Bishop Mitty’s Tough Love: History and Documents

Bishop Mitty’s Tough Love: History and Documents

By GARY TOPPING

When Bishop Joseph S. Glass, second bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake, died on January 26, 1926, the diocese was in a state of crisis. 1 The root of the crisis was a financial hole into which the diocese had descended during his administration (1915-26). Bishop Glass, himself a person of moderate wealth with wealthy friends, was not, unlike his predecessor, the tough pioneer Bishop Lawrence Scanlan, a frugal person, and had committed the diocese to an expensive program of building, renovation, and spending that proved to be considerably beyond its available resources. Collections at both the parish and diocesan levels fell far short of meeting expenses, and loans in some cases were negotiated simply to pay the interest on other loans, the principal of which remained undiminished as the diocese spiraled toward bankruptcy. A spreading perception of financial hopelessness infected the general morale as church members saw themselves pouring good money after bad, and virtually stopped their monetary contributions. That demoralization spread to church participation as well, as people stopped supporting auxiliary organizations and attending any but obligatory services.

It would be easy to blame Bishop Glass’s fiscal improvidence for having caused the crisis, but such an interpretation ignores a number of mitigating factors. While it is true that Bishop Glass seemed to possess a reverse Midas touch and had left behind him a record of financial catastrophes as a pastor and school administrator in Los Angeles, he was on the other hand a man of great vision who extended Catholic ministries into the Utah hinterland, built new churches and schools, and oversaw the interior redecoration of the Cathedral of the Madeleine which made it one of Utah’s architectural monuments.2 Although his vision placed a nearly fatal financial stress on the diocese, there is no question that his projects left the Catholic Church in Utah much better off in the long run. Also, Bishop Glass was a man of unquestionable integrity who asked no one to shoulder a financial burden that he himself was unwilling to share. Not only did he spend most of his own money on his Salt Lake City projects, he also tapped deeply into the wealth of Los Angeles oilman Edward L. Doheny, whose wife he had baptized and who regarded Glass as almost an adopted member of his family. 3

John J. Mitty, left, in 1952 as San Francisco Archbishop, on the occasion of the ordination of Robert J. Dwyer, right, as Bishop of Reno. Mitty had called for Utah Catholic parents to give their sons to the priesthood, and Dwyer was the first native Utahn to have been ordained.

All photographs in this article are from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City Archives.

All that having been said the diocese was, nevertheless, in a life-threatening crisis at the time of his death. Finding a way out of that morass of debt and morale was the single task that dominated the terms of the next two bishops: John J. Mitty (1926-32) and James E. Kearney (1932-37). That they succeeded, and especially that they succeeded mostly during the dark days of the Great Depression, is an eloquent tribute to their talents. 4 It was Bishop Mitty, however, who turned things around, shaking the diocese out of its demoralized lethargy by means of his iron discipline, ear-blistering oratory, access to outside funds, and financial acumen. This article is the story of how he did it.

John J. Mitty was born in the Greenwich Village district of New York City in 1884. His mother died when he was ten and his father when he was fourteen, and it seems a reasonable speculation that his experience as an orphan shaped the resolute discipline that characterized his adulthood and led to the nickname “Iron John.” Educated at Dunwoodie Seminary in New York, as well as in Rome and Bavaria, Mitty was ordained in 1906. When the United States entered World War I in 1917, Mitty was just finishing an eight year stint as professor of dogmatic theology at his old seminary and volunteered for service as a chaplain. It may have been at that time, though perhaps earlier, that he became acquainted with Patrick Cardinal Hayes, Archbishop of New York City, who served as Bishop of the Catholic Forces in the United States Army and later, as we shall see below, as mentor and patron to the young Bishop of Salt Lake. After his return, Father Mitty was assigned to Sacred Heart parish in Highland Falls, New York, which included the chaplaincy of the United States Military Academy at West Point where he is said to have become acquainted with World War II General Douglas MacArthur. He was pastor of St. Luke’s parish in the Bronx when he received his appointment to Salt Lake City. At age forty-two, he was one of the youngest American bishops in history. 5

The process of selecting a new bishop is so hidden from public view that it is impossible to say how it was that Mitty’s great discipline and military demeanor came to be selected for the very diocese where those qualities were so badly needed. Although it is the Pope who makes the actual appointment, and although the Pope by various means tries to remain abreast of conditions in every diocese in the world, obviously he is heavily dependent upon local advice in making his selections. It is not unreasonable to suspect that some of that advice came from Monsignor Patrick M. Cushnahan, long-time pastor of St. Joseph parish in Ogden and Diocesan Administrator during the interregnum between Bishops Glass and Mitty. During Bishop Scanlan’s last years, when he was ill and often absent seeking medical treatment, it had been Msgr. Cushnahan, together with Thomas Kearns, who complained to the apostolic delegate to the United States about administrative neglect in the diocese and requested an Auxiliary Bishop to assist Scanlan with administrative duties. 6

Although, in the documents reproduced below, Mitty repeatedly expresses astonishment at the atrociousness of the conditions he found in the Salt Lake Diocese, there is evidence that he understood that his was an appointment with a purpose, to turn things around in a trouble spot. (And indeed it would be unthinkable that the Church would have posted a man to such an assignment with no foreknowledge of what he was getting into, and simply expect him to sink or swim.) At a celebratory dinner in New York immediately after his ordination as bishop, Mitty gave a brief speech in which he referred to Salt Lake as “a scattered, struggling Diocese,” and mentioned that he felt a call from God, “who wanted me for some work in Salt Lake,” thus hinting at an awareness that he was going west for a specific purpose and for a limited period of time. 7

At any rate, it did not take the energetic young bishop long to plot some of the dimensions of his task. Barely two months after his consecration as bishop on September 6, 1926, he sent this first report to Cardinal Hayes, whom he had just seen both in Denver and Salt Lake City:

November 18, 1926

His Eminence, Cardinal Hayes, 452 Madison Ave., New York

Your Eminence:-

I have been anxious to write you for some time past to give you an account of my stewardship but my time has been so taken up that it has been well nigh impossible.

