Religion: Papal Slate

Pope John Paul II passed a major milestone last week by naming 25 new Cardinals and placing his personal stamp on the body that will one day name his successor. The present Pope’s appointees now constitute a 64% majority of the 121 Cardinals currently eligible to vote, and the latest batch, representing 18 countries, continues John Paul’s internationalizing trend. Three years ago the traditionally dominant Europeans were reduced to less than half the voting Cardinals (those under age 80). This time the balance of power has shifted farther from the West. The twelve North American electors, for example, are equaled in number by Asians and exceeded by the 16 Africans.

In geopolitical terms, the most interesting appointees are Lithuania’s Vincentas Sladkevicius, 67, and Hong Kong’s John Baptist Wu Cheng-Chung, 63. Sladkevicius, who spent 23 years under house arrest, is the second Cardinal resident in the Soviet Union. Wu, if he lives until 1997, will be the first Cardinal in Communist China when Beijing takes over Hong Kong from the British.

The new U.S. Cardinals are James Hickey, 67, of Washington, and Edmund Szoka, 60, of Detroit. Both have shown the firm doctrinal mettle the Pope admires. As chancellor of the Catholic University of America, Hickey handled the ouster of Charles Curran from the theology faculty. Szoka forced a nun who administered state abortion payments to leave her order.

Among those conspicuously passed over: American Paul Marcinkus, whose Vatican Bank has been entangled in scandal, and St. Louis’ John May, president of the U.S. bishops’ conference. A possible explanation for bypassing May is that St. Louis has declined in ecclesiastical importance. But insiders speculate about another reason: May’s insistence at last fall’s Vatican synod that women’s concerns are not just some “American aberration.” That is not a message the present Roman Pontiff likes to hear.