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John Timothy McNicholas was born on December 15, 1877 in a thatched cottage in Treenkeel, near Kiltimagh, County Mayo, Ireland. He was the second youngest of seven sons and one daughter born to Patrick J. McNicholas and Mary (Mullaney) McNicholas, landowners. In 1881, Timothy John was his chosen name in religious life was brought to the United States, where his parents settled in Chester, Pennsylvania.
McNicholas attended the Immaculate Heart of Mary grade school, followed by high-school training at St. Joseph's College, conducted by the Jesuits in Philadelphia. While a student at St. Joseph's, young McNicholas met the Very Reverend C. H. McKenna, O. P. , an illustrious Dominican who stirred the youth's interest in the Dominican Order and in the work he was later to perpetuate as organizer and first national director of the Holy Name Society. At seventeen, Timothy entered the Dominican Order of Preachers at St. Rose's priory, Springfield, Ky. His philosophical and theological studies were made in St. Joseph's house of studies, Somerset, Ohio, where he was ordained on October 10, 1901. Following ordination, he studied at the Minerva University in Rome, where he earned his lectorate in sacred theology in 1904. Upon returning to the United States, McNicholas was named Master of Novices at Somerset, the school of philosophy and theology for the Dominican province of St. Joseph, which embraced all of the United States east of the Rocky Mountains.
When the Dominican house of studies, Immaculate Conception College, was opened at the Catholic University of America, Washington, D. C. , McNicholas was transferred there as regent of studies and professor of philosophy, theology, and canon law, a post he held until 1909. Named national director of the Holy Name Society, an anti-profanity organization with membership exceeding a million and a half, McNicholas established headquarters in New York City and founded and edited the Holy Name Journal. In 1913, he was appointed pastor of St. Catherine's parish, New York; in 1917, he was elected first prior of the convent attached to the parish. Soon after this, McNicholas was summoned to Rome to assist the Dominican master general, the Most Reverend Louis Theissling. While serving in this position as representative of the English-speaking provinces of the order, he was named master of theology, a provincial of Lithuania, an honorary office, and a professor of theology at the Angelicum University in Rome. McNicholas was the moving spirit in establishing the practice, now customary, of offering a personal Christmas gift to the pope from the dioceses of America. In a pamphlet entitled "The Holy Father at Christmas Time, " he sought to advance the idea of a strictly personal gift from the Roman Catholics of America to the Holy Father that would not interfere with the Peter's Pence offering for the needs of the Holy See itself. On July 18, 1918, Pope Benedict XV appointed McNicholas bishop of the diocese of Duluth, Minn. , where he ruled for seven years, during which, in 1923, he was appointed an assistant at the Pontifical Throne by Pope Pius XI. In May 1925, he was nominated to the diocese of Indianapolis, Ind. , but, on July 8, he was elevated to the archdiocese of Cincinnati and installed there as the see's archbishop on August 12. Archbishop McNicholas furthered the tradition of renowned educators, which he inherited with the see of Cincinnati. School after school he built until the archdiocese was a model of Roman Catholic education on the grade-school, high-school, and college levels.
McNicholas served as episcopal chairman of the department of education of the National Catholic Welfare Conference (NCWC) from 1930 to 1935, and again from 1942 to 1945. He also was a fiveterm president general of the National Catholic Educational Association from 1946 to 1950. His annual NCEA addresses are considered classic statements in the field of education. Other prominent national offices McNicholas held included his ten-year chairmanship (1933 - 1943) of the episcopal committee on motion pictures, in which he played the major role in founding the National Legion of Decency, charged with censoring motion pictures; five terms (1945 - 1950) as chairman of the administrative board of the NCWC; membership on the episcopal committee for the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine (1934-1945 and 1947 - 1950), during which time he had a hand in the revision of the Challoner-Rheims version of the New Testament and directed the writing and editing of the revised edition of the Baltimore catechism. The annual statements issued in the name of the Catholic hierarchy of America for many years owed much of their form and forcefulness to his gifted mind. McNicholas died of a heart attack at his residence and was buried in the Gate of Heaven Cemetery, Montgomery, Cincinnati, Ohio.
In 1928, McNicholas founded the Athenaeum of Ohio as a corporation to control the institutions of higher learning in the archdiocese, and, in 1935, he established the Institutum Divi Thomae as a postgraduate school of theology and science. A teachers' college for training priests, sisters, and laity was also created. At his death, he was acclaimed by pope, president, prelates, and people as one of America's foremost churchmen.
For twenty-five years John guided the Roman Catholic church of Cincinnati in every area of moral involvement.
With all the force he could muster, McNicholas lashed out to excoriate communism. He also constantly championed the rights of labor and of minority groups, especially of the blacks, for whom he established a special apostolate in the diocese. In his appraisal of war, he was a realist who analyzed clearly the distinction between the legitimate demands of patriotism and the evils consequent on war. The archbishop was unalterably opposed to political totalitarianism in any form be it in Germany, in Spain, in Russia, in Mexico, or in the United States.
McNicholas's voice was raised repeatedly reaffirming the rights of God, family, church, and state in molding the mind and character of the child; warning of dangerous irreligious trends in education; upbraiding parents for compromising their rights and duties and the state for failing to support the parents impartially, irrespective of religious convictions and color of skin.
The archbishop's scholarly interest in the history of the church, especially in the American Middle West, plus an oratorical finesse characterized by forcefulness of delivery and exactness of expression made him a much-sought-after speaker for historical occasions in the church.
There is no any information about his personal life.
