By Steve Landregan
Special to The Texas Catholic

“The Greatest Generation” is the term that journalist Tom Brokaw chose to describe the generation of Americans who grew up during the great depression and came to maturity during the Second World War.

Catholics, like others of their generation, had been tested and refined by the events of their early years and emerged with a sense of purpose and commitment that would reshape their society and their church.

In the years immediately following the war, Catholics used the GI Bill to return to college and make up for lost time, reshaping the Catholic Church from an immigrant, blue-collar institution to a highly mobile group of educated, white-collar professionals and potential civic leaders. No longer bound to old, ethnic enclaves, they built new communities, new parishes and new schools.

More than a few came to Texas and the Diocese of Dallas was impacted by the enthusiasm and determination of the New Catholic Texans with large families and big ideas.

In 1950, there were 67,069 Catholics in the Diocese of Dallas. In 1955, that number had risen to 96,339, an increase of more than 40 percent, and they kept coming. By 1960 the Catholic population had risen to 119,256. By 1969, when the diocese was divided, it was 180,615.

Coinciding with the influx of new Catholic Texans was the appointment of a coadjutor bishop, to assist and succeed the aging and ailing Bishop Joseph Patrick Lynch, who had administered the diocese for more than 40 years. Bishop Thomas K. Gorman, who had served as Bishop of Reno, Nev., for 21 years, succeeded Bishop Lynch as fourth bishop of Dallas upon his death in 1954.

An era of growth

Bishop Gorman hit the ground running when he arrived in 1952. Over the next eight years, nine new parishes were opened in Dallas and its suburbs, eight of them with parochial schools. In addition he raised the funds for two diocesan high schools in Dallas, Bishop Dunne and Bishop Lynch, which would open in 1961 and 1963.

A new dynamism had come to the diocese and a synergy developed between the new immigrants and the longtime Catholic families who had laid the ground work for the dramatic progress.

Long established institutions grew and prospered; Ursuline Academy and Jesuit High School relocated and expanded. Fort Worth’s Our Lady of Victory College morphed into the new University of Dallas and Holy Trinity Seminary was established on the UD campus.

Cistercians from Hungary chose Dallas for their new North American abbey, contributing their educational expertise to the University of Dallas and establishing Cistercian Preparatory School. Five additional parishes and a downtown chapel were opened in the 1960s.

It was a golden age for Catholics and the Diocese of Dallas. Seminaries and convents were full, a campaign for a new St. Paul Hospital was oversubscribed with the largest sum raised in Dallas to that time.

It was the era of the two Johns, Pope John XXIII, a different kind of pontiff, and John F. Kennedy, the first Catholic president. Excitement and optimism were in the air. It was the time of Camelot.

The old patterns had been replaced, the old ethnic neighborhoods disappeared and a new form of Catholic life and a new Catholic spirit emerged. Movements like the Cursillo, Marriage Encounter and the Christian Family Movement engaged Catholic lay people in a new way.

A changing church

The years following the Second Vatican Council and changing demographics inaugurated a different model of church and the church of the ’50s and ’60s was replaced by a church of converging cultures and hyphenated Catholics. There were more Catholics and fewer vocations. Permanent deacons began appearing in parishes. The Pill, Humanae Vitae, polarization and the Third Wave of immigration once again shifted the landscape of the church and brought about new challenges and opportunities.

New generations are now leaving their imprint on the Church of Dallas. Their greatness will be determined by future generations just as “the greatest generation” was defined by those who followed. Their story is yet to be told.

Steve Landregan, diocesan archivist, is a regular contributor to The Texas Catholic.

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