The Office of the Chaplain United States House of Representatives

The Reverend Daniel P. Coughlin
Chaplain of the U.S. House of Representatives

Reverend Daniel P. Coughlin was born on November 8, 1934. After graduating from St. Mary of the Lake University in Mundelein, Illinois, with an STL degree in Sacred Theology, Coughlin was ordained for the Archdiocese of Chicago on May 3, 1960. For the next five years he served as an Associate Pastor for St. Raymond Parish in Mount Prospect, Illinois, before becoming an Associate Pastor at Chicago's Holy Name Cathedral. In 1968 Coughlin received a degree in Pastoral Studies from Loyola University in Chicago. The following year he was appointed the first Director of the Office for Divine Worship. Coughlin was responsible for supervising the liturgical renewal called for by the Second Vatican Council as it was to be implemented in the parishes of the Archdiocese of Chicago.

In 1984 Coughlin took a year-long sabbatical, during which he studied Eastern and Western religions. For five months he lived with the Trappist monks of Gethsemani Abbey in Kentucky. He then worked with the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, India. During the following year, he served as scholar in residence at North American College in the Vatican City in Rome, Italy.

From 1985 to 1990 Coughlin was pastor at St. Francis Xavier Parish in La Grange, Illinois. He then became Director of the Cardinal Stritch Retreat House in Mundelein, Illinois. In 1995 he began working as Vicar for Priests of the Archdiocese of Chicago under Joseph Cardinal Bernardin and, later, Francis Cardinal George. He held that position until he was sworn in as Chaplain.

When the Speaker of the House, the Honorable Dennis Hastert, turned to Cardinal George as he searched for a new chaplain for the House, one of the names the Cardinal proposed was Father Coughlin's. First interviewed on March 13, 2000, Coughlin was sworn in as the fifty-ninth Chaplain for the 106th Congress on March 23, 2000.