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Show THE INTERMOUNTAIN CATHOLIC 9 When the call of the Fisherman, the successor of St. Peter, the Vicar of Christ on, earth, came from across the seas, selecting you to the hierarchy of the Church in America, to no one was the announcement a greater surprise than it was to yourself. The astonish- ment expressed by those who know you was due only to the lack of signs or indications that New York was to be honored by the Holy Fathers selection. God's special guidance and high purpose may be sefcn in your life from its earliest years. Eminent success attended you in school, in college and as a student in the seminary; while your exceptional character as well as your extraordinary ability, your deep piety as well as your assiduity never ceased to win the admiration and esteem of your superiors and the respect and friendship of your classmates and associates. Greater honor and trust can come to no young priest than to be chosen by his Ordinary to help instruct the minds, form the character and inflame the piety of those to whom the interests of the Church are to be committed in the future; and at the very dawn of your priesthood, this signal preferment came to you. What your influence was would be best expressed, if it were possible to have them read on this occasion, by the letters received from your former students by the committee in charge of the testimonial to be given to your Lordship. So beautiful, so grateful, so enthusiastic were they, that if bound into a volume they would constitute the highest and best testimonial that could signalize the present memorable J occasion. Piety dominated ability in your earlier years and zeal dominated scholastic attainment in your later years and urged you to sacrifice your honored and important position in the seminary to answer our countrys call to attend our boys across the sea fighting in one of the bloodiest wars in history. Later its prudence and tact, together with your accomplishments, commended you to the present beloved Ordinary of our Archdiocese, Patrick Cardinal Hayes, and he assigned you to a mission from which the Churchs influence stretches out through channels leading to commanding positions in our country. The Providence of God evidently guided and directed your career from its beginning. Human nature can never reach to worthiness deserving priestly or episcopal dignity and trust but, in the opinion of all who know you, God has prepared you in an eminent manner to answer the call of our Holy Father to the office and power which has now been conferred upon you. We pay tribute to the hierarchy of our country for the courage, ability, prudence and discernment with which they direct the course of the Church in America, in these times fraught with dangers, social, economic, political and religious. We hail them as worthy successors of bold pioneers, who in many instances reached the peaks of piety and marvelous achievement; and we hesitate not to express our confidence that he whom they receive into their ranks today with Christ-liklustre in their galaxy, commending himself by his wisdom and learning in their assemblies and winning their affection and admiration by his piety, zeal and ' achievement. A new spirit has come into our Archdiocese. Our spiritual vision has been enlarged. It is no longer circumscribed by the material boundaries of the Archdiocese but extends beyond the length and breadth of our vast country and views with eager interest through the sunlit gates of the East, the .arduous labors and zeal of the militant and missionary priests and Sisters who are breaking and extending the dawn of the day of Christ to kingdoms sitting in darkness. Our own flesh and blood has gone to take its place in the ranks of the heroes who have been laboring there, and our help, material and spiritual, is pledged to the noble cause of the conversion of pagan lands. It is a spirit which has been awakened by an institution which we are privileged to claim as our own and by the wonderful activity developed in our branch of the Society of the Propagation of the Faith. It is this spirit, Right Reverend and dear Bishop, which inflamed your heart when your selection to your high and holy station was made known to you. Exalted as is your dignity, it is nevertheless a sacrifice of yourself which you offer in accepting the call. You are going from one of the greatest centers of Catholicity in the world, from a field of triumph on which our holy faith has won victories comparable to any in her history; from an Archdiocese which is without a peer in power and piety in the universal vineyard of the Lord; from a citadel of the Churchs strength and glory, where Churches are crowded with and adorers, where charity answers the cry of every need and sorrow with generosity unstinted; where the future is safeguarded by schools and colleges and universities for the education and training of the minds and hearts and souls of our children; where Catholicity exults in splendid achievement and glorious promise; and you are where Catholics are few, where accepting a post of trying labor and heroic the Church is weak, where her achievements, despite great and unflagging and devoted zeal of missionary Bishops, priests and people, are only the foundations of her future. They are a and eager people. They will appreciate the trying change in your life to serve them. You will bring to them the strength that comes from success and victory. You will infuse into them your own consciousness of power, you will inspire them with flaming hope for victory under your leadership. will-shin- e self-sacrificin- God-fearin- g God-lovin- g self-surrende- warm-hearte- d r, e g |