Subject: The Pope dies; Latin Americans among top Papabili (contenders) Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2005 14:04:19 -0600 Message-ID: <B14120EE5C432443B21102F7925DAD020142078E@COKE.uwec.edu> From: "Grossman, Zoltan C." <GROSSMZC@uwec.edu>
When Cardinal Karol Wojtyla was selected as the
first Eastern European Pope in 1978, his elevation
set into motion profound changes in his region.
A growing consensus among Vatican observers
is that the next Pope may be Latin American, due
to global demographic shifts (46% of all Catholics
are now from the region), a need to counter
growing Evangelical Protestant inroads into
the Latin American flock, and a potential for
expansion in the United States.
Cardinals to watch in the upcoming conclave:
Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga (Honduras)
Norberto Rivera Carrera (Mexico)
Jorge Mario Bergoglio (Argentina)
Also mentioned:
Claudio Hummes (Brazil)
Dario Castrillon Hoyos (Colombia)
Jaime Lucas Ortega y Alamino (Cuba)
Z.G.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
THE NEXT POPE
Slate magazine
.....The biggest differences between the papal selection process now and
25 years ago are demographic. Of the five countries with the biggest
Catholic populations, only one (Italy) is European. Forty-six percent of
the world's Catholics are in Latin America; there are more Catholics in
the Philippines than in Italy. In 1955 there were 16 million Catholics
in all of Africa; today there are 120 million.
The cardinals who will be electing the next pope are a conservative
group. All but five of the 134 voting cardinals (aka "cardinal
electors") were appointed by Pope John Paul II, and most share his
views. So, we probably won't see a flaming lefty as the next pontiff.
Likely factors the cardinals will consider when voting: Do they pick a
Third Worlder to reflect demographics or someone to shore up Old Europe
Christendom? Do they want a young (well, under 70), telegenic man to
explain Catholicism to the world? Or an older fellow who won't stick
around for quite so long?
John Allen, the Vatican correspondent for the National Catholic
Reporter, cites an old Italian saying, "Always follow a fat pope with a
skinny pope." But if there's a backlash, many analysts believe it will
likely be against this pope's penchant for centralizing authority, not
against his ideology.
Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga
Country: Honduras
Age: 60
Assets: Latin American. Friend of Bono.
Liabilities: Compared media to Hitler. Too young.
"There's a feeling that it's Latin America's turn," says Tom Reese,
editor of the Jesuit magazine America. It's not just that there are more
Catholics there than any other continent-it's a competitive
battleground, with Pentecostals chipping away at Catholic market share.
So far, there's no consensus on a Latin American candidate, but the one
most often mentioned is Rodriguez, formerly head of the Latin American
Bishops group. He's been a strong opponent of Third World debt and an
advocate for the church's antipoverty mission. He teamed up with U2's
Bono to present a petition at the G-8 meeting in 1999, signed by 17
million people, asking for debt relief.
David Gibson, author of The Coming Catholic Church (and also of a
forthcoming book on the papal election), describes Rodriguez's assets:
"A ployglot, media-savvy Latin American who knows everyone in the
College and would represent a powerful statement on behalf of the huge
and poverty-stricken Latin American church, as well as the rest of the
developing world." John Allen adds that Rodriguez is also a supporter of
decentralization, which may be the most important factor of all.
One problem may be his comments that press coverage of the
pedophile-priest scandal reflects anti-Catholic views of Ted Turner and
other media moguls. "Only in this fashion can I explain the ferocity [in
the press] that reminds me of the times of Nero and Diocletian, and more
recently, of Stalin and Hitler," he said.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
PLAYING PAPAL POLITICS
February 5, 2005
The Age (Melbourne)
.....Papal elections are notoriously difficult to predict: as in the
Melbourne Cup, the favourite rarely wins. Some predictions, however, are
safer than others. First, if history is any guide, the 264th successor
to St Peter is unlikely to be a relatively young man, as Karol Wojtyla
was in 1978, when, at 58, he was elected as Pope John Paul II. The
Wojtyla pontificate is the third-longest in history, and past conclaves
have tended to choose older men to succeed long-serving popes. Older men
die sooner, with the consequence that the church does not remain for too
long under the overarching influence of the same person.
Second, although all but three of the 120 cardinals eligible to vote in
a conclave (the secret assembly that elects the pope) were appointed by
John Paul, it should not be assumed that his successor will necessarily
continue his agenda. There are plenty of precedents in the history of
the church for newly elected popes diverging markedly from the course
followed by their predecessors, even if they had served them loyally as
cardinals.
