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Lynch Conaty (d. 1872), was born at IΚílnaleck,¹ County Cavan, on August 1, 1847. The youngster and his brothers and sisters,² all born after the family’s return to Taunton, Massachusetts, in May of 1850,³ were raised in the Old Colony State where they attended the local primary schools.

On December 30, 1863, Thomas entered Montreal College⁴ where he studied until gradation four years later. Pursuing his education at Holy Cross College in 1867, Conaty received the “Cross of Honor” in rhetoric during the first semester. Candidates fοr the bachelor’s degree at Worcester underwent rigorous examinations in moral and natural philosophy, astronomy and chemistry. An acquaintance with Latin, Greek, French and mathematics was also required as were essays on literary, scientific or moral subjects. Young Conaty successfully mastered the program and, on July 1, 1869, received his degree along with fourteen others, all of whom eventually became priests. On September 7, 1869, under the patronage of a cousin, Conaty enrolled as the 800th clerical aspirant at Montreal’s Grand Seminaire de Sant-Sulρice.⁵ His course of studies under the Sulpician Fathers was completed late in 1872,⁶ and on December 21, he and three other clerics were ordained fοr priestly service in the Diocese of Worcester by the Most Reverend Ignatius Bourget.?

Shortly after returning to his diocese, Father Conaty was made curate at Saint John’s in Worcester. When that parish was divided, on January^[p.338]24, 1880, Father Conaty was entrusted with the pastorate of the newly-created juridical unit of Sacred Heart. Almost immediately, the young priest commenced work on a parochial church and by the spring of 1881 it was ready for occupancy. The completed edifice was dedicated on September 21, 1884. A rented house at the corner of Sheridan and Cambridge Streets served as a temporary rectory until April of 1881 when Father Conaty purchased the adjoining Gilchrist estate.⁸ He lived briefly in the old manor house there until the following January when the present presbytery was completed. In March (of 1881) he also took charge of the mission at Stoneville, and held the position until it was transferred to Oxford parish in 1885.⁹ A parish hall was subsequently erected and by February of 1887, Father Conaty had also provided a gymnasium for the young people of his area.¹⁰ That the years of his pastorate were filled with such activities obviously accounts for his contemporary reputation as an “agitator who loves the work of the multitude.”1 1

Conaty long opposed the excessive use of alcohol. He characterized intemperance as a “monster slayer of humankind.” His dedication to the temperance movement was a natural outgrowth of his conviction that excessive drinking is an anachronism which neutralizes the Church’s efforts, “paralyzes her energy, and disgraces her good name.”¹² In May of 1877, Conaty organized the Springfield Diocesan Temperance Union at Fall River. Eight years later, he was elected Vice-President of the Catholic Temperance Union of America, and in 1877, became that organization’s president. Conaty was quick to remind listeners at his many lectures that “total abstinence is not a substitute for religion, but a real help to a religious life, making the practice of religion easier and more effectual.”¹³ In his multiphased efforts on behalf of the temperance movement, the young priest’s thoughts were always bent toward the educating and humanizing of his fellows.¹⁴ Though he was unable to guide the anti-liquor forces toward the ambitious goals they won in 1919, Conaty and his co-workers in the C.T.U.A. can be credited with trying to attain their objectives without abandoning the traditional American concept of personal liberty.

In the spring of 1891, Father Conaty launched The Catholic School and Home Magazine which he originally envisioned as a parochial bulletin. The publication was so successful that it was enlarged to literary status in March of 1892, and was soon being circulated throughout the New England area. It was described as “an excellent little publication whose good work has won commendation from the highest church dignitaries.”¹⁵ In 1898, Conaty grouped together the scriptural lessons^[p.339]he had written for the magazine and published them under the separate title, New Testament Studies.¹⁶

Father Conaty was also among the founders of the Catholic Summer School of America in 1892. That auostolate had as its aim “the defense and protection of truth” by giving instructions to those called on daily to defend the faith.¹⁷ In 1894, Conaty was elected president of the Catholic Summer School which he once categorized as “an assembly of earnest people, men and women, who desire to hear the important living questions in all departments of knowledge discussed by eminent Catholics, priests and laymen, from a sound Catholic point of view.”¹⁸ Conaty envisioned the movement as an extension of the desire on the Church’s part “to bring some of the blessings of college αnd university to the minds αnd hearts and lives of the masses of the people... It is, after all, only a revival of the monastery schools of the middle ages.”¹⁹

It was through his activities in the Catholic Summer School program that Father Conaty gained the attention of influential members in the American hierarchy who recognized the energetic priest’s aim “to popularize truth, especially religious truth, as the spirit of evil has popularized falsehood in our day; to prevent the weapons of truth from being turned against truth itself; to rid the mind of the thought that divine faith is an acceptance of doctrines that do violence to our intellect.” ²⁰ Throughout much of the nation, Conaty came to be known as one possessing “a commanding presence αnd a musical voice of much power.”2 ^I As an orator, he was ranked among the foremost of the American platform.

The pastor of Worcester’s Sacred Heart Parish also participated actively in the “Reading Circle” movement whose purpose was to bring “the Catholic youth into touch with the intellectual movement of the age, while they had the safeguard of truth in their researches for knowledge.”²²

Apart from his temperance work on a national scale and his outright cooperation with the Irish movements for the old country which developed his leadership, Conaty had also a reputation as an educator.²³ It came then as no surprise when the rectorship of The Catholic University of America fell vacant in late 1896, that the name of this forcible logician, graceful writer and winsome personality,²⁴ was placed first on a terna submitted to Rome by the institution’s Board of Trustees.²⁵ That he was a popular choice was echoed by one newspaper reporter who spoke of Conaty as “a thorough American in his sympathies and education.” The^[p.340]^[p.341] same journalist suggested that no more fitting successor to Bishop Keane could have been placed at the head of the most prominent Catholic University in America.²⁶

The actual appointment, made on November 22, 1896, was warmly applauded throughout the United States.

One editorial writer reckoned that Father Conaty had won the distinction “by his remarkable ability, his pure and zealous priesthood, and his sturdy and manly character.”²⁷ Official inauguration ceremonies conferring on Conaty “one of the most difficult positions in the Catholic Church in the United States,”²⁸ were scheduled for January 19, 1897. In his welcoming address, the chancellor of the University, James Cardinal Gibbons, stated:

You bring to the discharge of your responsible duties a mind cultivated by study and enlightened by observation αnd experience. Your labors in the ministry have imparted to you a knowledge of man and of the tines—a knowledge that is essential, αnd without which the study of books is of little avai1.²⁹

It was generally thought that Conaty’s selection was an admirable choice. He was not a trained educator, but there were very few among the American clergy who were. He did have a strong interest in education; he was energetic in all the works that he undertook. The point most in his favor was the he was neither an out-right liberal nor a conservative, but combined enough of each element in his character and in his life to make him acceptable to both schools of thought.³⁰

In his first months at The Catholic University of America, Father Conaty gradually “restored harmony, appeased passions [and] minimized antagonisms”^{3 1
in an all-out-effort to push forward the cause of Cathol}ic education. On June 2, 1897, Pope Leo XIΙΙ named the Irish-born priest a domestic prelate. Formal announcement of the honor “was made by the papal delegate, Most Rev. Sebastian Martinelli, at a dinner given at Manhattan College, Tuesday, following the commencement exercises of the college.”³²

Monsignor Conaty made his pedagogical philosophy known at every level of Catholic education. Ina number of lecture tours, The Catholic University of America’s second rector repeated his contention that the underlying principle of the Catholic Church in the educational movement was to establish the kingdom of God in the lives of men, to diffuse the truths of Christ confided to it and to preserve Christianity by making Christianity the soul of education.³³ It was the prelate’s opinion that Catholics in the United States had advanced to the stage where ecclesias- ^[p.342] tical scholarship was legitimately demanded. While he believed that the ultimate purpose of education is to form citizens for the city of God, he was no less vociferous in pointing out, “We have reached the point where it becomes necessary to develop the intellectual and social qualities of our people, as well as the religious.”³⁴ In approaching the theoretical level, Conaty openmindedly asserted that the Catholic Church “is not blindly devoted to any one system of teaching. Unity of purpose or even of system does not destroy individual effort,—but there is a unity imposed by undeniable perfections of science, political complexion of country and enlightenment, and just public opinion.”³⁵

From the very outset of his rectorship, Monsignor Conaty was at his best as an educational organizer. It was his suggestion, for example, that prompted the meeting at Dunwoodie, on May 25, 1898, of the nation’s seminary presidents, a convocation that eventually evolved into the Educational Conference of Seminary Faculties. That organization later became, in 1904, the Catholic Educational Association. The two other elements, later blended into the N.C.E.A., were also formed under the guidance of Conaty, namely, the Association of Catholic Colleges and the Parish School Conference.³⁶ The university’s admission as a charter member of the Association of American Universities in 1900 occurred during Conaty’s administration as did the foundation of the now famous Trinity College.

Shortly after Conaty’s inauguration, James Cardinal Gibbons asked the Holy See to confer the episcopal character on the university’s rector. Roman officials felt, however, that “it was a bit premature to grant Conaty the rank of bishop”³⁷ and advised Baltimore’s cardinal that the interim status of the domestic prelate would be preferable. Four years later, on July 18, 1901, the New York Tribune reported that Conaty had “received a cable dispatch from Cardinal Gibbons, announcing that the Pope has elevated the monsignor to a bishopric.”³⁸

The ceremony raising the university’s rector to the titular See of Samos³⁹ was held on November 24, 1901, at Baltimore’s Cathedral of the Assumption.⁴⁰ The consecration of Dr. Conaty was, as predicted, one of the most impressive ceremonies ever held in the historic Cathedral, which has been made notable by so many events connected with the Roman Catholic Church in the United States.”⁴¹ Even the procession was imposing. It was graphically described by one observer:

Headed by the cross bearer and numerous altar boys in red cassocks, the students from St. Mary’s and St. Joseph’s Seminaries followed. Then came the priests in their black cassocks and white sur- ^[^p.343]plίces. These were followed by the faculty of the Catholic University in academic robes. The bright colors of the University men contrasted brilliantly with the black and white of the priests and seminarians. Monsignors and bishops in their purple robes came next, and then the nine archbishops, each of whom was attended by two priests as chaplains. The bishop-elect, accompanied by Bishops Macs and Beaven, followed, and then the officers of the Mass. The procession ended with Cardinal Gibbons in his robes of office...

One of the interesting incidents of the consecration occurred toward the end when the new bishop had been presented with the Episcopal ring, crozier, and mitre. Starting down the main aisle to give his blessing he paused at the first sent on the Gospel side, where an aged gentleman bent over the extended hand and kissed the ring. It was an impressive sight, αnd thrilled all who witnessed it. It was the meeting of father and son after that son had been consecrated a bishop, αnd the aged parent, who is Mr. Patrick Cοnaty,⁴² of Massachusetts, afterward bowed his head, overcome with emotion.⁴¹

In later years, Conaty was to spell out his own concept of the bishopric in terms of responsibility:

The Bishop in our modern life has the same fight to wage, the same cross to bear, the same difficulties to contend with as the Bishops of all ages. He is the follower of his Divine Master, the apostolic messenger of His Gospel, and while going about doing good he must also bear the burden of the cross. Our American conditions bring their special difficulties and our present age its special demands. The Bishop in his diocese is the High Priest, the leader of the people, the spokesman of the Divine Saviour, the father of his priests, the guardian of authority αnd unity, the center of the link that binds the jurisdiction of the diocese to the great and mighty apostolic commission. He, indeed, must be prepared to meet the conditions, to preach the Gospel, to stand for the truth and defend the people against error and evil. Wealth, the comforts of life, contempt of restraint, the indulgence of self, the desire for independence of all spiritual obligations, add to our difficulties; yet we know that the ideal Christian life remains the same, that the cross of Calvary is the only means of salvation, that the Gospel of Christ is the form of life and the salvation of nations as well as individuals. The duty that lies before us is to fearlessly preach the old^[p.344] truths, to adopt the means best suited to adapt them to conditions, to know our age and work to guide it, to reach the hearts of the people, and to lead their souls to Christ. The Bishop in our modern life is called to lead his clergy and people in the way of God, in piety, in knowledge, αnd in truth.⁴⁴

Though Bishop Conaty achieved an enviable record in his six years at Washington, “his efforts, while sincere and honest, did not resolve the growing complexity of the University difficulties.”⁴⁵ Conaty “never had even the support that his predecessor had obtained in the early years of the University”⁴⁶ and frequent clashes with the Board of Trustees coupled with his general failure to secure financial backing from other members of the American hierarchy made it clear that no serious thought would be given about renewing his term in 1903. While his name headed the terna to succeed himself, it was understood that the second candidate, Father Denis J. O’Connell, was the preferred choice.

Bishop Conaty offered his resignation to the Board of Trustees and on April 22, 1903, the board moved to accept it. The New England educator retired with the satisfaction of leaving behind “an institution that had grown under his rectorship, if not in financial security or to any striking degree internally, at least in its scope in the Catholic educational life of America.”⁴⁷

¹This fact cannot be documented. See Archives of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles (hereafter referred to as A.A.L.A.), Thomas J. Conaty, Relatio Diocesis Montereyensis-Angelorum Facta Sacrae Congregationi Coizsistori.alis (Los Angeles, 1914), p. 3. The author visited the parish at Crosserlough in August of 1962 αnd lunched with the pastor, the Very Reverend Patrick Gaffney, who related how the original church, dedicated to Saint Mary, was destroyed about 1884 along with all the parochial register books. Bishop Conaty publicly acknowledged his Irish birth in an address delivered on behalf of the Total Abstinence League. Cf. An Address to the Father Matthew, O.S.F.C., Total Abstinence League of the Sacred Thirst (Liverpool, 1889), p. 2.

²Vg. Francis P., Catherine C., Bernard S., John S., Peter F., Joseph A., and Michael.

³Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts, 1848-1889 (Worcester, 1890.) II, 871. ⁴1oly Cross College was founded by the Right Reverend Benedict Joseph Flaget, Bishop of Boston, in 1843.

⁵Τhough the Grand Seminary is diocesan, it has continuously received candidates^[p.346]from all parts of Canada, the United States, Central and South America and Japan.

όλccοrding to “Dates Commemoratives Grand Seminaire de Montreal,” Conaty was tonsured June 11, 1870; received Minor Orders June 3, 1871, Subdiaconate December 23, 1871 and Diaconate May 25, 1872. His only other degree, an honorary doctorate of divinity, was awarded at Georgetown University in 1889. See Graduates of the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester; Massachusetts, 1849-1889 (Worcester, 1890), μ. 10.

BJοhn J. McCoy, Souvenir Volume of the Fiftieth Anmversrny of St. John’s Parish (Worcester, 1896).

1 ¹Jοhn J. McCoy, History of the Catholic Church in the Diocese of Spring ieΙd (Boston, 1900), p. 273.

3Αnznυυa1 Address of Rev. Thomas J. Conaty, D.D., President of the Catholic local Abstinence Union of America (Cleveland, 1889), p. 3. For a detailed treatment of his involvement in this movement, Cf. Francis J. Weber, “Thomas Conaty Confronts Problems of His Day,” American Benedictine Review XVI (December, 1965), 557-564.

¹⁵Τhe New World, May 25, 1895. Five volumes of the journal were issued under Conaty’s editorship between 1892 and 1897.

¹⁶Νew Testament Studies. The Principle Events of the Life of Our Lord (New York, 1898). Conaty’s Bible Studies fir the Use of Colleges and Schools appeared in the same year.

¹⁷Cf. Thomas J. Conaty, “The Catholic Summer School and the Clergy, American Ecclesiastical Review XV (July, 1896), 71-82.

¹⁸”Points About the Catholic Summer School,” The Catholic School and Home Magazine I (August, 1892), 148.

¹⁹Τhomas J. Conaty, The Roman Catholic Church in the Educational Movement (Toronto, 1895), p. 7.

²⁰μorgan M. Sheerly, “History of the Catholic Summer School of America,”

Records 0f the American Catholic Historical Society XXVII (December, 1916), 293.

21 The Philadelphia Catholic Union and Times as quoted in the St. Louis Church

²²”Reading Circle Convention, The Catholic School and dame Magazine III (‘hay, 1894), 65.

America,” American Ecclesiastical Review CXXI (November, 1949), 366. ²⁴Α.Α.L.Α., a sketch by William D. Kelly, unidentified news clipping, May 25,

1895.^[p.347]

²⁵Others proposed were Father Daniel J. Riordan of Chicago, brother of the

²⁹”Inauguration of Very Rey. Dr. Conaty,” Catholic University Chronicle I (January-

³⁵”The College Teacher,” The Catholic University Bulletin VI (July, 1900), 292-

³⁷Jïhn Tracy Ellis, The Life of James Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore,

““See “The Episcopal Consecration of the Right Reverend Rector,” Catholic

⁴²1n addition to his father, the prelate’s three brothers, Francis, Joseph and

⁴⁴Quoted in Francis J. Weber, George Thomas Montgomery, California Churchman

⁴⁶Thï nas T. McAvoy, C.S.C., “The Catholic Minority after the Americanist

Controversy, 1899-1911: A Survey,” Review of Politics XXI (January, 1959), 66.

That Thomas J. Conaty was regarded as episcopal “timber” long before his actual appointment is obvious from several sources. Bishop Thomas D. Beaven wrote the newly designated Rector of The Catholic University of America in 1897, that he had been greatly disturbed before Conaty’s settlement in Washington, that some western or southern diocese would succeed in laying hands upon him. The Springfield prelate also informed Conaty that “Arbp. Riordan intended you for Sacramento, and did all he could to get you.”I There were subsequent attempts to secure an episcopal appointment for the university’s rector too, at Columbus in 1899, and Chicago in 1901, all to no avail.

The rectorship of The Catholic University of America occupies a unique position inasmuch as its incumbents have traditionally become bishops during their tenure. That this practice has not been received favorably in certain quarters is evident from an editorial published shortly after Conaty’s appointment to the hierarchy in 1901:

It is understood that priests are ordained to exercise the priesthood, and that bishops are consecrated for no other purpose than to exercise the offιces of the episcopate. In our country especially everything ecclesiastical ought to mean something and be all that it seems. A cheapening of the episcopal dignity would be most deplorable.²

This prominent Catholic journal also hinted that Conaty’s elevation doubtlessly presaged his appointment to some new or vacant diocese^[p.349]since Rome rarely condoned conferral of the episcopate only “in hon-orein.” Editorial opinion notwithstanding, the Titular Bishop of Samos served out the remaining two years of his term at Washington with little thought about a new assignment.

Serious consideration of a residential bishopric for Conaty came only when the university’s Board of Trustees decided against renewing the rector’s term fοr another six years. As there were no ecclesiastical jurisdictions then vacant, Patrick W. Riordan, the Archbishop of San Francisco, long desirous of episcopal assistance, suggested that Bishop George Thomas Montgomery of Monterey-Los Angeles be named his coadjutor, thereby creating an opening in Southern California.

It is part of the public record that Bishop Conaty was not the candidate most preferred by the clergy in California’s southland, many of whom correctly suspected that powerful church influences elsewhere would fill the vacancy with a “church dignitary outside the diocese.”³ As soon as he had arranged fοr the transfer of George Τ Montgomery to San Francisco, Archbishop Patrick W. Riordan hastened back from Europe to convoke a meeting of the six consultors of the shepherdless Diocese of Monterey-Los Angeles. The metropolitan, unable to influence the drawing up of the terna, was forced to accept the names of Patrick Harnett, the interim administrator, William B. O’Connor of Stockton and Patrick J. Cummins of Saint Patrick’s Church in San Francisco. Harnett, the unanimous choice, received all but his own vote fοr first place.⁴ The archbishop later confided to a friend, “The meeting was all fixed before I got there.”⁵

At the subsequent conclave of the provincial bishops, the original terna was set aside without objection and replaced by one with the names of Thomas J. Conaty, Denis O’Connell, newly designated Rector of The Catholic University of America, and James Cleary of Saint Paul. The recommendations were then forwarded to the Holy See along with an additional letter of endorsement for Conaty by Coadjutor Archbishop George Τ Montgomery, the southland’s former ordinary.

There were additional interventions when it became known that the “popular” candidate had been vetoed at San Francisco. The one-time Bishop of Monterey-Los Angeles, Francis Mora, wrote from his place of retirement in Sarria to the cardinal prefect of Propaganda Fide with a strong plea fοr Harnett as did Father Joachim Adam, former Vicar General of the diocese.⁶ A petition favoring Harnett’s selection was circulated among the priests and sent directly to Gerolamo Cardinal Gotti: ^[p.350]

“Be it resolved that we priests of the diocese of Monterey—Los Angeles, in meeting assembled, hereby express our sincere regard and esteem for Very Rev. P. Harnett, newly-appointed administrator of this di_oce_se that we express our conscientious belief in his eminent fitness for the position of Bishop of this diocese...”

Archbishop Riordan’s less-than-honest evaluation about Harnett’s ill health and the administrator’s alleged administrative ineptness apparently convinced Roman officials to disregard the latter’s candidacy altogether.

Meanwhile, confusion reigned on the local scene. The southland’s Catholic newspaper reported: “Α number of rumors have been going the rounds as to who shall succeed to this important See. It has been time and again settled by the newspapers, only to be unsettled next day.”⁸ Finally, on April 19, 1903, news reached the west coast that the “Rt. Rev. Thomas J. Conaty, D.D., J.U.D., rector of the Catholic University at Washington, has been formally chosen bishop of Los Angeles... “⁹ The appointment, once made, was well received, as is evidenced by the following editorial:

Few Catholic clergymen in America have broader reputations than Bishop Conaty, who stands as the embodiment of religious zeal and patriotic love.¹⁰

As to the motives for imposing “a church dignitary outside the diocese” on Monterey-Los Angeles, Riordan’s biographer has noted that the archbishop’s “efforts to secure Conaty’s removal to the West demonstrated his loyalty to the university and his personal feelings for the new rector, Denis O’Connell.”¹¹

Conaty was enthusiastically welcomed to the Diocese of Monterey-Los Angeles, whose scenic loveliness and climatic perfection merited its distinction as “the most beautiful episcopal division in the geographical distribution of the Church.”¹² The student publication at Saint Vincent’s College observed that “the record of the past is a good criterion by which to judge of his future, and with that as a premise we may predict a brilliant and progressive administration for our newly appointed Bishop.. ^“13 This gracious note was echoed by J. Wiseman Macdonald, a leading southland lawyer, who told Conaty:

With you our Bishop, as engineer, we want to say that no matter what may be the speed of the train, how rough the road or heavy the grade, you can always look back from the engine with the cer- ^[p.352]tainty of seeing the green flag on the last coach waving the encouraging signal that every car is still with you and that the couplings riveted by the faith we have in Mother Church αnd you have securely held the train intact. We are always behind you; Priests αnd Laity.¹⁴

The diplomatic aureola, which characterized so many of the prelate’s activities, is nowhere more forcibly reflected than in his attempts to ameliorate any uneasiness on the part of those who had expressed their preference fοr a candidate other than himself. This Conaty did by allowing the incardi-fated priests to participate in diocesan administration by helping to select the Board of Episcopal Consultors. Conaty made three appointments to that board and permitted an equal number to be chosen for three-year terns by an elective process.¹⁵ Such a procedure anticipated action taken six decades later by the Second Vatican Council when it recommended formation of diocesan senates as advisory agencies to local bishops.

From his earliest days as residential ordinary, Bishop Conaty was conscious about the pivotal position of the Catholic press. Even before coming to Los Angeles, the prelate advocated “a strengthening of the aposto-late of the printed word by which the falsehoods of history may be punctured and the real teachings of true religion made known.”¹⁶

Shortly after his installation, the bishop approached John J. Bodkin, editor of The Tidings, with an offer to purchase the seven-year-old newspaper. Such a proposal was acceptable enough to Bodkin who realized that a professionally trained journalist could transform the paper into “one of the best publications of its kind in the country.”¹⁷ On July 30, 1904, Bodkin called a meeting of prominent Catholic businessmen at Cathedral Hall to consider a plan “to dispose of his newspaper property and organize a stock company for the purpose of enlarging the paper and managing it.” Bishop Conaty attended and warmly advocated the acceptance of the proposition,¹⁸ whereupon it was voted unanimously to organize a stock company under the bishop’s name. On October 7, 1904, The Tidings became the organ fοr the Diocese of Monterey-Los Angeles, thus entering the second phase of its long and useful service to Catholics of California’s southland.

Bishop Conaty urged the faithful to unite in making the newspaper “a worthy messenger of sacred truth to the homes of our people.” He then outlined his concept of the paper’s role in the southland:^[p.353]...to give the Diocese of Monterey—Los Angeles an adequate chronicle of the activities of the church and its people, to provide a journal in which may be indicated Catholic opinion on topics that may be properly considered in that light, to take note of the other events of general importance and interest and, last of all, to establish a public organ which shall make for constant progress towards that highness of educative aim that is the sense of the. Church and of the people...¹⁹

A change in the tenor of the weekly publication occurred almost immediately. The format was altered and the number 0f pages doubled from eight to sixteen. An editorial in the Boston Republic reported that “The Tidings is the best evidence that we in New England have that the diocese of Los Angeles [sic] has already felt the stimulus of Bishop Conaty’s personality.” The eastern paper noted that under the direction of Mr. Elmer Murphy,²⁰ formerly of The Catholic University of America, The Tidings had assumed “authority of tone, a sane and poised point of view and literary fineness.”²¹ Murphy was a prolific writer of considerable accomplishments, and during his editorship, the paper reflected his exacting standards. While reaffirming that The Tidings was not in politics,²² a considerable number of innovations were introduced in later years by Murphy and his successors. In 1907, for example, the paper issued its first annual edition with a format that lasted without major alteration until 1936.

Conaty made it clear that the diocesan newspaper had to fulfill its commitment “to chronicle all the religious events of the diocese and at the sane time to bear every week a message of instruction to the people.”²³ The prelate’s own forceful personality was everywhere obvious, as evidenced by the strongly pro-Irish and pro-Yankee sentiments voiced week after week. Generally, The Tidings remained aloof from the controversial areas then Occupying such dynamic men as Father Peter C. Yorke of San Francisco. The editor of the bay area’s Catholic paper took note of the political passivity of The Tidings by referring to it as “our lady-like contemporary of the South.”²⁴ A man of letters in his own right, Bishop Conaty maintained a keen concern in the welfare of the newspaper. “As the official organ of the diocese, and in its broader scope as a journal of Catholic thought and a chronicle of Catholic activities, it commanded at all times his bountiful interest.”²⁵ ^[p.354]The Laity

Bishop Conaty encouraged an active role for lay people in the various works of the diocese, especially those of a fraternal nature. He was many years ahead of his time in appreciating the usefulness that personal involvement in the Church’s spiritual and social organizations has on solidifying religious commitment. This he underscored by observing, “Where the laity has manifested indifference or weakness in loyalty to the Church, disaster has come upon religion.”²⁶

As a man of letters, Conaty felt that “an intelligent knowledge of religion, an earnest devotion to truth, a love for the Church and its doctrine, and a willingness on all occasions to teach the truth, is demanded from all our people.”²⁷ With such sentiments, it is easy to understand the importance the bishop attached to his frequent visits to the Newnan Club, a group of prominent Catholic professional and business men organized in 1899 for literary purposes. The prelate’s repeated appearances also indicated a basic agreement with his predecessor’s view that the Newman Club was among the more promising features of Catholic life in the Diocese of Monterey-Los Angeles. Club officials were always anxious to have Conaty deliver the monthly lecture and the quality of his discourses rarely disappoiñted them. His talk on Joan of Arc, for example, was so well received that it was later published in The West Coast Magazine.²⁸

“Already acquainted with the work of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, Bishop Conaty became one of its greatest advocates and most earnest supporters.”²⁹ It was at his behest that the society was organized in Southern California in 1904 and incorporated four years later. The bishop personally sought out a group of men known for their dedicated charity and formed them into a bulwark for improving the material and spiritual welfare of the poor. To this select gathering, he said, “I am going to take you into the partnership” of helping to care for the less fortunate of this diocese.³⁰ The exhortation quickly took root and by the time of San Francisco’s devastating earthquake and fire in 1906, Will H. Wheeler (1847-1909) was able to raise, in conjunction with the Knights of Columbus, $100,000 to help feed and clothe the Bay City’s homeless thousands.

Conaty is also credited with encouraging the establishment of the Holy Name Society in Southern California in 1910. Efforts to check “profanity and indecent language’³¹ achieved its initial success on February 10 of that year when Father Thomas F. Fahey received a hun- ^[p.356]dred men into the society in Holy Cross Parish.

The Bishop of Monterey-Los Αngeles and the Knights of Columbus arrived on the southland scene almost simultaneously and the prelate proved to be one of Columbianism’s most ardent supporters. It was his backing that prompted Joseph Scott’s successful attempt to lure the Knights to Los Angeles for their annual convention in 1905. The welcome staged on that occasion by civic and religious dignitaries indelibly impressed the national leadership with their neophyte affiliates on the West coast.

Conaty also promoted the Young Men’s Institute, which had functioned in the Golden State since 1883 as a beneficial society for practical Catholics of good moral character.³² He commended as a noble mission the Y.M.I.’s aim of fostering among their membership “loyalty to their Church, to their country and to one another.”³³ Restricted as it was to men of Irish birth or descent, the Ancient Order of Hibernians obviously occupied a place of special affection for Conaty. Since the turn of the century, the Α.Ο.H., established in Los Angeles on September 17, 1875, has boasted of the largest enrollment and strongest financial standing of any Catholic organization in the diocese.³⁴ The bishop, utilizing these resources on many occasions, referred to the A.O.H. as his “shock troops” of Catholic Action. He was no less amicable to the Friendly Sons of Saint Patrick sympathizing as he did with that organization’s attempts to bring people “face to face with the sacrifices made by the Irish exiles to win for America the liberties which we enjoy as citizens of this great Republic... “35

While recognizing the need and utility for autonomy among the various groups within the far flung ecclesiastical jurisdiction, Bishop Conaty supported the foundation of the Federation of Catholic Societies. In an address at Saint Vìbiana’s Cathedral on February 10, 1907, he commended attempts to inspire zeal in the work of religion by centralizing and unifying Catholic activities into one well defined common effort.³⁶ A visible effect of this movement was the first permanent layman’s retreat group,³⁷ which was formed in 1903 as the initial example in the United States.

During his years as Bishop of Monterey-Los Angeles, Thomas J. Conaty added immeasurably to the already existing health and welfare facilities available under Catholic auspices. It was the prelate’s ambition

357to so develop the Church’s charitable work that all forms of suffering might be cared fοr, and that the work among the poor should be so sys-tematized³⁸ as to enable less fortunate Catholics to subsist without burdening the public relief rolls.

Under Conaty’s direction, the Catholic settlement house in Los Ángeles, inspired and named fοr Orestes Brownson, was moved to new quarters on Jackson Street in 1904, and blessed by the bishop on the following January 8.³⁹ It was Conaty’s wish that Brownson House operate in a sphere distinct from other diocesan agencies through a plan, novel for those days, of having trained social workers contact underprivileged families in their own homes. To carry out these ideals, the bishop assembled a staff of workers especially qualified in their respective fields. His interest in the activities of Brownson House laid the groundwork fοr that organization’s expansion and in later years, to the diocesan-wide Bureau of Catholic Charities, later known as the Catholic Welfare Bureau. An extension of Brownson House, a day nursery, was opened in September of 1906, to care fοr children whose mothers were forced to work away from home. In 1910, Saint Elizabeth’s Day Nursery was given autonomy and its own staff.

The Society of El Hogar Feliz,⁴⁰ founded in 1897 to care fοr neglected and abandoned Catholic children, was the initial institution of its kind in Southern California. Teaching those youngsters about God and their duties in a Christian society was a favorite apostolate of the bishop, and, at the earliest opportunity, he acquired more elaborate headquarters fοr the institution on North Main Street. Though he visited “The Happy Home” frequently, he never came empty-handed. Games, sewing kits, candy and kindergarten supplies made him a most welcome guest among the six to fourteen-year-olds living at El Ilogar Feliz.

Preparations to move Saint Patrick’s Mime for the Aged and the Guardian Angel Orphanage from their crowded quarters on Boyd Street were made late in 1905, and, on February 4th of the following year, Bishop Conaty set in place the cornerstone fοr Mercy Home, a combined institution with separate facilities for the old, the helpless and orphaned children.

The mail delivery of September 16, 1904, brought an offer to Bishop Conaty as casual as it was monumental. After outlining the charitable work done in San Francisco by the Little Sisters of the Poor, Edward J. LeBreton⁴¹ asked the prelate if he would be disposed to invite this religious community to expand their work to Los Angeles. If so, LeBreton^[p.359]offered to purchase a seven or eight acre site and to build there quarters where the nuns could accommodate 200 elderly people. The prospects of introducing the work of the Sisters in Southern California were most enticing to Conaty, and he arranged to meet ^with Leßreton in San Francisco early in October of 1904.

Preliminary arrangements were made and the foundation was inaugurated in the first months of 1905. From the very outset, the Sisters cared for citizens of all races and creeds. Leßreton acquired property on East First Street and construction was soon under way for permanent buildings. The four story red brick edifice was ready for occupancy in August of 1907,⁴² Bishop Conaty dedicated the handsome American colonial structure on March 25, 1908.

The bishop had meanwhile assisted the nuns in San Diego to acquire funds to enlarge Saint Joseph’s Sanitarium, another Home for the Aged. The new facilities were blessed by Conaty on June 28, 1904.

Bishop Conaty was keenly aware of the need to expand Catholic hospital capacity in the diocese inasmuch as there were only two such institutions in operation at the time of his arrival. The initial efforts along these lines resulted in a new wing being added to Saint Joseph’s Hospital in San Diego in 1903-1904. It was also in the latter year that Mother Mary Michael Cummings inaugurated a training school for nurses at Saint Joseph’s.`t³ In Central California, the Sisters of Mercy opened Saint Clare’s Hospital in September of 1908. Through the influence of the bishop, the nuns were able to raise money for erection of a new building which was blessed on November 9, 1913. The completed institution was described by a news account as “one of the finest, most modern and fully equipped hospitals in the West.”⁴⁴

In mid-1908, the Franciscan Sisters of the Sacred Heart from Joliet purchased the old Que Sesano Hospital on East Arrellaga Street in Santa Barbara from a group of local physicians. The remodeled institution, placed under the spiritual patronage of Saint Francis, was blessed by Conaty on October 25. A new wing for surgical operations was added in 1910.

There had been a long-felt need in Los Angeles for an institution devoted exclusively to the care of maternity patients. Bishop Conaty rented quarters at Fifteenth and Figueroa Streets late in 1908, and on November 6 formally inaugurated Saint Ann’s Maternity Hospital. In his^[p.360]*

^[p.361]dedicatory address, the bishop noted that the love of neighbor, “the principle of charity which the Christian Church has established in the world,” has always recognized not only the skill of the physician, but also the power of God towards those amictcd with problems.^{45 The}_new h_os-pital was staffed by Saint Rose’s Guild of Catholic Nurses⁴⁶ and the city’s Catholic doctors, most of whom agreed to donate a month’s service annually.

In 1910, the Mercy Sisters from San Diego opened Saint Mary’s Hospital at Brawlcy (El Centro), and, during March of the subsequent year, the same community acquired the tubercular sanitarium at Mentone which they re-christened St. Thomas Aquinas.

Saint John’s hospital at Oxnard commenced operations in 1912 and permanent quarters were blessed on May 19 by Bishop Conaty. Additional facilities for the nuns, provided through the munificence of John Borchard and other local citizens, were dedicated on April 25, 1915.

In mid-1914, Father Philip G. Scher obtained the services of a group of Dominican Sisters, exiled by the republican government in Lisbon, to establish a hospital in the small town of Hanford. The nuns, already caring for a similar institution in Ontario, Oregon, initiated their work the following October under the patronage of the Sacred Heart. A completely new hospital was later erected on property adjoining the Church. It was blessed in November of 1915, by Bishop Charles J. Reilly.

In addition to re-locating Guardian Angel, the bishop was also instrumental in establishing two new orphanages, one at Santa Cruz staffed by the Daughters of Charity, the other in the foothills of the San Rafael Mountains at Burbank. The latter institution, Regina Coeli, conducted by the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart, also served as a prevento-rium for children disposed to tuberculosis.

At the Los Angeles Orphans Asylum, Conaty heartily endorsed the foundation 0f the Queen’s Daughters in October of 1914. Having known their work in Massachusetts, the bishop welcomed their offer to care for the young women temporarily without employment and those arriving in Los Angeles for the first time.

As can readily be seen, Bishop Conaty was ever attentive to the welfare and charitable needs of those committed to his care. “No journey proved too fatiguing, no hindrance seemed too great when there was question of promoting religion or of serving the poor and neglected.”⁴⁷ ^[p.362] NOTES TO THE TEXT

⁵Árchiíes of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, Patrick VV. Riordan to Denis J.

¹¹James P. Gaffey, Citizen of No Mean City. Archbishop Patrick Riordan of San

¹³P.J. McGarrey, “Rt. Rev. Thomas J. Conaty, D.D.,” The S.V.C. Student VI (May,

¹⁵Éýßë., January 26, 1906. Named Consultors were: Patrick Harnett, Polydore

¹GÁ.A.L.A., unidentified news-clipping, an address before the Saint Paul Union

²⁴Ôhe Monitor, February 27, 1906. Quoted in Sister Mary St. Joseph Feickert,

²⁷Qõïted in Francis J. Weber, Readings in California Catholiß H;sto;y (Los Angeles,

²⁹Daniel T. McColgan, “Charitable Beginnings in Los Angeles,” Academy^[p.363]

³⁴Ôhe Tidings, January 1, 1898. For the historical background, see Frank L.

³⁷Charles C. Conroy, The Centennial, 1840-1940 (Los Angeles, 1940), p. 165.

³⁹See Francis J. Weber, Readings in Califïrnin Catholic History, Pp. 120-122.

⁴⁰Francis J. Weber, George Thomas Ë4ïntgomeiy, Cilifornia Churchman, Pp. 18-19.

Francisco and over the years was principal benefactor to the far flung charitable

46Ôhis organization, founded b_y C_o,,_aty, h_ad _as its primary objective “the spiritu-

al ack’ancement of its members by a strict conformity to all the precepts” of the

⁴⁷”Rt. Rev. Thos. J. Conaty, D.D.,” Notre Dame Quarterly VIÉÉ (December,

Thomas J. Conaty was ranked among “the first and most zealous pro-moters”^I of the Catholic school system long before his arrival in California as Bishop of Monterey-Los Angeles. Fortunately, “the broadmindedness and civic activity which characterized his earlier life were continued with notable effect throughout the whole period of his incumbency” ² in the southland.

During the episcopate of George T. Montgomery, Conaty’s predecessor, a fairly extensive system of parochial elementary schools in the 80,000 square-mile diocese had been inaugurated. Secondary education, however, had been generally confined to a handful of academies scattered over an area equal in size to the combined States of Pennsylvania, Maine and Massachusetts. First among Conaty’s priorities was the encouragement of additional academies as well as central high schools patterned on those in Philadelphia.

Shortly after his installation, the bishop set up a Diocesan Board of Education to coordinate what had previously been a loosely organized program with considerable local autonomy. The ultimate aim of the board was “to provide a continuous program of study from the kindergarten through college under Catholic influence.”³ Periodical school visitations, standardized textbooks and improved teacher training were paramount goals. In addition to introducing the normal secondary curriculum of languages, mathematics, history, music and science, “some of the academies also offered the commercial and business branches.”⁴

By 1907, Conaty could report that there were thirty educational institutions functioning in the diocese with a total registration of upwards of 5,600 pupils in all the grades from primary to university.⁵ Material^[p.365]

Bishop Thomas J. Conaty presided and preached at the Miss offered to commemorate the groundbreaking for the 1nn0n1a California Exposition at San Diego in July of 1911.

loir feci policemen directed the crowds that gathered at Saint ViGiéroôn’s Cathedral for the f ßéééerð! of Bishop Thomas J. C’onaty in mid-September of 1915.^[^p.366]growth, in itself, was not paramount among the bishop’s goals, and though expansion did cone rapidly, he assured the people of Southern California that the Church intended to erect such buildings as would be a pride to the city and a credit to the diocese.⁶

Through his earlier work with the Association of Catholic Colleges,? Conaty recognized that “the work of education depends on the training of teachers.”⁸ It was this conviction that impelled him to inaugurate, in 1904, annual summer conferences at which educators of national prominence were invited to lecture. According to one newspaper account, the object of these institutes, the first of their kind held west of the Mississippi River, was to keep the teaching Sisters in touch with the latest advances in methods of teaching and the constantly developing pedagogic program. ⁹

Conaty believed that the sacrifices which Catholics made fοr parochial schools could only be understood in the light of the obligation which they felt in conscience to train mind and heart together toward a union with God.¹⁰ While harboring no quarrel with public instruction, he pointed out that the drift of such education had been fοr many years toward complete neutrality in religious and moral matters, a factor which was causing thinking men to demand more religion in education.¹¹

In the bishop’s mind, the underlying principle of the whole Catholic educational movement was unalterably cemented to the same purpose fοr which the Church exists, namely, “to establish the Kingdom of God in the lives of men.”ί² Such a dedication it was that motivated a growth of educational facilities in the Diocese of Monterey-Los Angeles between 1903 and 1915, far out of proportion to the meagre financial resources with which the bishop had to operate.

