George Barry O'Toole, OSB (1886 – 26 March 1944) was an

American Catholic The Catholic Church in the United States is part of the worldwide Catholic Church in communion with the pope, who as of 2025 is Chicago, Illinois-born Leo XIV. With 23 percent of the United States' population , the Catholic Church is the cou ...

priest and activist. He was a member of the

Benedictines The Benedictines, officially the Order of Saint Benedict (, abbreviated as O.S.B. or OSB), are a mainly Christian mysticism, contemplative Christian monasticism, monastic Religious order (Catholic), order of the Catholic Church for men and f ...

and a founding member of the

Catholic Radical Alliance The Catholic Radical Alliance was founded in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1937 by the Roman Catholic priests Charles Owen Rice, Carl Hensler, and George Barry O'Toole, with the approval of their bishop, Hugh C. Boyle. It supported the unioniz ...

Career

He was important for clarifying the right of

Catholics The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

conscientious objector A conscientious objector is an "individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service" on the grounds of freedom of conscience or religion. The term has also been extended to objecting to working for the military–indu ...

status. He began his religious career as a parish priest and as a

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of the United Stat ...

chaplain A chaplain is, traditionally, a cleric (such as a minister, priest, pastor, rabbi, purohit, or imam), or a lay representative of a religious tradition, attached to a secular institution (such as a hospital, prison, military unit, intellige ...

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

Education career

He taught philosophy at both St. Vincent College,

Latrobe, Pennsylvania Latrobe ( ) is a city in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 8,060 as of the 2020 census. A part of the Pittsburgh metropolitan area, it is located near Pennsylvania's scenic Chestnut Ridge. Latrobe was incorpo ...

and Seton Hill College. He was the first president (rector) of the

Catholic University of Peking Fu Jen Catholic University (FJU, FJCU or Fu Jen; or ) is a private Catholic university in Xinzhuang, New Taipei City, Taiwan. The university was founded in 1925 in Beijing at the request of Pope Pius XI and re-established in Taiwan in 1961 at t ...

. He also was the head of the Philosophy department at

Duquesne University Duquesne University of the Holy Spirit ( ; also known as Duquesne University or Duquesne) is a Private university, private Catholic higher education, Catholic research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded by members of ...

Labor activities

He was a founding member of the Catholic Radical Alliance, an early labor support organization in

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...

, and was important to the foundation of St. Joseph's House of Hospitality, also in Pittsburgh.

Pacifist activities

In 1939, he stated that a

just war The just war theory () is a doctrine, also referred to as a tradition, of military ethics that aims to ensure that a war is morally justifiable through a series of criteria, all of which must be met for a war to be considered just. It has bee ...

was nearly impossible, because the "modern abuse of universal

conscription Conscription, also known as the draft in the United States and Israel, is the practice in which the compulsory enlistment in a national service, mainly a military service, is enforced by law. Conscription dates back to antiquity and it conti ...

" made wars on so gigantic a scale as to be unjustifiable. Later he testified before a Senate hearing in opposition to the Burke-Wadsworth Act, a

act pending before Congress in 1940.

Creationism

O'Toole was the author of the

creationist Creationism is the religious belief that nature, and aspects such as the universe, Earth, life, and humans, originated with supernatural acts of divine creation, and is often pseudoscientific. Gunn 2004, p. 9, "The ''Concise Oxford Dictionary' ...

book ''The Case Against Evolution'' (1925). The book was dismissed by academics as a "religious and not a scientific work". Science writer

Martin Gardner Martin Gardner (October 21, 1914May 22, 2010) was an American popular mathematics and popular science writer with interests also encompassing magic, scientific skepticism, micromagic, philosophy, religion, and literatureespecially the writin ...

noted that O'Toole endorsed the "naive criticism of strata chronology" from creationist

George McCready Price George McCready Price (26 August 1870 – 24 January 1963) was a Canadian creationist. He produced several anti-evolution and creationist works, particularly on the subject of flood geology. His views did not become common among creationists u ...

.Gardner, Martin. (1957). ''

Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science ''Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science'' (1957)—originally published in 1952 as ''In the Name of Science: An Entertaining Survey of the High Priests and Cultists of Science, Past and Present''—was Martin Gardner's second book. A survey o ...

''.

Dover Publications Dover Publications, also known as Dover Books, is an American book publisher founded in 1941 by Hayward and Blanche Cirker. It primarily reissues books that are out of print from their original publishers. These are often, but not always, book ...

. p. 133.

Publications

* George Barry O'Toole (1925)
''The Case Against Evolution''
The Macmillan Company. * Ch'ien-li Ying and George Barry O'Toole (1929). ''The Nestorian Tablet at Sianfu: A New English Translation of the Inscription and a History of the Stone''. Peking Leader Press, Peking. * George Barry O'Toole. (1929). ''

John of Montecorvino John of Montecorvino, OFM (Italian: ''Giovanni da Montecorvino''; 1247 – 1328) was an Italian Franciscan missionary, traveller and statesman, founder of the earliest Latin Catholic missions in India and China, and Archbishop of Peking. He c ...

, First Archbishop of Peking''.

. * George Barry O'Toole and Quianli Ying (1931). ''Luo ji xue: Zhong Ying dui zhao''.

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

. . * George Barry O'Toole and Theodore Jeske-Choinski (1936). ''The Last Romans "Ostatni Rzymianie": A Tale of the Time of Theodosius the Great''.

. * George Barry O'Toole (1941). ''War and Conscription at the Bar of Christian Morals''. Catholic Worker Press. * Bishop Joseph M. Corrigan and George Barry O'Toole, editors (1944). ''Racism and Christianity; Race: Nation: Person. Social Aspects of the Race Problem, A Symposium''. Barnes & Noble, Inc., New York. .

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Otoole, Barry 1944 deaths 1886 births American Roman Catholics American Christian creationists History of Catholicism in the United States Religious leaders from Pittsburgh Roman Catholic activists History of labor relations in the United States Catholic Workers American Benedictines World War I chaplains Roman Catholic missionaries in China Academic staff of Fu Jen Catholic University United States Army chaplains Seton Hill University American Christian pacifists Catholic pacifists 20th-century American Roman Catholic priests Catholic military chaplains