On this date in 1930, psychologist and author Stephen Frederick Uhl was born to Catherine (Gettlefinger) and Justin Uhl on a farm near near Bradford, Ind., where they raised nine children. First were born four daughters: Juanita, Frances, Joan and Roma. Five sons followed: Carl, Stephen, Ray, Jude and John.
Income from the 75-acre farm during the Depression strapped the family financially but raising livestock and planting a large vegetable garden kept everyone fed. Weekly Catholic Mass attendance, particularly at Catherine’s behest, was required.
Despite the financial burden, at age 14 Uhl entered the boarding seminary at St. Meinrad Archabbey, a Swiss order of Benedictine monks in Indiana. After further seminary studies, 12 years all told, he was ordained in 1956 as a priest, after which he continued his schooling at Catholic University in Washington, D.C.
His vocation was not destined to last. “My doubts about religion started … one morning in the monastery chapel in 1964 when I was 34 and was meditating on the intellectual proofs of God’s existence. I had a ‘lightning bolt’ insight in which I clearly saw how St. Thomas Aquinas’ supposedly strongest proof (his causality proof) fell far short, because it was based on an unwarranted assumption.” (Freethought Today, March 2011)
He left the priesthood in 1967 after 11 years. After shedding the clerical garb, he earned a Ph.D. in psychology from Loyola University in Chicago and married Diane Suckow on the Winter Solstice 18 months later in 1968. He taught public high school math, became a certified school psychologist and opened a private psychology practice in 1976 from which he eventually retired.
In his memoir “Out of God’s Closet” (2009), Uhl wrote about his transition from priest to atheist: “The superstitions learned in early childhood came into conflict with my adult learnings. The common sense I had learned from my father (a farmer) drove me to follow my reasoning conscience and break the bonds of traditional superstition.”
He added: “It was not any sense of guilt that drove me to undo the fallacies and superstitions that I had taught so effectively as a naïve young priest. It was more a sense of responsibility for mopping up after my earlier mistakes.” One of his favorite quotes was “Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.” (Attributed to the Roman philosopher Seneca)
The Uhls joined the Freedom From Religion Foundation as members in 1999 and became major benefactors, contributing well over a million dollars to various FFRF fundraisers, including $250,000 to build a headquarters addition in Madison, Wis.
In a member profile, Uhl wrote that some of his least favorite things were “Jesus-loving Christians who hate and terrorize atheists; a pope theoretically representing over a billion people taking medieval, anti-scientific stances, especially on birth control and stem cell research; the hypocrisy of ‘preying’ clergy; the inhumane waste in our penal system that overstresses vengeful punishment (of the ‘sinner’) and witnessing a ‘smart’ President Obama preaching a religious sermon at a National Prayer Breakfast.”
He was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2009 but lived 12 more years before the cancer returned when he was 90. He chose to begin VSED (Voluntarily Stopping Eating and Drinking) and died a week later with his wife by his side at their home in Oro Valley, Ariz. They had decided early on in their marriage not to have children. Diane died the next year in 2022.
His uncle “left a legacy of warmth, fun, intelligence, education and generosity,” wrote Greg Uhl, one of his 31 nieces and nephews. “He embodied his and Aunt Diane’s motto of ‘Live Long and Die Short.’ ” (D. 2021)
