Denis Fahey - Archbishop McQuaid

Archbishop McQuaid

Fahey's writings have been a source of controversy, both in his lifetime and since. Writing to Joseph MacRory in 1942, Archbishop John Charles McQuaid of Dublin stated that

Dr Fahey will certainly not err in doctrine, but he is capable of making statements and suggestions that are not capable of proof by any evidence available to the censors... I have been obliged to watch carefully his remarks upon the Jews. will frequently err in good judgement, and this error will take the shape of excerpts from newspapers as proof of serious statements, unwise generalisations and, where Jews are concerned, remarks capable of rousing the ignorant or malevolent. In his own Congregation, Fr Fahey is not regarded as a man of balanced judgement. He is a wretched Professor, obscure and laborious.

Although Fahey's Maria Duce organization was initially left to its own devices, Archbishop McQuaid grew less sympathetic to it in the latter half of the 1950s. He condemned the group for their heavy-handed reaction to requests for an interview from the anti-Catholic American writer Paul Blanshard (whom Bishop McQuaid felt should have been treated courteously despite disagreeing strongly with him). McQuaid went as far as to write to Fahey in 1954 stating that he opposed the latter's association of the name of the Blessed Virgin Mary with his organisation. Fahey died before any response could be made, and the group was disbanded the following year; McQuaid took on the group afterward.