Errantry: Novak's Journal

Remembering Francis A. Sullivan, S.J.

novak — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 05:01:16 GMT

I wrote the following memorial for Francis A. Sullivan, S.J. the other week for America, the Jesuits' national magazine, where I've published a few times over the years. To my disappointment, however, they passed on the piece. So I thought I would make it available here.

The Precise Doctor: Remembering Francis A. Sullivan, S.J.
(May 21, 1922 – October 23, 2019)

Michael Anthony Novak

The first thing Francis A. Sullivan ever said to me was that I should not write anything about him until he died. I did not take his advice. I had approached him by email in 2006 with the thought of writing a doctoral dissertation having to do with his theological work. These words, though, were his way of teasing me when I first met with him face-to-face, having flown out to Boston College, where he had retired into the Jesuit community there. He laughed that I might find myself with a useless dissertation should he change his thinking in some sudden or unexpected way. But “sudden” was not characteristic of his work. An analogy might serve here. If we think of Bob Dylan as the ecstatic poet of his songwriting generation, whose mere shopping lists might sprout into poetry in some inspired way, Frank Sullivan would then be more comparable to Paul Simon—the consummate craftsman of his kind of work.

He was a theologian’s theologian. That description works in two ways. In the more obvious sense, he was a theologian read by those more formally doing theology, rather than being a popularizer of theology, whose work is read more widely. His chosen topics could be more focused and technical, rather than being broadly appealing descriptions of the faith. In a less-obvious sense, he was a theologian who helped make other theologians. Francis Sullivan’s area of expertise was Ecclesiology—the study of the Church. And in decades where many of those who would go on to be professors of theology would themselves be clergy studying in Rome, he had in his classroom many of those who would become major figures in Ecclesiology in their own right. As a young professor, he sat on Avery Dulles’s dissertation committee. Those who did their doctorates under Sullivan spanned the theological spectrum, from Richard McBrien to William Cardinal Levada.

Born in 1922, Sullivan joined the Jesuits at sixteen after being impressed by some of his Jesuit teachers at Boston College High School, along with a Jesuit uncle. Eventually sent to the Jesuits’ Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome for his doctoral work, he thought he would be spending his academic career teaching Early Christianity back in Boston. He was surprised to be reassigned at the last minute to go back to the Gregorian to teach Ecclesiology. As a young professor during the Second Vatican Council, he was not senior enough to be brought into Council matters as a designated peritus or expert, although he listened to news of the Council with interest. Nevertheless, when the Council was debating the material that would become the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, the bishops of the United States asked Sullivan to come in and present to them some background on a subject then being discussed—the idea of charisms, or spiritual gifts within the Church. It was the only time that he had been given access to a draft version of a document before the Council, and he realized that he could improve the proposed text. He wrote a draft, passing it to his former superior (then in the Council as Bishop of Kingston, Jamaica) who had solicited any suggestions from him. Thus Sullivan, as a junior professor unaffiliated with the Council, contributed the bulk of a paragraph to the final text. (This became the second paragraph of n. 12 of Lumen Gentium.) This contribution would become more personally meaningful a decade later when Sullivan would become involved in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal as part of charismatic prayer group he began attending in Rome, after being invited by a student and by Carlo Maria Martini, S.J., then Rector of the Pontifical Biblical Institute, and later Cardinal Archbishop of Milan.

When at 70 he reached the mandatory retirement age at the Gregorian in 1992, he retired into the Jesuit community at Boston College, where he continued to teach a graduate seminar until the spring of 2009, ending his teaching ministry near his 87^th birthday. In these later years, he turned his attention increasingly toward publishing, continuing to produce scholarly articles until the age of 92 in 2014, and turning his years of teaching into finely-crafted books where his talent for close, careful study were laid out for all to see. An early analysis of the roots of charismatic spiritual experience was Charisms and Charismatic Renewal: A Biblical and Theological Study (1982), which was followed by a variety of studies on the Church: The Church We Believe In: One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic (1988), Salvation Outside the Church? Tracing the History of the Catholic Response (1992), and From Apostles to Bishops: The Development of the Episcopacy in the Early Church (1996). But Sullivan is particularly known for his work on the Church’s teaching authority. In response to Hans Küng’s critical Infallible? An Inquiry, he laid out an alternative case in Magisterium: Teaching Authority in the Catholic Church (1983). This classic remains an indispensable conversation-partner in any subsequent treatment of the subject, as can be seen in works by Dulles and Gaillardetz in the last decade. Building upon Magisterium, Sullivan released Creative Fidelity: Weighing and Interpreting Documents of the Magisterium in 1996, where he taught his careful method of analysis of teaching documents of the Church, and understanding their differing weights. This is particularly important in an age of instant media where there is often little distinction recognized between the significance of documents of an ecumenical council, papal encyclicals, or off-the-cuff airplane interviews, or where volume and emotion can be rewarded over careful reasoning.

