A long-hoped-for Chair of Catholic Studies, named in honor of the late Archbishop Paul J. Hallinan, will be established at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.

The announcement was made cooperatively this week by Bishop Clarence G. Issenmann and Louis A. Toepfer, president of the university.

The purpose of the Hallinan Chair will be to add to the CWRU Department of Religious faculty "a distinguished scholar who will provide a full program of instruction in Catholic theology, philosophy, history and literature."

The university's development office has begun the fund-raising for perpetual endowment of the chair. More than a third of the projected goal of $750,000 has been pledged by several Catholic laymen.

Bishop Issenmann of Cleveland is in the process of appointing a committee that will engineer fund-raising efforts and nominate the professor who will be the chair's first occupant.

Studies in Roman Catholicism will not be entirely new to Case Western Reserve. Catholic studies have been part of the religion curriculum since 1969.

Father Thomas N. Munson, a philosophy professor from DePaul University, Chicago, has been named visiting professor of Catholic Studies for the current academic year. He offers a full-scale program of courses.

The late Archbishop Hallinan, for whom the chair is named, was a native of Cleveland. He graduated from Cleveland's Cathedral Latin School and went from there to Notre Dame University in South Bend, Ind. There, he was editor of the humor section of the campus literary magazine. Throughout his life, he was known for his ready wit and charm.

After ordination, he served the Church in Cleveland in various capacities. From 1947 through 1958, he was Newman director of the diocese, in charge of the Church's apostolate to college students on secular campuses.

In 1958, he was appointed Bishop of Charleston, SC. From there he was promoted to Atlanta, where he served as archbishop from 1962 until his death in 1968. Death came from hepatitis, which he contracted while attending the Second Vatican Council in Rome.

He was regarded as a leading spokesman for the American Church while at the Council, principally on the subject of the liturgy.

He had received an earned doctorate in history from Case Western Reserve in 1967, finishing his dissertation while Archbishop of Atlanta.

He is believed to be the first American bishop to receive an earned academic doctorate after his consecration.