FAY, CYRIL SIGOURNEY WEBSTER

Diplomat; b. Philadelphia, Pa., June 16, 1875; d. New York City, Jan. 10, 1919. Fay was the son of Alfred Forbes and Susan (Hutchinson) Fay. After attending the University of Pennsylvania and the Episcopal Divinity School in Philadelphia, he was ordained in 1903. He became professor of dogmatic and moral theology at Nashotah House, an Episcopal seminary in the Diocese of Fond du Lac, Wis. There Fay joined a group of Anglican clergymen, the "Companions of the Holy Savior," who were led by the Rev. William McGarvey of Philadelphia. In 1907, when the Episcopal convention at Richmond, Va., approved the "open pulpit" clause allowing clergy of other denominations to preach in Episcopal churches, McGarvey, Fay, and others in the "American Oxford Movement" joined the Catholic Church.

Fay was ordained for the Baltimore Archdiocese by Cardinal James Gibbons, June 21, 1910. He was much in demand as a retreatmaster and preacher; he served as headmaster of the Newman School for Boys, Hackensack, N.J., and in 1917 joined the Red Cross. His work took him to Italy, where he became involved in negotiations to expunge a clause from a secret treaty that excluded the Holy See from participation in the World War I peace conference. Since Fay was a friend of Arthur James Balfour, the British Foreign Minister, and of Sir Eric Drummond and Cecil Dormer, members of the British Commission in Washington, it was decided to undertake further diplomacy in England, rather than approach Pres. Woodrow Wilson. Created a domestic prelate by Benedict XV, Fay returned to the U.S. to prepare for his mission. On the eve of his sailing for London, however, he was stricken with influenza and died.

Bibliography: m. chanler, Autumn in the Valley (Boston 1936).

[w. k. dunn]