This careful, exacting reading and analysis is what Sullivan was known for, and it has been interesting to see a younger generation of theologians come to appreciate his attention to detail. An old tradition from the medieval Church was to recognize their great teachers with a title: Albert the Great was “the Universal Doctor;” Thomas Aquinas was “the Angelic Doctor;” Duns Scotus was “the Subtle Doctor,” and so forth. In appreciative laughter, I have heard him called the “Master of Precision,” and recognized that resonance with the old Scholastic accolades. He recognized, gratefully, that he seemed to have a gift or charism for clarity as a teacher, and so he might fairly be remembered as “the Precise Doctor.” I am sure he would demur regarding the accolade, but he would recognize its origin. He bore new names with humor. He was born Francis Alfred Sullivan, but someone at the Library of Congress conflated him with an older Jesuit classicist named Francis Aloysius Sullivan, and several of his books are so attributed. His students in Rome gave him another A-name, he discovered, with the nickname “Arizona.” He had earned this distinction because he was “clear and dry,” he explained with (dry) relish.

Francis Sullivan was a professor for 53 years. He was a priest for 68 years. He was a Jesuit for 81 years—for just over one-sixth of the order’s storied history. His was a faithful part of that story.

Michael Anthony Novak is Assistant Professor of Theology at Saint Leo University outside Tampa, Florida, where he has just been unanimously elected to receive tenure.

Personal/Theological Notebook: Michaelmas as a Day in the Life

novak — Wed, 30 Sep 2015 04:05:08 GMT

And again:

MICHAELMAS!

A perfunctory notice of the feast day, while still not really returned to journaling, but I'm nothing if not devoted to my idiosyncrasies. I will confess to still feeling like returning to this more steady writing, on occasion. But today saw little feast day celebration as I worked on a report on campus, attended a College of Arts and Sciences strategic planning meeting, and had a long, spontaneous, and vastly entertaining evening conversation with Joe, our Irish assistant coach for the women's soccer program, which was kind of the highlight of the day. Doesn't seem like much of a day, perhaps, but it had its little moments: popping in to talk enrollment and recruiting details with Woody, having Gloria and Jahiedy in my office for a bit as they talked about Thérèse of Lisieux and John of the Cross, Penny helping me sort out Excel, laughing over the end of last season's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. with Steve, and almost continuing the conversation about the nature of philosophy that has begun with Tim.

And such is the gift of another day of life.

Personal/Theological Notebook: Reading List 2014-2015 School Year

novak — Thu, 05 Mar 2015 03:41:32 GMT

What I've Been Reading
Reading List 2014-2015 School Year:

I get asked about this every so often, and I'm always willing to recommend a good book, so some years ago I thought I'd follow the lead of one of my favourite authors, Diane Duane, who has something similar up on her page. Books I re-read are heartily endorsed!

* denotes a re-read **denotes a book I'm teaching in a class

Basilica: The Splendor and the Scandal: Building St. Peter's, R.A. Scotti
Liberal Education, Mark Van Doren
Toward the Future: Essays on Catholic-Jewish Relations in Memory of Rabbi Léon Klenicki, eds. Celia M. Deutsch, Eugene J. Fisher, and James Rudin
The Hebrew Scriptures * **
Reading the Old Testament: An Introduction, 2nd Ed., Lawrence Boadt, Revised and Updated by Richard Clifford and Daniel Harrington * **
The Seven Storey Mountain, Thomas Merton *
The Man in the Sycamore Tree: The Good Times and Hard Life of Thomas Merton, Edward Rice
Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther, Roland Bainton *
Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism, Alvin Plantinga
Apology for Origen, Pamphilus of Caesarea
On the Falsification of the Books of Origen, Rufinus of Aquileia
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas S. Kuhn *
The Book of Job: A Biography, Mark Larrimore
Tales of Dunk and Egg: The Hedge Knight, The Sworn Sword, and The Mystery Knight, George R.R. Martin *
A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter Miller
The Twilight of the American Enlightenment: The 1950s and the Crisis of Liberal Belief, George Marsden
Robinson Crusoe, Daniel DeFoe *
Christology: A Biblical, Historical, and Systematic Study of Jesus, Gerald O'Collins, S.J. * **
History of the World Christian Movement, Dale T. Irvin and Scott W. Sunquist **
Readings in World Christian History, Vol. I: Earliest Christianity to 1453, eds. John W. Coakley and Andreas Sterk **
The New Concise History of the Crusades, Thomas F. Madden
The Life of Thomas More, Peter Ackroyd *
The Confessions, Augustine of Hippo * **
The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien *
The Letters of Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, ed. and trans. by Helen Clover and Margaret Gibson
The History of Science: Antiquity to 1700, Lawrence M. Principe
The Mind's Journey Into God, Bonaventure * **
The History of Science: 1700-1900, Frederick Gregory
The Life and Writings of Adam Easton, O.S.B., Leslie John Macfarlane
Rerum Novarum, Leo XIII **
A Wind In The Door, Madeleine L'Engle * **
Science in the Twentieth Century: A Social-Intellectual Survey, Steven L. Goldman
The Institutes, John Cassian **
Perelandra, C.S. Lewis * **
The Mysterious Benedict Society, Trenton Lee Stewart
The Rule, Saint Benedict * **
A Man For All Seasons, Robert Bolt * **
The Complete Works, Pseudo-Dionysius * **
Gilead, Marilynne Robinson **
On Loving God, Bernard of Clairvaux * **
The Power and the Glory, Graham Greene * **
The Mind's Journey Into God, Bonaventure * **
Silence, Shusaku Endo * **
The Quartet: Orchestrating the Second American Revolution, Joseph J. Ellis
Socrates in the City: Conversations on 'Life, God, and Other Small Topics', Eric Metaxas, ed.
The Birth of the Modern Mind: The Intellectual History of the 17th and 18th Centuries, Alan Charles Kors
The Dark Night of the Soul, John of the Cross * **
Descent Into Hell, Charles Williams * **
New Seeds of Contemplation, Thomas Merton **
Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh * **
No Man Is An Island, Thomas Merton * **

