Bishop James Walsh and Father Hugh Lavery: Two Case Studies of Support for Japanese Americans

My presentation examines two Maryknoll missionaries, Bishop James Walsh and Father Hugh Lavery, who helped Japanese Americans through spiritual work and political engagement during their World War II incarceration. Although no religious organization formally protested the government’s decision to forcibly remove Japanese Americans from the West Coast, several groups provided spiritual support and material aid to the confined in order to alleviate the anguish of camp. During the war, dozens of Maryknoll priests based on the West Coast followed their congregations to the camps and conducted religious services and, in the cases of Bishop Walsh and Father Lavery, wrote to government officials calling for fair treatment to Japanese Americans.

Bishop James Walsh was one of the founding members of the Maryknoll order, and conducted extensive missionary work in China and Japan. During World War II, Bishop Walsh supported Japanese Americans leaving camp and sponsored the largest Japanese American political organization, the Japanese American Citizens League. Although Bishop Walsh withheld his criticism of the government’s incarceration policy, he later lobbied for the repeal immigration laws that discriminated against Japanese immigrants.

Father Hugh Lavery was a Maryknoll priest who ran the Los Angeles mission during the prewar years. Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Father Lavery worked tirelessly to aid his Japanese American parishioners during their imprisonment. He travelled to most of the ten WRA camps, and his followers dubbed his journeys “the ten thousand mile parish.” In the postwar years, Father Lavery organized a protest against President Harry Truman’s nomination of Colonel Karl Bendetsen to Assistant Secretary of Defense, citing his own encounter with Bendetsen’s callous treatment towards Japanese Americans.

I argue that both cases demonstrate how Maryknoll priests uniquely went beyond their traditional roles as spiritual leaders to address racial discrimination through political channels.