Patrick James Byrne, M.M. (October 26, 1888 – November 25, 1950) was an American-born Catholic missionary who served as Apostolic Delegate to Korea from 1949 until his death in 1950.
A member of the Maryknoll Society, Byrne was assigned to missions in Korea and Japan. He served as the prefect apostolic of Pyongyang from 1927 to 1929, prefect apostolic of Kyoto from 1937 to 1940, apostolic visitor to Korea from 1947 to 1949, and the apostolic delegate to Korea from 1949 to 1950.
Byrne died in North Korean captivity in 1950. His cause for sainthood was opened in 2013.
Early life
Childhood Patrick Byrne was born on October 26, 1888, in Washington, D.C. to Patrick and Anna Seale Byrne, both Irish immigrants. The elder Patrick supervised the bindery in the Government Printing Office in Washington. When the younger Patrick turned five-years-old, he was sent to live with his Aunt, Eliza O'Neil in Auburn, New York. In 1895, he entered the Holy Family School in Auburn. Uninterested in sports and outdoor activities, Byrne's favorite activity was reading. He served as an altar boy at Holy Family Church.
When his Aunt Eliza died in 1905, the 16-year-old Byrne returned to Washington. He entered Eastern High School in Washington for the 11th grade. In 1908, while sailing with his brother Ernest on a small boat on Chesapeake Bay, the boys encountered sudden high winds. Ernest was swept overboard and was lost at sea. The trauma of this event convinced Byrne that he needed to accomplish something substantial for others in his life. He decided that the best way was to become a priest and serve as a missionary in Asia.Lane 1955 pg. 16
Preparation for priesthood
Following his mother's wishes, Byrne entered St. Charles College in Ellicott City, Maryland, the minor seminary run by the Sulpicians. It prepared teenage seminarians for St. Mary's Seminary, the major seminary for the Archdiocese of Baltimore in Baltimore. Bryne impressed his teachers and fellow students with his sense of humor and sharp intellect.Lane 1955 pg. 18
Byrne entered St. Mary's in 1909, starting with studies in philosophy. Two years later, he moved to studies of theology. During this time, he attended talks by four priests who were planning to establish the first foreign missionary society in the United States, the Maryknoll Society. Their plans meshed with Byrne's goal of becoming a missionary. During the winter of 1912, Bryne was briefly hospitalized. His mother died while he was at St. Mary's, thus removing any hesitation about leaving home for an extended period.Lane 1955 pg. 21
Priesthood
Service in United States
Byrne was ordained a priest by Cardinal Giovanni Vincenzo Bonzano in the chapel of the Dominican House of Studies in Washington for the Archdiocese of Baltimore on June 23, 1915.Lane 1955 pg. 30A week after his ordination, Byrne was given permission by Cardinal James Gibbons of Baltimore to enter the Maryknoll Society
In September 1916. Bryne was named as an assistant to James Anthony Walsh, a co-founder of the Maryknoll Society. After the United States entered World War I in April 1917, Byrne told Walsh that he was willing to volunteer as a military chaplain. However, given Byrne's delicate health, Walsh declined his request. When Walsh went to Asia on a mission that same year, Bryne became acting superior general of the order. He supervised the Maryknoll Preparatory Seminary (the minor seminary) while it was located in Scranton, Pennsylvania, as well as the Maryknoll Seminary (the major seminary) near Ossining, New York. Bryne's biggest project was supervising the construction of the new buildings for the Ossining seminary.Lane 1955 pg. 43
The Scranton seminary had moved to Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania, to be known as the Venard Seminary. Byrne was asked to serve as its rector in 1918. While the seminary building was being constructed in Clarks Summit, everyone slept in an unheated farmhouse attic. That winter, during the Spanish Flu pandemic, the windows were kept open, exacerbating Byrne's asthma. He was relieved of his responsibilities as acting superior general in 1919.Lane 1955 pg. 36Attendees at Venard remembered Byrne as being kind and gracious to everyone.
