DOSWALD, HILARY JOSEPH

Prior general; b. Saulgau, Germany, Sept. 19, 1877;d. Rome, Italy, March 2, 1951. He was born of Swiss parents. After joining the Order of Calced carmelites at New Baltimore, Pa., in 1894, he was ordained Aug. 6, 1900, in Pittsburgh, Pa., by Bp. Richard Phelan. He helped found St. Cyril's College (now Mount Carmel High School) in Chicago, Ill., where he became principal, prior of the monastery, and pastor of St. Cyril's parish. In 1925 he was called to Rome as English-speaking assistant general of the Carmelite Fathers. In 1931 he became prior general of the order; he served in that capacity until his retirement to Whitefriars Hall, Washington, D.C., in 1947. He also acted as consultor of the Congregation of the Sacraments in Rome.

As prior general Doswald increased the order's membership by a third. The commissariate, or preprovince of Catalonia, Spain, was established (1932), the Carmelite mission in Indonesia became a vicariate apostolic (1935), and a mission was opened in Southern Rhodesia (1946). His circular letters to the order were contributions to Carmelite spiritual writing. Two spiritual works were issued trader his direction: Life in Carmel (1934), papers by the novice masters of the order, and The Carmelite Directory of the Spiritual Life (1951), a manual for novices. Doswald also republished the liturgical books of the order: a psalter adopting the new division of the Psalms (1933), a diurnal (1935), a Missal (1935), and a Breviary (1938).

[j. smet]