The Candid Cardinal

Men who are born in South Boston, according to an old tradition, go either into politics or into the priesthood. Richard James Gushing was born there 63 years ago, but he almost did neither; once, discouraged by low grades at Boston College High School and worried about family finances, he almost quit school to find a job. But with his blacksmith father's encouragement, he stuck it out to become a priest--and those early bad grades were soon forgotten. He was a bishop at 43, and an archbishop at 49, when he succeeded Boston's autocratic old William Cardinal O'Connell in 1944.

Unlike his predecessor, the new archbishop put the accent on informality. Right after his appointment, without warning, the unlisted phone numbers of dozens of church offices and institutions (including the archbishop's own residence) were published in the diocesan newspaper, the Pilot. Last week, when the press besieged him, and his flock exulted in the news of his appointment to the College of Cardinals, lantern-jawed Richard Gushing was still patiently answering the phone, "Archbishop Gushing," and trying to explain why he had no pictures of himself. "Pictures? What would I do with them?"

While one photographer was trying to take some, he answered a reporter's question with characteristic candor. "My one great problem is to continue to live this moving-around life of mine as a cardinal. People will have to get used to the fact that a cardinal goes to jails, to all kinds of places where prelates are not supposed to enter.

"When I was a boy living in a poor section, coming from hard-working people, it was unknown that the poor would not go to church. It was the last thing that they would neglect. Now, with social security checks and welfare checks coming in, they are not interested in the church. They go from day to day knowing that tomorrow will take care of itself." Gushing clenched his big fists. "Their former dependence on God, upon the personal charity of those representing religion, has been psychologically unsettled by the welfare state."

How did he feel about becoming a cardinal? "I personally don't have the temperament or the psychological background for honors of this kind. I'm happy with this honor because the people are happy. It would have been much easier without it. I'm a man who doesn't take to protocol, social ecclesiastical standing, and other high places that go with the robes of a prince of the church. But I am tremendously grateful to the Pope."

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