Life and Early Priesthood
Coughlin was born November 8, 1934, in Illinois. The son of Dan and Lucille Coughlin, he was raised on the North side of Chicago, and graduated from St. Mary of the Lake Seminary in Mundelein, Illinois with a degree in Theology. Coughlin was ordained for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago on May 3, 1960. In 1968 he received a degree in Pastoral Studies from Loyola University, Chicago.
From 1985 to 1990 Coughlin was pastor at St. Francis Xavier Parish in La Grange, Illinois. He then became Director of the Cardinal Strich Retreat House in Mundelein, Illinois. In 1995 he began working as Vicar for Priests of the Archdiocese of Chicago under Joseph Bernardin and later Francis George. His work both at the retreat house and in his role as Vicar for Priests—a position that included offering pastoral care to priests, including those involved in sexual abuse cases—would later lead to accusations of impropriety (that he was somehow involved with the overall problem of covering up sex crimes within the Catholic Church) later in his career. However, Coughlin's role was, in his words, a "pastor for priests," helping priests "comply with whatever protocols the archdiocese mandated," rather than making decisions about how accused priests should be managed. The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights called any allegations of wrongdoing on Coughlin's part a "witch hunt." Coughlin held the position of Vicar for Priests until he was sworn in as House Chaplain.
During the mid-80s, during a sabbatical from his work in Illinois, he lived and worked with Trappist monks in Kentucky's Gethsemani Abbey, and worked in India with Calcutta's Missionaries of Charity. He has also served on numerous national and international committees focusing on the subjects of spirituality and renewal in prayer, and served as a scholar-in-residence at the North American College in Rome. He is also a contributor to "The Spiritual Renewal of the American Priesthood," a publication of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Read more about this topic: Daniel Coughlin
Famous quotes containing the words life and, life, early and/or priesthood:
“The two elements the traveler first captures in the big city are extrahuman architecture and furious rhythm. Geometry and anguish. At first glance, the rhythm may be confused with gaiety, but when you look more closely at the mechanism of social life and the painful slavery of both men and machines, you see that it is nothing but a kind of typical, empty anguish that makes even crime and gangs forgivable means of escape.”
—Federico García Lorca (1898–1936)
“... the precipitate of sorrow is happiness, the precipitate of struggle is success. Life means opportunity, and the thing men call death is the last wonderful, beautiful adventure.”
—Alice Foote MacDougall (1867–1945)
“Two sleepy people by dawn’s early light, and two much in love to say goodnight.”
—Frank Loesser (1910–1969)
“The priesthood is a marriage. People often start by falling in love, and they go on for years without realizing that that love must change into some other love which is so unlike it that it can hardly be recognised as love at all.”
—Iris Murdoch (b. 1919)