Death of a Voice

SILENCE PLEASE--SERIOUS ILLNESS OF CARDINAL HINSLEY.

This sign on roads passing near a rambling house in rural Hertfordshire came down last week. Death came from a heart attack, at 77, to Arthur Cardinal Hinsley, Archbishop and Metropolitan of Westminster, spiritual leader of 2,400,000 Roman Catholics in England and Wales.* For the first time since the Reformation, Englishmen in general mourned the passing of a Roman Catholic Archbishop.

Hinsley was England's only Cardinal. There are two others in the British Empire: MacRory of Ireland; Villeneuve of Quebec. Hinsley's death reduced the College of Cardinals (maximum 70) to an almost unprecedented low (49). Reason: the war has prevented many possible recipients of the red hat from traveling to the Vatican. Sometimes the Pope creates a Cardinal in petto (in the breast, i.e., he keeps it a secret until he wishes to announce it). Many American Catholics hope that Pius XII may have created New York's Archbishop Francis J. Spellman a Cardinal in petto when the American prelate was at the Vatican a month ago. Last week Archbishop Spellman flew from Algiers to Cardinal Hinsley's funeral.

Jubilee Coming. Almost blind, rather deaf, lanky, square-jawed Cardinal Hinsley was never well since he had a bout with paratyphoid in Africa a decade ago. Yet, despite recurring heart attacks, the prelate's seven years at Westminster were enormously active. When the late Pope Pius XI appointed Hinsley Archbishop in 1935 he was practically unknown in England. Son of a Yorkshire carpenter and an Irish mother, he had spent several quiet decades as a schoolmaster and rector of a London parish and Rome's English College. In 1926 he was consecrated a Bishop and sent to Africa as Visitor Apostolic to Catholic missions. In 1934, aged 69, he retired.

In 1935 Cardinal Bourne, Archbishop of Westminster, died. Because the late King George V's jubilee was scheduled to take place shortly, Bourne's successor as Archbishop had to be selected quickly. When the choice fell on Hinsley he not only came out of retirement but also became a potent voice in the nation.

The new Archbishop with his high-pitched Yorkshire-Irish brogue expressed his "unbounded indignation" at the Italian attack on Ethiopia (and defended the silent Pope as "a helpless old man"). What Pius thought of this remark is not on record, but twice afterwards when His Holiness created new Cardinals, he passed over Hinsley.

In 1937, however, Hinsley got the red hat. "I have been called a clothes peg," he said, "but I have had to submit to it because this is settled by authority, and not by my choice or liking." When he returned from the Vatican in his red Cardinal's robes, Londoners gave him an ovation, strewed flowers in his path.

Prayers for Russia. Soon His Eminence began to speak more bluntly than ever. He made no secret of his loathing of Naziism ("pagan clique of upstart tyrants"), and of his position on the war ("You are on the side of the angels . . . Christian knights of the British cause"). Regardless of the many Irish in his see, he denounced the Irish Republican bombings in England ("cowardly and atrocious outrages"), and said that those who were guilty should be excommunicated. No more a friend of Communism than any Roman Catholic prelate, he nonetheless paid public tribute to Russia's defenders and declared: "For Russia we plead daily in our prayers. . . "

The benign Cardinal was Westminster's first Archbishop to mingle freely and sympathetically with Anglicans, Free Churchmen and Jews. He signed pronouncements with other religious leaders, spoke at inter-faith gatherings, nurtured into rapid growth the Sword of the Spirit movement --open to all Christians--to promote economic and social justice along democratic and Christian lines.

As Hinsley lay dying in Hertfordshire, the Church of England's Assembly did the unprecedented by praying for his recovery. When Hinsley died the Archbishop of Canterbury expressed the nation's feelings when he mourned "a most devoted citizen of his country ... a most kindly and warmhearted friend."

*Among them: Architect Sir Giles Gilbert Scott (Liverpool's unfinished Anglican Cathedral); Rear Admiral Sir Henry Harwood, hero of the battle of the River Plate (TIME, Dec. 25, 1939); Authors Hilaire Belloc, Mrs. Belloc Lowndes, Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene, Sheila Kaye-Smith, A. J. Cronin.

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