Financial Stepport for tlee Cliurcle i11 Texas
of Archbiship Quigley, on December 12, 1905, the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Patroness and Queen of the Americas. The draft of the constitution was accepted and the application for incorporation under the laws of the State of Michigan under the legal title of the Catholic Church Extension Society of the United States of America, was approved and signed. Before the end of the month, on December 28, the incor- poration was granted. The organization of the Society was now complete. The office of the Society was established in Kelley's rectory in Lapeer. Michigan. When the Reverend General Secretary Father Edward Gra- ham arrived, his humble belongings and his books filled the parish house to capacity. "There were books to the right and left, above and below. The house looked like a public library.... Soon a house had to be rented across the street for an office." The General Secretary was an ardent admirer of Saint Philip Neri, with whose life Father Kelley was barely acquainted. Through Graham, Kelley became such a devotee of the great Saint that he besought St. Pius X a few years later to name St. Philip Neri the patron of the Catholic Church Extension Society. It was a fitting tribute to the Saint, who after death attained an ambition denied him in life, for as a zealous youth he had longed to be a foreign mis- sionary, but had been dissuaded by a learned man, who managed to reconcile him with the prophetic assertion, "Your India shall be Rome." The burning desire of extending the work of the Catholic Church Exten- sion Society to the ends of the world had, likewise, to be restricted to the United States, its territories, dependencies, and insular possessions. 26 Objects of the Society. The objects of the Society were declared to be: "To foster and extend the Catholic Faith; to develop the missionary spirit in the clergy and people; to assist in the erection of parish build- ings in needy places; to contribute to the support of priests living in out-of-the-way localities and poverty-stricken districts; to extend the comforts of religion to pioneers; to supply altar plate and vestments for poor missions; to circulate Catholic literature; to educate or assist in the education of students who intend to become missionary priest!-; and to rlirect Catholic colonists to suitable localities." 17 26 /bid., 63-64; Extension Society '1fa!{az;ne, December, 1930. The growth of the Society was phenomenal. The office was moved to Chicago the second year and three times more until its headquarter~ were permanently established in 1948 at J JOi South Wabash Ave., Chicago. 27 W. D. O'Brien, "The Catholic Church Extension Society," in Cat/u1Uc Ruildtrs af tlte Natit1n, V, 1:24-1:25.
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