From the newspaper accounts I see that you are going stronger than ever since your return to New York after your invasion of the West. I hope that you are feeling well after all your travel and work. The Salt Lakers are still talking of your visit; it was an epoch and the Catholic minority here have gotten strength and courage from it; the non-Catholics are also still aglow over it while reports reaching me from Denver tell the same story. So your visit has helped the Church far more than you realise [sic].

After my return from Denver I was pretty well tired out; whether it was the reaction after five months of high pressure or the high altitude or both, I was pretty much all in and I laid up at the Hospital for a complete rest. I am back at the Rectory now and feeling fine and dandy and tackling my problems. They are indeed many and various. Unfortunately Bishop Glass never took anyone into his confidence and no one knows anything about the finances; he had the habit of taking out notes and in many cases I cannot find out for what purpose; but they are facing me; as far as I have gathered so far the indebtedness from all sources diocesan and parochial is over $250,000; apart from the Cathedral and Ogden Church, I doubt if the entire income in the diocese from all sources including intentions and the little Extension subsidies amounts to $40,000 annually; perhaps $40,000 more might be added for the Cathedral and Ogden.8 In addition to notes the poor Bishop had a mania for buying houses and real estate which are not usable and for which we could not get the money he paid. I have written the Central Union Trust Co. (Mr. Goldman) asking their assistance; I asked specifically for $50,000 the which they granted for four months at 5 1/2 %; I have just written my answer demanding the same treatment I received from them in New York. You may possibly hear from them about it.

The Salt Lake City Cathedral of the Madeleine.

I find that the priests as a rule lack the pep and the initiative of the Easterners; this is possibly due to discouragement; in one case I had to act with a strong hand with one man who had been imbibing and neglecting his parish and giving scandal; in another case, I scared the LIFE OUT OF a lazy pastor by the threat of removal if he did not get results; but I find the majority willing to work and to make sacrifices and thoroughly enthused when they feel that I am on the job and willing to help them in every way. I have been thanking God for the purse from the New York clergy and other donations I received in New York as they have enabled me to meet pressing obligations and keep out of jail. As far as I can see the future for my own personal finances, I shall have to depend for room and board upon the Cathedral and live on intentions because every cent I can lay my hands on from all sources will have to go to satisfy diocesan obligations.9 My own care is the least of my worries and I feel that living in that way will have its proper reaction upon both priests and people and that when things are swinging properly, I will be able to make things go.

The big problem in Salt Lake City is schools; it has been handled in a makeshift fashion and there is a real demand for some permanent and constructive work; here the school is a diocesan not a parochial affair and I plan to get going with two school buildings in different parts of the city; I hope to start them in the Spring if God is good. At present St. Mary’s College and Academy is floundering under a debt close to a million dollars; a drive for it had been decided upon by Bishop Glass but fell through because of his death and the interregnum.10 For the sake of the Holy Cross Sisters who have done so much for religion here for the past 50 years I shall have to give it every encouragement.11 I plan to get a Committee of Catholics, Protestants and Mormons to put it over and make an appeal to all creeds.

The non-Catholics are most cordial to me; I am getting invitations to talk from all sources and am accepting them. The American Legion had me broadcast a speech for Armistice Day and the Chamber of Commerce had me talk at their luncheon at which I waved the American flag. Mgr. Hunt who has lived in Salt Lake for 13 years tells me that he never saw such desire to have the Bishop or any Catholic attend nonsectarian functions.12 Mgr. Hunt is a tremendous help to me; he is Chancellor and is a zealous and indefatigable worker and has the ear of Protestants, Mormons and Catholics. I am sending [him] off for a vacation and incidentally he will get to Chicago where he will see Extension officials and I hope Cardinal Mundelein; he can describe our conditions here and I hope get some help.

I trust I have not wearied you with my story but it is some help to talk it out to you. I hope you are well. And I want to thank you again for your great kindness to me. With all best wishes,

Sincerely and Gratefully Yours,

P.S.- I forgot to say that Bishop Glass loaded up the place here with all kinds of paintings from Europe. The present Bishop is perfectly willing to dispose of them at a good figure—so if you know of anyone anxious to buy—just say the word. 13

March 2, 1927

His Eminence Cardinal Hayes, New York City

Your Eminence:-

I had intended writing you sooner but I have gotten into such a swirl of work and difficulties that I have found it well nigh impossible. I have found things very difficult; the more I become acquainted with conditions, the worse I find things. In my wildest fancy I never dreamt that things could be so chaotic; there are very few financial records and those that exist are difficult to make head or tail of; the diocese has practically had no organization and the clergy no supervision; there are two trust funds where both funds and records are missing; hardly a week passes that I do not run into some new mix-up; only yesterday the widow of Comes the architect who remodeled the Cathedral wrote me that Bishop Glass owed her $1400; the week previous, Mrs. Pope, Bishop Glass’ sister, started action on a suit against the diocese; I went to Los Angeles with my lawyer and had a conference with her; asked the Dohenys to use what pressure they could to keep her quiet; then finally saw the lady herself and told her just how Bishop Glass’ reputation would be affected by a public suit; she finally agreed to let a referee look over the books and give a decision; I have no fear of that.14 I was fortunate in staying with Bishop Cantwell who advised me at every step. He was most hospitable and kind. The Archbishop phoned me to come home by way of San Francisco so that he could have a chat. Both the Bishops roundly abused me for sticking to the job too closely but I told them I had certain traditions to live down. I have been making Visitations in the diocese; the entire diocese is made up of mining camps and railroad centres; seven day a week work is the rule everywhere; in a recent trip covering 1000 miles, I came across only 200 Catholics; outside of Salt Lake and Ogden, there is very little to count on; most of the parishes are a liability rather than an asset; apart from the financial side, my problems are terrific.15 The only thing that has kept me from discouragement has been the fact that I keep telling the Lord that it is His job more than it is mine and that He must help me. This brings me to my requests. A number of the pastors told me they would give me a collection when I wished it; the chances are that I shall be unable to get back East until the Bishops meeting; and just now I feel that I am doing more good by organizing things here than by going around collecting. Would you allow me to send the enclosed letter to all the pastors of the Archdiocese; it might bring me sufficient funds to keep me out of jail and I am hoping to get some of them to promise me a yearly offering.16 The Lord knows I need it. A second favor is this. My note from the Central Union Trust company expires on March 22; Mr. Goldman wrote that if I could get your signature to the renewal he could give me the money at 5% instead of the 5 1/2 % that I am now paying. Would it be possible for you to add your signature to mine? I need not assure you that I will not double cross you.

