Francis Patrick Duffy was an American Roman Catholic priest and army chaplain. He was made real to millions as the hero of Warner Brothers' film, The Fighting 69th (1940).
Background
Francis Patrick Duffy was born on May 2, 1871, at Cobourg, Ontario, a United Empire Loyalist settlement, to which his widowed grandfather, Patrick Duffy, emigrated about 1845 from Carrickmacross, County Monaghan, with his five children, one of whom was also named Patrick. To this same Cobourg, at the height of the famine emigration, came his maternal grandparents, Thomas and Mary (Buckley) Ready of Kings and Roscommon. Both families worked long hours in the woolen mills at wretched wages. There they became acquainted, and Patrick Duffy and Mary Ready were married in St. Michael's Catholic Church in 1866. Settling down to a restricted life of laborious poverty, they had eleven children, six of whom lived to maturity. The third child was Francis Patrick, whose frail health freed him from hard labor and committed him to studies and ultimately to the priesthood.
Education
Schooled by the Sisters of St. Joseph and in the secular Cobourg Collegiate Institute, Duffy obtained a first-class teacher's certificate in July 1888. Aided by the bishop of Toronto, he matriculated at St. Michael's College, taught by the Basilian Fathers in affiliation with the University of Toronto, from which he acquired a baccalaureate degree in 1893. This intolerant center made him religiously tolerant. Through his friend Matthew Fortier, later a Jesuit, Duffy obtained a position in the preparatory department of St. Francis Xavier's College in New York City, where he received a master's degree and decided to become a priest. Despite his frail appearance, Duffy was sent by Archbishop Michael A. Corrigan to St. Joseph's Seminary at Troy, New York, in 1894, where he completed his theological course. Assigned to the Catholic University at Washington, for higher studies, Duffy was awarded the degree of S. T. B. in 1898.
Career
Though a subject of the archbishop of New York, Francis Duffy was ordained by Bishop Richard A. O'Connor of Peterborough, Ontario, on September 6, 1896, and said his first Mass in the parish church at Cobourg. About 1898 his parents settled in New York, and he became a citizen on June 7, 1902. As a post chaplain to the typhoid-ridden soldiers at Montauk Point during the Spanish-American War, Father Duffy contracted the fever and recovered slowly at St. Joseph's Hospital, Yonkers. He was then appointed lecturer at St. Joseph's Seminary, Dunwoodie, where he taught philosophy and moral theology until 1912. During part of this period, he lectured at the College of Mount St. Vincent and in the Institute of Scientific Study, established to furnish extension courses to teachers. He did little writing beyond occasional articles, which appeared in the Catholic Encyclopedia, the American Ecclesiastical Review, Homiletic Monthly, Catholic Educational Review, and Catholic World.
Except for pastoral service during vacations at Haverstraw, New York, and at Chelsea, New Jersey, he lacked parochial experience when, in 1912, Cardinal Farley ordered him to establish Our Saviour parish in the Bronx. Here, he built a church and school and was becoming unusually popular with the people of the whole area when, on Cardinal Farley's nomination, he was appointed chaplain of the Fighting Sixty-Ninth Regiment, New York National Guard, the pride of the Irish ever since its refusal to march as an escort for Edward Prince of Wales on his visit to New York. He accompanied it to the Mexican border in 1916, correctly characterizing himself as "a very Irish, very Catholic, and very American person. "
When war was declared against Germany and Austria-Hungary, the Sixty-Ninth recruited through New York with a sound-truck bearing the slogan: "Don't join the 69th unless you want to be among the first to go to France. " It became the 165th Regiment of the American Expeditionary Force and fought in the Rainbow Division, its 2, 000 personnel increased to 3, 600 by accessions from other regiments. The wealthy trustees of the regiment furnished plenty of money "for religion and divilment, " and from the embarkation, October 29, 1917, on the converted Amerika, Father Duffy was the "sogarth aroon" of the regiment whether it was commanded by Frank McCoy or dramatic "Wild Bill" Donovan.
With the men body and soul, in the Luneville and Baccarat sectors, through the activities on the Champagne, the Oureq, and in the Argonne, and later at Remagen on the Rhine, Duffy was confessor, confidant, and patron of every soldier. He knew them by the thousand, and was glorified as "Iron Man" or "Front Line" Duffy, but he secretly grieved as he counted the many casualties.
After the war, he was a hero in New York. He served as president of the Catholic Summer School at Cliff Haven, where he directed a boys' camp, was in constant demand as a public speaker, and received a ceaseless procession of visitors whom he had known in the service. There was some criticism of his tendency to associate too much with the laity in the various walks of life.
In the Church, he remained a simple priest with an assignment as pastor of Holy Cross parish on West 42nd Street. He collected $250, 000 to pay off the debt, established friendships with actors, politicians, and even with the panhandlers of Times Square, and he befriended the poor as he associated with the rich and influential in state and city.
At his silver jubilee in 1921, a committee which included such distinguished persons as President Harding, General Pershing, Cardinal Hayes, Governor Nathan D. Miller of New York, Otto Kahn, and Bernard Baruch collected $25, 000 as a testimonial gift. Ill three months, he died of colitis. He was given a military funeral from St. Patrick's Cathedral, attended by 25, 000 people. President Hoover also paid tribute to "his joyous humanity" and his "devotion to the happiness and well-being of others. "
Personality
Pious, inclined to the vernacular in speech, cheery, flattering, hard-boiled, and at ease under all conditions and with all men, Duffy had what it took to be the outstanding and senior chaplain of the division. Tolerant but not indifferent, he was a favorite with chaplains of various creeds. Despite his vigorous square-jawed appearance and stature of six feet, Father Duffy was never a well man, and as a result of being gassed he suffered from bronchial trouble.
Quotes from others about the person
"Father Duffy was a great Samaritan, a great Catholic, a great soldier. His passing constitutes a real loss to his friends and his country. " - Franklin D. Roosevelt