We are pleased to announce that the Archdiocese of Boston Catholic Youth Organization Records (1949-2000) have been processed, and a collection guide is now available to researchers.

The Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) was formed in Chicago in 1930 by Bernard Sheil, an auxiliary bishop of Chicago with a background in prison ministry. Initially conceived as a means of keeping urban young men away from crime during the Great Depression, the CYO quickly blossomed into a nationwide organization promoting morality and fellowship among Catholic youth.

The Boston chapter of the Catholic Youth Organization formed in 1938 to coordinate, develop, and expand all youth activities for the Archdiocese of Boston. From the beginning, the mission of the CYO was to provide youth recreation in a Catholic atmosphere, and, at the same time, to evangelize its membership.

At its inception, the CYO of Boston served the needs of Catholic young men and women between the ages of 10 and 26. In addition to athletic clubs, it sponsored myriad cultural activities: from oratorical, debate, and essay contests to study clubs, dramatic societies, musical organizations, and cooking schools. In the field of athletics, it created programs for baseball, football, basketball, track and field, golf, bowling, and wrestling. Highlights of the early sports program included a golf tournament at Ponkapoag Golf Course in Canton and an annual baseball championship at Fenway Park. At the latter event, one year, watching the St. Mary team from Melrose warm up, legendary Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey reportedly remarked that the team hit the left field wall more often than his own team.

Within the archdiocesan CYO, programming took place at both the parish and school level. Each individual parish was invited to participate in CYO programs, which, depending upon the popularity of the sport or activity, were organized at the deanery, vicariate, or archdiocesan level. The CYO also assumed responsibility for organizing, coordinating, and officiating all extracurricular activities, including sports, for archdiocesan high schools. With the responsibility came the complaint letters, dozens each year, from athletes, parents, and coaches participating in that time-honored tradition of lambasting the referees.

Those letters were addressed to Msgr. Robert McNeill, beginning in 1966, when he was named the director of the archdiocesan CYO. The monsignor moved from Boston, where he had been assigned to the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, to St. Ann Church in Quincy to be near CYO headquarters, then located on Hancock Street in Quincy Center.

By the time Msgr. McNeill arrived in Quincy, the archdiocesan CYO had expanded its original sports program to include swimming, tennis, cheerleading, softball, volleyball, and soccer. More than 300 basketball and 150 baseball and softball teams had been organized in the archdiocese. The CYO offered a journalism workshop that produced a monthly newsletter and offered retreats, including the popular "SEARCH for Christian Maturity" and an overnight for high school freshmen and sophomores. It boasted robust band, color guard, and drum and bugle corps programs. Annually, it hosted the National Invitational Drum and Bugle Corps Championships at Boston College, which drew thousands of spectators and served as the main fundraising event for archdiocesan youth programming.

One of the principal goals of the CYO was to foster leadership skills and critical thinking among Catholic youth. To that end, the Boston CYO created youth and young-adult councils designed to allow youth greater input in organizational decisions. Notably, these councils were tasked with choosing a speaker for the annual CYO Congress and biannual Young Adult Congress -- a task that could and did provoke controversy. When, for instance, young people selected three Democratic leaders, including John Kerry, a spokesman for the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, to speak at their 1971 Congress, conservative Catholics were outraged. "The three ... are all well known for their anti-war, anti-establishment, and pro-liberal theories," Republican state representative Joseph E. Brett complained to Msgr. McNeill. "They were selected without due regard for the effects their theories would have upon our country if they ever were to prevail."

Despite such forays into controversy, the archdiocesan CYO was, on the whole, a great promoter of unity and friendship in the communities it served. Although it was a Church ministry, it was open to Catholics and non-Catholics alike and aimed to encourage a spirit of ecumenism. Happily, this spirit has persisted within the CYO to this day.

Today, the archdiocesan CYO falls under the umbrella of Boston Catholic Athletics, a ministry of Family Life and Ecclesial Movements within the Office of Lifelong Faith Formation and Parish Support. Its current athletic director is Mr. John DeAngelo.

VIOLET HURST IS AN ARCHIVIST FOR THE ARCHDIOCESE OF BOSTON.