Editor’s Note: A concelebrated Mass will be held Thursday at 7 p.m. in the Cathedral to honor the first anniversary of Archbishop Paul J. Hallinan’s death from hepatitis. Archbishop Thomas A. Donnellan will be the main concelebrant. This speech was delivered by Bishop Joseph L. Bernadin, the archbishop’s auxiliary bishop, Feb. 16 in Cleveland at another celebration to honor his memory. Bishop Bernadin is now general secretary of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops and the U.S. Catholic Conference.

ARCHBISHOP PAUL J. HALLINAN:

“The news of his death leaves the world saddened, and the Church bereaved. For this beloved father spoke not only to us—his children—but to all men because he loved the whole human family. His thoughts were never narrow and doctrinaire; they stretched out to all the confusing issues of a wary world. His heart beat not only for the anxieties of Catholics, but for the longings of all men of good will…”

When, in preparing for this talk, I read these words I assumed that they were a tribute which had been paid to Archbishop Hallinan at the time of his death. But then, on second glance, I realized that these were the Archbishop’s own words spoken in tribute to Pope John XXIII. I speak them again this evening, but this time in reference to their author because they so vividly and accurately reflect the mind and the heart of Paul Hallinan, that extraordinary man whom we knew so well, that prophetic priest and bishop whose memory we honor this evening.

Perhaps one of the most refreshing things about Archbishop Hallinan was that he never thought of himself as a suitable candidate for the office of bishop. One of his favorite stories—and he told it frequently precisely because he could not understand why he, of all the priests of Cleveland, was chosen—was a conversation which took place outside the Charleston Cathedral shortly after it was announced that he had been named Bishop of Charleston. An elderly lady whose recently deceased brother had been rector of the Cathedral and vicar general of the diocese for nearly forty years expressed astonishment at the appointment. “What has he done to deserve this?” she asked. The only thing her friend could offer was the fact that he had been a Newman chaplain for a long time. “Why,” she said, “that’s no accomplishment!” as she walked away somewhat indignantly.

Bishop Hallinan told us shortly after he arrived in Charleston that when he told Archbishop Hoban he as afraid that he might not be the right man for the job, the archbishop (with tongue-in-cheek, I am sure) practically agreed with him and asked that he move into his residence for the interval prior to his consecration so that he could give him some lessons on how to become a bishop. One of the lessons was aimed at trying to make him look like a bishop! Because, among other things, his gait was anything but episcopal, Archbishop Hoban made him walk across the room several times with a book on his head!

It was not long, however, before everyone knew why he had been chosen.. For in Paul Hallinan they saw a true leader. They saw a person who had not only talent but also a great vision. They saw, too, a person who had courage. He had a deep faith which seldom permitted him to falter or to become discouraged when he was convinced of the rightness of a decision or course of action. He was a secure, humble man who never held back because he was afraid of the personal repercussions his stand might have. And the people who came to know Paul Hallinan as bishop soon discovered what this friends had known all along—that he was the most human of persons, that he was extraordinarily sensitive to the feelings and needs of those around him, that status and fame never affected his relationship with people. Whether he was enjoying himself at a party for dependent children or dealing with a pastor who had not paid his diocesan assessment, the archbishop was always kind. He always knew just what to say to bring out the best in a person. And he literally died with that infectious smile which, over the years, brought so much warmth and happiness to those who knew him.

At the beginning of the Year of Faith in 1967, the archbishop wrote a remarkable pastoral letter entitled “Faith and the Human Condition.” (He flattered me by signing my name to it too, but he was really the author.) In this pastoral there is a paragraph which sums up well, I think the motivating force behind his constant effort to make the gospel message relevant to the people of today: Faith can be weakened, and it can be lost. Our present society does little to help. Materialism, relativism and secularism are poor soil if we expect a good harvest from our faith. But it is more likely that the torpor starts within us. If a man fails to relate his faith to the everyday facts of life, the bond intended by God becomes weakened. If he is harsh and critical to other persons and institutions, without love and compassion for them, his vision of the church grows bitter…

He felt that as a bishop one of his main responsibilities was to help those around him see how their Christian faith was related to their daily life. He was convinced, as he said at the University of West Virginia in January, 1968, that we must be “realist enough to accept the world as it is –its culture and its changing knowledge, and then permeate it by the Word, Christ, and his enduring wisdom.”

