Detroit's Archbishop

Edward Cardinal Mooney, 76, Archbishop of Detroit, died in Rome last week, and the U.S. lost one of the outstanding churchmen of his time.

He had seemed in good health and humor after attending the Mass of the Holy Spirit at St. Peter's, which preceded the conclave. Then, as he was resting after lunch, he collapsed with a heart attack. For years he had had a bad heart, in 1946 he had suffered a stroke; only last month he was hospitalized in Detroit for exhaustion and a general checkup. His U.S. colleagues, Cardinals Spellman and Mclntyre, reached his bedside in the North American College just after he died; saddened, they gave their dead friend absolution, and left almost immediately to take their places in the solemn procession of the cardinals into the conclave area (see above).

Edward Mooney was born in Mt. Savage, Md. and grew up in Youngstown, Ohio, where he starred both in his studies and on the baseball diamond. Following graduation from Baltimore's St. Mary's Seminary, he was selected to continue his studies for the priesthood at the North American College in Rome, where he was ordained in 1909. For the next 13 years he served his church as an educator, briefly had a parish in Youngstown, then was called to Rome as Spiritual Director of the North American College. So impressed with him was Cardinal Gasparri, then Secretary of State to Pope Pius XI, that in 1926, at the age of 44, Mooney was made a titular archbishop and appointed apostolic delegate, first to India and later to Japan--the first American to have a permanent high-ranking Vatican diplomatic post.

In 1937 he became Detroit's first archbishop. Sharp, blunt-spoken Archbishop Mooney quickly established himself as a friend of labor and an opponent of Father Coughlin, the rabble-rousing radio priest, whom he muzzled in short order. Between 1935 and 1945, he served several terms as board chairman of the National Catholic Welfare Conference, the potent policy-forming association of bishops that acts as the primary voice of the church in the U.S. No one was surprised when Pope Pius XII gave Archbishop Mooney a red hat at the 1946 consistory. Under his leadership, the Catholic population of Detroit doubled--from 600,000 to 1,200,000.

Though he was an ardent baseball fan, Cardinal Mooney's own game was golf, which he used to shoot in the low 80s. Said he to one of his priests: "If your score is over 100, you are neglecting your golf--if it falls below 90, you're neglecting your parish."

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