Finally, although the 69 European cardinal electors will still
constitute the biggest regional bloc, they will not be able to determine
its outcome. No candidate will gain the required two-thirds-plus-one
majority without the support of cardinals from outside Europe, among
whom the Latin Americans, with 22 electors, will be especially
influential.
Cardinals are not supposed to canvass, but in practice this prohibition
is observed only in the minimal sense that no one is ever crass enough
to declare publicly: "I want to be pope."
As John Paul's visible ill-health has fuelled speculation about who
might succeed him, several prominent cardinals have given media
interviews on the state of the church that can only be described as
thinly veiled campaigning, for themselves or their preferred candidate.
The cardinals can be presumed to discuss these reported comments
privately, and their discussions will influence them as they ponder the
question of who among them might be described as papabile, "he who has
the makings of a pope".
So is there a cardinal elector who is not too young, a potential
reformer and yet acceptable to the global church? Until recently, the
man most often touted as exhibiting this somewhat contradictory clutch
of characteristics was, ironically, an Italian, Carlo Martini. Martini,
78, is a former archbishop of Milan, and while in that post he managed
to demonstrate intellectual rigour and a lively pastoral style while,
coincidentally, acquiring a substantial media profile.
Secular intellectuals such as Umberto Eco call Martini a friend, and
regularly engage him in debate on the state of humanity via television
chat shows and the opinion pages of Italy's newspapers.
This willingness to use the media was seen as a form of campaigning for
the papacy by Martini's conservative critics, who probably heaved a
collective sigh of relief when he retired from Milan - and they were
probably also secretly pleased to learn that, like the Pope, he has
Parkinson's disease. That would seem to rule out a Martini papacy, but
he will be an influential presence in the conclave.
Vatican watchers rushed to find significance in his replacement in Milan
by Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi, 70, a moderate who was previously
archbishop of Genoa. Transferring a cardinal from one Italian diocese to
another is comparatively rare, and Tettamanzi's move to Milan has been
interpreted as implying that John Paul hoped that this man who straddles
the divide between conservatives and reformers would be his successor.
If the reformers in the conclave decide to look outside Europe for their
candidate, they might throw their support behind Oscar Rodriguez
Maradiaga, the Archbishop of Tegucigalpa, in Honduras. Rodriguez
Maradiaga is a composer, a pianist and a linguist - he is fluent in five
languages - and has considerable academic distinction: he holds
doctorates in philosophy and theology as well as a degree in
psychotherapy.
His talents and experience make him one of the strongest Latin American
candidates, but his age may count against him: he is only 62. Also, his
liberal halo slipped somewhat last year, when he responded to the
pedophilia scandal engulfing his religious order (he is a Salesian) by
commenting that he believed his primary obligation as a bishop was to
care for his fellow priests and "not to play cop".
If the conclave looks for an older man among the Latin Americans, they
might turn to Claudio Hummes, the Archbishop of Sao Paulo, in Brazil.
Hummes, 70, is a doctrinal conservative but has a strong profile as a
campaigner for social justice, a combination that would appeal to many
electors. Among other Latin Americans sometimes touted is Vatican
official Dario Castrillon Hoyos, 74, who heads the Congregation for the
Clergy. Castrillon Hoyos has an honourable reputation in his own
country, Colombia, arising from his strong public opposition to the drug
cartels. But in the English-speaking world, he is remembered less fondly
as the curial official who became irritated when US journalists asked
him why the Vatican had been so slow in dealing with clerical sexual
abuse of children.
But some of the more conservative electors would be alarmed by the
prospect of any pope from Latin America, the region associated with
liberation theology and guerilla priests, even if that pope were himself
to hold conservative views. In this context, an interview given to the
German newspaper Die Welt by Cardinal Josef Ratzinger, 77, a Bavarian
who heads the Vatican's theological watchdog, the Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith, has turned the gaze of many Vatican watchers
towards Africa.
Ratzinger, a rigid defender of doctrinal orthodoxy, probably holds papal
ambitions himself but is enough of a realist to accept that reformers in
the conclave will do everything possible to prevent him realising them.
This puts him in the same position as another staunch lieutenant of John
Paul, Angelo Sodano, 76, the Vatican's Secretary of State (equivalent to
a foreign minister and prime minister). Sodano has the additional
liability of having been openly supportive of the Pinochet regime in
Chile during his time as the Vatican's ambassador there.
