48. Scalabrini to Corrigan¹⁰⁹

         Piacenza, February 5, 1894

Most Reverend Excellency:

I am forced to write you this time with the deepest sorrow. I would never have believed it, although from the beginning a Prelate had warned me not to trust the New York Curia, because sooner or later it would have betrayed me. It seems, unfortunately, that these sinister forebodings have materialized. Recently I received strong and numerous protests over the closing of the Church on Baxter Street,¹¹⁰ protests that can be summarized in these words of a non-Italian priest: the Archbishop has committed a wicked action and a grave injustice.

            I was determined not to write anything more about matters of your Archdiocese, because when Cahensly begged me to furnish you with some explanations about the well-known question, you answered me in such a way as to conclude: Archbishop Corrigan tells me in words he is a friend, but . . . one does not answer this way to friends. Now I must break that resolve, in order to send you, as I am doing, my protests, and in the most valid form, and protect violated rights. The honor of a whole Congregation has been blemished.

            Having carefully read Father Vicentini’s letters sent to you on December 27, 1893, and January 2, 1894, your bad action and grave injustice

appear evident. A documented history of the truly disloyal way with which this case has been treated would undoubtedly throw a sinister shadow on its authors, all the more so if this action were compared with the letters Your Excellency sent me during these past years, in which, while very highly praising the work of the Missionaries, you assured you would always support and protect them, thinking of everything, and later you confirmed this verbally, knowing that I always worried about Father Morelli’s risky undertakings. The latest phase of the sad drama, let me say it clearly, is more worthy of the merchants of the British Company than of Episcopal Councils. In fact, the closing of a Church is ordered, sacred acquired rights are violated, a promise is extracted that all debts will be paid, including those of the Italians, a Superior without means is induced by false promises to take upon himself a debt contracted for that Church and, once the goal is reached, he is sent from Herod to Pilate: the first almost sneers at the request and the other washes his hands of it!

            Where are we, dear Excellency? A Masonic lodge would not have done worse.

            I said a Superior without means. In fact while the Missionaries of other American dioceses sent to the Mother House the money spent for their trip, as is usually done, those in New York have never been able to fulfill this duty.

            But for me it is a question of souls and dignity, not money. I conclude, therefore, protesting again, in the hope that I shall not be compelled to publish, together with this letter, other documents, determined as I am to even start a juridical procedure.

            Your Excellency must not think that my frankness diminishes of one degree the affectionate veneration which I personally have for you. On the contrary, I beg you to answer as frankly, because I love truth above everything, and I am in possession of sufficient documentation to answer to everyone on everything.

            This time I have preferred to dictate rather than write you myself in order to have a witness to what I am saying and to rid myself of this disconcerting subject as quickly as possible.

            I kiss your hands with deep respect and I remain,

Your Excellency’s very devoted servant,

Gio. Battista, Bishop