholic men and women of the armed services, Paulist Fathers Peter Hoey, Joseph Morris, W. Benjamin Pipp, and Joseph McSorley all volunteered to serve as military chaplains. Despite the initial enthusiasm of Paulist General Superior John J. Hughes, these four Paulists were released with much reluctance. His concerns rested primarily with perceived short ages in covering any enlisted Paulist's position.

The first Paulists to receive their commissions were Peter Hoey and Joe Morris. Volunteering shortly after the U.S. declaration of war, Hoey and Morris were placed in Army training camps for their first year of service. Hoey was sent to Camp Wadsworth in Spartanburg, South Carolina, with the 12th New York Infantry. While hardly the "front line" assignment he envisioned when he enlisted, Hoey soon realized that his services at the camp were as desperately needed there as over in France. He wrote to Paulist Superior General John J. Hughes in the fall of 1917: "Never before have I had such an opportunity to exert myself . . . My congregations have numbered five thousand or more nearly every Sunday and confessional work lasted from early in the afternoon up to the last moment before Taps." Although overwhelmed by the sheer number of Catholics he had to serve, Hoey still found time to work with the non-Catholics, and would later proudly boast in the same letter that he had 20 converts under instruction.
In addition to these priestly duties, Hoey visited the sick and wounded at both the local and camp hospitals and worked to help men with dependents be released from service.


Peter Hoey, CSP

Hoey was eventually sent to France with the 107th Infantry, where he served until the end of the war. The primitive conditions of the front found him saying mass and hearing confessions in the trenches or by a roadside shrine and administering last rites to the soldiers as they lie dying on the battlefield. His surviving correspondence provides us with a vivid, first hand account of the barbarities of trench warfare and the horrors of the war itself. Hoey would receive the Belgian Croix de Guerre for his exemplary service, but his experience as a chaplain would always be tainted by the disillusionment and anger he felt towards the war.

Joe Morris was sent to Camp Bowie in a town outside of Austin, Texas. Like Hoey, Morris was overwhelmed by the number of Catholics in need of spiritual care. Morris, however, would have the assistance of the Knights of Columbus, who had set up a cantonment at the camp. Together, they would work to provide Catholic servicemen with a moral environment to worship and socialize in. While at Camp Bowie, Morris would see first hand the high costs of the Army's rapid mobilization effort. Over crowded conditions in the camp, compounded by the inadequate clothing issued to the soldiers for the winter months, led to a pneumonia and measles epidemic that swept through the camp, leaving many men dead in its wake.

Little is known about Morris's experiences as a chaplain in the Army beyond that which has survived in his letters from Camp Bowie. It is known that he was sent to France with the 144th Infantry, where he served until the war's end. He most likely was sent in the summer of 1918, as his last letter from Camp Bowie is dated June 1918.

For Ben Pipp, Hughes's consent was only gained after a series of letters in which he pleaded his rightful cause in wanting to serve as a military chaplain. As Pipp wrote to Hughes: "I put the matter w[ith] you nevertheless feeling that exception might well be made in one more instance, in that I am the first and only applicant from the Chicago house, and that one from here is a reasonable quota."
Hughes eventually granted Pipp his consent. Pipp would serve as an army chaplain in France. Unfortunately, none of Pipp's correspondence has survived to relate his experience in the war.


Joseph McSorley, CSP

Joe McSorley's efforts to enlist were somewhat more difficult than Ben Pipp's. Not only did Hughes refuse to grant his consent to McSorley's wishes, but, apparently, his age was also a factor. Forty-three years old in 1917, McSorley's age made him ineligible to enlist as a chaplain with the Army. All was not lost, however, when fellow Paulist Lewis O'Hern informed McSorley that he could be assigned to a National Guard unit, the branch of the armed services that did not have age restrictions for its chaplains. Enlisting with the National Guard could allow McSorley to serve as a military chaplain through the back door. If placed with an inactive National Guard unit, McSorley could circumvent the age restrictions enforced by the Army. When the National Guard unit was activated, its assigned chaplain would remain with its unit and accompany it over seas. Whether O'Hern was sympathetic to his friend's desire to serve, or, as he claimed, was unaware that McSorley had failed to receive Hughes's permission first, O'Hern arranged for McSorley to receive a commission with the National Guard.
Once McSorley had received his commission, there was little Hughes could do to prevent him from serving. McSorley would first be sent to Camp Wheeler in Macon, Georgia, where he was assigned to the 106th Engineers. He was then sent to Ft. Monroe, Virginia, to participate in an experimental five week chaplains' training camp with seventy other chaplains. After completing the training course, McSorley was sent to France, where he served for the remainder of the war.

Robert Skinner was the only Paulist whose request to serve was not granted. Rector of St. Paul's College during the war, Skinner struggled unsuccessfully to convince Paulist Superior General John J. Hughes to release him for service. In a rather impassioned letter, Fr. Skinner wrote to Fr. Hughes:

I feel that we are missing a splendid opportunity to fix ourselves most firmly in the affections of the American people. I believe that the Fathers of this generation of Paulists and of the succeeding generation for years to come will regret that advantage was not taken of this opportunity. There will be no question in men's minds as to whether this or that body of men did their proportionate share the question will only be did they do all they could did they do their utmost? We are far from having done this. We began well with your fine offer of all of us to the Government but I am afraid that very offer will become if it has not already become a matter of mirth when placed along side of what we have actually done . . .


Robert Skinner, CSP

Fortunately for Fr. Hughes, the war would end before he was forced, once again, to release one of this fathers to serve in the war. The war became the first occasion for Paulists to serve as chaplains to the armed forces. Some thirty-five other Paulists would follow, up to the present with three men now serving on active duty as chaplains in the United States Navy.