These men might have been expected to put their hopes in a hardliner
such as the former archbishop of Bologna, Giacomo Biffi, 76, who is
associated with the shadowy right-wing movement Opus Dei, or perhaps the
efficient but unexciting Giovanni Battista Re, 71, who heads the Curia's
Congregation for Bishops.
But Ratzinger ignored them in his Die Welt interview. Asked whether the
next conclave might produce a Latin American pope, he replied: "In the
West, for all that people deny being racist, there are ever greater
reservations with regard to the Third World. Yet in Africa, for example,
we have truly great figures, at whom one can only marvel. They are fully
aware of the stature needed for the job."
It was an extraordinary statement for a man who is not supposed to be in
the business of campaigning, because no one was in doubt about who
Ratzinger had in mind: the 71-year-old Nigerian Francis Arinze, who
heads the Vatican's Congregation for Divine Worship. Arinze, like most
African cardinals, is much more conservative than men such as Martini or
Rodriguez Maradiaga, and could be expected to stick with the John Paul
II line on most things, yet he comes with the aura of the Third World.
So the cardinals, while avowedly having nothing to do with anything that
seems like campaigning, are already forming voting alliances for the
next conclave. If no camp can build a two-thirds-plus-one majority for
its man, they will need to find a compromise candidate or, if they are
determined enough, they may wait to take advantage of a change in the
conclave's voting rules made by John Paul II. Under the new rule, if the
required majority is not reached after 30 ballots, the conclave may
choose a pope by a simple majority. It is a revolutionary change,
because it greatly increases the risks of factionalism.
There are several possible compromise candidates, including Tettamanzi
and Walter Kasper, 71, a German theologian who, as president of the
Council for Promoting Christian Unity, is the Vatican's chief ecumenist.
A more contentious choice than either of these would be Cardinal
Godfried Danneels, the Archbishop of Brussels. Danneels, 70, has been a
frequent public critic of the power wielded by the Roman Curia, the
Vatican bureaucracy.....
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
NEW PIECES ADDED TO THE PUZZLE OF CHURCH:
Adding 31 new cardinals shifts the balance of power for the next
conclave
National Catholic Reporter, Nov 7, 2003 by John L. Allen, Jr.
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1141/is_3_40/ai_110737022
A consistory always beckons thoughts of a conclave, because by creating
new cardinals, the pope changes the equation with respect to candidates
and possible coalitions for the election of his successor. Moreover, the
hoopla that surrounds a consistory--the media interviews, the encounters
in Roman restaurants, the off-the-cuff remarks--often reveal something
about the trends, personalities and issues that help shape the papal
sweepstakes.
So after the Oct. 21 consistory, it's natural to ask what the event
revealed about the election of the next pope.
To begin with, there do not appear to be any slam-dunk new frontrunners
in the group of 30 men who received their red hats last month. (One new
cardinal was named in pectore, meaning secretly, and hence was not among
the inductees). This is not like the fabled class of 1983, a consistory
of just nine cardinals that included three men considered leading
prospects: Cardinals Carlo Maria Martini of Milan, Godfried Danneels of
Brussels, and Jean Lustiger of Paris.
Two figures in the new batch who bear watching are Cardinals Angelo
Scola of Venice and Marc Ouellet of Quebec City. Both are men whose
intellectual outlook reflects the Communio school, associated with the
thinking of Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar, especially
fashionable in conservative Catholic circles. Both are well regarded in
Rome, Scola because he was the rector of the Lateran University, Ouellet
because he served as secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting
Christian Unity. Both are seen as doctrinally reliable, but open,
flexible and charismatic.
Their central drawback is inexperience, since neither man has ever led a
major diocese. Observers will want to see what happens in Venice and
Quebec before making judgments. Hence, if a conclave were to happen in
the next few months, both would be long shots.
Some Italians would add to the list Ennio Antonelli, 66, of Florence if
the cardinals are looking for a John Paul I type--a humble, pastoral
figure, without much bureaucratic experience and far from the world of
Vatican diplomacy.
If there were no strong new papabili, or papal candidates, there was
also seemingly little direct impact on the politics of the succession.
