Religion: Catholics in Cleveland

(See front cover) Chicago’s brisk, businesslike George William Cardinal Mundelein, 63, spent his days last week between his office, his residence, his cathedral, his villa at Mundelein, where on a nine-hole course he golfs in the high 40’s. Boston’s stocky, rugged William Henry Cardinal O’Connell, 75 and in the best of health, attended to routine business, looked in on a priests’ retreat at St. John’s Seminary. Philadelphia’s austere Denis Cardinal Dougherty, 70, who lately bought a $215,000 house at Overbrook, was traveling quietly in Europe. The fourth U. S. Prince of the Roman Catholic Church, Patrick Joseph Cardinal Hayes of New York, had extraordinary priestly duties to perform. Clothed with vast and holy power, attended in proud dignity by a princely retinue, the Archbishop of New York set forth on an errand imposed upon him last month by His Holiness Pope Pius XI. Symbolically dispatched from the Pope’s side and armed with all that Pontiff’s authority and precedence. Cardinal Hayes was Legatus a latere to the Seventh National Eucharistic Congress,held this week in Cleveland.

To Manhattan from Cleveland last week journeyed four members of the Cardinal’s entourage—Monsignor Joseph Francis Smith, prothonotary apostolic and vicar general of the diocese; President Thomas Coughlin of the Morris Plan Bank who was chosen as gentleman-in-waiting; Henry Coakley, 18, son of a prominent Catholic family who was given the privilege of bearing the Cardinal’s train; Joseph J. Mulholland, who got the job of ecclesiastical valet by writing a prize-winning essay on “The Influence and Benefit of the Congress to Catholics and non-Catholics of Cleveland.” These four marked time for a day while the S. S. Rex sped into New York harbor bearing Monsignor Diego Venini, private chamberlain to the Pope, and Monsignor Carlo Grano, papal master of ceremonies, who proceeded to Cardinal Hayes’s grey stone house on Madison Avenue behind St. Patrick’s Cathedral. There they solemnly handed him his credentials as a Papal Legate. Next evening assembled the rest of the Cardinal’s entourage—Monsignor Michael J. Lavelle, his portly vicar general; Monsignor John J. Casey, his affable private secretary; and two Chamberlains of the Cape & Sword, Gerald Borden of the Manhattan milk family and Papal Marquis George MacDonald, the Cardinal’s rich good friend.

The day, Sunday, had been National Communion Day for 20.500,000 U. S. Catholics whose 20.000 priests saw to it that they knew of the Cleveland Congress and its aims and would pray for its success.Of the faithful millions, some 200.000 were devoutly setting out all over the land and in the Manhattan Cathedral the Cardinal and his entourage knelt briefly, chanted the Itinerarium, an ancient prayer of the Church for those about to depart on a journey.

Depart then the party did, in automobiles to Hoboken where on the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western’s tracks awaited two special trains to carry the Cardinal and 250 especially invited Catholic men & women. Next day the train arrived in Cleveland where it was met by Bishop Joseph Schrembs. Auxiliary Bishop James Augustine McFadden, Ohio’s Governor Martin Luther Davey. Cleveland’s Mayor Harry Lyman Davis and a deputationof Papal Knights of the Order of St. Gregory the Great. Escorted by police, Knights of Columbus and a band, they moved in solemn parade through Cleveland streets, lively with Eucharistic shields and yellow-&-white Papal colors, to the ugly red brick St. John’s Cathedral. In the vestibule Bishop Schrembs censed the Cardinal Legate, presented him with a crucifix and aspersorium. A choir sang: Ecce Sacerdos Magnus (“Behold the great priest”). Protector noster aspice Deus (“Oh God, Our Protector, look upon us”), chanted the Bishop, while the Cardinal knelt at a faldstool. His brief liturgical reception over, Patrick Cardinal Hayes had nothing official to do until that evening when, in the Public Auditorium, he was publicly welcomed to Cleveland by Mayor Davis, Governor Davey, Bishop Schrembs, Judge Joy Seth Kurd. As official representative of President Roosevelt, who sent a warm greeting, Postmaster General James Aloysius Farley made a speech. Radio Singer Jessica Dragonette, good Catholic, sang. Cardinal Hayes made a deft, polite reply to his hosts, went to Bishop Schrembs’s home for a good night’s sleep before opening the Eucharistic Congress proper next morning by celebrating Solemn Pontifical Mass.

