On Borrowed Time

"I am intruding on borrowed time," said James Francis Cardinal Mclntyre. "To be a borrower, even of time, has its attendant risks to all." With that, the crusty, 83-year-old prelate announced last week that he was resigning as Archbishop of Los Angeles, a diocese he has governed for 22 years.

For many of the troubled priests, unhappy nuns and angry minority groups in Los Angeles, Mclntyre had borrowed too much time, at too high a rate of interest. Many church members still active in his archdiocese are remarkably loyal, but a number of progressive Catholics, laity and religious alike, have simply dropped out in the six bitter years since it became apparent that their cardinal's conservatism remained untempered by the spirit of Vatican II.

Until 1964, Mclntyre was hardly criticized at all. He was, in fact, best known for pushing through a massive expansion program, at one point building a new church every 66 days and a new school every 26 days to accommodate the postwar population boom. But his early life as a Wall Street broker and his career as a "brick-and-mortar man" for the church ill-fitted him for the turbulent social issues of the '60s. To the consternation of California liberals, he failed to join fellow bishops in opposing efforts to repeal the state's fair-housing laws in 1964. The Immaculate Heart nuns were barred from archdiocesan schools because Mclntyre disapproved of their internal reforms. While Mclntyre was saying midnight Mass last Christmas in St. Basil's Church on Wilshire Boulevard, a group of Mexican-Americans called Catolicos por la Raza (Catholics for the People) staged a demonstration outside to protest the building's alleged construction cost of $3,000,000. Mclntyre later likened the demonstrators to "the rabble" that crucified Christ.

Mclntyre's successor is not likely to invite such confrontations. At 60, Archbishop Timothy J. Manning, appointed last year as coadjutor archbishop with right of succession, is a man curiously like Pope Paul himself, progressive in social matters, conservative in doctrine. A longtime auxiliary bishop in Los Angeles, and later bishop of Fresno, County Cork-born Manning will probably be quicker than his predecessor to put into use Vatican-approved reforms such as the new Mass. If he is not likely to look kindly on avant-garde experimentation or liberal views on doctrine, he will, unlike Mclntyre, almost certainly have a more ready ear for complaints. "The church must make her own the social needs of the world of men," said Manning in his first statement as archbishop. "She must engage in conversation about these problems, apply the light of the Gospel to their healing, rescue rather than sit in judgment, serve rather than come to be served."

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