HAYES, PATRICK JOSEPH

Cardinal; b. New York City, Nov. 20, 1867; d. New York City, Sept. 4, 1938. His parents, Daniel and Mary (Gleason) Hayes, came from Killarney, Ireland. His mother died when Patrick was five, and he was brought up by her sister and brother-in-law, Ellen and James Egan. After attending Transfiguration School, the De La Salle Institute, and Manhattan College, all run by the Christian Brothers in New York City, he entered St. Joseph's Seminary, Troy, N.Y., in 1888. He was ordained on Sept. 8, 1892, by Abp. Michael A. Corrigan and then went to the Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C., where he received his S.T.L. degree in 1894. On his return to New York City, he was assigned as curate to St. Gabriel's parish, where he became secretary to the pastor, John M. Farley. When Farley was named archbishop of New York in 1902, Hayes was appointed (1903) chancellor of the archdiocese and president of Cathedral College, a new preparatory seminary housed in the chancery building. He retained these offices until Oct. 28, 1914, when Cardinal Farley consecrated him titular bishop of Tagaste. Hayes served as pastor of St. Stephen's parish, New York City, from 1915 until he was appointed military ordinary on Nov. 24, 1917. The U.S. entry into World War I had necessitated rapid expansion of the Chaplain Corps of the U.S. Armed Forces. To meet this need Benedict XV had created a U.S. military ordinariate and named Hayes as its first head. Within a year, the U.S. Army and National Guard increased the number of their chaplains from 25 to nearly 900. Hayes visited military camps in America, but did not get to the European front partly because of the illness of Cardinal Farley, who died Sept. 17, 1918.

On March 10, 1919, Hayes became the fifth archbishop of New York; on March 24, 1924, he was made a cardinal priest. The major concern of his administration was the founding (1920) of Catholic Charities, a widely copied organization that unified and expanded Catholic charitable works. Although he supported temperance and opposed the child-labor amendment on states' rights grounds, Hayes tended to shun controversy and involvement in public issues and restricted his activities mainly to his archdiocese, where he founded 60 new parishes by 1929. Though he was stricken by a severe and lingering illness in 1932, he retained his post as military ordinary until his death. He was one of the four signatories of the Program of Social Reconstruction (1919) issued by the National Catholic War Council and gave firm support to its successor, the National Catholic Welfare Conference. He served also as president of the Catholic Near East Welfare Association and attended the National Eucharistic Congress at Cleveland, Ohio, in 1935 as the personal representative of Pius XI. Hayes was the recipient of numerous foreign, papal, and civic awards.

Bibliography: Archives, Archdiocese of New York, St. Joseph's Seminary, Yonkers, N.Y. j. b. kelly, Cardinal Hayes (New York 1940). parish visitors of mary immaculate, ed., The Cardinal of Charity (New York 1927). g. j. waring, United States Catholic Chaplains in the World War (New York 1924).

[f. d. cohalan]