Surprise

Cardinal Kinsley, Britain's only Cardinal and the Archbishop of Westminster, died last winter (TIME, March 29). Last week Pope Pius XII appointed his successor: 44-year-old Monsignor Bernard Griffin, Auxiliary (assistant) Bishop of Birmingham. The little-known prelate will be the leader of England's and Wales's 2,400,000 Roman Catholics. The appointment was also tantamount to telling Mgr. Griffin that he will some day get a Cardinal's red hat.

In naming Griffin, who has been a Bishop only five years, His Holiness skipped over 19 other prelates. The Pope was looking ahead: like the Anglican Church's leader, William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, Mgr. Griffin is a liberal on social questions. A leader in the progressive Catholic Social Guild, he has backed Sir William Henry Beveridge's postwar Social Security plan: "We need it. We want to get it going as soon as possible."

Son of a Birmingham carpenter who became city councillor and justice of the peace, Mgr. Griffin served in the Royal Naval Air Service in World War I, later became a priest. He was educated in England and Rome. His outstanding work in smoky Birmingham has been guiding the Father Hudson Homes for Children, one of Britain's largest orphanages. Birmingham folk also know the wiry, redheaded clergyman for his street preaching. For years he went every Saturday night to the "Bull Ring" (Birmingham's Hyde Park), where he sturdily traded verbal punches with hecklers.

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