Jaspers Get Red Hats

Today in 1924 marks the day that two members of Manhattan College’s Class of 1889 were elevated to the Sacred College of Cardinals, Archbishops George W. Mundelein of Chicago (1872-1939) and Patrick J. Hayes (1867-1938) of New York. Both were born in Manhattan but studied for different dioceses: Mundelein for Brooklyn and Hayes for New York. Both became Chancellors, Auxiliary Bishops, and first president of their diocese’s preparatory seminary (in both cases they were named Cathedral College). In 1915 Mundelein left Brooklyn for Chicago, where he served for 24 years and built some 600 churches, schools, hospitals, convents and orphnages. In 1919 Hayes became Archbishop of New York, where he made New York Catholic Charities the first in the nation. Mundelein started an international incident in 1937 when he referred to Adolf Hitler as a “cheap paperhanger.” After his death, Hayes had a high school named after him, Cardinal Hayes in the Bronx. Mundelein didn’t get a school, but he did have a college and a town named after him north of Chicago: Mundelein, Illinois.