Too Material

Sandy-haired Emmett McLoughlin was born down by the railroad tracks in Sacramento. His Irish father & mother hoped he would become a priest. Emmett went from parochial school to seminary and was ordained priest in the Franciscan Order in 1933. The next year, he was assigned to Phoenix, Ariz.

Soon young Father McLoughlin began to be almost as well-known in Phoenix as the mayor. He organized a slum clearance campaign and wangled federal funds for three major housing projects. He started a church for poor people in a vacant store. Then he began to crusade for a hospital for the poor. He persuaded Mrs. Roosevelt to make a special trip to Phoenix on behalf of the project, and in 1943 the 232-bed St. Monica's Hospital was built, at a cost of more than $500,000. Father McLoughlin served as superintendent. He was also chairman of the Phoenix Housing Authority and secretary of the state Board of Health.

The busy priest had little time or patience for formalities. Mostly he dressed in slacks and a sports shirt, and wore his priest's habit only on formal occasions. Learning that a child who died in St. Monica's might have been benefited by Mexican scorpion serum, which was then barred by customs regulations, Father McLoughlin deliberately smuggled some of the serum across the border.

On becoming a Franciscan, Emmett McLoughlin had taken vows subordinating his own will to the wisdom and spiritual judgment of his Superior. When that Superior, the. Rev. Gregory Wooler O.F.M., decided that the time had come for Father McLoughlin to leave his post, the 41-year-old priest made a rebellious decision.

"Very Reverend and Dear Father:" he wrote last week, "For a period of more than a year, correspondence has taken place between the Fathers of the Provincial Council and myself regarding my position in this hospital and my work in Phoenix.

"You have insisted that I give up the Superintendency of St. Monica's Hospital, the Presidency of its Board of Directors, and finally that I prepare to leave Phoenix. This, you insist, I must do if I am to remain in good standing as a Priest of the Catholic Church and a member of the Franciscan Order. As a reason for your demand you have contended that my activities are too material in nature and do not conform to the spiritual duties of the priesthood . . .

"Since apparently there can be no reconciliation between your decision that I give up my work in Phoenix and my resolve to continue it, I can reach only one conclusion:--! respectfully submit to you my resignation from the Franciscan Order and from the active ministry in the Priesthood of the Roman Catholic Church, as of December 1, 1948.

"I make this decision with the full and prayerful consciousness that God will be my judge."

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