Eight New Hats

Busy, ancient (78) Pope John XXIII acted again last week to strengthen the Curia--administrative headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church--which has suffered in recent years from understaffing and old age. For Dec. 14 the Pope called a consistory (his second) at which eight new cardinals will be created, raising the membership of the Sacred College to 79, the largest in history.

Two of the new cardinals will be U.S. citizens, bringing U.S. membership in the college to an alltime high of six--ranking in number of cardinals third (after France with seven and ahead of Spain's five). Italy will have 31 Italians in the college, as opposed to 48 non-Italians.

One of the Americans had been virtually sure to get a red hat: Archbishop Albert Gregory Meyer, 56, appointed last September to succeed Chicago's late Samuel Cardinal Stritch as head of the largest Catholic archdiocese in the U.S. (1,942,000 members). Shy, scholarly Archbishop Meyer, son of a Milwaukee grocer, is known as a brilliant administrator and a cautious interviewee--on his appointment to Chicago he refused to say whether he would transfer his allegiance from the Milwaukee Braves to the Chicago Cubs. Met by a crowd of newsmen and clerics at a Chicago airport last week, as he returned from Washington, Meyer chomped his chewing gum vigorously. "Of course, I am happy for myself," he said, "but I am even happier for the people of Chicago. We must be even more dedicated now." Archbishop Meyer is expected to be the only one of the new cardinals who will not be assigned to the Curia in Rome. The second American to get a red hat was also born and bred in Milwaukee; Aloysius Joseph Muench, 70, the first U.S. citizen to be an accredited diplomatic representative of the Vatican. Pope Pius XII made him apostolic visitor to Germany in 1946, raised him to archbishop in 1950 and apostolic nuncio in 1951. As the first foreign diplomat to present his credentials to the German Federal Republic in 1951, stocky, grey-haired Archbishop Muench became dean of the Bonn diplomatic corps. His easy charity and folksy Midwestern humor have made him popular. Once when Chancellor Adenauer admired a purple cape he was wearing, Muench said: "I'll see that you get something purple," promptly delighted the Chancellor with a necktie made of the same material.

Other red hats will go to:

MONSIGNOR WILLIAM THEODORE HEARD, 75, a convert from the Church of Scotland (as a 26-year-old lawyer) to Catholicism, who will be the first Scottish cardinal since the death of Charles Cardinal Erskine in 1811. "He may also," speculated the London Times, "be the first Oxford rowing Blue in the history of the Church to achieve the purple." Since 1927 Heard has served at the Vatican on the Sacred Roman Rota, the high ecclesiastical court that passes on applications for marriage annulments. The Vatican expects Pope John to make use of Monsignor Heard's legal abilities in preparing for the forthcoming Ecumenical Council.

THE REVEREND AUGUSTIN BEA, 78, a German-born Jesuit scholar and one of the few men to whom a Pope has knelt; for more than 20 years he was the confessor of the late Pope Pius XII. Pope Pius wanted to make him a cardinal in 1946, but Jesuit General Janssens urged the Pope not to, because some Vatican veterans felt that Jesuits had been overly favored (Pius XI had created two Jesuit cardinals, had turned over to the Jesuits both the Vatican radio and the observatory at Castel Gandolfo; Pius XII had two Jesuit private secretaries).

MONSIGNOR FRANCESCO MORANO, 87, oldest of the new cardinals, but hale and lively-minded. A scholar with degrees in philosophy, theology, canon and civil law, physics and mathematics, he will almost certainly be one of the staff planning and preparing for the Ecumenical Council.

MONSIGNOR GUSTAVO TESTA, 73, born to a wealthy family in Italy's Bergamo Province, where John XXIII was a peasant boy, and close friend of the present Pope since they were fellow students in Rome. Like John, he has spent most of his career in the Vatican diplomatic service, having held posts in Austria, Germany, Peru, Egypt, Palestine and Switzerland.

MONSIGNOR PAOLO MARELLA, 64, Italian with a broad background in papal diplomacy. Since 1953 he has held Pope John's former post as papal nuncio in Paris.

THE REVEREND ARCADIO LARRAONA, 72, born in Oteiza de la Solana, Spain, and a member of the Missionary Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.* Father Larraona has been teaching, writing and lecturing in Rome for 40 years, where he has held a number of posts in the Curia. As the first Claretian cardinal in history, he will be permitted by his order to change his brown robes for scarlet, provided that they are of wool.

* Founded by Antonio Maria Claret in Spain in 1849, and now active in mission work primarily among Spanish-speaking people in the U.S., Southwest and Latin America.

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