Daniel Cronin (bishop)

Daniel Cronin was born in Newton, Massachusetts eldest son of Daniel G. and Emily (Joyce) Cronin. He and attended St. Peter School in Cambridge and graduated from Boston College High School in 1945. He studied at St. John's Seminary in Boston from 1945 to 1949, and then furthered his studied at the Pontifical North American College in Rome.

Cronin was ordained to the priesthood in Rome by Cardinal Clemente Micara on December 20, 1952. He then earned a Licentiate of Sacred Theology (1953) and Doctorate of Sacred Theology (1956) from the Pontifical Gregorian University.

Cronin did pastoral work in Salisbury, Lynn, and Waltham, all in Massachusetts before becoming an attaché of the Apostolic Internunciature to Ethiopia in 1957. He was made an attaché of the Vatican Secretariat of State in 1961, and a papal chamberlain in 1962.

On June 10, 1968, Cronin was appointed as an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Boston and titular bishop of Egnatia by Pope Paul VI. He received his episcopal consecration on September 12, 1968, from Cardinal Richard Cushing, with Bishops Jeremiah Minihan and Thomas Riley serving as co-consecrators, at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston. Cronin selected as his episcopal motto: "Ad Oboediendum Fidei", meaning, "For Obedience of Faith" from Romans 1:5.[1] As an auxiliary bishop, he also served as pastor of St. Raphael Church in Medford, Massachusetts.

Cronin was later named the fifth bishop of the Diocese of Fall River on October 30, 1970. He succeeded Bishop James Connolly. Cronin was installed at St. Mary of the Assumption Cathedral in Fall River on December 16, 1970. In 1975, he publicly denounced U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) when Kennedy declared that he would not vote to outlaw abortion, although saying that he did not personally support it.[2]

On December 10, 1991, Cronin was appointed the third archbishop of the Archdioces of Hartford by Pope John Paul II. He succeeded Archbishop John Whealon. Cronin was installed at the Cathedral of St. Joseph in Hartford on January 28, 1992. He received the pallium, a vestment worn by metropolitan bishops, from John Paul II at St. Peter's Basilica on June 29, 1991.

Upon reaching the mandatory retirement age of 75, Cronin retired as archbishop of the Archdiocese of Hartford on October 20, 2003.