King of the Cannibal Isles

The Japs found they couldn't run the Solomon Islands without the help of an American-born missionary. And so the last word via Suva is that stocky, jolly little Bishop Thomas Wade is out of jail and very busy protecting his flock from the Japs and the Japs from his flock.

Officials and merchants of these British and Australian islands fled in January when an enemy warship was reported near. The bishop stayed put. Soon a Jap seaplane swooped down to take possession and Bishop Wade, like Pope Leo I going out to meet Attila, stalked down the beach in his full pontifical robes to confront the startled aviators and demand respect for his Church and flock. Then the Japs flew away and Bishop Wade ran the islands unmolested until last month, when they came in force and put him in jail. They soon learned that they could not govern with out him and set him free to maintain the peace.

So great is Bishop Wade's influence in the Solomon Islands (which string out 1,600 miles just east of New Guinea) that their Melanesian natives (see cut) are known far & wide as his "Black Irish."

Not all Roman Catholics have been as successful there. In 1844 three of the priests of the first Catholic mission to the islands were eaten by the natives. Two of the priests of the second mission were eaten in 1852. A permanent mission, finally established in 1903, was not found very palatable by the natives--either from the dietetic or theological standpoint--until meteoric young Father Wade (he was then 30) arrived from Providence, R.I., 18 years ago. Within seven years he was made bishop, and since then he has had such success that he has brought 36,540 of the 57,928 islanders into his fold.

From his bamboo and Saksak palm episcopal palace in Keita he and his 54 priests and nuns (including Father James Hennessy of Boston and Father John Conley of Philadelphia) range all through the innumberable islands, in launches and little outrigger canoes. They still encounter an occasional intimation of cannibalism. When one nun visited a remote mountain village in 1937, the chief took a bite out of her arm to sample her flesh but she received no other affront.

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