Background
Thomas Joseph Walsh was born in Parkers Landing, Pa. , the son of Thomas Walsh, a miller, and Ellen Curtin Walsh. His family moved to western New York.
Thomas Joseph Walsh was born in Parkers Landing, Pa. , the son of Thomas Walsh, a miller, and Ellen Curtin Walsh. His family moved to western New York.
He attended the public schools of Pikesville, Allentown, and Wellsville, and the Catholic high school at Wellsville. After graduating in 1896 with the B. A. from St. Bonaventure College, in Allegany, N. Y. , he pursued theological studies at St. Bonaventure Seminary.
He was ordained on January 27, 1900, and was appointed assistant at St. Joseph's Cathedral in Buffalo, N. Y. Walsh, however, spent only five months in purely pastoral duties. In June 1900, Bishop James E. Quigley appointed him secretary to the bishop and chancellor, offices he held until 1915 and 1918 respectively. Charged with responsibility for diocesan finances, Walsh reorganized the accounting system and instituted a method of rapidly assessing the temporalities of the diocese. He directed the fund-raising drive that led to the completion of the Buffalo cathedral, participated in civic affairs, and gained insight into the pastoral and administrative problems of directing a diocese. In 1907 he obtained leave to study at the Apollinaris Seminary in Rome, receiving doctorates in theology and canon law in 1908. Walsh's broad knowledge of the Buffalo diocese acquainted him with the problems of immigrant Catholics, particularly the Italian and Polish groups. In 1911, with the support of Bishop Charles H. Colton, he established the Mount Carmel Guild to supply spiritual and material aid to the needy. Among the guild's early activities were the establishment of day-care centers for children, the conduct of catechetical instruction in the national parishes, and distribution of aid. In December 1915, Walsh became pastor of Old St. Joseph's Church in Buffalo. On May 10, 1918, Pope Benedict XV designated him bishop of Trenton, N. J. The diocese then embraced the fourteen southern counties of the state and numbered 186, 000 people, many of them immigrants. Walsh saw his task as that of promoting religious education and formation for the members of his diocese, while encouraging their full entry into the mainstream of American life. To meet the demands of pastoral service he established twenty-one new parishes and ten mission churches, and increased the number of grammar schools from forty-nine to eighty-nine, and of high schools from five to twenty. He also relocated and enlarged what is now Georgian Court College. In January 1920, Walsh established the Mount Carmel Guild in Trenton. Its volunteers worked for the reform of juvenile offenders, aided the needy, gave catechetical and Americanization classes, and served in other areas of religious, social, and educational need. To fund diocesan operations, Walsh revised diocesan collections to require the wealthier parishes to sustain the poorer. Concerned, as in Buffalo, with the needs of immigrants, Walsh found four members of the Maestre Pie Filippini serving the Italian community at Trenton. Recognizing the potential of the small religious community, he fostered its growth even beyond his own diocese. He encouraged bicultural education, so that the sisters could bridge the old world and the new, helping immigrants to adapt to American culture while retaining the language and other elements of their heritage. In March 1928, Walsh was transferred to the see of Newark, N. J. , which embraced the seven northern counties of the state. There, as in Trenton, he focused upon the fulfillment of pastoral needs, education, and social service. His concern for minority groups was reflected in the parishes in Newark and Jersey City specifically created for the black communities there and, in Newark, for that city's Spanish-Portuguese group. He also early established the Mount Carmel Guild in Newark. By 1932, 35, 000 volunteers were working at twenty-eight centers. In December 1937, the Holy See created the dioceses of Camden and Paterson and designated Newark the archdiocesan see of New Jersey, with Walsh as its first archbishop. After World War II, Walsh responded to continued growth and suburbanization with the creation of many new parishes and schools. He stimulated the development of Seton Hall University at South Orange, assisted in its establishment of urban centers in Newark, Jersey City, and Paterson, and helped found Caldwell College. In 1951 he founded the Advocate, an archdiocesan weekly newspaper. Walsh died in South Orange, N. J. The affectionate sobriquet Bishop of Charity and Education accurately summed up the major expressions of his pastoral concern.