Personal/Theological Notebook: Michaelmas, Journaling, CPU Madness, and Jewish-Christian Dialogue

novak — Mon, 29 Sep 2014 21:17:28 GMT

Once again:

MICHAELMAS!

So I'm still reluctant to let go of this journal, despite the number that the newer Russian owners did on it in 2012. Recognizing that today was my feast day, and that that (had) traditionally meant some piece of Michaelmas art in my journal, made my thoughts push in this direction. The other day, I found this admittedly somewhat standard statue of Michael in a corner of campus that I had never gone to. But I couldn't help but notice that someone had had the worthy idea of individuating this piece by putting the Saint Leo University seal onto the shield, which helped offset the utterly expressionless face. I'd prefer Michael to at least look a little more intent. Maybe Michael can bless this space, help me find where a blog or public journal now fits into my life (I find the exercise of tracking my life to be too valuable to just let go), and bless the Russians into fixing the Scrapbook functions after two-and-a-half years and restoring the old functionality that this thing used to have.

I was up all night digging into my computer, trying to figure out why the thing had been getting slower and slower. I thought that it was when my antivirus software had updated some weeks back that things seemed to get worse, yet when I turned that off, the problem seemed to be solved, but then revved back up. I finally discovered that I already had a utility that I'd been wishing for – Activity Monitor – on my Mac, which let me monitor what was being used by my CPU. Then I discovered that something called Google Chrome Helper was eating my CPU, sometimes taking up more than 100% of its capacity. Following that up on discussion boards, I discovered that his has been a growing problem for Chrome users on Mac, although there's some hope that the new Canary version of the browser will fix the issue. Maddening, but I felt like I got somewhere.

The weekend was, in a large part, devoted to continuing some of the Catholic-Jewish dialogue work that I have been immersed in since the beginning of the semester. While Rabbi and Marcia Rudin had left campus after their month as visiting scholars, I still had some significant work to turn to in the review that I'm writing for Theological Studies on the volume Toward the Future: Essays on Catholic-Jewish Relations in Memory of Rabbi León Klenicki. The essays have been uniformly good, both giving me ideas that I can incorporate into future classes, as in the essay on biblical resources for interreligious dialogue, and challenging, as with the deeply-sobering reflection on the problem of doing theology after the Shoah. I don't know that I'd ever felt it as so much of a problem before. That is, I had a "head" understanding of why it was a problem, but the essay helped me feel the problem of it more than I think that I had before, even where I didn't necessarily agree with the line of thought or theological reasoning employed. In the mental mix of all of that came the memory of Rabbi Rudin and I talking back on the 6th in Orlando, when he team-taught my course for the diaconate candidates there, and somehow the two of us getting onto the Nuremberg Laws. At one point, he observed that I would have been murdered under the Nuremberg Laws and Wannsee Protocols, which was striking to me: I had known it, but no one else had ever said it before. Likewise, I re-read the Book of Exodus yesterday, preparatory to my next session in Orlando this Saturday, and so the image and heritage of Pharaoh, too, was floating in my head. All of this added up to augment that mood of sobriety. The constant, Midwest-worthy grey days and rain has just added to that. I'm not sure that I have any conclusions from the reading, other than to perhaps address the issue more explicitly in future courses. But I wonder whether the problem of evil is really made stronger via quantity, or whether it simply becomes less avoidable for us. I don't know that the pain that one murder can cause the survivors is qualitatively different than the pain caused by millions of murders: our reasoning tends to fall apart in the face of pain. Something like the Shoah, though, perhaps surrounds and confronts us with the presence of evil that otherwise we can learn to live with, rationalize, exploit, or ignore.

Personal/Theological Notebook: Memories of Running; Scripture Immersion

novak — Sun, 20 Oct 2013 07:44:01 GMT

Do you ever have those memories that you suddenly realize aren't real, but were just dreams? Dreams that had somehow snuck into your regular memories and mixed with them? A little while ago, I was walking out of my apartment to go over to the clubhouse, to work out in the gym, which I have been doing late on mornings I don't have to be in at work early. I thought to myself as I was walking, "Maybe I should just go running." I know that I'm not supposed to run; in fact, that I really can't anymore, given how banged up my knee is. But I also knew that that fact hadn't stopped me before, and that I had been running for a while, nevertheless.