The College of Cardinals was already divided into four currents:
* The Border Patrol: Doctrinal conservatives worried about
secularization, relativism and the loss of Catholic identity;
* The Reform Party: Doctrinal moderates seeking to continue the reforms
of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) on issues such as
decentralization, ecumenism and the role of the laity;
* The Social Justice Party: Cardinals concerned with issues outside the
church, such as debt relief, HIV/AIDS, the environment, capital
punishment, war and peace, and globalization; and
* The Integralists: Cultural conservatives who want church teaching
written into the civil law, especially on issues such as abortion,
divorce and homosexuality.
The Oct. 21 appointments were spread across all four categories, no one
of which commands the two-thirds majority it takes to elect a pope. The
Border Patrol picked up a new champion in Cardinal George Pell of
Sydney, Australia, while the Reform Party got Cardinals Keith O'Brien of
Edinburgh, Scotland, and Stephen Hamao, a Japanese cardinal who works in
Rome.
There were, however, tantalizing hints last week about who's up and
who's down among candidates already in the running.
It's clear that some electors are taking a serious look at Cardinal
Christoph Schonborn of Vienna, Austria. Scola said as much in a chance
remark during an interview with CNN and NCR Oct. 17 (NCR, Oct. 31).
Pointing to Schonborn, a Dominican, moving across St. Peter's Square, he
said: "He is the man of the future." Other cardinals, especially those
associated with the thinking of the Border Patrol, echoed the comment.
Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, Argentina, cemented his
status as a serious contender. A Jesuit, Bergoglio is known as a
thinker, a talented pastor and a man of simplicity. He gave a Vatican
news conference Oct. 17, and the dynamic could not have been better for
Bergoglio, as he was paired with Belgian Cardinal Jan Schotte, who runs
the Synod of Bishops. Schotte is a genial sort, but gave typically
hard-line Vatican responses on questions about collegiality and the role
of the Roman curia, while Bergoglio was much more nuanced. He came off
neither as a rebel nor a yes man, but thoughtful.
Some progressives in Latin America are lukewarm about Bergoglio,
recalling that when he served as Jesuit provincial in the 1970s, he
attempted to steer Jesuits away from political and social activism at a
time when the "dirty war" was ravaging the country. Yet that reputation
is actually likely to do him more good than harm in the College of
Cardinals, since his natural base is with the Social Justice Party and
this point might reassure some in the Border Patrol that Bergoglio would
not go too far.
Of course, there remain several other formidable Latin American
possibilities, including Cardinals Claudio Hummes of Sao Paolo, Brazil;
Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga of Tegucigalpa, Honduras; and Norberto Rivera
Carrera of Mexico City.
A perennial front-runner noticeable for his low profile last week was
Cardinal Diogini Tettamanzi of Milan. Despite the fact that Dublin
bookmaker Paddy Power has Tettamanzi installed as a 2-1 favorite,
several cardinals privately expressed doubts. Aside from a flattering
profile in Time magazine, Tettamanzi was largely missing in action
during the 25th anniversary celebrations of John Paul's papacy and the
consistory.
One cardinal put it this way: "Tettamanzi is a good local pastor.
Period."
Finally, there were hints last week that one traditional factor
cardinals have taken into consideration may be less decisive: age. This
cuts against conventional wisdom, which has long held that the cardinals
would not want another long papacy after John Paul II. Yet several
cardinals said that the longer the pope ages before the public eye, the
more pressure will mount to elect a successor who seems youthful and
vibrant. Moreover, a few cardinals said privately they believe John Paul
may be the last pope who reigns until death; future popes, they believe,
will resign, if only because modern medicine has the capacity to prolong
their lives long after the loss of their capacity to govern.
Given that, several cardinals whose relative youth has been seen as a
drawback, such as Rodriguez Maradiaga and Schonborn, may be more
attractive.
In the end, three factors make this contest unusually difficult to
handicap: the lack of an obvious front-runner, such as Eugenio Pacelli
in 1939 who became Pius XII, or Giovanni Battista Montini in 1963 who
became Paul VI; the fact that the cardinals themselves don't know much
about one another; and that unlike previous elections, when Italians
were presumed to have a natural advantage, this race is wide open.
Hence while the consistory of 2003 added some more pieces to the puzzle,
it did precious little to clarify just what picture is being assembled.
John L. Allen Jr. is NCR Rome correspondent. His e-mail address is
jallen@natcath.org.
COPYRIGHT 2003 National Catholic Reporter
COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group
HOW A NEW POPE IS SELECTED
http://encarta.msn.com/guide_popewhathappens/What_Happens_When_a_Pope_Di
es.html