Prefect apostolic of Pyongyang
In 1922, Bryne was name as the leader of the first Maryknoll mission to Korea. At that time, Korea was a territory of Japan. Leaving the United States in 1923, he traveled first to Rome, where he was granted an audience with Pope Pius XI. Byrne spent several days in Kobe, Japan, before finally sailing to Korea. Byrne finally arrived at the city of Sinuiju, located on the Yalu River across from Manchuria. Soon after his arrival, Byrne was stricken with dysentery and spent a short time at the Protestant-run hospital in Sinuiju. He then traveled to Shanghai in China to fully recuperate.Lane 1955 pgs. 49 - 55
Returning to Sinuiju from China in late 1923, Byrne devoted much of his time to learning the Korean language. In early 1924, he escorted the first Maryknoll sisters from Japan to Sinuiju. By 1925, more Maryknoll priests had arrived in the city and missionary work in the area was proceeding. Byrne's next big project was the construction of a permanent church in Sinuiju. Always willing to assist in manual labor, Byrne helped the workers in its construction. He also helped build a convent outside the city. At one point, he purchased a retreat for his missionaries in the city of Wonsan on the Sea of Japan.Lane 1955 pg. 71
In 1927, Pius XI elevated Byrne to the rank of monsignor and named him the prefect apostolic of the city of Pyongyang in KoreaHe left Sinuiju to reside in Pyongyang. He built a second retreat house for the priests in the prefecture at Saiho, a village outside the city. He was always happy to entertain missionaries passing through Pyongyang, giving them encouragement for their work. When Auxiliary Bishop John Joseph Dunn of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith arrived in Pyongyang, Byrne went with him on a tour of Maryknoll missions in Korea, Manchuria and Japan. While serving as prefect, Byrne wrote numerous articles for The Field Afar, the Maryknoll newsletter.Lane 1955 pgs. 72 -82
Assistant superior general and rector In 1929, Byrne left Korea to attend first General Chapter of Maryknoll in Rome. He traveled to Europe on the Trans-Siberian Railroad through the Soviet Union. At the meeting he was elected as one of four assistant superior generals of the Society. He was also namde as rector of the Maryknoll Seminary in Ossining. He resigned his position as prefect apostolic of Pyongyang.Lane 1955 104 - 105
Prefect apostolic of Kyoto
The Maryknoll Society in June 1934 received permission to establish its first mission in the city of Kyoto in Japan; Byrne was selected at age 46 to lead the initiative. At that point, he resigned as rector of the Maryknoll Seminary in Ossining. In the spring of 1935, Byrne sailed from San Francisco, California, stopping briefly in Honolulu, Hawaii. He arrived in Yokohama, Japan, then proceeded to Tokyo to rendezvous with other priests in the Society. The original plan was for the Maryknoll Society to take over the Diocese of Kyoto, but that was delayed by the Vatican due to increasing international tensions. Byrne and his missionaries spent the next two years in a rural area of the Shiga Prefecture.Lane 1955 126 - 127
Pius XI named Byrne the prefect apostolic of Kyoto on June 18, 1937.The next month, Japan invaded China, beginning years of warfare throughout East Asia. Of the one million inhabitants of Kyoto, only 1,200 were Christian. This was in contrast to the rapidly increasing numbers of Catholics in Korea.Lane 1955 pg. 131Byrne started a newsletter, the Bamboo Wireless, to deliver news about the church in Kyoto and to ask for donations. At one point, a group of Buddhist seminarians from the Chion-in Temple in Kyoto visited St. Francis Xavier, the only Catholic church in the city, for a mass. Byrne welcomed them warmly and they expressed their appreciation of the visit.Lane 1955 pg. 136
By early 1939, Nazi Germany and Italy were edging closer to war with Great Britain and France. As Japan was allied with Germany, the Vatican thought it prudent to start appointing Japanese priests as bishops. In October 1940, a year after World War II began in Europe, Byrne gladly resigned his position as prefect apostolic of Kyoto.Lane 1955 pg 139 In 1941, Byrne opened a tuberculosis sanitarium in the Kyoto area, funded and run by the Maryknoll Society.
World War II and house arrest On December 7, 1941, Japan launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii and American installations in the Philippines. That same day, Japanese police started arresting and jailing the Maryknoll personnel throughout Japan. However, Byrne was only placed on house arrest. supposedly because local authorities appreciated his sanitarium project. After two months, he was moved to a Maryknoll rectory, where he stayed until the end of the war. He was not allowed any Japanese visitors and could not leave the property. He kept busy doing yard work in the garden and studying Japanese language. He suffered from malnutrition due to the meagre wartime rations.
After the nuclear bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, along with the shock of the Japanese surrender, rumors swept the population over fears of massacres and reprisals by the soon-to-arrive American occupation forces. A group from an Osaka newspaper went to visit Byrne, asking him to deliver a radio broadcast to calm these fears. Fifteen hours later, Byrne arrived in Tokyo with a police escort, where he recorded a message. It was broadcast several times over the next few days. Lane 1955 150-151 One part of it was.I. as an American, speak to you Japanese in the names of those soldiers about to enter your land to assure you that you need have no fear. They are not coming into these shores as invaders, with tanks, bayonets and bullets, but merely as representatives of their country.Lane 1955 pg. 152When word of Byrne's broadcast reached the United States, newspapers started referring to him as "Japan's number-two American." US General Douglas McArthur, the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers in Japan, later praised Byrne for his assistance. In July 1946, a weakened Byrne returned to the United States for the first time in 11 years.
Bishop
Apostolic Visitor to Korea In the summer of 1947, Byrne returned to Japan. Concerned about the growing Communist influence there, he laid plans for more Maryknoll schools and missions to help provide a counterbalance. However, the Vatican had other plans for him.
In April 1949, Pope Pius XII appointed Byrne as apostolic visitor to Korea, making him a bishop. The Japanese surrender had take Korea from Japan and divided it into two nations; North Korea, a communist regime allied with the Soviet Union and China and South Korea, an authoritarian government allied with the United States.North Korea viewed Catholic bishops and priests on its territory as enemies of the state. After his appointment, Byrne took residence in Seoul, the capital of South Korea.
Byrne was consecrated a bishop on June 14, 1949 at the Myeongdong Cathedral in Seoul by Auxiliary Bishop Thomas McDonnell of the Archdiocese of New York. The co-consecrators were Bishops Paul Marie Kinam Ro, apostolic vicar of Seoul, and Andrien-Joseph Larribeau, apostolic vicar emeritus of Seoul. Byrne was very unhappy about leaving Japan, as he had grown very attached to the Japanese people, but he did not voice any objections to the Vatican.Lane 1955 pgs 174 - 175