New York

On November 16, 1940, McIntyre was appointed auxiliary bishop of New York and titular bishop of Cyrene by Pope Pius XII. He received his episcopal consecration on January 8, 1941, from Archbishop Spellman, with Stephen Donahue and John O'Hara serving as co-consecrators, in St. Patrick's Cathedral.^[1] He became vicar general of the archdiocese on January 27, 1945, and received the Grand Cross of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre in May 1946. He once said that accounts of anti-Semitism in New York were "a manufactured movement...for the deliberate purpose of besmirching the minority Catholic population."^[4]

On July 20, 1946, McIntyre was named coadjutor bishop of New York and titular archbishop of Paltus. Despite never succeeding Spellman as archbishop, he assisted in the governance of the archdiocese while Spellman was busied by his additional duties as Apostolic Vicar for the Military Forces. Spellman once said, "I have never undertaken any important matter without consulting [McIntyre]. In nothing have I gone contrary to his advice."^[2] In 1947, McIntyre spoke out against legislation that would "permit further encroachments on the parental function of education."^[2]

Los Angeles

McIntyre was appointed the second archbishop of Los Angeles, California, on February 7, 1948. Replacing the late John J. Cantwell, he was installed at St. Vibiana's Cathedral on the following March 19. In McIntyre's first four years alone, 26 new parishes, 64 parochial schools, and 18 high schools were established.^[2] At one point during his tenure, he oversaw the construction of a new church every 66 days and a new school every 26 days to accommodate the post-World War II population boom.^[5] As archbishop, he led the successful effort to repeal the state tax on Catholic schools.^[2] In 1967 he consulted with California Governor Ronald Reagan regarding a proposed law to legalize abortion. He convinced Reagan to veto the law if it allowed abortions in case of birth defects. The legislature dropped that provision and Reagan signed the law, which decriminalized abortions when done to protect the health of the mother.^[6][7]

Pius XII created him Cardinal Priest of Santa Anastasia in the consistory of January 12, 1953. McIntyre was the first cardinal of the Western United States. At the consistory, when the official photographer's flash bulb failed to go off when the biretta was conferred, Pius and McIntyre re-enacted the ceremony.^[2] McIntyre was also one of the cardinal electors who participated in the 1958 papal conclave, and again in the 1963 papal conclave.

He sent his priests to meetings of the right-wing John Birch Society to educate themselves about communism, and recommended subscriptions to American Opinion and other Birch publications in his diocesan newspaper.^[8][9] He expressed caution towards "an obvious trend toward laxity" in the morality of films,^[10] and was one of the American bishops to oppose the liturgical revision of the Second Vatican Council, in which he participated from 1962 to 1965.^[2][11]

Cardinal McIntyre resisted elements in the church who dissented from Church dogma. He suspended Father William DuBay, who had called for McIntyre's removal in 1964 for not sufficiently supporting the civil rights movement,^[12] after DuBay advocated a labor union for Catholic priests and published a book critical of the Catholic Church hierarchy.^[13] When Bishop James P. Shannon expressed views critical of the Church hierarchy in an NBC documentary in the late 1960s, McIntyre described Shannon's views as constituting "incipient schism."^[14]

He had a dispute with the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, whom he barred from teaching within the archdiocese in 1967 for their leftist tendencies and abandonment of their traditional discipline—such as eliminating the habit and compulsory daily prayer.^[15] The dispute was appealed to the Holy See, which stipulated that the sisters must either restore their former practices or request dispensation from their vows; 315 of the 380 members sought dispensation and formed a non-Catholic organization.^[15][16]

At the end of his tenure, he was the subject of protests by blacks, Hispanics, and his own clergy.^{[dubious – discuss][17]} John Cooney writes that McIntyre harbored racial prejudices and was approached privately by the priests of his archdiocese who asked him to refrain from making racial slurs.^[18]

He retired after 21 years as Archbishop on January 21, 1970, and then served as a parish priest at St. Basil's Church in Downtown Los Angeles, where he privately celebrated the Tridentine Mass on the side altars of St. Basil's.

McIntyre died at St. Vincent Medical Center in Los Angeles, at the age of 93. In 2003, his remains were transferred to the crypt of the new Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels.