Many thanks to reader Matthew who passed along this article from TIME about the 1935 Eucharistic Congress in Cleveland. It really is a fascinating snapshot of the Catholicism of the period, as well as the secular world's take on it, seeing it all through the eyes of TIME.
The article's focus is really Patrick Joseph Cardinal Hayes of New York (d. 1938), who was present at the Congress as Papal Legate:
Chicago's brisk, businesslike George William Cardinal Mundelein, 63, spent his days last week between his office, his residence, his cathedral, his villa at Mundelein, where on a nine-hole course he golfs in the high 40's. Boston's stocky, rugged William
Henry Cardinal O'Connell, 75 and in the best of health, attended to routine business, looked in on a priests' retreat at St. John's Seminary. Philadelphia's austere Denis Cardinal Dougherty, 70, who lately bought a $215,000 house at Overbrook, was traveling quietly in Europe. The fourth U. S. Prince of the Roman Catholic Church, Patrick Joseph Cardinal Hayes of New York, had extraordinary priestly duties to perform. Clothed with vast and holy power, attended in proud dignity by a princely retinue, the Archbishop of New York set forth on an errand imposed upon him last month by His Holiness Pope Pius XI. Symbolically dispatched from the Pope's side and armed with all that Pontiff's authority and precedence. Cardinal Hayes was Legatus a latere to the Seventh National Eucharistic Congress, held this week in Cleveland.
To Manhattan from Cleveland last week journeyed four members of the Cardinal's entourage—Monsignor Joseph Francis Smith, prothonotary apostolic and vicar general of the diocese; President Thomas Coughlin of the Morris Plan Bank who was chosen as gentleman-in-waiting; Henry Coakley, 18, son of a prominent Catholic family who was given the privilege of bearing the Cardinal's train; Joseph J. Mulholland, who got the job of ecclesiastical valet by writing a prize-winning essay on "The Influence and Benefit of the Congress to Catholics and non-Catholics of Cleveland." These four marked time for a day while the S. S. Rex sped into New York harbor bearing Monsignor Diego Venini, private chamberlain to the Pope, and Monsignor Carlo Grano, papal master of ceremonies, who proceeded to Cardinal Hayes's grey stone house on Madison Avenue behind St. Patrick's Cathedral. There they solemnly handed him his credentials as a Papal Legate. Next evening assembled the rest of the Cardinal's entourage—Monsignor Michael J. Lavelle, his portly vicar general; Monsignor John J. Casey, his affable private secretary; and two Chamberlains of the Cape & Sword, Gerald Borden of the Manhattan milk family and Papal Marquis George MacDonald, the Cardinal's rich good friend.
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