Bishop Conaty actively supported the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart in efforts to gain autonomy from their parent foundation at Οlot, Spain. He applied to Rome for a statement of independence but was successful only in obtaining a written verification allowing considerable latitude in disciplinary matters pertaining to the California establishments. In 1914, the bishop again appealed on behalf of the nuns but the outbreak of war and the subsequent death of Pope Pius X prevented any definitive action from taking place during Conaty’s episcopate.

Shortly after his installation in 1903, Bishop Conaty encouraged Father John Brady to build a school for Saint Catherine’s Parish in San Bernardino. The newly-appointed pastor acquiesced, and classes con- ^[p.367]ducted by the Immaculate Heart Sisters were in operation before the end of the year. In 1907, a separate two-story brick building was occupied. One chronicler noted that “Bishop Conaty took a deep personal interest in this, his first parochial school," and despite pressures of other business,he frequently visited the institution and annually presided at its graduation exercises.13

It was also in 1903, at the request of Father John J. Clifford, that the nuns set aside several rooms at Immaculate Heart Academy for the educational needs of the recently-created parish of Saint Thomas. In September of 1909, a two-classroom school for boys was erected on a lot near the rectory. The girls continued taking classes at the academy until 1917.

The San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906, caused irreparable damage to the parochial school and orphanage operated by the Immaculate Heart Sisters at San Juan Bautista. At the bishop’s suggestion, the youngsters were placed in other institutions, and facilities at the mission were not rebuilt. For three years, between 1911 and 1913, the Sisters operated an elementary school at San Miguel.

From 1908 onwards, the nuns teaching in the schools of downtown Los Angeles lived in a community house located at Eighth and Valencia Streets. The nucleus of children tutored privately by the nuns later developed into an elementary school for the quasi-parish of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which had been entrusted to the bishop’s nephew, Father Francis J. Conaty.

In 1909, the Immaculate Heart Sisters took the initial step toward eventual erection of a central high school by adding a ninth grade to existing facilities at Saint Vibiana’s Cathedral. The high school received full accreditation by the state university in 1912. On September 13, 1910, a parish school was opened in Our Lady of Loretto parish with an enrollment of about a hundred youngsters. A new schoolhouse was occupied on March 12, 1911, and a third story added to the institution in the summer of 1914.

Father Patrick J. McGrath asked the Sisters to extend their educational work to San Pedro in the fall of 1914. He remodelled the old church of Mary, Star of the Sea, to serve as the initial school building.¹⁴ The nuns began their work in Hollywood’s Blessed Sacrament Parish on February 1, 1915, by inaugurating classes in the parochial hall.¹⁵ Later that year, a combination church and school complex was built by Father William Forde in nearby Saint Brendan’s Parish. The formal opening of the red-pressed brick structure, entrusted to the Immaculate Heart Sisters,^[p.368]occurred on September 13, 1915. The Benedictine Fathers at Our Lady of Lourdes invited the nuns to staff their newly completed one-story, Live-classroom school for the fall session of 1915. The Immaculate Heart Sisters composed the faculty of the institution for the first five years of its existence. ό

Mother Frances Cabrini (1850-1917), the first citizen-saint of the United States, was invited to California in 1905, to establish a foundation of her Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart. A provisional school for youngsters of Italian descent was opened in Saint Peter’s Parish on September 22, 1905, and on the following February 8, Bishop Conaty blessed the new building as a diocesan institution under the spiritual supervision of the priests attached to the Plaza Church of Nuestra Señora de los Angeles. Meanwhile Mother Cabrini, in November of 1905, purchased property for an Industrial Training School at Edgemont on Bellevue Avenue at North Hill Street.¹⁷

Responsibility for bringing the Sisters of the I-Ioly Names to Los Angeles belongs to Father Joseph Barron who built a school for Saint Mary’s Parish in 1905. After repeated refusals, the provincial council agreed to staff the institution and the initial nuns arrived in August of 1907. The edifice was blessed by the bishop on January 5, 1908.¹⁸

The Sisters widened their efforts in 1910, by opening Saint Ann’s School in Santa Monica, the first free elementary facility in California’s southland. A small cottage near Saint Clement’s Church in Ocean Park, used by the nuns as a music center since 1904, was enlarged, and on January 10, 1910, was advanced to academy status. It was blessed on September 24, 1911, and perdured until 1920 when it came under parochial administration. Holy Names Collegiate School, established in Pasadena on October 1, 1915, provided upper elementary and secondary grades. Though that institution lasted only five years, it effected a lasting influence on the Catholics of the area.¹⁹

Since Bishop Conaty was a close friend of the Sisters of Saint Joseph, his encouragement was largely instrumental in the location of a provincial house at Los Angeles in 1904. The prelate was influential in securing the financial backing needed for a lovely new edifice to house the com- ^[p.369]munity’s headquarters, which was built in 1910 and 1911.

The initial elementary school inaugurated by the Sisters, located in Saint Patrick’s Parish, was dedicated by Bishop Conaty on September 11, 1904. T._{vo yea}r_s later, th_e nuns enlarged ^their work at Oxnard’s .Saint Joseph’s Institute into a separate foundation for Spanish-speaking youngsters. This free-school, the only one of its kind, was established in September of 1906, under the patronage of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

The school for Holy Cross Parish in the southern part of Los Ángeles was formally blessed on October 23, 1910, and later that same year, with the removal of Saint Mary’s Academy to Slauson Avenue, the Sisters expanded their facilities at the already established Saint Vincent’s School. At the behest of Father E.A. Heffernan, Bishop Conaty dedicated the parochial school of Our Lady of the Angels at San Diego on October 20, 1912. It was also in that year that the elementary school formerly operated as an extension of the nearby academy, was given autonomy in Saint Joseph’s Parish.

The Sisters of Notre Dane de Namur came to California from the Oregon Indian missions in 1851. At the invitation of Father Edward Griffith in 1906, the Sisters took charge of Sacred Heart School in Salinas, which was already built and ready for occupancy. In August of that same year, the nuns were invited to Santa Barbara by Father Polydore Stockman, who had erected Our Lady of Sorrows Academy in the Channel City for youngsters of the laboring class, mostly Mexicans.²⁰ The following year, the Sisters moved from their brick building on Figueroa Street to the old Santa Barbara Club Building and, in 1909 to the more solid and commodious home provided by the generous David D. Walker.²¹

Saint Michael’s School in Los Angeles has the unusual distinction of predating the formal erection of the parish it served. The institution was begun in September of 1903, to relieve the congestion of downtown Saint Joseph’s which the Dominican Sisters of Mission San Jose had staffed since 1892. When Father Raphael Fuhr unexpectedly requested the nuns to withdraw from Saint Joseph’s in 1907, the parish of Saint Michael was given parochial autonomy and separate quarters were provided for the Sisters. Mother Pia Backes requested Bishop Conaty to allow “an independent rather than a parochial school”²² but the prelate^[p.370] refused to authorize such an arrangement.

In 1907, the Dominicans, at the insistence of Father Michael McAuliffe, expanded the status of Sacred Heart parochial school by adding a ninth grade. Five years later Father Michael mate, Pastor at San Gabriel, asked the nuns to undertake the management of the Mission’s parochial school as an extension of their activities at Sacred Heart. The new institution at San Gabriel was blessed by the bishop on October 6, 1912.²³

Encouragement to establish Saint Joseph’s Academy (now Maywood) came from Father Francis J. Dubbel. The institution, located at Anaheim, was entrusted to a group of Dominican Sisters exiled from Havana, Cuba. The academy was formally dedicated by Bishop Conaty on November 28, 1912.²⁴

With the departure of the Ursulines from Redlands’ Sacred Heart Academy in 1906, Father Thomas J. Fitzgerald temporarily secured the Immaculate Heart Sisters to staff the institution as a parochial school. Two years afterwards, the Mercy Sisters assumed direction of that city’s Catholic education. In September of 1910 the nuns diversified their work in the Diocese of Monterey-Los Angeles by taking charge of Saint Francis School in Bakersfield.²⁵

The new school buildings erected by Father John McCarthy for Saint John’s Parish in Fresno were blessed by Bishop Conaty on May 14, 1908. Four years later, on December 21, 1912, the Holy Cross Sisters occupied their new academy in the same parish. In Los Angeles the recently constructed four-story brick building housing the parish school for Saint Agnes, was opened on September 8, 1914, by Father Clement Molony. It was also entrusted to a group of Holy Cross Sisters sent directly to California from their motherhouse at Notre Dane, Indiana.

Soon after his arrival as pastor at San Luis Rey, Father Peter Wallischeck began preparing day and boarding elementary facilities for the Catholic youngsters scattered throughout the old mission district. He contacted the Sisters of the Precious Blood at their headquarters in Maria Stein, Ohio, and secured approval of plans to open a school in^[p.371]September of 1913. The completed buildings were formally dedicated on November 15, 1914.²⁶

The parochial school of Saint Joseph in Santa Ana, begun in 1914, by Father Henry Eummelen, was first housed in temporary quarters. A permanent structure was constructed for the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Orange, who replaced the lay teachers in October of 1916. Father Francis Burelbach also made arrangements with the Sisters to staff his parochial school of Sacred Heart at Brawley early in 1915. After securing funds from the bishop to complete the building, the pastor provided accommodations fοr the nuns in time for the commencement of the fall session.

In addition to the numerous religious personnel engaged in pedagogical work throughout the diocese, a fair proportion of lay teachers was also actively involved in the Church’s educational program. Father James A. Reardon inaugurated plans for a parochial school at Saint Anthony’s in Long Beach after his arrival, in April of 1907. A local contractor erected a small building in the rear of the church, and the area’s first Catholic school commenced in September of 1907.Three lay teachers constituted the staff of the institution for the two years of its existence.²⁷ In 1905 a parochial elementary school was opened at Immaculate Heart Church in Pajaro. It was staffed by two lay brothers and three lay teachers until 1911, when it was assimilated by the nearby orphanage.

The educational αnd vocational program used so effectively with wayward and unruly young ladies in Eastern cities by the Sisters of the Good Shepherd was brought to Southern California in June of 1904. Such apostolic endeavor was immediately successful in Los Angeles at the temporary headquarters, 1918 South Grand Avenue.

Bishop Conaty purchased eleven acres west of Pico Heights for the permanent foundation αnd, on June 15, 1905, dedicated Good Shepherd Convent. In their new surroundings the Sisters were able to inaugurate commercial courses to round out the spiritual, social and educational rehabilitation program fοr the girls, most of whom, ranging in age from twelve to twenty-one, were referred by the juvenile court.^[p.372]Saint Vincent’s College

Though it cannot as yet be properly documented, the relationship between the Vincentian Fathers and the Bishop of Monterey-Los Angeles seems to have been something less than amicable. It was widely known that during Conaty’s years at The Catholic University of America “he was wary of religious-order men on the teaching staff and no one was assigned to it in his time.”²⁸

Perhaps it was a reluctance on the part of the Vincentians to cooperate in the prelate’s expansion plans that occasioned the initial friction. In 1905, the bishop more-or-less pressured the Vincentians into opening a high school at Saint Vincent’s College for pupils completing the ordinary courses in the existing parochial elementary institutions. Apparently this action prompted the purchase in November of 1905, of the La Cienega Ranch, a parcel of land southwest of the city. The newspaper releases indicated that the college itself would soon occupy the eighty-five acre tract located alongside the Redondo Electric Railway. With the removal of the college to the massive new campus, the existing structures on Grand Avenue were to become an autonomous central high school to allow “for the perfection of the system of Catholic education for which plans were set on foot when he [Conaty] first came to this diocese.”²⁹

“As abruptly as it was inexplicable,”³⁰ the President of Saint Vincent’s College, Father Joseph S. Glass, publicly announced on July 30, 1910, that the Congregation of the Mission had decided to withdraw completely from educational work in California. The reason given by the Vìncentian provincial, according to published reports, was “the desire of the General Superiors in Paris to withdraw the Society from work for which it was not originally intended...”³¹

There is reason to conjecture that the bishop may have provoked the action, however, though the diocesan newspaper went out of its way to report that “the news came to Bishop Conaty like a thunder clap out of a clear sky.”³² It later leaked out that on the day after Glass’ statement, Father James P. Morrissey became President of Santa Clara College. He was known to have advocated relocating the Jesuit campus either at Mountain View or in Southern California. Such a move was all the more logical inasmuch as a disastrous fire had swept the college in 1909, destroying the faculty building and several other structures. The two other Catholic men’s colleges in the Bay District were well equipped to care for the area’s educational needs.

No specific location had been determined in the southland. One Jesuit recorded that there was some question of the Society’s going to San^[p.373]Diego for the opening of a school on property for which Patrick Martin had already obtained an option.³³ Almost immediately after the news of the Vincentian retirement was made public, Father Herman J. Goller, local provincial of the Society of Jesus_; journeyed to Los Αngeles and toured the as yet undeveloped La Cienega site. He then informed the bishop that Santa Clara would move to the area in time to commence the approaching fall session.

The premature death of Goller stalled the transaction, however, and Father Glass agreed to keep the Grand Avenue campus open for an additional calendar year until the arrangements with the Jesuits could be finalized. Meanwhile, at Santa Clara, housing accommodations became desperate, and with no authorization to move, Father Morrissey and his advisors decided to go ahead with a program to rebuild the gutted college on the mission grounds.

In the spring of 1911, the new Jesuit provincial announced that the Society would, after all, fulfill its commitment to the southland. Property was secured in Garvanza where, on September 11, the Jesuits opened a high school to absorb the students of old Saint Vincent’s. After three years time, advanced classes were resumed, and Los Angeles College and its successors, Loyola College and Loyola University, carried on the tradition founded by the Víncentians in 1865.

Although the personal relations between Bishop Conaty and the Vincentian Fathers were repeatedly referred to as “most cordial,”³⁴ there very probably was a basic disagreement between the bishop and the Congregation of the Mission. In any event, the Catholic intellectual standards implanted in Southern California by the followers of Saint Vincent de Paul have yet to be matched.

It was announced in 1904, that Bishop Thomas Conaty had purchased for the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart a tract of land in Hollywood, fourteen acres in extent, near the foothills, at the extreme end of Western Avenue.³⁵ Ground-breaking ceremonies took place on April 24, 1905, and within a year advanced Catholic education for women became a reality. The high school department was moved from its location in Pico Heights to Hollywood in March and a short while later, Immaculate Heart College opened to serve “the triple purpose of convent, training school for nuns, and academy and college for young ladies of the world.”³⁶ In 1908, the college became the first Catholic school of higher education accredited to the University of California. The charter for the^[p.374]*

^[p.375]Churches Dedicated in the Diocese of Monterey-Los Angeles^[p.376]IIistory of the Catholic Church in Southern California — ^{*[p.184]**[p.0]*}-^{*[p.194]**[p.7]}initial standard Catholic college for women in Southern California was granted on June 29, 1916.

Certainly included among those institutions offering advanced studies should be numbered the Franciscan seminary at Mission Santa Barbara. The friars conducted theological courses in the Channel City from 1903 to 1913, when they transferred that branch of studies to Saint Louis. Also functioning at Santa Barbara was Saint Anthony’s College, a preparatory seminary for the Order of Friars Minor. Another community of Franciscans, exiled from Zacatecas in Mexico, conducted the Apostolic College of Our Lady of Guadalupe at Mission San Luis Rey.

The overall Catholic expansion in educational work during the Conaty years is nothing short of astounding, given the problems facing the Church in those times. Total pupil enrollment more than doubled in a program which saw twenty-four parochial schools added to the diocesan system. What is perhaps even more impressive than the physical growth of the schools was the increased educational quality by which the bishop justified the operation of facilities separate from those of the state. One observer, himself later an archbishop, noted “It was not surprising that under Bishop Conaty Catholic education flourished in this diocese. It was as an educator that he became a national figure.”³⁷

`William E. North, Catholic Education in Southern Cnlifonla (Washington, 1936),

⁵Τhomas J. Conaty, A Group of Educational Institutions in Southern CnliforηΡ7ia (Los

¹⁰Τhe Tidings, June 25, 1909.^[^{p.377] 11}Thïmas J. Conaty, “Moral Element in Public Instruction,” The West Coast

¹²Thïmas J. Conaty, The Roman Catholic Church in the Educational Movement, p.

¹³Sister M. Reginald Baggot, I.H.M., “The California Institute of the Sisters of

¹⁵Ô. Franklin Power, The Blessed Sacrament Church. A Sketch (Hollywood, c.

¹⁸Sïõvenir of the Silver Jubilee of St. Ma?y’s Parochial School, 1907-1932 (Los

¹⁹Sister Maw Dorothea Perry, S.N.J.M., “Á History of the Educational Work of

²⁰See Sara-Alice Quinlan, In Hawest Fields by Sunset Shores (San Francisco, 1926),

²¹Sister Mary Dominica McNamee, S.N.D. de N., Light in the Valley (Berkeley,

²³Sister Mary Kevin Breen, O.P., “The Educational Work of the Sisters of St.

Zephyrin Engelhardt, O.F.M., San Gabriel Mission (San Gabriel, 1927), ì. 319.

²⁴Dïnaid Montrose et ai., The Stoy of a Parish (Anaheim, 1961), Pp. 97-98.

Archdiocese of San Francisco,” Records of the American Cathïlic Historical Society

²GÆeñhyrin Engelhardt, OEM., San Luis Rey Mission (San Francisco, 1921), Pp.

²⁷Fortieth Anniversary—St. Anthony’s Parish (Long Beach, 1943), ì. 45.

³³Álexander J. Cody, S.J., A Memoir of Richard A. Gleeson, S.J. (San Francisco,

Not long after his arrival in California Bishop Conaty demonstrated that “his well-shaped head” was indeed “poised upon a pair of broad shoulders.”¹ He found that he had been entrusted with a diocese encompassing a 538 mile coastline and stretching over a geographical area of more than 80,000 square miles. Statistical estimates placed the number of Catholics in the jurisdiction at 58,000. Seventy diocesan and thirty-one religious priests were serving forty-seven parishes, forty-three mission churches, and thirty-one stations scattered over an area almost as large as England, Scotland and Wales combined.

Conaty immediately plunged into an expansion program that within two years saw the addition of twenty-seven new parishes, twenty-one churches, fourteen rectories, seven schools and five convents and academies. When confronted with news releases about the possibility of his being transferred to another diocese, Conaty said that the amount of work which he had cut out for himself in the interests of the diocese should be sufficient evidence of his own opinion of such idle rumors.² The southland’s Catholic newspaper noted, in 1906, that “the rapidity with which Ronan Catholic churches, convents, chapels, hospitals and all other conveniences for the exercise of a broad spirit of worship and charity are going up in the large dioceses [sic] of Monterey-Los Angeles is equal to anything shown on the continent. One may flatter one’s self that God is ahead of Mammon hereabouts, brisk as is the inpouring of speculators, miners and grafters from every quarter of the known globe.”³ ^[p.379]In 1912, there were no fewer than thirteen languages spoken in the diocese, and the bishop had provided for qualified confessors for each of those groups. The diversity of nationalities as well as the urgent demands of the diocese at large, induced him to invite the Jesuits, Redemptorists, Benedictines and Oblates of Mary Immaculate to take charge of new parishes and staff new institutions. In addition, the prelate encouraged foundations by the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, the Japanese Visitation Sisters, the Little Sisters of the Poor, the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Carmelite Sisters of the Divine Heart, the Cuban Dominicans, the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Eureka (later Orange), the Precious Blood Sisters and three separate communities of Franciscans.

The bishop also determined to increase the number of diocesan priests. He championed vocation rallies and was especially gracious to exiled clergymen from other areas. A special commendation was bestowed on the prelate by the Spanish government for his “valuable assistance and hospitality” extended to Spanish priests expelled from Mexico by the revolutionists.⁴ During Conaty’s episcopate in Monterey-Los Angeles, the Catholic population tripled in size as did the various spiritual and material facilities made available by the Church. All told, it was an impressive record by anyone’s standards.

ShΥΙtlυ afte the 111111 ο the c~.ïίtΥry, the Câthοlic Church i n the United States passed through a cathedral-building era. So widespread was the movement that by 1907, cathedral churches had been completed or were under construction in twenty of the nation’s ecclesiastical jursi-dictions. Southern California was not exempt from this national trend’ as is evidenced by Conaty’s announcement, made only a few short months after his appointment to California that:

Los Angeles is to have a magnificent Cathedral church, a structure that will be a credit to the Catholics of the Diocese of Monterey-Los Angeles, and the pride of the city.⁶

The southland’s newly-installed prelate brought the matter before his diocesan advisors on January 27, 1904 and “after a thorough discussion it was the unanimous opinion of the counselors that the Rt. Rev. Ordinary petition the Eminent Cardinals of the Congregation de Propaganda Fide to be allowed to change the location of the present cathedral to a more suitable site and furthermore to be allowed to demolish the present” one.⁷ ^[p.380]A list of seven reasons supporting the proposal was drafted and a formal petition dispatched to Rome. When the request came before Pope Pius X, on June 28, 1904, the pontiff granted permission “to remove the present cathedral in order to erect a larger church in a more suitable area of the town,” provided “the location of the existing edifice not be put to bad use.”⁸

Conaty’s consultors urged him to build the new church within the limits of the already-existing parish in the center of that portion of the city inhabited by the most respectable and influential Catholics. A piece of property was selected in 1903 but it was not until March of 1905 that the title was cleared.

In keeping with the advice of his council that the new cathedral of Our Lady of Guadalupe be sufficiently large and entirely adequate to the needs of the parishioners, Bishop Conaty employed the nationally known Boston architectural firm of Maginnis, Walsh and Sullivan to draft plans for the proposed edifice. It was the bishop’s ambition to see embodied in the cathedral all the sentiments and artistic feeling making up the soul of California’s Catholic history.

The site was beautifully located atop ground on the north side of Ninth Street between Whittier and Green. It was planned to place the church on the massive lot in such a way that its center entrance would directly face Valencia Street, thus forming a monumental approach from the southern part of the city. Some idea of the envisioned proportions of the structure can be grasped by considering the twin towers and central dome, 164 feet high and 80 feet in diameter, were to have polychrome tiles in patterns of blue, yellow and green. Conceived with the view of embracing the entire congregation within the piers of the nave, the floorplan of the structure was so designed that the main altar would be visible from all points without obstruction.

A considerable amount of national attention was given to the south-land’s proposed cathedral. The very first issue of Christian Art,⁹ for example, gave the prominence of its front page along with some details of the design of the building together with strong words of praise for the architects.

Approval of the plans was not at all universal, however. Archbishop Patrick W. Riordan of San Francisco, a strong dissenter, told his suffragan that he would “find that the contemplated building will be very expensive and entirely too large.”I° The metropolitan suggested delaying the whole project for some time, since he believed that the envisioned^[^p.381]church was at least a quarter of a century ahead of its time. As an alternative, Riordan advocated erecting “a temporary church on the site,”¹¹ which could be used while construction on the cathedral was in progress.

Riordan’s discouraging remarks had little effect ifl Bishop Conaty for the tireless southland prelate recalled that similar observations were made when his predecessor built the first cathedral in Los Ángeles during the 1870’s.¹² In any case, as Conaty reminded his metropolitan, “I am in no great hurry and do not intend to do anything until Ι know all the details.”¹³

Originally, the bishop had hoped to put the cornerstone in place June 23, 1905, but Archbishop Ríordan’s absence in the east caused postponement until after Conaty’s trip to Rome the following year. Planning went ahead though, and in March of 1906, The Tidings told its readers, “The new cathedral, when completed, will perhaps typify better than any other public building the progress of the Southland.”¹⁴

The unforeseen financial depression of late 1907, however, brought to a grinding halt the entire cathedral project. Even this disappointment did not daunt the bishop, for he noted that the delay gave an opportunity to develop charity work.¹⁵ Realizing that the cathedral would be postponed for some years, Conaty decided to follow Archbishop Riordan’s advice and erect a chapel on the projected site. On July 27, 1909, the Vicar General of the Diocese, Monsignor Patrick Harnett, blessed the new edifice and placed it under the spiritual patronage of Our Lady of Guadalupe.¹⁶

Despite the manifold problems Conaty encountered, he never entirely abandoned the idea of his cathedral. In 1910, a prominent Los Angeles newspaper spoke in great detail about “Bishop Conaty’s determination to proceed with the erection of the $1,000,000 cathedral in this city, the plans of which have just been approved and accepted.”¹⁷

Two years later, the bishop asked an old friend, Joseph Mesmer, to check out the possibility of purchasing the six and a half acre property of A.H. Busch at the southeast corner of Vermont and Wilshire for a possible cathedral site.¹⁸ Even sorne years after the bishop’s death, there was speculation about possibly building “Conaty’s Cathedral,” and in 1923, sketches of the proposed edifice appeared in at least one national architectural publication.¹⁹

Today, the principal benefactor of the Cathedral that never was, is historic old Saint Vìbiana’s. Eighty-five years after the pope authorized its demolishment, the proud mother-church of the Archdiocese of Los^[p.382] Αngeles stands as the centerpiece of a whole new urban renewal project

An interesting story about the origin of the Catholic apostolate to the Japanese on the west coast was related by The Monitor of San Francisco in 1913. A certain Leo Hatakeyama of Los Αngeles wanted a priest to hear his confession. Speaking no English, Hatakeyama wrote to his native land offering to send his confession in a registered letter and asking that a priest “return the penance and absolution by mail.”²⁰ The case was referred to the Bishop of Monterey-Los Angeles who immediately contacted the Maryknoll Fathers in Massachusetts. They, in turn, forwarded the request to the Paris Foreign Mission Society. One of their priests, Father Albert Breton, was sent to Los Angeles with instructions to make facilities available for Japanese Catholics in the Golden State.

When Father Breton arrived in Los Angeles on October 12, 1912, he found a Japanese colony of 10,000. Although a relatively small number was Catholic, those who did profess the Faith were immensely anxious to have their needs cared for by a fellow countryman. It was noted in one journal, “The work of locating and organizing the Japanese Catholics in California is being done by Fr. A. Breton, a member of the Society of Foreign Missions of Paris. Long residence in Japan has given Father Breton the advantage of a thorough knowledge of the language and literature of the country. His present residence is Los Angeles, and he has succeeded in gathering together the Japanese members of the Church in that city and neighborhood.”²¹

In the Los Angeles foundation, “there were about fifty Japanese members of this first Catholic Mission dedicated to the Japanese in America,”²² initially located at 707 West Second Street.

Education of the children was among the perplexing problems. Of the 60,000 Japanese in California, 8,000 had no access to a Catholic education. At Father Breton’s request, four Catechist-Lovers of the Cross, later known as the Japanese Sisters of the Visitation, came to Los Angeles from Nagasaki to open Saint Francis Xavier Mission School.

With the aid of the Franciscans, Daughters of Charity, and the Helpers of the Holy Souls, the education and evangelization of the emigrated Japanese advanced rapidly and was greatly encouraged. Many works sprang up...”Kindergartens, orphanages, sanatoriums, grammar schools, language schools, music schools, night schools and Sunday schools.”²³ ^[p.383]Breton’s influence was felt throughout the state. In San Francisco, Archbishop Patrick W. Riordan set up a home and clubroom at 2158 Pine Street, for classes of religious and secular instruction. The priests of S ‘t Mary’s Cathedral ^looked after the institution during Father Breton’s absences in the southland.

One journal told its readers that “it is needless to speak of the merits of the work, or to suggest the propriety of cooperation. The success of St. Francis Xavier’s mission, αnd the zeal αnd self sacrifice of his converts shows us what grace can do among these wonderful people; and the labors of the modern Catholic missionaries in Japan should inspire us to supplement their work on the Pacific Coast.”2 4

One graphic example of Bishop Conaty’s pastoral zeal was his deep concern for the spiritual αnd material plight of the few remaining California Indians. At the time of his arrival in the southland, the only places in the vast diocese where Indian children were receiving a Catholic education were the two schools operated by the Sisters of Saint Joseph, one at Banning, the other in San Diego. Only three priests were ministering exclusively to the natives, Father B. Florian Hahn²⁵ at Banning, and Fathers Anthony Ubaεh²⁶ and A. W. Schneider at Yuma. The bishop augmented their number by assigning two additional priests to the task. Almost immediately work was inaugurated at Sherman Institute near Riverside on a chapel and priests’ residence. The pastor at St. Rose of Lima Church in Hanford, Father Patrick Brady, was engaged to care fοr the Tache Indians and Father George Freund at Kern was instructed to look after the Tejons attached to Our Lady of Guadalupe.

The outlying houses of worship fοr the mission stations of Pala were rebuilt in order to better accommodate the religious needs of the 850 Indians there attached. The chapel at Cahuilla was renovated. Two additional caρillas were erected on the desert floor near Banning and another at Tache, near Hanford. Additional edifices at Santa Ines, San Jacinto and El Cajon were “expected to give preference of time and interest to the Indians.”²⁷ Two serviceable chapels located at La Jolla and Ríncon were constructed entirely by Indian labor, with workmanship that would have reflected credit on any white carpenter.

An editorial in one journal observed, “The crowning work in this line has been accomplished at Saboba, California, through the munificence of Bishop Conaty and the hard labor of Father Hughes and his Indians who^[p.384]have built, in the old mission style, a monument, in the shape of a chapel of concrete, that will probably endure as long as the Saboba Indians themselves.” ²⁸ The repair of existing facilities was a concern too. When the central building at Saint Boniface Indian School was destroyed by fire in 1911, it was immediately replaced by Bishop Conaty and the generous people of the Diocese of Monterey-Los Angeles.

Conaty was not at all provincial in his outlook on this or any other matter. Though desperately short of clerical personnel qualified for the arduous missionary work among the Indians, the bishop did not hesitate to release one of his most valuable priests, Father William Hughes,²⁹ in 1910, fοr the more encompassing task of helping to direct the nationwide activities of the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions. Conaty’s interest in the general welfare of the Indians was such that “while he made it a point to urge upon his diocese as liberal an annual collection as possible fοr the Colored and Indian Missions, he never made application fοr an allocation and never received one cent from the Lenten collection. He was willing that the proceeds should go to other dioceses less fortunately situated than his, and the only help he received from the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions was the meagre support of St. Boniface’s Industrial School at Banning.”³⁰

A measure of the bishop’s personal involvement in promoting the welfare of the California Indians is reflected in a written memorandum which President Theodore Roosevelt asked the prelate to submit following a visit by the Bishop of Monterey-Los Angeles to the White House in May of 1904.³¹ Conaty singled out three areas he thought the Chief Executive should examine regarding the 4,000 Catholic Indians in his jurisdiction. The first was marriage. Invalid and illegal unions were common, and the bishop felt that “it would be wise to urge upon the agents the advisability of recommending that all Indians belonging to any Church have their marriage performed by the clergymen in charge of their Church or Chapel, as many of them, especially the Catholics, realize the conscience obligation as to the sacramental character of the contract.”

Another source of Conaty’s anxiety was the liquor policy which, at that time, was very ineffective inasmuch as the Indian policeman was apt to be afraid of his fellows in the stringent enforcement of any required regulation. Conaty thought that the wholesale fear of jail would act as a repressing influence upon the Indian and the fear of the penitentiary^[p.385]would hinder the Mexicans and the Whites from invading the reservations with their wagons of liquor.

A third and most vexing difficulty arose from the undefined condition of ^land tenure among ^the_Indians. Wh_en C_alifor_nia _{was c}eded to th_e United States, treaty provisions recognized inhabitants of the area, including Indians, as citizens of the Republic of Mexico with the privilege of emigrating there within a two-year period. Those wishing to remain in California would enter the United States under the same status as they enjoyed under Mexican rule; hence the California Indians were ipso facto citizens of the United States, though in most cases they were totally unaware of their legal standing. Their lack of knowledge often resulted in loss of holdings to unscrupulous white men. To remedy the evil and to save at least some of the land for the Indians, Congress set aside 85,000 acres in Southern California fοr the natives, empowering the President to have surveys made prior to erection of reservations. Though the total area eventually amounted to three or four hundred thousand acres, eighty percent of it was mountainous or desert.

The land remained subject to Congressional litigation, since it exceeded the original allocation. This last factor resulted in an almost constant molestation of the Indians by government officials. In addition, the small amount of arable land made it difficult for some of the reservations to give sufficient returns to the Indians fοr their industry in cultivation.

Bishop Conaty impressed upon the President the necessity of appointing honest agents to remedy this situation. He urged Roosevelt to consider naming the agents from a section as remote as possible from the reservations, so they would be free from the influence of white people in the vicinity. The prelate also suggested that the government send a good, reliable, unprejudiced inspector to make a thorough investigation of the area. Such a man should be instructed to consult, not only with the agent, but with the Indians, priests and ministers, as well as with those who have general charge of the spiritual affairs of the Indians.

President Roosevelt thanked the bishop for his memorandum and promised to take up the matter in detail which the Department of the Interior. Secretary E.A. Hitchcock later acknowledged the observations which Bishop Conaty “so clearly and intelligently set forth on the conditions of the Indians in Southern California”³² and asked the Indian Bureau for a full report on the situation.

In the opinion of California’s poet laureate, John Steven McGroarty, Bishop Conaty might well have worn a Franciscan habit himself for “dear to him are the glories of his ancient diocese, dear to him are its ruins and^[p.386]

dearer still the welfare in his care of those who are the descendants of the neophytes that were baptized by the early padres.”³³

Bishop Conaty’s interest in the Indian apostolate was closely linked to his fascination fοr the old California missions, which he characterized as “mute monitors of unselfishness.”³⁴ As far as the prelate was concerned, “even in their ruins they testify to a spirit of devotion and sacrifice which can be understood only by the knowledge of the divine vocation which called them [the friars] to leave home and kindred αnd give up their lives to the people confided to their spiritual care.”³⁵

The bishop wholeheartedly endorsed the work of Charles F. Lummis and his Landmarks Club, which had fοr its object primarily and principally the preservation of the old Missions. At least four of the foundations, those at San Fernando, San Juan Capistrano, San Diego and San Antonio de Pala benefited from the tireless activity of these generous spirited people whose organization was the first incorporated body in the nation to undertake such a work on a grand scale.

Lummis and his associates were in accord with Conaty’s observation that “history has nο more interesting page of romance, religion no story of greater sacrifice, and civilization nο stronger contribution than that offered by the Franciscan Missions in California.”³⁶ Simple, artistic, αnd in some places majestic, the missions attested the work of God’s people. “In the crown of California,” said the bishop, “they αre the jewels, in her necklace they αre the pearls.”³⁷

Conaty’s genuine appreciation fοr historical foundations was stated many years earlier when he noted that “the mighty river cannot despise the simple, unpretentious spring whence it derives its source of life αnd power. Neither can it disregard the beautiful lakes, which, emptying into it, gave it the strength and volume with which it rushes on to be lost in the great ocean.”³⁸ The Old California missions had their peculiar attraction even in 1907. Men of another era could hardly deny that “in an age when we αre governed by a race fοr gain, prominence αnd place, it is good to sit in the shade of one of these old Missions and realize that all that is best in California was gained by unselfishness, self-denial αnd the highest human character.”³⁹ ^[p.388]Ecumenism

To Thomas J. Conaty, prejudice was “the meanest of sentiments, especially when it caused bitterness and hate towards those who differ in reli-gion.”⁴⁰ Conaty’s earliest statements on ecumenism were couched in terms of civic responsibility. He observed that “Church and party do not weaken the bonds of a common citizenship, nor allow any lines to be drawn in devotion to the country, when her life is in danger.”⁴¹ On another occasion, he pointed out to the Chamber of Commerce that Americans form a united brotherhood “cemented together upon the battlefield where creeds and races merged in one common act of devotion to a common country.”⁴²

Expressions such as these were symptomatic of Conatys overall ecumenical outlook, fοr, as he told a predominantly non-Catholic audience in 1895, “The altar I kneel at and the altar you kneel at are common foundations of our individual goodness.”⁴³ Personally Conaty was a man of strong convictions, and he felt that there was “no room fοr belief in indifference as to the form of a man’s religion.”⁴⁴ In his opinion, Catholics should be apostles of truth everywhere under the inspiration of the Church, to whom Christ has given the mission to redeem mankind.⁴⁵ At the sane time, Conaty defended a person’s right to strive fοr truth within the framework of his own environment. “Let us understand οne another’s motive, and judge of it honestly from οne another’s work.”⁴⁶

As Bishop of Monterey-Los Angeles, Conaty removed the denominational requirement from Catholic charitable institutions and insisted that there be “absolute respect fοr the religious rights of a11.”⁴⁷ While such acts did not go uncriticized, the prelate reacted by recalling that non-Catholics and Catholics share interest in the community and as neighbors should learn to live with religious as well as political differences. Though he once expressed a personal wish that “all men believed religiously as I do,” he went on to note, “I find no fault with the man who conscientiously differs with me, and I bid him God’s blessing.”⁴⁸

With such convictions it is not surprising that the Los Angeles Times could state, “Few Catholic clergymen in America have broader reputations than Bishop Conaty, who stands as the embodiment of religious zeal and patriotic love.”⁴⁹ Sentiments of this nature increased with the passage of years as is evident from many sources. John Steven McGroarty observed, “Wherever I go, among people of all classes and all creeds, ministers of other denominations, in the meeting houses of a hundred^[p.389]sects, in the synagogues and on the open highways among those who know or seek no temple whatever, I hear his name spoken always with admiration and respect...”⁵⁰

Vhiie Conaty never exhibited any reluctance about championing his own views, especially regarding matters pertaining to his episcopal office, surely a measure of the prelate’s stature is seen in the manner with which those views were accepted by the general populace. One on-the-scene observer noted that “He does not hesitate to express himself freely upon a point and will surely do a very great amount of good in this state. He is respected and beloved by all our citizens, without regard to their religious affiliations, and he is certainly a power in this part of the country.”⁵¹

“No man in Los Angeles was more generally beloved”S² than Thomas James Conaty, and his reputation among non-Catholics was unique for those troubled times. His cooperation in ecumenical activities was already an established fact by the time he arrived in California. As far back as 1894, he had been asked to address a conference of the Unitarian Church. A decade later, The Tidings reported that the “Right Rev. Bishop Conaty is in great demand as a lecturer before our most enlightened non-Catholic clubs and associations.”⁵³ In his discourses before such assemblies, Conaty dwelt on the characteristics common to all Christians. He was especially fond of speaking about patriotism and continually reminded his hearers that “good men and women make good citizens, but without that conscientiousness, no law can make them good.”⁷⁴

One of Conaty’s collaborators recalled how the bishop’s voice “was always raised to defend human rights, to uphold love of country, to demand fair treatment of all.”⁵⁵ The prelate “sympathized with the legitimate sentiments and aspirations of all races, and numbered men of all races among his warm friends.”⁵⁶ Charles C. Conroy, who edited The Tidings through many of the Conaty years, stated, “No man better understood the value of the right to worship God according to the dictates of one’s conscience—a right which is ours in this country, and which we prize as the best of our possessions. To him religious intolerance, and, indeed any sort of intolerance, was a thing to be abhorred. At all times he stood squarely on his principles, prepared to deal with his fellow-men only upon the basis of justice, integrity, αnd truth.”⁵⁷

According to one writer, “Conaty had a two-fold love of country, the lαnd of his birth αnd the lαnd in which he lived, and the love he bore^[p.390]Ireland served to make him love and appreciate the more the America of which he was so proud.”S⁸ The bishop’s stirring addresses on patriotism, usually centering about basic human rights, grew out of a deep seated conviction that “when our fathers built their fabric of liberty, they placed as the foundation stone the Christian thought of liberty in the inalienable right of man to life, happiness, and liberty.”⁵⁹

In a Memorial Day service in 1896, Conaty reminded Catholics of their duty to the flag. His audience was asked to emulate the deeds of their brethren who had fallen in the recent civil conflict and to take pride in the possession of American citizenship: “The many nationalities which make up the union have proved their loyalty to the republic and loyalty is the essential duty citizens must offer the flag.”⁶⁰

Conaty’s opposition to the various forms of monism—cultural, political and religious, served to confirm his belief that the strength of the country “is in the homes of our working-people which dot the hillsides and fill the plains of our land. “⁶¹ The bishop was on close terms with two of the nation’s presidents. He knew William McKinley intimately and after the Spanish-American War interceded with him fοr an equitable solution of the Church’s property claims in the new possessions. Conaty was also friendly with William Howard Taft and the former chief executive visited the bishop at Coronado just a few days before the prelate’s death in 1915.

