The_Info_Web/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/John Krol.md

aliases	category	tags	summary	born	died	location	created	updated	relations
John Joseph Krol Cardinal Krol Cardinal John Krol	Religious Figures	HistoricalFigure Person CatholicChurch Cardinal Philadelphia Censorship RCHorsch	Archbishop of Philadelphia from 1961 to 1988 and cardinal from 1967, who led sixteen religious leaders in condemning R.C. Horsch's film Black Mass in 1975.	1910-10-26	1996-03-03	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania	2026-09-23	2026-10-15	type with role start end fn head_of Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia archbishop 1961-03-22 1988-02-11 1 type with reverse start fn appointed Pope John XXIII true 1961-02-11 1 type with role start end fn head_of United States Conference of Catholic Bishops president 1971 1974 1

John Joseph Krol (October 26, 1910, to March 3, 1996) was archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia from 1961 to 1988 and a cardinal from 1967. He was known both as a conservative and as an opponent of the nuclear arms race. In 1975 he led the religious leaders of Philadelphia who condemned the film Black Mass (1975 film) by Ray Hoersch, later R.C. Horsch.¹²

Cleveland and Rome

Krol was born in Cleveland, Ohio to Polish immigrants, the fourth of eight children, and managed the meat department of a Kroger store before entering the priesthood. Bishop Joseph Schrembs of Cleveland ordained him on February 20, 1937, and he earned a licentiate in canon law at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome in 1940. He was auxiliary bishop of Cleveland from 1953 to 1961.¹

Philadelphia

Pope John XXIII named him the tenth archbishop of Philadelphia on February 11, 1961, and he was installed on March 22, succeeding John Francis O'Hara. He cleared several million dollars of archdiocesan debt within two years and opened 34 parishes over the following fifteen years. At the Second Vatican Council he was an undersecretary who organized its debates and votes. Pope Paul VI made him a cardinal on June 26, 1967, in the same consistory as Karol Wojtyła, later Pope John Paul II, and both voted in the two conclaves of 1978. He was president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops from 1971 to 1974. He retired on February 11, 1988, and was succeeded by Anthony Bevilacqua.¹

Black Mass

In February 1975 a midnight run of Black Mass, a film of a satanic mass, was cancelled at the Arcadia Theatre (Philadelphia) in Center City "after reported pressure by the Philadelphia Archdiocese," according to Art Carduner, whose Bandbox Theater in Germantown, Philadelphia showed it instead on March 1.³ The Inquirer of February 28, 1975 announced the midnight showing there.³ On February 27, 1975, Krol led sixteen Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, and Jewish leaders in a joint statement that called the film "a blasphemous attack on the religious rites held in sacred reverence by millions of Christian believers" and "a frontal attack on the sacred itself," said that it was "obviously intended not to be viewed as a film, but as a blasphemous ritualistic observance," and asked everyone in the local film industry "to resist and reject every attempt to market or portray this film." The signers included Rabbi Charles Lacks of the Greater Philadelphia Board of Rabbis and Francis G. Brown of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends.⁴ The Inquirer reported the statement the next morning, naming "John Cardinal Krol, archbishop of Philadelphia" among the 16 signers.⁵ Eleven weeks before the Bandbox screening, on December 10, 1974, Hoersch had been apprehended by Hatboro police after a shop reported a suspicious ten-dollar bill, and United States Secret Service agents found counterfeit ten-dollar bills in his car under a search warrant.⁶

Death

Krol, who had diabetes and a heart ailment, was hospitalized on February 14, 1996, and failed to respond to treatment for kidney problems and a blood clot in a lung, according to the Associated Press. He died at his home on March 3, 1996, aged 85.² He was buried in the crypt of the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul after a funeral attended by seven cardinals, sixty bishops, and 1,500 priests, at which Cardinal John O'Connor of New York City preached.⁷

Footnotes

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1. Weil, Martin. "Cardinal John Krol Dies; Philadelphia Archbishop," The Washington Post, March 4, 1996; "Cardinal Krol laid to rest," United Press International, March 8, 1996. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1996/03/04/cardinal-john-krol-dies/8d845f35-61a2-4b44-934a-0bdc39ca14df/ ; https://www.upi.com/Archives/1996/03/08/Cardinal-Krol-laid-to-rest/8760826261200/ ↩︎

2. Weil, Martin. "Cardinal John Krol Dies; Philadelphia Archbishop," The Washington Post, March 4, 1996. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1996/03/04/cardinal-john-krol-dies/8d845f35-61a2-4b44-934a-0bdc39ca14df/ ↩︎

3. [Society and nightlife column], The Philadelphia Inquirer, February 28, 1975, p. 21. https://www.newspapers.com/image/173366667/ ↩︎

4. "Offensive Material: Leaders Condemn Black Mass Film," Religious News Service, Lake Shore Visitor (Erie), March 7, 1975, p. 3. https://www.newspapers.com/image/951794835/ ↩︎

5. "Protest Raised Here On 'Black Mass' Film," The Philadelphia Inquirer, February 28, 1975, p. 11. https://www.newspapers.com/image/173364962/ ↩︎

6. "[...] bogus $180,000 in Bucks raid," The Morning Call (Allentown), December 11, 1974, p. 5. https://www.newspapers.com/image/275702319/ ↩︎

7. "Cardinal Krol laid to rest," United Press International, March 8, 1996. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1996/03/08/Cardinal-Krol-laid-to-rest/8760826261200/ ↩︎