Sue & the Charisma

I must define one of the attributes of the Catholic Church. It is an institution that is both charismatic and canonical. It is the role of the prophets moved by the Holy Spirit to shed new light in applying the truths of faith to new situations. Because their visions are new, they are suspect, and it is then that the canonical side of the church operates to sift and codify the vision.

The signed author of these lines is neither a theologian nor a churchman, but 21-year-old Brunette Sue Ingersoll, a hairdresser and New Mexico's Miss Universe entrant, who defied her archbishop by insisting that she would take part in the contest despite his ban (TIME, July 20-27). With outside help--including at least one layman trained in theology--Contestant Ingersoll last week churned out statements to document her own vision of the matter. The real issue, said Sue, is what happens when a Roman Catholic finds the charismatic (supernaturally graced) side of the church at odds with the canonical, and his private view in conflict with the church hierarchy's. Most non-Catholics, says Sue, believe that in such a conflict, the individual Catholic must "blindly and stupidly" knuckle under. But that is not true, and to demonstrate it, she wanted to stay in the contest--partly because, she felt, Senator Jack Kennedy was in much the same boat as she, i.e., his presidential candidacy is being opposed by people who fear that he might have to bow down to "hierarchical authority."

Nominally a Baptist (her father left the Catholic Church as a young man), Sue Ingersoll became a convert to Catholicism 2½ years ago. Now Sue painstakingly undertook to explain to her former fellow Protestants that a Catholic "cannot be pushed around," is free to rely on his own conscience in matters outside "direct canonical concern." Said she: "Bishops, cardinals and even Popes may be subjected to criticism." Even excommunication is only "a denial of certain privileges, in much the same way that a teen-ager might be denied the use of the family car. He is, of course, still a cherished member of the family."

As for Albuquerque's Archbishop Edwin Vincent Byrne, she was praying for him and criticized him only "with deep respect, as one friend would another." But just before the Miss Universe contest, Sue Ingersoll decided to withdraw after all--not, she insisted, because she was giving in to the archbishop, but only because contest officials had held her "virtually a prisoner." Winner of the contest at Long Beach, Calif.: Japan's Akiko Kojima, a fashion model (see PEOPLE) who comes from a Shinto family but says she has no religion herself.

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