Close as he was to influential men in public life, Conaty rarely dabbled in politics. He was fond of recalling the truism, “When a minister turns politician he may spoil a good minister, but is pretty certain to make a poor politician.”G²

Though he was regarded by at least one contemporary as a “sort of Archbishop Ireland, with New England checks and balances,” ⁶³ Conaty was thought to be a secondary figure during his rectorship at The Catholic University of America though the chronicler for those years of the institution’s history admits that the prelate did achieve a “creditable record as an organizer on parochial, diocesan, and national lines.”⁶⁴

This brief treatise, touching only the highlights of his life, indicates that Thomas Janes Conaty’s real genius was most fully realized at the pastoral level. Such a conclusion is hardly surprising, fοr as early as 1895, Conaty was on record as saying that “civilization does not consist in the cultivation of letters and arts, eloquence of dress or manners, but in good^[p.391]morals based upon an exact knowledge of Jesus Christ, and a faithful practice of the duties of religion.” ⁶⁵

A nationwide Catholic magazine announced the death οf Bishop Conaty, which occurred at the seaside town οf Coronado on September 18, 1915. The passing of this outstanding churchman, in the magazine’s words, deprived the Church in the United States of one of her foremost prelates:

He was a man of strong yet amiable character, and a pastor of singular devotedness and indefatigable zeal. A forceful speaker as well as a vigorous writer, and deeply interested in educational and social movements, he rendered important service to many good causes. Asa parish priest in Ilorcester, Mass., and as rector of The Catholic University of Washington, he was distinguished for the qualifications which led to his promotion to the episcopate. He worked wonders for religion in California where he will long be remembered as a great leader and venerated as a man of Gοd.⁶⁶

Such an observation was true enough—for multitudes of people whose affections he won by zealous dedication, later recalled with admiration “the broad-minded scholarly and much-respected Bishop of Monterey-Los Angeles.”⁶⁷

⁴Α.Α.L.A., Juan Riano to Thomas J. Conaty, VVishington, February 14, 1915.

⁷A.A.L.A., “Ects of Council, 1893-1918,” Statement of the Reverend Polydore J.

I Α.Α.L.Α., Thomas J. Conaty to Charles Maginnis, Los Angeles, March 28, 1905.^[^p.392] ¹²See Francis J. Weber, “An Historical Sketch of Saint Vibiana’s Cathedral, Los

¹⁶ßn late^- years the title was changed to Immaculate Conception and in 1926

²⁰Quoted in Tony Matsuda, “St. Francis Xavier Japanese Mission,” Academy

²²Michael J. McKillop, M.M., Dedication Journal, Mmyknoll School (Los Angeles,

²³Leïn Triviere, “The First Japanese Congregation,” Worldmission V (Winter,

²⁵Â. Florian Hahn (1850-1916), a legendary champion of Indian rights, received

²⁹William McDermott Hughes (1880-1939), the first native of Sacramento raised

³⁵Ibid., December 24, 1909.^[^p.393]i⁶Thornas J. Conaty, The Lordliest of California’s Missions (Los Angeles, 1905), p. 5.

³⁸Thοmas J. Conaty, The Roman Catholic Church in the Educational Movement, p. 3.

⁴¹”Education,” The Catholic School and Home Magazine I (May, 1892), 71.

⁴⁵Á.Á.L.Á., Unidentified news clipping, an address before the Saint Paul Union

⁴⁷ãar Book of Brownson House Settlement Association of Los Angeles (Los Angeles,

54Quοted in “Catholic Historical Notes,” The American. Catholic Historical

60Βostοn Pilot, May 30, 1896. Quoted in John Bilski, “The Catholic Church and

⁶⁵Τhomas J. Conaty, The Roman Catholic Church in the Educational Movement, p.

⁶⁷Harris Newmark, Sixty Years in Southern. Califïrnia (New York, 1926), p. 648.^[p.394]

Isolated from its proper historical sequence, the two-year vacancy preceding John J. Cantwells appointment to the Diocese of Monterey-Los Ángeles could be erroneously interpreted as indicating that the Irish-born prelate was something of a desperation candidate. A careful investigation of the record reveals just the opposite; that his name was among the first considered when the incumbent of the Southern California jurisdiction, Bishop Thomas J. Conaty, died on September 18, 1915. To properly evaluate the events leading up to Cantwell’s selection, it is necessary to sketch the overall perspective of the Province of San Francisco along with certain of the problems facing the ecclesiastical units then composing that metropolitan district.

The faltering health of Bishop Laurence Scanlanϊ of Salt Lake had long been a matter of considerable anxiety and it was only the consistent prodding of San Francisco’s Archbishop Patrick W. Riordan that finally resulted in the suffragan’s agreeing to ask Rome for assistance in shouldering the burdens of the Utah Bishopric. It was a Pyrrhic victory for Riordan, however, inasmuch as none of those enumerated on Scanlan’s preposterous term was seriously “worthy of consideration.”² Nonetheless, the Bay City prelate made a careful examination of each nominee before disgustingly confiding to the Apostolic Delegate, Archbishop John Bonzano, that Scanlan’s respect for the Holy See should have prevented him from proposing such candidates.³ Riordan advised the delegate to disregard the entire list in favor of appointing a coadjutor, a process which would place the burden of submitting a wholly new term on the conference of provincial bishops.⁴ Even with this precaution, Riordan thought that it would be difficult to find anyone willing^[p.395]to work alongside the ailing Bishop of Salt Lake. For his part, Scanlan persisted in demanding an auxiliary rather than a coadjutor, with the result that several outstanding clerics, among them the Vicar General of San Francisco, toe very Reverend john J. CantweΙ1, declined tiatly to have his name even considered for the post.⁵

Salt Lake⁶ was not Ríordan’s only concern; he was also worried about the health of his suffragan, Bishop Thomas J. Conaty of Monterey-Los Angeles. Though still able to look after the needs of his vast diocese, the former Rector of The Catholic University of America had asked advice about proposing the name of his Vicar General, the Right Reverend Patrick Ηarnett,⁷ as a candidate for the coadjutorship of the southland. To this suggestion, the archbishop replied:

I am convinced that an Auxiliary would be the best thing to have, but you want a young man. There is no use in taking one who is as old as yourself and who would not be able to stand the strain of journeying... While no doubt Mgr. Harnett will be pleasing to you, and be a respectable man, yet he is too old to give you much assistance.$

There matters stood when the hand of death swept away both Riordan and Conaty, the one on December 27, 1914 and the other on September 18, 1915.

of the province met in the Bay City to draft a formal terna of candidates for the Archdiocese of San Francisco to submit, through the apostolic delegate, to the Holy See. The consultors and irremovable pastors had already agreed to present as candidates, the Right Reverend Edward J. Hanna, Auxiliary Bishop of San Francisco; the Very Reverend John J. Cantwell, Vicar General and the Reverend Peter C. Yorke,` Pastor of Saint Peter’s Church. As Hanna had been Archbishop Riordan’s first choice,¹⁰ the prelates decided to place his name as the dignissimus of their nominees. I ¹ The terna was then dispatched to the apostolic delegation in Washington and, on June 1, 1915, it was announced that the Holy Father had selected Edward J. Hanna as the new Metropolitan of San Francisco.

The Diocese of Monterey-Los Angeles, which fell vacant three months earlier, was not so easily filled. Normally, the Holy See would have attached considerable importance to the recommendation of the provincial archbishop.¹² In this case, however, the impact of the metropolitan’s suggestions were diminished by virtue of his own recent appointment. For what it was worth, Hanna championed the candidacy of Cantwell from the very outset, and even the delegate himself men- ^[p.396]tuned later that from the beginning of the vacancy at Los Angeles, he too had been “very favorable” to the nomination of San Francisco’s Vicar General. However, Archbishop Bonzano could not “overlook the fact that Father Cantwell is Irish as are many of the priests of that diocese whose many abuses will need to be corrected.”¹³ The delegate felt that a complete outsider would be in a better position to handle the problems facing the “backward” Southern California jurisdiction. This, coupled with Cantwell’s earlier refusal of the mitre at Salt Lake, explains the initial lack of enthusiasm on the part of Rome’s Consistorial Congregation for the expressed candidate of the Archbishop of San Francisco.

As soon as it appeared that his initial choice was unacceptable, Hanna cast an anxious eye to a former neighbor and long-time friend, Auxiliary Bishop Patrick Hayes of New York. That “indiscretion” occasioned a blistering letter from John Cardinal Farley who told the Archbishop of San Francisco that he “was not a little surprised to learn from the Apostolic Delegate that you had placed the name of Bishop Hayes—my Auxiliary—at the head of your terna for Los Angeles, and this after my declining to give my consent to such a thing when you spoke of the matter in Phila[delphia].” The cardinal apparently took personal umbrage over the matter, noting that he considered the action “as utterly wanting in respect to my person, my position and my auxiliary.” Farley concluded his letter by emphatically denying his approval of Hayes’ candidacy:

Why there is more work to be done in N.Y. by the Auxiliary than in the largest Diocese in the west, and you could not but realize

this. Did you dream that [ ] a year ago I went to Rome to secure his appointment to let him give his services to the Pacific Coast? 14

Early in the summer of 1916, word leaked out that the Right Reverend John J. McCort, Auxiliary Bishop of Philadelphia, had been named to the vacant see. On June 27, 1916, a southland newspaper reported the actual appointment “according to press dispatches from Rome.” The account further stated that

Bishop McCort is not widely known in Los Angeles, although his reputation as a scholar and a churchman is widespread. The new bishop will succeed the late Bishop Conaty, who died last year. It has been believed by many that the diocese of Monterey-Los Angeles would be divided, but no intimation of this was contained in the cablegram. Bishop McCort is known as an excellent administrator.¹⁵ ^[p.397]No official statement was ever released by the Chancery at Los Angeles, but the diocesan newspaper reported that rumors about “the appointment of Bishop McCort to the See of Monterey-Los Angeles have not, thus far, been confirmed.”¹⁶ Speculation continued weil into the winter months before a terse announcement was given to the press by Archbishop Edmond F Prendergast’s office in Philadelphia:

On Thursday, June 22, Bishop McCort was informed that the Holy Father had selected him to be Bishop of the Diocese of Monterey-Los Angeles. His Grace, the most Reverend Archbishop, with the consent of the Right Reverend Bishop, immediately petitioned the Holy See, for grave and urgent reasons, which were subsequently submitted to the Holy Father, not to transfer Bishop McCort from Philadelphia. His Grace is pleased to announce that the Holy Father has graciously granted the request and that Bishop McCort will remain in Philadelphia.¹⁷

A further allusion to the incident was a 1916 Christmas message McCort sent to Archbishop Edward J. Hanna in which the Philadephia auxiliary said he hoped the New Year “will soon bring such a suffragan as you need and desire for a certain diocese. You will not regret that I am still with the dear archbishop who needs me more than ever...”¹⁸

In a letter written to Bishop John J. Cantwell some years later, McCort rejoiced “that my successor is such a worthy one” and then went on to note his gratitude “to the Lord that the late Archbishop Prendergast fought so hard to keep me in the East, even though the price of it was beyond computation.”I⁹ In his response, Cantwell chided McCort, by then the Bishop of Altoona, for his reluctance to move west and advised him to “come out some day and see Hollywood while you are still young, so that you may learn what you missed when you preferred Altoona to the City of the Angels. The very name should have inspired you to noble thoughts.” ²⁰

The day before Archbishop Prendergast died—he said to me I presume that you will succeed me and I answered—No, Your Grace, I will not succeed you. Why not, he asked and I replied, Los Angeles will come up again—and His Grace asked, What did you have to do with Los Angeles? meaning of course that the action was entirely his own. I insert this so that Your Excellency may know that I never declined. It was an awful experience but the good God permitted it.^{2 I} ^[p.398]It is only a half-century later that the actual story can be told in its totality but it does confirm one newspaper’s observation that McCort’s “great assistance to the elderly and infirm Archbishop Prendergast” induced the Ordinary of Philadelphia to cable “Rome a plea that the appointment of his assistant be rescinded.”²²

On February 10, 1917, another report from the east stated that Father William J. Kerby, Professor of Sociology at The Catholic University of America, had been asked to accept the Southern California mitre. Other prominent churchmen rumored for the vacancy included the Reverends Charles A. Ramm,²³ Chancellor of the Archdiocese of San Francisco; Edward A. Pace, Dean of the School of Philosophy at The Catholic University of America; Andrew Meehan, Professor of Canon Law at Rochester’s Saint Bernard Seminary and the Very Reverend Patrick J. Fisher,²⁴ Pastor of Holy Cross Church at Santa Cruz. The name of Bishop Joseph S. Glass, C.M.,²S of Salt Lake was mentioned occasionally inasmuch as it was commonly known that the Vincentian prelate was amenable to the appointment and had, on one occasion, approached an influential layman to plead his cause.

On March 22, 1917, Los Angeles newspapers announced that Pope Benedict XV had named Peter J. Muldoοn,²⁶ Bishop of Rockford, to the shepherdless Diocese of Monterey-Los Angeles. The news accounts reported that,

Bishop Peter J. Muldoon of Rockford, Ill., formerly auxiliary bishop of Chicago and one of the best known Roman Catholic dignitaries of the United States, today was named bishop of the diocese of Monterey—Los Angeles.

According to Catholic laymen in Los Angeles, it was evident that the Pope in making the appointment disregarded some nominations which were submitted... This conclusion was based on the fact that the Pope first appointed the auxiliary bishop of Philadelphia, for the bishopric, and that the appointment was later withdrawn at the request of the bishop of Philadelphia.

It has been understood that Bishop Muldoon has long desired to come to Los Angeles, but that he put aside that desire to remain near his mother who died recently.²⁷

Monsignor Patrick Harnett, Administrator of the Diocese, added the weight of his office to the report by stating that “I have no official infor- ^[p.399]ration on the subject, but I am convinced the report of the appointment is true.”

Muldoon’s name was familiar to many Californians. A native of the Golden State, he had been discussed earlier as a possible successor to San Francisco’s Archbishop Patrick J. Riordan. His visit to the Panama Pacific Exposition, in 1914, enhanced speculation about his eventual return to tlιe west coast. Just a year later, Muldion had been James Cardinal Gibbons’ candidate to succeed James E. Quigley at Chicago because he was “well acquainted with its diocesan needs.” Baltimore’s metropolitan also suggested that Muldoon’s “appointment would be a vindication fοr the unjust persecution he suffered there while he was auxiliary bishop.” ²⁸ However, that proved to be one of the rare times when Gibbons was over-ruled²⁹ and the appointment went instead to the Auxiliary of Brooklyn, George W. Mundelein.³⁰ Even though Muldoon was by-passed for Chicago, the IIoly See remained aware of his organizational abilities and, in mid-December of 1916, Archbishop Mundelein approached Muldoon on the latter’s availability for the Diocese of Monterey-Los Angeles. Contrary to press reports, the Bishop of Rockford clearly was not anxious to return to California and agreed to do so only if Rome insisted.³¹

Apparently, the Apostolic Delegate interpreted the “polite refusal...as a modest acceptance”³² for wheels began turning and, on March 22, 1917, the wire services reported that the Rockford Morning Stn-, quoting a Ronan official, had announced that “Bishop Muldoon of Rockford, Ill., has been named Bishop of Los Angeles.”³³ The bulls of appointment were dispatched in routine fashion. Msgr. Charles A. O’Hern of the North American College called at the Vatican secretariat fοr them and a newly-ordained priest fοr the Diocese of Monterey-Los Angeles, Father Henry W. Gross, was deputized as a courier and charged with bringing them to the appointee. When, from New York, Gross informed Muldoon of his mission, the distressed bishop noted pessimistically in his diary, that “it does look like I go to Los Angeles.”³⁴ When the young cleric arrived at the prelate’s residence on June 7, he was requested to place the three tubular parcels on the mantlepiece, thereby avoiding any semblance that Muldoon, by receiving the bulls personally, had signified formal acceptance.³⁵

In the meantime, the consultors and clergy of the Diocese of Rockford had petitioned Pope Benedict ΧV³⁶ to withdraw Muldoon’s nomination, only to receive fοr their trouble a “sharp letter” from Archbishop John Bonzano, the Apostolic Delegate. Muldoon himself^[p.400]had written to Cajetan Cardinal De Lai, Secretary of the Sacred Consistorial Congregation, asking to be relieved of the appointment if such could be done without embarrassing the Pope. The complicated chain of events finally reached its climax when Muldoon was notified by the delegate that “the Holy Father has deigned to accept your resignation as Bishop of the Diocese of Monterey-Los Αngeles to which you were recently appointed.”³⁷ In an obviously joyful strain, the Bishop of Rockford jotted in his diary that the affair had finally been settled in a satisfactory manner.³⁸

The choice of Muldoon was a strange one if, as Archbishop Bonzano maintained, the Holy See was really concerned about the “Irish question” in Los Angeles. As far back as 1901, the then Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Chicago had so “aroused the bitter opposition of a score of Irish-born priests” in Chicago that a delegation journeyed to Washington with a formal protest “against Muldoon’s elevation to the episcopacy.”³⁹ Moreover, in the latter years of Patrick Feehan’s archiepiscopate, Muldoon had been the focal point of certain supposedly questionable activities in Chicago which one prelate characterized as “a stench in the nostrils of the better class of people and clergy.”⁴⁰

Public announcement of Muldoon’s determination to remain in Illinois, released from the Apostolic Delegation in Washington, heartened the people of Rockford as much as it saddened those of Monterey-Los Angeles. Undoubtedly Muldoon’s acceptance would have enhanced the fortunes of the Church in Southern California for “Los Angeles needed a public man and an administrator and a man of Bishop Muldoon’s ability to head this vast expanding territory. Bishop Muldoon would have been that kind of man.”⁴¹

¹Α general overview of the Irish-born pioneer’s life is in Francis J. Weber, “Bishop’s Life One of Sacrifice,” The Tidings, June 18, 1965.

²ΑΑίΑ, Thomas J. Grace to Thomas J. Conaty, Sacramento, May 17, 1915. ³ΑΑSF, Patrick W. Riordan to John Bonzano, San Francisco, July 27, 1914.

⁴For the historical and canonical background of the process used in selecting bishops in this country, see Francis J. Weber, “Episcopal Appointments in the U.S.A.,” American Ecclesiastical Review CLV (September, 1966), 178-191.

⁵Α1thοugh there is no available evidence supporting Cantwell’s candidacy for Salt Lake, the bishop did make it known to several of his friends in later years, among them the retired Bishop of Dallas-Fort Worth, Thomas K. Gorman.^{[p.401] 6}Ôhe problem at Salt Lake solved itself on May 10, 1915, with Scanlan’s death. Within ten days after the bishop’s ftineral, the vacancy hád been filled, an indica-tioo that Rome hád decided to take action even before the ailing prelate’s death. ⁷Fïr a biographical sketch, see Francis J. leber, “State’s First Muiisignur was Irish-born,” The Tidings, August 8, 1969.

⁸ÁÁSF, Patrick W. Riordan to Thomas J. Conaty, Sán Francisco, June 8, 1914. Whether Conaty was acting on his own behalf or solely for his consultors is nït known for it is recorded that on April 14, 1915, the diocesan advisors “moved and seconded and unanimously carried the suggestion regarding the appointment of an auxiliary in the person of Rt. Rev. Mons. Harnett, 1G., be approved.” See Acts of Council, 1893-1918, p. 80 in AALA.

⁹Fïr biographical details, see Francis J. Weber, “Fr. Yorke, Champion of Justice,” The Tidings, February 26, 1965.

¹⁰Ét is known that John J. Cantwell’s name was on an earlier terna submitted by Riordan prior to Hanna’s selection. See AALA, John Bonzano to Edward J. Hanna, Washington, D.C., September 3, 1917.

¹AALA, Minutes of the Meeting of the Bishops of the Province of San Francisco, Sán Francisco, January!, 1915.

¹²Ií had been the practice since the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore for the diocesan consultors and irremovable pastors of a vacant jurisdiction to present a terna of worthy episcopal candidates to the metropolitan. A subsequent meeting of the bishops in a province would then discuss the names, take a vote, and forward them on to the Holy See through the Apostolic Delegate. However, there is no evidence that this procedure was followed after Conaty’s death — perhaps because of an injudicious violation of secrecy in the meeting of December 12, 1902, which resulted in public disclosure of a candidate nït acceptable to the Holy See. (The Tidings for January 31, 1903, reported to its readers that the diocesan consultors had expressed their “conscientious belief in his [Right Reverend Patrick 1arnett’s] eminent fitness for the position of Bishop of this diocese.”)

¹³ÁÁLÁ, John Bonzano to Edward J. Hanna, Washington, D.C., September 3, 1917.

¹⁴’SF, John Cardinal Farley to Edward J. Hanna, New York, December 28, 1915. ¹⁵Los Angeles Evening He7•’hl.

¹⁸AALÁ, John J. McCort to Edward J. Hanna, Philadelphia, December 22, 1916. ¹⁹ÁÁLÁ, John J. McCort to John J. Cantwell, Altoona, September 16, 1932. ²⁰ÁÁLÁ, John J. Cantwell to John J. IcCort, Los Angeles, September 21, 1932. ²¹ÁÁLÁ, John J. McCort to John J. Cantwell, Altoona, September 30, 1932. ²²Árchiíes of The Catholic University of America (hereafter referred to as

ACUA) “Diary of the Right Reverend Peter J. Muldoon,” unidentified newspaper clipping.^[p.402] ²³For a biographical sketch, see Francis J. Weber, “A Noble Churchman,” The

²⁴See Francis J. Weber, “Spirituality to Match His Physique,” The Tidings,

25Α biographical sketch on “Bishop Glass, Pastor of Souls” appears in The

²⁶Fοr a sketch of the prelate, see Charles A. McMahon, “Right Reverend Peter James Muldoon, D.D., First Bishop of Rockford, 1863-1927,” Illinois Catholic Historical Review X (April, 1928), 291-300.

²⁸Francis G. McManamin, “Peter J. Muldoon, First Bishop of Rockford, 18621927,” Catholic Historical Review XLVIII (October, 1962), 372.

²⁹The Archbishop of Baltimore thus reversed a stand he had taken in 1902, when he vetoed the proposal that Muldoon succeed Archbishop Feehan in Chicago. Gibbons believed that the auxiliary “was incapable at the moment of restoring peace in the archdiocese.” See David Francis Sweeney, OEM., The Life of John Lancaster Spalding (New York, 1965), p. 305n.

³⁰Cardinal Gibbons apparently had no hand in Muldoon’s subsequent nomination to Monterey-Los Angeles for he later remarked to the Bishop of Rockford that “there never was any reason why you should be sent there.” See ACUA, “Diary,” June 10, 1917.

³³The “Roman source” was the Acta Apostolicae Sedis, IX (March 22, 1917), 164: Cathedrali Ecclesiae Montereyensis Angelorum, R.P.D. Petrurn Jacobum Muldoon, Hactenas Episcopam Rockfordiensen.”

³⁵Despite the fact that Gross assured the bishop that “you have jurisdiction in Rockford until the day you leave for Los Angeles,” Muldoon refused to open the circular tubes until Father Gross put the statement in writing. See AALA, Statement of the Right Reverend Henry W. Gross, Los Αngeles, November 26, 1963.

³⁶Εdward L. McDonald, Golden Jubilee History of the Diocese of Rockford (Rockford, 1958), p. 59.

³⁷ΑΑLA, John Bonzano to Peter J. Muldoon, Washington, D.C., June 5, 1917. This was the last “recorded” time the Holy See acted without consulting the candidate, at least in the United States.

³⁹David Francis Sweeney, O.ENL, op. cit., p. 286. After his appointment to the bishopric, Muldoon was personally consecrated by the Apostolic Delegate to the United States, Archbishop Sebastiano Martinelli, in “an effort to demonstrate to all that Muldoon had the strong support of the authorities of the Church.” John Tracy Ellis, The Life of James Cardinal Gibbons (Milwaukee, 1952), II, 416.^[p.403]

⁴°James Ryan to Francesco Marchetti, Altoona, July 24, 1902. One writer felt that if Riordan had been alive, Muldoon’s selection would probably have been shelved for, in 1902, he had written the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda

É. with tii’ chαrgc that the (iiüAiiiar₎ bίshίρ “was cοncer «ed with büt One
purpose, namely to strengthen his own position.” See David Francis Sweeney, 0.ß,w., op. cit., p. 307.

⁴¹Francis G. Mcianamin, op. cit., p. 374, a remark attributed to the Very Reverend John F. Fenlon, S.S. By his refusal to return to the land of his birth, “Bishop Muldoon has the unique distinction of being both the first and second Bishop of the Rockford diocese.” See Cornelius J. Kirkfleet, The History of the Parishes of the Diocese of Rockf rd, 1l/nos (Chicago, 1924), p. 40.^[^p.404]

Though the people of a new era probably associate him mostly with the high school bearing his name, John J. Cantwell left his mark, and a prominent one at that, in the Catholic annals of California’s south-land. In fact, he was a pioneer whose stature contrasts favorably with the Golden State’s great missionary founders. The prelate’s accomplishments, over a thirty year episcopate, were as spiritually profitable to the faithful of his day as they are statistically phenomenal to those of a succeeding generation.

The archbishop was a far-sighted man whose programs envisioned the time when, in fulfillment of the prediction made early in his tenure, “Los Angeles will be the second largest city in the United States.”¹ His instinctive qualities of leadership, augmented by efficient organization, careful planning and gentle persuasion were a rallying point for the creative talent in that elite corps of highly competent subordinates which he fashioned into his official family.

An austere man in his personal habits, the Irish-born prelate had no private life, few friends and fewer still who knew him intimately. Nonetheless, he was as acquainted with the astute idiom of business, the calculated phrases of diplomacy and the tangy vernacular of the people as he was with the sonorous Latin of the missal. He brought to Southern California “those habits of ordered industry and that keenness of vision so necessary for the Bishop of a town of such growth and such importance as Los Angeles.”² Though there was an imperious atmosphere about his demeanor, the archbishop’s rise to ecclesiastical prominence^[p.405] was clearly the result of ^“a talent fir hard work, steadiness of purpose and a deftness in the handling of matters requiring poise and a judicial attitude.”³

The founder of the Irish Cantwells was the Norman Knight, Hugh De Cantville, grandnephew of William the Conqueror, who came to Ireland with Richard Strongbo fοr the conquest. Settling in Kilkenny and Tipperary, IIugh was the first to inscribe the family mime in Irish annals and his descendants spread out all over the south of Ireland. Extant records⁴ indicate that the original family seat was near present-day Sanford’s Court, about four miles northeast of Kilkenny. The tomb of “Cantwell Fadha” in the old church of Klfane is reproduced on a cast at the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin.⁵ Thomas de Kentewall witnessed the granting of the Charter by Theobold Walter in.the reign of Henry II.

Gilbert Kentwell, probably originator of the Tipperary branch of the family, received a large grant of land in that area about 1177.⁶ Baron William de Kentwell resided in the Castle of Moycarkey and it was around that historic barony that many of the popular Cantwell traditions grew up. In the time of Oliver Cromwell the castle was seized from Thomas Cantwell, a provost-marshal in the Great Rebellion and turned over to Lord Ranelagh. With the restoration of the monarchy in England, Thomas’ son petitioned Charles II fοr reinstatement, but his plea went unanswered and the family’s vast holdings were never restored.

There were Cantwells active in ecclesiastical affairs as early as 1487, when the Dominican Father Oliver Cantwell (d. 1527) was appointed to the Bishopric of Ossory. Records also show that the prior of the Dominican monastic house of Kilkenny, in the late 1530s was a Peter Cantwell and, in 1539, there was an Abbot Richard Cantwell at the Augustinian Abbey of Saint John. A tomb in Kilkenny indicates that a member of the family was Archbishop of Cashel and, from 1830 to 1866, one of the Tipperary Cantwells occupied the Bishopric of Meath. Canon Nicholas, builder of Tramour Church, was an uncle of the future Archbishop of Los Angeles.

Patrick Cantwell (1848-1896) was the eldest of the four youngsters born to John Cantwell of Lacopple and Alice Walsh. One of his brothers was Canon James, parish priest of Ballingarry and Administrator of the Cathedral at Thurles. Another brother, Walter, was parish priest of Mullinhine. An only sister became Mary Aloysius, a Presentation nun. Patrick married Ellen O’Donnell in the early 1870s, and fifteen children blessed their union, of whom ten survived. Very little is known of Patrick who died prematurely of rheumatic fever. Ellen came to Los Angeles in^[p.406] later days and of her Archbishop Edward J. Hanna of San Francisco noted that she was “the inheritor of a name that was old and honored in the traditions of her community.”⁷

In the 1870s, Limerick was the largest town on the Atlantic seaboard of Ireland. A cathedral see and a center of industry, Limerick lacked none of the fascinations of a great regional capital. The proud city grew up along the banks of the River Shannon, some sixty miles inland from the sea. Among Limerick’s respected families were the William O’Donnells who owned and operated a tannery on Chapel Lane.⁸ It was to the O’Donnell home that William’s daughter Ellen came to have her first child late in 1874.⁹ The infant was born on December 1, at the family’s residence, 32 Thomas Street, and following the local customs was taken at the earliest opportunity to the parish church of Saint Michael¹⁰ to be baptized.¹¹ Within the walls of that century-old edifice, Father John Mulqueen enrolled the name of John Joseph Cantwell on the register books in the same building where the first public meeting some years earlier had demanded Catholic emancipation and abolition of the tithe system in Ireland. Shortly after the baptismal ceremony, the baby was taken back to Fethard¹² where the Cantwells of Lacopple had lived and farmed for three generations. Young Cantwell’s early education was obtained at the Monastery National School at Fethard, an institution operated by the Patrician Brothers.¹³ From existing records, it appears that John enrolled about 1880, and went on to the nearby Classical Academy four years later. Functioning as a type of prep-seminary, the academy offered advance courses in Latin and Greek.

From Fethard John returned to Limerick and, in 1884,¹`¹ entered Sacred Heart College¹⁵ at the Crescent¹⁶ where he pursued his studies under the guiding eye of Father Timothy O’Keeffe, S.J. Intellectual standards were high at the college and there was always stiff competition among the eighty or ninety students, a fact evidenced by the college’s consistently high place on national examination rolls. Since the college was a day-school in those times, it presented young Cantwell with the attractive prospects of returning each evening to the home of his grandparents.

With completion of his preparatory studies at Limerick, John applied to Saint Patrick’s College at Thurles, cathedral town of the Archdiocese of Cashel and Emly. Founded originally as a lay college, in 1829, an ecclesiastical department had been added thirteen years later with the intention of catering to students for the foreign missions. When notified of his acceptance, John was asked to choose the field of his future work^[p.407]and, knowing very little about America, he turned to a long-time friend, Father Martin Ryan,¹⁷ who had been ordained fοr Sαn Francisco in 1889. Ryan immediately advised young Cantwell to apply fοr the Bay City jurisdiction which he proceeded to do. There were other reasons influencing Cantwell’s decision. One author had this to say about the large number of Thurles men attracted to California:

I have a very definite impression that the influx of so many Thurles priests to San Francisco¹⁸ stemmed in large measure from the personal friendship that existed for many years between the great Archbishop Riordan and Canon Arthur Ryan, President of Saint Patrick’s College.¹⁹

There were 109 seminarians at Thurles when the eldest of the Cantwells entered in January of 1892, sixty-six of whom were studying for the foreign missions and forty-three fοr the Archdiocese of Cashel and Emly. Even in those days the scholastic requirements were hard, fοr since 1854, the college enjoyed university status and never allowed its students to relax the high standards. Seminarians were rarely allowed to visit their homes and visitors at the college were severely restricted. Nevertheless it was a healthy atmosphere which nurtured and added to the stature of the clerical aspirants.

A proud family heard the name of its eldest son proclaimed in Sacred Heart Church at Killusty as a candidate for holy orders early in 1899. Tile great event was scheduled fοr June 18, and the pews of Thurïes’ Cathedral of the Assumption were filled to capacity at an early hour. When the hands of the tower clock reached eight, the church’s mighty six-ton bells rang out and the four-manual organ intoned the majestic Ecce Sncerdos. Fifteen deacons,²⁰ vested in alb and tunic, processed into the Romanesque-styled cathedral. Once assembled in the sanctuary, their names were called out by the archpriest, Canon Arthur Ryan, President of Saint Patrick’s College. All listened with attention as the Right Reverend Robert Browne, Suffragan Bishop of Cloyne,²¹ read the solemn instruction.⁷²

The newly ordained priest departed for Sαn Francisco near the end of the summer and, upon arriving in the Bay City, was appointed curate at Saint Joseph’s Church in Berkeley.²³ His five year apprenticeship in the university town was well spent. He organized the Newnan Club at the University of California, in 1899, and two years later, Archbishop Patrick W. Riordan²⁴ officially recognized the movement and gave it his “‘hole- ^[p.408]hearted approbation. So effectively did Father Cantwell guide the students that within a few years, the Club had grown large enough to warrant more permanent quarters than the Golden Sheaf Bakery.²⁵

In 1904, Father Cantwell was appointed to the curia as personal secretary to the archbishop. Writing to a friend, Riordan said that he had “selected Father Cantwell for many reasons. Since he came to the diocese he has been a most Priestly character in every sense of the word and a man of great refinement and gentlemanly character, and while he has had no business experience he is a man of intelligence and gradually will pick up the information necessary fοr his office.” ²⁶

On the occasion of Cantwell’s first journey back to Ireland, in 1908, the archbishop presented him with a gift “as a slight token of my great friendship for you and also as a mark of my gratitude fοr your service to me in the Archdiocese of San Francisco.” The Bay City prelate went on to say

I have had fοr you since you came from the Seminary the highest regard on account of your Priestly character αnd your great zeal in the service of our Holy Religion and I can assure you that regard which I had in the beginning has not only been increased since you were brought into contact with myself in the administration of the Diocese but has deepened into a friendship which is one of the most pleasant things of my Episcopate. You have been since you came to my office a source of consolation and of joy and I trust that nothing will ever occur to lessen my deep respect and friendship fοr you.”²

It came then as no surprise that, upon the death of the Very Reverend John J. Prendergast,²⁸ in January of 1914, Archbishop Riordan named Cantwell Vicar General, a post he continued to hold under Riordan’s successor, Edward J. Hanna.²⁹

As it became increasingly evident that few clerics were interested in adopting the orphaned Monterey-Los Angeles jurisdiction, the candidacy of John J. Cantwell took on added dimensions. While acknowledging the difficulties that an Irish-born bishop would face in California’s Southland, Archbishop Bonzano admitted, perhaps reluctantly, that “these problems are not insurmountable, especially if Father Cantwell can rise above his personal αnd national sympathies.”³⁰ The Archbishop of San Francisco assured the delegate that his confidence in Cantwell was well founded and went on to say that “...I feel, personally, any honor which comes to him. He has been to me a loyal and devoted friend.”³¹ Confirmation of his episcopal appointment cane to Father Cantwell in a letter expressing Bonzano’s personal pleasure “that the Holy Father has^[p.409]deigned to appoint you to the vacant Bishopric of Monterey-Los Angeles.”³²

It was a considerable challenge that faced the bishop-elect. His diocese extended from the Mexican boundary north to those portions of Santa Cruz, Santa Clara and Merced counties lying south of the latitude of 37°, a territory embracing 80,000 square miles. Whatever may have been Cantwell’s reluctance at so formidable a charge is not evident in his first message to the southland wherein he rejoiced at the prospects of going to a place so historic in its religious traditions.³³

Cantwell’s qualifications were widely heralded. One newspaper account portrayed the bishop-elect as “liberal in his views, possessed of the tenderest human sympathies, a jovial, handsome six-footer in the prime of life, extremely modest in discussing himself...”³⁴ The appointment was no less enthusiastically received in the south where the Administrator of the Diocese of Monterey-Los Angeles, Monsignor Patrick Harnett, stated that “Father Cantwell fills out in a very remarkable degree the measure of the bishop which this diocese demands.”³⁵ The Víncentían Bishop of Salt Lake, a long-time Los Angeles resident, described the new appointee as one “trained at the side of Archbishop Riordan and Archbishop Hanna” a man who “has learned well the work of Episcopal administration and has become thoroughly imbued with the fine qualities of the former and the charming spirit of the latter.”³⁶

The highly complicated story behind John T. Cantwell’s app_oi_nt_ment to the Diocese of Monterey-Los Angeles reached its happy conclusion with the prelate’s consecration on December 5, 1917, in Saint Mary’s Cathedral at San Francisco. Father William O’Ryan, Pastor of Saint Leo’s Church in Denver, glanced ahead to Cantwell’s three decades as ordinary with a remarkable accυracy.

You, dear Bishop Cantwell, will be a good bishop; I, a prophet of this hour, see you a great and wise αnd patriotic American bishop. I hear your life cry out: They are Americans, so am I; they αre the seed of free men, so am I; they αre the ministers of the Gospel of Human Liberty; I am more; in many more watchings αnd labors that the light may burn not dim and murky from human exhalations but clear and bright, because nourished by the pure air that breathes from the mountains of God.³⁷

The newly-consecrated bishop was solemnly installed at Los Angeles in Saint Vibiana’s Cathedral on December 12th. His initial message to the Catholics of Southern California, among his most typical utterances, was remembered a long time for the warmth of its sincerity:^[p.410]In addressing you fοr the first time my chiefest duty is one of courtesy, of gratitude and of affection. It is to thank, in your name and in my own, the learned and eloquent Archbishop of San Francisco for what he has done for you and for me today, and to express the hope that he will often come among us, that he will keep us in his prayers and in his thoughts.

Your Bishop, unworthy though he be, cones to you not as the appointee of any secular power with a mission consecrated to political ambition or social distinction, but rather as sent by the Vicar of Christ, Pope Benedict XV unto the things of the soul, and of the life that passeth not away.

It is the duty of a Bishop, says the Pontifical, to baptize and to preach; to interpret the law and to be a Judge in the House of Israel; to govern in holiness and in justice the flock of Christ. Fortunate indeed is the lot of mine to succeed in his tasks to the labors of a line of noble men whose names from Thomas James Conaty αnd George Montgomery to Garcia Diego, the first Bishop of the Californias, are in benediction. Verily were they in their duty valiant watchmen at the gates of Sion. Happy is the lot of mine to succeed to the Diocese venerable beyond others in the glories of its traditions, to the Diocese whose very soil has been watered by the tears, purpled by the blood and consecrated by the footprints of saintly men. Blessed indeed is the lot of mine coming among people whose lives have been quickened by such tender memories, to live among people to whom the Catholic Church, its glorious traditions in good report αnd in evil report, its ideals of justice and of truth, its severe but chastening discipline, its zeal for all that is beautiful in nature and in art, its labors at home and across the seas, αre no mere fancies but stern facts. Verily, in this city of Our Lady of the Angels there can be no denying our claims or our inheritance. Before the Pilgrim Fathers set foot on Plymouth Rock, the Cross of Christ was planted in the Californias, before the Declaration of our Independence was signed, and before the Stars and Stripes were flung to the breeze, the Catholic Church had pitched its tents in this favored land by the sunset sea.

It is because the Almighty has so singularly blessed this Southern land that I come to you with joy and with confidence. It is for you and fοr me to continue and to improve the past, to perpetuate all that is noble and all that is best, to give this community of which we αre a part the example of honorable living, of devoted lives, of^[p.411] family purity, of domestic peace, of civic righteousness and of patriotic service. Yours it is to enhance the greatness of the past by the beauty of your lives, that men seeing your works may glorify your Father Who is in heaven.

May not this Bishop to whom a great task has been committed rely upon your prayers, your cooperation, your support, aye, your obedience, and perhaps, in years to cone, yet more—your affection? May his labors among you be blessed, his harvest rich and splendid, his life so full of toil that all may be well with you and with him in the great day of account.³⁸

¹Árchives of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles (hereafter referred to as AALA), John J. Cantwell to Innocent Ryan, Los Angeles, December 1, 1921.

⁵James Graves, “On the Cross Legged Effigies of the County of Kilkenny,” Transactions of the Kilkenny Archeological Society 11(1952), 63.

⁶W. Carrigan, History and Antiquities of the Diocese of Osso7y (Dublin, 1905), III, 275. ⁷From the funeral sermon preached by the archbishop. See The Tidings, August 7, 1931

⁸Å11en’s brother was Mayor of Limerick. See Archives of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, John J. Cantwell to James D. Hackett, Los Ángeles, January 2, 1934. ⁹0f the fifteen Cantwell children, ten of them survived, viz., John, William, Walter, May, James, Patrick, Nelly, Joseph, Arthur and Mice. Theirs was a “lcvidual failli1y;” J’unnes (1886-1956) succeeded his brother as Chancellor of the Archdiocese of San Francisco; William (1879-1962) died as Pastor of Saint Monica’s Parish in San Francisco and Arthur, ordained by his brother on June 15, 1919, was pastor of the Bay City’s Parish of Saint Elizabeth. May (d. March 13, 1965) was an Ursuline nun. Mice’s son, Father Patrick Power, is a priest of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

¹⁰The old church was replaced, in 1881, and only a small portion of the Gospel transept was incorporated into the present building.

~ ¹AALA. The child was baptized on December 7, 1874. Authentic copy is dated August 30, 1962. Monsignor Maurice P. Dee, Pastor of Immaculate Conception Church in Monrovia, California, has calculated the episcopal fecundity of County Tipperary by noting that between 1792 and 1970, the fifty square mile district, with its twenty parishes and 56,000 people, provided the Catholic hierarchy with a cardinal, fifteen archbishops and nineteen bishops.^{[p.412] 12}Fethard is a small town set in a pleasant country area about a hundred miles from Dublin in County Tipperary. Its population, even today, does not exceed one thousand.

¹³Ôhe Patrician Brothers were founded, in 1808, by Daniel Delaney, Bishop of Kildare and Leigbilin in Carlow. They were brought to Fethard, in 1872, by the Very Reverend Walter Cantwell.

¹⁶Francis Finnegan, S.J., Limerick Jesuit Centenal); Record (Limerick, 1959), p. 125. ¹⁷Ryan (1862-1941) was the first known Thurles man to serve in San Francisco. ¹⁸For a number of years San Francisco had the largest number of Thurles men

¹⁹Daniel O’Kelly, “Thurles in the United States,” The C’apuchm AimaI (Dublin, 1960), p. 329.

