CATHOLIC BOY SCOUTS

In the process of research.

Scout Excutive Walter Gunn, along with strong support from several Catholic leaders in the ARCHDIOCESE OF DUBUQUE, keyed the rapid growth of the Boy Scout movement in Dubuque. By the end of 1917, the Dubuque Council consisted of 118 registered Boy Scouts from seven troops. The number of Scouts registered would increase to 301 from sixteen troops by the end of 1918. By the end of 1919, there would be 356 Scouts registered with the Council and two troops that chartered directly with the national office.

The history entitled Boy Scouts of America A Centennial Edition stated that the Catholic Church allowed Catholic boys to join the Scouts if there were Catholic troops under a Catholic Scoutmaster and that there would be a chaplain appointed by the proper ecclesiastical authority for each Catholic troop. Many of the early troops were chartered to Catholic parishes. Local Catholic leadership became influential on the national level. Of the three original recipients of the Silver Beaver award from the Dubuque Council, one chaired the Catholic Committee on Scouting and another was an influential Catholic priest. A letter of endorsement for Scouting was obtained from the Vatican in 1919 and the KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS made Scouting its official program for boys aged 12-15.

Once accepted by the Vatican, Catholic support for scouting was pronounced. In the August 28, 1919 issue of Scouting magazine, the author stated the aim of the National Catholic War Work Council (later the U. S. Council of Catholic Bishops) cooperating with the Boy Scouts of America had the goal of increasing the number of Scot troops chartered by the Roman Catholic churches to at least 1,000 within a year. The National Catholic Council approved of the idea of hiring fifteen men for the nest year to help in the organizing effort. Nationally there were then 587 troops under the leadership of a Roman Catholic Scoutmaster with 300 of them chartered to a Catholic church. By 1937 Every Diocesan Lay Chairman was entitled to be commissioned annually by the BSA as a Special National Field Scout Commissioner, a national commission. (1)

Two of the original troops chartered when the Dubuque Scout Council was chartered in 1917 belonged to Catholic parishes. Rev. John THEOBALD served as the Scoutmaster of Troop Two, chartered to ST. RAPHAEL'S CATHEDRAL. ST. PATRICK'S CATHOLIC CHURCH charter the second. Local leadership accelerated with the announcement in 1929 that Archbishop John James KEANE had been chosen to serve on the Bureau of Catholic Extension of the Scout Movement, part of the National Council of Catholic Men. (2) Archbishop J.L. BECKMAN appointed H. J. Lott as the Lay Chairman for the Archdiocese of Dubuque in 1938. For Catholic adult Scout leaders, the first year of "Scouter retreats" was held in 1938. Archbishop Beckman also delivered the sermon at the July 4 Pontifical Mass at the base of the Washington Monument in 1937 at the National Scout Jamboree. At the time the honorary vice-chairman of the Bishop's Committee on Scouting, Archbishop Beckman also gave the benediction at the Grand National Convocation.

Archbishop Beckman remained a towering supporter of Scouting in the archdiocese. In September, 1942 addressed a meeting for Catholic leaders and civic leaders meeting to discuss the wartime situation. Archbishop Beckman stressed the need for a workable program between parents and children to maximize backing for the Scout program. Kenneth Cook, assistant to the director of the division of operations for the BSA, addressed methods of making a Catholic layman's committee more effective in wartime.

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Sources:

1. Lewis, Paul W. Scouting in Northeast Iowa 1910-1959, Dubuque, IA, S4 Carlisle Publishing Services, 2017, p. 21