JAMES CARDINAL GIBBONS: IN MEMORIAM

New Zealand Tablet, 4 August 1921, Page 9

JAMES CARDINAL GIBBONS: IN MEMORIAM

(1834-1921) (By Thomas J. Shahan, Catholic University of America, in the American Ecclesiastical Be view.) James Gibbons, Cardinal-Priest of the Holy Roman Church, Archbishop of Baltimore, leader, patriot, and scholar, died March 24, 1921. The simple-hearted father in God to all those of his own faith in America and the beloved friend of all who saw in him a. firm believer in the mighty destinies of the American Republic, has gone to his eternal reward, mourned by millions of his fellow-citizens. A man quiet in aspect, mild,'and childlike in manner, modest and considerate in the exercise of his exalted office, has disappeared from our American life, and the whole nation grieves. When the bells of the public edifices and of the churches in his cherished city of Baltimore began his dirge that March morning, there arose a chant of sorrow which was caught up from city to city in the land; and across the ocean to every part of Christendom the sad message was sent, uniting rich and poor, young and old, Catholics and the new multitudes of no religion, in America’s bereavement.

During a week he lay in state in the venerable Cathedral wherein he had been baptised, ordained to the sacred priesthood, consecrated a bishop of the Church, and over which as Cardinal Archbishop he had ruled for nearly a half-century. For three days there filed past his mortal remains a silent procession of friends and admirers; a host of school children, who knew him as their venerable and affectionate father, came to catch a last glimpse of his finely chiselled and delicate face a veritable army of priests and of laity, officials of the city and of the State, with professional men of all creeds and representative leaders of non-Catholic churches, passed by his casket in token of their affection and their esteem. Few Americans, and surely no American churchman before his day, received so national a recognition in death as Cardinal Gibbons. From all parts of the country, nay, from all parts of the world, messages of sympathy came to his household. It may be truly said that since the days of Columbus no funeral in the New World has called forth so vast a response in the common heart, mostly a tribute to the man as distinct from his office. In the intensely human visualisation of the man and his work which these expressions of condolence contained, it is not difficult to find the key to his character. Among the American tributes that of the President of the United States will ever be the most cherished. The Chief Executive of the nation wrote that the Cardinal s long and notable services to the country made every American his debtor. He was the very finest type of citizen and churchman, President Harding said- such a tribute is indeed the noblest epitaph for any citizen's last resting-place. A former President, still happily with us, wrote that the Cardinal represented the highest moral inspirations of the commonwealth. To both these eminent men American Catholicism is'grateful for such memorable words. , The Cardinal's last convert-a former prelate of the Episcopal Church-finds the secret of his greatness in

the simplicity and sincerity of his character. That Cardinal Gibbons was patriotic, both in times of peace and of war, to a degree seldom witnessed in any land, all have admitted; but as Dr. Kinsman says, the personal affection so many millions in this country felt for him was due to something more than his belief in America’s greatness. “The attraction was in the man rather than in any set of his opinions.” From all classes in the community eloquent tributes came to be laid as wreaths upon his casket, and there is scarcely any aspect of his multifold activity unnoticed by these voices from the living, praising the dead Cardinal. His services to civilisation and to humanity; his unmixed •, devotion to all his fellow-men, regardless of creed or party his broad philanthropy; his uniform kindness, courtesy, tact, and thoughtfulness; his wisdom in council and his prudence in action; the uncommon blending in his character of moral strength, sweetness and simplicity — are some of the notes struck in the hour when his loss was first known. Only a short time has passed, and they are being verified one by one. Here we have no grouping of utterances made in the emotion of the moment, but the tributes of thoughtful men who only awaited his passing to utter their words of praise for his moral greatness. Those who were nearest to him, his own household, gave us more intimate touches of his attractive personality. “In the thousand little details of life,” said a former secretary, “I could approach him with the freedom of a child, certain of a patient reception.” The Cardinal was the light and life of the house; and, perhaps, one little glimpse into that last hour of his life will live after many others are forgotten it is that of this same friend, younger by many years in the priesthood, his companion during his voyages abroad, standing with his arm around the dear old man’s shoulder, comforting him and encouraging him in that hour of sorrow.