²⁰1,z., Michael O’Donoghue (Cashel); William Lande (Sán Francisco); Austin Walshe (Dubuque); Michael Ryan (Cashel); Matthew Hennessy (Cashel); Denis Duggan (Cashel); James English (Helena); Jïhn Cantwell (Sán Francisco); Patrick Shanahan (Sandhurst); James O’Malley (Cashel); Daniel McGrath (Adelaide); Cornelius Callanan (Cashel); John Ryan (Chicago); Daniel Lanigin (Chicago) and Victor Peters (Maitland). See the Irish Directory (Dublin, 1900), p,351.

2 ¹Ñhïénas William Croke, the Archbishop of Cashel and Administrator of Emly (Thurles) performed his last ordination in 1898, although he lived on until 1902. ²²Pontificðle Romamim (Rome, 1872), p. 456.

²³Ôhe Reverend Michael O’Riordan (1851-1918) was pastor at the time of the only parish in Berkeley.

²⁴For a biographical sketch of the archbishop, see Francis J. Weber, “Prophetic Words Said of San Francisco Prelate,” The Tidings, April 5, 1963.

²⁵See Francis J. Weber, Readings i” California Cntholic History (Los Angeles, 1967), p.119.

²⁶’ÁÁLÁ, Patrick W. Riordan to Arthur Ryan, San Francisco, December 1, 1904. ²⁷Árchiíes of the Archdiocese of San Francisco (hereafter referred to as AASF), Patrick W. Riordan to John J. Cantwell, San Francisco, May 5, 1908.

⁷⁸Fïr a biographical sketch, see Francis J. Weber, “Jïhn J. Prendergast, Priest of the Church of San Francisco,” Front Line VI (Summer, 1967), 34-38.

²⁹See Francis J. Weber, “Edward Joseph Hanna,” The 111011 itor, May 1, 1964. ³¹~ÁÁLÁ, Jïhn Bonzano to Edward J. Hanna, Washington, D.C., September 3, 1917.

³¹ÁÁSF, Edward J. Hanna to John Bonzano, San Francisco, September 22, 1917. ³²ÁÁLÁ, Jïhn Bonzano to John J. Cantwell, Washington, D.C., September 16, 1917.

Demographers attribute the remarkable growth of Southern California during the three decades of John J. Cantwell’s episcopate to such factors as advertising, agriculture expansion, petroleum discoveries, hydro-electric power development, a deep-water harbor at San Pedro, climatic advantages, readily accessible land, good highways, and, in later years, the war industries.

The internal pressures exerted on the organizational structure of the Catholic Church between 1917 and 1947 are clearly reflected in the phenomenal growth patterns evident throughout the area. That John J. Cantwell was able to satisfy the consequent exigencies of those hectic decades while, at the same time, bringing his diocese into the mainstream of American Catholicity, is a tribute to the many programs he inaugurated and endorsed, at various levels, to meet the staggering challenges which confronted him. Available space allows for mentioning only a few of the more significant accomplishments and involvements of the Church in its multi-phased apostolate in the pre-1950 years.

Bishop Cantwell firmly believed that clearly defined and enunciated juridical norms were an absolute requisite for sound and equitable administration. When the question of a diocesan synod had come up at the consultors meeting of April 25, 1912, it was decided, with the concurrence of Cantwell’s predecessor, to delay its convening until the new Canon Law was published so as to avoid duplicating or rendering inapplicable any part of the Church’s broader legislation.^[p.415]During the years immediately following, a number of directives were issued relative to ecclesiastical matters, but it soon became clear that some sort of codification was exceedingly desirable. Cantwell informed his advisers, on October 22, 1925, that he planned to convene a synod, and had instructed Father Raphael Fuhrl to begin the preliminary drafts.² Coinciding with the close of his first decade as bishop, Cantwell convoked the fifth diocesan synod,³ on November 2, 1927, the first to be held within the jurisdiction in almost four decades. The new Codex Juris Canonicis had been in effect almost ten years and a number of radical revisions in the Church’s general laws necessitated a corresponding updating of local legislation. In accordance with accepted procedure, Cantwell appointed several committees⁴ to prepare subjects fοr enactment. Preliminary drafts were sent out to various areas where the local clergy gathered to discuss the proposed legislation.

Nearly 300 priests attended the promulgation ceremonies held in Saint Vibiana’s Cathedral, at nine o’clock, on December 6, 1927, as did Archbishop Edward J. Hanna of San Francisco and Bishops John B. MacGinley of Monterey-Fresno and Patrick Keane of Sacramento. To Father Patrick Grogan of Mission San Buenaventura, the only priest remaining from the previous synod in 1889, the scene had radically changed. There were, fοr example, seventy parishes in Los Angeles then as contrasted to the two in operation at the opening of the earlier gathering.

Those statutes of the 1889 synod incorporated into the revised Code of Canon Law were omitted in the 1927 compilation. Additional directives covering such modern developments as automobiles, rice throwing, vacations, taxes and cemetery monuments were added. The new stntuta indicated the bishop’s policy of centralizing his curia through such provi-sίúιιs as that requiring improvements on Church properties, beyond a stipulated amount, to have his personal approbation.⁵ So-called “floating loans” “‘ere reprobated and all parochial funds were to be deposited only in local parish accounts, never under the sole name of the pastor. Nor were church edifices to be utilized by the Motion Picture Industry without express approval, an authorization obtainable only in those cases involving no inconvenience to the faithful.⁶ Cantwell insisted that parochial bulletins be discontinued since, as he remarked, “it is very hard to run a diocesan newspaper when the local parish priest is running a `monthly’ of his own.” ⁷

In order to comply with prescripts of the new code regarding periodic synods, Cantwell convoked another such gathering, the first fοr the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, during the annual clergy retreat at^[p.416]Camarillo on July 12, 1942. Among the nine amplifications of the earlier decrees was legislation regulating attendance at horse races, ownership of automobiles, mixed marriages and technical advice for the Motion Picture Industry. Archdiocesan taxes were also adjusted to reflect the economical needs of the times.

In many ways, the Irish-born Bishop of Monterey-Los Angeles was more of a Californian in his sentiments and concerns than many of the area’s native sons. Throughout most of John J. Cantwell’s thirty year episcopate in California’s southland, the old Franciscan missions were a subject of intense concern. In mid-1919, when overtures were made to restore certain of the historic edifices, the bishop wisely sought the advice of those more familiar with the local scene than himself.

According to Zephyrin Engelhardt, the highly respected chronicler of the missions, the whole restoration movement was “fraught with danger to the good name of the Church as well as to the Mission property.” The venerable Franciscan advised that before making any further commitments, the bishop should seek clarification on the following items: (1) Which missions are to be restored?; (2) How much of the original structure will be rebuilt?; (3) In what style and with what materials will the work be done?; (4) Will the refurbished missions be left under ecclesiastical control? and (5) Are the churches to remain houses of worship or mere museums?⁸

Cantwell was deeply grateful to the members of The Landmarks Club⁹ and anxious to cooperate with their restoration activities wherever possible. Various other agencies were concerned at different times, about the matter and it was precisely because the bishop’s experience with people interested in the missions was not entirely pleasant that he “turned the matter of the restoration of the missions to the Landmarks Club”¹⁰ in the early 1920s.

Bishop Cantwell also sought the advice of Monsignor Joseph M. Gleason of San Francisco and agreed with the latter’s view that the restored establishments “should be absolutely beyond criticism in their conformity with historical truth.”¹¹ The bishop subscribed to the principle that all restorative attempts should adhere to the guidelines of the California State Historical Survey Commission in order to insure archeological, historical and architectural exactitude.

In 1927, a bill was introduced in the California Senate¹² providing that the Department of Natural Resources, through the agency of the State^[p.417]^*[p.418] Park Commission, be given control over the park system in California. The bill was an attempt to imitate England’s “Ancient 1913.” Suggestions were made to Bishop Cantwell that he turn over to the State Park Commission titles to certain missions which would then be restored and administered by the State of California. The prelate, fearful that the historic establishments might be “exploited for the advantage of an alien creed,”¹³ refused to endorse the proposal. Upon the advice of his coun-sel,¹⁴ Cantwell took measures to partially activitate all the missions in order to avoid allowing them to fall, by default, under state control. Cantwell was especially concerned over the proposal authorizing the state to acquire, by condemnation proceedings, those mission sites not located within the limits of incorporated cities.

With the exception of Mission Purisima Concepción near Lompoc, which was restored by the Civilian Conservation Corps under state aus-pices,¹⁵ Bishop Cantwell retained title to all the Missions in his jurisdic-tion.¹⁶ While agreeing that “it would be absurd to restore the missions,” in their entirety, he, nevertheless, thought it “very advisable to preserve the ruins from further decay.”¹⁷

The number of Catholic Indians descended from mission times residing within the Diocese of Los Angeles-San Diego, in the early 1930s, could not be exactly determined though the figure was approximated at 4,800. Twenty-one station churches and chapels served their needs at such places as Campo, Capitan Grande, Pala, Pauma, Warner Springs, Arlington, Banning, Palm Springs, Saboba, Fort Yuma and Cahuilla. Two special schools were in operation, one at Arlington, the other at Banning, with an enrollment of about 300 youngsters. Four priests were engaged exclusively in caring for the Indians and four others worked with them on a part-time basis. 18

Shortly after his installation as Bishop of Monterey-Los Angeles, John Cantwell expressed a desire to do something “in reference to a decent Cathedral Church in this city.” He felt that “a good church always makes an appeal to the outsider” and he hoped one day “to see a respectable Catholic Church in this city.” Anxious as he was to have a cathedral, Cantwell’s concern about “building up the Kingdom of God in the fold of our young people”¹⁹ forced him to settle for restoring the existing Saint Vibiana’s.^[p.419]^[p.420]In April of 1922, the bishop authorized a complete renovation of the old cathedral. After almost a half-century service,²⁰ the historic church was badly in need of modernization and expansion. According to architect John C. Austin, the overall plan was “first to remove the present vestibule, the railings in the front of the building, and to reconstruct the building at a point flush with the property line.”²¹ The fanciful new facade, fashioned from Gray Bedford stone, closely resembled the traditional “Roman” churches. In addition to renovating the cathedral proper, a gallery was erected over the main entrance with accommodation for 250 people and a gigantic organ.²² Marble steps and railings were added to the considerably enlarged sanctuary. The walls were replastered and richly finished in liturgical ornamentations. A new pulpit of white carrara, offset by colored marble columns and inlaid panels, was installed opposite the episcopal throne. The renovation process lasted almost two years, though it never interfered with the normally scheduled divine services.

On February 3, 1924, Archbishop Pietro Fumasoni-Biondi, the Apostolic Delegate to the United States, celebrated a solemn pontifical Mass marking the formal re-opening of the cathedral. In his sermon for the occasion, Archbishop Edward J. Hanna of San Francisco likened “this sacred place, wherein we gather to pay our vows unto the Most High” to that “greater Church which reacheth from sea to sea.”²³

Even with the added facilities at Saint Vibiana’s, Archbishop Cantwell did not abandon his dream of eventually erecting a magnificent new cathedral for Southern California. In 1943, he revealed his intention to build a new mother church for the city of Our Lady of the Angels. The archbishop pointed out to a friend that

There is not only the need of a Cathedral, but the times are good now, and after the war I think we will be able to build economically. It is good to be ahead of time, so that when the Opportune moment comes we can launch a drive.

Cantwell apparently had no reservations about the financial burden of such an undertaking noting that “since the building of the Seminary, I am not afraid but that my people will respond to the needed church in this city, one that will be worthy of its present and future.”²⁴

A committee of advisors was organized to draw up plans. Almost from the outset, a traditional style of architecture was decided on for the new edifice. Several members of the committee believed that the modern approach lacked the basic elements of beauty and spirituality and was, in effect, a contributing factor to the materialism of the times. At first, the archbishop favored a Spanish Gothic design,²⁵ but later, persuaded that^[p.421]its cost would be prohibitive, he settled on a variation of the Basilica-type pattern. 6

In August of 1945, the archbishop confided to his clergy that architects were already at work. He felt that “the time is now opportune,” not indeed to build the Church, but to make such collections as will make it possible, in a suitable time, to build a Cathedral in honor of Our Lady of the Angels, the patroness of this city,²⁷ and at the same time transfer the remains of Saint Vibiana to a shrine in the new Church.²⁸ In his subsequent pastoral letter to the faithful of the archdiocese, Cantwell noted that,

Mighty and far-reaching changes have come to Los Angeles since the building of St. Vibiana’s. The little Pueblo is but a picturesque dream of the past, and the metropolis that it is today has taken its place among the great cities of the world, with a beautiful and suitable architecture of its own. As a people grow in material prosperity and in appreciation of all that is fine in art, their community should, and does, record their advance. Our Civic Center has done this. So, too, have the many fine Churches of the Archdiocese, and yet they are, as it were, but children. The Cathedral is the Mother Church, and like an earthly mother has watched her brood grow into beautiful fulfillment; has felt a mother’s pride, and with it a mother’s peace, knowing that the spirit which she has enshrined is forever young, and is clothing itself again in new and glorious raiment to shine forth resplendent in the days to come. But it is unseemly that the children should longer allow their beloved Mother Church to remain in her worn-out garments, effaced by their splendor. They should not be satisfied until she has risen above them, clothed in the beauty that is a symbol of their love.

To erect a great Cathedral will not only be a spiritual satisfaction but a fulfilled obligation to this city and to the past; not to do so would be to break the long sequence of Catholic projects of which this noble edifice would be the next crowning addition. The soldiers of Spain brought conquest to the wilderness that was this fair land, but the Catholic Church, through its valiant Franciscan Missionaries, brought civilization. The Missions marked the heroic beginning. Through the zeal of many people who appreciated their significance, they have been restored to stand as monuments and historic shrines. But now that very civilization which was brought and nurtured by the Church, and grew into maturity under its protection, demands more than a pride in old achievement, however^[p.422]glorious. It rightly expects action in this, our day, and a flowering into the future. The missions fulfilled the past, but that is not enough. There must be a Cathedral to give expression to the present and to form a link with tomorrow, that the branches may show forth the eternal life of the root.²⁹

A few weeks after releasing his pastoral, the archbishop unveiled plans to locate the new cathedral on a block-long site along Wilshire Boulevard,³⁰ extending from Hudson Avenue to Keniston and south to Eighth Street. No specific date was given for beginning the project since building restrictions had not yet been removed by the Federal Government. Nonetheless, in a letter to an old friend, the Southern California prelate said he was “looking forward, with the help of Gocι, to laying the cornerstone of a new Cathedral within a year or two.”³¹

While no definitive figures are available, it was estimated that the cathedral shell, with seating for approximately 2,500, would have cost about $1,500,000. This figure excluded the rectory and other facilities which Cantwell wanted to locate at the site.³² Plans submitted by Ross Montgomery of Los Angeles and Philip Hunnert Frohman of Washington, D.C., revealed that the lot on Wilshire Boulevard was too shallow to allow a church long enough in proportion to the length and width needed for the initially envisioned edifice. Subsequently, several alternate sets of plans were submitted embodying the necessary modifications.³³

Cantwell’s ambitious plans fora new cathedral in Los Angeles, like the even more elaborate ones of his predecessor, were never realized. With the gradual decline of his health, the archbishop lost much of the earlier enthusiasm, thus aborting the only one of the prelate’s major programs not brought to completion.

One of Cantwell’s most generous and consistent supporters during his years in the southland were Mr. and Mrs. Edward L. Doheny.³⁴ After her husband’s death in 1935,³⁵ Carrie Estelle Doheny’s benefactions became even more pronounced in favor of the manifold needs of the Church at Los Angeles. Disposal of her real estate holdings in Chester Place had long been a matter of concern, inasmuch as she was anxious that the homes in the scenic enclave be preserved and utilized by future genera-tions.³⁶ Among those interested in acquiring the fourteen acre residential park was one of its residents, Rufus B. von Kleinsmid, who had made several overtures on behalf of the University of Southern California which^[p.423]he served so many years as president and chancellor.³⁷

Shortly before World War II, Mrs. Doheny offered Chester Place, with its nine residences, to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.³⁸ Though envisioned as a no-strings-attached gift, the archbishop was perplexed about how best to use the extensive park. For a while he gave serious thought to moving the chancery and other offices³⁹ there as well as his episcopal residence which, since 1928, had been located at 100 Fremont Place.⁴⁰ The possibility of a girls high school was also considered as was a retreat center fοr the Sisters of the Cenacle. Cantwell even explored the feasibility of entrusting the entire park to the Society of Jesus for educational purposes, as that would have removed the area from the burdensome taxes which, even then, amounted to $17,500 annually. The Jesuits at Loyola University, however, were already over-extended and preferred to avoid any additional financial entanglements.

With the advent of the war and the acquiring by Mrs. Doheny of a debilitating eye affliction, the whole matter was postponed and no further action was taken until after her death in 1958.⁴¹

To Bishop Cantwell’s credit it must be said that a detailed examination of the historical development αnd internal operations of the charitable endeavors in Southern California between 1917 and 1947 would easily forma separate study of honk-length prοpοrtions. Those years witnessed monumental innovations in that particular apostolate throughout the nation and the “concerned” prelate exhausted every opportunity fοr utilizing the latest methods αnd techniques in his own diocesan-wide charitable involvements.

Believing as he did that “the work of Catholic charity in any diocese takes first place among our responsibilities,”⁴² Bishop Cantwell totally reorganized and coordinated diocesan activities along those lines by establishing, in 1919, the Associated Catholic Charities. Under the supervision of Father William E. Curr, existing facilities were brought under the jurisdiction of a central office. Included among the earliest of the far-flung operations of the association were seven orphanages, two settlement houses, a preventorium, an infant home, two clinics, two homes fοr the aged and a day nursery. New departments were subsequently inaugurated for child and family welfare, correctional service and immigrant needs.

Bishop Cantwell succinctly outlined his concept of the Associated Catholic Charities as that of coordinating the work of all Catholic char- ^[p.424]table organizations and institutions, modernizing and increasing the efficiency of existing facilities, promoting needed additional works, guiding and encouraging benefactions, establishing a liaison with other public and private agencies and gathering sociological information useful for rendering even more efficient the operation of Catholic activities.⁴³

Within two years after its establishment, the association reported cash expenditures fοr its vast programs totaling $140,178.71. That figure, impressive as it was, excluded entirely the donated services of thirty-six physicians, twenty-five lawyers, fifteen volunteer workers and nurses and twenty child case-workers. By 1923, thirty-seven professionally-trained persons were employed to direct and supervise twenty-eight institutions throughout the diocese, including several boarding schools for dependent children, a correctional school for wayward girls, a maternity hospital, two homes for unemployed ladies and one for men, two salvage shops, three community hospitals and two branch offices, all in addition to those agencies already under the Bureau’s aegis.

Cantwell’s uncanny ability for utilizing the talents of his priests was nowhere more evident than in the field of charitable work. The naming of Father Robert Emmet Lucey as diocesan Director of Charities in 1921, fοr example, brought to that office a young priest intensely attuned to the work of promoting such causes as those favoring labor and racial equality. During his tenure, Lucey became a brilliant and respected exponent of the principles of social justice.⁴⁴

With the appointment of Lucey to the Bishopric of Amarillo, Texas, in 1934, his long-time assistant, Father Thomas O’Dwyer succeeded to the directorship. This unassuming Irish-born priest became, over the ensuing decades, something of a legend for his tireless dedication to the social needs of the area’s Catholic populace. In the years before such campaigns were popular, Father O’Dwyer asserted the essential rights each and every person enjoys in the societal structure. The workingman’s claim for the necessities of life was a theme often repeated by O’Dwyer who, as early as 1930, pointed out the duty “to sponsor and support in every way possible legislation that will secure the workman his fundamental right to a living wage, adequate protection against industrial hazards and an income that will provide properly for old age.”⁴⁵ Bishop Cantwell’s endorsement and support for Father O’Dwyer was evidenced on many occasions. He early secured for O’Dwyer papal recognition and frequently referred to him as his alter ego in the struggle to uplift the less fortunate Catholics in his diocese.

The structural realignment of the Associated Catholic Charities, in^[p.425]1921, as The Bureau of The Catholic Charities, and again, in 1926, when it became the Catholic Welfare Bureau, is additional evidence of Cantwell’s constant concern fοr the manifold needs of those committed

to his care. As was his inviolable practice with all diocesan programs,Cantwell remained personally aloof from the Bureau’s operational activities, preferring instead to delegate full authority in that field to carefully chosen and specially trained deputies. That branches were established at Pasadena, Santa Barbara, San Pedro, Long Beach, Glendale and Alhambra-San Gabriel during his tenure indicates the important place that work occupied in his concept of the episcopal office. Fourteen of the seventeen hospitals, sanitaria and clinics providing medical, surgical and maternity services to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles at the time of Cantwell’s death, had been inaugurated during his regime. Also then thriving were nine institutions fοr dependent, delinquent αnd retarded children, six day nurseries, three homes for the aged, four summer camps for children and two residence homes fοr young ladies.

Cantwell envisioned the Associated Catholic Charities as that arm of the Church whose role was to have “a voice strong enough, and a tongue eloquent enough to bespeak the needs of those people who can not declare their own wants.” `¹⁶

Cantwell’s encouragement accounts for the remarkable prosperity of Catholic lay organizations during his episcopate. Among the more prominent of these were the Ancient Order of Hibernians, the Ladies Auxiliary, the Catholic Order of Foresters, the Child Welfare League, the Converts League, the Friends of Irish Freedom, the Ladies Catholic Benevolent Association, the I{_nights of Columbus, the Young Ladies Institute, the Young Men’s Institute αnd the Queens Daughters.

In 1934, Cantwell lauded the many diocesan organizations established “to further the participation of the laity” in various commendable endeavors, pointing out “that all our people should come to understand that the profession of religion means much more than the personal observance of a code of belief or conduct.” It was that sentiment which prompted his issuance of the Catechism o?1 Catholic Action: Its Theo7y and Practice which encouraged Catholics to become actively involved in the priestly apostolate so as to “be like the early Christians, of one heart and one mind.”

The catechism carefully delineated the aims and purposes of Catholic Action, its necessity and its relation to the daily life of the faithful.^[p.426]^[p.433]Cantwell explained, in considerable detail, how the functions of the Catholic Press, the Pontifical Society for the Propagation of the Faith, the Association of the Holy Childhood, the Council of Catholic Women, the Catholic Big Sisters and Big Brothers, the Sodality of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the National Catholic Federation of Nurses, the Social Workers Guild, the Catholic Mexican Young Men’s and Women’s Associations, the Diocesan Committee on Boy Scouts, the Parent Teacher Association, the Saint Vincent de Paul Society and other agencies figured into the overall montage of Catholic Action.

Paramount of all the Catholic Action organizations, in Cantwell’s mind, was the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, the first units of which were organized, in 1923, under the direction of Father Robert Emmet Lucey. The necessity of establishing parochial cells was soon demonstrated and, within two years, a diocesan union was in full Operation. According to one of the C.C.D.’s pioneers, Father Leroy Callahan, “the Confraternity organization of the Diocese of Los Angeles-San Diego became the prototype of parish, inter-parish, and diocesan organization in many sections of the country.”`^}7

In Cantwell’s view, the task “of fostering the very foundations of our holy faith and of Christian morality in the countless thousands of Catholic children outside the care of parochial schools” was immense. He felt that “this phase of Catholic Action transcends every other at once in vital importance and priest-like dignity.” `¹⁸

The effectiveness of the C.C.D. apostolate in Southern California increased with the passage of the years. By 1940, the Los Angeles Confraternity had issued thirty-five publications, most of which had achieved a national reputation.⁴⁹

It was also in that year, that Archbishop Cantwell sponsored and hosted the first National Catechetical Congress of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine at Los Angeles, in October. By the time of his death, there were 15,000 children enrolled in the released time program and, all told, 44,000 youngsters participating, in one way or another in Confraternity classes. Oyer 400 lay people were engaged in the vacation school project to care fοr 23,500 young people.⁵⁰

In 1946, Cantwell received national recognition fοr his “established position as an outstanding leader of the hierarchy through the accomplishments of a model diocesan organization” of the C.C.D.⁵¹ ^[p.434]Earthquake

The disastrous earthquake of March 10, 1933, caused over $40,000,000 property damage and took a number of lives in California’s southland. Bishop Cantwell noted in a letter to his brother that

Though I had experience of the tremendous earthquake in San Francisco, our own one here was in one sense more terrifying. We were asleep when the big earthquake of San Francisco took place and when we woke and had cone to our full senses we only experienced the end of the shock. With this one in Los Angeles we had full benefit from the time that the lights became dim and the shock commenced and continued, for I suppose, twenty seconds.⁵²

Damage to Catholic properties was considerable. At least forty churches, schools, rectories and charitable institutions suffered to some extent. Several churches, such as those at Artesia and Compton, were totally destroyed. Almost immediately after the news of the tremblor had spread ονer the nation, bishops from the various jurisdictions began sending free-will offerings to the stricken Catholics in the Diocese of Los Angeles-San Diego and, within a relatively short time, an extensive rebuilding program was in operation.

When plans for the -150th anniversary of the founding of Los Angeles were announced in 1931, Bishop Cantwell felt that it was important for the Church to actively participate in the historic festivities. Accordingly, the King and Queen of Spain were invited to unveil a statue of Our Lady of the Angels at a commemorative Mass offered by the Cardinal Primate of Toledo. Cantwell believed that such activities “properly- carried out, would emphasize the historic place of our Church in California, will strengthen the position we claim in social and economic life, and will justify the legitimate claims of our Catholic people to be here by right of inheritance, as well as by right of spiritual conquest.”S³

Arrangements were made for a gigantic Catholic celebration in the newly enlarged Los Αngeles Coliseum. Ina circular letter the bishop recalled that the years since 1781, were “a long period as time is measured in human lives,” and yet he pointed out that the century and a half of the city’s existence eloquently attested to the “pioneer foresight, of struggle and privation, of joy and sorrow, hope and discouragement—flowering at last into a harvest of success such as has been the lot of perhaps no other city in the world.” Rejoicing ονer the^[p.435]part Catholics had played in the life of Los Αngeles, the bishop observed, with justifiable pride, that

...there never was a moment in its history when the Cross was not αΙοngsίde the flag—that though flags el-ιαnged Willi the ίeίssi-tudes of California’s history, the Cross of Christ has never been obscured, but has proudly proclaimed over hill and dale that this is a Christian land dedicated to Cod and His Saints and consecrated by the sacrifices of its first missionaries.⁵⁴

Α Pontifical High Mass in honor of Our Lady of the Angels was scheduled for September 6, at which the Apostolic Delegate, Archbishop Pietro Fumasoni-Biondi, officiated. Archbishop Edward J. Hanna of San Francisco told the 105,000 people jammed into the coliseum, that the great pioneers of history had not been forgotten:”A11 praise to these pathfinders, these pioneers of this great civilization!.., it is in California, above all places, that men of great piety and of great renown performed a task which even today is a marvel of missionary effort.”⁵⁵ The participation of the Catholic community in La Fiesta de Los Angeles was considerably more impressive than the simple observance of September 8, 1781, when Felipe de Neve first arrived at that spot alongside the Rio Portiuncula where the City of Our Lady of the Angels ultimately blossomed forth.

The bishops of California agreed, in mid-1939, to officially observe the centennial anniversary of hierarchical establishment on the west coast with celebrations in each of the state’s five ecclesiastical jurisdictions. In Los Angeles, Archbishop Cantwell arranged to commemorate the event in the Memorial Coliseum with a public demonstration of Catholic vitality.S⁶

Inasmuch as the centennial coincided with the first National Catechetical Congress of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, it was felt that no less than a papal representative should preside at the dual observance. In that vein several invitations were extended to Archbishop Amleto Giovanni Cicognani, in which Cantwell noted that “a visit from the Delegate...links the whole country together in a golden chain that leads to the Feet of Peter.”S⁷ Cicognani was somewhat hesitant about visiting Los Angeles for a third time since he had yet to acknowledge earlier invitations to officiate in San Francisco.⁵⁸ Archbishop Francis J. Spellman advised Cantwell to consider the possibility, in the event of^[p.436]Cicognani’s refusal, “to petition the Holy Father to name someone to represent His Holiness, possibly Archbishop Glennon of Saint Louis, as the senior archbishop of the Country.”⁵⁹ This was not necessary, however, for, in March of 1940, the delegate agreed to attend the centennial festivities at Los Angeles as the personal envoy of Pope Pius XII. The message subsequently conveyed from the pontiff, was warmly applauded by the people of California:

An entire century has elapsed since the ecclesiastical Hierarchy was opportunely established in California. It brought abundant joy to Our heart to learn that you decided that so important an event deserved to be commemorated with all due solemnity.

This wise plan of yours is most worthy of Our special attention, because so many and so great blessings can be recalled with grateful memory, which, in the course of time, Divine Providence has showered upon your people.

Moreover, the plan is in harmony with filial piety toward God and agreeable to Our intentions. This centennial is so momentous an event that we consider Our most lavish praise all too unworthy of it. Indeed, how great has been the growth of the first Hierarchy during the brief course of years! How admirable and fruitful has been the administration of ecclesiastical affairs!

Although only one diocese was founded in the beginning, today, in the same territory, seven dioceses flourish, two of which have been raised to the exalted dignity of metropolitan sees. The number of the Catholic faithful has increased from 5,000 to approximately 1,200,000 souls. The first zealous band of priests, consisting of a few missionaries of the Order of Friars Minor, has increased to the number of sixteen hundred servants of the Altar. So many clerical seminaries, so many novitiates, so many colleges, schools and institutions of charity prosper at present, all striving diligently toward the higher life, that they give Us great courage and joyful hope for the future welfare and progress of society.

Truly can it be said of the first diocese in the territory of California, that the grain of mustard seed, as we read in the parable of Our Divine Lord, has become a mighty tree.⁶⁰

At high noon, on October 13, 1940, the huge Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum was filled to capacity, with additional thousands lining the aisles and tunnel entrances. Archbishop Amleto Cicognani celebrated a solemn votive Mass in honor of the Blessed Mother at a flower-decked altar erected in the center of the arena.⁶¹ Atop the peristyle flew the^[p.437]proud flag of Catholic Spain to which the New World once owed its allegiance. The entire program was broadcast nationwide by radio, the largest and most comprehensive coverage ever accorded a diocesan function.

In his eloquent sermon, Monsignor Fulton J. Sheen drew an analogy between the Church in California and the three basic elements of I 101)7 Mass:

The beginning of California’s history might be compared to the Offertory of the lass. The sacristy from which came the priests who offered California to God was the State of Mexico. The altar was the land of California, stretching from San Diego bay seven hundred miles northward beyond San Francisco bay, under which was hidden as in a reliquary the gold which once would enrich a nation. The sanctuary lamp was the golden sunset of the golden state where the day as a priest would take the sun as a host from its orient tabernacle, lift it o’er the land αnd then set it at night “in the flaming monstrance of the West.” The reredos of the altar was a chain of mountains thrown up by nature as if the powerful hand of God had stretched out to protect it with caressing rock. The credence table was the fertile vineyards and peaceful ocean from which would come the wine and water for sacrifice. The hosts on the paten represent Father Serra and his band of missionaries, who, by vows of consecration to God, had turned the wheat ^of their existence into living breads of the altar. The chalice was the bodies of these missionaries who were willing to be drained of the wine of their blood like the lamb on Calvary’s Hill. The congregation that came to be incorporated into their Offertory to God by the year 1823 comprised 90,000 Indians, of whom 30,000 resided in 21 missions where, in a self-supporting community life they were taught the doctrines of the faith and trained in the arts of civilization.

It was not enough that the Franciscans offered themselves αnd California to God in the Offertory of their lass. If God would accept the gift, He would have to purify it like gold is tried by fire, or like the seed which needs must die before it springs forth unto fruit, or like the Master Himself who needs must suffer in order to enter into His glory. The Consecration of California’s history was its persecution, when the Franciscan missionaries who offered themselves to Christ, were now like unto Him, to suffer “under Pontius Pilate.”

Sketch of the proposed Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels which was to be built on Wilshire Boulevard. Philip Hubert Frohman of Washington, D. C. made this rendering.^[^p.439]Successive anti-clerical Masonic governments which came to Mexico from Spain after the French Revolution sought to wrest control of the prosperous missions from the Franciscans. Like unto Judas, who complained at the waste of ointment which Magdalene poured like penitential tears upon the feet of her Master, they too were interested not in the use of the wealth of the missions for a greater honor and glory of God, but for their own selfish and debased pleasures. Their efforts resulted in the passing of a law on August 9th, 1834, which secularized the missions and replaced the Franciscans by local politicians whom today we would call racketeers. From the very beginning their interest was money, not souls. They slaughtered the flocks of the missions for their hides, and tallow; confiscated their crops; stripped the buildings of everything of value; taught cupidity and vice to the natives and forced the Franciscans to endure every indignity. Once more Christ in His Church was crucified between two thieves.

In order to salvage the missions from these avaricious politicians, Father Garcia Diego, holding the ranking ecclesiastical office in California at the time, petitioned Don Iturbide the minister of ecclesiastical affairs in Mexico to erect California into a separate diocese. In plain language, Father [Garcia] Diego felt that a Bishop in California could handle the gangsters better than the Friars; in addition to that, the Bishop could recruit subjects for the priesthood and replace the depleted Franciscans with native clergy. Acting on this suggestion of Father [Garcia] Diego, the Mexican government petitioned the Holy See to erect upper and lower California into a separate diocese and to appoint Father [Garcia] Diego as its first bishop. On April 27, 1840, Gregory XVI in the bull Apostolicam Sollicitudinem separated both Californias from the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Sonora and created a distinct diocese at San Diego with Bishop [Garcia] Diego as its first Bishop. He was consecrated on October 4, 1840 on the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, and in his first pastoral letter of October 28, lamented the misfortunes that had befallen the church in California and promised that one of his first interests would be the opening of schools and the founding of seminaries. But the persecution was not over. The income from the Pious Fund was confiscated by a revolutionary government. Eking out a bare existence he felt that the prospects were so dark that California would never see his successor. Weighed down with grief at the spiritual and material^[p.440] The Chancery Office

The Chancery (curial or pastoral) Office of a (arch) diocese is the administrative headquarters for the spiritual and temporal affairs of the local (arch) bishop and his clerical and lay assistants. The first curial offices in California were established at Santa Barbara Mission in January of 1842, when the Right Reverend Francisco Garcia Diego y Moreno arrived to assume his position as Bishop of Both Californias.

During the tenure of Bishop Joseph Sadoc Alemany, the administrative function of the diocese was moved to Monterey, where it was located adjacent to the old Presidio Chapel of San Carlos.

Bishop Thaddeus Arnat lived in Santa Barbara for the early years of his episcopal tenure. And during those mid years of the 1850s, the nnitrn was also associated with the Channel City. In 1859, the Vincentian prelate had the residence and offices of the diocese moved to Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles. Since that time, the curial offices (or chancery) have been situated in California’s southland.

In 1879, a new episcopal residence was erected just north of Saint Vibiana’s Cathedral on Main Street. The administrative offices of Bishop Francis Mora and his staff were located in that building. A decade later, a new house was built on East Second Street, around the corner from Main, and provisions were made therein for the business matters associated with the curia.

The house on Second Street was used as a chancery office by Bishops George Montgomery and Thomas Conaty. It wasn’t until the arrival of Bishop John J. Cantwell, in 1917, that the need for larger quarters became imperative.

Accommodations were then acquired in the Higgins Building at 108 West Second Street, across the street from the cathedral. The offices remained there until the spring of 1932, when the growing Diocese of Los Angeles-San Diego once again necessitated larger quarters. At that time, Mr. Edward L. Doheny offered accommodations for the Chancery Office on the 7th floor of the new Petroleum Securities Building on West Olympic Boulevard at Figueroa.^[p.441]*

N. Nelson and her sisters, the structure reflects the architectural style developed by California’s early missionaries.

The artistic Byzantine chapel at Saint John’s Seminary, Camarillo, was solemnly consecrated by Archbishop Cantwell on October 8, 1940, just a few days prior to the formal dedication of the entire institution by the Apostolic Delegate and fifty members of the American hierarchy.

Auxiliary Bishop Joseph T. McGucken pontificated at the next consecration, in Los Angeles, on May 1, 1943. The attractive church bearing the patronage of Saint Cecilia, is reared in the Lombard Romanesque style.

Four years later, on June 16, 1947, Auxiliary Bishop Timothy Manning consecrated the titular Church of Santa Monica. Erected during 1924, the Indiana limestone house-of-worship is thought to be among the finest examples of Romanesque in the state.

Catholic concern fοr their houses-of-worship, as manifested in the ceremonial fοr consecration, is nothing more than recognition that for centuries churches have served humankind as places of prayer, galleries of art and incentives to devotion.

demoralization of his diocese, Bishop [Garcia] Diego died of a broken heart. This was California’s dark hour of Consecration, when the first Bishop of the state could say of his own body and blood the very words he breathed daily over the bread and wine: “This is my body! this is my blood!”

But all was not lost in California, as all was not lost on Calvary. Just as in the Mass the species or appearances of Bread and Wine remain the same but the substance is changed, so too the species or appearance of California remained the same after the persecution as before, but there was perhaps never a moment in the history of the state when the substance of missionary life was mοre one in Christ, mοre responsive to the touch of wounded hands, the approach of sacred feet and the embrace of an open Heart.

In the Christian order just as there can never be an Easter Sunday without a Good Friday, or a crown without a cross, so too in our lives and the lives of our Christian institutions, the Sacrifice must always precede the Sacrament. There is no Communion without a Consecration. Throughout all nature an undisputed law holds sway, “We live by what we slay.” Before the grass of the field can become the sacrament by which the animals live, it must first be sacrificed, by being torn up from its roots and ground beneath the very jaws of death. Before the animals can become the sacrament of our bodies or the nourishment of our lives, they too must submit to the sacrificial knife and the burning fires. All nature draws life from crucifixion. In a far more mysterious way it was our sins that sentenced Christ to Calvary, and yet by a wonderful dispensation of Providence, it is He Who is Our Life, Our Truth, Our All. We still live by what we slay.

As there can be no Sacrament without a Sacrifice, so there could be no communion with one another and with God in this Centenary without the sacrifice of the Franciscans and the Bishops who sowed where we reap today. The Church in California is living by what has been slain.

Today ends the cycle of California’s Mass, as we gather in a public act of thanksgiving to Almighty God to the first one hundred years. “Ite Míssa est.” But the history of California, like the Mass, is finished only to begin again, for until the consummation of time it will be through the living out of the Mass in our lives and our institutions that we will be brought to Eternal Glory.⁶²

The centennial observance at the Coliseum, the highlight of California’s several ecclesiastical events, was well received on all sides. Summing up the^[p.445]colorful festivities, Ray Richards told his readers in the Los Angeles Εχιnnίner:

Here was an old, old Faith, working again the miracle of new hope. Here was shown the way through affliction and struggle to peace. Here were the emblem and rimai, a movement of gold and purple αnd white that prove man’s road of travail can lead to a triumph that endures forever, greater than the victory of swords. IIere 110,000 persons, banking the high-sloped walls of the Memorial coliseum looked down on a eucharistic pageant that has no counterpart in California history—a service nostalgic of the clay of the cowled αnd barefoot friars, a sacrament that carried thought far back to hint the timeless majesty of the Catholic Church, a Mass that offered sacrifice for the rich communion that is brotherhood αnd peace. Yesterday’s sun was an orange ball in the low eastern fog when the first of the devout, fearful they might not gain entry if they waited too long, began to assemble by thousands at the entrances of the gigantic theatre which for the midday hours was to become California’s largest cathedral to God.⁶³

By all standards, the centennial observance was a marvelous manifestation of Southern California’s Catholicity. John J. Cantwell confided to a friend that Archbishop Cicognani had told him “that it was the outstanding event in his career as Apostolic Delegate in the United States. The new Archbishop of New York, [Francis J. Spellman], and a personal friend of mine, said that he would exchange dioceses with me in the morning, and the Delcgatc told me that he would sooner be Archbishop of Los Angeles than in any other See in the country.”⁶⁴

Cantwell was always tirelessly concerned for the spiritual welfare of those confided to his care. Noticing, as early as 1924, that “the traditional Rosary, Sermon and Benediction does not appeal to our people in the ordinary parish churches,” Cantwell felt that it was advisable “to give the people a greater share in the devotions” and sought advice on how to implement such a program. He utilized the popular liturgical devotions of Father Peter C. Yorke⁶⁵ and recommended their adoption throughout the diocese.⁶⁶

During the latter part of 1928, and first months of 1929, he launched a well-organized campaign for a spiritual revival by means of missions scheduled for every parish church and mission chapel throughout the diocese. The secular press and radio announcements brought the matter^[p.446]

Archbishop John J. Cantwell arrived at Mexico City s Metropolitan Cathedral on October 12, 1941, where he offered a Solemn Ñïntificðl Mass for an estimated throng of 50,000 people.^[^p.447]to the attention of Catholics and non-Catholics alike. Over 2,600,000 announcements devoted exclusively to explaining Catholic doctrine and practice were distributed to every corner of the Diocese of Los Angeles-San Diego. During the campaign_; which began on the first Sunday of Lent and ended on Easter Sunday, one hundred and twenty missionaries from eighteen religious orders and congregations, representing every part of the United States, came to conduct missions in English, Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese, German, Hungarian, Polish and Slovak.

