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Deans. The College of Cardinals last week had 62 members, of whom 40 were in Rome—either because they live and work there or because they, along with most of Italy's bishops, had gone there for what was to have been a world-wide celebration: the 17th anniversary of the Pope's coronation. For these Cardinals there was much to do. Their first corporate act was to meet for consultation on a multitude of matters with Cardinal Camerlengo Pacelli and the three Cardinals who now constituted his cabinet. These three were the deans, eldest in point of service, of the three orders-of Cardinals which make up the College. Sitting in a row sheltered by the same baldachin (canopy), the Camerlengo and the three deans assumed many of the qualities of a reigning Pope, were entitled to the same genuflections which a Catholic would make to the Pontiff.
One dean, however, was not in Rome last week. He was William Henry Cardinal O'Connell, Archbishop of Boston. Twice Cardinal O'Connell has missed a papal election by not getting to Rome soon enough. The second time, in 1922, he missed it by no more than an hour, expostulated to such effect that one of Pius XI's first acts was to extend the minimum period between the Pope's death and the opening of the conclave to 15 days. Last week it looked as if Cardinal O'Connell, 79 and ailing, wintering in Nassau, might miss his third conclave. At news of the Pope's death he booked passage north on an airplane, then caceled it for his health's sake, embarked for Manhattan on a ship.
Uncertain whether he would reach Rome before the doors to the conclave are locked (probably between February 25 and March 1), Cardinal O'Connell this week was to sail for Italy. His colleagues, George Cardinal Mundelein of Chicago and Denis Cardinal Dougherty of Philadelphia, departed last week on the S.S. Rex.
Papabile. In the corridors of the Vatican, as over Roman dinner tables, there was much talk last week of who among the Cardinals was papabile (in line for the papacy), who were the most able papeggianti (promoters of candidacies). Some thought there was a better chance for a non-Italian Pope than at any time since the last one (in 1522). To them, these seemed papabile: Auguste Cardinal Hlond, Primate of Poland, Joseph Cardinal Schulte of Cologne (both strongly anti-Communist), Pierre Cardinal Gerlier of Lyon, and bearded Eugene Cardinal Tisserant, Wartime French staff officer and for 30 years Vatican librarian.
Conservative observers, however, looked for the election of an Italian archbishop, not too old, such as Milan's Cardinal Schuster, Venice's Patriarch-Cardinal Piazza, Turin's Cardinal Fossati—or even Cardinal Camerlengo Pacelli, despite the fact that Secretaries of State have in recent years seldom been considered papabile.