Religion: In the Fifth Century

Into the Fifth Century

To the world headquarters of the Society of Jesus, adjoining the Vatican, went all the Jesuits in Rome one afternoon last week. While they watched, the seal on an envelope was broken and a paper bearing the name of 71-year-old Alessio Ambrogio Magni, Italian Assistant to the Father General since 1916, was drawn out. Thus, a religious order that never stops fighting got a new leader.

Father Magni had been chosen by the late leader (or "Black Pope") Father Wlodimir Ledochowski, who died last week (TIME, Dec. 21). He will serve as vicar general until after the war, when...