Archbishop Edward Hanna of San Francisco: An Archetype for Twentieth Century American Catholicism

Abstract

The ebb and flow of American Catholic life between 1850 and 1950, as characterized by the immigrant church, the battles over Americanism and theological Modernism, and the subsequent foundation of the National Catholic Welfare Council is found in the priestly and episcopal career of Edward Hanna. A Rochester, New York priest, Hanna’s career closely followed the ups and downs of the American Catholic Church he served. As a priest he ministered to Italian immigrants while simultaneously teaching dogmatics at St. Bernard’s Seminary. Hanna’s Modernist-leaning essays initially cost him the coadjutor position in San Francisco, but he eventually went to the City by the Bay, becoming local ordinary in 1915. Truly an archbishop of the people, Hanna served the city, the state of California in civic affairs, and the church in the United States as administrative chairman of the National Catholic Welfare Council, guiding this nascent body that typified the ascent of American Catholicism in numerous issues, both domestically and internationally. Archbishop Edward Hanna truly was an archetype of the American Church from the era of the Civil War to the post-World War II period.