Financial Support for tlze Clmrclz in Texas
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the Marquette League for Catholic Indian Missions. They applied on May Ir, 1904, for incorporation in the State of New York which was granted to them by the Secretary of the State. It was at that time that they chose their name in honor of the great Jesuit explorer and missionary Father Jacques Marquette. A few months later Pope Pius X gave his blessing to the League and his approval to the work it intended to carry out. At present the chairman of the Episcopal Advisory Committee of the League is His Eminence, Francis Cardinal Spellman. How much it has contributed to missionary work in Texas can not be determined with accuracy because information concerning its help is held strictly confidential, but it has contributed liberally at various time to the Dioceses of Texas in money and goods. Since its organization the Marquette League has erected over two hundred chapels on the various Indian mission fields of the United States and Alaska, where the survivors of the natives of America and the Eskimo of Alaska may worship God in their own simple way. Since 1904 the League has collected and disbursed approximately two million dollars to our priests and Sisters throughout the United States and Alaska to carry on their noble work. Every year it sends out hundreds of cases of clothing, vestments, altar linens, sacred vessels, Mass Kits, toys. athletic equipment, crates of medicines and bandages for the Mission Dispensaries, and other useful articles. In recent years the League has come to look to the mission school as the most important activity of missionary endeavors. The present slogan of the Marquette League is "Every Catholic Indian child in a Catholic Mission School." Numerous appeals come yearly for help to provide education for Indian children in and out of our Reservations, and to these appeals the League has always responded to the extent of its ability. There are no Catholic Indian Reservations in Texas, but the contributions have been made to different organizations in the various dioceses through their respective Ordinaries to help them carry on missionary work." How much the generous help given by the various organizations and agencies has contributed to preserve and spread the truths taught by the Church which Christ founded and to bring the comforts of religion to His flock scattered over Texas and the rest of the vast Southwest, we can but surmise. Only God knows how fruitful have been their benefac- tions in helping save souls in America's own home-mission field. 41 The summary here given of the Marquette League is based on the correspondence of Monsignor Bernard A. Cullen, the Director General, with the author. The cor- respondence has been deposited in the C. A. T.
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