CHRISTMAS BOOKS: K erm ode’s classics *Theology in reconciliation • Just wars • K im bangu the prophet • Jesuit paradise • Cecil K in g’s diary • Edith W harton’s life *A Vichy boyhood • Accounts o f Jesus • &c.
and organisations but nowhere else will be taken into account whereas they might otherwise have remained in obscurity. But the danger is that names will be put forward of people with qualities that are irrelevant to the job in hand.
The W estm in ster succession It is the measure of Cardinal Heenan’s achievement that the appointment of his successor is a matter of national importance, not confined to his coreligionists, still less to his archdiocese. He regained the territory of a Wiseman, a Manning and a Hinsley—each in their different ways significant figures in the country’s recent history—from the retreat into the ecclesiastical preoccupations of a Vaughan, a Bourne, a Griffin and a Godfrey. This territory should be held now for the sake of the country and the Church. It will have to be held in circumstances infinitely more complex than those of his predecessors: facing an ominous future for the nation as a whole. This is a daunting prospect but also one of challenge and opportunity, where that which unites the Catholic with other Christian bodies in the country will be more important in its social effect than that which divides. It is becoming clearer each day that there is a mounting difference between those who hold to the primacy of the spirit, cost what it may, and those who see the spirit of the age in the material values (if they can be so called) of this world and are prepared, at best, to defend these in the name of humanism or, at worst, to drift into hedonism. These are categories which, of course, cut across our political parties. The children of light and the children of this world are certainly not confined to any political persuasion nor indeed are they confined to any religious denomination. They are engaged in what Newman called the Night Battle where friend and foe are hard to distinguish from one another.
It is on these qualities rather than on known personalities that we would prefer to dwell, leaving to readers to put the cap where it fits. What we offer is not an exhaustive list but at least it covers the essentials and each is capable of various interpretations. We are entitled to expect spirituality, leadership, pastoral experience, administrative ability, integrity, and charisma, the whole informed by an ecumenical spirit. This is a large order for any single individual although some qualities grow naturally together.
There are many schools of spirituality and comparisons in this field are particularly odious but it must be said that only exceptional men, past, say, their late middle fifties, seem open to the new ways of the Spirit now so manifest in younger people and younger churches. If they have not gone beyond the textbook teaching, the pious practices and devotions of their youth and seminary days, they will not be talking the religious language of today. So too with leadership. If this is seen simply in terms of authority within the old structures, automatic seniorities and so forth it will find little response. Pastoral experience does not imply moving from a junior to a senior episcopal post; it is a question of intensity rather than of extent.
Cardinal Heenan himself, by two appeals to the clergy and laity of the archdiocese, asked them to make their wishes about his successor known to the Apostolic Delegate. In doing so he has presumably widened the net of episcopabili very considerably; men esteemed in parishes
Administrative ability is often taken as synonymous with safe hands, organisation loyalty and a tendency to confirm the status quo. It is an overrated quality or at least one that can be delegated to clergy and laity of particular aptitudes. Indeed the gift of shrewd delegation
