Perspective What kind of pope will they pick
next?
By THOMAS C. FOX
Pope Paul VI had been dead less than
a week. Cardinals were arriving from distant lands. Vatican City was
buzzing.
An interregnum -- that time between popes -- is part solemn and
part carnival. Never is it more clear how childlike Catholics are than when
Father is absent. With each papal death they frolic briefly in new-felt
freedom, planning their futures, politicking to take greater control of their
lives. After the white smoke rises above the Sistine Chapel, they again cede
the reins to a new Holy Father and brace themselves to accept what follows.
Twenty years ago, the man who emerged on the balcony above St.
Peters Square was named Albino Luciani. He had not been high on any list.
The smiling unknown Italian emerged as a surprise choice, serving a
month before his equally surprising death.
When the shocked cardinals returned to Rome for the second time
that autumn, they asked themselves how they could have overlooked something as
basic as health. They were determined not to let it happen again. So this time
they gave the world an even bigger surprise, a 58-year-old, robust Pole named
Karol Wojtyla.
Then Pope John Paul II set out to deliver some surprises of his
own. Within weeks renewal was being questioned and before long it was under
siege.
John Paul II has repeatedly said he intends to lead the church
into the next millennium. But he will not shape it. More likely, he will be
remembered as the pope who closed the door on a period of church history. As
his pontificate draws to an end, many are asking who will lead Catholics in the
churchs next phase.
My guess is that next time the cardinals will act cautiously,
acknowledging divisions, looking for someone to bring healing, not
ideology.
Some in the secular media are eager to hype the event. On a recent
60 Minutes report Fr. Richard McBrien and Jesuit Fr. Tom Reese were
pressed to suggest the next pope might be an African (Cardinal Francis Arinze
of Nigeria) or a Jew (Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger of France). Not likely.
It is conventional wisdom that John Paul has so stacked the
college of cardinals with staunch conservatives that his successor will emerge
as a JP II clone. Not likely, either.
Other factors will come into play. The cardinals will be
influenced by the length of this pontificate (too long), by turn of the century
uncertainties and, -- most important -- by a sense of their own diminished
status within the church.
McBrien pointed out that short pontificates follow long
pontificates. The idea is to elect an older man to hold on while others take
stock and prepare to go forward once again. This reasoning would have the next
pope as a bridge figure. He would be a man in his late 60s or even
70s.
The same reasoning is leading many observers to think he will once
again be an Italian, the safe choice.
But another conservative cut out of the John Paul II cloth? Very
unlikely.
Despite the seemingly stacked college of cardinals, I
suspect the next pope will be of moderate temperament and theological
disposition. Further, by John Pauls standards his ecclesiology may appear
downright progressive. He will try to run a much more open shop.
Why? Because nearly all who will be called upon to elect the next
pope share the feeling, along with the rest of us, that they have been pushed
outside the critical inner circle of church decision-making. The virtually
unprecedented centralization of church authority under John Paul has so
characterized the second half of his pontificate that only a small minority --
maybe a dozen cardinals -- could still feel they have any real influence in
molding church affairs. And this group is resented by other prelates.
There is little doubt that many cardinals feel diminished, even
demeaned by the ways they have been treated by members of the curia. They have
suffered quietly, but they will want this to end. Expect, then, the promise of
a return to effective collegiality to be the ticket to a papal election.
The churchs centralizing forces fear such a development. So
they are doing everything they can, while John Paul is still pope, to lock up
Peters keys. This may explain the fury of recent authoritarian
directives. But with each move comes more alienation and greater anger among
many waiting electors.
It will be a distinctly different pontificate, soon followed by
yet another more suited to move the church aggressively into the future.
Catholic author Eugene Kennedy, in a recent conversation with
NCR staff, said todays church is in intermission,
between acts. The curtain has come down on the authoritarian church model of
centuries past, and the church awaits its future, the next act.
The next pope may merely serve as usher, helping us move about
during this middle moment, or he might very well appear on stage and play a
major role.
The Second Vatican Council paved the way for Catholicism to enter
modernity. The worlds bishops began a process that has slowed, not
stopped. We await with interest the new twists the Spirit has in store next
time.
Tom Fox is NCR publisher.
National Catholic Reporter, December 4,
1998
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