I hope that you are well; in spite of all my worries, I am feeling fine. With warmest filial regards, Devotedly Yours,

[Enclosed letter:]March 3, 1927

Reverend and dear Father:

When, a few months ago, I was consecrated and installed Bishop of Salt Lake I little realized what was ahead of me. From my acquaintanceship with Catholic conditions in the east it was impossible for me to picture accurately conditions out here. You have no idea of the problems and difficulties confronting me. And if I should try to tell you I could not make you understand.

At the time of my departure from New York a number of the pastors generously offered me collections, to be taken up when I should need help. It has been my hope to return to the east and to present personally a statement of my needs; but I cannot leave here for some months yet. My presence is required by several very pressing problems. So I make this appeal by letter, with the gracious permission of the Cardinal.

My story is more than that of a Missionary Bishop; it is that, of course, but with some additional facts peculiar to this region. In this vast Diocese there are only a handful of Catholics, a large percentage made up of foreigners. Outside Salt Lake City and Ogden there is nothing but a few mining camps and railroad centers. In a recent visitation, covering a thousand miles, I counted only two hundred Catholics. The entire income of all the parishes in the Diocese amounts to less than $100,000 a year; out of that money thirty priests and thirty sisters must be paid enough to live on, and insurance and upkeep of property must be met. Unfortunately I have inherited an overwhelming debt of almost $300,000. With a few exceptions the priests receive no salaries. They are living hundreds of miles from their fellow priests; they have to travel as far as three hundred miles on sick calls. Some have died as the result of improper living conditions; others have lost their minds from lonesomeness.17 Just a few weeks ago one of my priests confessed to me that he had not eaten a square meal for three days. Such things are happening here in the United States to your fellow priests.

Bishop Mitty with a First Holy Communion class at Holy Rosary parish, Bingham, about 1930.

I have done what little I could. The money which the clergy and my friends gave me at my consecration has all been spent for Diocesan needs; I am receiving absolutely no income whatsoever save from intentions and donations from friends. I mention this to show that I appeal to you with clean hands.18 Will it be possible for you to take up a collection for the Diocese of Salt Lake? Candidly and very frankly, I cannot make it go without help from the outside. And I am referring to urgent and present needs only. I have said nothing about a constructive program for the Diocese for the simple reason that under present conditions such a thing is out of the question.

My priests are fighting the battle of the Church in America at the very outposts. It will give them courage if they can feel that their more fortunate brothers in Christ are interested in your work for souls and are stretching out a helping hand. 19

May God bless you for your help to a begging Bishop, Devotedly yours in Christ,

So far, so good. Mitty had spent his own money to try to make ends meet, and he had appealed eloquently and passionately for outside help among his well-heeled eastern friends. Now it was time to bring down the hammer at home. On the evening of May 14, 1928, Mitty summoned the heads of households from Catholic families of the diocese to a meeting at the Cathedral where he intended to address them about the current situation. In this case “the diocese” probably meant almost exclusively the relatively large Catholic populations of Salt Lake City and Ogden because May 14 was a Monday and travel after work from most outlying communities, given the available means of transportation in 1928, would probably have been prohibitive. In the diocese at that time there was a general feeling that while Bishop Mitty was “one who hid a tolerance of human weakness behind a façade of parental sternness,” his demeanor that night was that of a “drill sergeant disciplining his errant troops.”20 Surely his notes for the dressing-down, which I have transcribed below, are a masterpiece of verbal invective rarely seen in print and even today capable of setting one’s teeth on edge. One can only imagine the morbid silence in the room as Mitty freely ranged from one damning fact to another.21

In editing this document, I have left out some of the statistical data, which in any event one supposes Mitty left out as well in his oral presentation, so as not to risk diluting his vitriol. In case anyone did ask questions, he would have the data for his answer in front of him. Also, I have justified violating the bishop’s demand for confidentiality by the assumption that ample time has passed that no one could possibly be hurt by this disclosure.

May 14 – 1928

These remarks are confidential and not to be published. I am going to talk very frankly, straight from the shoulder, but I intend to say my say. I shall give you an opportunity at the end to ask questions.

Debt — $297,602.35 Parishes with debts for years. Never any principal paid. Some parishes for years borrowing money to pay interest on debt. In less than three months I was called upon to pay $78,494.32, within three months more $52,500, — a total of $131,000. Since then, almost the entire loan has come due. Debt scattered everywhere. I have attempted to fund this debt and to centralize all the obligations of the diocese in the Chancery Office.

As head of the diocese I was the defendant in five suits against the diocese, totaling $28,000. – Bishop Glass, $6816; Kiely, $7700; Comes, $1400; Fabian, $600; and Rome, $12,000.

We have succeeded in keeping them out of court. Two are settled for $6818.60. The others are still pending.

To come to particular instances of Diocesan debt:

Cemetery: $9,000 in unpaid bills to Cemetery. $2,200 not owed by Cemetery.

