Detroit — Msgr. Thomas G. Rice can now be added to the roster of former editors of The Michigan Catholic stretching back 140 years.

The newspaper dates its founding to September 1872, when J.D. Finnegan began publishing The Western Home Journal (remember: Michigan was still considered part of “the West” in those days). William E. Savage became the paper’s editor in 1878.

The Michigan Catholic name first appeared with the Jan. 6, 1883, issue, and William H. Hughes was listed as editor and proprietor.

When Hughes died in January 1917, Josephine Byrnes Sullivan-Conlon became the paper’s first female editor. She had been a writer for the paper since the early 1890s, including the weekly children’s column that she wrote under the pen-name Aunt Rowena, the Children’s Friend.

In 1920, the paper was sold to the Diocese of Detroit, and The Michigan Catholic got its first priest as editor, when Bishop Michael Gallagher appointed Fr. (later Msgr.) Frank Pokriefka.

Msgr. Pokriefka stayed at the helm throughout the prosperous 1920s and the Depression poverty years of the 1930s, with Anthony Beck as his managing editor. Fr. Harry Paul was named editor in 1940, and he was followed in 1947 by Msgr. Hubert Maino.

Besides his work with The Michigan Catholic, Msgr. Maino became known to the wider Detroit-area community as a longtime regular columnist for The Detroit News.

Edward McDonnell, who had become the managing editor in 1946, was succeeded in the 1950s by John Kenny.

Msgr. Maino turned over the reins of the paper to Fr. Richard Parrish in 1956, and he was followed by Fr. William X. Kienzle in 1962. Francis Lenhard became managing editor the following year after the sudden death of Kenny.

Although Fr. Kienzle would later leave the priesthood, the name William X. Kienzle has an international reputation because of the series of mystery novels he wrote — the first of which was “The Rosary Murders” (1978).

In his mystery novels, crimes are solved by a Fr. Robert Koesler, who is editor of a weekly newspaper called The Detroit Catholic. If Fr. Koesler sounds like a thinly disguised Fr. Kienzle, Fr. Koesler’s right-hand person at the fictional paper is based on Margaret Cronyn, the real-life paper’s longtime women’s editor, who became managing editor, and then was named editor after Fr. Kienzle left both the position and priesthood in 1974.

Cronyn remained at the helm of  The Michigan Catholic until she retired in 1985, and continued to write occasional columns for the paper well into the 1990s.

She was followed by Alfred Doblin, who served as editor for several years. Longtime Detroit News sportswriter Herb Boldt took the editor’s chair on an interim basis in 1988, and served until the appointment of Jay McNally in 1990.

The Michigan Catholic once again had a priest at its helm in 1994, with the appointment of Fr. (now Msgr.) Patrick Halfpenny as editor in chief.

McNally was the last person to hold the title of editor (as opposed to managing editor or editor in chief), but after his departure in late 1994, the remainder of the 1990s saw Susan Barovich, Karen Pitton and then Kristie Persinger in the position of managing editor.

Msgr. F. Gerald Martin was editor in chief from 1997-99, and he was succeeded by Fr. (now Msgr.) Rice.

Veteran Oakland Press journalist and entertainment section editor Marylynn G. Hewitt served as managing editor from late 2001 until mid-2010.

Joe Kohn, archdiocesan public relations director and a former Michigan Catholic reporter, filled in as interim managing editor until the appointment of Mike Stechschulte this past January.