Roman Catholic Cardinal. He served as the Archbishop of Boston, Massachusetts from September 1944 until September 1970. The third of five children, his parents emigrated from Ireland and his father worked as a blacksmith in the trolley repair pits of the Boston Elevated Railway. He received his early education at Perry Public Grammar School in the City Point section of South Boston. To pay for his education, he worked with his father on the Boston Elevated Railway and also worked at the parish church, serving as a janitor and managing the parish-sponsored bowling alley and pool room. In 1909 he graduated from the Perry School and enrolled at South Boston High School. However he dropped out in his freshman year because of his compulsive truancy. He subsequently entered Boston College High School, a Jesuit college preparatory school, graduating in 1913 and enrolled in Boston College. After the sinking of the RMS Lusitania in 1915, he enlisted in the US Army but was medically discharged a few weeks later due to his asthma. He decided to become a Catholic priest and in September 1915 he began his studies for the priesthood at St. John's Seminary in Brighton, Massachusetts. In May 1921 he was ordained a priest and his first assignment was as a curate at St. Patrick's Church in Roxbury, Massachusetts where he remained for two months and then was transferred to St. Benedict's Church in Somerville, Massachusetts. In 1922 he was appointed assistant director of the Boston office of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, an organization dedicated to raising funds for missions and in 1929 he served as director of the Society until 1944. In May 1939 he was raised to the rank of Domestic Prelate and the following month he was appointed auxiliary bishop of Boston and titular bishop of Mela by Pope Pius XII and received his Episcopal consecration. He continued to serve as director of the Society for the Propagation of Faith, and was also named pastor of Sacred Heart Church in Newton Centre, Massachusetts. Following the death of Archbishop of Boston Cardinal William Henry O'Connell in April 1944, he served as apostolic administrator of the Boston archdiocese. In September 1944 he was named the 3rd Archbishop of Boston and was chiefly instrumental as a fundraiser and builder of new churches, schools, and institutions. In 1947 he founded St. Coletta by the Sea (now called Cardinal Cushing Centers) with sponsorship from the Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi, that supports developmentally disabled individuals from age 6 through the life continuum. In 1950 he founded the Bon Secours Hospital (now Holy Family Hospital and Medical Center) in Methuen, Massachusetts and through his guidance and leadership, the hospital became one of the top Catholic hospitals in the state of Massachusetts. In 1958 he founded the Missionary Society of St. James the Apostle to "serve the needs of the poorest of the poor in South America". In 1959 he published his only book, a biography of the late Pope Pius XII (1939-1958). His work contributed to making the Roman Catholic Church acceptable to the general American population at the time of then-Senator John F. Kennedy's run for US President. A close friend of the Kennedy family, he officiated at the marriage of John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Lee Bouvier in 1953, at which he also read a special prayer from Pope Pius XII, and baptized many of the Kennedy children. In January 1961 he gave the prayer invocation at Kennedy's Presidential inauguration. He also performed President Kennedy's funeral Mass in November 1963 at St. Matthew's Cathedral in Washington DC. At the Second Vatican Council (1962 to 1965) he played a vital role in drafting "Nostra Aetate," the document that officially absolved the Jews of deicide charge, the belief that the Jewish people were responsible for the death of Jesus. He was deeply committed to implementing the Vatican Council's reforms and promoting renewal in the Church. In an unprecedented gesture of ecumenism, he even encouraged Catholics to attend evangelist Billy Graham's crusades. He strongly condemned Communism, particularly the regime of Yugoslavia President Josip Broz Tito. In September 1970 he resigned as Boston's archbishop due to failing health and two months later he died from cancer at the age of 75. He wrote the foreword for the "Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition of the Bible" and gave his approval to the "Oxford Annotated Bible." The now-closed Cardinal Cushing College, a women's college in Brookline, Massachusetts, was named in his honor. The Cardinal Cushing Library Building at Emmanuel College in Boston is named in his honor. Boston College has two buildings named in his honor; the Cushing Hall, a freshman dormitory on the Newton Campus as well as another Cushing Hall, the home of the Connell School of Nursing.