TH E T A B L E T , December 9th, 1952.

THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER AND REVIEW

VOL. 200, No. 5872

FOUNDED IN 1840

PRO ECCLESIA DEI, PRO REGINA ET PATRIA

LONDON, DECEMBER 6th, 1952

NINEPENCE

PUBLISHED AS A NEWSPAPER

THE DEFENCE OF SOCIETY The Dilemma of a Liberal Generation at War

SAINT FRANCIS XAVIER I: The Man and the Saint. By Columba Cary-EIwes, O.S.B.

II: His Fame in England. By George Burns, S.J.

THE CARDINALS ELECT

The Prelates whom Pope Pius XII will Elevate to the Sacred College

CHRISTMAS BOOKS SUPPLEMENT Reviews by Christopher Hollis, René Hague, Alfred Duggan, David Knowles, Douglas Woodruff, Gerard Slevin, J. Lewis May, B. C. Butler, Anthony Bertram, Iris Conlay, Peter Watts, Thomas Gilby, Philippa Harrison, Elizabeth Sewell, Joan Yorke, Isabel Quigly and Pamela Whitlock

THE COLLEGE OF CARDINALS P OPE P IU S X II announced last Saturday, November 29th, the names o f twenty-four prelates whom he will raise to the Sacred College o f Cardinals in January. The Sacred College will thus be brought up to its full complement o f seventy for the first tim e for more than two hundred years ; for, although it was the Pope’s in tention to do this in 1946, the Archbishop o f Genoa, who was among those nom inated, died before the Consistory. The announcem ent came from Castel Gandolfo a few hours before the Pope returned to the Vatican fo r the Advent spiritual exercises which opened on Sunday.

Canada, th e United States, Germany, Poland, Yugoslavia, Brazil, Colombia and Ecuador. The more new countries are given Cardinals, the fewer can there be in Western Europe, so long as th e to ta l is kept where it was set in the sixteenth century. There is no substance in the suggestion made in one British newspaper, th a t the Pope has for reasons o f policy restricted the number o f Germ an Cardinals. Cologne and Munich, which will now both have Cardinals, are the only Sees in the West German Republic which have come by trad i tio n to expect th a t distinction.

All existing Cardinals who are able to go to Rome will meet in secret in the Consistorial Hall o f the Apostolic Palace on Monday, January 12th. Cardinal Griffin, A rchbishop o f Westminster, has already announced his intention o f being among them. On Thursday, January 15th, the public Consistory will be held, a t which the Pope will place the red h a t on the head o f each o f the new Cardinals.

Eleven o f the new Cardinals are Italians, and o f the full seventy members o f the Sacred College twenty-seven will be Italians and forty-three will be from other countries. There is nothing to suggest th a t the new nom inations reflect any departure from th e policy o f “ internationalising” the Sacred College o r any desire to restore the preponderance o f Italians. On the contrary, the boundaries are being extended ever wider, fo r three countries are now to have Cardinals which never had them before—Yugoslavia, Colombia and Ecuador. No M e tropolitan Sees in Italy are now given Cardinals which have n o t had them by long trad itio n , and, o f the eleven newly nom inated Italians, seven will serve in the Rom an Curia and are chosen because they have behind them many years o f experience in the service o f the Curia. This reinforcem ent o f the Curia, which has been undermanned and overworked for several years past, is the answer to many prayers. I f Italians are chosen in these cases it is because only Italian s have spent the last forty years o r more in acquiring the necessary experience, and any p lan for internationalising the Curial Cardinals could hardly begin to take effect for another th irty or forty years from now. But after the coming Consistory the Italian Cardinals in the Sacred College will be fewer, n o t more, then they were immediately after the Consistory o f 1946. There will be seven F rench Cardinals.

Today only twenty-one nations are represented in the Sacred College, b u t the new creations will increase the number to twenty-six. Among the new Cardinals will be two each from F ran ce and Spain, and one each from Ireland,

But no Sees, except the Suburbicarian Sees o f Rome, can claim any right or title to a Cardinalate ; even a Patriarch is not necessarily a Cardinal, and those Sees which have in fact usually had Cardinals have often had to wait. Cardinal Manning was A rchbishop o f Westminster fo r ten years before he became a member o f the Sacred College, and Cardinal Bourne for eight years. So it is now with, for instance, th e See o f Boston, and also with the See o f Prague, for the im prisonm ent o f Mgr. Beran is no more an obstacle to the conferring o f a red h a t in absentia th an will be the absence o f Mgr. Stepinac if he does no t make the journey to Rome next month. The Nomination of M g r . Stepinac

Mgr. Stepinac received the news o f his nom ination by saying th a t he would n o t a t tend the Consistory. “To go to Rome, I would have to ask perm ission,” he to ld a correspondent o f the British United Press. “ This I will n o t do, because I do no t consider myself guilty before the Communists. A nd if I should go to Rome I could never come back. Therefore I shall no t go to Rome. My place is here. I shall stay here as long as necessary ; even until I die, i f necessary.” H e said th a t he had noticed th a t the police had increased their usual patrol round his house a t K rasic the n ight after the announcem ent o f his nom ination, a lthough it was' no t until the following day th a t he himself heard the news o f his nomination.

A marked characteristic o f the pontificate o f Pius X II is the greatly increased representation o f Latin America in the Sacred College. Six Latin American Cardinals were created in 1946, and now there are to be three more, making, with the Cardinal A rchbishop o f Buenos Aires, ten altogether, including three Brazilians and two Argentines.

The announcem ent o f the Consistory was accompanied by an announcem ent th a t Mgr. Domenico Tardini and Mgr. G iovanni-B attista Montini, who since the death o f Cardinal M a g lio ne in 1944 have been Sostituti respectively for Extra­