Monday, Mar. 18, 1946

Death Comes for the Cardinal

Irish sentiment led John Cardinal Glennon to pause in his native Ireland as he flew back, a new-made Prince of the Church, from Rome to St. Louis. There last week, as it must to all men, Death came to Cardinal Glennon. He was 83.

The red hat was in a way an anticlimax to Glennon's career. Said he, as the consistory in Rome began: "It is very touching to be remembered at a time of life when I should be forgotten."

The Bishop's Sons. A cardinal for only 18 days, Glennon had been a priest for 61 years, a bishop for six days short of 50 years, archbishop of St. Louis for 42 years. He had ordained some 4,700 young men to the priesthood and consecrated seven bishops, celebrated mass more than 22,000 times and administered the sacrament of confirmation to 225,000. He had established 93 parishes and built his own $3,800,000 Byzantine cathedral in St. Louis.

His thriving archdiocese came to embrace a half-million Catholics, who affectionately named hundreds of their sons after him. Glennon knew that his work would never end; said he in Rome last month: "This is a time in the world's history in which we must continue to battle--a time marked by warfare against the Church--a battle between faith and unfaith."

Tall (6 ft. 2 in.), erect and dignified, saved from pomposity by an Irish wit, Glennon was long a familiar figure on his daily strolls about St. Louis's West End. "Those who do not know him are never in danger of mistaking his rank," said a friend; "and those who do know him are never reminded of it." In press and pulpit, he was an outspoken opponent of coeducation, woman suffrage, British rule in Ireland, divorce ("the modern attitude makes a joke of the sacrament of matrimony"), sexy and brutal movies. He once denied a murdered gangster a Christian burial.

Fatal Flight. Glennon at first thought he was too old to make the journey to Rome to receive his hat. But, thinking he might find the trip by plane more feasible, he took a test hop around southeast Missouri. A companion remarked that it was an honor to share His Eminence's first plane ride. Glancing out of the window, Glennon said: "It will be an even greater honor to come down with him."

He left St. Louis with a touch of bronchitis, tried to live quietly en route. But, boarding his plane in New York, he said he had been treated so well there that he did not know "whether we should go to Rome or stay here." In Rome he shunned as many functions as possible, felt too weak to join the other newly hatted cardinals in their prostration of humility before St. Peter's altar.

In Dublin, on the way home, his bronchitis turned to congestion of the lungs, and after three days abed in the Dublin home of Eire's President Sean O'Kelly, he died.

Monday the Cardinal's body lay in state in All Hallows College, his old seminary. This week it will be flown to St. Louis for burial in the crypt he had built for himself in All Souls' Chapel of his great cathedral, where, as custom decrees, his red hat will hang until it rots.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.