Thomas Aloysius Boland

infobox bishopstyles
name=Thomas Boland
dipstyle=The Most Reverend
offstyle=Your Excellency
relstyle=Monsignor
deathstyle=none |

Thomas Aloysius Boland, STD, LLD (February 17, 1896—March 16, 1979) was an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Newark from 1952 to 1974.

Biography

Thomas Boland was born in Orange, New Jersey, and studied at Seton Hall University, where he was valedictorian of his class. He then entered the Pontifical North American College in Rome, and was there ordained to the priesthood on December 23, 1922. He later chaired both moral theology and canon law at the North American College, and served in other various offices and capacities.

On May 21, 1940, Boland was appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Newark and Titular bishop of Hirina by Pope Pius XII. He received his episcopal consecration on the following July 25 from Archbishop Thomas Walsh, with Bishops William Griffin and Bartholomew Eustace serving as co-consecrators. Boland was later named Bishop of Paterson on June 21, 1947, and Archbishop of Newark on November 15, 1952.

The Archbishop attended the Second Vatican Council from 1962 to 1965, and was later chosen to head the Bishops' Study Committee, to which he was re-elected each of his three years there. He was a member of the Catholic Mission Board of the United States, Chairman of the Episcopal Committee, and liaison between women religious and the hierarchy of the United States as well. Boland was also an advocate of civil rights, and supported the Bishops' Letter on Social Justice in 1958, which emphasized Catholics' duty to ensure that African Americans possessed all rights guaranteed by the Constitution. He retired as Archbishop on April 2, 1974, after twenty-one years of service.

Boland died at the age of 83, and was buried in the crypt of Sacred Heart Cathedral, which he himself had dedicated on October 19, 1954.

External links

* [http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/bishop/bbolandt.html Catholic-Hierarchy]
* [http://www.rcan.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=feature.display&feature_id=115 Archdiocese of Newark]