Santa Fe's Seventh

Amarillo, Tex. is the cow & oil town which gained national notice when Gene Howe, crusty editor of its Globe-News, accused Colonel Lindbergh of snubbing it and called Mary Garden "tottering" (TIME, June n, 1928, April 1, 1929). Last week Amarillo was of interest to the U. S. Roman Catholic hierarchy. To it went scores of priests, monsignori and bishops, among them Most Rev. Amleto Giovanni Cicognani, new Apostolic Delegate to the U. S., and Most Rev. Leopoldo Ruiz y Flores, exiled Apostolic Delegate to Mexico. In Amarillo they made processions, held solemn ceremonies in the Cathedral, all in honor of a plump prelate whom they presently escorted by train to Santa Fe, there to install him as Santa Fe's seventh archbishop. He was Most Rev. Rudolph Aloysius Gerken, 47. bishop of Amarillo since it was first made a diocese six years ago. To him it was "an adventure with God."

Santa Fe is one of the oldest Catholic settlements in North America. Much of its color and history has been set down by Novelist Willa Gather in Death Comes for the Archbishop. Nearly a century ago Father John B. Lamy (Father Jean Marie Latour in the book) was sent to take the district from Mexican ecclesiastical control, build it as an independent vicariate Apostolic. A gentle, ascetic priest in buckskins, he made friends with Kit Carson, brought the church to many who had long been unchurched, became Santa Fe's archbishop in 1875, built Santa Fe's cathedral, died in 1888.

Like his predecessor Archbishop Lamy, Archbishop Gerken has been a builder. Iowa-born, he went to West Texas 26 years ago. In his Abilene parish he built ten churches, among them the first in the U. S. dedicated to St. Therese de Lisieux ("Little Flower"). In Amarillo diocese he built 35. In Santa Fe he now looks toward restoring old churches and shrines, installing their relics and treasures in proper fireproof vaults and cases. He will also apply himself to education (he has been president of Amarillo's Price Memorial College). An obstacle to him will be New Mexico's 13.3% illiteracy. Tall, plump and blond, Archbishop Gerken is a Rotarian, fond of quoting Aristotle and St. Francis (Santa Fe's patron) at weekly luncheons. He drives his own automobile, unlike his immediate predecessor in Santa Fe, Archbishop Albert T. Daeger, who was often seen humbly carrying his own suitcases on the streets, who rode in buses and who, last December, absentmindedly stepped from one into a concrete pit, fractured his skull and died.

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