As I walked along the driveway through the apartment complex, enjoying the cool Florida night breeze on my skin, I thought, "When did I take up running again?!" I rooted around in my memory for a little bit and recalled all these memories of going out in recent months for light workouts – light and guarded running, compared to what I used to do. I knew that I ought not to be doing it, but I had done it anyway because I loved it so much. But something felt wrong about that. I thought a little more, and realized that none of this ever happened, and that I was drawing on vague memories of a vast sequence of dreams of going out running.

My intention to pick up the journal again is clearly not going well: it's a hard habit to renew. I wonder if I could adequately describe this time, though. Professionally, I'm teaching all scripture courses and that re-immersion seems a bit subtle for a journal account, in its own way. I suppose that it's something like physical therapy after an injury, where your day-by-day workout is building toward a notable result, but the changes and experiences each day don't seem to distinguish themselves from one another so significantly. I've taught scripture as part of my courses for years, but I haven't taught a course solely devoted to the topic since I taught high school. I suspected that extended time to immerse myself in scripture was going to be a treat for me, as I tend to function more as a contemporary theologian. And indeed it has, although, as per the physical therapy analogy, I find it difficult to explain exactly how it's affecting me. There's something of a "back-to-basics" pleasure to it, re-engaging foundational material for the theological discipline. There's also something of the pleasure of re-discovery to it, too, as I come back to this immersion with more years of thinking and of experience. Employing and teaching the critical methodologies hits me a little differently. Reading Hebrew Scriptures at this depth feels especially fresh, and I've been pulling out and revisiting material from my undergraduate Ancient Near East studies with Marvin Powell along with the new readings.

There are, of course, recreational highlights, too. I went out last night with Professors Clausen and Orlando to catch a showing of Gravity, which was indeed very much augmented by 3-D filming. Visually stunning and with a really impressive soundtrack. Other than an initial "That doesn't make a lick of sense" moment of my inner Physicist protesting at the nature of the disaster that initiates the drama, it all kept us on the edge of our seats. The three of us caught a late dinner at the Stonewood Grill & Tavern where we decompressed after the film, talking through that. Cheryl (a geneticist) lead the group protest about the initial physics that I mentioned, but approved of the ride of the film. We ended up talking a lot about music, compared our various high school nerdinesses, and talked at some length about Frank's dissertation (he's a political scientist, and is expert in Congress and the study of organizations). I had hoped for an apropos fly-over of ISS to conclude the night, but that came later in the evening, with too much haze and too little sunlight for the station to catch. If only life were more consistently artful.

Personal/Theological Notebook: Reading List 2013-2014 School Year

novak — Sun, 20 Oct 2013 07:36:47 GMT

What I've Been Reading
Reading List 2013-2014 School Year:

I get asked about this every so often, and I'm always willing to recommend a good book, so some years ago I thought I'd follow the lead of one of my favourite authors, Diane Duane, who has something similar up on her page. Books I re-read are heartily endorsed!

* denotes a re-read **denotes a book I'm teaching in a class

Letters, Leo the Great/Pope Saint Leo I
A Voyage Through the New Testament, Catherine A. Cory **
Portraits of Jesus: A Reading Guide, Robert Imperato **
Owen Barfield on C.S. Lewis, Owen Barfield, ed. by G.B. Tennyson
Four Portraits, One Jesus, Mark Strauss **
The Jewish Study Bible, Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler, eds.
Reading the Old Testament, Second Edition, Lawrence Boadt, CSP (I remember being far more annoyed with the first edition as I prepped to go to Notre Dame)
Pretty much the whole of the Bible in the first semester
The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin, H.W. Brands
The Intimate Merton: His Life From His Journals, Thomas Merton, OCSO, ed. by Patrick Hart, OCSO
The Priority of John, John A.T. Robinson
Orthodoxy, G.K. Chesterton
The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution, James Hannam
Kish: A Novel, Ed Posega
One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic: A History of the Church in the Middle Ages, Thomas F. Madden
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon
The Craft of Theology, Avery Dulles * **
The Tripersonal God: Understanding and Interpreting the Trinity, Gerald O'Collins, S.J. **
The Trinitarian Controversy, ed. by William G. Rusch * **
The Writings of the New Testament, Third Edition, by Luke Timothy Johnson **
Engaging Theologians, Aidan Nichols, OP
C.S. Lewis – A Life: Eccentric Genius, Reluctant Prophet, Alister McGrath
Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years, Diarmaid MacCulloch
Essay Collection and Other Short Pieces, C.S. Lewis
Jesus Papercuts, Yu Jia-De
The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis *
The Abolition of Man, C.S. Lewis
The Lightning Thief, Rick Riordan
The Sea of Monsters, Rick Riordan
The Titan's Curse, Rick Riordan
Sheldon Vanauken: The Man Who Received "A Severe Mercy", Will Vaus
Debating Christian Theism, ed. by J.P. Moreland, Khaldoun A. Sweis and Chad V. Meister
Harry Potter et al., J.K. Rowling *
Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh *
Veritatis Splendor, Pope John Paul II * **
A Morally Complex World: Engaging Contemporary Moral Theology, James T. Bretzke S.J. **
Veritatis Splendor: American Responses, ed. by Michael E. Allsopp **
Ethics: A History of Moral Thought, Peter Kreeft
How the West Won: The Neglected Story of the Triumph of Modernity, Rodney Stark
My Life With the Saints, James Martin, S.J.

