"Amateur Diplomats"

An uncommonly handsome, smoothspoken and astute Roman Catholic prelate is Most Rev. James Hugh Ryan, Bishop for the past three years of Omaha, Neb., and onetime (1928-35) Rector of the Catholic University of America (Washington, D. C.). As head of the nation's only pontifical university, Bishop Ryan was friend to many a secular bigwig in Washington, including Franklin D. Roosevelt. Last December the Bishop, with his good friend Rev. Dr. Maurice S. Sheehy, head of the University's religious education department, called upon President Roosevelt at the White House. Ensued some joking about a mutual interest of the President and the prelate--deep-sea fishing. Then, with the blessings of the White House and the U. S. State Department, Bishop Ryan and Father Sheehy departed on a four-week, 18,000-mile airplane trip around South America (TIME, Jan. 9).

Last week, still feeling jounced from his 13 days of flying, Bishop Ryan rested at Palm Beach. In a message addressed to "Franklin D. Roosevelt, Amateur Fisherman" and signed "Bishop James Ryan, Amateur Diplomat," he informed the President of his return. In Washington, Father Sheehy delivered to Secretary of State Hull a confidential report on the two churchmen's able job of amateur diplomacy. Its gist: "The foundation has been laid for a 'Catholic front' to protect democracy in this hemisphere."

South America has some 65,000,000 Catholics. Between its principal nations and the Holy See there is deer and traditional respect; the eight largest States exchange diplomatic representatives with the Vatican. Brazil runs neck-&-neck with Italy as the world's largest Catholic State, although its 40,000,000 Catholics are shepherded by only 6,000 priests.* Bishop Ryan and Father Sheehy, looking businesslike to South American churchmen, who still wear their soutanes in the street, visited papal nuncios and hierarchs, talked with them in Italian and French, found everywhere that Latin American prelates look to the U. S. hierarchy for social and cultural leadership--a leadership which has been slow in materializing.

Brazil's Sebastian Cardinal Leme da Silveira Cintra, who reminded his visitors of New York's late saintly Cardinal Hayes, greeted them as "spiritual ambassadors." Archbishop Pedro Pascual Farfan of Lima, Peru--an ancient Catholic city which produced the first American saint, St. Rose--addressed Bishop Ryan and Father Sheehy with florid Spanish courtesy, insisted that they sit upon thrones at a reception.

Some practical observations of the "Amateur Diplomats":

> Naziism is unpopular in South America, although the Nazis are propagandizing hard. Dr. Goebbels' paper Der Angriff recognized Bishop Ryan and Father Sheehy as adversaries, called them "paid propagandists" of President Roosevelt. The two planned the trip themselves and represented nobody but themselves. They recommended strongly, however, that U. S. press and radio services to South America be improved. The Nazis give the South American press a free news service in Spanish and Portuguese, which misrepresents U. S. happenings, and Nazi broadcasts consistently drown out U. S. programs. As Father Sheehy discovered after giving six NBC and CBS broadcasts from South America, south-to-north transmission is not very good.

> The Papal nuncios in South America collaborate freely with U. S. diplomats. Father Sheehy was informed that: "It's very simple. Neither the American nor the Vatican representatives are looking for more territory, and both are honest."

> The U. S. Catholics should send missionaries and religious teachers to South America. President Contares of Venezuela offered to give land for a Catholic college as soon as U. S. bishops furnish priests. On the other hand, South Americans resent U. S. Protestant proselytizing, deplore the fact that, instead of going after the pagan and the unchurched, U. S. missionaries (except the Episcopalians) attempt to convert good Roman Catholics to Protestantism.

*The U. S. has about one priest per 700 Catholics, which is considered a good working proportion.

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