The challenge of vocations to the priesthood and religious life was a constant headache for the early bishops of the Dioceses of Oklahoma.
To meet the demand to serve this fledgling Church, Bishop Meerschaert plumbed the depths in the fertile vocation grounds of Belgium and Holland. In the first 10 years of the Vicariate Apostolic (the step before diocesan status), 21 priests arrived from Europe to minister to the people of Oklahoma. During his episcopate, there were more than 20 clerics whose name began with “Van.”
His successor, Francis Kelley, sought to recruit more native-born clergy. While that was a more difficult task than he envisioned, by the 1920s it began to take root with the ordinations of eventual bishops Victor Reed and Stephen Leven.
However, it wasn’t until the arrival of Eugene McGuinness as coadjutor bishop in 1945 that fortunes began to turn. Due to Bishop Kelley’s ill health (Kelley died in 1948), McGuinness arrived to be the de facto bishop. The cigar chomping, quintessentially Irish McGuinness exuded a warmth and confidence that was contagious. He boisterously claimed that Oklahoma Catholics were the best.
When he arrived, the frighteningly low number of seminarians (11) caused concern. Always the visionary, McGuinness embarked on a campaign to build churches in rural Oklahoma and at each dedication he would invoke his now famous challenge, “You have given us your money. Now give me your flesh and blood!”
Surprisingly, he did exact an astonishing amount of “flesh and blood.” At the time of his death in late 1957, the Diocese of Oklahoma City and Tulsa boasted 128 seminarians. A common practice of dioceses in the eastern part of the country put limits on the number of seminarians they would take. McGuinness saw that type of thinking as ludicrous.
Vocations to the religious life also were flourishing as the four Oklahoma foundations of sisters had 47 postulants.
It was a time of great hope and optimism in post-war America and the Church in Oklahoma certainly reflected that attitude. The coming of the turbulent 1960s would see many of those vocations questioned and the numbers would never be that large again. In truth, few of those candidates were ever ordained and were winnowed out by the seminary process. Much credit, though, should be attributed to the boundless energy and powerful witness of Bishop Eugene McGuinness.