Personal: A New Year

novak — Sat, 24 Aug 2013 17:48:44 GMT

I let this journal slide in 2012-13. Partially, this was due to the unwieldy lack of integration between the new, now-awful Scrapbook that LiveJournal gave us. (The temptation to ascribe what seems to be the awful business sense of LiveJournal these days to Russian experience is hard to resist.)

Even more, it had to do with the hiatus my life seemed to take in not finding an academic position for the year, the "involuntary sabbatical" I was taking while living with family and entering the year-old cycle of academic hiring again. I was, in short, embarrassed by my situation, and had no desire to advertise it. A bolder Christian writer would not have been humbled by mere humiliation, I suppose, but I was having a wretched, Mayan apocalypse of a 2012, augmented by the discovery that my mover, one Mark Cordle, had robbed me of everything I had, and just dumped it somewhere. I recovered a bit of my furniture in New Orleans, but that I could have lost most easily. 20 years' work in notes and most of my academic library, my filing cabinets, my computer, photo albums, letters – all of that was lost. So depression was added to humiliation.

And, of course, there was the simple fact that most of the social networking of everyone I knew had switched over to Facebook. For its speed, integration, and its orientation toward small, minor updates shared with friends, Facebook was a far more natural social networking outlet than a full-scale journal is, was, or could be. And so I diverted in that direction as it was likewise the most natural way to keep in touch with a lot of people. But I enjoy the discipline of the journal. I enjoy being able to have access to my life and memories this way, too, which is not something Facebook does well. And I enjoy the equal compatibility that the journal or the blog allows for long topical entries of the sort that my "Theological Notebook" contains, allowing me to even just copy in large news stories or material published elsewhere, all for easy future reference.

And so I'm going to try to revive the habit, now that a new year begins. (August 16th being, as I've said before, the halfway point of August and the start of a new school year in my mind, as well as being the day that I moved to Oregon, Illinois and what would become my real "hometown" as a seven year-old.) I was mentally composing this on the 16th, as I finished up my first day of orientation at Saint Leo, but I felt too tired when I actually got home, or was too out of the habit. So I'm trying to summon will where habit has failed. Here I go.

Personal: The End of Orientation

novak — Sat, 24 Aug 2013 16:43:42 GMT

Wiped the hell out. After a week of unceasing orientations, I pretty much dropped last night. As this was the only time that everyone from the extension centers were here, too, and thus the only time you could spend with the full faculty, I wanted to take advantage of that, and so every evening was filled with social events. The orientations more successfully introduced me to everything that I don't fully understand at the university rather than getting me to master them, but perhaps that's the best that can be hoped for. But after an evening of Shepherd's Pie and great conversation at the Shamrock Ale House after seeing Man of Steel again (and featuring such cool topics as discovering that Brian and Dan were from the same town in Connecticut, to Patricia describing for me the imaginative and aesthetic impact of growing up around Chartres), I came in and slept for ten hours. So now it's time to turn to actually doing class prep.

Theological Notebook: 2010 Hauerwas Article "America's God Is Dying"

novak — Thu, 02 May 2013 18:49:17 GMT

Just saw this one for the first time, courtesy of Mr. Hannan. I'm going to have to chew on this analysis for a while and see what I think. But it struck me that it may make for a good "discuss with students" article for some further, future incarnation of my Grace course, particularly once the students are advanced enough to start thinking through and applying ideas of "grace and freedom" in an informed way.

OPINION
America's God Is Dying
Stanley Hauerwas
ABC RELIGION AND ETHICS UPDATED 21 JUL 2010 (FIRST POSTED 20 JUL 2010)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer thus got it right when he characterized American Protestantism as "Protestantism without Reformation."

That is why it has been possible for Americans to synthesize three seemingly antithetical traditions: evangelical Protestantism, republican political ideology and commonsense moral reasoning. For Americans, faith in God is indistinguishable from loyalty to their country.

American Protestants do not have to believe in God because they believe in belief. That is why we have never been able to produce an interesting atheist in America. The god most Americans say they believe in is just not interesting enough to deny. Thus the only kind of atheism that counts in America is to call into question the proposition that everyone has a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Consequently, America did not need to have an established church because it was assumed that the church was virtually established by the everyday habits of public life.

Just take, for example, the 1833 amendment to the Massachusetts Constitution that did away with church establishment, which nonetheless affirmed "the public worship of God, and the instructions in piety, religion, and morality, promote the happiness and prosperity of a people, and the security of republican government."

In his important book America's God, Mark Noll points out that these words were written at the same time that Alexis de Tocqueville had just returned to France from his tour of North America. Tocqueville confirmed the point made in the Massachusetts Constitution by observing, "I do not know if all Americans have faith in their religion - for who can read to the bottom of hearts? - but I am sure that they believe it necessary to the maintenance of republican institutions. This opinion does not belong only to one class of citizens or to one party, but to the entire nation; one finds it in all ranks."

