On Commending Authority

The excitement with which the conferring of the Red Hat on Cardinal Gracias was greeted in Bombay had a special quality. It was not just that it came to the first Indian Cardinal; it was rather like the enthusiasm of Preston or Bolton on receiving the Cup. The Cup, clearly, is won. So in a real sense was the Hat, and that is the difference between East and West. There had been no attempt to disguise the disappointment felt when about a month earlier all twenty-four hats had gone to the West. Indian Catholics had seen overwhelming reason to hope for at least one more Asian Cardinal in the seventy; in general what the Westerner says about the decision of a superior, the best Eastern Christian likes to say to a superior; in that he is already much nearer to apostolic Christianity. But if there was an Indian Archbishop in Bombay at all to receive the Hat, that was a situation which had been earned also. This is not the place to dilate on the subject. Immense as the joy in India has been in the first Indian Cardinal, I think that there may be more joy in Heaven on what the East can give back to the West.