Paul Hanly Furfey

Paul Hanly Furfey (1896 – 1992) was an American Catholic priest and sociologist, whom his biographer, Nicholas K. Rademacher, called "one of U.S. Catholicism’s greatest champions of peace and social justice." He was spiritual advisor to Servant of God Catherine de Hueck Doherty, founder of the Madonna House Apostolate and Friendship House, until she left Harlem and returned to Canada, and they remained frequent correspondents. He introduced Doherty to Servant of God Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin. Thomas Merton considered him a strong early spiritual influence who caused him to more deeply consider the path he eventually took, entering the Trappist monastery.

Early life and education Furfey was born on June 30, 1896, to Margaret Hanly Connell Furfey and James A. Furfey in Cambridge, Massachusetts. After Catholic elementary and secondary education in Cambridge, he earned an A.B. (bachelor of arts) from Boston College in 1917. He studied psychology at Catholic University of America as a Knights of Columbus fellow, and then transferred, earning his master's degree from St. Mary's Seminary and University in 1918.

Furfey counted priest and psychologist-psychiatrist Thomas Verner Moore as one of his great influences. He was ordained to the priesthood of the Archdiocese of Baltimore in 1922 and began his doctoral work in sociology at Catholic University, graduating in 1926. He studied medicine in Germany on a sabbatical, where Rademacher writes that he witnessed the "increasingly desperate" and "polarized" political landscape there just before the start of the Second World War, from 1931 to 1932. He was influenced by the Catholic-left religious communities such as the Bowery's Catholic Worker, founded by his friends Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, Harlem's Friendship House, founded by his spiritual directee Catherine Doherty, and the settlement house movement.

As chair of sociology at Catholic University for 32 years, from 1934 to 1966, he became what Santa Clara professor of spirituality Bruce H. Lescher calls "one of the leading spokespersons of the Catholic left."

Community houses for social justice in Washington, DC In 1936, with sociologist Gladys Sellew and department colleague Mary Elizabeth Walsh, he cofounded Il Poverello House at 2119 10th Street NW. The name of the house came from St. Francis of Assisi, who was known as "Il Poverello," the little poor man. There they demonstrated that they could live on 15 cents a day, the rough equivalent of $3 in the 2020s. Emanuel A. Romero, a prominent Black Catholic author advocating interracial justice, wrote in detail of the house, describing it as coming "as close to the heart of Catholic interracial work as anything I know."