Protestantism came to America to make America Protestant. It was assumed that was to be done through faith in the reasonableness of the common man and the establishment of a democratic republic. But in the process the church in America became American - or, as Noll puts it, "because the churches had done so much to make America, they could not escape living with what they had made."

As a result Americans continue to maintain a stubborn belief in a god, but the god they believe in turns out to be the American god. To know or worship that god does not require that a church exist because that god is known through the providential establishment of a free people.

This is a presumption shared by the religious right as well as the religious left in America. Both assume that America is the church.

But now we are beginning to see the loss of confidence by Protestants in their ability to sustain themselves in America just to the extent that the inevitable conflict between the church, republicanism and commonsense morality has worked its way through the system of our national life.

America is the great experiment in Protestant social thought, but the society Protestants created now threatens to make Protestantism unintelligible to itself. Put as directly as I can, I believe we may be living at a time when we are watching Protestantism, at least the kind of Protestantism we have in America, come to an end. It is dying of its own success.

Protestantism became identified with the republican presumption in liberty as an end in itself. This presumption was then reinforced by an unassailable belief in the commonsense of the individual. As a result, Protestant churches in America lost the ability to maintain those disciplines that are necessary to sustain a truly free people - people who are capable of being a genuine alternative to the rest of the world.

The great irony is that the almost pathological fervency with which the religious right in America tries to sustain faith as a necessary condition for democracy is the surest formula for insuring that the faith that is sustained is not the Christian faith.

More Americans may go to church than their counterparts in Europe, but the churches to which they go do little to challenge the secular presumptions that form their lives or the lives of the churches to which they go. For the church is assumed to exist to reinforce the presumption that those that go to church have done so freely.

The church's primary function, therefore, is to legitimate and sustain the presumption that America represents what all people would want to be if they had the benefit of American education and money. That is what Americans mean by "freedom." Thus the presumption that if you get to choose between a Sony or Panasonic television you have had a "free choice." The same presumption works for choosing a President. Once you have made your choice you have to learn to live with it. So there is a kind of resignation that freedom requires.

But this is where the entire "freedom" edifice begins to crumble. Just consider this question: "Do you think that people ought to be held accountable for decisions they made when they did not know what they were doing?" Most Americans would say no. They do not believe you should be held accountable because it is assumed that you should only be held accountable when you acted freely, and that means you had to know what you were doing.

This is what I mean when I say, in a rather convoluted way, that most Americans tell themselves the story that you should have no story except the story you choose when you had no story. That we are, in other words, people of our own making, constituted by a free choice. And that free choice is the only thing we are responsible for.

But the problem with such an account of responsibility is that it makes marriage, among other things, completely unintelligible. How could you ever know what you were doing when you promised life-long monogamous fidelity? That is why the church insists that your vows be witnessed by the church, because the church believes it has the duty to hold you responsible to promises you made when you did not know what you were doing.

This obviously has profound implications for how faith is understood. The idea that you should have no story except the story you choose when you had no story produces people who can say things such as, "I believe Jesus is Lord - but that's just my personal opinion." This kind of statement obviously suggests a superficial person, but such are the people that many believe are crucial to sustain democracy. For such a people are necessary in order to avoid the conflicts that otherwise might undermine the order, which is confused with peace, necessary to sustain a society that shares no goods in common other than the belief that there are no goods in common.

If I am right about the story that shapes the American self-understanding, I think we are in a position to better understand why 11 September 2001 had such a profound effect on the self-proclaimed "most powerful nation in the world." The fear of death is necessary to insure a level of cooperation between people who otherwise share nothing in common. In other words, they share nothing in common other than the presumption that death is to be avoided at all costs.

That is why in America hospitals have become our cathedrals and physicians are our priests. I'd even argue that America's almost pathological reliance on medicine is but a domestic manifestation of its foreign policy. America is a culture of death because Americans cannot conceive of how life is possible in the face of death. And thus "freedom" comes to stand for the attempt to live as though we will not die.

It is impossible to avoid the fact that American Christianity is far less than it should have been just to the extent that the church has failed to make clear that America's god is not the God that Christians worship.

We are now facing the end of Protestantism. America's god is dying. Hopefully, that will leave the church in America in a position where it has nothing to lose. And when you have nothing to lose, all you have left is the truth. So I am hopeful that God may yet make the church faithful - even in America.

Stanley Hauerwas is the Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Theological Ethics at Duke University. In 2001 he was named "America's Best Theologian" by Time magazine.

Theological Notebook: Articles on the Election of Pope Francis in the Conclave of 2013

novak — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 02:19:54 GMT

Three news stories purporting to have inside information on the shape of the election of Pope Francis during the conclave of 2013. For whatever they're worth.

The story from the Sistine Chapel on Pope Francis' election

VATICAN CITY On the night of March 10, Fr. Thomas Rosica was walking through the Piazza Navona in Rome's historic center when he bumped into Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, whom he has known for years. Bergoglio was walking alone, wearing a simple black cassock, and he stopped and grabbed Rosica's hands.
"I want you to pray for me," the Argentine cardinal told Rosica, a Canadian priest who was assisting as a Vatican spokesman during the papal interregnum. Rosica asked him if he was nervous. "A little bit," Bergoglio said.

