Molloy, James, 1923-1984.

James Molloy was born in Ireland on June 19, 1923. His father, Michael Molloy, immigrated to London in the 1920's to find work. His mother, Mary Ellen Fitzgerald Kennedy, remained behind in Ireland with their children and continued to operate a small dressmaking business. In 1932, however, the inability or unwillingness of her customers to pay their debts forced the small business to close. Mary Ellen and her children followed Michael to London. Nine year old James remained there for the rest of his life.

In England, James Molloy attended a Catholic grammar school run by the Salesians of Don Bosco. Upon graduation he decided on the priesthood and spent a year with the Salesians as a novitiate. At the end of that year a medical examination revealed a heart problem and he was asked to leave. Molloy instead turned his attention to joining the secular, or diocesan, priesthood in his area diocese of Westminster.

Molloy spent six years at St. Edmunds College in Ware, England before he was ordained at the age of 24. He was then sent by Cardinal Griffin, Archbishop of Westminster, to the English College in Rome. In Rome he read philosophy at the Gregorian University. The result of his four years of study was a Baccalaureate, Licentiate in Philosophy and a doctorate thesis on the Epistemology of G.E. Moore.

In 1951 Molloy left Rome but returned a year later to lecture. He also assumed several other responsibilities including arranging religious ceremonies, ordinations, and pontifical masses and instructing students on how to function as deacons and priests. He was assigned the position of Chaplain at a local convent while in Rome and later took charge of the old college archive and library. This added to the experience he had received at St. Edmunds where he was asked by the Cardinal to rebuild the college's library.

In 1959 Molloy suffered a coronary thrombosis and gastrointestinal hemorrhage. After six years of illness, during which he was unable to lecture, say Mass, and perform other priestly duties, he decided that he wanted to return to the lay state. He later received the necessary dispensations to return to the lay state from Pope Paul VI. In the meantime Molloy had been hired by Virtue, a publishing company, to help produce a Catholic encyclopedia. His work continued with Virtue after he left the priesthood in 1966 and included selling and collecting works on English Catholicism. In 1967 Molloy married Grace Morris with whom he had two sons, John and Timothy.

In 1984, through the mediation of a book dealer, Molloy sold his collection of English Catholic books to the Pitts Theology Library. Among the books was a small collection of Molloy's personal research for a book never written on George Errington. This manuscript concerns Errington's role in the restoration of the English Roman Catholic ecclesiastical hierarchy in the mid-nineteenth century. Errington was a member of an ancient English Catholic family that never converted to the Church of England. Nicholas Cardinal Wiseman asked Errington, a friend from childhood, to be the Coadjutor (or "assistant" bishop) of Westminster with rights of succession as the next Archbishop. A disagreement between the two men led to Errington's forced removal from the position and the ultimate succession of Henry Edward Cardinal Manning to the Archbishopric. The eventual ramifications for the Catholic Church in England were enormous. Molloy concentrated on copying letters relating to the incident from manuscript sources. The letters were microfilmed and many were transcribed. A roll of microfilm is included in the collection.

Molloy was asked, by the Pitts Theology Library, to provide autobiographical information. A seven page letter, from which this sketch is drawn, was received by the library a month before his death on December 3, 1984 and accompanies the collection.

From the description of James Molloy papers, 1660-1984 (bulk 1860-1960). (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 122570859