The success surpassed all expectations and the resulting good effects were obvious for many years. The diocese had never before experienced such manifestations of faith and devotion. Catholic people flocked by the thousands to the Sacraments while faithfully attending the religious exercises of the Mission. The statistics indicate that during the six week period several thousand lapsed Catholics were brought back to the practice of their religious obligations.

A noteworthy side effect was the interest displayed by outsiders. In almost all the parishes the considerable number of non-Catholics attend ing the exercises gave indications of being edified. Beyond those who subsequently took instruction preparatory to embracing the faith, was the consolation that the seed of good feeling had been sown in the minds and hearts of the community at large.

Another interesting outgrowth of the campaign was a report to the apostolic delegate, in 1934, wherein Cantwell noted that 1,306 persons in the Diocese of Los Angeles-San Diego had embraced the Catholic Faith in the preceding year, a “notable” increase which he attributed to the extraordinary Holy Year proclaimed, in 1933, by Pope Pius XI. He broke down the figures to indicate that 35% were brought to the Church by various forms of Catholic action; 25% by the good example of their spouses; 12% because of the religion professed by their intended spouses; 10% through private investigation; 9% through sermons, missions and Catholic services; 6% by virtue of their attendance at Catholic schools and the remainder from contacts with Catholic hospitals and other miscellaneous reasons.⁶⁷

Early in 1941, when the Board of Scriptural Scholars sponsored by the Episcopal Committee for the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine announced completion of their work on the new version of the Rheims-Challoner New Testament,⁶⁸ it was decided to designate May 18,⁶⁹ as Biblical Sunday throughout the nation. The country’s hierarchy felt that^[p.448]such an observance would be an effective means of calling their work to the attention of the faithful. The decision to entrust distribution of the new translation to the Holy Name Society was one heartily endorsed by the President of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, Eugene Cardinal Τisserant.⁷⁰

Archbishop Cantwell responded immediately to the appeal and, under the supervision of Father Martin J. McNicholas, set up a New Testament Committee with Justice Thomas P. White as Lay Chairman. Plans were outlined for placing of the revised Confraternity edition “in every Catholic home of the archdiocese.”⁷¹ In a letter to the clergy,⁷² the archbishop, urging the formation of local committees in every parish, designated a special Sunday for promoting the program from the pulpit. Radio addresses, newspaper announcements and printed handbills were used to publicize the campaign in the 299 churches and missions comprising the Archdiocese of Los Ángeles.

By the time the campaign was closed on July 16, a total of 21,095⁷³ New Testaments had been placed in Catholic homes, an accomplishment that greatly exceeded even the most sanguine hopes.⁷⁴

There were few periods during the thirty years of his episcopate in Southern California that did not find John J. Cantwell actively engaged in one or another project aimed at furthering the spiritual and material well-being of his people. Indeed, if the challenges were excessive, the prelate’s reactions were more so.

¹Father Fuhr (1860-1935), an ex-Franciscan, was the longtime German-born Pastor of Saint Joseph’s Church in downtown Los Angeles.

²ΑΑLA, Acts of Council of the Diocese of Los Angeles-San Diego, 1918-1937, p. 62

³1n point of order, it was actually the sixth synod, others having been held in 1852, 1862, 1869, 1876 and 1889. The interesting story of the 1852 gathering is told by Zephyrin Engelhardt in the catholic f-Iistorical Review I (April, 1915), 30-37. `FFather Joseph Rhode at Mission Santa Barbara was the driving force behind the synod and it was he who translated the statutes into Latin. See AALA, John J. Cantwell to Joseph Rhode, O.F.M., Los Angeles, March 16, 1927.

⁵The completed statutes were later published by B. Herder under the title Statura D;oeceseos Angelor” m-Smicti Diλaιi (Saint Louis, 1928).

⁶Ρhis legislation was obviously an outgrowth of Cantwell’s dealing with Father William Forde who built the gothic Church of Saint Brendan at Third Street^[p.449]and Wilton Place against the bishop’s advice. By the time Cantwell had won the case initiated in canonical court against him by Farde, the church was completed. Farde based his stand on grounds that proper legislation to cover the matter was ticking and that all powers not reserved to the ordinary reside in the parish priest.

⁷ÁÁLÁ, John J. Cantwell to Joseph Rhode, O.F.M., Los Angeles, October 19, 1927.

⁸ÁÁLÁ, Zephyrin Engelhardt, O.F.M., tu Henry W. Gross, San Juan Capistrano, September 18, 1919.

⁹lncïrñïrated in 1895, “to conserve the Missions and other historic landmarks of Southern California.” See Charles Å Lummis, “Thus Far—and Much Farther,” litt West XIX (July, 1903), 5.

¹⁰AALÁ, John J. Cantwell to Thomas W. McManus, Los Angeles, February 11, 1921.

11Á LA, Joseph M. Gleason to Jïhn J. Cantwell, Palo Alto, November 4, 1919. ¹²AALÁ, Senate Bill No. 439, Chapter 763.

¹³ÁÁLÁ, John J. Cantwell to J. Wiseman Macdonald, Los Angeles, December 4, 1928.

¹⁴ÁÁLÁ, See J. Wiseman Macdonald to John J. Cantwell, Los Angeles, November 28, 1928.

¹⁵See Francis J. Weber, “Rebuilt La Purisima Mission is State Park,” The Tidings, August 9, 1963.

¹⁶The $200,000 grant received from the Hearst Foundation for mission restoration in 1947, was devoted almost exclusively to San Fernando and Santa Ines. See AALA, Martin Huberth to Jïhn J. Cantwell, New York, December 9, 1946. ¹⁷ÁÁLÁ, Jïhn J. Cantwell to John J. Mitty, Los Angeles, March 15, 1935. ¹⁸ÁÁLÁ, Report to Commission for the Catholic Missions, Los Angeles, September, 1933.

¹⁹ÁÁLÁ, John J. Cantwell to Edward A. Scheller, Los Angeles, March 1, 1920. ²°Ôhe Church of the Puerto de San Miguel, after which the cathedral was modeled, still serves the waterfront area of Barcelona, Spain. See Francis J. Weber, “An Historical Sketch of Saint Vibiana’s Cathedral, Los Angeles,” Southern California Quarterly XLIV (March, 1962), 50.

²⁴ÁÁLÁ, John J. Cantwell to Patrick Morrisroe, Los Angeles, October 20, 1943. ²⁵Cantwell had a great fondness for the Capilla Real at Granada.

²⁶ÁÁLÁ, John J. Cantwell to John J. Cawley, Los Angeles, January 5, 1944. ²⁷Ás a matter of fact, Cantwell was mistaken about the patronage. See Francis J. Weber, El Pueblo de Nuestra Seiiiora de los Angeles (Los Angeles, 1968), _p. 12. ²⁸ÁÁLÁ, Circular Letter, Los Angeles, July 11, 1945.

30Ás early as November 6, 1925, Cantwell told his diocesan consultors of an^[p.450] “opportunity to purchase 4 acres on Wilshire Blvd. at $300,000.” See AALA, Acts of Council..., μ. 65.

³¹ΑΑLΑ, John J. Cantwell to Mother Cecilia, Los Angeles, September 29, 1945. ³²ΑΑLΑ, Joseph T. McGucken to Michael McInerney, O.S.B., Los Angeles, September 15, 1944.

³³ÁΑLΑ, Joseph T. McGucken to John J. Cawley, Los Angeles, October 26, 1944.

³⁴The archbishop had journeyed east to testify as a character witness during the hectic times of Mr. Doheny’s legal entanglements with the government over oil leases authorized by Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall. Cantwell later recalled that he “was glad to have been a help in getting Mr. Doheney out of his difficulty...” See AALA, John J. Cantwell to Joseph McGrath, Los Angeles, April 10, 1930.

³⁵For biographical sketches, see Francis J. Weber, “Edward Doheny, Trailblazer of the West,” The Tidings, May 20, 1966 and “Carrie E. Doheny, Servant of God,” The Tidings, October 14, 1966. Mrs. Doheny was named a papal countess on June 29, 1939, by Pope Pius XIΙ.

36Αnother of her many benefactions was a memorial library erected on the campus of Saint John’s Seminary at Camarillo in the name of her late husband in 1940. Therein the vast collection of rare books, manuscripts and other works of art were housed and deeded to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. See Francis J. Weber, Α Guide to Saint John’s Seminmy (Los Angeles, 1966), pp. 21-32.

³⁷ΑΑLΑ, Jοhn J. Cantwell to J. Wiseman Macdonald, Los Angeles, July 22, 1941.

⁴⁰Ρrior to 1928, Cantwell had lived in the home of his predecessor, Bishop Thomas Conaty, at 717 South Burlington. He purchased the stately home of King G. Gillette late in 1927. See AALA, King G. Gillette to the Roman Catholic Bishop of Los Angeles-San Diego, Los Angeles, December 23, 1927.

⁴¹The whole of Chester Place did eventually accrue to the archdiocese. It was subsequently entrusted to the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Carondelet who opened there a downtown campus for Mount Saint Mary’s College.

42 Pastoral to the Clergy and Laity of the Diocese of Monterey-Los Angeles, n.p. ⁴³ΑΑLΑ, Bureau of Catholic Charities, Report for 1919.

`⁴⁴See Francis J. Weber, “Archbishop Lucey, 50 Years a Priest,” Τhe Tidings, May 13, 1966.

⁴⁵See Francis J. Weber, “Charity, Justice Were His Aims,” Τhe Tidings, July 21, 1967.

⁴⁶”Ρhe Organization of Catholic Charities,” Thirteenth Session of the National Conference of Catholic Charities (Washington, 1927), p.13.

⁴⁸”The Confraternity A Need for Our Times,” Proceedings of the National Catechetical Congress of the Conj9-aternity of Christian Doctrine (Paterson, 1941), μ. 14. ⁴⁹Rhοda Gardner, “The Growth and Development of the Confraternity in the^[p.451]United States,” Proceedings of the National Catechetical Congress of the

⁵¹ÁÁLÁ, Edward R. Kirk to Jïhn J. Cantwell, New York, November 6, 1946. ⁵²ÁÁLÁ, Jïhn J. Cantwell to James Cantwell, Los Angeles, March 16, 1933. ⁵³ÁÁÉÁ, John J. Cantwell to Pietro Fumasoni-Biondi, Los Angeles, March 12,

⁵⁶ÁÁLÁ, Joseph T. lcGucken to Ralph O. Chick, Los Ángeles, July 24, 1939. ⁵⁷ÁÁÉÁ, John J. Cantwell to Amleto Giovanni Cicognani, Los Angeles, January 25, 1940.

⁵⁸ÁÁLÁ, Amleto Giovanni Cicognani to John J. Cantwell, Washington, January 18, 1940.

S⁹ÁÁLÁ, Francis J. Spellman to John J. Cantwell, New York, February 21, 1940. ⁶⁰Quoted in Charles C. Conroy, The Centennial (Los Angeles, 194), _pp. 75-76. ⁶¹The ornate chalice presented to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles on the occa-

⁶⁴ÁÁßÁ, John J. Cantwell to Patrick Morrisroe, Los Angeles, January 27, 1941.

⁶⁵Father• Peter C. Yorke was one of John Cantwell’s very few intimate friends and a man whom the archbishop idolized. Many of the prelate’s sermons can be traced, sum and substance to one or another of Yorke’s many printed volumes.

⁶⁶ÁÁLÁ, John J. Cantwell to Edward R. Kirk, Los Angeles, March 20, 1924. ⁶⁷ÁÁLÁ, John J. Cantwell to Amleto Giovanni Cicognani, Los Angeles, February 19, 1934.

⁶⁸The American hierarchy had long desired a new official version of the New Testament for it hád been 190 years since the Rheims-Challoner translation hád been made.

G⁹ÁÁLÁ, Edwin V. O’Hara to John J. Cantwell, Washington, February 5, 1941. ⁷⁰ÁÁLÁ, Eugene Tisserant to Edwin V. O’Hara, Rome, March 6, 1941. ⁷¹ÁÁLÁ, Leo I. Farty to Martin J. McNicholas, Los Angeles, April 11, 1941. ⁷²ÁÁLÁ, Circular Letter, Los Angeles, April 21, 1941.

⁷³City parishes accounted for 11,434 of the total count. See AALA, Martin J. lcNicholas to John J. Cantwell, Los Angeles, July 17, 1941.

⁷⁴ÁÁLÁ, Edwin V. O’Hara to Martin J. McNicholas, New York,July 23, 1941.^[^p.452]

Through the years there had been a number 0f proposals fοr dividing the large and unwieldy Diocese of Monterey-Los Angeles. As early as 1866, Bishop Thaddeus Amat confided to a friend that “...within a few years another Bishop will certainly be established and forma new Diocese.”¹ While no official action was taken by Amat, his successor, Bishop Francis Mora, petitioned the Holy See several times fοr a reduction of his jurisdiction and the matter was given considerable attention by officials at Rome’s Sacred Congregation of Propaganda Fide.² The problem was shelved temporarily in 1894, when Mora was given a.coad-jutor in the person of George T. Montgomery.

Rumors of a division, revived after Bishop Thomas J. Conaty’s death in 1915, were encouraged by the long interregnum that ensued before the appointment of John J. Cantwell. In a note to an Irish confrere, Monsignor Patrick Harnett, Administrator of the vacant southland see, alluded to the rumor by saying that “your friend.., evidently knows more about the division of the Diocese than I do. Your letter to me was the first intimation that I had with regard to the matter.”³

In any event, nothing was done by Rome until early 1922, when Bishop Cantwell, acting on the advice of Gaetano Cardinal De Lai,⁴ Secretary of the Sacred Consistorial Congregation, sent the following petition to Pope Pius XI, along with a statistical breakdown of his vast jurisdiction by counties:

Prostrate at the feet of Your Holiness, John Joseph Cantwell,
Bishop of Monterey-Los Angeles, most humbly petitions for the^[p.453] dismemberment of the Diocese of Monterey-Los Angeles.

The time is now opportune to create a new diocese, with an Episcopal See in Fresno. The diocese ought to include the following counties:

The division is made along the lines of several counties. For this reason the Bishop suggests that all Santa Clara County should belong to the Archbishop of San Francisco, and that all of Santa Cruz County should belong to the new diocese so-called, of Fresno. The Archbishop of San Francisco is pleased to surrender his portion of Merced, with that portion which is already the Diocese of Monterey-Los Angeles.

Two maps are herewith presented, one showing the diocese at present constituted, the other showing the proposed ne”‘ diocese. Accompanying the maps are the statistics embracing the civil population as well as the religious.

The main parish of Fresno contains Church, School and House, and will make a suitable See fora Bishop. The new diocese will be self-supporting and will flourish provided the Holy See in its wisdom can find a Bishop who has a business sense as well as an Apostolic spirit.

Before the diocese is created, the petitioner advises that the City of Monterey, when the Bishop of Monterey-Los Angeles takes its title, be included in the new diocese. The Protestant Bishop of Los Angeles has done something that is unusual for a Protestant Bishop to do, namely, he has taken his title from the City of Los Angeles, and has patented the use of “Bishop of Los Angeles.” Unless some other title be found for the next Bishop of Monterey-Los Angeles besides “Bishop of Los Angeles,” it will be contrary to the Civil Code, and any moneys left to the diocese under the name of “Bishop of Los Angeles,” will always revert to the Protestant^[p.454] Bishop. The Bishop himself does not know just now what title to suggest, but leaves the decision to the wisdom of the Holy See.⁵

Cantwell’s petition was acted upon favorably and, in June of 1922, the Holy See erected the Diocese of Μonterey-Fresno,⁶ a jurisdiction embracing twelve counties with an area of 43,714 square miles and an approximate Catholic population of 50,000. Archbishop Edward J. Hanna of Sαn Francisco presided at the formal canonical ceremonies, on December 3, 1922, in Fresno’s newly designated Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist. Both the new Diocese of Monterey-Fresno and its parent jurisdiction of Los Angeles-San Diego retained their suffragan status in the metropolitan province of San Francisco.

Shortly after creation of the diocese, Bishop Cantwell submitted the names of several episcορnbili to De Lai,⁷ but the cardinal took no immediate action, preferring instead to have Cantwell function as temporary apostolic administrator. Edward L. Doheny’s rather unorthodox proposal to have the new jurisdiction confided to the Vincentian Bishop of Salt Lake, Joseph S. Glass, was revealed by Cantwell in a letter to the Apostolic Delegate:

A very prominent layman came to see me the other day and told me in the course of his conversation that Bishop Glass, of Salt Lake, would be very anxious to become the Bishop of the new diocese.

Cantwell reacted sharply and, while acknowledging Glass “personally a very good man,” the bishop felt that he was “without business ability,” venturing the opinion that “his appointment would be disastrous to the growth and development of Fresno and its vicinity.”⁸

Bishop Cantwell was anxious, however, to have the position occupied, and early in 1923, he told Dennis Cardinal Dougherty that a little word from Your Eminence “to the Apostolic Delegate, might expedite the filling of the vacant see of Monterey-Fresno.”⁹ In December, shortly after meeting Bishop John B. MacGinley at the installation of Daniel J. Gercke in Tucson, Cantwell enumerated to the Apostolic Delegate the advantages to be obtained in transferring the Bishop of Nuevas Caceres to the vacant Diocese of Monterey-Fresno noting that

Both the Archbishop of Sαn Francisco and I believed you would pardon me if I brought to your mind the advisability of transferring, at this time, Bishop MacGinley from the Philippine Islands to a see in this country. It has been done with other bishops in the past, even in the case of His Eminence of Philadelphia.¹°

Cantwell’s candidate won approval at the Vatican and, on March 27,^[p.455]1924, MacGinley was designated first Bishop of Monterey-Fresno. The Irish-born prelate was solemnly installed on July 31, 1924, by Dennis Cardinal Dougherty, Archbishop of Philadelphia, with whom MacGinley ^LJ ιmu l υõ ιυυι ιιι Õ In t ie é ιιι’_ρj ιιιc i »ιΙίua.

In an address given on the occasion, Bishop MacGinley acknowledged that much of the credit fοr the viability of the diocese was “due to Right Reverend Bishop Cantwell, who has ruled so wisely and so well the parishes of this diocese, first as their Bishop and fοr two years as Administrator Apostolic.”1 1

A short while after his installation, Bishop MacGinley complained to Cantwell that “examining in detail the statement of funds you handed me on July 27th I find no mention made of diocesan funds as such,” pointing out that Canon 1500 afforded newly-created dioceses “a fair share of the funds of the mother diocese.”¹²

In his response Cantwell noted that “unfortunately, owing to the tremendous debts of the mother diocese, I don’t see what can be given from Los Angeles-San Diego to Fresno” since “the amount of money borrowed from the various banks is of such a huge amount that the Corporation could not survive the alienation of any of its property.”¹³ Nonetheless, Cantwell did agree to look into the matter and to work out some sort of equitable agreement.

Some days later, after consultation with his lawyers, Bishop Cantwell replied to MacGinley’s demands and acknowledged that the matter should be handled modo aequo et justo as stated in Canon Law. At the same time, the southland’s prelate also invoked “another principle of the natural law, very sacred too, namely, that a division of the assets involves also a division in mode aequo et justo of the liabilities” and reminded the Bishop of Monterey-Fresno that “the liabilities of this diocese, as the Holy See knows from my relatio, are far in excess of the assets.”¹⁴

At Cantwell’s suggestion, the matter was referred to Archbishop Pietro Fumasoni-Biondi, the Apostolic Delegate at Washington. At this juncture, MacGinley further strained the already delicate situation by estimating the liquid worth of the Diocese of Monterey-Los Angeles to be $1,200,000. He enclosed a balance sheet substantiating that claim which allegedly “was among the papers transferred from the Los Angeles archives to those of this diocese.” MacGinley denied Cantwell’s claim that “all the endorsements the diocese has made on parochial and other notes must be considered as debts and therefore deducted from the total^[p.456] balance.” On the contrary, he maintained that in every endorsement the parish and not the diocese is ultimately responsible, an untrue-allocation in light of California’s provisions for corporation sole.¹⁵ The bishop con_cl_ud_ed by submitting a _clai_m for _between .$200,0000 and $250,000, and suggested that the delegate appoint a board of arbitrators to arrange for a just settlement.

Archbishop Furnasoni-Biondi complied by entrusting a committee, chaired by Archbishop Edward J. Hanna of San Francisco, with authority to make a final judgement in the case.¹⁶ Hanna directed both claimants to draw up detailed reports of their financial status for his examination. Cantwell employed the firm of Paleothorpe, Jones and Company to audit the diocesan ledgers and prepare a statement to the adjudicators.¹⁷ MacGinley’s representatives were allowed free access to the Los Angeles-San Diego chancery since the parent jurisdiction retained most of the financial records.

Inasmuch as Canon Law clearly supported MacGinley’s claim to a proportionate amount of the original funds, the crux of the question revolved around the fixing of an acceptable settlement. Cantwell confided to a friend that the division of his jurisdiction had

brought a good deal of trouble to me... Now that things have prospered, the Bishop of Fresno, unmindful of the fact that his diocese is out of debt and that the parochial debts are small, sends me through the Apostolic Delegate, an order for the division of assets of this diocese to the sum of Two Hundred and Fifty Thousand dollars.

Cantwell felt that it “would cause great confusion among the people of the United States if for an instant they believed that the monies sent to the Metropolitan See, and given to the Bishop fοr the development of the diocese, would at some time be transferred to another diocese, which formerly belonged to it, but which was for many years nursed into health and vigor so that it could stand alone.”¹⁸

Early in 1927, Archbishop Hanna’s committee came to a decision after studying extensively the reports submitted by both prelates. The metropolitan directed that $100,000 be paid to the Bishop of Monterey-Fresno in three installments.¹⁹ MacGinley’s subsequent claim fοr 6% interest on the awarded funds was later dropped. While Cantwell immediately acquiesced to the decision, there is little evidence that the two suffragans ever completely forgot the unpleasant transaction. The Bishop of Los Angeles-San Diego observed later that he saw MacGinley only rarely during his last years in California. Nonetheless, when a combina- ^[^p.458]tun of financial difficulties and poor health brought about MacGinley’s resignation in 1932, Cantwell wrote the retiring prelate that “I know the traditions of zeal and holiness that you leave behind, and permit me to say that these things have been a great edification.”²⁰

As early as 1922, Bishop Cantwell foresaw that “the time will cone when there will be a diocese of San Diego and at that time the Bishop of Los Angeles will be made an archbishop.”²I Fourteen years later, the tremendous growth of the Los Angeles-San Diego jurisdiction compelled Cantwell to petition the Holy See fora new diocese in the area of San Diego. In his request, Cantwell suggested that if formation of a second metropolitan province in California was not advisable after the removal of San Diego, it would be legally preferable for the remaining jurisdiction to bear the title, Diocese of Los Angeles-Santa Barbara, to distinguish it from the already-existing Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles.²² Cantwell’s attachment to the dual title was based on the added contention that “the Catholic bishop has enjoyed a seniority over all others in civil affairs. This seniority came not only from the right of priority of the Catholic Church in California, but also because of the wide jurisdiction of the Bishop, which always embraced more than the City of Los Angeles.”²³

Remembering the unhappy financial aftermath associated with the formation of the Diocese of Monterey-Fresno, Cantwell carefully anticipated the complexities connected with his latest proposal, noting that “I am very solicitous that there should be no controversy after the diocese is

^*[p.461] divided to intensify by any bitterness the discontent that many priests feel when they are cut off from the Mother Church.”²⁴ In that vein the prelate recalled that “when I divided the Diocese of Monterey-Los Angeles, Ι was subjected to a very great deal of annoyance from the new Bishop, who eventually had to apologize for aspersions cast upon my good faith.” Bishop Cantwell made it clear to the apostolic delegate that he would “prefer very much to have no division until such a time as the Holy See is satisfied that an equitable division has been made.”²⁵

On September 9, 1936, Archbishop Amleto Giovanni Cicognani notified Cantwell that “the new ecclesiastical province has been established and Your Excellency has been named the new archbishop.”²⁶ The papal bulls, dated July 11, were made public after their appearance in the L’Osservatore Romano. In part, the decree addressed to the newly created archbishop read:

Today, with the counsel of Our venerable Brethren, the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church of the Sacred Congregation in charge of Consistorial Affairs, We have by Our Letter “Nimis Amp/as” raised your Cathedral to the rank and dignity of a Metropolitan Church under the name of Los Angeles and have granted to it and to its Archbishop all the rights, privileges, honors and prerogatives which other Metropolitan Churches and their Archbishops throughout the world possess and enjoy.

By this same Letter, We make known your elevation to the clergy and people of your Archdiocese. We command in the Lord our venerable Brothers, the Bishops of Monterey-Fresno, Tucson and San Diego, to acknowledge you as their Metropolitan.²⁷

The southland welcomed the papal action enthusiastically as is obvious in the various editorials of the time. One quoted an observation of Cantwell to the effect that

The high honor that has cone to me is a tribute that comes frοm the most venerable, conservative and at the same time the most progressive power on earth as a distinguished recognition of the importance and stability of the city of Los Angeles.²⁸

When the canonical erection of the new province took place, on December 3, 1936, the previously existing boundaries for the Provinces of San Francisco and Santa Fe were readjusted permitting the Dioceses of Monterey-Fresno, San Diego and Tucson to be incorporated into the new metropolitan Province of Los Angeles. A brief issued by the Apostolic Delegation noted that the new Diocese of San Diego, with its^[p.462]

episcopal seat at Saint Joseph's Church, would incorporate the counties of San Diego, Imperial, Riverside and San Bernardino.29 The ceremonies of formal erection, held at Saint Vibiana's Cathedral, were broadcast by radio throughout the southland. The sermon for the occasion was delivered by Cantwell's long-time episcopal confrere and friend, Archbishop John T. McNicholas, O.P. The Cincinnati prelate paid the following tribute to the newly-enthroned Metropolitan of Los Angeles.

In considering the administration of Archbishop Cantwell and the record of his achievements, we can say that he has entered into the spirit of all his predecessors, Garcia Diego y Moreno, Alemany, Amat, Mora, Montgomery, Conaty. He has seen the problems of his diocese with their vision; he has been sympathetic to the solutions they had in mind; he has taken up and brought to perfection every work to which they put their hands. Moreover, he has, with great initiative, with an open mind, with winning personality, with kindness, and with courage, opened up new fields and cultivated them.

The establishment of Catholic charities; the development of a great educational program; the founding of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine; the building of a junior seminary a decade ago, and the perfecting of plans for a new major seminary; the fostering of Catholic Action everywhere; the renovation of the old Cathedral; the organization of 73 new parishes in the City of Los Angeles; the division of the original diocese to which Archbishop Cantwell came in 1917 into three dioceses; the training given to his pi-iests and the opportunities afforded them for rich experience which directed the attention of the Holy See to two of them who are now Bishops in difficult missionary fields of this country; the solicitous care of priests and Sisters exiled from Mexico, as well as constant striving to solve the Mexican problem; his zealous efforts to encourage everywhere the Holy Name Society; his founding of schools, hospitals, clinics, orphanages, also the St. Thomas More Club for lawyers and the St. Robert Bellarmine Club for labor leaders and professional men; his fearless championship of every legislative measure for the spiritual and temporal welfare of all citizens, and his vigorous opposition to everything detrimental to Catholic life, Christian morality, and public welfare—all these are but an incomplete record of the apostolic labors of the new Metropolitan

As a public-spirited citizen he has been a powerful influence for good in the community. He has shown his interest in the soldiers, in all outstanding civic problems, in cultural movements, in Newman Clubs_; and in the Community Chest.

May I say with great frankness and sincerity that I never listened to a more soul-stirring appeal than that made by Archbishop Cantwell when he addressed his brother Bishops in Washington and pleaded with them to unite in opposing whatever was dangerous to the moral life of American citizens in the motion pictures? This eloquent appeal resulted in the founding the Legion of Decency by the Bishops of the United States.

To you, his priests, religious, and faithful, I need not speak of the gifts of mind and heart of Archbishop Cantwell. You know them well and appreciate them. He himself minimizes them, and I know he would not have one dwell upon them, nor praise him fοr what he has accomplished. We must all, however, unite this morning in thanking God fοr the works wrought through His gracious servant, Archbishop Cantwell.

The marvelous growth of the Church in Southern California has presented extraordinary problems. The Providence of God has raised up Archbishop Cantwell to solve them.

Most Reverend Metropolitan of Los Angeles, with your native generosity you have rejoiced this morning that the Supreme Authority of the Church has entrusted to another a portion of the Vineyard of Christ so zealously cultivated by you. The Representative of the Vicar of Christ has placed you upon the Archiepiscopal throne of this new Province as its first Archbishop. May long and blessed years be yours to rule over your devoted clergy and beloved people. May the power of the Great High Priest, the Lord Christ, who has taken you from among men, sustain you in your labors for men in the things that appertain to God.³⁰

The inaugural ceremonies were presided over by Archbishop Amleto Giovanni Cicognani, the Apostolic Delegate. Forty-one members of the hierarchy attended the event as well as the public reception held the following Sunday in the Shrine Auditorium. The address on behalf of the laity, delivered by J. Wiseman Macdonald, a prominent local attorney, was one of historical importance inasmuch as it outlined Cantwell’s major accomplishments since his arrival in the southland nineteen years previously.

... we feel that we would be singularly remiss were we not, at this^[p.464]opportune time, to express our grateful recognition of the many forms in which zealous care has manifested itself, and we consider it eminently proper and just that the opening archives of the new Archdiocese should carry, on their first pages, in bold words enduringly inscribed, a permanent record of, at least, some portion of the remarkable work done, and results accomplished, by you in our midst. And we respectfully request that a copy of this testimonial of appreciation here presented to you be incorporated in those archives.

With this purpose firmly in mind, and even at the risk of wounding your sensibilities, we, on behalf of the body of Catholic laymen of the Archdiocese, most appreciatively and respectfully beg to set forth as follows:

Throughout the long period of your episcopate, by your initiative, far-reaching vision, unflagging energy, and unusual administrative ability, aided by zealous priests and nuns, and willing, devoted laity, you have been instrumental in building up and strengthening the Church in Southern California to a degree relatively excelled in but few ecclesiastical jurisdictions, if any.

Almost every family under your wise, spiritual care, no matter how poor, or how remote from peopled centers, has been privileged to enjoy the blessings of Holy Mass, and the Sacraments, because of your sacrificial efforts in gathering around you a great body of earnest priests, who, most efficiently, have carried on God’s work in every city, and in every nook and corner of the far flung diocese, wherever possible.

During your administration, the 229 priests who remained in the Diocese of Los Angeles-San Diego in 1922, after the severance of Monterey-Fresno, were increased to a grand total of 566, a ratable enlargement of such magnitude as to call for very special reference. Since your creation as Bishop, you have caused to be built, and maintained, no less than 118 churches, many of them of unusual beauty and dignity.

In addition, seven of the venerable mission churches, solemnly bequeathed to us by the priestly Eighteenth Century founders of California as priceless heritages, and which were erected through their zeal, and love for pagan souls, through your efforts have risen from decay of the past, and have been rebuilt, or restored, and once more the sweet Angelus bell daily rings out its heartening message from their towers, and the lofty oaken rafters echo back and chant the Holy Mass as of old.^[p.465]The Cathedral in the City of Los Angeles, built in later pueblo days, has been greatly enlarged and beautified to make it more fittingly comport with the dignity, the needs, of the present _metropolita_n city of almost a million and a half people.

In furthering Catholic education, nο fewer than sixty-six parochial schools have been built through your efforts.

Since 1917, your first year as Bishop, the nine thousand pupils then in all Catholic schools in the larger Diocese of Monterey-Los Angeles, have increased to no fewer than 28,641, who now receive daily instruction in what, until, recently, was the Diocese of Los Angeles-San Diego.

You caused the erection of scores of rectories αnd convents in the former Diocese of Los Angeles-San Diego. In that diocese, many hundreds of devoted, God-fearing Sisters, garbed with the habits of almost every known order of nuns, with your fostering assistance have dedicated their lives to sowing the seeds of faith and purity in the hearts of children; to the care, maintenance and education of the orphaned; to nursing and comforting the sick αnd to lightening the burdens of the poor.

Since 1922, you have assisted materially in the erection in the Diocese of Los Angeles-San Diego of nο fewer than eight great hospitals, magnificent temples of mercy and of healing, most efficiently served and conducted by good, capable nuns. In that same period, three seminaries for the education of priest shave been established, and a university has opened its doors to Catholic students.

During your nineteen years of service in the Southland, you have ordered αnd approved the erection of well over three hundred religious buildings of different classes within your jurisdiction (many of them of great magnitude) an average of one completed building every twenty-two days throughout that long period. A most remarkable and startling record.

You have animated and aided all of the Church’s great lay societies of men and women; you have encouraged their members to stand steadfastly in union, and to still further buttress the old faith, and make it more than ever a tower of unshakable strength, fearlessly bulking high on the fighting line, and facing four-square against every insidious or direct attack upon its doctrines, or the morals of our country.

Nobly, you, and other distinguished prelates, have helped to elevate the physical αnd moral vision of the entire people of this great^[p.466]republic, and of the world over, by materially assisting in purifying the loose concepts of life, formerly presented in motion pictures, displayed to an all-too-easy and unquestioning public of countless millions.

Your great heart ever has gone out to God’s poor, and the afflicted, and through your very material and personal help, in the formation of our Catholic Welfare Bureau, αnd in the encouragement of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, and other charitable organizations, and of health restoring clinics, the poor and the sick have been assisted most substantially.

That original American, the poor Indian, has always been a special object of your fatherly care αnd protection, as evidenced by the many missions established and actively maintained by you, at considerable cost, for his worldly and spiritual benefit. And he is grateful.

The signatories hereto, intimately know the untiring work, and unusual executive and administrative ability, and judgement, which you have always displayed in dealing with the important temporal matters committed to your charge, including all transactions concerning the financing, building and maintaining of countless churches, rectories, schools, and other semi-ecclesiastical structures, and we particularly desire to express to Your Excellency, and to make known to all the laity, our admiration fοr the highly successful manner in which you have dealt with every phase of the manifold business, and financial, problems of the former diocese of Los Angeles-San Diego, and the high degree of excellence to which you have brought them.

As a civic leader in matters to the advantage of the city which we all love, you have earned the respect and deep appreciation of every citizen, irrespective of creed or political belief.

It must be a source of exquisite happiness to you to realize that you have won the affection, confidence αnd gratitude of those whom you have both led, αnd served, so long and faithfully. No greater earthly reward than that is ever sought by, or can be given to a priest. You have it to the full.³ I

The appointment of a bishop fοr the new Diocese of San Diego was delayed until October 31, when the Apostolic Delegation announced that

the Right Reverend Charles Francis Buddy, Chancellor for the diocese of Saint Joseph, had been named the new ordinary. Installation ceremonies were held at Saint Joseph’s Cathedral on February 3, 1937,³² presided^[p.467]over by Archbishop John J. Cantwell. Addressing the new prelate, Cantwell said:

Most Reverend and dear Bishop, today fοr the first time you grasp the crozier of St. Dieiaciis. May it be a support to you unto many years and happy days. Men of God—some veterans in the Army of Christ—have pledged to you their reverence and their obedience. They will not fail you. A devoted laity will bind you to their hearts and homes with strands of affection. Priests and people will march with you unto difficult tasks as they have done with the unworthy one who has preceded you. They will help you to strengthen the stakes of the holy place and to extend its curtains. To you—their Father and leader—they shall look fοr advice and guidance and correction. He who called you from out of the workshop of the carpenter, Joseph, to be His witness in broader fields will not be wanting to you. He will sustain you in the Eternal Arms αnd the Light of His Spirit will guide your feet; and His servant, San Diego, whose name is upon this city and is the property of this Diocese, will be to you a tower of strength and a font of consola-don now, in death, and or the Day of Account.³³

Erection of a metropolitan province fοr the southland was a natural outgrowth of the times and did not diminish, to any great extent, the burdens of the archbishop. He wrote, for example, to his cousin that “the division of the diocese does not seem to have relieved me of much work.”³⁴ And so it was that late in 1940, Archbishop Cantwell petitioned the I-Ioly See for an auxiliary bishop to help administer the rapidly expanding Archdiocese of Los Angeles. In accordance with canonical practices, a term, of names was drawn up at a meeting of the metropolitan province and submitted to Archbishop Cicognani. After completion of the scrutinium process, the first of the three recommended candidates was interrogated about his willingness to accept, after which the petition was forwarded to the Sacred Consistorial Congregation in Rome. On February 5, the Apostolic Delegate announced to the press that Pope Pius XIΙ had named the Right Reverend Joseph T. McGucken³S Titular Bishop of Sanavus and Auxiliary of Los Angeles. The choice, a popular one with the clergy and laity of the southland, brought to the office a qualified prelate with twelve years of valuable experience in chancery affairs, first as secretary αnd later chancellor.^[p.468]The episcopal ordination, originally scheduled fοr March 25,³⁶ was advanced at the suggestion of the Apostolic Delegate, to March 19, because of the nearness to the date earlier agreed upon fοr installing another Angelino, Robert E. Lucey, in the Archbishopric of San Amonio. On Saint Joseph’s Day, the Cathedral of Saint Vibiana witnessed its fifth consecration as seventeen members of the hierarchy processed into the historic edifice fοr the impressive ceremonies. 650 priests, several hundred representatives of religious orders and a large crowd of the faithful packed the church as Archbishop Cantwell and the two co-consecrators, Bishops Daniel J. Gercke and Philip G. Scher began the ancient ritual. The sermon, preached by Monsignor Bernard J. Dolan, was as much a tribute to Cantwell as it was to his new auxiliary. He pointed out that

the clergy by their presence this morning welcome the new auxiliary bishop not alone for himself, but because their revered Archbishop has selected one of them to assist in the vast labors of this ever-active Archdiocese. To him whom the Church in Southern California owes so much, who came in an hour of need to guide the destinies of a diocese growing with a rapidity that has had few equals in the Church’s history, and who spent himself tirelessly in his divinely appointed task, our love and devotion and loyalty go out today, now that younger hands may share the labor and ease somewhat the heavy load that his willing and vigorous shoulders have borne these three and twenty years.³⁷

Cantwell clearly recognized that “the assignment of an Assistant Bishop cannot blind us to the fact that our work is strenuous, and that we are no longer young, and that it is time for us, like the mariner, to lower one’s sails and go into the harbor on easy steerage.”³⁸ Five years later, he approached the pope for additional assistance noting that “the metropolis of Los Angeles is rapidly becoming one of the major centers of population and industry in the United States.” The archbishop emphasized that “during Our Episcopate, the diocese has been twice divided and there is every indication that this phenomenal growth will continue.”³⁹

Cantwell submitted a ternn along with the observation that the first candidate, the Right Reverend Timothy Manning, “is very popular with the priests, and no man in the diocese would be more acceptable to the clergy... “⁴⁰ It was a jubilant Archbishop of Los Angeles who, on August 24, 1946, wired the Manning family at Ballingeary in Ireland to the effect that

This morning we received from the Apostolic Delegate the announcement of the appointment of your son of the dignity of an^[p.469] Auxiliary Bishop of Los Ángeles. May his joy be yours.⁴¹

The thirty-five year old prelate was consecrated Titular Bishop of Lesvi on October 15, 1946, in Saint Víbiana’s Cathedral by the Most Rcvcrend Joseph T. McGucken.

There is no more accurate gauge of ecclesiastical development than the proliferation of new jurisdictions and the appointment of auxiliary bishops. That the Catholic Church in California had “come alive” during Cantwell’s thirty year episcopate is more than evident when one considers that in 1917, three prelates watched over the Golden State’s Catholic endeavors whereas, by 1947, eight bishops in five separate jurisdictions were needed to supervise the Church’s activities.

¹Árchiíes of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles (hereafter referred to as AALA), Thaddeus Amat, C.M. to Stephen Ryan, C.M., Los Ángeles, March 15, 1866. ²See Francis J. Weber, Frmwis Morn, Last of the Catalans (Los Angeles, 1967), pp. 38-40.

³ÁÁLÁ, Patrick Harnett to L.A. Kirby, Los Angeles, November 17, 1917. ⁴ÁÁLÁ, John J. Cantwell to Bonaventure Cerretti, Los Angeles, December 13, 1924.

⁶Ôhe Holy See was anxious to retain the name of the original seat in the new title.

⁷Á LÁ, John J. Cantwell to Pietro Fumasoni-Biondi, Los Angeles, December 10, 1923.

⁸ÁÁLÁ, Jïhn J. Cantwell to John Bonzano, Los Angeles, January 24, 1922. ⁹ÁÁLÁ, John J. Cantwell to Dennis Cardinal Dougherty, Los Angeles, April 18, 1923.

¹⁰ÁÁLÁ, John J. Cantwell to Pietro Fumasoni-Biondi, Los Angeles, December 10, 1923.

¹²ÁÁLÁ, John B. NlacGinley to John J. Cantwell, Fresno, October 25, 1924. ¹³ÁÁßÁ, Jïhn J. Cantwell to John B. iacGinley, Los Angeles, October 29, 1924. ¹⁴ÁALÁ, John J. Cantwell to John B. IrlacGinley, Los Angeles, November 4,

¹’ÁÁLÁ, John B. MacGinley to Pietro Fumasoni-Biondi, Fresno, December 4, 1924. See Francis J. Weber, “Corporation Sole in California,” The Jiorist XXV (July, 1965), 330-334.