Camp Glass:22 A deficit in 1926 of over $400. An added deficit in 1927 of $135.

Catholic Men’s Club: Suppers, showed deficit. Some men come and pay for their supper and thought they were supporting the Church. Others failed to pay.

Girls’ Club: $13,266.55 debt still, apart from money paid. To date from Oct., 1926, I have received interest to amount of $720.00 from Meynell Club. 23

Intermountain Catholic: For first year 553 paid for subscriptions; 279 subscribed and did not pay.

Salt Lake School: During this year: — 325, grammar[;] 75, high school To my best knowledge, in the eight years that the Catholic School has been functioning, the people of the diocese have never paid the current expenses. Practically every year money has had to be borrowed or taken from other funds to meet deficit. I can give a more detailed report for last two years. . . . Total deficit in 1926 and 1927 - $9391.00 For last eight months, starting September, 1927, up to May 1, 1928, contributions from the parishes have amounted to $228.25, an average monthly contribution of $1028, whereas the normal expense to cover all items is $1666 Basement School is a standing disgrace to the Catholic people. School music and athletics. Phelan Fund [added in pencil on typescript] Hayes Estate – Ely [added in pencil on typescript]

Parishes:

With regard to individual parishes, with one exception, none are paying off any debt. Some are not even meeting interest, and only a few are giving the pastor a salary.

In 1926 the thirty priests in the diocese received a total in salary of $13,247, making an average salary of $441 a year. In 1927 the thirty priests received $15,138, of which I obtained from outside sources $1835, leaving your contribution to priests as salary $13,303, an average of $442 a year. . . . [A list of each priest’s salary follows.]

With regard to money spent in house maintainence [sic], which includes food, laundry, servant’s salary, etc., in 1926, 12 priests ran their houses for under $1000, in amounts from $356 a year up; 9 priests were slightly over $1000. In 1927, 15 priests were under $1000. Reports show $213, $235, $363. 6 priests were over $1000. The homes of some priests are a disgrace. Laity have decent places; any hole good enough for priest. Sickness of priests due to lack of proper nourishment and to lack of vacations, and due to overwork. Wonder they don’t leave. [A table comparing salaries with parish incomes follows.]

The total income of all the parishes in the diocese from your contributions and from outside sources in 1926 was $126,000; in 1927, $130,000, an average donation from each person in diocese of $8.50. Compare with Mormon 10%. Out of this amount must come salary and support of thirty priests, salary of thirty-five Sisters teaching in parochial schools in Salt Lake, Ogden, Park City, Price, and Eureka, the maintainence [sic] and upkeep of all churches, schools, and rectories— light, heat, repair, assessments, care of sanctuary—interest to amount of $18,000.00, insurance to annual amount of about $2,000, support of diocesan needs, collections for Near East, Education of Priests, Home, Foreign, Indian, and Diocesan needs, Peter’s Pence. 24

In the General Diocesan Collections since my administration:

Jan. 1927 Catholic Near East out of 15000[,] 926 contributed $1228.15

Jan. 1928 Catholic Near East out of 15000[,] 722 contributed 981.83

June 1927 Mission Collection out of 15000[,] 778 contributed 1932.41

This means that on the average only one person in twenty contributed, and that the average donation for diocese— .08; .06 1\2; .15.25 In connection with collections I may note the response of Cathedral parish to appeal of Semi-annual Interest Collection: July 1927 $1538.50 Oct. 1927 1255.70 [=] $2794.50 Interest $5908.75 Deficit $3114.55 Mar. 1928 766.75 About same interest paid this year and your contribution, so far, half of what it was last year.

Archbishop Mitty, left, with Apostolic Delegate Giovanni Cicognani, center, and Salt Lake City Bishop James E. Kearney, right in November 1936 at the rededication of the Cathedral of the Madeleine after its debt had been paid off.

Radio:

For the last year and a half we have made use of radio for broadcasting Catholic sermons, and for five months the High Mass was broadcast once a month, for which the Catholic Woman’s League paid. The Sunday evening sermons for practically a year and a half have been broadcast from the K.S.L. studio. The cost of each, including typeing [sic], etc., is about $15.00. In the year and a half we have received exactly $10.00. No recompense whatever for the terrific labor of Monsignor Hunt personally. 26

Reports:

I heard a great deal of complaint that parishioners did not receive financial reports from the pastors. I ordered each pastor to give a financial statement at the beginning of each year. In hardly any case, was any parish contributing as it should.

In the Cathedral a report was printed which gave not only a summary of general Receipts and Expenses, but a detailed report of what each individual contributed. Then I received complaints about printing such a report. Reports of all the parishes have been given. Let me give you an accounting of funds received from you for the diocese and how expended: [statistical table follows] . . . .

You can judge then that the diocese does not receive enough income to pay the ordinary running expenses of the diocese. (No offering to Pope; Seminary Fund— $1800 short; very little, $291, to Diocesan mission). It has been necessary for me to give every cent of my own money to save the diocese from bankruptcy. All the money I received at the time of my Consecration, and since—all given to me personally, has had to go to the diocese. It has amounted up to Jan. 1, 1928, to $29,250.

I have received absolutely no salary nor compensation of any kind since I have come. Any donations given me have all been turned to the diocese. In addition, Father Keefe has expended $3300 of his own money on the school.27 A disgrace to the laity of the diocese.

There has been some whispering and some back stairs gossip about the supposed squandering of diocesan money on the part of Bishop Glass. Now, I shall give you reports of the finances during his administration and I shall give you an opportunity to ask questions out in the open.

[Statistical table follows, demonstrating that the] Average per person per year— about 33 cents.

Extraordinary Collections:

Bishop Glass’ Jubilee, Cathedral Debt Fund. I have been asked several times, what did the Bishop do with this money? Bishop Glass had nothing to do with this money as it was in the hands of a lay committee who alone had power to sign checks.

