Rite and Reason:Rite and Reason: The remarkable Irish Catholic layman Frank Duff died 25 years ago today. Finola Kennedy looks at his life's work.
When the Regina Coeli hostel, located on Dublin's northside, opened to receive homeless women in October 1930, one of the first to seek admission was an unmarried mother and her child.
So began what was then a revolutionary means of helping women, who had no other support, to bring up their children themselves.
Three years earlier, the Morning Star had opened to receive homeless men. Earlier yet, in 1922, the Sancta Maria hostel opened at number 76 Harcourt Street as a refuge for prostitutes. It continued until the 1970s. Both the Regina Coeli and the Morning Star remain open to this day and are full nightly. The hostels are staffed by voluntary workers.
The person who gave the hostels life was Frank Duff, known worldwide as the founder of the Legion of Mary. An organisation of lay Catholics with over three million active members in more than 160 countries, the legion is also the priest's organisation par excellence, enabling him to reach out and serve a multitude with the help of the laity.
Frank Duff died on November 7th, 1980. His legacy continues to grow. He was born in Dublin on June 7th, 1889. His mother and father, Susan Freehill and John Duff, came from Trim. They were both educated there in the inter-denominational Model School where Susan's father was headmaster. Both John Duff and Susan Freehill entered the Civil Service, as would their sons, Frank, and John, who became Secretary of the Department of Justice.
Frank Duff attended Belvedere College and Blackrock College, where he spent eight years from 1899. In 1908 he joined the Civil Service and was assigned to the Land Commission. In 1924 he moved to the new Department of Finance, where he worked until his resignation in 1934.
Edwardian Dublin during the years of the Long Peace could be an attractive city for a gifted young man. But it was also the city of Seán O'Casey and Jim Larkin - a city reeking with poverty.
In 1913, Frank joined the Society of St Vincent de Paul, membership of which at the time was restricted to men.
In 1921 the Vincent de Paul conference, to which Frank Duff belonged, met in Myra House in Francis Street, as did a branch of the Pioneers and some groups directed towards women and children. Hearing an account of visitation of the male wards in the Union Hospital, some young women asked if they could visit the women's wards.
This request was the catalyst for the founding of the Legion of Mary on September 7th, 1921.
At first, membership, apart from Frank Duff, who attended in an advisory role, and Fr Michael Toher who was the spiritual director, was confined to women.
The first group of men joined Legion ranks when the Morning Star hostel was opened in 1927. The first Legion president, Elizabeth Kirwan, was an office cleaner from New Zealand. The current international president is Tommy McCabe, an executive with IBEC.
In 1931, following a letter of introduction from WT Cosgrave, and with support from the Nuncio in Dublin, the American Archbishop, Pascal Robinson, Frank Duff was received by the Pope. In 1932 the Eucharistic Congress took place in Dublin and many bishops encountered the Legion for the first time. Subsequent to the congress, the Legion began to spread rapidly across the world.
In 1941 Frank Duff was pushing the frontiers in regard to ecumenism with the foundation of the Mercier Society, a group for "mutual understanding" with members of other Christian denominations. In 1942 a similar project was launched in regard to the Jewish community. Due to ecclesiastical restrictions, both were suspended, but both restarted in the 1970s, when Dr Dermot Ryan became Archbishop of Dublin.
In the 1950s work for emigrants was started; the Patricians, or discussion groups on religious topics, were founded and the Peregrinatio Pro Christo began. The Peregrinatio involves legionaries volunteering their holiday time to engage in apostolic work overseas.
In the Legion of Mary the works of evangelisation and of service are based on prayer. Here, Frank Duff led by example. He attended Mass daily, frequently twice daily; he recited Divine Office daily from 1917. Yet his work rate was phenomenal. His total correspondence amounts to over 30,000 letters.
The theology of the Legion of Mary is rooted in the twin doctrines of the church as body of Christ and of Mary as mother of that body. In basing the Handbook of the Legion on these doctrines Frank Duff anticipated the Second Vatican Council.
In 1965 Frank Duff was invited to attend the Second Vatican Council. When Cardinal Heenan of Westminster drew attention to his presence as a lay auditor, the 2,300 council fathers gave him prolonged applause.
In Cardinal Suenens's words, "It was the thanks of the universal church to the pioneer of the lay apostolate".
Finola Kennedy is an economist who has published a study on the influence of Cardinal John Henry Newman on Frank Duff and the role of the laity