Act of Faith. To many a Protestant, the Catholic dogma of the Eucharist seems either too mystical to attempt to comprehend, or, if understood, too abstract a principle to rally great throngs of men and women. Essentially a Eucharistic Congress is a simple act of public corporate faith, centring in the great mystery of the real presence of Jesus Christ under the appearance of bread and wine. It also represents Catholicism openly on parade. To Catholics the spiritual benefits of Eucharistic Congresses have become obvious in the 32 international ones which have been held since 1881. Years ago the annual council of U. S. Catholic bishops voted to hold Congresses regularly every four years, chose Cleveland for the first. Pope Pius approved by naming the first legate who has represented him at a national U. S. Congress.

Singing Bishop. For a few days last week stocky, bespectacled Bishop Schrembs took to a bed in St. John’s Hospital, to rest up before the Congress opened this week. It was his and Cleveland’s show and he had worked hard at it. Well aware was he that the Pope had said: “Tell the zealous Bishop Schrembs that we send our Apostolic Benediction and wish him more than abundant grace in worthily preparing such a great event that will be productive of such great good for America.” The Pope also sent a fine gold chalice which was to figure prominently in the Congress along with one once owned by St. Francis de Sales, which is the great pride of the Cleveland diocese. One or the other of these chalices was to be used at the great Masses of the Congress, which was to close with Solemn Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, by Cardinal Hayes, following a great Solemn Eucharistic Procession through Cleveland to the Stadium. There priests in chasubles, monsignori in purple, archbishops, bishops, mitred abbots investments of gold, altar boys in cassocks, nurses in uniforms, school children with bouquets, Knights of Columbus, Knights of St. John, policemen, firemen—20,000 well-drilled Catholics—were to form a Living Monstrance, a reproduction of the sacred altar vessel whose jeweled cross and golden sun rays surround a glass-enclosed clip holding the Consecrated Host. At the centre, garbed in voluminous vestments and wearing pontifical gloves entitling him to bless in the name of the Pope. Cardinal Hayes was to stand, completely surrounded by the body of the Monstrance, people who in turn would be surrounded by the Stadium’s capacity— 200.000. At some time during this closing ceremony in honor of which the Cleveland Indians called off the day’s baseball game, loudspeakers were to bring to the Stadium the voice of Pope Pius XI, broadcasting his blessings from Castel Gandolfo.

In the 25¢ Eucharistic Hymnal of which visitors to the Congress were supposed to make frequent use, 16 of its 70 hymns and chants were composed by Bishop Schrembs. German-born 69 years ago, the Bishop of Cleveland says that melody comes best to him when he is tired. He believes there should be more congregational singing at mass, has a good voice himself which he employed in the numerous radio-broadcasts he made publicizing the Congress. Perhaps the most satisfying feeling that overtook Bishop Schrembs this week was when vast throngs of people burst out with such of his hymns as God Bless Our Pope:

God bless our Pope the great, the good, God bless our Pope the great, the good, God bless our Pope, God bless our Pope, God bless our Pope.

Hierarchy. The Cardinal-Archbishops of Chicago, Philadelphia and Boston did not go to Cleveland. By a sort of gentlemen’s agreement, the Princes of the Church in the U. S. defer politely to whichever of their number is official representative at a function.But the Cleveland Congress brought out the rest of the U. S. hierarchy in almost full force. Present were 5.000 priests. 2.000 monsignori, 90 of the 120 bishops. 13 of the 18archbishops. Notably present were: Most Rev. Amleto Giovanni Cicognani. Apostolic Delegate to the U. S.; Cincinnati’s gentle Archbishop McNicholas. Legion of Decency founder; St. Louis’ stern-faced Archbishop Glennon; Santa Fe’s church-building Archbishop Gerken; Rochester’s Bishop Mooney, an archbishop without an archdiocese; St. Paul’s plump Archbishop Murray; Milwaukee’s scholarly Archbishop Stritch; San Antonio’s Archbishop Drossaerts; San Francisco’s lately-installed Archbishop Mitty; New Orleans’ German-born Archbishop Rummel; Dubuque’s tall Archbishop Beckman.

