64. Archbishop Corrigan Address to Bishop Scalabrini¹³⁷

          New York, October 15, 1901

Most Reverend Excellency:

Your visit to this country is the fulfillment of a wish long cherished both on your part and on mine. You will recall that time and again by letter, and twice by a personal visit to your beautiful Piacenza, I urged your Excellency to cross the trackless ocean and learn for yourself the condition of your compatriots in the New World discovered by their elder brother, Christopher Columbus. I was induced to urge this journey, knowing your deep interest in their spiritual welfare; and this in turn I became acquainted with through your zeal in bringing about and presiding over the first Catechetical Congress ever held in the Catholic Church. After that assemblage had taken place, I made bold to confer often with your Excellency regarding the burning question of Emigration; all the more so that my efforts to obtain workers for the vineyard had proved ineffectual. It was almost impossible at that time to obtain aid from the Religious Orders, whose houses had been suppressed in Italy, and whose sources of recruiting their forces had been ruthlessly closed. I need not say, then, with what joy the news was received that you had founded in Piacenza the Missionary Institute of Christopher Columbus devoted to the training of priests for North and South America. At that time, in November, 1887, there were but two distinctively Italian churches in New York. You have added two more, while there are now twenty four Italian congregations or parishes in the diocese, and some twenty houses of your Missionary Fathers scattered through the United States.

            But it is not so much the number of churches that elicits our gratitude to Your Excellency, as the impetus and the steady and well-sounded development that has been given to this movement, and which augurs so promisingly for the future. To this work, our own clergy have always given their cheerful cooperation. Their schools particularly have willingly received Italian children, and the fact that in the old Cathedral Church of St. Patrick the Italian children today number 20 to 1, that is, 2,000 Italian children to 100 American born, tells at once of the untiring zeal and devotedness of our Priesthood.

            That in the glory of your Episcopal Jubilee you have left your own Diocese of 352 Parishes, 840 Priests, and 1,440 chapels and churches to tempt the broad ocean is a new title to our gratitude. For the experience gained by your personal acquaintance with our country, its wants and its conditions will redound to the training of your Missionaries of St. Charles and to the benefit of the thousands of emigrants who are still to come to this Republic.

            To our Holy Father, whose loving interest in his compatriots was evidenced by his touching letter in their behalf to the Hierarchy of America, you will bring our unswerving fealty, together with our hopes and our prayers that he may not only see the years of Peter, as Sovereign Pontiff, but may also carry out to the utmost his intentions and noble plans for the welfare of the Universal Church.

            And for yourself, Most Reverend Excellency, you will kindly accept our best wishes and our thanks and our prayers for a pleasant and happy return to your own devoted Diocese.