Stritch to Chicago

When a Roman Catholic bishop or archbishop in the U. S. dies, the Pope himself appoints his successor, often following the advice of his Apostolic Delegate in the U. S. This official--at present the bland, swart Most Rev. Amleto Giovanni Cicognani--has no diplomatic standing, but lives in a handsome $1,000,000 Apostolic Delegation on Embassy Row in Washington.

Between the Vatican and President Roosevelt there is warm friendship and, on occasion, warm agreement. But between Mr. Roosevelt and Monsignor Cicognani there is neither. Before the President announced his appointment of Myron C. Taylor as his personal envoy to the Pope,* he consulted not Monsignor Cicognani but New York's able new Archbishop Francis Joseph Spellman, and Auxiliary Bishop Bernard James Sheil, temporary successor of Chicago's late Cardinal Mundelein.

Archbishop Spellman was the Pope's personal choice for the New York post; the Apostolic Delegate was reported to have nominated Archbishop John Timothy McNicholas of Cincinnati. President Roosevelt may well have hoped that the Holy Father would make another personal appointment by naming liberal, useful Bishop Sheil to Chicago's archdiocese. Numerous Chicagoans hoped so. But in this case the Apostolic Delegate's nominee won the Pope's appointment. Last week the Apostolic Delegation announced that Milwaukee's Archbishop Samuel Alphonsus Stritch was transferred to the Chicago post.

Less liberal than Cardinal Mundelein, Archbishop Stritch is an energetic, well-liked prelate. He was born in Nashville, Tenn. of Irish parents. A scholastic prodigy--out of high school at 14, out of college at 16, a Ph.D. at 19--he was the youngest bishop in the U. S. (34) when he was made Bishop of Toledo in 1921.

There he proved himself a builder and money-raiser. Small, slight, Archbishop Stritch with his grey hair looks older than his 52 years. He walks a great deal (often at night), reads rapidly, copiously, sleeps later than most prelates. (He rose at 9:30 the day his appointment was made public.) Archbishop Stritch has been in Milwaukee since 1930, has greatly endeared himself to the city as a charitarian. Says he, "As long as two pennies are ours, one of them belongs to the poor." He has let relief needs supersede those of his Cathedral, partly destroyed by fire in 1935, and still not completely repaired. Apparently as anti-Coughlinite as Cardinal Mundelein was, last autumn he wrote a Milwaukee rabbi denouncing those who "gain and hold a popular audience, degrade themselves and abuse the trust reposed in them by misquoting, half-quoting, and actually insinuating half-truths." In their annual meeting last November, the Catholic bishops of the U. S. showed their high opinion of Archbishop Stritch by making him board chairman of their policy-making body, the National Catholic Welfare Conference.

To succeed Archbishop Stritch in Milwaukee, the Pope appointed a man with two Old Testament names and much the appearance of a cathedral: Most Rev. Moses Elias Kiley, 63, Bishop of Trenton, N. J. He is six feet six, broad in proportion, was once a floorwalker in a Boston department store. His most notable achievement in Trenton: refinancing $10,000,000 of church obligations.

*Baptist objections to the appointment last fortnight were seconded last week by the heads of the United and American Lutheran Churches, the president of the general conference of Seventh Day Adventists.

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