Henry Rohlman - Bishop of Davenport

Bishop of Davenport

On May 20, 1927, Pope Pius XI named Rohlman the fourth bishop of the Diocese of Davenport. Rohlman was consecrated by Archbishop James Keane of Dubuque in St. Raphael's Cathedral on July 25, 1927. He was installed the next day as Bishop of Davenport in Sacred Heart Cathedral. The principal co-consecrators were Bishops Edmond Heelan of Sioux City and Thomas W. Drumm of Des Moines.

In 1928 Bishop Rohlman commissioned a study to assess the social problems in the diocese. The result of this study was the establishment of Catholic Charities in 1929. He named the Rev. Martin Cone as its first director. Its immediate focus was the welfare of the children at St. Vincent’s Home in Davenport.

Two colleges for women were started in the diocese during Bishop Rohlman’s episcopate. The Sisters of St. Francis in Clinton established Mt. St. Clare College (now Ashford University) in 1928. It was an extension of their academy, which had been established in the 1890s. St. Ambrose College started a woman’s division in 1934 and continued to support it as it searched for a religious order of women to take it over. In 1937 property was secured for a woman’s college in Davenport on the westside of the city. The Congregation of the Humility of Mary at Rohlman’s urging established Marycrest College in 1939 from the woman’s division of St. Ambrose.

The diocese celebrated its Golden Jubilee in 1931. The next year Bishop Rohlman convoked the diocese’s third synod. The synod was called to bring the diocese’s regulations in line with the Code of Canon Law, which had been promulgated in 1917. It also set the salary for pastors at $1,000 per year, plus household expenses, and associate pastors and chaplain’s salaries were set at $500. Catholic Charities had set up their offices in the Kahl Building. They were joined in 1932 with the chancery and the newly established superintendent of schools. All of these offices and the bishop’s office moved into a property on Church Square behind St. Anthony’s Church downtown. It was renamed the Cosgrove Building after Davenport’s second bishop, Henry Cosgrove.

Rohlman had the difficult task of leading the diocese through the Great Depression and World War II. The Catholic Messenger, an independent Catholic newspaper published in Davenport, was experiencing financial problems during the Depression and was purchased by the diocese for use as a diocesan newspaper in 1937. A national edition to the paper was still published in addition to a diocesan addition for a couple decades after its purchase. The Messenger moved its offices into the Cosgrove Building, until they moved across the street into the Democrat Building.

Until Bishop Rohlman came to the diocese only five priests had been recognized for their contributions to the church by being given a papal honor, all of them from Bishop Davis. Rohlman named monsignors every two years. By the time he returned to Dubuque, twenty-four priests had been honored and five were recognized twice. Bishop Rohlman served as Bishop of Davenport for 17 years until September 8, 1944, when he was named to the See of Dubuque.