Now the report: Pledged $68,686.84 Paid 57,324.84 Unpaid 11,362.00

The money was expended as follows: Paid on Principal of Cathedral debt $43,000 Paid as Interest on Cathedral debt $12,967.50

Collecting Cost $ 1,357.34

$57,324.84 [The last two expenditures are itemized by monthly installments.]

At the beginning of Bishop Glass’ administration an appeal was made for funds for [a] parochial school. The amount contributed was used for remodeling and renovating the Judge Mercy building, at cost of $20,979. 28 School equipment used up the remainder.

Summary of receipts in Bp Glass’ administration. Receipts from parishes were not sufficient to pay running expenses. The total extraordinary receipts was $8500. The average per year for extraordinary receipts from 1916-1928 was $7000. The average per person per year was 50 cents.

I trust that this statement will kill once for all any of the back stairs whispering about Bishop Glass’ squandering diocesan money. You did not give him any to squander, you did not give him enough for routine expenses. Any money he did spend was given to him by personal friends and not by you. 29

Remarks have been made in connection with the Cathedral debt that Bishop Glass left a big insurance to the Diocese. In April, 1926, Monsignor Cushnahan, the Administrator of the Diocese, received from the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company the sum of $42,499.59. This was immediately expended before my arrival, as follows:

Cost of two houses next to Cathedral Rectory $25,520.83 Repaid Diocesan debt to Ogden parish 12,500.00 Paid off part of debt on Girls’ Club to Tracy Loan & Trust 2,500.00

$40,520.83

The remaining $2000 was expended on Diocesan needs.

Priests:

There has been a good bit of criticism of our priests. They are not this and not that and not the other thing. In answer, bear in mind the fact that you have not one single native priest, that you have been dependent upon the charity of outside priests to administer to you, that beggars can not be choosers, that you have not given sufficient contributions to educate men for the priesthood. Since 1916 to the present time you have contributed $9,547.15, an average annual contribution of $742 a year.

From the time of being graduated from grammar school to the time of Ordination is usually twelve years. No Seminary to-day charges less than $400 a year, and some $450. The tuition alone for one student is practically $5000, not counting possible expense for railroad fare, clothes, books, etc. In other words, in these thirteen years you have not contributed enough to pay for the education of two priests.

You must give your own sons to the priesthood. You must give the sufficient funds to educate boys for the priesthood. I shall cut down on the list unless you finance it. There will be a collection on June 17th.

Orphanage: According to the report I gave you, you contributed to the Orphanage from 1916-1926 the sum of $1931.49. I received something less than $100 making a total of $2000 for 13 years, an average of less than $170 a year. Until the Community Chest started, the condition of the Orphanage was lamentable, with the sisters practically begging to get enough money to feed the orphans. It was a disgrace. At present the cost of running the Orphanage is about $16,000 a year. The Community Chest is giving about $8,000. Some funds are received from payments for children, and other funds will be available to the diocese if the diocese needs to help.

I do not expect to call upon you for assistance for the Orphanage, but if it becomes necessary I shall not fail to do so. 30

Wills:

I have been here one and a half years. In that time a number of Catholic people have died. With the exception of one woman, Mrs. McGrath of Ogden, who divided her estate of about $10,000 between the Ogden Parochial School and Sacred Heart Academy, and with the exception of one man, [name withheld], who left $1000 (not pd) to St. Ann, not another person has put God or His Church in his will. This is not a Catholic attitude. It seems you will not give to the Church when you are alive, and that when you die and must leave your money behind you, even then you will not give to the Church.

Respect for Bishop and Clergy:

Your general attitude in the matter of Church support finds a reflection in your attitude toward the clergy. I have been shocked and surprised at what I consider is a lack of proper respect shown to me as the Bishop. At many functions which I have attended, I was kept waiting in a hallway or side room, sometimes for twenty to thirty minutes, after the hour scheduled. Sometimes appointments with me have been made by Catholic people and they never showed up and never apologised. I have entered Catholic gatherings and the audience remained seated. It is an unusual thing for laymen to tip their hats in passing priests on the street. Again and again Catholic men have given me their word to do a certain thing and then default in it. Committees fizzle out. One person who owed a debt to the diocese placed it in a collection envelope and made an Xmas offering of it to the Cathedral, and was quite surprised when he was called to account. Another who was careful to impress upon me what a great favor he was doing me in a business deal has not yet paid any of his debt in the matter. I have been called upon for trifles—matters that should be settled by parish clergy. I wondered sometimes if you people thought me an Office Boy.

No matter what my own personal inclinations are in these matters, there is a certain respect due to my position as Bishop. It is part of my job to train you if you show a lack of it.

Salt Lake Catholics:

Let me say a word about the Catholic group here in the City. Whatever your opinion of yourselves may be, the opinion of the clergy in which I concur is that, with the exception of one or two organizations, you are the most difficult and most unresponsive group of Catholic people any of us has ever had to deal with. I have had a varied experience and I never came in contact with a more difficult group. The priests who have been stationed in other cities are amazed at your utter lack of response. You are subnormal and way below par. Appeals fall on deaf ears. You are utterly impervious to them. You expect your priests to do all the work. Take Boy Scouts, we have failed with them because none of the laymen would help out. It is the same story in every sphere. Missions, Forty Hours’ Devotions, parish societies, entertainments, all kinds of efforts are expended to get you interested and only a small percentage ever respond.

As for complaints and criticisms, they would fill a library and in 99 cases out of 100 an investigation shows a lack of interest and activity on the part of the laity. There is only one way in which we can accomplish anything and that is by an active interest in our parishes, by belonging to parish societies, and going to monthly Communion in a body, by assisting your priests in varied parish activities, by helping instead of criticizing, by contributing instead of defaulting. You need to snap out of your present lethargy.

