YORKE, PETER CHRISTOPHER

Priest, writer, social reformer; b. Galway, Ireland, Aug. 15, 1864; d. San Francisco, Calif., April 5, 1925. After study at St. Patrick's College, Maynooth, he was accepted for the Archdiocese of San Francisco, completed his training at St. Mary's Seminary, Baltimore, Md., and was ordained on Dec. 17, 1887. He attended the Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C. (1889–91), receiving an S.T.L. degree. The Holy See awarded him a doctorate in theology in 1906 in recognition of his publications.

In San Francisco, Yorke was soon involved in controversy. As editor (1894–99) of the Monitor, official newspaper of the archdiocese, he campaigned against the religious bigotry instigated by the american protective association (a.p.a.). To defend religious liberty against the A.P.A., he formed the American Women's Liberal League and the Catholic Truth Society of San Francisco. At the request of labor leaders in San Francisco, Yorke publicly defended the teamsters' strike of 1901. His emphasis upon the principles of the encyclical rerum novarum (1891), particularly on the right of collective bargaining, helped to turn public opinion in the workers' favor. When he denounced city officials for partiality toward the employers' association and prevailed upon the governor of California to withhold state intervention, the employers agreed to recognize union labor. In 1902 he founded the Leader, a weekly newspaper devoted to the cause of Irish nationalism and the rights of labor. Through this medium and by lectures he continued to defend fend the workers during the street railway strike of 1906–07, and during the prosecution for graft of municipal officials identified with the Union Labor Party. The right of churchmen to intervene in social matters was not generally conceded in his day, nor was Rerum novarum widely known or understood. Nevertheless, Yorke persisted in his efforts to persuade the government to assume its social responsibilities.

Yorke's activities were wide–ranging. He was a vice president of the Irish Sein Fein in the U.S.; the founder of Innesfael, a home for working girls; an advocate of temperance; the founder of the Catholic Truth Society of San Francisco; a regent of the University of California; and a vice president of the National Catholic Educational Association. The Text Books of Religion, which he published in 1901, became standard in the grade schools of many Western dioceses, and he was the author of such works as Lectures on Ghosts (1897), Roman Liturgy (1903), Altar and Priest (1913), and The Mass (1921). While contributing to the religious and social development of California, Yorke also served as chancellor of the Archdiocese of San Francisco (1894–99) and as pastor of St. Anthony's, Oakland (1903–13), and St. Peter's, San Francisco (1913–25), the largest parishes in their respective cities. Annually, on Palm Sunday, the anniversary of his death, a civic memorial service is held at his grave in San Francisco.

Bibliography: b.c. cronin, Father Yorke and The Labor Movement in San Francisco, 1900–1910 (Washington, D.C. 1944).

[b. c. cronin]