Religion: Muscular Bishop

Dean Austin Pardue wanted to be sure of his call. So the Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral, Buffalo “thought and prayed” for a fortnight, last week decided to accept his election as Bishop of Pittsburgh’s 21,000 Episcopalians. Said Dr. William Porkess, president of the Pittsburgh Diocese’s Standing Committee which had also been praying: “We feel our prayers have been answered.”

Since his ordination 18 years ago, Chicago-born Dr. Pardue has held four parishes. In all of them he has been active in civic affairs, youth work, interfaith cooperation. While rector of St. James’s Church, Hibbing, Minn., he served as chaplain of the B’nai B’rith lodge (there was no rabbi in the town).

From his Hobart College days, Pardue has set an example of muscular Christianity. In 1919, he was the A.A.U.’s Middle Western breaststroke champion. He still goes almost daily for a half-hour splash in the Buffalo Athletic Club’s pool. His wife (Dorothy Klotz) won Grantland Rice’s rating of third best woman golfer in the U.S. in 1928. In all his parishes he has pushed amateur athletics.

At 44, Dean Pardue is full of restless energy, has an extra long wire on his telephone so he can pace up & down the office while he talks. When tire and gas rationing came, the Dean bought himself a motor scooter, now dashes around Buffalo on it with his coattails flying in the off-lake breeze.

Dean Pardue is also an exponent of muscular literature. He is responsible for two popular war books. In his congregation last Christmas Eve was Johnny Bartek, the “praying corporal” who was with Eddie Rickenbacker when their plane-crashed in the Pacific Ocean last year. The Dean got Bartek to tell him the story of the party’s 21 days on a raft, and Pardue wrote it under the title Life Out There. It was also Pardue who suggested to Colonel Robert L. Scott that he write his experiences as one of General Chennault’s aces. Result: the best-selling God Is My Co-Pilot (TIME, Aug. 9).