Religion: Imprudent Priest

In the dark, medieval palace of the archdiocese of Seville, the aged (73) cardinal sat, throned on a dais of red velvet, his old eyes half-shuttered. To his right and left sat two rows of black-robed prelates, erect in straight-backed chairs.

Before them stood a radio receiver. Spain's arch-conservative Pedro Cardinal Segura had assembled his council to pass judgment on Father Venancio Marcos of the Oblate Fathers of Mary Immaculate, the "radio priest" who in a few years had built up from a handful of listeners on a single private station to a series of half-hour broadcasts over a twelve-station national network,...