Chapter 8
by John Gavin Nolan
On 15 June, the new board of directors met at Cardinal Hayes’s residence,63 and on the motion of Monsignor Donahue, seconded by Father Gaffney, Father James B. O’Reilly, until then the assistant director of the New York archdiocesan office of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, was unanimously elected secretary of CNEWA.64 On 10 July 1931, nearly one month later, Father O’Reilly was presented to Monsignor Cicognani at the cardinal’s residence. At first the Mission Sunday collection was discussed, both men agreeing it would be the only one made, and that CNEWA would receive a percentage of the proceeds.65 Father O’Reilly then proposed that CNEWA be permitted to communicate directly at least three times a year with its members. Only in this way, insisted the new secretary, could the membership be maintained.66 Monsignor Cicognani gave his assent, and in the margin of the memorandum Father O’Reilly had presented he wrote, “I agree. Cardinal Sincero stated the same speaking with me.”67
Father O’Reilly then moved one step further. The CNEWA news, he insisted, to be effective had to appear in the diocesan press weekly, and “it must not be hidden or tucked away in a corner of some other organization.” The two reasons he gave were plausible. Every other missionary group was allowed to purchase space in Catholic papers, he said, and a collection for many purposes garnered only as much as a collection for a single purpose. Unless CNEWA, therefore, were permitted to function like other organizations, the Holy See would not receive nearly as much as CNEWA had disbursed over the last three years.68 Monsignor Cicognani stated that he would discuss the matter with Cardinal Hayes the following day,69 but in his marginal notes he scribbled next to Father O’Reilly’s second argument the comment, “This is very important.”70