Flying Red Hats

Inspired, perhaps, by travel-minded Pope Paul--who is likely to follow up his Holy Land trip with a visit to Bombay's Eucharistic Congress this fall--European cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church are on the move these days, and lately the red hats have been popping up all over the U.S.

Bearded Eugene Cardinal Tisserant of the Roman Curia, 80, dean of the Sacred College, stopped in on old clerical friends in New York, Chicago, St.

Louis and Spokane, emerged from the shadows for only a few public functions: one of them was representing Pope Paul at the dedication of Notre Dame's new $8,000,000 library. Another Curia officer, Paolo Cardinal Marella, 69, presided over the unveiling of the Pieta at the New York World's Fair, and brought Francis Cardinal Spellman a sentimental gift from Pope Paul: a topaz brooch once worn by Pius XII on state occasions. Marella returned home with four honorary doctorates, including one from Catholic University, which last year barred four progressive theologians from giving lectures there; conservative Marella commended the university for its loyalty to the teachings of the Holy See.

Two ranking progressive cardinals flew in from northern Europe and made some headlines. Franziskus Cardinal Koenig of Vienna, 58, chief negotiator between the Vatican and Hungary over Josef Cardinal Mindszenty, reported that Mindszenty would leave his exile in the U.S. consulate if the Pope directly asked him to, but was determined to stay in Budapest until the government gave the church an ironclad guarantee of freedom from persecution. Konig also predicted a Vatican Council ruling on mixed Protestant-Catholic marriages and the formation of a senate of bishops to help the Pope govern the church after the council completes its fourth and final session next year.

Leo Josef Cardinal Suenens, 59, the debonair and witty Archbishop of Malines-Brussels and primate of Belgium, had his hardest (and finest) moment at the University of Chicago Divinity School, where he spent two days fielding questions from his Protestant hosts, including prestigious Theologian Paul Tillich. "The most difficult examination I've ever faced," he said. There and elsewhere, Suenens predicted that new medical research might call for new applications of the church's teaching on birth control. He also suggested that after the Vatican Council the church might take the first steps toward cooperation with Protestant and Orthodox bodies in areas that did not require doctrinal agreement. "We must," said Suenens, "make more of certain forms of practical collaboration, notably in the social and humanitarian field--the problems of hunger in the world, sickness and disasters, birth and housing, illiteracy and the redistribution of wealth."

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