Family Quarrel

The hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church has its personal disagreements and political divisions. But they happen so rarely that, when a disagreement does become public, it makes news--somewhat the way a quarrel in a well-ordered family interests the neighbors. Among the more intriguing Catholic family disputes in recent times is the case of Monsignor Franz Jachym, who in the midst of his solemn consecration as Archbishop Coadjutor of Vienna (TIME, May 1) declared he felt himself unworthy of that office and hurried from the altar.

Last week it became apparent that behind Msgr. Jachym's decision lay a serious disagreement with his superior, Vienna's Theodore Cardinal Innitzer. Aging (74) Cardinal Innitzer believes that the church should live in peace with whatever temporal power happens to be in control. When the Nazis took Austria in 1938, Innitzer publicly urged Catholics to vote for them (an act for which he was sternly reprimanded by Pope Pius XI), and later Innitzer made it clear that he thought he and his church could get along with the Communists through conciliation and diplomacy. Young (40), vigorous Franz Jachym, on the other hand, is a thoroughgoing anti-Communist who disagrees with Innitzer's conciliatory ways.

Last week Pope Pius personally examined the case, ordered Jachym's consecration to proceed. The Pope announced that he had overcome Jachym's personal apprehensions, ordered both Innitzer and Jachym to Rome. There, in the church of Santa Maria dell' Anima, Cardinal Innitzer intoned the solemn Mass and performed the ceremony of consecrating the new bishop. Msgr. Jachym, kneeling before the cardinal, was stern-faced as he made his responses. After the ceremony, leaning for the first time on his pastoral staff, Jachym walked firmly from the church, his hand lifted in blessing, his eyes downcast.

The Pope had left no doubt that he sided with Jachym on the issue of anti-Communist militancy v. conciliation. Vatican insiders reported that he had lectured Innitzer on the meaning of the cardinal's red as a symbol of its wearer's duty to suffer martyrdom, if necessary, in the defense of the church. Cardinal Innitzer was disgruntled by the whole affair, angrily refused to talk to the Vatican newspaper Osservatore Romano when a reporter called to ask a question.

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