Thomas Joseph Toolen

Thomas Joseph Toolen was born in Baltimore, Maryland, one of six children of Thomas and Mary (née Dowd) Toolen.{{cite news|work=The Archdiocese of Mobile: Vocations Office|title=The History of the Archdiocese of Mobile|url=http://www.mobilevocations.com/history.html|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20091214032048/http://www.mobilevocations.com/history.html|archivedate=December 14, 2009}} His parents were both natives of County Roscommon, Ireland, and his father died in 1897.{{cite news|work=Encyclopedia of Alabama|title=Thomas J. Toolen|url=http://encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-1906}} Toolen received his early education at the parochial school of [http://www.southbaltcatholic.org/ Our Lady of Good Counsel Church], and attended Loyola High School and Loyola College.

When he first told his mother he wanted to enter the priesthood at age 12, she expressed her doubt but finally agreed to send Thomas to a seminary when he came of age.{{cite news|date=December 10, 1976|work=The New York Times|title=Archbishop T.J. Toolen Eulogized By Sheen at Funeral In Alabama|last=Dugan|first=George}} He made his theological studies at St. Mary's Seminary in Baltimore.{{cite book|last=Curtis|first=Georgina Pell|title=The American Catholic Who's Who|volume=XIV|year=1961|publisher=Walter Romig|location=Grosse Pointe, Michigan}}

On September 27, 1910, Joseph Toolen was ordained a priest by Cardinal James Gibbons at the Cathedral of the Assumption.{{cite news|work=Catholic-Hierarchy.org|title=Archbishop Thomas Joseph Toolen|url=http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/bishop/btoolen.html}} He then went to study canon law at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., where he earned a Bachelor's degree in 1912. His first assignment was as a curate at [https://archive.today/20130131080238/http://www.parishesonline.com/scripts/HostedSites/Org.asp?ID=1647 St. Bernard Church] in Baltimore, where he remained until he was named archdiocesan director of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith in 1925.

On February 28, 1927, his forty-first birthday, Toolen was appointed the sixth Bishop of Mobile, Alabama, by Pope Pius XI. He received his episcopal consecration on the following May 4 from Archbishop Michael Joseph Curley, with Bishops Michael Joseph Keyes, S.M., and Richard Oliver Gerow serving as co-consecrators, at the Cathedral of the Assumption in Baltimore. Toolen arrived in the Diocese of Mobile, which then comprised the entire state of Alabama and the northwestern part of Florida, on the following May 18.

In connection with the centennial celebration of the diocese, he erected Allen Memorial Hospital in honor of his predecessor, Bishop Edward Patrick Allen, in December 1929. In 1941, Toolen prohibited Catholic parents who sent their children to public schools from receiving the sacraments.{{cite magazine|date=September 29, 1941|magazine=TIME Magazine|title=Education|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,766153,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100903234526/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,766153,00.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=September 3, 2010}} He explained, "The Catholic system of education has been the greatest boon this country has ever known. We are prepared to take care of our children from the first grade to the university...Catholic parents must send their children to the Catholic school. Parents who do not obey are rebellious and should be treated as such."

He was named an Assistant at the Pontifical Throne in October 1949. On May 27, 1954, the Diocese of Mobile was renamed the Diocese of Mobile-Birmingham and Toolen was given the personal title of "Archbishop". Between 1962 and 1965, he attended all four sessions of the Second Vatican Council.

Toolen opened several new churches, orphanages, hospitals, and other institutions that were meant to minister exclusively to African Americans, leading opponents to call him "the nigger bishop". In 1950, he oversaw construction of St. Martin de Porres Hospital in Mobile, which was the first hospital in Alabama where African American doctors could work alongside their white colleagues. He also persuaded a local hospital to become the first one in Alabama to accept pregnant African American women.{{cite news|date=March 1980|work=Ebony|title=God's Mississippi Servant|last=Poinsett|first=Alex}} In 1948, however, he denied the request of Joseph Lawson Howze to be accepted as a seminarian for the Diocese of Mobile.

In 1957, Toolen invited Mother Angelica and the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration to establish a religious community for African Americans in the Diocese of Mobile.{{cite book|last1=Raymond Arroyo|first1=Raymond|authorlink1=Raymond Arroyo|title=Mother Angelica: The Remarkable Story of a Nun, Her Nerve, and a Network of Miracles|url=https://archive.org/details/motherangelicare00arro|url-access=registration|year=2005|publisher=Doubleday}} He broke ground on Our Lady of the Angels Monastery in Irondale on July 24, 1961, and dedicated the monastery on May 20, 1962. From this monastery would sprout an international broadcasting corporation known as Eternal Word Television Network.

Toolen rose to national prominence during the civil rights movement. In 1964, he ended racial segregation in Catholic schools throughout Alabama. He wrote, "After much prayer, consultation and advice, we have decided to integrate all the schools of the diocese. I know this will not meet with the approval of many of our people, but in justice and charity, this must be done. I ask all of our people to accept this decision as best for God and country." However, he publicly denounced the methods of the activists, speaking in favor of a more non-confrontational approach to civil rights. In 1965, Toolen ordered the Society of Saint Edmund to remove the Rev. Maurice Ouellet because he had let his rectory serve as a headquarters for the Selma marchers.{{cite magazine|date=December 24, 1965|magazine=TIME Magazine|title=Roman Catholics: A Question of Freedom|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,834867-2,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080115111307/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,834867-2,00.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=January 15, 2008}}

At age 83, Toolen resigned as Bishop of Mobile on September 29, 1969, after over forty years of service. On the same date, he was appointed Titular Archbishop of Glastonbury by Pope Paul VI. He died in his sleep seven years later, aged 90.

His funeral Mass was held at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception on December 9, 1976. Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, who delivered the eulogy, praised Toolen for "talking about human rights long before there was talk of civil rights." He is buried in the crypt of Immaculate Conception Cathedral.

He established Bishop Toolen High School, in Mobile, Alabama, in 1928. Toolen Hall, on the campus of Spring Hill College, is named in his honor. One of the first projects envisioned by Archbishop Thomas Joseph Toolen when he was assigned to the former Mobile-Birmingham Diocese in 1927 was the establishment of a Catholic high school in the Birmingham area.

Toolen is also remembered for his opposition to the use of English in Eastern Catholic liturgical services. His prohibition against Eastern Catholic and bi-ritual priests celebrating the Divine Liturgy in English was reversed by the Holy See on March 31, 1960, at the request of Melkite Catholic Patriarch Maximos IV."Pope John Reverses Ban on Use of English." Journal Herald,, Dayton, Ohio, December 9, 1960. Referenced in Sabada, Lesna, Go to the Deep: The Life of Archbishop Joseph M. Raya, (2006), pp. 64-65Archbishop Neophytos Edelby. "The Divine Liturgey in the Vernacular." Proche-Orient Chetien (1960). Referenced in Sabada, (2006), pp. 63-64

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{{succession box | title=Bishop of Mobile | before=Edward Patrick Allen | after=John Lawrence May | years=1927–1969}}

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{{Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Mobile|state=collapsed}}

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Category:1886 births

Category:1976 deaths

Category:20th-century Roman Catholic bishops in the United States

Category:Loyola University Maryland alumni

Category:Participants in the Second Vatican Council

Category:Roman Catholic bishops of Mobile

Category:St. Mary's Seminary and University alumni

Category:Catholic University of America alumni