Chapter 8
by John Gavin Nolan
Rome was anxious to have the hierarchy’s reaction,48 and a month later Cardinal Hayes reluctantly reported that he had received only four pledges of total cooperation.49 By April, Monsignor Quinn and Father Walsh were back in Rome, lobbying.50 American Catholics were providing more than half of the S.P.F.’s total income, and their bishops, it seemed, were unconvinced about CNEWA.51
What more could the Vatican do? Pope Pius XI decided quickly. He sent for the Oriental Congregation’s assessor, Monsignor Cicognani, and told him to go to New York as his personal representative, to speak with all parties concerned, formulate guidelines, update CNEWA’s legal structure and make decisions. Moreover, Monsignor Cicognani was told to take the same ship as Father Walsh and Monsignor Quinn, on the theory, presumably, that salt air heals old wounds. They sailed from Le Havre 27 May 1931 on the Île de France, arriving in New York on 2 June.52
It was Father Walsh’s last voyage for CNEWA. In Rome his resignation had been accepted, after word had been sent from New York that the conferences with Bishop Dunn had been abortive and unsuccessful “because of the attitude of Fr. Walsh who had refused absolutely to relinquish the Presidency of the Catholic Near East Welfare Association.”53 Father Walsh the troublemaker was gone, and Rome was relieved, as Cardinal Sincero wrote to Cardinal Hayes:
The field is now cleared for a new arrangement which [sic] should now include, above all, a more simplified apparatus, reduced expenditures, and a better grasp of the mind of the Holy Father and of this S. Congregation, which corresponds precisely to the principle of not irritating the bishops, in whose behalf the Holy See feels obliged to profess the most ample recognition.54
To Archbishop Fumasoni-Biondi, Cardinal Sincero expressed himself more bluntly:
This S. Congregation, which has benefited so greatly from the (American) hierarchy, is vitally interested in removing the impression of new aggravations.55