A friend and former colleague of mine has just been made (or to use the proper word “created”) a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He is the first person ever named to that position who has been to the movies with me. For fear this seem to you a dubious distinction you should know that he has some other qualifications for being named to the College of Cardinals.

For one thing, he has distinguished himself as a theologian, having written some twenty books on  various subjects in this field. In fact, he has written so much that he had better stop soon. Otherwise he faces the acute danger of knowing altogether too much about God.

The new cardinal’s  name is Avery Dulles and, as a Jesuit priest, he is currently a professor at Fordham University in New York City. If you are of a certain age, the name Dulles may resound in you: his father was Secretary of State in the Eisenhower administration and his uncle was CIA director.

If you are older still, you may remember his great-uncle, Robert Lansing, who was Secretary of State in the Wilson administration. And, if you have broken all known records for longevity, you will remember yet another high office holder in the line of Avery Dulles’ ancestors, John Watson Foster, the Secretary of State in the Benjamin Harrison regime. If John Paul II has any sense of history, he will promptly appoint the new cardinal Vatican Secretary of State.

Another distinction of the new appointee is that he is 82 years of age, one year older than John Paul himself. Unfortunately for him, he will thus be ineligible for the suspenseful and heady experience of electing the next Bishop of Rome. But he can wear the regalia and act cardinalatial all he wants.

In his first press conference, this cardinal-elect wondered aloud how the new honor will change his daily life. One of the questions he asked was whether he now should wear red socks. If he does so, clearly he will be required to move from New York to Boston where people wearing red socks play ball. Of course people interested in ecclesiastical preferment have been playing ball at the Vatican for some two thousand years.

As his comment about the color of his socks indicates, the new man is taking the sudden interest in him on the part of the press quite lightheartedly. Though he has now joined the great American celebrity system, he stands close enough to God that his head will not be turned. After all, he has tasted other pleasures in life: for example, he saw a Republican become president last month.

I asked one of Father Dulles’ Jesuit colleagues, Father X,  how he felt about the appointment. Not without a cackle, the colleague said he would need time to get reconciled to it because he is convinced the Vatican made a mistake. They meant to choose Father X himself but somehow their record keeping system confused him with Father Dulles. How’s that for infallibility?

Avery Dulles’ personal history shows him to be an extraordinary human being. After all, he first found God in Cambridge, at Harvard College of all places. The presence of the deity at that institution was then, and some would say even now, rare indeed. But that’s where the future cardinal discovered that there was a God even greater than Harvard itself.

I pray that my friend’s health remain vigorous for at least the next three weeks. That’s because, if Avery Dulles does not make it to February 21st, he will go to heaven without ever having actually become a cardinal. The same holds true if John Paul II dies before that date. Viva il  Papa!, as the Italians say (Long live the Pope).

A different kind of concern comes from some carping liberals among Catholic ecclesiastics. They note that, in the last few years, Father Dulles has been moving further and further to the right ideologically. In fact some have even seen this shift as a factor in his selection as cardinal.

It is hard for me to believe that politics of this sort could have had any such role but perhaps I have not shed all my youthful naiveté. In any event, if he is leaning rightward, he will find himself in good company in the Washington D.C. of today.

Think what might have happened if I had played my own cards more adroitly. Would not I now be buying new socks, outfitting myself with prelatial regalia, and reserving tickets for travel to Rome? Clearly, I left the Jesuits too soon, before the Vatican turned toward my former community for a cardinal candidate. I could have looked forward to what the Latins call otium cum dignitate (a dignified leisure) in my old age. Instead, I have to live out my days without any such distinction.

And now I bet you that Avery Dulles will never go to the movies with me again.

Richard Griffin