He had reason to be worried. Two days later, on Tuesday evening, he and 114 other cardinals entered the conclave to elect a successor to Benedict XVI; a little more than 24 hours and five ballots after that, Bergoglio emerged on the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica as Pope Francis.

It was a surprising outcome, and even if Bergoglio suspected something was up, few others did, including many of the cardinals in the Sistine Chapel with him.

"I think it all came together in an extraordinary fashion," Chicago Cardinal Francis George told the Chicago Tribune.

Unexpected momentum

George said Bergoglio's name had not surfaced as an option in the week of closed-door discussions among the cardinals before the conclave, and Bergoglio had also dropped off the radar of most journalists. He was 76, and many cardinals said they would not vote for someone older than 70. Bergoglio was also reportedly the runner-up to Benedict in the conclave of 2005 and unlikely to return as a candidate.

"I wouldn't have expected it to happen either this fast or even the way it developed in terms of the choices available to us," George said. "I believe the Holy Spirit makes clear which way we should go. And we went that way very quickly."

The Holy Spirit, yes, but other forces also contributed to the unexpected result. And despite the cone of silence that is supposed to remain over all proceedings inside the conclave, leaks in the Italian press and interviews with various cardinal electors have begun to give a clearer picture of how this 28-hour conclave unfolded.

What happened, in short, is that during the first "shake out" ballot Tuesday evening, Bergoglio's name drew a surprising number of votes, suddenly putting him out there as a potential candidate.

"Cardinal Bergoglio wouldn't have become pope in the fifth ballot if he had not been a really strong contender for the papacy from the beginning," Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schönborn told reporters.

Until then, the field had been considered fairly open, with two main camps each looking for a champion: There were those who wanted a pope who would reform the Roman Curia, the papal bureaucracy -- and preferably someone from outside Europe to represent the church's demographic shift to the Southern Hemisphere. Then there were the electors who wanted to defend the Curia, and they were joined by some who also hoped to keep the papacy in Europe, or even return it to an Italian.

The "reform" camp had no clear champion but a dozen or more possibilities. They reportedly wanted someone from outside Europe, in particular a Latin American, but weren't sure who.

The Roman camp, on the other hand, had apparently begun to lean toward Brazilian Cardinal Odilo Pedro Scherer, who was born of German immigrant parents and had long experience in the Curia. That made him a plausible Southern Hemisphere candidate, but one with strong European and curial ties.

In the days leading up to the conclave, however, Cardinal Angelo Scola of Milan had increasingly emerged as an apparent front-runner because he was seen as an Italian who could fix the Vatican, a combination some said could attract votes from both camps.

An appealing combination

Throughout this wrangling, Bergoglio had maintained a low profile, which was in keeping with his reputation for humility and holiness, and several electors said they found that refreshing. Moreover, Bergoglio had a fierce pastoral dedication to the poor, and he was born in Argentina to Italian immigrant parents. While he is 76, he is in good health but not so young that he is likely have a marathon pontificate.

All those elements made for an appealing combination.

"He is not part of the Italian system, but also at the same time, because of his culture and background, he was Italo-compatible," French Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois told reporters. "If there was a chance that someone could intervene with justice in this situation" -- reforming the Curia -- "he was the man who could do it best."

In the first round of voting, not only did Bergoglio make an unexpectedly strong showing, but Scola did not fare well, and neither did Scherer or another leading contender, Canadian Marc Ouellet, who works in the Curia.

That night, sequestered at the Casa Santa Marta residence that houses the cardinals during a conclave, the reform camp began to coalesce around Bergoglio. The Argentine continued to gain strength during the two ballots Wednesday morning. At lunch, he "seemed very weighed down by what was happening," according to Boston Cardinal Sean O'Malley, who sat next to him.

According to La Repubblica, an Italian daily with good sources in the Vatican, Washington's Cardinal Donald Wuerl played a key role in rallying the Americans to Bergoglio, and they were followed by European bishops such as Vingt-Trois.

As Bergoglio gained steam, Scola's fortunes continued to decline, thanks also to "ancient envies and rivalries," as La Stampa's Giacomo Galeazzi put it, among the 28 Italian electors -- a bloc far larger than any other country's, but also more fractious and "inexorably hostile to Scola."

"In the last few hours there were signs that Scola's strong candidacy was a giant with clay feet," Galeazzi wrote.

No Italian restoration

By the fourth ballot Wednesday -- the fifth since the conclave had begun -- Bergoglio passed the threshold of 77 votes on his way to upward of 90 votes out of 115. It was just before 7 p.m., a little more than 24 hours since they started, and the Catholic church had a new pope.

"I was surprised that consensus among the cardinals was reached so soon," said Ireland's Cardinal Sean Brady.

Also surprised, apparently, was the Italian bishops' conference, which was so sure Scola would win it sent out a message of congratulations to Scola on his election as soon as the white smoke appeared over the Sistine Chapel.

Yet there was to be no Italian restoration.

