DOYLE, WILLIAM. — Irish Jesuit, born on 3 March 1873 at Melrose, Dalkey (Dublin), fell at Ypres on 16 August 1917 during the First World War.
Having requested the missions in the Congo, he was instead assigned by his superiors to teaching and subsequently to preaching. From 1908 to 1915 D. preached 152 missions and retreats. Animated by a most lively zeal for souls and by profound devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, combined with extraordinary cheerfulness and self-sacrifice, he achieved marvelous successes as a missionary in the poorest districts and as a confessor. During missions, he would go down at midnight toward the quay to meet the boats, in order to induce the crews to promise to go to church, or to accompany them immediately to confession; early in the morning he was already waiting at the factory gates for the women workers or artisans going to work, with the same apostolic purpose. His preferred activities were retreats, spiritual exercises, the work of the Holy Childhood, and fostering priestly and religious vocations.
On 29 September 1911 he made the vow “under pain of mortal sin, to be renewed daily, not to refuse Jesus any sacrifice whenever he clearly understood that He was asking it of him.” This vow was followed in 1913 by that “of giving the Lord whatever He asked of him, everything.” From then on his spirituality was increasingly directed toward self-immolation and union with God, especially through very frequent aspirations and ejaculatory prayers. From 15 November 1915 he was a military chaplain. He went to France with the 16th Division and, after two years of heroism at Mazingarbe, Loos, and the Somme, having been called the “father of the trenches,” fell, struck by a shell while assisting a wounded man. Two pamphlets remain by him: Vocations, Dublin 1913, which had already gone through two editions (100,000 copies) within two years, and Shall I be a priest?, ibid. 1915, which reached its 7th edition within a few months (40,000 copies). He translated into English the life of Fr. Ginhac written by A. Calvet.