Parish Life:

I am insisting with the pastors that each parish develop its own life by having parish societies for men and women, for boys and girls, who will receive Communion in a body at least once a month. It is only in this way that any progress can be made. This is the normal Catholic life. Your own ways and schemes, if they differ from this, are not worth while and will not get us anywhere. So I am asking—frequent Communion from all our people. 31

Cemetery: In connection with this, let me say a word first about funerals. There is Church legislation governing Catholic burial. My duty is to keep this legislation. People who have renounced the Church and refused the priest cannot expect Catholic burial. Your dead should have a funeral Mass and should be buried in a Catholic cemetery where we have one; otherwise, unless covered by exceptions in the law, they will not be given a Christian burial. Hereafter, no flowers will be allowed in the Church at a funeral. It is utterly opposed to Church regulations. With regard to the Cemetery: a Lay Committee is working out a scheme for the maintainence [sic] and beautifying of the Cemetery, which will call for assistance on your part. I trust you will cooperate.

SUMMARY OF FINANCES FROM 1915-1928:

Deficit in: Cemetery, Camp Glass, Men’s Club, Girls’ Club, Intermountain Catholic, School, Parish Income, Seminary Fund, Diocesan Needs, Bishop’s Support, and Radio Broadcasting. Very small offering for Missions, Pope, Indian and Colored Work. The conclusion from all these figures is very clear. In my administration the figures show you have not contributed to pay the ordinary running expenses of the parishes of the diocese. In Bishop Glass’ administration, even with the two extraordinary contributions for school and debt fund, the figures show that you did not give enough to run the diocese. In other words, you have been constant shirkers and constant slackers in the matter of support of your Church. Hardly any of you have made a sacrifice and the contributions of some of you are an insult to God. You have left some of your priests to live in hovels, left some of them at times to starve, left them to make all the sacrifices. There were times when the Sisters had to practically beg to get enough to eat, and you have gone along undisturbed and unconcerned. From all this you can readily realize how I feel toward all the speeches of cooperation and pledges of support that have been given to me. They have been words and nothing more—absolutely worthless.

We have come to the crossing of the roads. Things cannot go on in this way. Unless you change and change decidedly, I shall close down everything you are not supporting. If necessary, I shall close up churches where a decent support is not given the priests.

My request: A decent support of your individual parishes. The Diocese is funding all the debt of the parishes and centralizing it in the Bishop’s Office. Non interest bearing bonds to cover the debt.

It would be difficult to imagine that any of Bishop Mitty’s listeners, at the close of the evening, were happy to have heard what they did, but subsequent developments prove that they did get the message. No doubt moved by the bishop’s own monetary sacrifice and his reformation of diocesan financial practices, the Catholic laity decided they could once again trust that their donations would be wisely administered, and collections went up dramatically: the fund for radio broadcasting, which had been a mere ten dollars annually in 1926 and 1927, swelled to $968.72 in 1928, while the Seminary Collection, which had averaged an annual $742 since 1916, became $3,611.78 in 1929 and in fact Utah’s first native-born priest, Fr. Robert J. Dwyer, was ordained in 1932 during the interregnum between Bishops Mitty and Kearney. 32 Perhaps inspired by their bishop’s example of hard work and discipline, there were no fewer than nineteen Utah seminarians preparing for ordination by the time Mitty left Utah. 33 “In short order,” Bernice Maher Mooney observes, “he had turned the diocese into one of the best organized in the United States. He left an authentic priestly imprint upon the Cathedral of the Madeleine and took from it what he had absorbed therein of ‘the saintly heroic Bishop Scanlan and the gentle, cultured Bishop Glass to whom it has been my daily prayer that I might be a worthy successor.’”34

In 1932 Bishop Mitty was named Archbishop of San Francisco, where he remained until his death in 1961. Thus he was not around to lead Utah Catholics into the promised land of solvency for which he had prepared them. That honor fell to his successor, Bishop James E. Kearney, though Mitty returned in November 1936 to help rededicate the Cathedral of the Madeleine after its debt had been retired—an important symbol of that emerging solvency.

The diocese would continue in a relatively precarious financial state for several decades until the establishment of the Diocesan Development Drive under Bishop Joseph L. Federal in the 1960s and the Catholic Foundation of Utah under Bishop William K. Weigand in the 1980s. The financial stability provided by those institutions has enabled the diocese to educate seminarians, support the poor and needy, and create new missions and parishes in areas undreamt of even by the visionary pioneer Bishop Lawrence Scanlan.

In Utah Bishop Mitty seems to have been respected more than loved. Ample oral tradition indicates that in San Francisco he was roundly detested to the point where even his priests hovered near open rebellion and referred to him as “S***** Mitty from Salt Lake City.” But perhaps we who have some historical distance from his abrupt manner and scalding rhetoric find it easier than his contemporaries to admire a man who had the courage to put duty ahead of reputation and to remind his flock of some uncomfortably home truths about their responsibilities and obligations.

NOTES

Gary Topping is Archivist of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City.

1 The diocese was known as the Diocese of Salt Lake until 1951, when it was changed to the Diocese of Salt Lake City. The first bishop, Bishop Lawrence Scanlan, served from 1891 to 1915.

2 Bernice Maher Mooney, Salt of the Earth: The History of the Catholic Church in Utah, 1776-1987, 2nd ed. 1992 (Salt Lake City: Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City, 1987), chapter 3 narrates the events and accomplishments of the Glass years. Fr. Stafford Poole, C.M., “’An Active and Energetic Bishop:’ The Appointment of Joseph Glass, C.M. as Bishop of Salt Lake City,” Vincentian Heritage 15 (1994): 119-62 describes his complex record as a priest in Los Angeles.

3 Margaret Leslie Davis, Dark Side of Fortune: Triumph and Scandal in the Life of Oil Tycoon Edward L. Doheny (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1998) includes throughout her story the role of Glass in the Doheny family.