Others who guard their praise from exaggeration have called the Cardinal the accepted mentor of our American mankind, a figure of world-wide importance, an intense and earnest advocate of an uncompromising Americanism, and a providence for Church and America. He has been extolled as one who was brought up on the original happy traditions of American Catholicism, as the best-known member of his faith in America, as one whose capacity for friendliness outranked all his contemporaries, and as America's great reconstructionist in the two crises which settled upon the land after the Civil War and after the recent conflict. To others his prime characteristics were three Churchman, Christian, American, inseparably united in a three-fold cord of strength. "He was always on the side of his church and of his country; and of the right"wrote a leading American diplomat. Finally the Holy Father's solemn tribute proclaimed to the world that he was an excellent priest, a learned master, a vigilant pastor, and an exemplary citizen.

These expressions of appreciation and of admiration help us now, when it is hardest to define his exact place in American Catholic Church history, to reach the secret of his power and influence. There are those of his own faith, who feel that James Gibbons was the enfant gate of Providence during the long half-century of his successful episcopate; and there are others who fail to realise a distinction between the endless opportunities in the Land of Opportunity and his use of these same .opportunities. But all agree in acknowledging that he possessed in a high degree that quality which St. Thomas Aquinas considers the chief virtue of those who govern, the discretio rationis — sense of reasonable proportion in all his judgments. Cardinal Gibbons was never perturbed. The swift change of events about him found him always calm, serene, and unafraid. He never wavered in his recognition of the basic principles by which all political and religious events should be estimated. Prudent to a fault, he possessed also that cautious daring which is the secret of the highest statesmanship. While he never refused his counsel or aid in the discussion of great secular questions that had a moral or religious bearing on our national life, and was often rewarded by popular adhesion to his views, he was not always successful, as in the matter of divorce, against which he reasoned and pleaded at all times, without stemming the disastrous tide. Other public issues also were eventually decided against his advice, but never without profound respect for . his civic courage and his sincerity.

His discretion in action was outshone only by his discretion in words. He has left behind him a series of vol- ' umes in which no useless word or is employed in carrying his meaning to his readers. No secret — and how many there must have been locked away in that venerable heart— escaped his lips. No uncharitable word was ever uttered in his conversations or in the interviews he granted. He was by nature and training a naturally good and upright man. From his parents and teachers he inherited a simple piety and a profound faith in God and in His Holy Church. His wisdom was full grown early in his career, for, even as a young Bishop, it was evident that the queenly virtue affected his whole character and ordered all things sweetly in his life. Wisdom he loved from his youth; her he sought and took for his spouse and became a lover of her beauty, for it is she that teacheth the knowledge of the world, of men ' and of God, and is the chooser of all His works.” Wisdom taught him temperance, and prudence, and justice, and fortitude. And in the words of Holy Writ, it was for Wisdom’s sake that he had glory among the multitude, and honor among the ancients, even though in years he was ever younger than his contemporaries. “By the means of her.” he might have said, “I shall have immortality, and shall leave behind me an everlasting memory to them that come at er me. ’ There is much that is reminiscent of St. Francis ce Sales m his life; and it was precisely in his imitation of the saintly Bishop of Geneva-and who shall say that it was not a conscious following?— James Gibbons came nearest to his fellow-countrymen. He realised and ho preached, as St. Francis de Sales did, that the greatest evi in any nation is discouragement. He was an incorrigible optimist, both secular and religious, and his messages were always touched in living words of hope and courage. e never failed to say the consoling thing to a friend in trouble or in bereavement, or to the nation in time of crisis. Great nations have always lived on the verge of war. and is quieting influence with the highest and the lowliest at doubtful moments during the past 50 years is now the best r aH hIS civic Virtlles - As the years pass, his spiritual lineaments will become even more distinct and —IT 7 the Call Came that separated him from Father’ 1 r n *** affairs and bade him enter his “WrTte 8 IT 6 A r ete T al reward ’ a voice was heard saving: Write-Blessed are the dead, who die in the Lord. From enceforth now, saith the Spirit, that they ma rest from their labors; for their works follow them— opera enhn lUoiumsequunturjllos” He was the last of the 767 bishops ho attended the Vatican Council in 1870, and of the 75 American bishops who sat in the ™ Plenary Council of Baltimore in 1884. ' mcH or old p here is much of value in the original meaning of the old Roman word Pontiff, bridge-builder, who., applied to James Gibbons and If''™''! Born 18 years after Arel,bishop Carroll” he s death and two years after that of Charles C troll, he was the bridge between Colonial and modern America. A a boy, both in Baltimore and in Ireland he must have conversed with those who had known the protoshop of the Catholic Church in the United States and u , those also who had been familiar with the teaching of the early patriots-Washington, John Adams, Jefferson scent his n CharleS , Carroll ' The very monuments and purest A IS . " at,vc Cl ‘- v "ore particularly eloquent of the purest American patriotism. He imbibed from Archbishop Carro” Ins sturdy allegiance to Rome as the dp,'ritual head e lurch, also his determination that Catholic life in the new state should be kept free from foreign interfere,, " L?~wJ e b " dged thß oentnry between the aea ism of Washington and the idealism of the present „f t e , * ad , '' <!d 111 ‘hose robust times when the Declaration _ a! opendence and the Constitution of the United States . ere more than merely historic documents in the nation's rfe, and 1,6 had imbibed the. spirit of their creators an, ca™ f*'!?*', The Americanism of James Gibbons' “tor oHb ‘""'"I SUrCCS ’ and he was ever the vindipapers The foT' 1 ’ 168 f n ‘ ain .o? ‘hose two immortal defence of the Constitution. ’ft T thiTef rWA mistic prophets who predicted; that onr L" Sd

