On June 19, 1927, McManus was ordained to the priesthood by Cardinal Patrick Joseph Hayes for the Redemptorist Order at Mount St. Alphonsus.[2] After his ordination, the Redemptorists in 1929 assigned him to their mission in Caguas, Puerto Rico.[4] They later sent him to Washington D.C. to attend the Catholic University of America, where he earned a Doctor of Canon Law degree in 1937.[4] He then served as professor of canon law at Mount St. Alphonsus Seminary until 1940, when the Redemptorists returned him to Puerto Rico.[1] He was assigned as pastor to a parish in Aguadilla. Five years later, the Redemptorists transferred McManus to a parish in Mayagüez.[1]
Episcopacy
Bishop of Ponce
Governor Luis Muñoz MarínPontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico, Ponce, Puerto Rico (2007)
During his tenure in Ponce, McManus became an outspoken critic of Governor Luis Muñoz Marín. In the 1952 and 1956 elections in Puerto Rico, he opposed Muñoz Marín and supported the Republican Statehood Party, which demanded statehood for the island and proposed an economic plan similar to that of the US Republican Party.[3] In 1958, he feuded with Muñoz Marín over his program to crack down on gambling, including bingo games for the support of parish churches.[3] He denounced the legalization of artificial birth control and a law that would divorce couples who had separated for over three years.[6] He also opposed Muñoz Marín's measure to cut the tax-exempt charitable donations by corporations from 15 percent of gross income to five percent of surplus.[3]
In 1960, after the Legislative Assembly failed to pass a law allowing religious instruction for school children, McManus said that the administration of Muñoz Marín was "responsible for the moral evils that cloud and de-Christianize our society."[6] In August 1960, he helped organize the Christian Action Party (PAC), which he urged all Catholics to support.[7] The PAC nominated Salvador Perea, a professor at the Pontifical Catholic University, as its candidate for governor, but was caught in a controversy over the validity of the signatures it collected to get on the ballot.[7]
A month before the election, McManus and two other bishops in Puerto Rico issued a pastoral letter prohibiting Catholics from voting for Muñoz Marín's Popular Democratic Party (PPD). The letter said that the PPD "accepts as its own the morality of a 'regime of license,' denying Christian morality...."[7] The letter also stated,
"It is evident that the philosophy of the Popular Democratic Party is anti-Christian and anti-Catholic, and that it is based on the modern heresy that popular will and not divine law decides what is moral and immoral. This philosophy destroys the Ten Commandments of God and permits that they be substituted by popular and human criteria."[7]
McManus stated that Catholics voting for the PPD would commit a sin.[6] The letter resulted in widespread protests in Puerto Rico and sparked open controversy within the Catholic Church. Cardinal Francis Spellman of New York declared that the Catholic Church would not penalize Puerto Ricans for their votes.[4] Muñoz Marín denounced the pastoral letter as an "incredible medieval interference in a political campaign."[7]
Auxiliary Bishop of New York
McManus resigned as bishop of Ponce for reasons of health on November 18, 1963.[2] On the same date, he was appointed as an auxiliary bishop of New York and titular bishop of Benda by Pope Paul VI.[2] McManus denied that the Vatican transferred him to New York due to his political activities in Puerto Rico, calling his appointment "routine."[6] As an auxiliary bishop, he served as pastor of St. Cecilia's Church in Manhattan from 1964 to 1966[8] and as episcopal vicar of Sullivan and Ulster Counties, a post that he held until his retirement in 1970.[4] Between 1962 and 1965, McManus attended all four sessions of the Second Vatican Council in Rome.[2]
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