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By 1955, Suenens had formulated his views on churchly change in a book called The Gospel to Every Creature, in which he first described such ideas as co-responsibility of laity, priests and hierarchy in the church. In 1962, as a newly elevated cardinal, he counseled Pope John XXIII on the preparations for Vatican II, and later acted as one of the council's four moderators. Pope John selected him as a special emissary to the U.N. to present the now famous papal peace encyclical, Pacem in Terns. After John died, Suenens worked closely with his good friend Paul VI, to whom he remains affectionately loyal even now. "It's not the engineer that I am criticizing," Suenens has said, "it's the locomotive."
Evolving World. Last year, shortly before Paul issued his birth-control encyclical, Humanae Vitae, Suenens was among the liberal European cardinals who flew to Rome to argue against an earlier, even more conservative version. Later he pleaded unsuccessfully against the issuance of Humanae Vitae as well. When Suenens went back earlier this year to oppose new powers for papal nuncios and press for urgent reforms in church administration, resentful conservatives fought back so bitterly that he left Rome in disgust.
Suenens maintains a careful orthodoxy of language and purpose. He has little patience with ultraliberal Catholics who challenge basic church doctrines. "If you don't believe in the Holy Spirit or Resurrection or life after death," Suenens explained to TIME'S Robert Kroon in Brussels, "you should leave the church. I don't see the modern church as a sort of spiritual Red Cross organization." But he also insists that something must be done, and soon, to stop "this hemorrhage of priests. The part-time priest, married or not, could be a first step. The world is evolving and the church must evolve with it." Such suggestions infuriate the Curia, where Suenens is considered a Judas. Once many of his peers considered him a candidate for the throne of Peter. Now it is generally agreed that he has no chance of ever becoming Pope.
Held Back. Suenens' enemies point out that the cardinal is more progressive in his pronouncements than in his own country; but for most of his tenure, Suenens has been somewhat held back by the six out of seven fellow Belgian bishops who are more conservative than he is. Today, however, many of the younger clergy are on his side, and laymen are responding enthusiastically to a new system of democratically elected parish councils that he has set up.
Suenens' major influence ranges far beyond Belgium. Across Europe and North America, Catholic progressives look on his measured criticism as a vital necessity to church reform. At 65, Suenens considers himself too old to be Pope, but he has clearly developed a constituency and career of his own as leader of a loyal opposition within the church. "We haven't heard the last from him," says one of his few close friends in the Vatican. "He is only getting started."