Religion: Change of the Guard

Standing at John F. Kennedy's inaugural platform in 1961, he delighted the President and TV audience by steadfastly continuing his invocation after smoke began to pour from the lectern in front of him. He was cast in a more somber role in 1963, when he conducted John Kennedy's funeral Mass in Washington. He rushed to the Kennedys' side at the time of Bobby's assassination. He comforted Rose during Joseph Sr.'s long illness and again at his death, and staunchly defended Jackie after her marriage to Aristotle Onassis.

For all this. Richard Joseph Cardinal Gushing, the third Archbishop of Boston, was far from a clerical camp follower of the Kennedys. He was one of the most unusual prelates in the history of the American Catholic Church. His instincts flowed from the heart rather than the head. When he took over the see of Boston from autocratic William Cardinal O'Connell in 1944, it was much like Harry Truman's taking over from Franklin Roosevelt.

He was an ecumenist long before the word became popular. At Vatican II, he attracted worldwide attention when his speech in support of the council document on religious liberty for all —including atheists—was hailed by the assembled churchmen with a burst of forbidden applause. Then, typically, he walked out on the council when it went on too long, claiming that he had more important things to do in Boston. For these reasons—and for many others —Gushing has become perhaps the best known of the American cardinals.

Last week, according to his own time table, Gushing at 75 resigned his post as spiritual head of 1,900,000 Catholics. To replace him, the Vatican named the Most Rev. Humberto S. Medeiros. a little-known bishop of a small South Texas diocese. For the first time in 124 years, Boston will have a non-Irish prelate at its helm. It is more than a mere change of the guard. Gushing, despite his progressive programs, basically represents the traditional church, while Medeiros is symbolic of the more involved social activism that is sweeping the church today. The new head of the Boston archdiocese was born in the Portuguese Azores in the North Atlantic. He emigrated to Massachusetts with his family in 1931 at age 15, and took a job sweeping floors in a local textile mill for 620 a day, studying English in his spare time. After graduating from high school in Fall River, Mass., Medeiros decided to enter the priesthood. He was ordained in Washington, D.C., and took an M.A. in philosophy in 1942, then a Ph.D. in sacred theology in 1952 at Catholic University. He did pastoral duties at his home parish in Fall River before being consecrated a bishop and transferred to Brownsville, Texas, in 1966.