Rev. John P. Whalen was born on January 4, 1928. His family consisted of his parents, Mary and Philip Whalen, and his two siblings, Joseph P. Whalen and Louis Welch nee Whalen. An academic priest primarily, he was a man of many experiences and professional activities. Ordained as a Roman Catholic Priest in 1953, with his family in attendance, Fr. Whalen began his consecrated life in the employ of the Diocese of Albany, NY. In the following years he would pursue many academic vocations, including earning S.T.L., M.A. in Education, and S.T.D. degrees from CUA, managing the publication of the New Catholic Encyclopedia, and teaching math, chemistry, philosophy and theology at many Catholic institutions of higher education in New York, Maryland, and Washington D.C. Notably during that time, he served on the faculty of the School of Sacred Theology at CUA and managed Corpus Instrumentorum publishing arm during the era surrounding the Vatican II Council and the Humanae Vitae encyclical.
In October of 1967, in the midst of administrative upheaval, he became the Acting Rector of CUA for a pre-determined 1 year of service after Bishop McDonald resigned. During this turbulent time in the history of CUA, marked by faculty and student protests of administrative actions against Fr. Charles Curran, Fr. Whalen provided a new foundation in the university, based on increased communication with and academic freedom for faculty. He oversaw the appointment of the first laymen in the Vice Rector positions, namely C. Joseph Nuesse, and the beginning of the restructuring of administrative by-laws to allow for the inclusion of more laity in the future (completed in 1969, during Brother Scheel's tenure as Acting Rector). Moreover, the university underwent further change with the reformation of the board of trustees to include at least half laypersons. On the lighter side of his term, he helped break ground on a theater complex with Fr. Hartke and Ed McMahon. Though a short stint, his tenure left an indelible stamp on the academic procedures and administrative hierarchy at CUA.
After relinquishing the position to his friend and colleague Brother Nivard Scheel, Fr. Whalen continued in his service to Corpus Instrumentorum publishing as President. The center of his professional life continued to be academia; He returned to CUA as Vice president for University Relations (1970 - 1971) and then became executive director of the Consortium of Universities (1972 - 1989) following a short time as pastor at St. Mary's Church in Oneonta NY (1971 - 1972). He continued to serve on various religious and academic boards throughout his tenure at the Consortium. He passed away on Nov. 7, 2007 in Silver Spring, Maryland.
This collection consists of primarily printed correspondence and news clippings in and around the 1960's. Many of the news clippings had multiple duplicate copies, and many were acidified and in the beginning stages of deterioration. The most intact copies were photocopied onto acid-free paper and were interleaved with the original copies, with deteriorated and duplicated copies weeded. Much of the correspondence is on carbon-paper and is delicate. All metal paper clips and any staples with signs of rust were removed and replaced by vinyl-coated paper clips. This has added to some of the bulk of the collection. Original subject headings have been maintained in general, and have been arranged alphabetically and then by date. Dated correspondence and business documentation has been ordinated according to date, and news clippings have been ordinated according to year published, to the best ability of the processor. The contents are aggregated into 3 series: Professional, Personal, and Miscellaneous. The Professional series is further broken down by the primary employer involved: the Albany Chancery, CUA, Corpus Instrumentorum (CI), and the Consortium of Universities.
Series 1: Professional life series. This series contains material primarily related to Rev. Whalen's professional career, most specifically as it involves his work in and around academia. It is broken into 4 specific subseries based on significant places of work:
Subseries 1: Albany Chancery, 1964 - 1966. This subseries contains correspondence related to Fr. Whalen's professional relationship with the Albany Chancery to whom he reported while working at Corpus Instrumentorum and CUA.
Subseries 2: CUA, 1963 - 1969. This subseries is the bulk of the entire collection. A majority of this series is collected congratulatory to and from Fr. Whalen in his position as Acting Rector of the university from Oct. 1967 - Oct. 1968. In addition, there is a significant amount of news clippings ca. 1966 - 1969 that provide context to the events that precipitated his appointment and through his term as rector. The various clippings also provide historical context to the university and Catholic sentiment in the times following the Vatican II Council and the Humanae Vitae encyclical. Furthermore, there is a large amount of documentation relating to the reorganization of the university and the revision of the by-laws that began during his tenure. Unfortunately, this material only provides background and context to the restructuring that occurred without providing much material (correspondence, meeting minutes, etc.) that would provide insight into the process behind the scenes. Finally, there is a small amount of curricular and general material related to Fr. Whalen's tenure as a student/faculty member in the CUA School of Sacred Theology (1963 - 1966) before his term as rector and as the Vice President for University Relations (1970 - 1971) after his term as rector.
Subseries 3: Corpus Instrumentorum (CI), 1965 - 1968. This subseries consists of correspondence and business documentation related to Fr. Whalen's work as managing editor of the New Catholic Encyclopedia(NCE) and as president of CI. Most notably are selected meeting minutes related to the CI publishing agenda and the NCE project. Moreover, there is a folder with collected correspondence to and from then Archbishop O'Boyle of the Archdiocese of Washington D.C. (1965 - 1968)
Subseries 4: Consortium of Universities, ca. 1972 - 1978. This series contains business documents relating to Fr. Whalen's tenure as director of the Consortium. Primarily, they seem to be subject files from the executive office relating to his official capacity at the Consortium. As of now, they remain unprocessed while awaiting correspondence from the Consortium.
Series 2: Personal material, 1949 - 1972. This smaller series consists of material more related to his personal life and endeavors than his professional career in academia. There are some collected news clippings of family members, correspondence regarding speeches he had given, and condolences regarding the loss of his father in 1967. Also included are the texts of some of his public speeches, invocations, eulogies, and homilies he had given publicly in the 1960's and early 1970's. In addition, there is some material and news clippings that show what religious ideas he may have followed, though there is no context given as to what Fr. Whalen's personal philosophy on these issues was or why they were kept. Any implication as to Fr. Whalen's inclinations would need to be corroborated with other documents.
Series 3: Miscellaneous, ca. 1957 - 1970's. This one folder series consists of collected miscellaneous brochures/publications, printed material, and documents of a miscellaneous nature, though mostly of a religious nature.
The John P. Whalen Papers consists of 3:
None.
Located at The American Catholic History Research Center and University Archives:
The C. Joseph Nuesse Papers
The Clarence Cyril Walton Papers
The New Catholic Encyclopedia Records
The Nivard Scheel Papers
The William Joseph McDonald Collection
This record series is indexed under the following controlled access subject terms.
The John P. Whalen Papers came to the CUA Archives in two accessions. The first donation came from John P. Whalen in 1984. A second set of boxes was found and donated by the Maintenance and Operations Department in 1997.
Processing completed in 2012 by Michael J. Dobbs. EAD markup completed in 2012 by Michael J. Dobbs.
This series contains correspondence, news clippings, meeting minutes, and other documentation related to Fr. Whalen's professional career.
The letters "re CUA" were written to Fr. Whalen, and include some of his responses.
This subseries contains correspondence, meeting minutes, and other documentation related to the publishing of the New Catholic Encyclopedia and the board of Corpus Instrumentorum (labeled on the folders as CI).
This subseries consists of meeting documents, grant applications, and various subject files.
This series consists of collected correspondence, clippings, printed memorabilia, etc. relating to Fr. Whalen's personal life and interests.
These clippings seem to be primarily of a Religious nature, but are of a more varied theme than the Strike or Publicity clippings in Subseries 1.2.
This series contains collected miscellaneous materials including 2 certificates in Latin, unattributed print material, and announcements that do not readily fit in any other series or sub-series.