Religion: The Roads to Rome

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¶ On outlawing aggression: "If this is to be something more than a ... gesture, all oppression and all arbitrary action from within and without must be banned."

The redistribution of cardinals was not quite as revolutionary as it looked at first. Of the 70 princes of the church (28 Italian, 42 others), 51 were still in Europe. The New World went up from three to 14. The five remaining hats dotted the vastnesses of Africa, Asia Minor, Asia and Australia. But everywhere cardinals were carefully placed for maximum spiritual and political effect.

New Continents. Africa and Asia are Catholicism's open spaces. There the Pope's appointments exemplified his policy. The choice of Archbishop Teodosio de Gouveia of Portugal's colonial Lourengo Marques not only gave Africa its first modern cardinal but emphasized colonial peoples' right to effective representation in world affairs. The Vatican piously added: "The Sacred College must set the example."

In Asia Minor, Rome's age-old desire to gather in the Eastern Orthodox Church was reflected in the selection of red-turbaned Patriarch Gregory Peter XV of the Armenian Catholics. He joined Cardinal Ignatius Tappouni of Syria, elevated in 1935, as the second red hat from the Eastern Rite since 1472. With Russia now claiming the rest of Armenia from Turkey, the Pope's promotion of the Russian-born Patriarch had added significance.

Still more significant was the appointment of China's first cardinal, Bishop Thomas Tien of Tsingtao. Born 55 years ago, of Catholic parents, Cardinal-designate Tien was consecrated bishop by the Pope himself in 1939. China's Catholics have risen from one to five million in the last 20 years.

New World. North and South America's record-breaking 14 cardinals were dotted on the map with the same sense of worldwide polity. Cuba, Chile and Peru got their first cardinals, while Brazil and Argentina were upped to two apiece. Most notable Latin choice: tall, taciturn, efficient Bishop Antonio Caggiano of Rosario, builder of Argentina's Catholic Action movement, who has often shown hatred of Fascism and antiSemitism.

Canada's new place as a leading "middle power" was duly recognized by the selection of her first English-speaking cardinal, Toronto's balding, blue-eyed Archbishop James Charles McGuigan (rhymes with McTwiggan), to balance French-speaking Quebec's Rodrigue Cardinal Villeneuve. When Cardinal-designate McGuigan was five years old he decided to become a priest, told his mother: "When I get big I shall preach big." He has made a notable record in largely Protestant Toronto.

Pius XII is the only Pope who has ever set foot in the U.S. He has learned to lean on it in many ways, from cash to idealism. He showed both his knowledge and his dependence in selecting the four new American cardinals.

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