At Tucson the cables, telexes and telephone calls came incessantly. He worked hard from his bed in the early morning, and over lunch and dinner with his guests. Some were public figures, some old friends; some both. As he got older he dispensed more and more with formality and said bluntly what he thought. One prominent Republican Committee woman talked non-stop while her silent husband sat resignedly eating. Finally Buchman saw an opening and said, 'Madam, you need to listen twice as much as you talk!' Her husband looked up with delight, and made his first remark of the meal. The wife began to listen and the lunch conversation continued until afternoon tea was served.

By the early months of 1960 Buchman was often thinking of a group of German miners who were setting out on a world tour with their play Hoffnung, (Hope). It was playing in Rome on 20 February, and he dispatched Howard to join them there. It was then to proceed to Cyprus and Kerala. One of Buchman's keenest sympathisers in Rome was Cardinal Eugène Tisserant, then Dean of the College of Cardinals. Fifteen months earlier, just two weeks after the election of Pope John XXIII, he had let Buchman know through a friend that he believed a new attitude to his work was on the way. 'The new Pope will take a broad view of this question,' he had told one of Buchman's colleagues in Rome. 'I know him. I know Dr Buchman. He understands. He puts Catholics to look after Catholics at Caux. All my information is positive and favourable. He never takes anyone from their Church ... I believe you have trouble with some bishops ... I have spoken to Suenens. He was against. His views are not the last word. I assure you again that something is going to be done.'4

The Cardinal had until recently been Prefect of the Congregation of Oriental Churches and was particularly interested in Kerala, where he knew the situation intimately as well as many of the personalities involved. So when, in February 1960, he received an invitation to a private performance of Hoffnung, he immediately accepted. At the last moment, however, he decided not to attend in response to a pressing request from an official of the Holy Office. Four days later he was seeing Pope John XXIII, and raised the subject of Moral Re-Armament with him. He described their conversation to two of Buchman's friends two days afterwards. 'It was a long time, I had two volumes to deliver to him, but we did not mention them at all,' he said. 'The whole audience was about Moral Re-Armament...The Pope seems to have heard little about your work, except when he was in France...I told him that because of the visit of this play to Kerala I was eager to see it. I told him of what had already taken place in Kerala through Moral Re-Armament - how the Hindu leadership and the Catholic leadership became united at Caux and how this had been reported to me by Rajmohan Gandhi. I told him about the excellent work done at Mackinac and Caux, and how Catholics who came there were never put under spiritual direction of non-Catholics. I then told him of the importance of the work in Asia as reported to me. I then told him about the support of Cardinal Liénart and the strong support of Cardinal Gushing.'*

(* Cardinal Achille Liénart had remained a faithful friend of Moral Re-Armament since 1948. This was originally occasioned by what he had seen take place in industry in his diocese of Lille, and once described Moral Re-Armament as 'a crack of the whip to Christians who have forgotten their mission.' (Arnold Lunn: Catholics and MRA, unpublished memorandum, September 1953.) Cardinal Cushing of Boston had given many indications of his support. He wrote to Eugene von Teuber at this time, 'I myself and many others have been inspired by Catholics and non-Catholics who are affiliated with this movement...MRA does a tremendous amount of good. I don't know of any Catholic who was ever identified with it who did not become a better Catholic...Keep up the good fight: you are on the side of the angels.' (Cushing to von Teuber, 12 November 1960.)

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