¹⁶ÁÁLÁ, Pietro Fumasoni-Biondi to John J. Cantwell, Washington, D.C., December 13, 1924.^{[p.470] 17}ÁALÁ, John J. Cantwell to Janes Cantwell, Los Ángeles, December ^*[p.22]*, ^{*[p.192]**[p.4]*}.
¹⁸ÁÁLÁ, John J. Cantwell to Bonaventure Cerretti, Los Angeles, December ^*[p.13]*,
^{*[p.192]**[p.4]*}.

¹⁹ÁÁLÁ, Edward J. Hanna to John J. Cantwell, San Francisco, March ^*[p.10]*, ^{*[p.192]**[p.7]*}.
²⁰ÁÁLÁ, John J. Cantwell to John B. MacGinley, Los Angeles, October ^*[p.10]*, ^{*[p.193]**[p.2]*}.
²¹ÁÁLÁ, John J. Cantwell to William Cantwell, Los Angeles, June ^*[p.12]*, ^{*[p.192]**[p.2]*}.

²²AALÁ, John J. Cantwell to Pope Pius XIÉ, Los Angeles, February 2, 1936. ²³ÁÁLÁ, John J. Cantwell to Amleto Giovanni Cicognani, Los Angeles, February 3, 1936.

²⁵ÁÁLÁ, John J. Cantwell to Amleto Giovanni Cicognani, Los Angeles, n.d. (early 1936).

²⁶ÁÁLÁ, Amleto Giovanni Cicognani to John J. Cantwell, Washington, D.C., September 9, 1936.

²⁹ÁÁLÁ, Amleto Giovanni Cicognani to John J. Cantwell, Washington D.C., December 3, 1936.

³⁰Text quoted from Charles C. Conroy, The Centennial (Los Angeles, 1940), p. 54. ³¹ÁÁLÁ, Manuscript Address of Welcome, Los Angeles, n.d.

³²The sacred palliurn, symbol of the new archbishop’s metropolitan jurisdiction, was conferred in consistory of December 18, 1936. It was placed over the shoulders of Archbishop Cantwell in the chapel of Los Angeles College on January 26, 1938, by Daniel J. Gercke, Bishop of Tucson.

^33”San Diego’s First Bishop,” The Catholic Mind XXXC (March 22, 1937), 101108.

³⁵The eighth native Californian raised to the episcopate, Joseph T. McGucken was born in Los Angeles, March 13, 1902. He studied at Saint Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park and the North American College in Rome,. He was ordained to the priesthood in the Eternal City, January 15, 1928.

³GÁÁLÁ, Amleto Giovanni Cicognani to John J. Cantwell, Washington, D.C., February 12, 1941.

³⁸ÁÁLÁ, John J. Cantwell to Walter Cantwell, Los Angeles, April 8, 1941. ³⁹ÁÁLÁ, John J. Cantwell to Pope Pius XII, Los Angeles, n.d.

⁴⁰AÁLA, John J. Cantwell to Francis Cardinal Spellman, Los Angeles, January 15, 1946.

Bíshop Cantwell continued his predecessor’s general policies in regard to The Tidings, official diocesan newspaper and, from the very “outset and during the thirty years of his presidency of the paper both as bishop and archbishop, he took no active part in directing its affairs.”¹ At the same time, as President of the Tidings Publishing Company,² Cantwell can be credited with giving at least his tacit blessings for the overall tenor of the paper’s editorial positions.

Since 1913, The Tidings had been capably edited by Charles C. Cοnroy³ whose obvious competence impressed the bishop no less than it did the scattered thousands who read the newspaper’s weekly editions. Conroy’s views were mostly conservative. He favored, for example, President Woodrow Wilson’s post-war policies, especially when considered in connection with the very undemocratic principles of certain European statesmen.` At the same time, the columns of The Tidings exhibited serious reservations about the League of Nations. Outright opposition to formation of the Permanent Court of International Justice apparently stemmed from Conroy’s conviction that selfishness was at the bottom of the European trouble and would dominate the court.⁵

The fight for Irish independence received treatment out of proportion to its worldwide importance and not a few people, some even sympathetic to the cause, felt that the campaign should not be fought in the pages of a diocesan journal. One prominent citizen told the bishop that

There is no question in my mind that the great majority of Englishmen earnestly wish Ireland to have the fullest measure of Home Rule—as broad as it can be made, short of absolute political^[p.472]separation, and I believe it because of antagonisms between Irishmen themselves, that such a measure has nit long since come into effect.

The Los Angeles accountant went on to deplore the attitude of the Irish toward their next-door neighbors and the “use of Catholic papers of this country to sneer at everything English and suggest distorted meanings to all acts and words of English statesmen.”⁶

The verbal campaign against the English continued, however, and caused so much resentment in certain areas that the Los Angeles Times noted editorially that “The Tidings, the Los Angeles Catholic organ, is not true to its church; it stands for bloodshed, riot and hyphenated reli-gion.”⁷ With the resignation of Joseph Scott from the Tidings Publishing Company’s Board of Directors, the paper took a more benign view of the entire question and the controversy gradually ebbed away.

The Tidings scored the evils of communism as early as 1920, noting that “the original documents issued by the Bolsheviks themselves leave no doubt that their purpose is the destruction of Christianity as a concomitant of the overthrow of the economic and social fabric which is the basis 0f present civilization.”⁸ With the increased coverage made possible after the establishment, in 1920, of the N.C.W.C. News Service, The Tidings immersed itself in a host of contemporary issues such as women suffrage, morality of strikes, child labor and Federal control of education.

Charles Conroy was as restless as most creative individuals and, in 1925, he asked to be relieved of his duties upon publication of that year’s gigantic 180 page Christmas souvenir edition.

Early the following year, Father Thomas K. Gorman⁹ became the first priest-editor of The Tidings. In addition to giving the paper a broader financial stability the five-year tenure of the Pasadena-born cleric saw a more militant approach taken in such areas as bigotry. Gorman published articles by Hilaire Belloc and Peter K. Guilday and, in 1928, inaugurated “El Rodeo” as a column for editorial popularizing.

With the appointment of Gorman to the newly created bishopric at Reno, in 1931, Father John Dunne assumed the editorial reins. He was frank, outspoken and fearless and during his years The Tidings committed itself in such delicate areas as the Spanish Civil War and organization of workers into free unions.

It is evident that Bishop Cantwell favored the Democratic candidate in the 1932 election. He regarded Franklin D. Roosevelt as “a religious man” who is one of the few leaders of nations who does not hesitate to invoke the blessings of God and to practice his own episcopal beliefs.”¹°^[p.473]Though he had known Herbert Hoover fοr some years, the bishop felt that the incumbent “got a memorable defeat. He deserved no better.” He attributed Hoover’s election, in 1928, “to a wave of bigotry and intolerance which he did nothing to suppress." Hoover had profitted, said Cantwell, “by evil things, and now he has paid the penalty.”11 The prelate’s persοnαl views were never publicly disclosed, fοr obvious reasons, and in response to an accusation that the Church was “swinging to the left,” the editor of The Tidings responded only that “if the left means that she is on the side of the oppressed, that opinion is profoundly correct.”¹²

Available evidence reveals John J. Cantwell as a man of progressive but restrained views on most public issues. Whenever possible he avoided and advised others to avoid the “tendency to extremes.” He counselled against a movement among his own priests, for example, to publicly censure President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s attempt to pack the Supreme Court noting how foolish it was to see “a man of forty years of age, addressing children in the 8th and 9th grades of our schools about the wickedness of the President’s action.”¹³

Neither the bishop nor The Tidings commented directly on Detroit’s “Radio Priest,” Father Charles E. Coughlin, though the latter did call attention to the fact that he was speaking as a citizen and nοt fοr the Catholic Church therefore, “his opinions are only as good as his arguments.”¹⁴

When Coughlin brought his campaign against the president to California in the 1930s, Cantwell told the alarmed Archbishop of San Francisco that since

... Father Coughlin appears as the champion of the oppressed and is certainly against capital, it would be very invidious fοr the Church to take sides, more especially as among the masses communism is rapidly making headway.¹⁵

He disagreed with Archbishop John J. Mitty’s view that “the silence of those in authority gives tacit approval to a priest functioning as a politi-cian,”¹⁶ noting that “the only time we can control a Priest is when he cones in to talk on religion.” ¹⁷ Knowing the mind of the Bishop of Detroit and suspecting that Rome was then taking counsel on Coughlin’s activities, Cantwell nevertheless felt “very reluctant to deny him the privilege of saying Mass” as Mitty had advised. This attitude was reasonable enough from one who himself was on record as denying that the Church was founded primarily “to solve unemployment or to regulate the currency crisis any more than she exists to achieve success in literature, in art, or drama or music.”¹⁸

^[p.475]New Deal days, Bishop Cantwell attributed most of the evils of his time to “an abuse of the capitalistic system” and felt that “capital does not wish to hear much about social justice, and labor does not wish to be told

affairs distressed Cantwell who had noted some years earlier than the increased prosperity “of the nation from a material, αnd even a spiritual point of view, is dependent upon mutual confidence”²⁰ between capital and labor. Though unwilling to single out either party as the greater offender, he believed that “a selfish industrial system” had contributed much to the decay of Christian principals.” ²I He further decried the fact that “so many of our bishops, even in large centers, are not conscious of serious economic or religious difficulties.”²²

It was also during Father John Dunne’s years as editor, that The Tidings publicly sympathized with Emperor Haile Selassie whose speech before the League of Nations “should cause the American nation to bow in shame.., for we hove misled Ethiopia into putting faith in American leadership.”²³

The installation of Father Thomas McCarthy as editor of The Tidings, in 1942, gave the southland’s Catholic weekly a professional tone it had lacked in earlier years. Staff members were encourage to take a personal interest in efforts to make the newspaper a “family-oriented” publication whose stress was social and moral rather than political. Building upon a fifty year reputation for responsibly observing ecclesiastical events, Archbishop Cantwell, Father McCarthy αnd his co-workers saw The Tidings reach its golden jubilee, in 1945, as “one of the leading Catholic papers in the nation.”²⁴

Editorially, the paper kept abreast of the times. Its friendly attitude toward efforts to organize the United Nations, for example, reflected the archbishop’s conviction that only through some sort of universal agency could any real hope for world peace be attained. When the initial meeting took place in 1945, Cantwell told his brother that “we have all been praying for the success of the Convention in San Francisco, and we hope that notwithstanding the poor beginnings, that the aftermath will be eminently satisfactory.”²⁵

Despite a consistent reluctance to directly endorse or oppose any strictly political movement, the Archbishop of Los Angeles never hesitated to denounce in forceful terms unchristian principles, wherever they appeared, believing as he did that Catholics “should not stand aloof from the movements that aim at the social betterment of the community ...²⁶ Such an attitude explains why, two decades before such actions became^[p.476]popular, Cantwell felt obliged to speak out sharply against the dangers of
communism in a ringing speech at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum:
Only dogs wear collars to show their ownership. Men are known
by their acts, and there must be unity of effort and ceaseless vigi-
lance to defeat the enemies of our great country.

Communists work without ceasing to spread their unwholesome teachings. All true Americans and all of the truly intelligent must realize they too, must strive as hard. Labels alone are not enough. True Americans must act.²⁷

Throughout his thirty years as titular director of The Tidings, John J. Cantwell scrupulously avoided any personal involvement in the occasional, but unavoidable altercations that characterize any worthwhile journalistic enterprise. While expecting the diocesan publication to reflect his own general views, the prelate placed complete confidence in the discretion of his various editors and there is no evidence that he ever found that trust inadequate. That the newspaper prospered under such a policy is obvious from several sources. A national Catholic magazine observed, in 1942, that The Tidings “now indicates that it is possible to produce a lively diocesan paper without confusing Christian militancy with chronic belligerency.”²⁸

That the bishop exhibited anything but a passive interest in the aρos-tolate of the Catholic press is evident in his concern that the City of San Diego be provided with an officially recognized diocesan newspaper. The Southern Cross had been established, in April of 1912, as a non-official observer of Catholic activities,²⁹ by James H. Dougherty who believed that San Diego needed its own press to interpret the Church’s role on the local level.

The weekly publication held steadfastly to its founder’s original purpose of disseminating “accurate Catholic news to the people of San Diego county.” In addition, the paper’s editor stated that the Southern Cross had “never hesitated to incur expense or to face trouble when called upon to do so for the advancement of Catholic interests.”³⁰

Initially Bishop Cantwell encouraged the paper. On one occasion, he congratulated its editor and noted that the people of San Diego were “very fortunate in having a Catholic paper to give expression to their beliefs, and to break down unreasonable prejudice.”³¹ In subsequent years, however, when Dougherty’s published views on such delicate mat- ^[p.477]ters as birth control failed to reflect the orthodox position Bishop Cantwell expected of a responsible Catholic newspaper,³² he personally involved himself to the extent of proposing that the Diocese of Los Aiīgeies-San Diego purchase the Sūutheϊo Cî ass and thereby place it under official auspices.³³

Cantwell’s “handsome offer” was flatly rejected.³⁴ Indeed, the publisher responded editorially, reaffirming his position that “no Catholic in San Diego believes that we can be served efficiently from 130 miles away, nor does any Catholic expect any more assistance from the outside in the settlement of its own problems than it has got in the past—an assistance which has been practically nil.” The editor pleaded with his readers to allow the Southern Cross “to continue the work which it has carried on for more than two decades.”³⁵

Cantwell reacted by establishing a special San Diego edition of The Tidings which entered into direct competition with the Southern Cross on a weekly basis.³⁶ Despite the obvious economic strain subsequently placed upon the Dougherty enterprise, the appearance of a special edition of The Tidings did not have the envisioned effect and the Southern Cross continued as an autonomous newspaper until August 18, 1937, when it became the official publication of the newly created Diocese of San Diego.

It was only a lack of that public trust and doctrinal loyalty which Cantwell predicated of Catholic journalism that prompted the bishop to interfere with the privately owned and operated San Diego newspaper. He seems to have been quite amenable to the existence of such a publication until a breach occurred in the sensitive area of theological integrity. That, he would not tolerate. Though JohnJ. Cantwell could be classified as a traditional “churchman,” with all the qualities that term implies, he was vividly conscious of his own limitations and he rarely injected himself directly in journalistic or any other endeavors where his personal competence was not plainly obvious.

Sister Mary St. Joseph Feikert, N.S.D., “The History of The Tidings, Official Organ of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, 1895-1945,” (Washington, 1951), p. 71. ²For the early history of The Tidings, see Francis J. Weber, “Tidings Will Be 70 Years Old Next Tuesday,” The Tidings, June 25, 1965 and “‘ridings Weathers^[p.478]Early Obstacles,” The Tidings, July 2, 1965.

³Fïr a biographical sketch, see Francis J. Weber, “Charles Conroy Knew Church

⁶Árchiíes of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles (hereafter referred to as ÁÁLÁ), J.L.

¹⁰ÁÁLÁ, John J. Cantwell to Salvatore Luzio, Los Angeles, December 1, 1933.

¹¹ÁÁI”Á, Jïhn J. Cantwell to Patrick lllorrisroe, Los Angeles, December 1, 1932.

¹³ÁELÁ, John J. Cantwell to John T. McNicholas, O.P., Los Angeles, March 16,

¹⁵ÁALA, Jïhn J. Cantwell to John J. Mitty, Los Angeles, September 16, 1936.

¹⁶ÁÁLÁ, John J. Misty to John J. Cantwell, San Francisco, September 10, 1936.

¹⁷ÁÁLÁ, Jïhn J. Cantwell to John J. Mitty, Los Angeles, September 16, 1936.

¹⁸Jïhn J. Cantwell, “San Diego’s First Bishop,” The Catholic Mind XXXC (March

i⁹ÁÁLÁ, John J. Cantwell to John T Iclicholas, O.P., Los Angeles, March 16,

²ÏJïhé J. Cantwell, Pastoral ta the Clergy and Laity of the Diocese of Monterey-Los

⁷¹John J. Cantwell, Sermon and Public Addresses Delivered during the celebration of

the One Hundredth Aninuersmm y of the Battle of San Jacinto (Houston, 1936), p. 7.

J⁷²ÁÁLÁ, John J. Cantwell to John T. Mclicholas, O.P., Los Angeles, March 16,

22²òÁÁLÁ, John J. Cantwell to William Cantwell, Los Angeles, April 27, 1945.

²⁶1’astïral to the Clergy and Laity of the Diocese of Monterey-Los Angeles (Los

²⁹Francis J. Weber, A Select Guide to CðÑliforniðÑ Catholic History (Los Angeles,

³²ÁÁLÁ, Jïhn J. Cantwell to Paul Marella, Los Angeles, March 22, 1933.^[p.479] I-Iistory of the Catholic Church in Southern California — ^{*[p.184]**[p.0]*}-^{*[p.194]**[p.7] 33}”Acts of the Council of the Diocese of Los Angeles-San Diego, 1918-1937,” entry forJiine 22, 1931, p. 100.

³⁴ΑΑLΑ, John J. Cantwell to Pietro Fumasoni-Biondi, Los Angeles, April 18, 1932

³⁶Τhοse familiar with the history of the Archdiocese of San Francisco will recognize the parallel struggle earlier waged between the Bay City’s official Catholic newspaper, The 1072/tοr; and the weekly published by Father Peter C. Yorke, The Leader:^[^p.480]

During the half century immediately preceding World War II, the Catholic Church in the United States stood almost alone in the field of constructive effort in behalf of Mexican-Americans exiled from their native land for religious and political reasons.l John J. Cantwell was outstanding among the leaders in this movement and even before his death the Archbishop of Los Angeles was acknowledged as “one of the greatest benefactors of Mexicans in the United States.” ² In addition to providing for the spiritual needs of the thousands of immigrants flocking to Southern California, the Irish-born prelate was a rigorous supporter of measures aimed at reforming the social and economic conditions among the exiles.

The benign liberalism of Porfirio Diaz had come to an abrupt halt with the dictator’s expulsion in 1911. That prolonged period had provided a peaceful interlude for the Church in Mexico, inasmuch as few of the anti-clerical statutes were enforced. With the subsequent emergence of General Venustiano Carranza, however, unmistakable signs of animosity against the Church became obvious once again.

Most of the pressing difficulties facing the People of God in Mexico during the 1920s could be traced to that nation’s Jacobine constitution which, among a host of other restrictions, banned the teaching of religion in public and private schools. Churches were secularized and civil officials authorized to determine the number of priests allotted to given areas. In an effort to alienate allegiance from the Pope, President Plutarco Elias Calles took the ultimate step of installing a defrocked priest, Father Jose Joaquin Peréz, as “Patriarch of the Mexican Catholic Church.” The country’s chief executive further crippled religious activi- ^[p.481]ties by expelling all foreign-born priests and religious.

The adverse world opinion aroused at the sight of wholesale religious persecution was reflected in a letter of sympathy issued by the American hierarchy at their annual meeting in 1926. Therein, the bishops _noted_:

The fight may be long; it may give many martyrs to the Church and to mankind...but the long suffering and peace-loving Mexican people, too long the victim of ruthless militarism, will emerge from this trial a stronger and purer nation, with a constitution founded on the true principles of justice and liberty, and a government that honestly respects the rights of the people.³

So serious did the situation eventually become, that the papal Secretary of State, Pietro Cardinal Gasparri, observed, “Nothing like this persecution has ever been known in history, not even in the first centuries of the Church.”⁴

Because of its proximity to the international border, the Diocese of Los Angeles-San Diego provided an attractive haven for Mexican-Americans seeking the human rights denied them by their own government. By 1923, there were an estimated 150,000 exiles residing in Los Angeles County alone and the tremendous influx of peoples gave nο indication of subsiding.⁵ In the two-year period, 1925-1926, another 80,000 found their way to Southern California.

These victims of religious oppression were received in California’s southland with characteristic hospitality. Bishop John J. Cantwell appealed for cooperation with plans to alleviate the dreadful plight of the newcomers to the eight southernmost counties of the state, noting, “We, in Los Angeles, so close to the Mexican border... cannot be indifferent to the dreadful persecution which is now being waged not only against the Catholic Church but against the most fundamental principles of Christianity.” The bishop then proceeded to score Mexico’s irrational policy towards foreign-born priests, religious and sisters, wondering aloud how any man-controlled government could, in the twentieth century, “wage a relentless war against women, whose lives have been consecrated to the service of Almighty God, whose vocation is to help others unto a better citizenship and to a place in the Kingdom of God.” Cantwell observed that the same officials had exhibited their “implacable hostility to religion, nο matter in whom personified.” After enumerating some of the more flagrant abuses heaped upon the faithful in Mexico, Cantwell optimistically predicted better days ahead, noting that “the Catholic Church has seen the birth and the beginnings of many governments and she has stood at the bier of those who were the bitterest persecutors.”⁶ ^[p.482]Almost immediately after his installation as Bishop of Monterey-Los Angeles, Cantwell had organized, within the Associated Catholic Charities, an Immigrant Welfare Department to coordinate activities among the foreign-born population of the diocese, 75,000 of whom were Mexican-Americans residing in the City of Los Angeles. The facilities of the existing El Hogar Feliz were temporarily utilized until quarters could be provided in more commodious surroundings.⁷ On February 22, 1920, the bishop blessed the newly-relocated settlement house, placing it under the spiritual patronage of Santa Rita. The need fora clinic in the neighborhood, 89% of whose inhabitants were Mexican-Americans, soon became evident, and facilities were expanded for that exigency. Within a relatively short time, people from all over the city were taking avantage of the medical services offered to all applicants, irrespective of race or creed. The routine followed at Santa Rita, the first of the diocesan clinics, was recorded by a contemporary writer.

The first patient to enter is a young Mexican woman with a baby in her arms and another child, just able to walk, hanging to her skirts. She is not quite certain of the proper procedure, as she timidly comes in, but she is given a smile and a friendly greeting by the young lady who comes to meet her, and who hands her a slip on which the figure 1 is printed. As it is apparent that this is her first visit, she is seated at the right of the doorway. In a few minutes she is asked to come to the desk. Here the District Visitor, whom she has frequently seen in her neighborhood, speaks to her in her own tongue. The Visitor records her name, age, address and various particulars, together with the general symptoms of her illness—the chief of which she describes as “dolor de dabezn”—without the patient’s realizing that her “history” is being taken. She is then given a card bearing her name and a certain number. This number, she is told, is her “chart” number, and she is cautioned to bring the card with her each dine she visits the clinic. She returns to her seat, giving place to an old Italian woman, who seems to be suffering greatly as she limps to the desk...

In the meantime, many others have arrived, and have been seated on the left side of the room—the right side being reserved for those making their first visit. The majority are Mexicans, but Americans, Italians, Austrians, Syrians, and natives 0f France, Spain and Ireland are also in evidence. Every age is also represented from babies in arms to grandparents.

Through the speaking tube connected with the clinic comes the^[p.483]signal that the patients holding cards 1 to 10 are to be sent over. The little Mexican mother breathes a sign of relief as she is told that she may go and see the good doctor.⁸

Probably the single most effective of the many programs initiated for the Mexican-Americans in Southern California during those troubled years was the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, founded at Los Angeles, in mid-1923, as a direct outgrowth of the welfare work being conducted among the Mexican and Italian immigrants. The need for supplementing the religious instruction given at the few existing settlement centers was paramount, insofar as these latest immigrants generally reflected a moral and religious background noticeably inferior to that of earlier arrivals from the more predominantly religious parts of Mexico. Cantwell’s stress on educational expansion was based on his views that “in making Catholics better Catholics we shall make them better citizens.”¹⁰

One of the first projects of the Confraternity was a diocesan survey to determine the number of Mexican-American children actually residing in the jurisdiction. Questionnaires were sent to public school authorities asking for the total enrollment and the number or percentage of Mexican-Americans in attendance.¹¹ Armed with the results of that poll, the bishop and his collaborators were able to concentrate C.C.D. work in the areas of greatest demand. While the involvement of the Confraternity was not confined to Mexican-Americans, it was among that segment of the population that its earliest αnd most far-reaching accomplishments were realized. Within thirteen years after its foundation, the C.C.D. had in operation 211 centers with 1,279 teachers instructing 28,500 youngsters. Allowing for its obvious deficiencies, the Confraternity answered in the only way possible for the educational exigencies of a distressing situation.

The clerical “sparkplug” for Catholic involvement in the Mexican-American apostolate was the Reverend Leroy Callahan who directed Confraternity activities between 1927 and 1937. Quickly and efficiently the Illinois-born priest built up a model orgnization around which almost every other diocese in the nation eventually patterned its activities. Father Callahan was especially sensitive to the needs of Mexican-Americans and felt that working among them was “as truly missionary as the evangelization of the heathen, with the sole difference that we are laboring amongst those who are Catholic by baptism.”¹²

The Jnνentnd Cato//ca Feminina Mexicana, a union of fifty-one Catholic action groups, αnd the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine were unique in the overall plans undertaken for the Mexican-Americans in the Diocese of^{[p.484] *[p.485]}Los Angeles-San Diego. Generally, Bishop Cantwell’s programs were designed to function within the already established framework of the Bureau of Catholic Charities. This he envisioned as a means of avoiding any ethnical overtones to an apostolate demanding the cooperation of all Catholics, irrespective of their own particular background.

The structural outline of the Bureau of Catholic Charities and its successor, the Catholic Welfare Bureau, shows clear evidence of the bishop’s expansionary plans. Already by 1929, the bureau had inaugurated five diocesan community centers with year-round recreational, educational and social programs fοr Mexican-Americans, along with courses in home-making αnd athletic and club activities fοr the younger generation. Classes augmenting the public school Americanization were started throughout the diocese, αnd community centers took on the character of neighborhood clubhouses αnd rallying points for Mexican-Americans in individual districts. “The history of these institutions,” noted one authority, “is the story of the effort of the Catholic people of Los Angeles to care for the spiritual and social needs of the stranger in their midst.”¹³

Some idea of the magnitude of Bishop Cantwell’s blueprint for the Mexican-Americans is reflected in his Retatio to the Holy See in 1929, in which he reported that no fewer than seventy churches and chapels had been erected within the preceding five-year period, and over $750,000 expended on various related projects fοr the exiles of religious persecution. The prelate also noted that fοr the third consecutive year, 52% of the total funds used by the Catholic Welfare Bureau had been allocated for Mexican-Americans¹⁴ With all the inflated demands placed on the diocese by the massive influx of peoples, both clerical and lay, it is to the credit of the southland’s Catholics that their response to the added financial strain was universally generous.

The n~reglo of 1929 between the President of Mexico αnd that nation’s hierarchy restored a measure of peace to that country and made possible the return there of a great majority of the clergy, religious αnd laity. ^IS Except fοr a flareup in 1935-1936, the persecution gradually subsided, as many of the more severe statutes against the Church fell into desuetude.

Departure of the refugee clergy, however, triggered other reverberations since few of the priests born in the United States were conversant enough in the Hispanic tongue to care adequately fοr the spiritual needs of those Mexican-Americans deciding to take up permanent residence in the Diocese of Los Angeles-San Diego. While Bishop Cantwell had foreseen that problem” several years earlier by emphasizing in synodal directives the grave obligation of lrnowing Sρanish,¹⁶ he found it necessary to repeat that mandate in more forceful language. Recognizing as he did that the immigrants brought^[p.486]

to the diocese the finest traditions of their own land in music, art, sculpture and painting,¹⁷ Cantwell focused attention towards encouraging involvement by clerical aspirants in all the lingual and cultural aspects of Spanish-American life. Provisions were accordingly made to allow seminarians to spend time in Mexico preparing for work among those natives of that land still living in the United States, 86% of them in California.¹⁸

The bishop’s characteristic sensitivity toward incipient racial prejudice accounts fοr his insistence that the recorded accomplishments of the Catholic Welfare Bureau omit any mention of the ethnical background of those receiving assistance; nonetheless, a breakdown on one year’s work, does indicate, if only imperfectly, the extent to which the bureau was involved in alleviating the needs of the poor, the greater majority of whom were Mexican-Americans. In 1930, fοr example, a sum of $114,193.88 was expended fοr family relief, that money going to 7,543 families of 35,005 persons. A total of 38,078 homes were personally visited by representatives of the bureau in that year alone.¹⁹ Impressive as these figures are when repeated on an annual basis, such statistics fall far short of telling the whole story of Catholic involvement since most of the work for the Mexican people centered around individual parishes.²⁰ Financed as much of it was at the parochial level, the greatest portion of the benefits received by the Mexican-Americans received nο recognition among diocesan tabulations.

In addition to programs of direct assistance, social workers from the Catholic Welfare Bureau continued their practice of circulating among the eight counties of Southern California after 1934, “interpreting American ideals, laws, customs, and social facilities to the newcomers; seeking to better their material condition, and endeavoring to protect them as much as possible from the ruthless exploitation of the unscrupulous type of industrialist and land owner.”²¹ The policy adhered to by those associated with the bureau merely implemented Bishop Cantwell’s avowed philosophy that “neither capitalism, nor industrialism, nor agriculturalism has any right to use the labor of these people for the achievement of its end.”²²

In 1936 the Holy See asked a number of bishops in the southwestern part of the nation to submit a survey of the Church’s work among Mexican-born people in their respective jurisdictions. Cantwell’s response estimated at 182,300 the number of those in the 44,350 square mile Diocese of Los Angeles-San Diego falling into that category. Of these, about a third had fixed residences while the rest were migratory seasonal workers,²³ described by one priest as people who knew no home but the family Ford, no language but their own, no education save the smattering they have acquired from the schools of Calles or his predecessors, and nο religion save what they have^[p.487]been able to preserve of the Faith handed down from their fathers.²⁴ The bishop continued his report, noting that one hundred and twenty-six churches and missions with forty-four resident pastors were devoted exclusively to car-

vents of exiled sisters, and, under the auspices of the Catholic Welfare Bureau, nine community houses and recreational headquarters had been established. Four clinics and two day nurseries were also in operation. Seventy-eight priests were working among the Mexican-Americans exclusively while another 140 devoted at least part of their time to that aροstolate.²S Such was the multi-phased program at the time Los Angeles was advanced to metropolitan stature with a separate ecclesiastical jurisdiction formed at San Diego.

The influence of the archbishop was felt in areas other than those subject to his immediate control. Dedicated as he was to restoring the image of Mexico as a Catholic country, the prelate did not hesitate to embroil himself even in the political arena on those few occasions when he felt some tangible benefit might accrue to the Church. The most outstanding of his forays along these lines, and one which enhanced considerably the Church’s role on the international scene, was his determination to visit publicly the National Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City.

Such an opportunity presented itself in 1940, when Luis Murillo Cornado, a special envoy of Mexico’s Ministry of the Interior, approached Archbishop Cantwell with an invitation to pontificate at the Pan American ceremonies honoring his nation’s patroness in the Distrito Federal on December 12. Cantwell immediately contacted officials at the United States Department of State about the advisability of accepting the invitation and was told that “it would be most imprudent for the Archbishop of Los Angeles to accept any left-handed invitation” lest it be construed as strengthening “the stand of Avila Comacho whose election has been declared legal at a time when the evidences were that if there had been a bina fide election in Mexico, he would have been defeated.”²⁶

Cantwell then sought to circumvent the matter by contacting a frequent house-guest and close friend, Luis Maria Martinez, the Archbishop of Mexico City, with the suggestion that as temporary Apostolic Delgate to the Republic, an invitation from his office could be accepted on a purely religious plane, thus avoiding the diplomatic entanglements altogether. Martinez eagerly complied and the two prelates decided to schedule the jour- ^[p.488]ney fir October of 1941. At the same time, Cantwell alerted the State Department of his plan, noting that he hoped his visit would “help out the good neighbor policy of the eminent President.”²⁷ Anxious to widen the interest in his journey, the archbishop addressed an invitation to his people suggesting their participation in his forthcoming trip, noting that “it was from that venerable land the first missionaries came to California, and built the Missions which are our greatest historic landmarks.” Cantwell observed that “a visit by our people to the City of Mexico would be a gracious compliment to the Hierarchy and Catholics of a country that has sent so many of its children to California.”²⁸

Response to the invitation was encouraging and a representative party left Los Angeles by rail on October 6, arriving in the Mexican capital three days later. A large crowd of dignitaries at the depot heard the archbishop, whose see-city boasted of more Mexicans than any other in the world, save the Distrito Federal,²⁹ describe the deep-rooted admiration he and the people of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles felt for their neighbors to the south. He said:

During our stay among you, we hope to enjoy your incomparable climate, to feast our eyes on the indescribable natural beauty of your landscapes, and to revivify our spirit, vexed by the sad situation in which the world finds itself, during these days, with the contemplation of the magnificent monuments which are not only the treasured inheritance of the Missioner and the Conqueror of old, but the fruit of the heroic sacrifices and gigantic efforts of the succeeding generations of your noble race.³⁰

A solemn pontifical Mass was celebrated on October 12, at the National Basilica, some few miles from the center of the capital. Every inch of the vast edifice was crowded for the event and an estimated throng of 50,000 assembled outside the church for the colorful ceremony. The President of Mexico was represented by a militai-y delegation, the first time since iilaximilian that troops had marched into the basilica for a religious event. The entire diplomatic corps attended, and, at the conclusion of the Mass, Archbishop Cantwell again spoke of his delight in being in Mexico:

This visit which we are now paying your beautiful country is for us the realization of a long-felt desire to cone among you, and to kneel before the miraculous image of Our common Mother, Holy Mary of Guadalupe, under whose kindly smile Our Beloved Archdiocese of Los Angeles was born, when a century ago, our predecessor, Francisco Garcia Diego y Moreno, received episcopal consecration before her altar.³¹ ^[p.489]The archbishop was asked to speak on the National Broadcasting System, and, on October 17, delivered a short discourse which was beamed to parts of the United States as well as throughout the Mexican Republic. Showing himself nu stranger to history, Cantwell observed, “The MiSSions built in California are our title deeds to show to the newcomers that we of the Old Church are in California by right of inheritance.” He concluded by praying that “the traditions that made Mexico distinguished and honorable in the past may be perpetuated in a fuller measure in years to come, and that the glory of days gone by may be surpassed” by the pledge of the future.³²

Cantwell’s insistence on observing ecclesiastical protocol seems to have had its desire effect. One observer noted that the sight of the Archbishop in his full prelatial robes, and forty American priests in their clerical garb, created quite a stir in Mexico City. The archbishop was particular to wear his robes on all occasions and remarked to the reporters who accosted him that he was happy to go to Mexico now that his religious habit was not offensive to anyone.³³ From all indications, the visit was favorably received in all quarters. The Εxcelsio7; in a long editorial, viewed the journey as signalling a new era in Mexican-American relations, as well as a thawing in that country’s delicate Church-State problems because of Cantwell’s visit. The editorial said, “The people of America are going to be given a proof that we know how to behave as human beings and that we are worthy to be numbered within the circle of the cultural nations”³⁴ of the world.³⁵

The inroads made by Protestant proselytizers among the traditionally Catholic Mexican-Americans was a source of considerable concern, if not annoyance, to Bishop Cantwell from the earliest years of his episcopate. While offering, as early as 1919, “to work hand in hand with every rightly disposed social worker and with all good citizens in an endeavor to solve the problems of poverty, delinquency and citizenship,” the prelate decried the activities of those “proselytizers who seek to tear out of the heart of the foreigner the religion which he has and which alone will save him from becoming an anarchist.³⁶

Cantwell’s plea went unheeded, however, and within a decade there were 144 proselytizing agencies in California. One priest assigned to build a church and school in a colony of 10,000 Mexican-Americans found himself confronted with no less than fourteen sects, all trying to evangelize the poor, uneducated immigrants.³⁷ The bishop, adamant in his attempts to combat such activities, observed that if he could only get the Mexican to understand that the efforts to evangelize him was an insult to his race, he would have advanced a long way toward counteracting proselytism.³⁸ ^[p.490]Recognizing the zeal of the proselytizers as “a challenge to the Apostolic spirit of our clergy,”³⁹ Cantwell asked Father Augustine O’Dea to prepare a study of the situation fοr presentation to a seminar held at Camarillo in the summer of 1942. In the mind of the prelate, acquainting the clergy with the major problems facing the 220,000 Mexican-Americans in the archdiocese, and the 460,000 in the province,⁴⁰ would give added impetus to the existing program initiated for the clergy of learning the Spanish language αnd customs. The extensive survey presented by Father O’Dea αnd discussed by the priests and seminarians⁴¹ did in fact result in renewed awareness of the need for additionally expanding the already vast network of archdiocesan facilities devoted to the Mexican-American apοstοlate.⁴²

Cantweil’s insistence on a long-term approach to the whole question of the Church’s involvement in this particular area was based on the assumption that “the great number of Spanish speaking Catholics in our midst constitutes no passing problem.” He recognized that

Our proximity to the Mexican border, the demand of Mexican labor, the lack of immigration quota, etc. makes it certain that there will always be with us great numbers of non-English speaking Mexicans. The tenacity of these people in adhering to their national spirit; their unwillingness to be assimilated racially; and their isolation in colonies will tend to make them retain their language.⁴³

At the annual gathering of the National Conference of Catholic Charities in 1944, John R. Mulroy singled out Los Angeles and San Antonio as two archdioceses which had given and continued to offer “the best illustration of thorough-going Catholic effort to solve the problems that affect the well-being of our Spanish-speaking brethren.” In particular, he noted that:

The Archdiocese of Los Angeles, with over a quarter of a million Mexican population, has made it obligatory on all seminarians to study Spanish; they must study the history of Mexico, Spain and South America. They must acquaint themselves with Mexican problems and with the social and economic conditions of these people in the Archdiocese. A Home Mission Board fοr the Archdiocese requires the adoption of missions by wealthy parishes. Catholic papers in Spanish are circulated, and there is a Catholic Hour in Spanish over the radio. Many religious congregations work exclusively among these people, αnd one has a special seminary fοr training priests to work among them. The Confraternity of Christian Doctrine has 200 centers and a staff of 800 religious and^[p.491]^*[p.492] lay teachers who instructed 36,000 this past year. Nine parochial schools are 100 percent fοr children of Spanish-speaking parentage, and they have an enrollment of 4,000. Six parochial schools of over 1,000 pupils each, have a 50 percent Mexican enrollment. Many other Catholic schools have large numbers of these children. A large part of the work of the Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, with its various branches, consists of rendering service to Mexican families and individuals. Eight child-caring homes care for their orphans and dependent children. There are two boarding homes fοr Mexican girls.

One home, sponsored by the Catholic Big Brothers, cares fοr delinquent boys. Numerous boys clubs are under the leadership of young men of Latin-American extraction. A special maternity hospital and clinic renders services to over 6,000 patients a year. A sanatorium fοr tubercular girls, two day nurseries, and seven settlement houses give some idea of the extent of the welfare program devoted chiefly to the Mexican population. A similar program exists in the Archdiocese of San Antonio and to a lesser degree in the Archdiocese of Denνer.^44-

Archbishop Cantwell’s reputation for sponsoring “every activity that has bettered in any way the condition of the Mexican population within his archdiocese,”⁴⁵ explains his longfelt anxiety for erecting “in this country a National Home Mission Organization”⁴⁶ to coordinate the Church’s activities on behalf of Mexican-Americans. At the annual meeting of the nation’s hierarchy in 1944, the Bishop’s Committee fοr the Spanish Speaking was organized and, at that group’s initial meeting on January 10, 1945, Cantwell accepted an appointment to the executive board as General Chairman.⁴⁷ He also complied with a request that a Los Angeles priest, Father John J. Birch, assume the position of full-time executive secretary for the committee.

Undoubtedly, hypersensitivity to charges of racial and ethnic favoritism which motivated Cantwell’s masterplan of expanding existing agencies, in preference to establishing new ones, has caused, in certain areas, a partial distortion of his extensive contributions to the Mexican-American apostolate. Only a misunderstanding of the prelate’s operational technique, αnd the results accruing therefrom, could account fοr the unfortunate αnd highly erroneous conclusion of one writer that in California “the Ronan Catholic Church, aside from building churches^[p.493]and stationing refugee Mexican priests in Spanish-speaking parishes, did little to aid materially or spiritually” the exiles from across the border.⁴⁸

The record would be far from complete, however, if the appraisal of Cantwell’s accomplishments were allowed to rest on mere statistics alone, no matter how impressive. A truly balanced account must also take cognizance of the human elements involved, chief of which was the affection harbored fοr the bishop in his role as almoner fοr the Catholics of Southern California. Of all the virtues, gratitude is often the most overlooked, possibly because its admission implies a state of reliance which human nature seldom cares to admit. In the case at hand, however, the record abounds with public acknowledgements of the benefits extended to the Mexican-Americans by their Catholic hosts in California’s Southland, and some of them deserve a place in the annals.