To accomplish this he constantly addressed himself to the real issues of the day regardless of how controversial they might be. He was one of the first bishops, for example, to speak out on the moral implications of the war in Vietnam. He disagreed completely with those who considered the war a matter which should be left exclusively to the generals, the diplomats and the politicians. He once said: We must speak out; we cannot remain silent. In his novel, WAR AND PEACE, Tolstoy asks how men can ignore the continued disasters in which ‘Christians, professing the law of love, murder one another.’ Christian consciences and voices must be raised against the savagery and terror of war. We must speak out—for justice, for truth, for freedom and for peace.

When he called for a halt in the bombing in North Vietnam, he was severely criticized in many quarters. His file was soon full of angry letters he received from all parts of the country, some accusing him of being a Communist and others simply saying that he was a misguided idealist. You can well understand, then, the impact of President Johnson’s dramatic announcement that there would be a partial halt in the bombing of North Vietnam in an effort to create a climate favorable to negotiations. For that announcement was made on March 31, 1968, the evening before the archbishop’s funeral. And it came precisely at a moment when a number of us gathered in the Cathedral rectory were recalling the many things he had said and done, including those relating to the war.

The archbishop’s record in the field of race-relations is known to all. His voice was constantly raised in behalf of those who were suffering because of prejudice or injustice. He insisted that the heart of the race question is essentially religious and moral and he never ceased to appeal to the conscience of the archdiocese and the community to accept all men as brothers.

He was a personal friend of the late Dr. Martin Luther King. After Dr. King had won the Nobel Peace Prize he was one of three Atlantans responsible for a testimonial dinner in his honor. Shortly before the event, however, he was hospitalized because of a recurrence of his hepatitis. On the day itself, at the last moment, he persuaded his physician to let him attend at least for a little while. The audience, including Dr. King, was completely surprised and of course delighted when he made his appearance, even though they could tell that he could hardly walk. “Non-violence, the answer to the Negroes’ need,” he said in his brief tribute to Dr. King, “may become the answer to the most desperate need of humanity. This, we believe, was what the committee of the Nobel Peace Prize found in you and your work. This is really the reason for Atlanta’s pride tonight. It is no small feat to make non-violence a dynamic of peace. It is no mean achievement to make America aware of the great formula of man’s dignity: ‘I will walk in liberty because I seek thy precepts.’ Dr. King, you have done both. We are indebted to you. God bless you.”

The archbishop was perhaps best known for his vital interest in the liturgy. He was convinced that the liturgy was one of the chief ingredients of the renewal. He understood that to have this effect it must be a living liturgy, intimately related to the realities of daily life. It is within this context that his constant pleas for liturgical adaptation must be understood. “This is the hour, this is the day,” he said, “When we must find our identity as a people whose worship flows from their very life.” And then he was quick to point out that life is not static, that it is subject to growth and development. So, too, must the worship of God’s people grow and adapt, pruning off what is outdated and grafting on what is needed.

He was well aware that there were many forces at work in the current liturgical renewal—forces which, because they are sometimes contradictory, cause unrest. He was firmly convinced that much of this unrest could be dealt with effectively through creative experimentation but would not completely end the unrest. Indeed he thought that some unrest was needed for authentic liturgical growth:

If Catholic leaders listen to this unrest, no matter how untrained the voices are, they will catch some authentic sounds. Under the twanging of the guitars are sounds of hope and haste, of bitterness, joy and even despair. The rhythms of the new beat are part of our society. But it is not enough just to listen. Those who guide the new liturgy should live with those caught up in today’s grossness. They must talk with them, share with them, and even suffer with them...And because the pastor and bishop are leaders for the Lord, each should take the lead in opening up new channels for the Lord’s children…He should stand, not in a shady corner, but in the midst of his people. There he serves by love and compassion, but also by pointing the way.

