Archbishop and U.S.

For ten months the Most Rev. Francis Joseph Spellman, plump-faced, quick-smiling, and broadminded, has been Archbishop of 1,000,000 Roman Catholics in & around New York City. But not until last week did he attain the fullness of his ecclesiastical powers. Then a great throng of priests, bishops and Catholic laymen filled St. Patrick's Cathedral. Burly Denis Cardinal Dougherty of Philadelphia--substituting for Archbishop Spellman's onetime superior, ailing William Cardinal O'Connell of Boston--placed around the Archbishop's shoulders a narrow woolen band embroidered with crosses. It was a pallium, symbol of the powers an Archbishop shares with the Pope.*

Among the witnesses of this brief ceremony was His Catholic Highness the Archduke Otto, pretender to the Habsburg thrones, Bailiff of the Catholic Order of the Knights of Malta. Otto sat near the Archbishop in the sanctuary, took third place (i.e., preceding the Archbishop and the Cardinal) when the procession left the Cathedral.

As Archbishops do when they receive the pallium, Archbishop Spellman publicly professed his Catholic faith. He also said: "I profess and glory in my American citizenship, and I pledge myself to maintain and defend our fundamental liberties.

... I am opposed to tyranny, even though it calls itself freedom. I am opposed to anarchy, even though it calls itself liberty. I am opposed to traitors to the U. S., even though they wave American flags and call themselves patriots."

Archbishop Spellman uttered the first authoritative U. S. Catholic defense of President Roosevelt's embassy to the Pope. Of critics: "The only reason which the non-approvalists seem to have for their position is the shibboleth of separation of Church and State. ... It is obvious that if the Church strives to make men better spiritually, they should be better civically and morally. Conversely, the State promoting the welfare of society works indirectly for the sanctification of souls. But this was true in 1797 when Mr. Sartori represented the U. S. at the Vatican . . . and it will still be true now that Mr. Taylor has been appointed. . . .

"Nobody protests because President Roosevelt has an Ambassador to Great Britain, even though King George VI is the head of the Church of England. . . . Because we send an Ambassador to the Emperor of Japan, who claims descent from the Son of Heaven, is there anyone thoughtless enough to suppose that the appointment means a union of the Japanese religion and the U. S. Government?"

* Pallia are woven annually from the fleece of two white lambs, blessed in Rome on the feast of St. Agnes (near-Latin for lamb), and sheared at Easter. An Archbishop must petition the Pope for his pallium, is awarded it at a consistory.

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