The first public manifestation of affection fοr Bishop Cantwell came late in 1929, when the prelate was notified by the Holy See that the Mexican hierarchy, in union with the Apostolic Delegate to the United States of Mexico, “urgently request that we honor you with a particular sign of our benevolence on account of the extraordinary graciousness you have most generously shown” to the Mexican people during the clays of their religious persecutions⁴⁹ Pope Pius XI acceded to the request by naming the Bishop of Los Angeles-San Diego to the honorary position of Assistant at the Papal Throne. According to the local Catholic newspaper, “the principal move of the Mexican bishops” was to secure signal recognition for the kindly manner in which the hundreds of priests, religious, and faithful were cared for when they came here seeking refuge from persecution.”⁵⁰

In further recognition of the sanctuary offered by Bishop Cantwell to seven members of the Mexican hierarchy, 130 of its priests and over 200 nuns,⁵¹ Archbishop Pascual Diaz and the Canons of the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe voted unanimously to present Southern California’s prelate with the Golden Rose of Tepeyac, one of Mexico’s highest awards and one rarely bestowed on non-residents. The presentation was made as a solemn gesture of gratitude for Cantwell’s “great hospitality and charity toward exiled Mexican priests during the years of persecution.”⁵²

Another acknowledgement of the esteem felt by Mexican-Americans was the selection of Los Angeles as the scene fοr the international Marian celebration in 1937. A crowd of 65,000 gathered in the approach to Calvary Mausoleum for the first solemn canonical coronation ever held in the United States. Diplomatic representatives from twenty-one Latin-American nations participated in the ceremonies during which^[p.495]*

^[p.496]Archbishop Cantwell placed the golden crown, an exact replica of the one used at Rome by Pope Benedict XV in 1919, upon the picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe.⁵³

The many ramifications of the Church’s influence among Mexican-Americans in various areas of the nation have yet to receive adequate attention, even a cursory study of John J. Cantwell’s contributions substantiates a view uttered almost a quarter of a century ago to the effect that the Catholic Church in the Southwest and on the coast has expended more concern “on Her beloved Mexican people than on any other group in our population.”⁵⁴

The obvious lack of success on the part of the Catholic apostolate among the Negroes in the United States is, generally speaking, a failure for which culpability is not easily determined. That the Christian affiliation of the nation’s black people became predominantly Protestant was a natural outgrowth of the well-organized evangelization programs initiated under Baptist and Methodist auspices in southern population centers where the Catholic Church was still struggling to gain a foothold.

Placed in its proper historical perspective, the “indifference to the mental and spiritual welfare of the Negro”í⁵ which one editorial writer associated with Catholics of succeeding generations, is hardly more significant than any other of those highly undesirable ghetto traits minority groups exhibit when they emerge as respectable segments within a given society. If it is true, as one authority suggests, that the disabilities from. which the black people suffered are chiefly national and social, then Catholics failed the Negroes only to the degree they were influenced by the “contaminating milieu of prejudice” pervading American life, a characteristic decidedly extra-ecclesíal in its inception and development.⁵⁶ Whatever be the ultimate judgement about the sociological ramifications, the undeniable fact remains that prior to the 1930s, “Roman Catholics, even many of those active in mission work among the Negroes, shared with other white Americans an air of condescension”⁵⁷ towards those black people who had migrated from their traditional habitat searching for a better way of life in the country’s northern industrial centers.

John J. Cantwell was among the notable exceptions to this general pattern and early in his episcopate, the Bishop of Monterey-Los Angeles pointed out to Roman officials his conviction regarding the unlimited possibilities “open for missionary efforts among the Negroes in the^[p.497]United States.” ⁵⁸ The bishop’s concern for Southern California’s black community was more than an exercise in idle rhetoric. A case in point was his determination to provide the Negroes of Los Αngeles with “one

generous eastern benefactor for funds, explaining apologetically that his extra-diocesan resquest was necessary because “the colored missions do not appeal to the majority of our own people.”⁶⁰

Though the archives are silent about the outcome of Cantwell’s specific request, the bishop did manage to erect a sturdy frame building with accommodations fοr 600 people at 16th and Essex Streets. The edifice, formally dedicated on December 23, 1922, was placed under the spiritual patronage of Saint Victor, the first native African to occupy the papacy. The commodious facilities, signalling a new era of progress in mutual helpfulness and religious responsibility, represented a distinctly forward step toward a realization by the colored people “of their hopes and aspirations and a fuller development of the fine qualities which characterize their race, a deep religious instinct, love of family life and devotion to their Church.⁶¹

The prelate’s enthusiasm fοr the needs of Southern California’s black population did not diminish in subsequent decades, though he was pragmatic enough to recognize that there was “left in the United States a great leaven of bigotry from the pioneering days.”⁶² The overtures he made, fοr example, to the Society of African Missionaries in 1925,⁶³ were followed by numerous other appeals to religious communities of ιnen and women fοr additional personnel with which to implement his program of advancing the welfare of the colored Catholics in the Diocese of Monterey-Los Angeles.

Though willingly providing fοr the erection of churches, like that of Saint Odilia at Hooper and 53rd Streets in 1927, Cantwell plainly hesitated to initiate any type of “saturation building program” for fear of contributing to the segregatory mentality often engendered by such so-called “Negro churches.” He had long foreseen that the time was fast approaching when black people would repudiate the societal restrictions of non-integrated neighborhoods in favor of “political and economical equality with their fellow citizens.” ⁶⁴

While avoiding the more ostensible measures used so effectively in later decades, Bishop Cantwell spoke out on the then delicate issue of racial relα-tions whenever the occasion demanded. His sympathies, widely known among the residents of the area, prompted an invitation to address a meeting of the National Association fοr the Advancement of Colored People on November 28, 1921. The prelate accepted “with pleasure and delight” and seized the opportunity to place in the public record his own sentiments on an^[p.498]issue whose future dimensions he clearly anticipated.⁶⁵

The bishop expressed a kinship with his audience by remarking that “neither your fathers nor yourselves, nor the people whom I reμresent, have been strangers to intolerance. You and I know too well, to our sorrow be it said, what comes from an intolerant bigotry.” Making no attempt to ignore the record, Cantwell acknowledged that “it has been hard even for the members of my church to battle against the forces of current public opinion, an opinion which tolerates the colored people in their churches, that makes no effort for the development of a colored clergy, that has done nothing to develop leadership for those who are members of the Church in an immense population.” Past mistakes notwithstanding, the bishop stressed the need for a strong alliance wherein black and white stand shoulder-to-shoulder against the world of the flesh and the devil. Otherwise he predicted that the whole human family would sink “into an ocean of degradation and corrυρtíon.”⁶⁶

“Religion teaches us,” the prelate noted, “to see in every man, nο matter what may be the color of his skin, a human soul, upon which is stamped the image of God. That image was defaced by original sin and cleansed again in the Blood of Christ, so that a human soul has been redeemed and purchased in the Life Blood of the Son of God. If men realize the dignity of the human soul, apart altogether from external appearances, they will be forced to recognize the equality of all men in the sight of God.”

The bishop attributed the ills heaped upon the colored race to “the absence of the spirit of charity, and ignoring of religious principles.” In obvious contrast to the views of many contemporaries Cantwell regarded the vast majority of the black race as “exemplars and models according to which white people might conform their manners.” He decried the many calumnies levelled against them, observing that such “lies” account fir the fact that “a bigoted section of our fellow citizens have been able from time to time to usurp even the majesty of our courts.” While unable to speak fir the nation as a whole, Bishop Cantwell did give assurances that “our people, at least those whom I have the honor to reμresent, who have been persecuted as you have been persecuted, will henceforth be your friends, and be entirely without prejudice.” He promised his listeners “that the colored people of this city, whether they are of my church, or of another church, or of nο church at all, will never be denied by me or my priests.”

The record is clear that Cantwell kept his pledge. Indeed, the public witness given by the Bishop of Monterey-Los Angeles before the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, along with his many accomplishments among the black people of his far-flung ecclesiastical juris-diction,ó⁷ certainly qualify him as an outstanding episcopal pioneer in the^[p.499]field of racial relations, the more so if one accepts the view that prior to World War II, the American hierarchy was not generally credited with a “farsighted or courageous leadership in social and economic problems.”⁶⁸

Considering only the violent aspects of the tensions that have existed in Los Angeles, one tends to ignore “the brighter phases of good racial relations that over the years have drawn favorable comment from representatives of various races.”⁶⁹ The involvement of the local Catholic bishop in the difficult and emotional problems arising from de facto segregation is one of those “brighter phases” which richly deserves to be recorded for the City of Our Lady of Angels.

The chancellor of the Diocese of Monterey-Los Angeles pointed out, in 1921, that “it is the wish of the Holy Father that national churches, as far as possible, be dispensed with in the United States.”⁷⁰ That being the case, there was little encouragement given to establishment of such parochial units in the Southern California jurisdiction. There were Polish people in the diocese shortly after the turn of the century and one source estimated their number at betwen 400 and 500 in 1921.⁷¹ The Polish Roman Catholic Alliance, organized by Father Stanislaus Marciniak in 1911, was taken over by Father Bronislaw Krzeminski who subsequently established ΕΙ Cristo Rey, the city’s initial Polish parish. The completed church at 52nd and Towne Avenue was blessed on November 28, 1926, by Father John Condon. With the passage of the years, the congregation grew considerably, and in 1944, Archbishop Cantwell authorized purchase of property on West Adams Boulevard for a church under the patronage of Our Lady of the Bright Mount.

The annals substantiate Bishop Cantwell’s remarks to the Apostolic Delegate, in 1933, when he told him that “the Italian people have never been neglected in the Diocese of Los Angeles-San Diego.”⁷² A non-territorial parish had been set up for the Italians during Thomas J. Conaty’s episcopate. A temporary frame church served the area in the years after 1904, and on July 4, 1915, the stone memorial chapel of Andrew Briswalter in old Calvary Cemetery was placed at the disposal of the peo-ple.⁷³ Boundaries were given to Saint Peter’s in 1922, when it was detached from Sacred Heart Parish and entrusted to the Salesian Fathers.⁷⁴ A population shift brought about establishment of Our Lady Help of Christians Church in late 1924, and the older Saint Peter’s then^[p.500] reverted to its earlier status as a mission station cared fοr by the Claretians from the Old Plaza Church.

Later years witnessed the revitalization of Saint Peter’s and, by 1944, a new church was necessary to accommodate the increased numbers. The historic red sandstone chapel was destroyed by fire on June 13, 1944, while being taken down to make room fora larger church. The tragedy brought on a renewed effort to complete the new edifice which was dedicated on July 21, 1946.

While Cantwell acknowledged that “the Holy See in many countries is not anxious to encourage national churches,” he went on to point out that Rome “has no objection to a large number of people who are collected together, perpetuating the best traditions of their race.”⁷⁵ It was to further that objective he gave his approval, in 1936, to Luigi Providenza’s proposal for the formation of the Italian Catholic Federation. The ideological persecution of the Church in Italy had left its mark on many emigrant Italians and it was thought that this excellent organization, embracing as it did both spiritual and social activities, would help to offset the unfavorable conditions of many resettled Italians.

The First Croatians to settle in California came from Dalmatia toward the end of the last century. In October of 1905, Father Anthony Zuvich arrived in Los Angeles with plans to Organize a Croatian community. Early the next year ground was broken for a church which Bishop Thomas J. Conaty dedicated on December 11, 1910. It was hard to replace Father Zuvich in later years and since the number of Croatians rarely exceeded 300 or 400 souls, the Apostolic Delegate suggested, in 1933, that the Franciscans be entrusted with that apostolate. Bishop Cantwell thought otherwise, however, chiding that “we could have in this Diocese too much of even a particular good thing.”⁷⁶

A church was provided for the Maronites, in 1923, under the patronage of Our Lady of Lebanon and, in 1936, Saint Andrew’s Church in Boyle Heights was dedicated fοr the exclusive use of Russian Catholics and their Paleo-Slav Byzantine liturgy. The Gold Medal was subsequently conferred upon Cantwell by the President of the Republic of Lebanon in appreciation of his kindness to the Maronites in Southern California.

While the Chinese have their roots deep in California history, their^[p.501]numbers in the southland did not grow rapidly until after the turn of the century and what few there were generally did not profess the Christian faith. However, by the time of World Wαr II, enough Chinese Catholics resided in the city to launch a Chinese Catholic Center ^n Figueroa Street, on June 7, 1942.

The archbishop was quite sympathetic with the plight of California’s Japanese during the dark days of World Wαr IL He remarked to a friend that they are “very good people... excellent Catholics,” contrasting them to other Orientals “who readily come into the Church but do not always stay put.”⁷⁷ The Church’s concern for the Japanese in the state stretched back to the fall of 1912, when Father Albert Breton arrived in Los Angeles to work among them.⁷⁸ Eight Japanese sisters came, in May of 1915, and opened an orphanage on West 23rd Street and a school on South Hewitt Street. Two years later they began another school at Tropico. The Maryknoll Fathers took charge of the work in 1920, and by February of 1933, had readied Saint Francis Xavier Chapel for dedica-tion.⁷⁹ In addition to their sanatorium at Monrovia, the Maryknollers erected a permanent church for the Japanese in 1938.⁸⁰ The priests and sisters working among the Japanese followed them to their relocation camps during the days of World Wαr II and, when the hostilities were over, welcomed back to “Little Tokyo” a people who had proven their faith and loyalty to the land of their adoption by the sacrifice of their sons in the nation’s defense.

Corning as they did from the only Christian nation in the Orient, Cantwell believed the Filipinos were “definitely superior to the other Orientals who cone to California.” However, while recognizing their splendid background, the bishop was aware that “unlimited social intercourse with other racial groups would mean only corruption and deterioration for the Filipino character.”⁸¹ There were approximately 40,000 Filipinos in California in 1942, 9,000 of whom resided in the Archdiocese of Los Αngeles. The predominantly male population, most of whom hoped one day to return to their homeland, found seasonal work or were employed as domestics. Saint Columbans Church, at 1035 South Defora Street, was blessed by Archbishop Cantwell on January 13, 1945, and two years later was relocated in the city’s oldest fire department, Chemical Company, No. 2.

While immigration has always been a factor in Southern California, it has rarely been a source of anxiety to established settlers. Bishop Joseph T. McGucken expressed the situation to a friend, in 1941, by noting that “with the exception of the Mexican situation we have no great problem^[p.502]in connection with national parishes”⁸² in this archdiocese. The situation had changed appreciably since 1924, when the relatively small Los Angeles boasted of sixteen foreign language newspapers reaching approximately 250,000 persons.

Quite understandably, John J. Cantwell reflected certain of the less attractive qualities of the atmosphere in which he was raised. He believed, for example, that “the natural enemy of the Church of Christ,” whether we like it or not, is Protestant.⁸³ On one occasion he severely rebuked the pastor of a generous layman who had contributed a stained-glass window to a non-Catholic church, noting that such action was equivalent to “participating in heretical worship” inasmuch as it was “giving material aid to those who, whether consciously or nοt, are at least material enemeies of the one Church founded by Jesus Christ.”⁸⁴ At the same time, however, there was a healthy ambivalence in the Irish-born prelate’s attitude on ecumenism, a movement then quite unacceptance to his more orthodox Catholic contemporaries. These sentiments were obvious in Cantwell’s first pastoral where he stated that

Our mission, though primarily to Catholics, is nοt to them alone. A bishop of the Church of Christ belongs to all; hence it shall be our constant aim to lend our feeble assistance to every movement that makes for salvation, the betterment and happiness of all people irrespective of creed or other consideration.⁸⁵

To an appeal for cooperation in emphasizing the great service that the churches of Los Angeles were rendering in the field of social relations and labor, Cantwell assured Edwin P. Ryland of his “very great sympathy with the efforts of the Church Federation of Los Angeles to throw the weight of its united influence in the betterment of social relations and labor problems.”⁸⁶

It was also in the ecumenical vein that, at Cantwell’s urging, a request was sent to Rome asking that “general permission be given for all mixed marriages within the province to be celebrated in the church, in the presence of a priest vested in surplice and stole, and with some of the ceremonies of the Catholic ritual.” Cantwell pointed out that divorce was far more common in the Province of San Francisco than in any other section of the United States and expressed to the Holy Father his opinion that the grave danger of divorce in mixed marriages would be lessened if we could “perform these marriages in church with some, at least, of the rich^[p.503]and impressive ceremonial of our Catholic ritual. “⁸⁷

Cantwell was not so absorbed in the ecumenical movement as to overlook the closely related campaign of proselytism among his own people by certain Protestant sects. The bishop called for a minute study⁸⁸ of the problem and distributed printed copies of the completed report to the pastors αnd administrators of the jurisdiction.⁸⁹ One conservative estimate placed at 25,000 the number of Mexicans, Italians and Filipinos who had left the Church in the archdiocese for one or another of the evangelizing groups. A Board of Home Missions was organized to make a “thorough exploration of the Latin American field” αnd to coordinate a remedial program to reverse the trend. Within a few years a veritable litany of churches, missions, halls, clinics, social centers and summer camps were in operation throughout the four counties of the archdiocese, αnd although the threat continued for some years, Cantwell was successful in thwarting subsequent losses along those lines.

‘Portions of this chapter appeared in Francis J. Weber, “Érish-Âïrn Champion of the Mexican-Americans,” California Historical Society Quarterly XLIX (September, 1970), 233-249.

¹Rïbert E. Lucey, “Arc We Good Neighbors?” in The Spanish Speaking of the Southwest and West (Washington, 1943), p. 15.

²Frederick J. Zwierlein, “Mexican Problems,” Catholic World CLVII (June, 1943), 275.

⁴”Notes and Comments,” Catholic Historical Review XIÉÉ (January, 1928), 734. ⁵Williaóé E. North, Catholic Education in Southern California (Washington, 1936), p. 188. According to one recently released survey, “immigration from Mexico reached a peak in the decade of the 1920’s, with close to 500,000 reported as entering [the United States] on a permanent basis.” Mexican immigrants accounted for 9% of the total number in the first half of the 1920’s and 16% in the latter half. See Leo Grebler, Mexican Immigration in the United States: The Record and Its Implications (Los Ángeles, 1965), p. 21.

⁶Jïhn J. Cantwell, Pastoral Leter, reproduced in The Tidings, July 23, 1926.

See Francis J. Weber, “Happy Home Aided Neglected Children,” The Tidings, June 4, 1965.

⁹Dennis J. Burke, “The History of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine in the Diocese of Los Angeles (sic), 1922-1936,” (Washington, 1965), p. 18. See also Francis J. Weber, “Why Verona Spellmire Went to Simon’s Brickyard,” The^[^p.504]Tidings, October 23, 1970.

¹⁰Ássïciated Catholic Charities Report, 1919 (Los Angeles, c. 1920), Pp. 8-10. ¹¹Verona M. Spellmire, “Helping to Safeguard Their Heritage—The Laity’s

Part,” Proceedings of the National Catechetical Congress of the Confraternity of

¹²”Á New Missionary Field in California,” The Méssiona’cy Catechist VIÉ (January, 1931), 1.

¹³Ôhðmás J. O’Dwyer, “The Mexican in Our Midst,” Proceedings of the Fifteenth Session of the National Conference of Catholic Charities, 1929 (Washington, 1929), ì. 195.

¹⁴Relatiï Diocesis Angelïrom—Sancti Didaci in Californið Facta Sacrae Congregationi Consistïréali, A.D. 1934 (Los Angeles, 1929), ì. 16.

15By 1934, Cantwell estimated that 70,000 had returned to Mexico. See Relatio Diocesis Angelorum-Sancti Didaci in California Facta Sacrae Congregationi Consistoriali, A.D. 1934 (Los Ángeles, 1934), p. 22.

¹⁷Árchiíes of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles (hereafter referred to as AALA), JohnJ. Cantwell, Circular Letter, Los Angeles, August 9, 1941.

¹⁸Áugustine O’Dea, Notes on Protestant Proselytism (Los Angeles, 1942), p. 40.

^{1 9}Reñort of the Catholic Welf2rre Rarean of Los Angeles-San Diego, 1930. (Los Angeles, 1931), ì. 15.

²⁰Linna L. Bresette, Mexicans in the United States (Washington, 1928), ì. 22.

21 Catholic Welfñre Bureau of the Diocese of Los Angeles-San Diego, 1934 (Los Angeles, 1935), p. 6.

²²Jïhn J. Cantwell, “The Organization of Catholic Charities.” Proceedings of the Thirteenth Session of the National Conference of Catholic Charities. 1927. (Washington, 1927), ì. 12.

²³ÁÁLÁ, John J. Cantwell to Amleto Giovanni Cicognani, Los Angeles, October 31, 1936.

²⁴Jïhn J. Crowley, “Bringing The Church to 90,000 Churchless Catholics,” The Missionaiy Catechist IV (May, 1928), 5.

²2⁵Á sociological breakdown made in 1931 revealed that in Southern California, the Mexican-American element was composed largely of unskilled laborers meagerly paid by public utility concerns for temporary construction work or by farmers for seasonal fruit-picking. See The Catholic J lfare Bureau of the Diocese ofLosAngeles-San Diego. 1931 (Los Angeles, 1932), ì. 11.

²⁶Á LÁ, William F. Montavon to John J. Cantwell, Washington D.C., October 3, 1940.

²⁷ÁÁLÁ, John J. Cantwell to Sumner Wells, Los Angeles, August 28, 1941. ²⁸ÁÁLÁ, Jïhn J. Cantwell, Circular Letter, Los Angeles, August 9, 1941. ²⁹ÁALÁ, John J. Cantwell, Circular Letter, Los Angeles, August 28, 1940. ³⁰Å1 Siglo de Ôïrreün, October 9, 1941.

³¹ÁÁLÁ, Mimeographed statement of Jïhn J. Cantwell (Los Angeles, 1941).^[p.505]³²Τhe Tidings, October 17, 1941.

³³ΑΑLΑ, Joseph T. McGucken to Joseph Byrne, Los Angeles, October 29, 1941. ³⁴Issue of October 18, 1941.

³⁵The memory of the archbishop’s visit to Mexico City was perpetuated in the Hospedria Sacerdotal “John J. Cantwell” which was inaugurated early in 1943. Located on the Avenida de Insurgentes, the 300 year old edifice was dedicated to the Archbishop of Los Angeles, “una verdadera inspiraciόn del cielo y merecedora de las benediciones de Dios.” See Agustin S. de la Cueva, Hospedería Sacerdotal John J. Cantwell” (Mexico City, 1943), p. 2.

³⁸ΑΑLΑ, John J. Cantwell to Henry P. Del Cano, Los Angeles, November 30, 1925.

⁴⁰I.e. the area comprising the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the Dioceses of Monterey-Fresno, San Diego and Tucson.

⁴¹Αugustine O’Dea, The Mexican Problem and Its Latin American Background (Camarillo, 1942), p. 12. Proselytizing in California dates from 1875, when the Methodist Episcopal Church began its activities among Mexican-Americans.

⁴²In 1942, the City of Los Angeles alone accounted for eighteen parishes and six missions exclusively serving the Mexican-American community. Another twenty-three parishes and as many missions were operating outside the see-city. Such figures omit, naturally, any record of the vast number of Mexican-Americans attending churches outside their own area or who resided in predominantly Anglo centers.

⁴⁴”The Catholic Answer to Racial Minorities,” Proceedings of the Twenty-Ninth Conference of Catholic Charities. 1944 (Washington, 1944), Pp. 104-105.

⁴⁵Sister Candida, S.H.N., “Opportunities of the Teaching Sister to Help Foster a More Kindly Attitude Towards Mexicans,” Proceedings of the Sixth National Catechetical Congress of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine. 1940 (Paterson, 1941), p. 503.

⁴⁶ΑΑLΑ, Joseph T. McGucken to Solomon Rahaím, _Si., Los Angeles, January 27, 1943.

⁴⁷Rosemary E. Smith, “The Work of the Bishops Committee for the Spanish Speaking on Behalf of the Migrant Worker” (Washington, 1958), p. 4.

⁴⁸Manυel P. Serein, “The Pre-’Vorld War II Mexican-American: An Interpretation,” California Historical Society Quarterly XLV (December, 1966), 328.

⁴⁹ΑΑLΑ, Pietro Cardinal Gasparri to John J. Cantwell, Rome, September 30, 1929.

5 ¹These figures are based on a report to the Apostolic Delegate in 1927. See^[p.506] AALA John J. Cantwell to Pietro Fumasoni-Biondi, Los Angeles, August 18, 1927.

⁵²See Francis J. Weber, Readings in California Catholic Histo7y (Los Angeles, 1967), p. 248.

⁵³See La Voz Gurualupnm III (September, 1937), Edicion Extraordinaria. “Robert E. Lucey, op. cit., _p. 15.

⁵⁵”Catholics and the Negro Question,” America XXI (July 19, 1919), 380.

“John T. Gillard, S.S.J., “The Catholic Clergy and the American Negro,” American Ecclesiastical Review XCIV (February, 1936), 153.

⁵⁷Tom Froncek, “American Catholics and the American Negro,” Catholic Mind LXIV (January, 1966), 6.

⁵⁸ÁALÁ, John J. Cantwell to Cajetan Cardinal De Lai, Los Angeles, July 30, 1924.

⁶⁰ÁÁLÁ, John J. Cantwell to Florence M. Daly, Los Angeles, November 30, 1921.

⁶¹Robert E. Lueey, Annual Report of the Bureau of Catholic Charities (1923-1924) (Los Angeles, 1924), p. 23.

⁶²ÁÁLÁ, John J. Cantwell to Graham Reynolds, Los Angeles, April 18, 1927. 63ÁÁLÁ_, John J. Cantwell to Ignatius Lissner, Los Angeles, February 16, 1925. ⁶⁴ÁÁLÁ, John J. Cantwell to Florence M. Daly, Los Angeles, November 30,

⁶⁵The entire text of this address, published in The Tidings, December 9, 1921, is reproduced in Francis J. Weber, Documents of California Catholic History (Los Angeles, 1965) Pp. 255-260.

⁶⁶0nly fourteen negro priests were ordained in the United States between 1854 and 1934. See Yves M.J. Cangar, O.P., The Catholic Church and the Race Question (Paris, 1953), p. 49.

ý⁷0ne obvious example of the archbishop’s views is a strong letter he wrote to an influential Catholic leader stating his opinion “that there should be a place in the Knights of Columbus for our negro Catholics.” See AALA, John J. Cantwell to Joseph Scott, Los Angeles, April 16, 1945.

⁶⁸Madeleine Hooke Rice, American Catholic Opinion in the Slaver)^, Controversy (New York, 1944), Pp. 156-157, as quoted in John Tracy Ellis, The Catholic Church and the Negro (Huntington, n.d.), p. 8.

⁶⁹W.W.. Robinson, LosAugeles, A Ñroftle (Norman, Oklahoma, 1968), pp. 53-54. ⁷⁰AALÁ, John J. Cawley to Thomas Nalewaja, Los Angeles, November 7, 1921. ⁷¹ÁÁLÁ, Thomas Nalewaja to John J. Cantwell, Los Angeles, June 1, 1921. ⁷²ÁÁLÁ, John J. Cantwell to Amleto Giovanni Cicognani, Los Angeles,

⁷⁴Én January of 1922 Cantwell sent Father Sylvester Rabagliato to San Diego to care for that city’s Italians.

⁷⁵Letter of John J. Cantwell quoted in Laying of the Cornerstone of the new St. Peter’s Italian Church Souvenir (Los Angeles, 1946), p. 7.^[p.507]

⁷ýÁÁLë, John J. Cantwell to Amleto Giovanni Cicognani, Los Angeles, September 6, 1933.

⁷⁸Sçe Francis J. Wcbcr, Thomas James Conn. y, Ñastïr-Ådurntor-Rishïé, (Los Angeles, 1969), pp. 56-59.

“Ôhe interesting story of “The First Japanese Congregation” is told by Leon Triviere in World Mission V (Winter, 1954). 425-434. See also Tony Matsuda, “St. Francis Xavier Japanese Mission,” Academy Scrapbook II (January, 1952), 233-238.

⁸¹ÁÁLA John J. Cantwell to Amleto Giovanni Cicognani, Los Angeles, January 7, 1942.

⁸²ÁÁLÁ, Joseph T. McGucken to James H. Griffiths, Los Ángeles, October 8, 1941.

⁸³AALÁ, Jïhn J. Cantwell to Innocent Ryan, Los Angeles, December 5, 1928. ⁸⁴AALÁ, John J. Cantwell to Edward R. Kirk, Los Angeles, October 31, 1925. ⁸⁵Ñóstoral to the Clergy and Laity of the Diocese of Monterey-Los Angeles (Los

⁸⁷ÁÁLÁ, Provincial Bishops to Pius XI, San Francisco, n.d. (Prior to 1936). ⁸⁸The impetus for the study was given by Gerald Shaughnessy’s Has the Immigrant Kept the Faith? (New York, 1925).

R⁹Án exhaustive survey was made by the Reverend Augustine O’Dea in his Outline of Protestant Proselytism in the United States (Camarillo, 1945).^[^p.508]

As early as 1923, Bishop John J. Cantwell had endeavored “to form some sort of organization amongst the Catholic picture people of Los Angeles”¹ and, in mid June of that year, the Catholic Motion Picture Actor’s Guild of America was set up under his auspices in Hollywood. The parish hall of Blessed Sacrament Church served as headquarters fοr the group whose chaplain was Father Michael J. Mullins. According to its founder’s intentions, the Guild was to cooperate with other agencies within the industry in relief activities in addition to functioning as unofficial spokesman for the Church on various happenings in the entertainment world. A monthly journal, The Catholic Motion Picture Guild News, defined the group’s objective as “the spiritual, social and material advancement of our people in the motion picture industry.” While the Guild served a useful purpose, its primarily social orientation militated against its effectiveness as an agency in bettering the quality of motion pictures.

Without question, the moral tone of Hollywood’s productions in the late 1920s had reached a new low. One report, released by the Department of the Interior, disclosed that “three out of every four pictures dealt with crime, sex and unwholesome romance, that practically all the children of the United States were going to the movies at least once a week, and that they were being profoundly influenced in the formation of their philosophy of life by what they saw on the silver screens.”²

The Catholic Church was not as concerned about subject matter as it was about the moral treatment. Human problems have always been considered apt matter fοr dramatization, provided no sympathy is shown or^[p.509]elicited fοr immoral doctrines and solutions. What did concern theologians was the blatantly irreverent attitude exhibited in many productions. They generally agree that “the most vicious form of entertainment possible is the kind which contrives to persuade a man that his moral convictions are false, and that the things which he has always rightly called sins are not sins at all.”³

Public opinion was not slow in reacting. Already in 1921, the Literniy Digest had voiced the common concern that something had to be done, noting that the only problem was “how the reform is to come.”⁴ Steps toward elevating the moral tone began within the industry when the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, Inc., was set up under the direction of Will H. Hays. In addition to a list of “fair practices,” the organization adopted a systematic code of moral principles set down by Father Daniel A. Lord and Martin Quigley, editor of the Motion Picture Herald. The resultant “Production Code” was formally approved and put into operation early in 1930.

Bishop Cantwell felt that the Lord-Quigley Code concentated more on specifics than on basic guiding principles. The Southern California prelate thought that “much in it should have been left to the common sense of the producers.”⁵ In any event, the Code “‘as ineffectual inasmuch as it lacked any practical enforcement clause in its format. Martin Quigley also cited the lack of “sufficient pressure and support of public opinion to encourage or compel the industry at large to conform with the letter and the spirit of its regulations.”⁶

An appeal made by the American bishops, in 1932, fοr closer adherence to the Production Code had little “isible effect on the industry. When it became obvious that the hierarchy was going unheard, widespread complaint was heard from many quarters. On August 21, 1933, fοr example, the National Council of Catholic Men reminded Mr. Hays of their “repeated protest against the moral deterioration more and more evidencing itself in the moving pictures shown throughout the country.” ⁷ While only a fraction of the pictures were immorally tainted, “public anxiety was occasioned more by the indication of a trend than by the appearance of a reality.”⁸

That criticism of the industry’s productions “‘as effective first came to light in 1931,⁹ when Joseph I. Breen brought pressure on Universal Pictures Corporation to revise the script of “Seed,”¹⁰ described in its original version as “hardly more than subtle propaganda for Birth Control.”T I Will Hays recalled in his autobiography that, by the summer of 1933, there were “unmistakable signs that a change had to come.”^[p.510]Catholics, said the former Postmaster General, “as a religious group had been the last to lose patience,”¹² but they too were now clamoring fοr reform. The Bishop of Los Angeles-San Diego was among those voicing a desire to see the bishops of the country,” at their meeting in the fall, take some action to prevent our young people from the evils that come to them from the moving pictures.”¹³

The spectre of governmental censorship was also lurking in the shadows. The Federal Motion Picture Council was lobbying for passage of the Putnam ßí11¹⁴ to provide supervision “at the source of production, before they are filmed, and fοr the prohibition of blind and block booking.” Bishop Cantwell wanted no part in bringing about governmental intervention for he was personally “adverse to any attempt to legislate morality in people.”¹⁵

Shortly after his arrival in the United States as Apostolic Delegate, Archbishop Amleto Giovanni Cicognani told the American people that Catholics had been “called by God, the pope, the bishops, and the priests to a united and vigorous campaign fοr the purification of the cinema, which has become a deadly menace to morals.”¹⁶

At the annual meeting of the American hierarchy, held six weeks later in Washington, Bishop Cantwell read a detailed report confirming what many of the nation’s prelates had long suspected about the movies and their production. In response to Cantwell’s expose, the bishops voted to organize the Episcopal Committee on Motion Pictures¹⁷ and charged the committee to take action geared at elevating the moral tone of films.

Shortly after the Washington gathering, Cantwell submitted to Archbishop John T. Iclicholas a resume of the findings earlier presented to the assembled prelates:

(1) The decent minded people of the country, who are still in the majority, have no means of making themselves vocal against the type of picture that they find objectionable. There is a lack of leadership for concerted action. The motion picture industry has made itself impervious to any expression of opinion coming from any source outside itself. In Article 7, Part 1, of the Code accepted by the motion picture industry under the N.R.A., the industry pledges itself to retain right moral standard, but it expressly states that this is to be done by adherence to regulations promulgated by and within the industry itself.

It is worth noting that under the new Code imposed by the^[p.511] N.R.A., the exhibitor now has the right to reject uμ to 10% of the pictures contracted fοr without financial loss to himself. It makes him, to some degree, responsible fοr the mora! standard of his entertainment, and gives the Catholic people and their decent minded neighbors an opportunity of making their influence felt not only with the exhibitor but with the Ilollywood producer. If the Catholic people of any given community begin to make a formal protest to the executive offices through objections to a certain picture, and if they secure their protest by united action in staying away from that theatre during its showing, the exhibitor will take notice when he looks at his box office receipts.

(2) Since it will be of little use to base immediate protests and actions on any general principle of clean pictures, it will be necessary that Catholic people should know exactly “‘hat specific pictures they do not wish to have exhibited, αnd at least in a general way they should know why they object to them. Provision of this knowledge will necessitate the setting uμ of some central office...where pictures may be previewed before they are released to exhibitors. The persons selected to preview these pictures should be carefully chosen and instructed not to cavil at every detail that might possibly be objectionable, but in the beginning, at least, to judge pictures by and large.

Besides this central office and the Catholic groups throughout the country making active protests to the local exhibitors, there should be some means of communication. It would save enormous expense in the mailing of a list of condemned pictures if this communication was made in the Catholic Press through the N.C.W.C. Using the Catholic Press as a medium, αnd with the cooperation of the Churches, it could be known throughout the nation within a week.

A representative body of men, selected by the local pastor, should be appointed in each district. It would be their duty in the first place, to approach the local exhibitor with their pastor to make a formal protest against unclean motion pictures. They would give the exhibitor a list of pictures which they do not wish to have exhibited at that theatre. They would watch the program of the theatre, αnd that failing, the picture should be condemned from the pulpit in all surrounding parishes.¹⁸

Cantwell’s views were subsequently released to the public in the pages of the American Ecclesiastical Review. ¹⁹ Noting that “American producers of motion pictures produce each year more than eighty-four percent of^[p.512]the world’s product,” the bishop observed that Hollywood’s films were so well done “from a technical, mechanical and dramatic standpoint,” that there was very little effective competition even in those foreign countries opposed to the “exhibition of American-made motion picures on the grounds that these were subversive of decency and public morality.” Many films had taken “to preaching a philosophy of life” and were openly concerned with such social problems as “morals, divorce, free love, race suicide, unborn children, sexual relationship outside marriage,” with little or no compensating restraint.

The initial meeting of the Episcopal Committee on Motion Pictures convened, on June 11, 1934, at Cincinnati.²⁰ Chief among its objectives was the formation of an agency to enforce the already existing Motion Picture Production Code among Catholics. It was decided to establish the Legion of Decency to act as a clearing house for subsequent activities of the Committee, whose central purpose, according to Archbishop Mclicholas, was “to arouse millions of Americans to a consciousness of the dangers of salacious and immoral pictures and to take action against them.”²¹

Within a few months after the Legion’s inception, the episcopal chairman reported that it was very heartening to realize that an awakening was taking place: “From all sections of the country, from all groups—Protestant, Jew, and those affiliated with no organized religion, and from countless Catholics—comes the word that the movement against the immoral cinema was too long delayed.”²²

The Committee recommended that the functions of the Legion in the various dioceses would depend on local conditions and would vary according to the needs of individual bishops. Mclicholas felt that the national group, as a permanent body, would be able to “maintain an intelligent interest in the cinema, to encourage and to elicit candid criticism, and to make the people more discriminating in their tastes.”²³ A pledge of support was recommended for Catholics joining the Legion αnd the next year the initial format was revised αnd shortened to the one familiar today.

Among the boldest attacks leveled against the industry was that of the Bishop of Monterey-Fresno who, at the suggestion of Bishop Cantwell, released a letter to the theatre managers in his diocese:^[p.513]This letter is to inform you that we are undertaking a campaign against indecent shows, which are corrupting particularly the youth of our country.

In waging this campaign against indecent shows we want you, as manager of a local theatre, to know that the campaign is not against you. We know that many managers of our theatres are just as anxious as any of us to eliminate indecent shows, but that your hands have been tied by blind booking and other practices on the part of film producers.

To prove to you that we shall gladly support you, in your business, we here wish make the offer to mention, after Easter, free of charge, in our diocesan paper, the Central Califon nia Register, published in Fresno, all shows that you will guarantee are wholesome. We believe in supporting clean shows as much as we condemn bad ones. Obviously though, the whole performance must be clean, not just part of it.²⁴

This type of action produced desirable effects and Cantwell observed that upon its receipt at Warner Brothers in Hollywood, the company “called together their producers, and told them in a very expressive language that a change had to be made in the production of pictures.”2 5

Bishop Cantwell also drafted a communique to the nation’s prelates outlining the Episcopal Committee’s program and reporting the favorable reception of Bishop Scher’s campaign in Monterey-Fresno. After describing the method used so effectively, Cantwell went on to tell the country’s ordinaries that he felt that “we have with us the support of all right-thinking people in the United States. Heads of large institutions αnd Parent-Teacher Associations are anxious to follow the leadership of the Catholic Bishops.”²⁶ From around the nation, prelates reported the results of the campaigns in their various jurisdictions to BishopCantwell who in turn, forwarded the data to the Episcopal Chairman in Cincinnati.

In a statement released, on June 21, 1934, the committee expressed the hope that “...the production code, if given adequate enforcement, will materially and constructively influence the character of screen entertainment.”²⁷

For his own Diocese of Los Angeles-San Diego, Bishop Cantwell designated October 7, 1934, as the day for gathering the pledges in support of the Legion of Decency. In a letter to his priests,²⁸ Bishop Cantwell pointed out that the wholehearted cooperation of all was needed. Parish societies αnd school children were asked to take an active part in the^[p.514]movement to have all parishioners sign the pledges.

Cards signed by members were counted and promised to “bring Los Angeles well to the fore in the national roll of cities enlisted in the Catholic crusade against offending motion pictures.”²⁹ In addition to the specified day for promoting Legion membership, talks were given to various Catholic and non-Catholic groups within the diocese and, in some areas, a house-to-house canvass helped to boost the cause.

By the end of 1934, the Episcopal Committee could announce that many theatres were reporting a curtailment of patronage directly traceable to Catholic boycotting of objectionable films. Raymond Moley was to say two decades later that “the Catholic Church has had a vital part in the 35 years revolution which transformed a rowdy and tasteless film world into an orderly, self-regulated industry.”³⁰ The columnist, Hedda Hopper, commented that the Legion “saved our industry” and even Jimmy Fidler doffed his “bonnet to the Legion of Decency” stating that “not Only has it imposed an effective check on salacious pictures, it has also done much to raise the artistic level of all films.”^{3 1
A New York film critic observed that “the Legion of Decency has exerted a
profound influence upon the activities of the film city, and it has performed a
service to the filmgoers everywhere by crippling the manufacture of feebleminded
delicatessen.”32} All things considered, the campaign was “one of the most spontaneous cooperative movements among those of various faiths in the history of this country.”³³

Originally no rating agency had been provided for the Legion and many authorities favored this “for the simple reason that approbation would have to be given...on the authority of others.”³⁴ From the industry’s point of view, motion picture executives were hoping that “eventually only a list of approved pictures will be officially adopted by the Church”³⁵ and this attitude was no less prevalent in such heavily Catholic areas as Brooklyn where Bishop Thomas E. Molloy felt that citing indecent films would merely give those pictures needless publicity. Bishop Cantwell’s spokesman, Father John J. Devlin, Executive Secretary of the Legion of Decency in Los Angeles, felt, however, from the outset, that “if the Legion is to act as a medium of information on pictures it should set up a central committee of previewers and endorse its decisions.”³⁶

Since 1922, the International Federation of Catholic Alumnae had published reviews of recommended motion pictures. The Detroit Council of Catholic Organizations was issuing periodic lists of objectionable films,^[p.515]while the Legion of Decency unit in Chicago began putting out a more comprehensive classification. Within a short while, the nation’s Catholic press found considerable sources from which to draw.³⁷ For its part, the Motion Picture Industry was not slow to point out the discrepancies between the various agencies noting “quot homm es, tot sententine!”

