Fr. John Francis Conoley is the founder of Catholic Campus Ministry at the University of Florida. His story is one of conversion to Catholicism and tragic heroism in its defense. The only child of Frank Hamilton Conoley and Jeannie Kilpatrick, Conoley was raised an Episcopalian, attended the University of Florida, and became a Catholic on August 28, 1905, at the age of 21. Fr. Conoley received a degree in sacred theology from St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore and was ordained a priest on March 19, 1915, by the Right Reverend Michael J. Curley, the new bishop of St. Augustine. Fr. Conoley was appointed pastor of Immaculate Conception parish in Jacksonville. Bishop Curley achieved national attention for his out-spoken opposition to anti-Catholic prejudice, which had begun to appear in the South after 1910. Publications such as the Jeffersonian Magazine and The Menace succeeded in exploiting the widespread fear of Catholics, particularly in rural Florida communities. Father Conoley answered with a thirteen-page article titled, “The Present Position of Catholics in Florida” in the June 22, 1917, issue of The Catholic Mind, a national Catholic publication.
In World War I, Fr. Conoley entered the Chaplain Corps on August 7, 1918. He was discharged in 1919 with the rank of major in the army reserve.
Upon his return to Florida, Father Conoley was assigned to St. Patrick’s Church in Gainesville. His mission was to establish a Catholic ministry to students at the University of Florida. At this time, only a few dozen Gainesville citizens identified themselves as Catholics and ten students at the University of Florida called themselves Catholics. Fr. Conoley established a warm friendship with University president and prominent Baptist layman, Albert Alexander Murphree.
President Murphree was encouraging Christian denominations to build campus student centers which would have dormitories close to UF. Bishop Patrick Barry, who replaced Bishop Curley in 1922, explained to Fr. Conoley that the diocese could not afford the project and reminded him that many Catholics did not want their children studying at secular/public universities. Bishop Barry approved the creation of a Newman Club at UF but told Fr. Conoley he was “on his own” securing financing for anything else.
Fr. Conoley persuaded Mrs. Mary A. Crane, a St. Patrick’s parishioner, who spent summers in Gainesville, to underwrite his project. On June 2, 1921, Julia Turner put her two lots across from UF up for sale. Fr. Conoley encouraged Mrs. Crane to donate the $1,587.00 purchase price. He wrote the bishop, asking him to approve the purchase and the plan to build a chapel and dormitory across on the property, with funds generously donated by Mrs. Crane.
Crane Hall was dedicated on the site of our church and student center on May 28, 1923. The first students moved into the dormitory that fall. Among these students was Stephen C. O’Connell as well as future Florida Governor, Fuller Warren, who was not a Catholic. When he became governor, Warren invited Fr. Jeremiah P. O’Mahoney to give the benediction at his inauguration on January 4, 1949. During Fr. Conoley’s first three years in Gainesville, Catholic enrollment at UF increased from ten to forty students.
Fr. Conoley had become a well recognized and respected figure in the Gainesville community. A charter member of the Gainesville Kiwanis Club, he gave a brief presentation there on September 12, 1923. Fr. Conoley spoke on behalf of UF students whose parents could not afford to pay much of their college expenses. Some could pay nothing. Fr. Conoley’s presentation to this community service organization was to raise awareness of these students who had to support themselves in school and to ask the Gainesville businessmen to assist these college students in finding work. The Gainesville Daily Sun picked up the presentation and billed Fr. Conoley as a “fluent and gripping speaker.” A second Sun article encouraged town and gown cooperation just as Fr. Conoley had imagined it should be.
Not everyone in Gainesville was happy to have the increased presence of Catholics at the University. In subsequent years the Ku Klux Klan would accuse Fr. Conoley of “…using Crane Hall to seduce…” students to Roman Catholicism. More sinister allegations would follow. The Klan created fliers and left them on the doorsteps in several Gainesville neighborhoods accusing Fr. Conoley of subverting the faith of Protestant students in order to convert them to Catholicism.
It was only a matter of time before the “charges” against Fr. Conoley were officially reported to UF President Murphree. They were (i) A Catholic priest controls the president; (ii) A Catholic priest controls the dramatic club; (iii) the priest was proselyting boys to the Catholic faith; and (iv) courses in the Catholic religion were required to earn a degree from the University of Florida. To his credit, President Murphree answered all charges and defended Fr. Conoley.
Pressure on Murphree began to build, however, and he received several letters promising that Murphree himself would be investigated. Murphree was later convinced to abandon his support for Fr. Conoley.. The Florida Alligator, which had always advertised Masqueraders auditions, was silent on all issues related to Fr. Conoley. The State Board of Control passed a regulation banning all members of the Roman Catholic clergy from any state-supported college campus under its jurisdiction.”
On a February weekend in 1924 three hooded Klansmen entered the rectory of St. Patrick. The Klansmen left Fr. Conoley severely beaten and castrated on the steps of the Catholic church in Palatka. When the bishop learned of Fr. Conoley’s fate, he appointed a priest to fill in for him. The priest arrived at the St. Patrick rectory to find the windows manned by the Knights of Columbus armed with shotguns. The Knights were responding to the KKK’s threat to burn St. Patrick Church and rectory. After one year of hospitalization and two additional years in a monastery, Fr. Conoley was accepted as a priest in the diocese of Portland, Maine. He served as a diocesan priest there until his retirement in 1956. Fr. John Francis Conoley died July 25, 1960, and he is buried at the Veterans Cemetery in Togus, Maine.