Red Hats

In Vatican City last week there were holy stirrings, preparatory to the Holy Year which His Holiness Pope Pius XI is to inaugurate next fortnight. Six Roman Catholic prelates learned last month that they were to be raised to the cardinalate. Two of them set out at once from Canada and the U. S. But none was officially apprised of the fact until last week, when Pius XI held the first secret consistory of the Sacred College since June 1930.

Death has reduced the membership of the College to 52-half Italians, half non-Italians. Four of last week's appointments threw the balance in Rome's favor: those of Most Rev. Pietro Fumasoni-Biondi, apostolic delegate to the U. S. and Mexico; Most Rev. Maurilio Fossati, Archbishop of Turin; Most Rev. Angelo Maria Dolci, papal nuncio to Rumania; Most Rev. Elia Delia Costa, Archbishop of Florence. Non-Italian cardinals created were Most Rev. Jean-Marie Rodrigue Villeneuve, Archbishop of Quebec and Most Rev. Theodor Innitzer, Archbishop of Vienna. It was said last week that Pius XI presented two more names to the consistory, which would hold them secret until a second gathering later during the Holy Year.

Silver trumpetings, chantings of choirs, parades in regalia preceded the consistory. Pius XI delivered an allocution on the state of the world and listed his joys and sorrows since the last consistory. Solemnly he declared that, as remedy for the world's troubles, he alone had indicated "sound and solid principles, charity and justice and fundamental indestructible truths and teachings on the value of souls. . . ." He invited all nations to "consider what serious moral, intellectual and even material disaster is inevitably being prepared wherever the Church is openly or covertly combatted." One sorrow the Pope mentioned was the Orthodox baptism, instead of Catholic baptism as pledged, of the daughter of Orthodox Tsar Boris and Catholic Tsaritsa loanna of Bulgaria (TIME, March 6); but he declared that the Tsaritsa was in no sense guilty, having "neither strength nor means to express her opposition."

The Pope then presented the names of his nominees, inquiring in each case, "Quid vobis videtur?" ("How does this seem to you?") The assembled cardinals nodded, doffed their skullcaps in silent assent. This procedure no outsider saw.

This week, in public, the Pope would bestow upon the new cardinals their big, cartwheel-shaped red beaver hats, with 15 tassels, which each would hang in the sanctuary of his cathedral. They would kiss the papal slippers, hand and cheek, would be embraced in turn by their fellow Princes of the Church. Then, once more in secret, the Pope would present rings, perform the ceremony of "opening" and "closing" the cardinals' mouths, symbolizing the weighty matters which they were to hear and keep secret.

"Good Father." Cardinal-elect Villeneuve cares for the second oldest see in North America, the one Writer Willa Gather made famous in Shadows on the Rock. His election as archbishop made certain his appointment as cardinal (TIME. Dec. 28, 1931). Son of a French Canadian cobbler, he is only 49, a tall, spare ascetic whom Ottawa called its "Good Father" when he taught there in St. Joseph Scholasticate and the University. Last June Archbishop Villeneuve admonished women to bathe in suitable costume, "a skirt reaching nearly to the knees ... a species of coat or cape which shields the shape of the body." When he set sail from New York last month he said: "I do not feel at all worthy, but the sovereign pontiff calls me and I go."

Apostolic Delegate to the U. S. is an office that has stood since 1893. The post carries no diplomatic rank, the Delegate simply keeping in touch with U. S. Catholics, interpreting Church law, speaking for the Pope sometimes. Member of an aristocratic Roman family, Archbishop Fumasoni-Biondi was sent to Washington in 1922 after having held similar positions in the East Indies and Japan for six years. In May 1927 he felt obliged to state that the Vatican had no interest in Alfred E. Smith's candidacy for President. In 1929, the Apostolic Delegate called on President Hoover. Archbishop Fumasoni-Biondi, 60, is tall, pink and scholarly. He lived quietly in Washington, dined out occasionally with oldish men at the more sedate embassies, kept a "blind" telephone number which even Catholic organizations in Washington did not know. He is likely to be appointed prefect of the Holy Congregation of Propaganda, a high position of which the incumbent is called the "Red Pope" because of his world-wide influence in missionary affairs. One of the first things Cardinal-elect Fumasoni-Biondi did in Rome last week was sing mass at Sacred Heart convent where his sister dwells as Mother Gertrude.

Next Apostolic Delegate to the U. S. may be Most Rev. Amleto Giovanni Cicognani, member of four of the great Roman congregations and of the Pontifical Commission for Russia. A new $400,000 Renaissance villa is being built for the U. S. Delegate on Washington's Embassy Row (Massachusetts Ave.). It will contain living quarters, chancery offices, a splendorous chapel, a unit (with separate entrance) for entertainments. Washington hostesses know better than to attempt to lionize the Pope's representative or to get invited by him for tea or dinner. No woman is ever included among the Apostolic Delegate's guests.

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