(Editor’s note: In honor of the 10th anniversary of the Bishop’s Dinner, the Intermountain Catholic is publishing a series of articles featuring the men who have served as Bishop of Salt Lake City.) By Gary Topping Archivist, Diocese of Salt Lake City
The fifth Bishop of Salt Lake City, the Most Rev. Duane G. Hunt (1937-60), was unique in several ways. For one thing, he was the only Utahn to date to serve as our bishop (he was not born in Utah, but had taken up residency here before seeking ordination). For another, he was, also to date, the only Catholic convert to serve in that capacity. Finally, his was the longest term (23 years) of any of our bishops.
More than that, though, he was a person of some parts: a competent musician (he was both a singer and instrumentalist); an ardent baseball fan (he arranged the first tryout for Hermann Frank, beginning Frank’s long career as major league player and manager); and he was a master apologist – an eloquent homilist, radio personality, and writer, who became Utah’s most prominent defender of the faith.
Born into a storekeeper’s home in Iowa, Duane Garrison Hunt was raised in the Methodist church. Uninterested in the business world, the boy at first pursued a career in law, but poor eyesight made it difficult for him to do the necessary reading, so he switched to rhetoric and public speaking. His greatest debate, though, was with himself after he encountered the claims of the Catholic faith and attempted to refute them. He eventually found that impossible, and sought baptism in 1913. The arguments he had had with himself turned out to be ample preparation to explain and defend the faith to others.
It was while he was a professor of rhetoric at the University of Utah that the young man began to feel a call to the priesthood. After training at St. Patrick’s Seminary and University in Menlo Park, Calif., he was ordained in 1920 at the Cathedral of the Madeleine. His bishops – Joseph S. Glass, John J. Mitty and James E. Kearney – recognized in Father Hunt a prodigious talent and a whirlwind of energy, and found a variety of assignments to take advantage of their windfall. Bishop Glass sent him to Vernal to survey the possibility of establishing a mission or parish. His 1922 report, which found a largely migratory population of herdsmen, nevertheless identified a nucleus of devoted Catholics whom he gathered into Saint John of God Mission (eventually Saint James the Greater Parish). In addition, he directed the Cathedral choir, coached the first diocesan baseball league, and ran the Intermountain Catholic.
The ministry for which he would become most celebrated, though, began in 1927, when Bishop Mitty encouraged him to begin a weekly series of broadcasts called "The Catholic Hour" on the radio station KSL. The broadcasts, which eloquently explored various points of religion, not always Catholic, became hugely popular, especially after the national CBS network picked it up. In addition, he wrote pamphlets answering various points of Mormon teaching, especially "The People, The Clergy and The Church," and "The Unbroken Chain: The Continuity of the Catholic Church."
Those writings were not polemics directed against the Mormon people, but rather instructions that would help Catholics who might find their faith challenged by missionaries.
His energy hardly abated when he was ordained bishop in 1937. Ever conscious of the need to minister to rural Catholics in his far-flung diocese, he opened several new parishes. The Catholic population of Utah almost tripled during his long episcopate, and to serve them, he ordained no fewer than 13 native Utah priests. In 1949 he opened the Cathedral School (in the building currently used as the Pastoral Center) to absorb some of the bursting student body of Judge Memorial Catholic School. Finally, he invited two cloistered religious communities to Utah: the Trappists, who located in Huntsville; and the Carmelites, who eventually settled in Holladay.
Plagued throughout his life with poor eyesight, he eventually became virtually blind. Assisted first by Auxiliary Bishop Leo Steck (whom he outlived); then by his successor, Bishop Joseph L. Federal, he spent his last years a virtual invalid in Holy Cross Hospital. His long tenure, though, saw the diocese achieve real institutional maturity, expansion throughout the state, and impressive national exposure. It was not a bad record for a Methodist boy from a small Iowa town.
(The annual Bishop’s Dinner, which supports the Cathedral of the Madeleine, this year is scheduled for Sept. 26 at The Grand America Hotel, 555 S. Main St., SLC. The guest speaker will be the Most Rev. George H. Niederauer, Archbishop emeritus of San Francisco and the eighth Bishop of Salt Lake City. For information, contact Laurel Dokos-Griffith, 801-328-8941 ext. 108.)
Stay Connected With Us