Lawrence Shehan

Catholic cardinal (1898–1984)

Lawrence Joseph Shehan (March 18, 1898 – August 26, 1984) was an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as archbishop of the Archdiocese of Baltimore in Maryland from 1961 to 1974 and was made a cardinal in 1965. Shehan previously served as an auxiliary bishop of Baltimore from 1945 to 1953 as bishop of the Diocese of Bridgeport in Connecticut from 1953 to 1961. As bishop of Bridgeport, Shehan established new parishes and other facilities to meet the needs of the expanding Catholic population, working to create new ministries for Portuguese and Spanish speaking Catholics. As archbishop of Baltimore, he condemned racial discrimination in the archdiocese and participated in the American Civil Rights Movement. Shehan was one of the first Catholic prelates to condemn the Vietnam War. He was also a strong advocate for building ecumenical ties with the Protestant and Jewish communities. Shehan's reputation has been tarnished by revelations in 2019 and 2023 that he mishandled sexual abuse allegations against clergy in both Bridgeport and Baltimore.

Lawrence Shehan was born on March 18, 1898, in Baltimore, Maryland, to Thomas Patrick and Anastasia Dames (née Schofield) Shehan. Lawrence was one of five children. His father operated a tailors' supply business. Lawrence Shehan received his early education at St. Ann's parochial schools in Baltimore. By the eighth grade, he had decided to become a priest. After graduating from St. Charles, Shehan enrolled at St. Mary's Seminary in Baltimore in 1917, earning a Bachelor of Arts in 1919 and a Master of Arts in 1920. In 1920, the Archdiocese of Baltimore sent Shehan to Rome to continue his studies at the Pontifical Urban University, where he received a Doctor of Sacred Theology in 1923. Following his return to Maryland, the archdiocese assigned Shehan as a curate at St. Patrick's Parish in Washington, D. C., a post he held until 1941. The Vatican raised Shehan to the rank of domestic prelate in 1945. He also formed a diocesan chapter of the Catholic Youth Organization, promoted vocations to the priesthood and religious life, and began parish ministry for the increasing number of Hispanic, Portuguese, and Brazilian immigrants. In June 1962, the US Supreme Court ruled in Engel v. Vitale that public school administrators could not compose an official school and encourage students to recite it. In response, Shehan warned that "secularization threatens to become a sort of state religion established by court decree". That same year, Shehan banned racial segregation in the Baltimore Catholic School System. He participated in the 1963 March on Washington, at which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his I have a Dream speech. In 1963, Shehan addressed the congregation at an Episcopal church in Baltimore and in 1965 did the same for a congregation in Baltimore synagogue. During the fourth session of the Council in 1965, Shehan assisted Cardinal Leo Joseph Suenens in writing a closing message to artists on December 8, 1965. Within the Roman Curia, Shehan held membership in the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity. In 1968, Shehan and Harry Lee Doll, the episcopal bishop of Maryland, founded the Ecumenical Institute at St. Mary's Seminary and University in Baltimore to further positive relationships between different religions. Considered a liberal in many of his positions, Shehan supported the theologian Reverend Charles Curran after he was fired in April 1967 from the faculty of Catholic University of America. Shehan also advocated the abolition of housing discrimination based on race. He condemned American participation in the Vietnam War in 1971, terming the war "a scandal the Christian conscience can no longer endure." While in Australia in 1973, he celebrated a mass for Aboriginal Australians at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl in Melbourne during the 1973 Eucharistic Congress, drawing 20,000 attendees.

Shehan resigned as archbishop of Baltimore on April 2, 1974, have reached the mandatory retirement age of 75 for bishops. The Cardinal Shehan Center, a youth center founded in Bridgeport in 1962, is named after Lawrence Shehan. On October 1, 2019, former Connecticut state Judge Robert Holzberg issued a report on the handling of sexual abuse allegations against clergy by the Diocese of Bridgeport. The report accused Shehan, when he was bishop there, of transferring priests accused of sexual abuse without discipline. In April 2023, the Maryland Attorney General's Report on Child Sexual Abuse in the Archdiocese of Baltimore was issued. It accused Shehan of having failed to report several instances of clerical sexual abuse to the authorities despite having direct knowledge of the conduct from both victims and the parents of victims, as well as from other priests. In the case of Reverend Joseph Maskell, Shehan had direct knowledge of Maskell's sexual abuse and yet "there is no indication that the Archdiocese took any investigative action as a result" of the reports of sexual abuse. In the case of Reverend John Carney, he told investigators in January 2019 of informing Shehan of his sexual abuse of children. According to Carney, Shehan told him to "not talk about it."