EDITORIAL: Our sixth cardinal (02/25/01)

EDITORIAL

Our sixth cardinal

On February 21, the Ukrainian Catholic Church received its sixth cardinal, as Archbishop Major Lubomyr Husar was among the 44 prelates elevated to the rank of cardinal during a public consistory in St. Peter's Square in Rome.

The last time a Ukrainian was tapped as a cardinal was on May 25, 1985, when Pope John Paul II elevated Archbishop Major Myroslav Ivan Lubachivsky to the College of Cardinals. The Ukrainian Catholic primate was one of 28 cardinals installed on that date. Twenty years earlier, on February 25, 1965, Archbishop Major Josyf Slipyj was among 27 cardinals installed by Pope Paul VI. (Significantly, at that ceremony, Patriarch Josyf - who in 1975 assumed the title of patriarch of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church - accepted not the traditional red biretta, but a red kamelaukion.) Earlier still, in the 15th and 19th centuries, there were three other Ukrainian cardinals. The first was Isidor, metropolitan of Kyiv, who became a cardinal in 1439; then came Metropolitan Mykhailo Levytsky of Halychyna in 1856, and Metropolitan Joseph Sembratovych of Lviv in 1895. (Source: "Our Ukrainian Cardinal" by Anthony Dragan, 1966.)

Thus, Archbishop Major Husar has the distinction of being the latest in a line of hierarchs in the history of his Church to be chosen a prince of the universal Catholic Church.

The Ukrainian Catholic primate was named along with two other bishops from countries formerly subjugated by the USSR, Archbishop Janis Pujats of Riga and Roman Catholic Archbishop Marian Jaworski of Lviv. The pope said of the three nominees: "I intend to honor their respective Churches, which, especially in the course of the 20th century, have been severely tried." Christians under communism "knew how to pay witness to their faith amid suffering of every kind, not rarely culminating in the sacrifice of their life," explained Pope John Paul II.

The pope's nomination of Cardinal Husar is significant also due to the holy father's upcoming historic visit to Ukraine - which, along with the nominations of the three cardinals from Eastern Europe, The New York Times recently characterized as reflective of Pope John Paul's "desire to defend Catholicism in areas where it was once persecuted by the Soviet system and is now deeply resented by Eastern Orthodox Churches" (read: Moscow Patriarchate).

But, most of all, Archbishop Major Husar's new rank is concrete proof of the high esteem in which the pope holds the UGCC's new primate and this martyr-Church. At the same time, it gives impetus to the continued growth of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church in its native land at a time when many, as recently noted by the archbishop major, seek to deepen their faith while others seek the gift of faith: "There are many of those among us ... hungry people who need this gift - in the forms of our words and our testimony." That is why, Bishop Husar, now archbishop major and cardinal, had said in an interview prior to the Synod of Bishops that "whoever is elected [to head the UGCC] would have to emphasize the development of the spiritual life of the Church."

We wish Archbishop Major and Cardinal Husar God's blessings in his new roles and success in his work for the good of his Church and nation.

EDITORS' NOTE: The quality of coverage of the cardinals' elevation in Rome was mixed, as we at our editorial offices saw it. For example, at WNBC, one of the New York City TV stations that provided live coverage of the ceremonies in the early morning hours on February 21, a commentator reported that Archbishop Husar is from "Lvov in Russia." On the other hand, The New York Times - which on January 29, in reporting about the seven additional cardinals appointed by the pope, had referred to Lvov, Ukraine - on February 22 switched to "Lviv, Ukraine." Such reports present an opportunity for Ukrainians to react, both negatively and positively, to media coverage.

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