Walter William Curtis
Walter William Curtis was an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Bishop of Bridgeport from 1961 to 1988.Biography
Walter Curtis was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, and studied at Fordham University in New York City. After graduating from Seton Hall University in 1934, he attended Immaculate Conception Seminary in South Orange before furthering his studies in Rome at the Pontifical North American College. Curtis was ordained to the priesthood on December 8, 1937. He completed his graduate studies at the Pontifical Gregorian University the following year.
He became a professor of moral theology at Immaculate Conception Seminary in 1938. He later earned a doctorate in sacred theology from the Catholic University of America. On June 27, 1957, Curtis was appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Newark and Titular Bishop of Bisica by Pope Pius XII. He received his episcopal consecration on the following September 24 from Archbishop Thomas Aloysius Boland, with Bishops James A. McNulty and George W. Ahr serving as co-consecrators. In addition to his episcopal duties, he was named pastor of Sacred Heart Church at Bloomfield in 1958.
Following the promotion of Lawrence Shehan to Coadjutor Archbishop of Baltimore, Curtis was named the second Bishop of Bridgeport, Connecticut, by Pope John XXIII on September 23, 1961. He was installed at St. Augustine Cathedral on November 21, 1961. During his 27-year-long tenure, he established Notre Dame Girls' High School and Kolbe Cathedral High School in Bridgeport, Notre Dame Boys' High School in Fairfield, St. Joseph High School in Trumbull, and Immaculate High School in Danbury. He also founded Sacred Heart University at Fairfield in 1963.
Curtis attended all four sessions of the Second Vatican Council between 1962 and 1965, and spent most of his administration implementing the Council's reforms. During the 1970s, he oversaw the renovation of St. Augustine Cathedral and its re-dedication in 1979. He established two nursing homes, Pope John Paul II Health Care Center in Danbury and St. Camillus Health Care Center in Stamford. He increased the number of Catholics in the diocese from 286,000 to 300,000. He also founded the Fairfield Foundation, a nondenominational group that helps people in need in Fairfield County.
Curtis' resignation as Bishop of Bridgeport was accepted on June 28, 1988. He later died from pneumonia at St. Joseph Manor in Trumbull, aged 84.
In October 2019, former Connecticut Superior Court Judge Robert Holzberg released the results of his investigation, commissioned by Bridgeport Bishop Frank Caggiano, into the Diocese's handling of accusations of sexual abuse by its priests. Holzberg found that all three of Bridgeport's bishops, including Curtis, over forty years had consistently failed to fulfill their moral and legal responsibilities. Holzberg wrote: "Bishop Curtis was undisguisedly indifferent to clergy sexual abuse in the diocese, not understanding or acknowledging its scope, and abdicating virtually all responsibility to his subordinates for responding to it,'' the report stated. “Bishop Curtis did not remove abusive priests from service, and even allowed many to be reassigned to new parishes. By not removing them, he made possible continued abuse of additional victims."
