Vatican Voices (Cont'd)

Early one misty Manhattan morning last week Rev. Charles Edward Coughlin boarded a Government cutter, went down New York Harbor to Quarantine. There the radiorating Detroit priest climbed into the Italian liner Rex, hurried to an upper deck where waited his bishop, grey, gnarled Michael James Gallagher.

Soon as the pjiest had made his obeisance by kneeling and kissing Bishop Gallagher's Episcopal ring (see cut, p. 62), the two churchmen greeted each other as man to man. Bishop Gallagher: "Well, how are you?" Father Coughlin: "I am fine, Your Grace. And how are you?" The bishop beamed. Then the two faced the Press.

Last July Father Coughlin in the course of a political speech in Cleveland called President Roosevelt a "betrayer and liar." Bishop Gallagher ordered his priest to retract, later sailed for Vatican City to make Episcopal reports to executives of the Holy See and obeisance to.the Pope. In Vatican City, Bishop Gallagher heard off-stage voices variously blaming and praising Father Coughlin's political activities. Since no prelate had chosen to speak out clearly on his own authority, the Detroit bishop decided that, on the whole, the Vatican approved Father Coughlin, and so declared to the Press (TIME, Aug. 17).

Last week, day before Bishop Gallagher landed in Manhattan, Vatican City's semi-official newspaper, Osservatore Romano, re-opened the mysterious Coughlin case with this editorial:

"In some American newspapers it has been said that when Bishop Gallagher was in Rome he was given to understand that the Holy See approved completely the activities of Father Coughlin.

"This does not correspond with the truth. Bishop Gallagher knows only too well what was said to him in this regard.

"The Holy See wants respect for all liberties; but also wants its clergy to respect the conventions of the court.

"It is most evident that an orator who inveighs against persons who represent the supreme social authorities, with the evident danger of shaking the respect that the people owe to those authorities, sins against the elementary proprieties. The impropriety is greater as well as more evident when the orator is a priest."

Primed to answer this were Bishop Gallagher and Father Coughlin as they faced the U. S. Press aboard the Rex. Declared the bishop: "[OsservatoreRomano] simply enunciated the self-evident truth, which can be found in any ecclesiastical book of etiquette, that you can't call a President a liar, even if it's true. . . . There was no criticism of Father Coughlin in Rome. Neither the Holy Father nor any of the high Vatican prelates ever discussed Father Coughlin with me. . . . I never said the Holy See fully approved of Father Coughlin's activities. I had no occasion to say that. But as the Vatican does not find fault, we can assume everything is hunkydory. There will be nothing done to restrain Father Coughlin's activities."

When the Rex brought bishop and priest to shore, Bishop Gallagher cried to a crowd on the dock: "Father Coughlin is an outstanding churchman and his voice . . . is the voice of God."

The pair proceeded to a hotel where Father Coughlin found occasion to declare that a choice between Presidential Nominees Roosevelt and Landon was a choice "between carbolic acid and rat poison."

Quietly a fellow passenger of Bishop Gallagher on the Rex had left for Washington and the official U. S. headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church. He was Most Rev. Amleto Giovanni Cicognani, Apostolic Delegate to the U. S.

Shortly it seemed the Vatican might be doubling Archbishop Cicognani's fist, raising it for a blow. From Director Giulio Castelli of Rome's La Corrispondenza news agency came still another explanation of the Coughlin conundrum in which everyone seemed to be contradicting everyone else as to just where the Detroit priest stood with Rome: "The bishop came and received from the Vatican the most precise and unmistakable instructions that cannot be misunderstood--namely, to moderate the ardor of an orator who should have refrained from attacks of a political character, especially personal, and also renounce the forming of political parties and confine himself to a precise illustration of the social doctrines of the church."

The Osservatore Romano editorial which Bishop Gallagher had waved aside as "unimportant" had also been ordered by the Vatican, declared Director Castelli, who added: "I understand that the Apostolic Delegate to Washington [Archbishop Cicognani] has been instructed to watch Father Coughlin's future activities."

Father Coughlin, to a Chicago rally next day: "Don't let them deceive you by false propaganda originating from Rome or anywhere else that the Vatican has cracked down on Bishop Gallagher or Father Coughlin. That's a lie! If they had cracked down I wouldn't be here today."

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