soon come to an end and that it was already in the throes of dissolution. He had heard too often to be troubled by it the cry of those who said that disaster was coming unless their favorite candidate were elected. He had been listening to these dire prognostications for over half a century. Whenever occasion called for it, he stated strongly his belief in the stability and endurance of the Republic, basing it chiefly on our unique and original doctrine of ' religious liberty. In his last public utterance (February 19, 1921) he said: * "As the years go by I am more than ever convinced that the Constitution of the United States is the greatest instrument of government that ever issued from the hand of man. . . For the first time in the history'of mankind religious liberty was here secured to all men as a right. . . No one knows better than mvself what a line of demarcation and separation religion can cut in this country from ocean to ocean, and no one has been more eager and earnest in his effort to keep down and repress religious distinction. I fear no enemy from without. The enemy I fear is he who, forgetting human nature and the history of Europe, would raise the question of another's religious belief, and introduce strife and discord into the lite of our country. . . Fortunately our common law protects every American in his religious belief, as it protects him in his civil rights, so that whatever offences may be occasionally committed here in this respect are local and temporary, and are universally regarded as un-Ameri-can and are for this reason short-lived. The great wrongs winch men have suffered elsewhere in respect of religion are here unthinkable. . ." He often repeated in his public utterances the phrase: A land where we have authority without despotism and liberty without license." His pure and original Americanism was above party and above partisanship. Born in an era which saw the full-flowering of Washington's ideal of our foreign relations-friendship with all: alliance with none-he died at the outset of a threatened lapse from this saving conviction. I would not say that he regretted the change he saw in a certain recent trend of American political thought, but he belonged to an older school of statesmen and he died in the persuasion that so far the traditional policy of his country had been its strongest asset. A,™ nl T S SaW the P<lSsing of tho B reat leaders of American Catholicism. Archbishop Carroll was a memory though a potent one, when James Gibbons saw the light in Baltimore on July 23, 1834 Archbishop Hughes and the two Kendncks, Martin John Spalding and Patrick Jo n.Ryan, John Joseph Williams and Patrick Riordan, John Ireland John Lancaster Spalding, and John Joseph Keane-all these he watched pass into the shadows, while his own life went on, seemingly secure against every attack i p h * 7 r,m reaP ! r - Ue ,f tn ™ ed a Catholic growth within the nations borders, seldom granted to a patriarch of his people except to great figures like Patrick of Ireland, Boniface of Germany, or Cyril and Methodius of the Slavs. And though his heart beat constantly with rejoicing for that growth it was with no narrow or selfish satisfaction. Wo J- ' - e Wl "° te in 1889 ' " rests on broader Sounds. ll rejoice for our . country's sake, firmly believing that the progress of Christian faith will contribute-to the stability and perpetuity of the government . to proclaim loyalty an a government like ours is, as it" ought to Preach T,'? t*™ 1 ' ™ as a to an who preach the Gospel." He saw the rise and explosion of domestic controversies, was meek and pacific amid the org" nHif llit 0 r SUCh COntenti °" S f °» and forgiven His was the last voice of the older American eof "allT h V, al ° ft ' fair M -blemished, in spite of all turmoils, the traditional light which guided the great prelates of the past in their relations with one another, with the national government, and with the Holy bee. It was m no small measure his charity and gentleness, his firmness and foresight, which precluded disunion at every stage of our progress; and no one who knows the past 50 years will deny that there were serious Hers abroad in the land during that period. His reconstruction work after the Civil , War is the least C«S achievements, but it stands out as part of his best effnS toward the assimilation of Catholic doctr£ M j£ American conditions. Through him, during all these years our Hierarchy spoke habitually and \ unanimou^ fsss

