Raymond Augustine Kearney

Raymond Kearney was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, one of seven children of Joseph Peter and Nora Isabelle (née Burke) Kearney.[1] He and his family moved to Brooklyn, New York, while he was still an infant.[2] He received his early education at the parochial school of the Church of the Nativity, where he served as an altar boy.[3]

Kearney attended Brooklyn Preparatory School before studying at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1923.[4] He studied for the priesthood in Rome at the Pontifical North American College and the Propaganda University, receiving a doctorate in theology in 1927.[3]

Kearney was ordained a priest at the Basilica of St. John Lateran on March 12, 1927.[5] Following his return to Brooklyn, he was assigned as a curate at Queen of All Saints Church, where he remained for two months.[2] He then served at Holy Innocents Church for two years before engaging in diocesan work.[2] In 1929, he earned a doctorate in canon law from the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.[3] He served as chancellor of the Diocese of Brooklyn from 1930 to 1934.[3] He was named a papal chamberlain in August 1933.[2]

On December 22, 1934, Kearney was appointed auxiliary bishop of Brooklyn and titular bishop of Lysinia by Pope Pius XI.[5] He received his episcopal consecration on February 25, 1935 from Archbishop Thomas Edmund Molloy, with Bishops Moses E. Kiley and Stephen Joseph Donahue serving as co-consecrators, at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church.[5] At age 32, he was the youngest Catholic bishop in the world and the first born in the twentieth century.[6][7] In 1950, he was elected chairman of the Bishops' Committee on Motion Pictures, which supervised the work of the Legion of Decency.[4] He was also recognized as an authority on canon law.[4]

Kearney died from a heart attack at age 54.[4]

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