4 Those talents did not go unrecognized by the Church: Mitty was promoted to Archbishop of San Francisco, and Kearney returned to his native New York as Bishop of Rochester.

5 Mooney, Salt of the Earth, 178; Bernice Maher Mooney, The Story of the Cathedral of the Madeleine (Salt Lake City: the author, 1980),107-8.

6 Poole, “’An Active and Energetic Bishop,’” 132, 141. Bernardine Ryan Martin, a second cousin of Bishop Glass who served as his secretary from 1923 to 1926, remembered that some of the problems that had developed during Scanlan’s latter years continued through Bishop Glass’s administration: “Bishop Glass had to build a whole new clergy – the clergy of the Catholic Church were a laughed-at bunch, with mighty few who were not immoral. Bishop Scanlan should have had help years before he got it.” Bernardine Ryan Martin to Albert J. “Jack” Steiss, July 29, 1977, in Msgr. William H. McDougall, Jr., Papers, Diocesan Archives.

7 Intermountain Catholic, October, 1926, p. 11.

8 St. Joseph parish is located in Ogden. For an explanation of Mass intentions, see footnote 9. The Catholic Extension is an agency that raises funds for projects beyond the reach of less wealthy dioceses. The Diocese of Salt Lake City has been the beneficiary of its help on many occasions.

9 While it is illegal in the Church to charge a fee for access to sacraments, it is nevertheless customary to provide a small donation (stipend) when asking a priest to offer a special Mass for a specific purpose (intention). Ordinarily these are mere token donations, and such funds alone would not have provided much of a living for the bishop. According to a ledger in the Diocesan Archives titled “Old Intention Fund Book,” the going rate in the late 1920s was about one dollar. However, Bishop Mitty was also receiving substantial donations of Mass stipends from other parts of the country through Catholic Extension, and the ledger indicates a typical monthly intake of well over three hundred dollars, on top of stipends for local Masses. While there is no reason to believe all that money was being used to support the bishop, he nevertheless should have been able to find a decent living in it, and one supposes that subsisting on Mass stipends was not necessarily a sacrificial existence.

10 This was St. Mary of the Wasatch, a secondary school and college for women erected on four hundred acres of land in the Wasatch foothills purchased by the Sisters of the Holy Cross in 1921. An indebtedness of one million dollars—three times the entire debt of the diocese—seems a high estimate, though the grounds were extensive and the immense four-story structure was magnificent. But the school had only opened in 1926, and the indebtedness of such an institution is usually highest at its beginning. In any event, as the bishop implies, the debt belonged to the Holy Cross Sisters, not the diocese, though he also indicates a felt obligation to help keep them solvent since the school was run for the benefit of the diocese. Mooney, Salt of the Earth, 172-4. Despite Bishop Mitty’s intention to help the college, he in fact gave only minimal and grudging support, thereby provoking the ire of Sr. M. Madeleva, its first principal and a person every bit his match in sarcasm and invective. Their conflict is vividly narrated in Gail Porter Mandell, Madeleva: A Biography (New York City: State University of New York Press, 1997), 108-109.

11 Indeed, no religious order has labored for so long and so effectively in the Diocese of Salt Lake City than the Sisters of the Holy Cross, mostly as teachers and administrators of schools and hospitals, but also in other capacities. St. Mary of the Wasatch was the educational culmination of their efforts in Utah which had begun in 1875 with a girls’ school on the present site of the Salt Palace. See Sister M. Georgia (Costin) CSC, “Mother M. Augusta (Anderson): Doing What Needs Doing,” in Colleen Whitley, ed., Worth Their Salt: Notable But Often Unnoted Women of Utah (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1996), pp. 32-42.

12 Duane G. Hunt (1884-1960) was a midwestern Methodist who converted to Catholicism in 1913. While teaching at the University of Utah he felt a call to the priesthood and was ordained in 1920. He eventually became Bishop of Salt Lake City from 1937 to 1960.

13 These paintings, which are mostly gloomy depictions of Biblical or other religious subjects executed in a Renaissance style, were purchased in Europe shortly before Bishop Glass’s death. Some people, apparently including Bishop Mitty, regarded them as white elephants. After this attempt by Bishop Mitty to foist them off, they were exhibited at St. Mary of the Wasatch until it closed in 1970. Since then, most of them have been hung in various places in the Cathedral Rectory and the Pastoral Center.

14 Patrick Phelan, a one-time miner who ran a store in Bingham Canyon, died in 1901 and left a substantial amount of money to the diocese earmarked for the support of St. Ann’s Orphanage. Miss Ellen Hayes, owner of a store and hotel and a real estate speculator in Ely, Nevada, left a handsome endowment to the diocese upon her death in 1909. (Until 1931—during Bishop Mitty’s tenure—when the Diocese of Reno was created, the parishes in eastern Nevada were included in the Diocese of Salt Lake.) Despite what Bishop Mitty says, careful records were kept for both endowments and are available today in the Diocesan Archives. Apparently they were temporarily misplaced at the time of his writing. But both of those funds were created during the administration of Bishop Scanlan, who was a scrupulous keeper of financial records, and Bishop Mitty’s characterization of the slipshod nature of Bishop Glass’s record keeping is on the mark. Bishop Glass’s episcopal style was something of a throwback to the “princes of the Church” of the Renaissance: he ran the diocese out of his hip pocket and felt himself accountable to no one but God. John Theodore Comes, whom Bishop Glass had reportedly met on a golf outing, was a church architect from Luxembourg with whom Glass had worked on a new church in Los Angeles before getting Comes to undertake renovation of the Cathedral of the Madelaine. See Mooney, The Story of the Cathedral of the Madeleine, 28-29. Mary Glass Pope was Bishop Glass’s younger sister, whom he named as executor of his estate and his heiress. The threatened law suit arose over a loan the bishop had made to the diocese, which Mrs. Pope argued should be repaid to her. The settlement, which evidently consisted of a negotiated one-time payment, was made out of court. The Glass papers in the Diocesan Archives contain her quitclaim deed toward any diocesan resources.