whole Catholic people and to the people of all religious denominations. Cardinal Gibbons always recognised in our country the existence of a certain dread of Catholicism; by uniting all around thfe standard of the Republic he succeeded in greatly lessening that dread and suspicion, if not in abolishing them altogether. In the death of Cardinal Gibbons, the Church of the United States loses its foremost priest. His heart was with the plain people at all times, nor will his brave and successful intervention with the Holy See in favor of the Knights of Labor be easily forgotten. Cardinal Manning and Bishop Ketteler found in him a new and eloquent exponent of their teachings, but with the New World for his field of influence. Always the same kindly, appreciative, sympathetic priest to the laity, his later years were marked by a succession of jubilees and anniversaries in which the confidence and affection of the American people manifested themselves in ways that were unparalleled in our annals. As a minister of Jesus Christ, as an humble, unselfish; and zealous priest of God, his chief concern was with the souls of his own people. With a love that bespeaks the Good Shepherd, he went about, teaching and consoling, comforting and guiding all who needed his ministrations. An Israelite in whom there was no guile, Cardinal Gibbons taught the doctrines of his Master in all charity and forbearance, and at all times with an evident simplicity of purpose that attracted and won thousands not of his faith.

He has left us in a volume of Discourses and Sermons the most useful of his religious utterances, and in the Faith of Our Fathers a book which competent authority has declared the best apologia of the faith in the English language— best when written 50 years ago, the best even now. The ripe fruits of his priestly career he bequeathed to the American Catholic clergy in a volume which takes its place beside the Eternal Priesthood of his great contemporary and dear friend, Cardinal Manning; for in the Ambassador of Christ, we have a philosophic and spiritual insight into the priesthood which reflects his own years of meditation and study of the sanctity and learning laid up in the Sacred Scriptures. These two, he proclaimed, are are cornerstones of an efficient and worthy priesthood. His one model in all that goes to form the successful priest of God was Jesus Christ, tho Master whom he loved until the end, and with whose Gospel he had so thoroughly identified himself that its blessed words of love and peace were ever in his mouth, adorned his discourses, conversation, and writings, and were even reflected in his calm serene features. The most difficult of all tasks to priest and prelate, in" a land where their fellow-citizens in vast majority are of other faiths, is to present the doctrines of the Church in a manner neither hostile nor polemical. What the Faith of Our Fathers accomplished on a vast scale and in its own popular way, Cardinal Gibbons's book on Our Christian Heritage secured in a more learned and argumentative way. Controversy he left severely alone. He said nothing in the pages of this admirable fundamental theologv against any Christian denomination, and the book abounds in citations from the best Protestant authors. "It is pleasant," he says, "to be able to stand sometimes on the same platform with our old antagonists." The most striking chapter of the book, and the one widely quoted, is that on the dangers that threaten our American civilisation, and the remedies he believed adequate. Among these he emphasises strongly the necessity of religious education for our American youth. Time and the daily course of American life proclaim accuracy of his judgment. These volumes, indeed, will long perpetuate his memory, but his true religious memorial will ever be the Catholic University of America, which he opened in 1889 after securing its foundation by Leo XIII. and the entire American Catholic Hierarchy. He was its inspiration its support, and its saviour. His great love for American Catholicism enabled him to grasp at an early date the necessity of a great central school for the higher education of the Catholic clergy and laity, obliged for a century to repair to Europe in search of advanced training for'the higher intellectual duties and needs of their religious and ecclesiastical life. When 25 years of the University's life had passed, he was able to view in retrospect the trials

