There are enough reasons to celebrate today that one might easily forget that it's Monday. For example, we celebrate the beginning of Drug Free Babies Week, World Communication Week, and even National Osteopathic Medicine Week and the 10th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Today is National Authors Day, National Family Literacy Day and the 9th anniversary of the McDonald's Restaurant decision to stop using styrofoam containers. More significantly it is the Feast of All Saints or El Dia de Los Muertos. But one cause of celebration is even a little more noteworthy because of its timeliness.

The Notre Dame community is privileged to have visiting with us these next few days a Prince of the Church, a member of the Sacred College of Cardinals. Granted, around here, one begins to think that prelates grow on trees, but this is something different. Our guest is Francis Cardinal Arinze, originally of Eziowelle, Nigeria. And today is his birthday.

Having had one of the most interesting and stellar ministerial careers in the modern history of the Church, His Eminence is rumored to be one of the strongest "papabile" (possible papal candidates), and it is not hard to see why.

Ordained a priest when he was 26, he served as a priest less than six years before he was ordained a bishop. Most bishops spent 20 to 30 years as priests before ecclesiastic ordination. At the amazingly young age of 31 then-bishop Arinze was able to participate in the final session of Vatican II as a church father. This is all the more impressive considering he was a brand new priest when Pope John XXIII announced the council in 1959. Named a Cardinal in 1985, he is now President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and sits on nine other curial dicasteries, including the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints and the Committee for the Holy Year 2000.

Possessed of one of the most charismatic personalities I have ever witnessed, the Cardinal is respected by a surprising spectrum of Catholic faithful. So-called conservatives admire his outspoken orthodox theology and ethics. So-called liberals hail his commitment to the reforms of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council and his pastoral approach to ministry. Most everyone finds something appealing in the idea of (potentially) the first African-born pope since Gelasius I who died in AD 496.

Cardinal Arinze will be speaking on the third millennium and the apostolic letter of Pope John Paul II, "Tertio Millenio Adveniente," Tuesday night at 8 p.m. in the McKenna Hall auditorium. He will also be the principal celebrant at the Mass of the Feast of All Saints at 5:05 p.m. today in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. He is also meeting with small groups of students throughout the week on a more conversational basis.

If you have the opportunity to listen to him at any of these occasions, don't pass it up! No paper, project, or party will be as important as the message you will get from him. And should you have the opportunity to meet him, remember to wish him a happy birthday.

The views expressed in the Inside Column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.

• Birthday for a prince