Bishop Cantwell favored adopting the classification system used by the International Federation of Catholic Alumnae. He felt that the graduates of our schools, “whο are anxious to review pictures.., could be encour-agcd in their work” on an official basis. The bishop further pointed out that of the 1,200 pictures reviewed by the Chicago board, only eight merited their approval. “I don’t think Chicago is such a model of good conduct that it can set itself up as a great censor of evil things.”³⁸ Taking cognizance of the reluctance exhibited by certain Catholic newspapers, among them the Brooklyn Tablet, to accept the Chicago listings, Cantwell agreed that their “lists are out of date when they reach New York, and consequently an up-to-date paper suffers in its policy when it publishes news that is entirely belated.”³⁹

Cantwell’s views were vindicated when Patrick Cardinal Hayes announced that, after February 6, 1936, the classified lists issued by the International Federation of Catholic Alumnae would be adopted by the National Legion of Decency. The recommendations were to be prepared and circulated by the New Υοrk archdiocesan council, under the chairmanship of former Governor Alfred E. Smith.⁴⁰ Almost from the very beginning, Cantwell thought the offices of the Legion should be established in New Υοrk, because “our great influence against the moving pictures can be exercised in great Catholic centers,”⁴¹ a position subsequently adopted by Cardinal Hayes whο invited the Legion of Decency to organize its headquarters in his archdiocese early the next year.

As noted in surveys by Father John J. Devlin, Protestant enthusiasm for the Legion’s activities was noticeably curtailed by the the issuance, on July 29, 1936, of Pius XI’s Vigilanti Curti to the hierarchy of the United States. Protestant leaders in many areas viewed the encyclical letter as an effort on the part of the Holy Father to “dominate and control motion picture work throughout the world.”⁴² Despite these forebodings the encyclical was fairly well received in Hollywood where it was regarded by most impartial observers as a sound and thoroughly logical document. The New York Times reported that Will H. Hays considered the papal letter “an endorsement by implication of the industry’s own censorship plan under the Production Code Administration in charge of Joseph I. Breen.”⁴³

The Bishop of Los Angeles-San Diego had no illusions about the^[p.516]problems facing the Legion of Decency and was quick to realize that “the task before the Church in striving to improve the productions of Hollywood is a difficult one.”⁴⁴ He labored, nonetheless, with one thought in mind that “the only way of damming this sewer that is coming out of Hollywood is through the box office.”⁴⁵ Even when Bishop John loll of Fort Wayne pointed out that in many sections of the country, the Catholic voice would be “crying in the wilderness,” Cantwell never slowed his pace fοr he knew that in the large cities, where three-fourths of the nation’s Catholics lived, the voice of the Church was still a force to be reckoned with.⁴⁶ Cantwell’s concerns fοr the bad effect certain movies were having on the public was shared by the country’s moralists as has been repeatedly shown in theological studies of the problem. One survey demonstrated that “since the motion picture is a mass medium of entertainment and since the possibility of having a selected audience is decide-ly limited, it is clear that even a small amount of objectionableness can do great harm.”⁴⁷

While the part played by John J. Cantwell in the formative years of the Legion of Decency has yet to be definitively investigated, it is abundantly clear that the role of the Bishop of Los Angeles-San Diego has too long been minimized, if not ignored altogether. Perhaps the bishop himself is responsible for this oversight, anxious as he was to have the Legion in New York where it would be “not overly accessible” to the Hollywood moguls. Only as time blends all things into proper perspective does it become feasible to evaluate Cantwell’s contribution to this first nationwide attempt by the Church to discipline, according to Catholic moral standards, an industry dealing with all Americans, an industry at once the richest, most influential and most tightly coordinated of all pressure groups in the United States.

*This chapter is a revision of an article by the author entitled “John J. Cantwell
and the Legion of Decency” which appeared in the Anaericn^*[p.7]*n Ecclesiastical
Review CLI (October, ^{*[p.196]**[p.4]*}), ^*[p.237]*-^*[p.247]*.

¹Αrchives of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles (hereafter referred to as AALA),
Bernard J. Dolan to Joseph P. Dineen, Si., Los Angeles, April ^*[p.21]*, ^{*[p.192]**[p.3]*}.
²Richard Ginder, With Ink and Crozier (Fort Wayne, ^{*[p.195]**[p.0]*}), p. ^*[p.244]*.

³Gerard B. Donnelly, “Catholic Standards fοr Motion Pictures,” Αnterica LI (August, 1934), 444.

⁴1ay 24, 1921.^[p.517]⁵ÁÁLA, John J. Cantwell to William J. Kerby, Los Angeles, December 16, 1933.

¹⁸ÁÁLÁ, John J. Cantwell to John T. IcNicholas, O.P., Los Angeles, December

²QÂeside the four members of the Committee, the Auxiliary Bishop of Cincinnati,

22 ¹ La Cinema dans l’Enseignement de l’Église (Vatican City, 1955), p. 250.

²2⁵ÁÁLÁ, John J. Cantwell to John T. McNicholas, O.P., Los Angeles, March 1,

²⁸ÁÁLÁ, John J. Cantwell to Diocesan Clergy, Los Angeles, September 28, 1934.

³¹Quïted in Gerald Kelly, S.J., and John C. Ford, S.J., “The Legion of Decency,”

³⁷The Archdiocese of Philadelphia avoided the problem altogether by completely

³⁹ÁÁLÁ, John J. Cantwell to John T. McNicholas, O.P., Los Angeles, February

⁴¹ÁÁLÁ, John J. Cantwell to John T. McNicholas, O.P., Los Ángeles, April 21,

⁴⁴ÁÁLÁ, John J. Cantwell to Edmund F. Gibbons, Los Angeles, March 9, 1934.

⁴⁶See “Can Catholics Really Reform the Movies?” American Ecclesiastical Review

Adding to the already oppressive burden of maintaining and expanding the Catholic educational system in Southern California was the taxation imposed on the state’s private and parochial schools. During the thirty years of his incumbency, Bishop Cantwell cooperated in several abortive attempts to have the tax on these primary and secondary institutions repealed.

In 1913, the California Legislature had passed a constitutional amendment to exempt schools of collegiate grade from taxation,¹ a measure approved by the voters at a statewide election, on November 3, 1914. Nine years later, the Supreme Court of the State of California ruled that a school could only benefit from the 1914 legislation if it was exclusively a collegiate institution. The obvious effect of this decision was to bar any school beneath collegiate status from participating in the tax exemption

Early in 1925, Congressman Frank L. Eksward introduced in the lower house of the State Legislature, Assembly Bill 27² which proposed to amend the constitution in such a way as to allow certain private secondary schools to share exemption. The amendment was designed to remove from the tax rolls “any educational institution not conducted for profit and accredited to the University of California.”³ After “a short but torrid debate,”`t highlighted by “the Klan forces who worked strenuously on the quiet,” the amendment passed the Assembly by the handsome majority of 57 to 17. It was then sent on to the upper house where, according to Bishop John J. Cantwell’s agent at the state capital, “the Klan is already at work.”

That the legislation passed the senate, on April 22, 1925,⁵ was unex- ^[p.520]pected “for several legislators, who were personally in favor of the bill...had expressed doubt as to the wisdom of trying to secure its pas-sage.”⁶ After being approved by both houses and signed into law by the governor, the measure was submitted to the electorate as Amendment Number 11. Since anti-Catholic bigotry in California was slowly on the increase, the state’s hierarchy decided to “keep the Catholic papers off’⁷ and thus avoid having the amendment labelled as a strictly Catholic endeavor.

Opposition was widespread. One group told its followers that a positive vote was analogous to bringing on “the French Revolution and many other national αnd international convulsions that have drenched the earth in human blood.”⁸ The Southern California Educational Association opposed the amendment αnd contended that “a slight change in the curriculum of about forty other secondary parochial schools would enable them to take advantage of the proposed tax exemption.”⁹

There was little if any public editorial endorsement of the Catholic cause. The Tidings observed that “not one newspaper in the city had a good word. to say for number eleven. Only one, the Daily News, published any statement of the case for the bill.” All others without exception, urged their readers to vote against it.”¹⁰ With so little independent support, the Catholics of California were hardly surprised when the measure went down to a resounding defeat at the polls on November 2, 1926. Bishop Cantwell characterized the campaign in these words:

Our last attempt was a failure largely because the exemption of high schools from taxation had not the general appeal to the Catholic public as would an appeal from the exemption of grammar schools, thus the parish priests would be personally interested.¹¹

The nomination of Alfred Smith for the presidency, in 1928, made efforts to revive the campaign inopportune and it wasn’t until early 1933, that formal legislation was again proposed to relieve non-profit private schools of the tax burden. A consitutional amendement was introduced in the State Assembly, on January 24, by Congressman Charles Dempster.¹² The bill met no opposition in the lower house αnd encountered only two negative votes in the senate. The legislation provided that

Any private educational institution of less than collegiate grade, within the State of California, not conducted for profit, shall hold exempt from taxation its building and equipment, its grounds within which its build- ^[p.521]ings are located, not exceeding ten acres in area, its securities and income used exclusively for the purposes of education.¹³

As can be seen the legislation was far more encompassing than earlier measures, including as it did elementary as well as secondary schools. Bishop Cantwell was optimistic about the 1933 bill and felt that “the campaign will be a wholesome tonic to unite all our people, and will be for the country at large a practical example of Catholic Action.” The prelate went on to say that “the only thing that can defeat us will be our own indifference.”¹⁴ Cantwell expressed his appreciation to Congressman Dempster for his “kindly good statesmanlike action” in proposing the amendment and hailed the legislator as a “leader of a very large portion of a population burdened by economic discrimination.”¹⁵

With the governor’s approval, the proposed amendment was placed on the ballot as Proposition Number 4 and scheduled for the election of June, 1933. Supporters of the amendment were well organized and early in the campaign enlisted the endorsement of the governor and other state and local officials. Editorial approval was also obtained and it was the state’s press¹⁶ that pointed out the inequity of taxing the 468 nonprofit schools, inasmuch as they removed from the public expense 19,564 high school students and 55,346 elementary pupils.¹⁷ The Los Angeles Times further noted that

No other state taxes private non-profit schools and we believe that California should not. Certainly the taxpayers who are now relieved of the cost of educating 100,000 children will vote yes on No. 4 if they let their pocketbooks decide. Others will vote yes as a manner of justice. ¹⁸

A considerable number of fraternal and civic organizations supported the measure, although the proportion of Protestant leaders favoring the bill was never large. Opposition to the amendment masqueraded behind the facade of the California Taxpayers Alliance. Their arguments were much the same as those voiced in 1926, with the added threat now of “countless privately owned schools “springing up exempt from taxation by concealing profits.

Although the amendment went down to defeat on a statewide level, an analysis of the electoral vote showed that Los Angeles County, with 44% of the total qualified voters, stood head and shoulders above all the rest, in the result of its efforts to free private non-profit schools from taxa-tion.”¹⁹ Political experts attributed the defeat to the depression and pointed out the difficulty of winning tax exemptions from the populace during hard times.²⁰ Bishop Cantwell thought otherwise though and^[p.522]voiced his views that “we were beaten by a skillful appeal to prejudice backed up by glittering half truths.”²¹ His opinion was shared by therOe commentator in San Francisco had no hesitation in stating that defeat was due to “an un-American extension of religious prejudice into the field of public affairs.”²² In any event, the favorable showing of the Church in Southern California plainly indicated that “if there is any hope at all for the future relief of our schools, its nucleus is here.”²³

During the Cantwell years, the editorial policy of The Tidings consistently opposed the overall program of Federal Aid to education. The Hoke-Smith Bill of 1919, for example, was termed “a mischievous meddling on the part of the government.”²⁴ While Bishop John J. Cantwell felt that “the centralization of authority in the matter of education is very dangerous,” he probably would have endorsed a mitigated degree of Federal control had the government been willing to include denominational schools in the legislation. This was not a likely conjecture though and Cantwell, along with others, realized that “public opinion will never grant moneys to our schools, even if these moneys are only for attainments in secular knowledge.”²⁵

Soon after Cantwell’s appointment to the southland jurisdiction, the young Irish-born prelate received some sage advice from an old and respected friend, Father Peter C. Yorke of San Francisco. The legendary “priest of the workingman” advised Cantwell:

Don’t start out by building a cathedral, Bishop...get the little ones to love Christ... concentrate on Christian education of the youth and you will be a great success in the eyes of the Lord.²⁶

The admonition was well given and better received. In his first pastoral letter, the new Bishop of Monterey-Los Angeles called on his clergy to assist in putting every Catholic child in a parochial school, noting that “the hope of a Christian future, the preservation of faith, the welfare of families, the prosperity of nations and the Christian character of our civilization depend upon the Christian education of our children.” In Cantwell’s opinion, the Catholic school is an essential part of a parish. After the Church, it is the most important place because it is the conservator of faith and morals, the training ground of future champions of religion and morality.²⁷ Si dedicated was the bishop to the ideal of a parochial school in every parish that it was later remarked that he favored the building of schools over permanent churches.

It was his objective of placing “Catholic education within easy reach,” that prompted Cantwell to establish a diocesan Board of Education, in 1918. Over the subsequent fifteen year period, the loosely connected net- ^[p.523]

^*[p.524] work of academies, elementary and high schools of the far flung jurisdiction were gradually molded into an integrated school system of considerable proportions. The bishop used every means to improve the quality of diocesan education and endorsed plans to set up a national standard system for private schools, feeling as he did that “there is nothing that would be of greater benefit to the cause of education than general supervision of education by Federal authorities.” The prelate pointed out that “just as inspection has improved the standard of our orphan asylums and clerical institutions, so would such inspection by civil authorities be a help to our schools.” The bishop also encouraged his teachers to work for Normal School Certificates, recalling that the accrediting of Catholic schools to the universities had given them a prestige which is of considerable merit, and a guarantee to the parents that the schools are all that was claimed for them.²⁸ Along these lines, Cantwell anticipated by some years the Sister Formation Program by organizing, as early as 1924, a Diocesan Teachers Insitute, an idea that had spread to the national level by 1937.²⁹ In 1925, an elaborate series of summer sessions was made available to the religious of the diocese.

In 1922, Cantwell inaugurated a modified form of the “central high school idea”³⁰ used by Bishop Philip McDevitt a decade earlier for girls in Philadelphia. Patterned on this plan, Cantwell opened Bishop Conaty Memorial High School where young ladles were accepted from all over the city on a competitive basis. Α few years later, a similar institution was provided for boys at the newly-founded Cathedral High School. The bishop’s policy was spelled out in an address he made at the latter institution’s dedication:^[p.525] ... I want every high school boy in our diocese to feel that school is not for the rich, not fοr the poor nor fοr any other class in particular, rather it is a place fοr all boys to be educated, to be trained fοr true citizenship.³

Despite the relative smallness of its Catholic populace, Los Angeles has been well provided with colleges. Loyola University (and its predecessor, Saint Vincent’s College) had grown up with the city. Cantwell’s episcopate witnessed the addition of three more colleges, all to care for women and each welcomed by the bishop who reasoned that “not only elementary and high schools, but also colleges and universities where young men and women would receive complete and finished scholarship” are a necessary part of the Catholic intellectual climate.³²

Educational facilities under Catholic auspices were made accessible to the handicapped, children of broken homes, orphans, delinquents as well as others, and it could never be said that any Catholic in Los Angeles went without religious instruction who really wanted it.

From his earliest days in the ministry, Cantwell had been a great proponent of the apostolate to secular colleges and universities. He himself had been responsible fοr starting the Newman Club movement at Berkeley’s University of California, in 1899, and throughout his years in the southland, he lent a kindly ear to the needs of this worthy phase of Catholic education, observing that “...while foremost in my mind is the intention to urge at all times the attendance of Catholic young people at Catholic colleges, I cannot be unmindful of those who are actually attending non-Catholic institutions.”³³ Branches of the Newman Club were set up at the University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles City College, Pasadena Junior College, California Institute of Technology and at junior colleges in Ventura, Anaheim and Fullerton.

Religious vacation schools were inaugurated by the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine on a provisional basis in 1928, and, the next year, extended to the entire diocese. The program grew so rapidly and with such gratifying results that, in 1942, it was recorded that

...notwithstanding the rapid and widespread development of religious vacation schools throughout the United States, the Los Angeles Confraternity still holds first place in members as «‘ell as contributions to the extension of the program.³⁴

The three colleges, thirty-four secondary and seventy-two primary^[p.526]schools inaugurated during Cantwell’s episcopate in an area twice reduced in its geographical extension, to say nothing of the new facilities provided fοr already existing institutions, are a measure of the concern exhibited by the Irish-born prelate for the furtherance of Catholic educational opportunities. Feverish though the efforts were to keep pace with local needs, as new schools appeared, “the construction and equipment along with the beauty of the architecture of the buildings kept pace with new designs and modern development.” ³⁵

Although California’s first seminary dates from 1842, there had been no long-term successful attempt to organize an institution fοr training priests in the southland.³⁶ The few native vocations received³⁷ their education at various seminaries scattered around the world, and Bishop Cantwell soon realized that “the long distance from San Francisco may make it necessary to have a diocesan Seminary in the south.”³⁸

As early as 1922, Cantwell confided to a friend his hopes “to be able to open here a Preparatory Seminary to prepare our native children for the Priesthood.”³⁹ In 1924, he made public plans for a local seminary and asked the people in the Diocese of Los- Angeles-San Diego to pray for the realization of that exigency during the annual pre-Pentecost nove-na.⁴⁰ The bishop pointed out that such an institution, an absolute necessity, could be brought about only with the unqualified support of an already financially overburdened Catholic populace.⁴¹

In January of 1926, Cantwell issued a pastoral letter on the proposed preparatory seminary in which he noted that “although the soil is adapted to foster the growth of the old Faith, and although the harvest is plentiful, the children of the soil are not forthcoming to meet the demand for laborers.” The prelate reminded his people that Los Angeles-San Diego “is no longer an infant diocese, looking fοr help outside. It is self-supporting materially, and it should be self-supporting spiritually.” The dearth of vocations was obviously attributable to the absence of a seminary inasmuch as it was necessary fοr boys to leave home at an early age, something unattractive to both prospective candidates αnd their par-ents.⁴² On the national level, it was recognized that vocations could best be fostered and developed through a diocesan seminary αnd it was as true in California as anywhere else that the future greatness of the Church depended on establishment of a local institution to train priests.

In his pastoral letter, Bishop Cantwell concluded that “the time has now arrived when, in obedience to the wishes of the Holy Father, αnd in^[p.527]duty to ourselves and posterity, it becomes necessary to raise funds fοr the immediate erection of a seminary.” That such an undertaking would involve tremendous sacrifices was obvious to the bishop who admitted that the program “will require the laying aside for a while of special parochial activities, and a concentration of our whole energy on the broader field of diocesan advancement.”⁴³

Plans were made for gathering at the huge Olympic Auditorium all the lay αnd religious leaders in the diocese to spearhead the drive. Archbishop Edward J. Hanna came down from San Francisco to address the largest meeting of Catholics ever held in the southland’s history. Edward Laurence Doheny launched the drive fοr funds with a contribution of $100,000 and, as General Chairman of the Junior Seminary campaign, the generous oil tycoon personally authored a number of letters to prominent Los Angeles civil leaders, feeling as he did that “there are many among our wealthy fellow citizens who are ever ready to assist any cause which brings to our country αnd our fellow citizens a contribution fοr betterment.”⁴⁴ Meanwhile, Bishop Cantwell expressed public gratitude to the “generous citizen who had donated the site for the seminary in Hancock Park and thus encouraged us to undertake this great work. “45

During the intensive three-month campaign, pastors changed pulpits αnd both clerical and lay speakers were provided to address various groups throughout the diocese. The Right Reverend William E. Corr directed the first door-to-door campaign conducted in the jurisdiction. By all standards, the drive was a tremendous success and demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt the grass-roots support for the bishop of a native clergy. Pledges amounting to $1,706,116.84, or 70% beyond expectations, were subsequently announced by Bishop Cantwell.

So enthusiastic was the bishop about the new seminary that he was not content with waiting fοr completion of the new facilities. A building on 21st Street, West of Grand Avenue,⁴⁶ formerly used to house the Academy of the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Carondelet, was remodeled and made available fοr those students presenting themselves at Saint Vibiana’s Cathedral, on June 12, 1926, for the initial entrance examination. Seventy young seminarians began the fall term on September 7, 1926, under the direction of the Congregation of the Mission to whom Bishop Cantwell had entrusted the seminary.

Early in 1927, the new building at 241 South Detroit Street was ready fοr occupancy αnd March 27 was chosen as the date for the formal dedication. Known as Los Angeles College,⁴⁷ the institution became a land- ^[p.528]mark until 1954, when the preparatory seminary was enlarged and moved to its present location adjacent to Mission San Fernando. A prominent Los Angeles attorney, and a member of the Board of Trustees noted on the occasion of the dedication that

...the Opening of the seminary commences a new era of instruction and religious advancement, the importance of which can scarcely be overestimated...To start from a seminary in vision only, and in less than sixteen months thereafter to produce a site, a great seminary building, furnished and equipped, an ample endowment fund, a school faculty, and sixty-five students, with everything in perfect functioning order, is a feat probably unparalleled in the history of such enterprises...⁴⁸

Bishop Cantwell had good reason to observe that, “never before was an appeal made in this diocese that met with so ready and so uncomplaining a response...”⁴g

Οn the very day Los Angeles College was dedicated, the bishop hinted that “the building of The Major Seminary cannot be long delayed”⁵⁰ and went on to publicly acknowledge the gift of a hundred acres of land to the diocese by Juan Camarillo near the town bearing his family name, for the specific use of a major seminary.⁵¹ It was the donor’s intention that the new institution, to be named San juan after his patron saint, would occupy the knoll formally dividing the two historic ranchos of Calleguas and Las Posas. Conditions placed upon the donation were that the work begin within one year and that the seminary be in operation within five years.

Theoretical planning for the major seminary was considerably delayed because of the economic stress of the depression years which stretched over the better part of a decade. Οn September 29, 1936, in a circular letter to the clergy of the newly-formed Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the Vicar General, Monsignor John J. Cawley, recalled that “one of the obligations of the Archbishop is to provide a new Senior Seminary for the education of young men for the priesthood.”⁵² Not long after, Cantwell himself put forth to his people the reasons why a seminary was necessary and what plans had been formulated. Cantwell noted that the preparatory seminary had noticeably increased the number of native vocations and he looked foward to the day when the “Archdiocese will be practically self-sustaining in a spiritual and religious way as it already is in things^[p.529]material.” The archbishop further pointed out that the creation of a new ecclesiastical province in Southern California was an “implied command” to erect worthy institutions which would take their place along with those of the other provinces throughout the nation. “What better monument to record the creation of the Archbishopric of Los Angeles than the erection of a Major Seminary—a School of Philosophy and Theology that would bring to completion the work begun when the Junior Seminary was founded?” “After long deliberation and prayer, after mature counsel,” the archbishop had decided to erect such an institution, a decision he based on the solid principle that “the needs of the archdiocese as an organic unit cannot be ignored by those who have the spirit of the universal Christ within them.”⁵³

In an address to the Knights of Columbus, Archbishop Cantwell keynoted the campaign by saying that

Now we begin the greatest work for the permanency of religious life that has been attempted by our Church in California. We shall pass may, but the Seminary will remain—a nursery for Saints and a training ground for future Apostles. It will be our legacy to our children.⁵⁴

The campaign to raise $1,500,000, started on February 11, 1938, was indeed the most significant work that had ever been undertaken to consolidate the apostolic labors of more than a century and a half of work by the clergy in California.⁵⁵ In addition to a series of scheduled radio talks, oratorical contests were conducted, posters drawn and prizes given to the thirty thousand school children in 160 parochial and high schools actively engaged in the campaign. A force of 800 workers canvassed the 185 parishes of the archdiocese. An impressive feature of the final week was a radio address, on February 11, 1938, in which Cantwell stressed the urgent necessity fora native California priesthood that understands the people and the problems of this community. He forcibly appealed for support of the projected educational institution not only by members of the Catholic faith, but also by “my friends who have an understanding of our needs and an appreciation of spiritual values.”⁵⁶

By the time the campaign drew to a close, on March 20, 1938, The Tidings reported that 75% of the goal had been subscribed. On the following May 10, Monsignor John J. Cawley officiated at ground-breaking ceremonies at Camarillo and from that time onwards, weekly reports of the seminary’s progress were carried in the archdiocesan newspαper.⁵⁵

The major part of the construction was finished by the first part of the next year and, early in March, Archbishop Cantwell invited all the people^[p.530]

^*[p.531] in the archdiocese to attend the cornerstone ceremonies scheduled for the 19th, feeling that their visit to the Seminary would result in continued interest in this project.⁵⁸ Over two hundred members of the clergy were present on the Feast of Saint Joseph to hear the Honorable Joseph Scott address the gathering on behalf of the archdiocesan laity and the Very Reverend Marshall Winne, C.M., for the archbishop. The first scholastic year commenced, on September 12, 1939, when sixty-seven students presented themselves at the still uncompleted seminaιy.⁵⁹ Formal dedication ceremonies for the seminary and the magnificent memorial library erected in honor of her late husband by Carrie Estelle Doheny, scheduled for October 14, 1940, were attended by fifty members of the American hierarchy, including Archbishop Amleto Giovanni Cicognani, the Apostolic Delegate. Archbishop Luis Maria Martinez of Mexico City celebrated the Pontifical Mass for the festive occasion.⁶⁰

Realization of a complete seminary system, the hopes and prayer of all Cantwell’s predecessors, was, without any doubt, the most important act of the archbishop’s thirty-year episcopate and the capstone of his many educational accomplishments.

The initial manifestations of Cantwell’s failing health date back to 1941, when Auxiliary Bishop Joseph T. McGucken noted that “this was the first occasion in the years I have been with him, that he has been ill at all, and he realizes it is necessary for him to relax a bit in his tremendous activities.”⁶I Never one to tolerate illness, in himself or in others, Cantwell worked on through the hectic war years at his usual energetic pace. Early in 1946, he confided to his sister that he had “met with a little accident this week that kept me in bed for a week, and still has me under the weather. It seems I fell at the Ambassador Hotel, and cut my shin bone...”⁶² That “little accident,” probably occasioned by a minor stroke, brought on further complications and later that year one of Cantwell’s close friends was advised that the archbishop “has not been too well. These past three weeks he has been in bed but, thank God, he seems to be improving wonderfully and is beginning to think about getting up. His varicose veins became inflamed and phlebitis set in one leg but the swelling is now going away and with it the danger of a blood clot in his system.”⁶³

The archbishop recovered sufficiently for a three month vacation in Ireland the following spring with his sister. IIis memory began to fail noticeably, however, and after his return to Los Angeles, the prelate required almost constant medical care. His condition deteriorated so rapidly that Bishop McGucken was summoned home from Buenos Aires^[p.532]

^*[p.533] where he had been representing the American hierarchy at Latin America’s Marian Congress.G⁴ On October 27, 1947, McGucken notified the Apostolic Delegate “that His Excellency, the Most Reverend Archbishop, is seriously ill. About ten days ago he went to bed with a throat infection. Since then a toxic condition has developed which makes his condition quite dangerous. The doctors have been battling to prevent pneumonia.. ^“65 At the prelate’s side when the end came, on October 30, 1947, was his sister and long-time companion, Nelly Cantwell.

The sentiments of regret voiced throughout the western part of the nation were capsulized editorially by one local newspaper which stated that “in the development of Southern California no career in public life was better marked with works of importance and benefit towards our society as a whole than that of Jοhn J. Cantwell.”⁶⁶

³0nßy two schools in the southland jurisdiction qualified, viz., Catholic Girls

⁴Árchiíes of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles (hereafter referred to as AALA),

⁸The California Public School Defense Association, Circular for October, 1926.

¹²Dempster was fulfilling a pledge made at the time he was recall candidate for

¹⁵ÁÁLÁ, Jïhn J. Cantwell to Charles W. Dempster, Los Angeles, May 16, 1933.

¹ The Tidings, July 7, 1933.^[^p.534]
20E.L. Duffy, the man who spearheaded the entire measure attributed much of the blame for the defeat to the inertia of the Archbishop of San Francisco. See AALA, E.L. Duffy to Jïhn J. Cantwell, Los Angeles, n.d.

²⁵ÁÁLÁ, John J. Cantwell to Pete^- J. Muldoon, Los Ángeles, June 23, 1919. ²⁶Quoted in Sister Mary Patricita O’Donnell, Â.V.M., “The Effect of John J.

²⁷Pastïral to the Clergy and Laity of the Diocese of Monterey-Los Angeles (Los Angeles, 1918), n.p.

²⁸ÁÁLÁ, Jïhn J. Cantwell to Peter J. Muldoon, Los Angeles, June 23, 1919. ²⁹Such a program had functioned in the early years of Bishop Thomas J. Conaty’s episcopate but was discontinued sometime prior to 1915.

³⁰See Roy J. Defarrari, Essays on Catholic Education in the United States (Washington, 1942), ì. 124.

³⁴Ådwin V. O’Hara in Roy J. Defarrari, “Catholic Education and the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine,” Essays on Catholic Education in the United States (Washington, 1942), ì. 458.

³⁶For a thorough treatment of seminary history in California, See Finbar Kenneally, O.F.M., The Catholic Seminaries of California As Educational Institutions, 1840-1950 (Toronto, 1956).

³⁷0f the 267 secular priests in the diocese, only eleven were locally born. ³⁸ÁÁLÁ, Jïhn J. Cantwell to James Cantwell, Los Ángeles, lay 21, 1924. ³⁹ÁÁLÁ, John J. Cantwell to John J. O’Connor, Los Angeles, June 1, 1922. See

also Jïhn J. Cantwell to Janes Ryan, Los Angeles, September 30, 1922. `t⁰ÁÁLÁ, John J. Cantwell to Laity, Circular Letter, Los Angeles, May 26, 1924. ` ¹ÁÁLÁ, Pastoral Lette7; Los Angeles, January 1, 1926.

⁴²Canrwell always preferred a “day school” seminary for the same reasons even though he was repeatedly told that “living at home is not in agreement with the Norms of the Holy See.” See AALA, Giuseppe Ñizzardo to John J. Cantwell, Rome, May 25, 1946.

⁴³”Pastoral Letter of the Right Reverend Bishop,” The Tidings, January 8, 1926. ⁴⁴ÁËLÁ, Edward L. Doheny to n.n., Los Angeles, March 1, 1926.

`t⁷The first student ordained from Los Ángeles College, Patrick J. McGoldrick, was raised to the priesthood in Rome, July 28, 1935.^[p.535]

⁵¹The proposal was made and accepted on March 3, 1927, at a meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Roman Catholic Junior Seminary.

⁵⁴ÁÁLÁ, “The Sermons and Addresses of the Most Reverend John Joseph Cantwell (1917-1947),” III, 151, February 6, 1938.

»Francis J. Weber, “An Historical Perspective,” Evangelist XIX (Autumn, 1956), p. 10.

⁵⁶ÁÁLÁ, “Radio Address on the Saint John Seminary Campaign Delivered by Archbishop John J. Cantwell over Station K{FWB on February 11, 1938,” p. 3.

S⁷Ás of January 31, 1941, $1,190,213.04 had been collected in the drive. See AALA, Martin J. McNicholas to John J. Cantwell, Los Angeles, February 25, 1941.

⁵⁸AALÁ, John J. Cantwell, Circular Letter, Los Angeles, March 9, 1939. ⁵⁹Francis J. Weber, Α Guide to Saint John’s Seminary (Los Angeles, 1966), _p. 15. ⁶ÐFïr a descriptive account, see John Moclair, Α Handbook of Saint John’s

Seminal); of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, Califoô éôiéé (Los Ángeles, 1942). 61ÁÁLÁ, Joseph T. McGucken to Joseph Byrne, Los Angeles, October 29, 1941. ⁶’--AÁLÁ, Jïhn J. Cantwell to Mother Regis, Los Angeles, February 25, 1946. 63ÁÁLÁ, Joseph T. McGucken to Joseph Byrne, Los Ángeles, September 12,

⁶⁴A[-1LÁ, Joseph T McGucken to Dick Rhodes, Los Ángeles, October 30, 1947. ⁶⁵ÁëLÁ, Joseph T. McGucken to Amleto Giovanni Cicognani, Los Angeles, October 27, 1947.

Churches Dedicated in the Diocese of Monterey-Los Angeles (¹9⁰3^-19¹5) CHURCH PLACE DATE OFFICIANT
Saint Joseph	Los Angeles	May 3, 1903	Diomede Falconio
Saint John	Fresno	June 7, 1903	Geo. T. Montgomery
Saint Boniface	Anaheim	June 28, 1903	Thomas J Conaty
Sacred Heart	Los Angeles	June 12, 1904	Thomas J. Conaty
Our Lady of Peace	Compton	July 30, 1904	Thomas J. Conaty
Santa Clara	Oxnard	August 14, 1904	Thomas J. Conaty
Blessed Sacrament	Hollywood	October 23, 1904	Thomas J. Conaty
Saint Peter	Los Angeles	February 12, 1905	Thomas J. Conaty
Saint Thomas	Los Angeles	February 19, 1905	Thomas J. Conaty
Saint Martha	Martinez	March 2, 1905	Thomas J. Conaty
Statif the Sea	San Pedro	July 9, 1905	Thomas J. Conaty
Saint Joseph	Capitols	July 23, 1905	Thomas J. Conaty
Saint Clement	Ocean Park	August 20, 1905	Thomas J. Conaty
Santa Barbara	Randsberg	February 15, 1906	Thomas J. Conaty
Saint Anthony	Leanis Valley	July 7, 1906	Thomas J. Conaty
Saint Joseph	Pomona	July 22, 1906	Thomas J. Conaty
Immaculate Conception	Monrovia	August 12, 1906	Thomas J. Conaty
Saint Mary	Santa Maria	October 21, 1906	Thomas J. Conaty
Saint Anthony	Los Alamos	October 22, 1906	Thomas J. Conaty
Saint Victor	Sherman	December 5, 1906	Thomas J. Conaty
Holy Cross	Los Angeles	February 10, 1907	Thomas J. Conaty
Our Lady of Loreto	Los Angeles	November 17, 1907	Thomas J. Conaty
Saint Agnes	Las Angeles	November 26, 1907	Thomas J. Conaty
Our Lady of the Angels	San Diego	December 8, 1907	Thomas J. Conaty
Saint Joseph	Nipoma	January 23, 1908	Thomas J. Conaty
Saint Patrick	Los Angeles	March 25, 1908	Thomas J. Conaty
Saint Ann	Santa Monica	April 12, 1908	Thomas J. Conaty
Sacred Heart	Salinos	June 4, 1908	Thomas J. Conaty
Assumption	Capitan Grande	August 15, 1908	B. Florian Hahn
Holy Family	Glendale	September 20, 1908	Thomas J. Conaty
Divine Savior	Los Ángeles	November 8, 1908	Thomas J. Conaty
San Gorgonio	Beaumont	November 15, 1908	Thomas J. Conaty
Saint Joseph	Puente	November 22, 1908	Thomas J. Conaty
Star of the Sea	La Jolla	January 10, 1909	Thomas J. Conaty
Saint Mary	El Centro	January 31, 1909	Thomas J. Conaty
Sacred Heart	Brawley	January 31, 1909	Thomas J. Conaty
Saint Agnes	Roseville	March 14, 1909	Thomas J. Conaty
Our Lady of Guadalupe	Los Angeles	June 27, 1909	Patrick J. Harnett
Saint Anthony	Downey	September 26, 1909	P. J. McGrath
Holy Trinity	Burbank	November 21,1909	Thomas J. Conaty
Saint Michael	Manchester Heights	January 30, 1910	Thomas J. Conaty

SACERDOTAL NECROLOGY DIOCESE OF MONTEREY-LOS ANGELES 1895-1903
NAME	BIRTHDATÅ	BIRTHPLACE	ORDINATION	DEATH	PLACE
COIL, REV. KILLIAN		Spain	April 14, 1881	June, 1895	Mexico
VILA, REV. JAMES	1831	Spain	1855	Oct. 20, 1895	Santa Barbara
CONWAY, REV. JOHN	Sept. 20, 1844	Ireland	Sept. 21, 1867	Aug. 1, 1896	Los Angeles
GHELDOF, REV. JULIUS	March 27,1859	Belgium		Sept. 24, 1896	Tucson
O’GROWNEY,REN.EUGENE	Sept. 24, 1863	Ireland	June, 1889	Oct. 18, 1899	Los Angeles
REAGAN, REV. EDWARD			Aug. 24, 1893	April 12, 1900	Cleveland
DOYLE, REV. JOSEPH	1862	Newyork	Feb. 25, 1892	July 24, 1900	Panama
MAHONY, REV. MICHAEL	Sept. 12, 1842	Ireland	June 29, 1866	June 24, 1901	Castroville
LAUTH, REV. MICHAEL	1871	Germany		Sept. 16, 1901	Los Angeles
SASTRE, REV. PETER	1832	Spain	June 2, 1860	Nov. 27, 1901	Spain
BAERT, REV. HENRY	1842	Belgium		Aug. 25, 1902	San Diego
McNAMEE, REV. HUGH BOT, REV. JOACHIM	Feb. 3, 1840	Ireland	June 24, 1873	Oct. 3, 1902	Santa Cruz
McNAMEE, REV. HUGH BOT, REV. JOACHIM	1836	Spain	Dec. 12, 1862	July 14, 1903	Los Angeles
LYNCH, REV. MICHAEL	1848	Ireland	June 24, 1872	Aug. 11, 1903%	Arroyo Grande
O’BRIEN, REV. D. J.	1854	Ireland	June 24, 1879	Nov. 23, 1903	Los Angeles

(1)	Saint Vibiana’s Cathedral		Los Angeles	April 30, 1876
(2)	Santa Clara Church		Oxn a rd	May 5, 1918
(3)	Carmelite Convent Chapel		Alhambra	October 22, 1926
(4)	Santa Barbara Mission		Santa Barbara	December 3, 1927
	Church
(5)	Saint Vincent’s Church		Los Angeles	October 23, 1930
(6)	Our Lady of Mount		Montecito	October 1, 1938
	Carmel Church
(7)	Saint John’s Seminary		Camarillo	October 8, 1940
	Chapel
(0) Saint Cecilia’s Church (1) Saint Monica’s Church		Los Angeles lay *^[p.1],* ^{[p.194][p.3]} Santa ionica June ^[p.16], ^{[p.194][p.7]}

Institutions 1917 1947
Seminaries	0	5
Students	0	609
Colleges	2	4
Students	207	2,873
High Schools	1	35
Students	200	9,932
Elementary Schools	43	115
Students	6,959	42,877


DIOCESE OF MONTEREY-LOS ANGELES EPISCOPATE OF THOMAS JAMES CONATY (¹9⁰3^-19¹5)
	1903	1904	1905	1906	1907	1908	1909	1910	1911	1912	1913	1914	1915
Diocesan Priests	70	94	101	107	115	124	125	141	152	165	170	180	185
Religious Priests	31	42	46	48	53	61	63	68	61	64	62	80	_86
Churches with Pastors	47	62	74	78	83	87	93	99	107	110	120	127	127
Missions with Churches	43	61	48	44	52	58	65	78	71	78	78	78	78
Stations	31	26	32	32	42	35	43	61	61	61 37	61 37	61 37	61 32
Seminarians	11	9	‘ 20	21	28	30	33	37	37	61 37	61 37	61 37	61 32
Colleges and Academies for Boys	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	1	1	1	1	1	1
Colleges and Academies for Girls	19-	19	18	19	?	20	17	18	17	17	17	17	17
Parishes with Schools	19	24	24	26	28	30	28	31	31	31	38	40	43
Total Pupils Orphanages	4,500	5,478	5,370	6,230	7,252	8,966	7,508	7,542	7,598 6	10,349 8	10,989 8	11,039 8	10,545 8
Total Pupils Orphanages	6	6	8	7 1,030	7	8 1,458 4	8 1,037 5^-~	8 1,041 5	7,598 6	10,349 8	10,989 8	11,039 8	10,545 8
Orphans	1,020	980	1,200	7 1,030	1,367				1,045 6	1,267 - 7	1,275 ^----7^-	1,289 8	1,417 ^---8
Hospitals	2	2	2	2	2				1,045 6	1,267 - 7	1,275 ^----7^-	1,289 8	1,417 ^---8
Homes for the Aged	2	2	3	3		3 3 85,000	3 95,000	_ 3 95,000	3 100,000	3 103,000	3 110,000	3 139,480	3 178,168
Catholic Populatíor	58,000	70,000	70,000	75,000	80,000	3 3 85,000	3 95,000	_ 3 95,000	3 100,000	3 103,000	3 110,000	3 139,480	3 178,168
The Diocese of Monterey-Los Angeles, during the years of Bishop Thomas James Conaty’s incumbency, was a geographical area bounded by Arizona on the east, the Pacific Ocean on the west, Peninsular California on the south and on the north by the 37tí1 degree 5th minute north latitude and Mono County. lt embraced the portions of Μerced, Santa Clara and Santa Cruz Counties lying south of the 37th degree 5th minute north latitude as well as those of Fresno, lQyo, Kern, Los Angeles, Monterey, Orange, Riverside, San Benito, San Bernardino, Imperial, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Tulare, Ventura and San Diego.