Cardinal of Charity. When Apostolic Delegate Cicognani and Bishop Schrembs were in the presence of Cardinal Hayes last week they took care to pull their mantellettas over their lace tunics. Reason: these symbols of their jurisdiction were nullified by the presence of the representative of the supreme jurisdiction of the Pope. Thus complete was the honor given last week to a churchman who says with Christian pride: “I was born very humble.”

The tenement in which Patrick Joseph Hayes’s humble birth occurred was in Manhattan’s City Hall Place, now called Cardinal Place. The year was 1867. Orphaned early, the Cardinal remembers of his Irish immigrant mother only that she once carried him through a maze of horse cabs across Broadway. Because his Aunt Ellen thought, “He got the callin’,” Pat Hayes was sent to a school, later a college, run by the Christian Brothers. There he made friends with a younger, livelier lad named George Mundelein. Indifferent at games, Hayes was a brilliant student whose businesslike manner got him the highest undergraduate honor, the Moderatorship of the Sacred Heart Society. He went on to St. Joseph’s Seminary (Troy, N. Y.) and CatholicUniversity in Washington. After ordination in 1892 his rise in his church was rapid. A priest who never had a parish of his own, he began as assistant to Monsignor John Farley. When Monsignor Farley became auxiliary bishop, Father Hayes became his secretary. As the older churchman became bishop, archbishop and second cardinal of New York, the younger one followed along as chancellor, monsignor, auxiliary bishop. During the War Bishop Hayes was head of all U. S. Catholic chaplains. Year after Cardinal Farley’s death in 1918, Patrick Hayes was made an arch bishop. Had not an angry Irish mob from St. Patrick’s Cathedral stoned the nearby Union Club in 1920 because it was flying a British flag, Archbishop Hayes might have been raised directly to the purple. But he got his red hat in 1924 and the Pope saluted him as caro fratello (“dear little brother”).

Cardinal Hayes is the first native-born head of the archdiocese of New York, which covers 4,717 square miles, has 456 churches, 1,563 priests and 1,200,000 Catholics and normally contributes more money to the support of the Church than does all of Europe. With Irish blue eyes, the Shepherd of New York was once considered handsome but illness during the past few years has left its stamp. He lives simply in small quarters, arises daily at 6:30 a. m., celebrates Mass, served by a boy sent over from Cathedral College. He eats little, grumbled about luxury when some friends had a shower bath in stalled in his house. He entertains not at all, but Papal Marquis MacDonald drops in and so does the most famed member of the Cardinal’s flock—Alfred Emanuel Smith, who was to speak on “Communism or Communionism” at the Cleveland Congress. Last week before departing on the Cardinal’s special train, Al Smith publicly took a spray gun in hand, gave the grey stone wall of St. Patrick’s Cathedral the first squirt of a chemical preparation which is to clean, harden and preserve it.*

Cardinal Hayes spends his summers in a rustic snuggery in the Catskills maintained by Dominican nuns. Once, roaming alone through nearby woods, he encountered a band of hooded Ku-Kluxers. The Cardinal muttered a prayer to his namesake St. Patrick. When a Ku-Kluxer lifted his hood it was to say that they were lost, and would he please tell them the way out of the woods. Out of this incident the amiable Cardinal made a little homily to the effect that just so does the True Church lead unbelievers from the woods. New York Catholics call their archbishop “the Cardinal of Charities” because his great concern is for the archdiocesan charities organization which he founded and still runs. His private charities the Shepherd of New York tries to keep unobtrusive.

The Church of Rome once wasapprehensive of the apparently upstart tendencies of Catholicism in the U. S.However successful the “American brand” of Catholicism was, there remained some nervous concern in 1924 when Patrick Hayes arrived in Rome to receive his red hat. He looked too young to be a Cardinal. And he shocked many a Roman when he preached his first sermon in his titular church in English. Then the new Cardinal cabled home: “My blessings to Little Old New York.” That, eleven years later, the Pope chose his “dear little brother” Hayes to send to Cleveland rather than Boston’s imperious O’Connell, Philadelphia’s autocratic Dougherty or Chicago’s cheery Mundelein may mark his approval of the ways of the U. S. Church, as exemplified in a kindly man who says: “I am conceited enough to think that no better American lives than myself.”

*This $2,000,000 Gothic edifice, eleventh insize among the world’s cathedrals, was plannedin 1853, dedicated in 1879, on a Fifth Avenueplot owned by the Church since 1810.