which attended the founding of America’s foremost Catholic school; and he saw those years filled with progress, but also with great responsibility. The honor of the Church in the United States, he said at the silver jubilee of the • University, in 1916, was bound up irrevocably with the Catholic University of America; for it was founded not to meet the needs of a single diocese nor of any particular section of the country, but to further the welfare of religion in every diocese, parish, and home. Committed by the Holy See with all due solemnity to the care of the American Hierarchy, and immediately to him as Chancellor, the University was a sacred trust, and as the head of the oldest Catholic see in the United States, Cardinal Gibbons regarded it as a special favor granted to him by Almighty God that he was permitted to devote so much of his time to this sacred cause. “From the beginning,” he said, “the University has been for me an object of deepest personal concern. Through its growth and through all the vicissitudes which it has experienced, it has been verjr near to my heart. It has cost me, in anxiety and tension of spirit, far more than any other of the duties or cares which have fallen to my lot. But for this reason, I feel a greater satisfaction in its progress.” It seems proper to quote here the admirable words of Archbishop Glennon in his eulogy on the Cardinal. After describing his part in the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore, ho said : “Turn we to his other great work, the Catholic University. While under papal charter, the Cardinal was in effect its head, its heart, and its inspiration. He gave to it his best thought, his warmest affection, and his unfailing support. He looked to it to carry out his life-work —to bring the mind of the Church to all the questions of the age, and stand as a light perennial to the nation and the world. “Paralleling the dying request of a national hero of other days, the Cardinal, were he to speak, would, I. believe, leave as'a heritage his body to Baltimore, his heart to the * University, and his soul to God, Most certainly he now bequeaths its care to us as a sacred trust; and I am convinced that I rightly interpret the will and wish of both clergy and laity of the American Church in declaring now beside his mortal remains that we will not break faith with him—that for his sake and for the sake of our ancient faith and for the sake of eternal truth this great school shall endure and prosper, supported by a united and a generous people.”

The Cardinal Gibbons Memorial Hall at the University represents m some degree the gratitude of the Catholic people for his devotion to the higher education of Catholics, hut his true memorial will he the completion of the great work to which he devoted his best thought, the best years of his life, and of whose resources he brought together personally about one million dollars. May I not fitly apply to him the spirit at least of the praise which Shakspere puts in the mouth of Griffith as she recalls the princely generosity of Cardinal Wolsey in the building and endowment of Christ’s College? Ever witness for him Those twins of learning, that he raised in you, Ipswich and Oxford! one of which fell with him Unwilling to outlive the good man did it; The other, though unfinished, yet so famous, So excellent in art, and still so rising That Christendom shall ever speak his virtue. As the shadows of age fell about him, it was natural that he should become reminiscent. In his Retrospect of Fifty Years (1917), affectionately, dedicated to all who had assisted in the growth of the Catholic University, Cardinal Gibbons gives us some of the most valuable pages in American Church history. “There are few Americans,” he says, “now who can. remember the things which I can. I followed Mr. Lincoln’s dead body in procession when it was brought to Baltimore; I have seen every President since his death, and' have known most of them personally; I was a grown man' and a priest during the Civil War '■ when it seemed as 'if our country were to be permanently divided.' But I have lived, thank God, to see it in Wonderful prosperity arid to

behold it grown into one of the great powers of the earth. Younger men may tremble for the future of this country, but I can have nothing but hope when I think what we have already passed through. . . My countrymen and my fellow Catholics will forgive me if I seem to yearn over this Church and this people, but I do so because I believe both the American Church and the American people to be precious in the sight of God and designed, each one in its proper sphere, for a glorious future.” The late World War was in progress when he wrote these prophetic words, and through those two darksome years when the flower of American youth fought for the cause of humanity in Picardy and in Flanders, his great soul never felt a moment’s hesitancy over the outcome. Throughout this world-struggle he was never cast down. He showed ever the fullest' confidence in God, in God's providence over the world, and in particular over the future of our country. He died blessed among men, followed to his eternal resting, place by the prayers of the thousands of children he had confirmed, the legions of workers he had stimulated with desires higher and nobler than the things of this world, the thousands of priests he had ordained, the many bishops he had consecrated, and especially by the poor of his city. These last he loved until the end, his final visit being to their Home. In paradisum deducant te Angeli, sang the seminarians of his beloved Saint Mary’s, as he was laid away in the crypt of Baltimore Cathedral, beside the mortal remains of his predecessors, whose virtues and works he had never failed to praise, and whose historic influence on our American Catholic life he had continued and notably strengthened. Eternal rest grant to him, 0 Lord; and let perpetual light shine upon him !