Bishop Gannon’s Historical Commission

Fr. John Wynne SJ. Fr. Marion Habig OFM

Gannon in fact eagerly took the lead in this task, which he would ardently champion until his death in 1968. Having received the support of the American hierarchy at their annual meeting in November 1939, Bishop Gannon assembled a team of preeminent ecclesiastical historians, which included representatives from the Jesuits (Fr. John Wynne of Fordham University, and Fr. Michael Kenny of Spring Hill College), Dominicans (Victor O’Daniel, the noted historian of the Dominican order, and then Fr. Reginald Coffey, the archivist of the Dominican House of Studies), Franciscans (Fr. Marion Habig of Quincy College, and Fr. Roland Burke of Warwick, New York, who was the Vice-Postulator of the cause of Mother Schervier, the foundress of the Little Sisters of the Poor of St. Francis), and the secular clergy (Fr. Peter Guilday of The Catholic University of America). The secretary was Fr. (later Msgr.) James M. Powers of the Diocese of Erie. Members of the committee convened twice in early 1941 at the Commodore Hotel in New York City, where they assigned responsibilities and began to prepare a submission to Rome. The work was facilitated by an earlier “American martyrology” assembled by Fr. Habig, which would be the core of the submission. By the fall of 1941 the completed report had been signed by Cardinal Dennis Joseph Dougherty of Philadelphia. In November of that year, the Apostolic Delegate to the United States, Archbishop Amleto Cicognani, sent to Rome three handsome red volumes for Cardinal Carlo Salotti, the Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, and three ivory bound volumes to be delivered to the Holy Father, Pope Pius XII. But more than three years would elapse before Bishop Gannon learned of the status of this submission. The Sacred Congregation of Rites had indeed received the report, and Monsignor Carinci, the Secretary, had issued a reply on August 8, 1943, but this reply never reached Bishop Gannon or, so far as we know, anyone else in the United States (Powers to Habig, 5/1/1945).



      Europe, of course, was already in the throes of war, which the United States would soon enter. Indeed, at the end of December 1941 Bishop Gannon wistfully, but not without hope, confided to Fr. Kenny: “I am afraid the war has cut across our intent to secure canonization for the martyrs of America. Nevertheless, our labor has not been in vain. A large part of the work has been done, especially the foundation built, and time, I am sure, will bring the glory [of the martyrs] we seek. If the result doesn’t come while we are still on earth, there may be an added joy and interest in watching the mortals work out an answer to the problem from the blissful skies above” (12/29/1941). Following the war there were occasional hopes that the cause might be revived (e.g., Habig to Powers 5/2/1945), notably in the mid-1950s when (now) Archbishop Gannon was preparing to publish The Martyrs of the United States of America (Erie, 1957). A crowning moment of his efforts came on September 14, 1948 when, during a visit to Europe on behalf of the National Catholic Welfare Conference, Bishop Gannon spontaneously proclaimed to Pope Pius XII the story of the American martyrs, to which the Pope responded “this cause is beautiful . . . most beautiful.” But other responsibilities and lack of funding slowed efforts to pursue the cause, and in the fall of 1957 Archbishop Gannon resigned his commission as head of the Bishops’ Committee that was seeking this cause. 
       
At the very outset of their efforts Bishop Gannon had advised Fr. Wynne: “I think we should go slowly in the matter” (12/13/1939). He recognized the need, in an historical case, to assemble all of the relevant documents and testimonies in order to provide convincing evidence to each of the audiences identified in the ecclesiastical norms (Normae Servandae). Moreover, Bishop Gannon presciently recognized that much of this evidence would be found in Latin American archives, in Cuba and Mexico (Gannon to Habig, 3/28/1942). Bishop Gannon himself had inspected the valuable Jesuit archives in Havana, and Fr. Habig also undertook archival research in Cuba. But of course research there was soon to become more difficult, and many of the relevant documents remained unknown. Yet today, building on the foundation established by Bishop Gannon’s committee, and thanks in large part to recent, extraordinarily fruitful archival work in Spain and in Cuba, which has dramatically deepened our understanding of this era and has in fact revealed the stories of martyrs altogether unknown until now, the time is propitious for the resubmission of the cause for the Florida martyrs. Like a tree spreading its branches, the cause begun by Bishop Gannon was ultimately channeled by the Sacred Congregation of Rites into a diocese by diocese process. Thus far there have been three causes initiated, with each in a different stage. First, Father Habig’s zeal and perseverance launched the diocesan effort for the Cause of five Franciscans martyred in Georgia in 1597, which was submitted to Rome in 2007 by the Diocese of Savannah. Second, last decade the Diocese of Richmond undertook an inquiry into the case of eight Jesuits martyred in Ajacán (near Williamsburg, Virginia) in 1571…

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