Another great interest of the archbishop was ecumenism. He found it very easy and satisfying to work with those of other churches and faiths. This was because he loved people. He always saw the good in them and believed that this goodness was a bond which already united them. Beyond this, he was convinced that the unity was Christ’s desire and that all men of good will, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, must sincerely strive to prepare the way for it. He was realistic enough not to expect more than the human situation would allow. And he always insisted on personal integrity because he believed that the watering-down of religious convictions would impede true ecumenism rather than foster it. Because of his tremendous confidence in God’s grace, however, his hopes were always high. He watched these hopes materialize into the spirit of brotherhood that has become characteristic of our era.

In his optimism he frequently alluded to Newman’s vision of the Church entering into a second spring. A short time before he died, in a talk entitled “Ecumenism in the New South,” he said that he believed that we could look forward to a second springtime because God “has spurred on our instinct for religious unity and corked the bottles of venom and violence distilled from our peculiar grapes of wrath…” Later in the talk, after speaking of a new South emerging from all the cross-currents of the past – all the ugliness and glory, all the boasts and humble prayers—he returned to the theme of a second spring. “We ARE haunted with spring,” he said. “If we stay apart in sectarian isolation, it will be a cruel, deceptive spring. But if we climb unity’s ladder, step by step, with courage and patience, it will be a spring of Christian hope.”

There was one other sphere in which the archbishop felt completely at home—academe. His nature talents—his inquisitive mind, his ability to write in an imaginative way—equipped him to be a scholar. His work on the university campus for many years prior to his appointment as bishop gave him an opportunity to put those talents to work, for he was not only pastor but also student. His determination to continue working on his dissertation after he had exchanged his student’s cap for a miter finally earned him a Ph.D and the reputation of a first-class Church historian.

In the recent winter issue of THOUGHT, Monsignor John T. Ellis, a close friend and advisor of the late archbishop, paints a vivid portrait of him as an able historian. He quotes in the article from a forward that the archbishop had written for one of the books, PERSPECTIVE IN AMERICAN CATHOLICISM. “Those four and a half pages,” Monsignor Ellis states, “contained much of Archbishop Hallinan’s philosophy of history-writing. The term VOCATION is not too lofty to designate the life-work of the real historian.’ The latter, he continued, must seek and strive for objective truth. ‘The perspective he maintains,’ the archbishop declared, ‘will be the measure of his success,’ and then he stated: ‘If it is pure and true and balanced, the past event will come alive. But exhaustive research and profound study are needed. So is honesty, and often, so is courage.’”

During his twenty-one years as a chaplain to university students, he acquired a great insight into their thinking and their attitudes. In August, 1967, in an address given to the chaplains at the National Newman Congress at Northern Illinois University, he drew a very revealing profile of today’s university students. He spoke of a new kind of Church, a new kind of world and university—and a new Pandora’s box of tensions and concerns in every student’s ID-kit. He described many of those tensions and concern that stem from their realities of today’s computerized life. And with that understanding and compassion which were always so characteristic of him, he challenged the chaplains:

What I am pleading for, is an audience well-tuned in by your own experience, is that we take their side, espouse it and defend it. Reach them by every new and honest approach. Share with them, not their hatred, but their agony which they find teamed up in American life: righteousness and racial hate, affluence and starvation, national honor in war but little national honesty in peace, the STATUS QUO and the AGGIORNAMENTO.

One of the reasons for Archbishop Hallinan’s success as a Church leader was his ability to interpret correctly the signs of the times. He never buried his head in the sand; he never retired from the world and its problems because of fear. On the contrary, he was always out front, ready to meet the challenge no matter what it might be. A proof of this is that in his writings one can see a steady development in his ideas. He was able to detect the radical changes which began to take place during the last few years of his life. More importantly, he understood the implications of those changes for the Church. While the substance of our faith, as Pope John told us, can never change, relating that faith to the contemporary world is a process which necessarily changes. Archbishop Hallinan was prepared, both intellectually and temperamentally, for this change.

At the time of his funeral—nearly a year ago—I state that there might be some who thought the archbishop was ahead of his time. I said then and, in view of what has happened during the past year, I am even more convinced now that his genius was that he saw that time was running out. This is why he was usually a step ahead. Thank God he had the courage to take that step—that necessary, decisive step needed to bring the Church into the mainstream of contemporary life. It was for this reason that he was such a prophetic figure. It was for this reason he gave us all so much hope. It was this reason that his influence will long be felt.