Utah bishops' mottos through the years make interesting reading

Friday, Nov. 13, 2015

Si vales, valeo, “if you are well, I am well,” was a common salutation in Roman correspondence. I think it’s a wonderful way to begin a letter, and a wonderful way to begin a newspaper column.

I’m surrounded by Latin in the Diocese of Salt Lake City Archives. Papal bulls appointing the bishops are all in Latin, as are the baptismal and marriage records I have to look up all the time. I get practice in Latin every day because the hallway outside my office has framed photographs of each of our bishops with their coats of arms and mottos, which are all in Latin up through Bishop Joseph L. Federal (Bishop of Salt Lake from 1960 to 1980), so I read them as I’m sauntering down the hall. 

Quid timidi estis was the motto of the Right Rev. Lawrence Scanlan, the first Bishop of Salt Lake (1891-1915). It could have a question mark after it, because it asks, “What are you afraid of?” (or possibly, “Why are you timid?”)

Nothing could have been a better motto for Bishop Scanlan, for he was never timid and never afraid. His vision for the diocese bordered on the audacious: in addition to building the Cathedral of the Madeleine, he created new parishes, schools, hospitals, orphanages, and even a college for men. And he did it all with a population of Utah Catholics that might almost have fit into a broom closet. Why are you timid, indeed!

Bishop Joseph S. Glass, who succeeded Bishop Scanlan and served in the diocese until 1926, is my constant companion, for I can see his photo and coat of arms right through my office doorway. Fortitudo et pax was his motto. Fortitudo could mean several things (one of Latin’s difficulties is that many words have multiple meanings, and one has to consider the context to pick the best one). It could mean bravery, courage, strength, or resolution, but I think just “fortitude” might be the best: “Fortitude and peace.”

The motto of Bishop John J. Mitty (1926-1932) offers an interesting problem. The Latin itself is easy: Mihi vivere Christus est – “To me to live is Christ.” (Phil 1:21) The trouble is that it contains, of all things, a misspelling: vivere is rendered as “vivire,” which is not a word in Latin.  The meaning is obvious, for vivere is a regular third conjugation infinitive, “to live.” 

One wonders how that escaped Bishop Mitty’s notice, for he would have been an expert Latinist. 

Anyway, the Intermountain Catholic got it right in reporting his installation in October 1926, and adds the explanation that it was the motto of St. Joseph Seminary in Dunwoodie, N.Y., where Bishop Mitty had been both a student and a professor.

In te Domine speravi – “In you Lord I placed my hope” – was the motto of Bishop James E. Kearney (1932-1937); that of Bishop Hunt (1937-1960) was Per ecclesiam ad Deum – “Through the church to God.”  

The last Latin motto was Bishop Federal’s: Jesum nobis ostende – “Show us Jesus.”

Our last three (post-Vatican II) bishops have had English mottos: “Feed my sheep” (Bishop William K. Weigand, 1980-1994); “To serve and to give,” (Bishop George H. Niederauer, 1995-2006); and “Abide in Christ,” (Bishop John C. Wester, 2007-2015).  

Bishop Wester’s is an adaptation of Jesus’ admonition to “Abide in me.” My own spiritual life would be vastly improved if I resolved just to abide in Bishop Wester, but I try instead to follow his admonition and abide in Christ.

As I write, our hallway mottos are approaching a point of crisis. As I see it, there is room on the wall for only two more bishops, and the next one will have to have his coat of arms posted on the door of the men’s room. If I live long enough to meet that bishop, I might suggest that he take as his motto Per latrinam ad Deum – “Through the restroom to God.”  

Or I might not.