BISHOP-ELECT FOLLOWS IN FOOTSTEPS OF BAUM (25 YEARS AGO)

Friday, Nov. 2, 1973; page 2

Reprinted from The Southeast Missourian.

The next bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau is following, to a degree, the footsteps of a man he will succeed.

The Rt. Rev. Msgr. Bernard Francis Law, who will replace Archbishop William W. Baum as head of a 39-county diocese, was Mr. Baum's successor several years ago as executive director of the National Bishops Committee for Ecumenical and Inter-religious Affairs when Archbishop Baum was named bishop of the area diocese.

Msgr. Law's close friends now speculate about whether his next step might be elevation to the rank of archbishop, a title Baum acquired last May when he was installed as head of the Washington, D.C., Archdiocese.

Speculation about the new bishop -- what he is like and how he will lead the church -- has spread in southern Missouri since Tuesday when Msgr. Law's appointment by Pope Paul VI was announced.

The first opportunity area Catholics will have to meet their new spiritual leader will occur at Springfield on Dec. 5 when Msgr. Law is ordained a bishop and installed in St. Agnes Cathedral.

Archbishop Baum will be among the principal bishops who will participate in the ancient laying on of hands ceremony. Others are John Cardinal Carberry of the St. Louis Archbishop and Bishop Joseph Brunini of the Natchez-Jackson Diocese in Mississippi, where Msgr. Law is now assigned.

Bishop-designate Law, 42, will bring to southern Missouri a background in racial reconciliation and ecumenical relations.

"I do not intend to limit myself to the Catholic Church," he said in an interview. "I pledge myself to the people of southern Missouri, Catholics and non-Catholics alike, to be cooperative wherever I can for the welfare of all citizens."

The bishops' ecumenical committee of which he became executive director in 1968 sponsored theological discussion which promoted mutual understanding between denominations.

"You would start out presuming nothing but irreconcilable differences," Msgr. Law said, "but you begin to discover that while you may use different words and all, there's a broad area of agreement."

However, he said, "I firmly believe that there remain major theological questions and issues that, to my mind, are exceedingly important.

"I know a lot of people get impatient with theological differences, that they think this is so much wool-gathering. I don't believe that. I believe it is very important."

Msgr. Law became deeply involved in race relations while he was editor of the Mississippi Register, the weekly newspaper of the Natchez-Jackson Diocese, from 1963-68. That was during the height of racial tension in Mississippi.

Under his leadership, the newspaper crusaded for black rights. The Catholic Press Association honored Msgr. Law for his March 1964 editorial, "Legal Segregation is Dying."

The editorial said, "What Mississippi needs is to get over the psychological burden which views the end of enforced segregation as the end of the world." It urged then-Gov. Paul Johnson Jr. to take specific steps to encourage racial harmony, including public discussions of the race issue and establishment of a Commission on Human Rights.

Born in Mexico, Msgr. Law attended elementary schools in New York, Florida, Georgia and Barranquilla, Colombia, and graduated from Charlotte Amalie High School in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands.

He said he decided to become a priest while he was an undergraduate at Harvard University. After graduating, he studied from 1953-55 at St. Joseph Seminary, St. Benedict, La., and from 1955-61 at Pontifical College Josephinium, Worthington, Ohio, where he was ordained May 21, 1961.

His first assignment was as an assistant pastor in Vicksburg, Miss. Since 1971, he has been vicar-general of the Natchez-Jackson Diocese which has 90,000 Catholics. He received the title of monsignor in 1969.