The Hemisphere: Change of Command

Ever since Monsignor Joseph Charbonneau's sudden resignation last month (TIME, Feb. 20), Quebec has been wondering who would take his place in Montreal's red brick archbishop's palace. When Rome announced Charbonneau's successor last week, he turned out to be a man whom few had thought of: Monsignor Paul-Emile Léger, 45, a native Quebecker who had spent half of his religious career outside Canada. So unexpected was his appointment that on the day of the announcement only one French newspaper in Montreal could produce his photograph.

Rumors & Denials. Energetic Msgr. Léger was no stranger in the inner councils of the church. The son of a Quebec village storekeeper, ordained in 1929,416 went to Japan, proved himself an able administrator in directing the Sulpician Seminary at Fukuoka, later came back to Canada and taught at the House of Philosophy in Montreal. Since 1947 he has been rector of the Pontifical Canadian College in Rome where he was responsible for the guidance of Canadian priests studying at the Vatican, served as intermediary for important Canadians visiting the Pope. Said one Vatican insider: "I always thought he would be a bishop from the moment I set eyes on him."

A friendly, tactful man, at home in English as well as French, Msgr. Léger seemed a perfect choice for bilingual Montreal. "It was like slipping a glove over a hand," a Vatican spokesman explained, "so easy when the glove fits well."

In Montreal, the largest diocese of predominantly Roman Catholic Quebec, Monsignor Léger has one of the most delicate church assignments in North America. After more than three centuries of close alliance, church & state in Quebec are seriously at odds on social issues.

The Catholic Church takes the position that Quebec's labor-baiting Premier Maurice Duplessis is not moving fast enough to liberalize provincial laws and raise living standards. The 90,000-member Canadian and Catholic Confederation of Labor, with church approval, defied the government last year when it supported a violent strike against the Quebec asbestos companies which the Duplessis regime declared illegal. The church's Sacerdotal Commission on Social Studies has openly condemned provincial labor legislation; "labor priests" have acted as strike leaders. When Archbishop Charbonneau resigned "for reasons of health," the rumor persisted, despite official denial, that the church had eased him out because he had carried his pro-labor policy too far.

Men & Christians. Msgr. Léger, who had not been directly involved in the Quebec struggle, had a chance to bring about better church relations with Premier Duplessis. At the same time the church made it sharply clear that his appointment was in no way a repudiation of Charbonneau (who last week was made a Roman count and a special assistant to the Pope). In a 35,000-word pastoral letter, a summary of which was read last Sunday from Roman Catholic pulpits in the province, Quebec's bishops firmly restated the church's principles on labor. Echoing the papal encyclicals Rerum Novarum (1891) and Quadragesima Anno (1931), the letter demanded a greater share for labor in the ownership and profit of industry.