George Mundelein

George William Mundelein (July 2, 1872 – October 2, 1939) was an American Catholic prelate who served as Archbishop of Chicago from 1915 until his death in 1939. He was created a cardinal in 1924.

Early life and education George William Mundelein was born on July 2, 1872, at his parents' home on Avenue C in the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City. He was the only son of Francis and Mary (née Goetz) Mundelein. Mundelein's maternal grandfather, Valentine Goetz, served in the 31st New York Infantry Regiment during the American Civil War and died at the Battle of Eltham's Landing in 1862.

Mundelein received his early education at the parochial school of St. Nicholas Kirche, a national parish for German Catholics in Manhattan.

Mundelein won a scholarship for German-speaking candidates for the priesthood who would serve in the Diocese of Brooklyn, and subsequently entered St. Vincent Seminary in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. After graduating from St. Vincent's, he was too young to be ordained so Bishop Charles Edward McDonnell of Brooklyn sent him to Rome in 1892 to further his studies at the Pontifical Urban College for the Propagation of the Faith.

He served as chancellor of the Diocese of Brooklyn from 1897 to 1909. At the time, the cathedral was unfinished and parishioners worshiped in a small chapel; Queen of All Saints, which also housed a parochial school, was dedicated on Thanksgiving Day 1913. As he was dieting on the evening of the dinner, Mundelein ate only a bite or two of the soup and was unharmed. There were three fatalities, including Andrew J. Graham (a banker who had been a mayoral candidate in 1911). Newspapers later referred to the incident as the "Mundelein poison soup plot".

Police were unable to apprehend Crones after the supper. Their investigation revealed that his real name was Nestor Dondoglio and that he belonged to the Galleanist circle of anarchists.

Catholic schools Almost half the Chicago population was Catholic by the 1920s. For decades, the parishes had been building and running their own schools, employing religious sisters as inexpensive teachers. The desire of some was that the language of instruction should match the ethnicity of the parish (with many Polish, and until World War II, many German parishioners popularly promoting that instruction, especially religious instruction, be provided in the language of their heritage). Whereas virtually every parish was required to operate its own elementary school, Mundelein felt that the parish priests were inadequate to supervise high schools and the highly qualified religious Orders that usually operated such schools. As a result, on taking office, Mundelein centralized control of the archdiocesan high schools and encouraged the closure of parish high schools in favor of new centralized high schools operated by a teaching religious Order. The archdiocesan building committee now picked the locations for new high schools while its school board standardized the school curricula, textbooks, teacher training, testing, and educational policies. As a result, fewer parish high schools existed within the Archdiocese of Chicago after the 1930s. Whereas many of the parish high schools were phased out at the time (notable exceptions that survived for decades afterwards included St. Francis de Sales High School; St. Gregory High School; and St. Procopius High School), and a slow process of closure that was only complete by the late 1960s began for the last of the parish high schools; permission was upheld from the opening of new parish high schools. Simultaneously he gained a voice in city hall, and Catholic William J. Bogan became superintendent of public schools.

Mundelein served as papal legate to the eighth National Eucharistic Congress in New Orleans, Louisiana, on September 13, 1938. He also served as a cardinal elector in the 1939 papal conclave that selected Pope Pius XII.

Death Mundelein died from heart disease in his sleep on October 2, 1939, in Mundelein, Illinois (a village renamed in his own honor 14 years prior to his death), at age 67. He is buried behind the main altar of the chapel at Mundelein Seminary, which was founded on his initiative.

Views

Church and politics Considered a liberal, Mundelein was a friend of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt and a supporter of Roosevelt's New Deal initiative. A staunch supporter of trade unions, Mundelein once remarked:

Film industry Mundelein commented on the film industry in 1934, saying, "We don't like the Mae West type ... The kind of film in which Will Rogers, Janet Gaynor, and Victor Moore appear is what we have in mind."

Marriage In 1935, Mundelein said "that not war, nor famine, nor pestilence have brought so much suffering and pain to the human race, as have hasty, ill-advised marriages, unions entered into without the knowledge, the preparation, the thought even an important commercial contract merits and receives. God made marriage an indissoluble contract, Christ made it a sacrament, the world today has made it a plaything of passion, an accompaniment of sex, a scrap of paper to be torn up at the whim of the participants." He was an outspoken opponent of artificial contraception.

Ethnic groups During his tenure in Chicago, Mundelein launched an effort to unify ethnic Catholic groups such as the Poles and Italians into territorial, instead of ethnic, parishes with mixed success. St. Monica's parish, however, was endorsed by Mundelein as the city's sole black parish, leading to distaste for the archbishop in both the early 1900s and today. After constructing the landmark Archbishop Quigley Preparatory Seminary in Chicago, Mundelein built St. Mary of the Lake Seminary, later renamed Mundelein Seminary in his honor, in what is now Mundelein, Illinois. Quigley Seminary was the site of Mundelein's 1937 "paper hanger" speech, criticizing German Chancellor Adolf Hitler and other Nazi leaders. He also organized the construction of other churches in the see, such as the Saint Philip Neri church and the Corpus Christi Church, both designed by Chicago architect Joseph W. McCarthy. He publicly sparred with the Father Charles Coughlin, the Detroit Catholic priest who broadcast anti-banking and anti-Semitic views to millions of radio listeners until he was forced off the air in 1939.