Maryknoll's World War One Veterans

Happy Memorial Day Everyone! Last year, I celebrated Maryknoll’s Military Chaplains and their dedication to serving the spiritual needs of the United States’ soldiers. This year, I want to look at Maryknoll’s Society Members with Military Service, starting with World War One. I will be listing off the members who served in World War One, with the information I can find regarding their service.

We do not have much information about the member’s service service in the War. These men served before entering Maryknoll, and their entrance was a new phase of their life. To provide a Maryknoll perspective of the War, I want to share some of the thoughts of Maryknoll’s Founder, Fr. James A. Walsh, MM.

He commented about the war in Maryknoll’s publication, The Field Afar, offering an unique perspective to the conflict. It’s interesting how his views shifted as World War One progressed and the United States’ involvement increased. Give these quotes a read, and then check out all our Veterans at the bottom!

Fr. James A. Walsh, MM, reading in his office

Beginning of World War One

We are pained to learn that Catholic missioners in the Far East are being drafted for this awful conflict of the nations in Europe. Bishop Mutel, of Seoul, Korea, writes that fourteen of his priests have ‘started for the war.’ This means that one-half of all his French missioners, and these the youngest and most vigorous, have left the field.

[…] We admire the patriotic impulses of these returning missioners. They are all formed in the heroic mould, but to us, at this distance, it seems strange… that Shepherds of Christ should feel themselves obliged to leave unprotected the flocks for whose service they had once and for all willingly abandoned home, kindred and country.

Fr. James A. Walsh, MM, Editor of The Field Afar
Volume 8, Number 10, Page 2, October 1914

The War Drags On

We are at war. This necessitates many sacrifices. We make them gladly, and are prepared to make more and greater ones, even to the giving of all that we hold dear in this life. Everywhere that people gather they discuss the War, and follow with breathless interest the fortunes of “our boys.” Joy and sorrow follow one another, according to the news from the front. This is all good and right, for next to love of God is love of Country.

But we have another allegiance, which does not in any way interfere with our love of Country – rather, because it is a higher one, it uplifts and ennobles it. We are subjects of Christ’s Kingdom…

Fr. James A. Walsh, MM, Editor of The Field Afar
Volume 12, Number 5, Page 66, May 1918

The United States Enters the War

Will the mission cause suffer through the entry of the United States into the war? Perhaps it will: perhaps not. Undoubtedly there will be retrenchment among our people, but expenditures for the missions should not be among the first curtailed, and probably will not be. After looking into the face of death we more clearly see the affairs of life in their right proportions. Conscience will not fail to dictate wherein we have wasted time and means that might have been spent in bringing souls to God.

If we must, with agonized gaze, follow our own best-prized young men to the line of battle, our Catholic hearts will tensely pray… that amid this dread tumult the sweet Saviour may see in the Holy Viaticum those of our boys who are stricken down…

Fr. James A. Walsh, MM, Editor of The Field Afar
Volume 11, Number 6, Page 82, June 1917

End of the Conflict

The war is over. Why stand gazing back on the gaping ruins, the blood-stained earth, the fields banked with the graves of young men? The past is useful only as it urges us to something higher to-day and for the future.

The hour has struck for great movements, and the clarion call sounds for another kind of war – an unbloody one… Big as we Americans thought ourselves, we can never again be as small as we were. Henceforward we shall be satisfied only when doing great things, not alone for our country but for the world.

The world-wide spirit is sweeping over us and the more deeply we breathe it the better we like it.

Fr. James A. Walsh, MM, Editor of The Field Afar
Volume 12, Number 12, Page 198, December 1918