Cardinal Edward Mooney (1882-1958)

Born in Maryland, Edward Francis Mooney studied for the priesthood in Rome and was ordained in 1909. He served as faculty member of St. Mary Seminary in Cleveland until 1916, when he founded the Cathedral Latin School in the same city. In 1923, he was assigned to the North American College in Rome. Three years later he was consecrated a bishop and assigned as apostolic delegate to India. Five years later, in 1931, he was appointed apostolic delegate to Japan. In 1933 he was named Bishop of Rochester, and in 1937 he became Archbishop of Detroit. He was named a Cardinal in 1946. During the 1940’s he served as Chairman of the administrative board of the National Catholic Welfare Conference, making the spokesman for the Church in America. A strong supporter of the unionization movement, Mooney became a champion of the rights of the working class and of social justice.