James Vincent Casey

James Vincent Casey (born September 22, 1914 in Osage , Iowa , † March 14, 1986 in Denver , Colorado ) was an American Roman Catholic clergyman. Casey was Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Denver .

Life

James Vincent Casey was the youngest of two children from James Gordon and Nina Casey. His father was a politician who served from 1933 to 1935 for the Democratic Party in the Iowa House of Representatives .

Casey attended Osage High School , where he was elected not only class president but also captain of the football team. In Dubuque he attended Loras College , where he earned his Bachelor of Arts in 1936 . He then began to study theology at the Pontifical North America College in Vatican City , as well as at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome . Casey was ordained a priest in Rome on December 8, 1939 .

In 1940 he returned to Iowa, where he began serving as a curate at St. John Church in Independence . Parallel to his job as a priest, he taught religion in schools and coached youngsters in basketball . In 1944 Casey was drafted into the United States Navy as a chaplain . Until 1946 he worked as a pastor in the South Pacific region and was promoted to the rank of lieutenant .

After his return to the States in 1946, he completed his studies at the Catholic University of America , where he obtained his doctorate in canon law in 1949 . In the same year he became private secretary to Archbishop Henry Rohlman . In 1952 he was promoted to papal chamberlain and in 1955 was given the honorary title of Monsignor .

On April 5, 1957, Pope Pius XII appointed him . the auxiliary bishop in the diocese of Lincoln in the State of Nebraska . On April 24, 1957, the episcopal ordination took place by Archbishop Amleto Giovanni Cicognani and the co-consecrators Archbishop Leo Binz and Bishop Loras Thomas Lane . When Louis Benedict Kucera , Bishop of Lincoln, died just two weeks later, on May 9, 1957, Casey took office on June 14, 1957.

Casey was then Bishop of Lincoln for almost 10 years. During his tenure, he established numerous institutions, such as a school for children with special needs, a number of elementary and high schools, and a retreat center . The Cathedral of the Risen Christ in Lincoln was also opened under his leadership in 1965 . From 1962 to 1965 he was a delegate at the Second Vatican Council ; he attended all four sessions.

Pope Paul VI made Casey on February 18, 1967 the second Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Denver. Casey also stood up for the rights of the poor, supported the Hispanic minority and was one of the opponents of the Vietnam War and the policies of US President Richard Nixon in the 1970s . He also granted the laity and nuns more extensive rights. To simplify his lifestyle, he moved in 1972 from the Archbishop's Palace in Denver's Cheesman Park district to a penthouse in a simple apartment building in Washington Park . Casey planted 24 parishes in his diocese. The number of Catholics rose from 261,800 to 330,200.

The last years of his life were marked by a number of health setbacks. He collapsed while playing golf in October 1984 with a ruptured artery in his stomach area. After that he never recovered completely, so that in 1985 he increasingly delegated the official business to his vicar general . On March 1, 1986, he was admitted to St. Joseph Hospital with an aneurysm in his skull . The next day, he had to undergo emergency surgery to remove a thrombus in his brain. He passed out and died two weeks later, at the age of 71.

Web links

• Entry for James Vincent Casey on catholic-hierarchy.org

predecessor	Office	successor
Urban John Vehr	Archbishop of Denver 1967–1986	James Francis Stafford
Louis Benedict Kucera	Bishop of Lincoln 1957–1967	Glennon Patrick Flavin