After Paul: The Leading Contenders

Monday, Aug. 21, 1978
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Sebastiano Cardinal Baggio, 65. Inducted into the Vatican diplomatic corps as a 23-year-old priest, Baggio (pronounced Bah-jee-o) has moved steadily upward in a flawlessly loyal career. As signed first to Vienna, he soon became a Latin American virtuoso, serving in six countries and learning, as he went, superb Spanish, Portuguese, English and half a dozen local dialects. The pastoral job Pope Paul found for him in 1969 would have discouraged a lesser man: the Archbishopric of Cagliari in Sardinia. Baggio gamely traveled the island in a simple black cassock, exhorting fraternal love in place of the endemic vendetta, cajoling landlords and industrialists to provide better conditions for workers. As prefect of the Congregation for Bishops since 1973, he has screened episcopal candidates from all over the Western Hemisphere and Western Europe — a job that has brought the tough but approachable Cardinal many a loyal ally and at least a few enemies. In one angry letter, he excoriated the Philippine hierarchy and religious superiors for their denunciations of the Marcos regime. He would be acceptable to many conservatives and moderates.

Sergio Cardinal Pignedoli, 68. The most congenial and outgoing of the top tier of papal candidates, Pignedoli (pronounced Peen-yeh-doli) was Pope Paul's closest confrere among the Cardinals, a man whom the Pontiff most often chose for the concelebration of Mass, as a companion for trips abroad or to stand at his side for speeches from St. Peter's balcony. Ordained at 22, he has served in a wide range of jobs — including a harrowing tour as the first Italian navy chaplain to accompany a submarine crew into action in World War II. He earned his pastoral spurs — and the future Pope's lasting trust — as auxiliary bishop to then Archbishop Montini in Milan. Diplomatic assignments in Latin America, Africa, Canada and Viet Nam seasoned Pignedoli for a higher post: in 1967 Paul named him secretary to the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, a position in which he helped to elevate native priests and bishops. Now, as president of the Secretariat for Non-Christians, Pignedoli can still indulge a passion for travel. He has visited 105 countries, preaching warm sermons on prayer and photographing everything. During these trips, he has built up an astonishing worldwide correspondence with more than 6,000 people —many of them young—who write to him in Rome, addressing him "Dear Sergio." Though nurtured by Paul, he could be another John.