Vincent J. McCauley

Vincent Joseph McCauley, CSC (March 8, 1906 – November 1, 1982) was an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church.

He graduated in 1924 and entered at Creighton University's College of Arts and Letters as part of the class of 1928, but in November 1924 left Council Bluffs to join the Congregation of Holy Cross.

July 1, 1925, McCauley entered the novitiate, professing first vows on July 2, 1926.

He then professed perpetual vows on July 2, 1929 and graduated from the University of Notre Dame in June 1930.

He then went to the Foreign Missionary Seminary in Washington, D.C. He was ordained a deacon on October 1, 1933.

He was ordained a priest on June 24, 1934 by Bishop John F. Noll at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, Notre Dame.

McCauley trained at the Foreign Mission Seminary to serve as an overseas missionary.

After his 1934 ordination, the Congregation of Holy Cross, with the economic hardship of the Great Depression, had insufficient funds to send McCauley overseas.

He became a member of the faculty at the congregation's seminary in North Dartmouth, Massachusetts, and the seminary's director of maintenance.

He was responsible for its relocation to the estate of Frederick Lothrop Ames Jr. in Easton, Massachusetts in 1935.

McCauley departed along with another Holy Cross priest and two Holy Cross brothers aboard the RMS Franconia (1922) on October 12, 1936.

He arrived in Dhaka on November 16, 1936.

From 1936 to 1939 McCauley was assigned to Bandhura to work in education, teaching in Bandura Holy Cross High School and forming catechists.

In 1939, McCauley was assigned to evangelize the Kuki people in the Mymensingh District.

While there, he contracted malaria and spent several months of 1940 recuperating.

On October 1, 1940, he was appointed rector and superior of Little Flower Seminary in Bandhura.

His health remained fragile, with frequent relapses of malaria and other tropical maladies.

In December 1943, while on a trip to Dhaka, a severe case of phlebitis caused a two-month hospitalization.

Eventually, during World War II, Holy Cross persuaded the U.S. Army to provide medical evacuation for McCauley.

He was flown back to the U.S. and began an extended period of recovery.

In June 1945, McCauley began as assistant superior of the Foreign Mission Seminary in Washington, D.C., where he had studied.

In 1946, he was appointed superior and rector, a post he held for six years.

This estate became Stonehill College in 1948.

A recovering economy allowed McCauley to be assigned to East Bengal, a territory that roughly corresponds to modern day Bangladesh.

In 1952, he was appointed procurator for the missions.

During this period he began treatment at the Mayo Clinic for skin cancer.

As the chief fundraiser for Holy Cross Missions in Bengal, he bragged that he would log 80,000 miles annually to preach missions and raise funds.

Along with Fr. Arnold Fell, CSC, McCauley was sent to Uganda on a fact-finding mission.

They were sent to recommend if the Congregation of Holy Cross should assume responsibility for a mission in Uganda within the kingdoms of Bunyoro and Toro.

McCauley supported the proposal; superiors in the order agreed, and plans were drawn up to send a group of religious to serve in Uganda.

Despite concerns about his health, McCauley was selected to lead the mission, along with three newly ordained Holy Cross priests: Francis Zagorc, Robert Hesse, and Burton Smith, although they had been selected for service in Bangladesh and had already sent their trunks there.

A member of the Congregation of Holy Cross, he was the first Bishop of Fort Portal, having served as the ordinary of the diocese from 1961 to 1972.

Later, he served as executive director of the Association of Member Episcopal Conferences in Eastern Africa from 1972 to 1979.

A Servant of God, his cause for beatification was introduced in the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in August 2006.

McCauley, the eldest of six children, was born in Council Bluffs, Iowa, to Charles McCauley and Mary Wickham.

His father was a wire chief for American Telephone & Telegraph in Omaha, Nebraska, and his mother took care of the home.

The family prayed the rosary daily.

Active in St. Francis Xavier Parish in Council Bluffs, his father was a member of the Knights of Columbus, and his mother was active in the altar guild and various prayer circles.

These groups later assisted McCauley during his missionary efforts during troubled periods of the Great Depression and World War II.

McCauley attended Creighton Preparatory School, where he excelled in sports, especially baseball, playing semi-professional baseball in Omaha to earn extra money.