Dallal on Tour

Latin is not the only tongue in which Roman Catholic priests in the U. S. intone the solemn prayers and hymns of the Mass. In the byways of the faith, in many an obscure church, priests chant Greek, Rumanian, Arabic, Armenian. Slavonic and in many other details the rites they celebrate differ from those of Rome. Indeed, some of these priests may be married, provided they were wed before they became Catholic deacons. Named according to the rites they use. such non-Latin branches of Catholicism adhere to all dogmas, recognize the supreme sovereignty of the Pope.

Last week in Our Lady of Lebanon Church in Brooklyn, N. Y. Catholic worshippers heard Mass sung in Old Syriac or Aramaic, the language Christ supposedly spoke, by a bearded prelate who looked more Jewish than Catholic. He was Most Rev. Cyril George Dallal. 60, Archbishop of Mosul, head of the Syrian Rite of the Roman Catholic Church, shepherd of 90,000 Christians who live among the 1,000,000 Mohammedans of Iraq. He had just arrived in the U. S., to tour cities in which live Syrian Catholics. How many such there are, no U. S. prelate seemed to know, although the Syrians are attached to U. S. dioceses, and Archbishop Dallal had resolved to find out.

Born in Damascus, made Bishop of Baghdad in 1912, Syrian Dallal in 1926 became spiritual leader of Syrians whose faith is one of Christendom's oldest, who live on the sites of such ancient places as Ur, Nineveh and Babylon. Like his swart, bearded self, many of his flock exhibit in their countenances traces of their Jewish ancestry. Archbishop Dallal will find uncounted Syrian Rite noses in half-a-dozen U. S. cities, particularly Grand Rapids, Mich. and Jacksonville, Fla.

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