Father Zahm

New Zealand Tablet, 16 March 1922, Page 13

Father Zahm

I have lived at Notre Dame University during nearly half the eighty years of its existence (writes John Cavanaugh, C.S. in the February Catholic World). I knew nearly all the great figures who—in countless numbers, it seems to me—have moved in and out of the campus during that long space. I regard Father Zahm as the greatest mind produced by the university in its long career, and perhaps the greatest man in all respects developed within the Congregation of the Holy Cross since its foundation. Maybe Father Zahm could not have laid the foundation of Notre Dame, but undoubtedly Father Sorin never could have built upon it as Father Zahm did.

To the rank and file of his brethren in the community, he was always a prophet as well as a leader. He was VicePresident of Notre Dame at twenty-five, and held the office nine years. He was Father Sorin's intimate friend, his trusted counsellor; I saw him hold the venerable founder in his arms as he lay a-dying. In 1896 he was sent to Rome as Procurator-General of the community, and in co-operation with the mightiest leaders of the Church in America, he helped (sometimes not without peril to himself) to solve great problems and to direct large movements. While there he was asked to accept an appointment to a western bishopric, but he pleaded distaste and preoccupation with other work, and his plea was respected. Leo XIII., with whom he often talked freely, bestowed on him in 1895 the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. In 1898 he returned as Provincial of the community in the United States, and for eight years labored with such energy and success for its upbuilding and for the pursuit of higher studies as to inaugurtae a new and brilliant era. At the end of his term as Provincial he retired to Holy Cross College in Washington, chiefly because, he enjoyed there unparalleled library facilities. He never wasted an hour of time, and remained to the very end a miracle of industry, enthusiasm, and zeal. His faith was of an apostolic simplicity and strength. He was scrupulous, especially- in his later years, about religious exercises, and there was a beautiful note of tenderness in his personal piety. He knew and mingled with many of the greatest men of his.periodPopes, prelates, the lights of literature, the savants of science. But those to whom he most generously gave his heart and from whom he received the most beautiful affection and the strongest loyalty, were the religious brethren whom he inspired and guided by word and work for half a century.