15 Mitty’s tally obviously excludes the Catholic population of Salt Lake City and Ogden. Even at that, and even though in the following letter he represents it as an actual count, the figure seems low.

16 This second mention of jail suggests it is not just a figure of speech, and that he considered himself in serious jeopardy of some kind of legal action.

17 Hyperbole in fundraising appeals is not unknown, nor is the tendency of newcomers to exaggerate Utah’s exoticism to the folks back home.

18 Mitty did indeed have clean hands, and it was this conspicuous austerity that gave him the moral leverage he needed when he turned on the people of the diocese, as shown in the following document, to excoriate them for not making similar sacrifices.

19 One of the most significant features of this letter is something it does not contain: an appeal for funds to support conversion of Mormons. Early on in his tenure in Salt Lake City, Bishop Scanlan had made annual appeals to the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, an organization of French lay people whose purpose was to provide financial assistance to struggling churches like those in Utah. Scanlan’s appeals almost always mentioned efforts to convert Mormons. By the mid-1880s, though, several experiences had led to a sea change in his attitude: his lack of success in such conversions, the hospitality of Mormons who often provided food and lodging on his long journeys through rural Utah, and his sympathy for the way Mormons were being treated during the anti-polygamy crusade. Thereafter, he adopted a live-and-let-live policy which made for remarkably warm relations between the two churches. That policy and those good relations have continued to the present day. See Scanlan to the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, November 1, 1883, copy in Diocesan Archives, and Intermountain Catholic, May 5, 1915.

20 Mooney, Salt of the Earth, 179.

21 Bernardine Ryan Martin reported that the father of the later Archbishop Robert J. Dwyer, in whose home she boarded while serving as Bishop Glass’s secretary, “came home a very chastened person after that meeting and the rest of the men did too.” Martin to Steiss, July 29, 1977. This report was hearsay, probably from Dwyer, because Martin left Salt Lake City late in 1926 and was not present at the time of Bishop Mitty’s meeting. Msgr. William H. McDougall, Jr., interview with Martin, April 5, 1980, p. 4, Diocesan Archives.

22 This was a boys’ summer camp in Provo Canyon which Bishop Glass had created in 1925. Bishop Mitty closed it in 1930.

23 Named for English poet Alice Meynell, this was a girls’ club founded in 1923 devoted to various social and charitable projects such as supporting Girl Scouts and an annual Christmas program for poor children.

24 This is an annual collection to support the work of the Pope.

25 Bishop Mitty derives these figures by dividing each of the three totals in the right column by 15,000 the total number of Utah Catholics. The math is another way of making the contributions look shameful, e.g., eight cents per person.

26 Msgr. (later Bishop) Duane G. Hunt had been a professor of rhetoric at the University of Utah before his ordination. It was Mitty’s idea to create a weekly radio program called The Catholic Hour to take advantage of Hunt’s oratorical skills. Eventually other priests took turns giving the broadcast as well. The texts of Hunt’s talks are available in the Diocesan Archives, as are recordings of some by Hunt and others.

27 Father Joseph S. Keefe was Assistant Pastor of the Cathedral parish during the 1920s.

28 Originally a miners’ hospital, built with financial assistance from Mary Judge shortly after the turn of the twentieth century, this is the building that became Judge Memorial Catholic High School in Salt Lake City in 1920.

29 Although, as we have seen in his letters to Cardinal Hayes, Bishop Mitty was well aware of his predecessor’s inadequacies as a fiscal administrator, he was not about to acknowledge them on this occasion and thus give his listeners an excuse for their own fiscal irresponsibility.

30 After the Kearns-St. Ann’s Orphanage was closed in the 1950s, most of the records were lost or destroyed, so checking on Bishop Mitty’s gloomy assessment is difficult. During Bishop Scanlan’s day, the orphanage was the pride of the diocese: far from the Dickensian horrors the term “orphanage” tends to evoke, St. Ann’s was a model institution where the children were well fed, clothed, and educated. See, for example, a general report on its condition in Salt Lake Herald, October 8, 1900, p. 5. It is probable that funding for the orphanage declined as part of the general financial malaise of the Glass years, but Bishop Mitty fails to mention the ongoing endowment of the Phelan Fund, which was providing several hundred dollars a month during the 1920s. That was likely part of the reason why he doubts a future need for additional diocesan funding. Phelan Fund records, Diocesan Archives. Sr. Kathryn Callahan, “Sisters of the Holy Cross and Kearns-St. Ann’s Orphanage,” Utah Historical Quarterly 78 (Summer 2010): 254-74.

31 Medieval Christians took quite seriously St. Paul’s admonition (I Corinthians 11:27-29) to examine their consciences before going to Communion, to the point that most people received the Eucharist only and this practice continued into modern times. During Bishop Mitty’s day, Pope St. Pius X (1903-14) lowered the age of First Communion for children and urged more frequent Communion for everyone. Bishop Mitty’s admonition here is part of that trend.

32 These figures are found in Mooney, Salt of the Earth, 181. Dwyer went on to have a very distinguished career: after earning a Ph.D. in history and serving as a priest in the Diocese of Salt Lake City, he was ordained Bishop of Reno in 1952 and Archbishop of Portland, Oregon in 1967. Albert J. Steiss, ed., Ecclesiastes: The Book of Archbishop Robert J. Dwyer (Los Angeles: National Catholic Register, 1982). In calling Dwyer the first native Utah priest, I am referring strictly to the state of Utah, not the Diocese of Salt Lake, because there had been native Nevadans ordained before Dwyer.

33 Mooney, The Story of the Cathedral of the Madeleine, 111-12

34 Ibid, 111.