DRISCOLL, JAMES F.

Educator, editor; b. Poultney, Vermont, Sept. 30, 1859; d. Yonkers, N.Y., July 5, 1922. Driscoll's early education was in the Vermont public schools. Later he studied at Montreal, Paris, and Rome, where his professors included the Semitic scholars Henri hyvernat and Ignazio Guidi. He joined the Society of St. Sulpice after being ordained at Rome in 1887. In 1889 he was appointed to the faculty of the Grand Seminaire, Montreal, Canada, and he taught dogmatic theology there until 1896, when he joined the faculty of the major seminary of the Archdiocese of New York at Dunwoodie, Yonkers, N.Y. With the exception of the year spent as president of St. Austin's College, Washington, D.C., he remained at Dunwoodie until 1909, serving as professor of dogmatic theology (1896–98) and of Scripture and Semitic languages (1898–1901), and as rector (1902–09). In 1906, when the administration of the seminary passed from the Sulpicians to the New York archdiocesan clergy, Driscoll withdrew from the former and joined the latter.

During his rectorship, the New York Review began publication, with Driscoll as editor, and appeared every two months from June 1905 until publication ended in 1908. It drew its contributors from representatives of European as well as American scholarship, and compared favorably with the best European periodicals of the period. According to a notice that appeared in the last issue (May–June 1908), its early demise was caused by lack of Catholic interest and not by any "command of authority." In the same year Driscoll submitted his resignation as rector of the seminary; it was accepted at the end of the scholastic year (1908–09), and he was appointed pastor of St. Ambrose's Church in New York City. In 1910 he became pastor of St. Gabriel's Church, New Rochelle, N.Y., and he held that office until his death. Driscoll contributed many articles to the old Catholic Encyclopedia, and was one of the group of scholars responsible for the significant advance in U.S. Catholic theological thought made during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Bibliography: a. j. scanlan, St. Joseph's Seminary, Dunwoodie, New York, 1896–1921 (New York 1922).

[m. m. bourke]