"You don't ask why they changed their votes. Nor do you know who changed their votes. But it became fairly clear as we voted that perhaps it was going to go in some other unexpected way, but more quickly also," George said. "There are surprises. That's a sign of the Holy Spirit, I think."

Snub of Reformers’ Choice Seen Before Pope’s Anointing
By DANIEL J. WAKIN
Published: March 14, 2013

ROME — The choice of Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio as pope was so surprising, the Italian bishops sent out an e-mail congratulating the wrong man. His profile was so low that he was barely mentioned by the feverish handicappers and Vaticanologists who make their living scrutinizing the Holy See. But the Argentine emerged from the conclave a swiftly anointed Pope Francis on Wednesday evening, barely 28 hours after it began.

While the workings of the conclave are secret, Cardinal Bergoglio won the papacy, according to comments from cardinals, Vatican experts and leaks to Italian newspapers, in part because the Vatican-based cardinals protective of their bureaucracy snubbed the presumptive front-runner, and a favored candidate of reformers, Cardinal Angelo Scola.

That created an opening for a Latin-American Jesuit whose attractive mix of piety, humility and administrative skills won over many cardinals, including those intent on addressing the Vatican’s recent troubles with corruption and disarray in the Vatican hierarchy, or Curia. Still, it remains to be seen how, and if, Francis will fulfill those hopes.

“By choosing Bergoglio we chose someone who was not in the Curia system, because of his mission and his ministry,” said Cardinal André Vingt-Trois, the archbishop of Paris, in a news conference. “He is not part of the Italian system, but also at the same time, because of his culture and background, he was Italo-compatible. If there was a chance that someone could intervene with justice in this situation, he was the man who could do it best.”

Francis’ immediate march to the papacy, to draw a rough analogy, began with the all-inclusive meetings of cardinals called congregations that occurred before the conclave. They function roughly like primary season in United States presidential elections. The cardinals all give speeches — about 150 this time — talk among themselves and size one another up.

Cardinal Bergoglio “talked about the need of the church to stay focused on her mission, the spiritual mission,” Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the archbishop of Washington, said in a briefing for a few reporters. “He always, always has a preferential option for the poor.” That seemed to strike a chord.

At the same time, he kept a low profile ahead of the conclave, making few public appearances or statements. Giving the appearance of holding oneself out as a possible pope is one of the worst political mistakes ahead of a conclave, and he avoided it. He may have had good reason, given his prominent place in the last conclave, in 2005.

The most authoritative accounts of that election suggest Cardinal Bergoglio garnered the second most votes to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in the penultimate round. Then, at lunch, he was said to have thrown his votes to Cardinal Ratzinger, who was quickly elected Benedict XVI. Some accounts suggest he did not want to be pope; others, that he knew he did not have a chance of winning.

Renunciation is not unheard-of. “People say, ‘Don’t consider me,’ ” said Chicago’s archbishop, Cardinal Francis George, in an interview, and that was the case this time as well. “Some people were very disturbed by the idea” that they might be considered for pope, he said.

“He’s someone who was looked at who could do the office, particularly in light of the challenges that we now face,” he added. “First thing is, ‘Is he a man of the faith who connects us to Christ?’ Next, ‘Can he govern?’ ” The church needs “a revision to the way things work in the Curia,” Cardinal George said. “That impacts our own diocesan curias.”

The third factor, he said, was “the fact that he has a heart for the poor.”

It is difficult to know whether his role in the last conclave had an effect on the thinking of his fellow 114 cardinals this week, 47 of whom took part in the 2005 balloting. An unwritten rule holds that a second-place finisher should not be chosen pope because it could be seen as a slight to the previous pope. But Benedict’s resignation at 85, the first of a pope in 598 years, may have changed that thinking.

Cardinal Bergoglio apparently went through the first round of voting, which took place on Tuesday evening, into the conclave as a leading vote-getter, but a number of other eminences garnered some votes, which were handwritten on Latin ballots with Pilot gel pens. Carlo Marroni, who covers the Vatican for Il Sole 24 Ore, reported that Cardinal Bergoglio, Cardinal Scola and Cardinal Marc Ouellet of Canada were the leaders.

Ignazio Ingrao, the Vatican expert for the newsweekly Panorama, said that at the beginning cardinals voted for a number of individuals as a “courtesy vote.” But, “Then they went fairly quickly to Bergoglio,” he said. Private conversations in the evening helped put the focus on him, analysts said.

In the final round of voting, the future Francis hit 77 — the required two-thirds minimum — before all the votes were counted. Applause broke out, several cardinals said, but the counting continued for completeness. He ended up with “more than sufficient” votes to win, the Brazilian cardinal, Geraldo Majella Agnelo, said. The final tally was kept secret.

Cardinal Scola went into the conclave with a solid block of votes, including many of the Americans and Europeans, who saw in him an Italian who was nevertheless at a distance from the intrigues of the Vatican. But it quickly became apparent this was not going to be enough, particularly given what news reports said was the opposition of Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the powerful secretary of state under Benedict.

“The rapidity with which the choice of Bergoglio was arrived at confirms that the votes that Scola could count on immediately became insufficient,” wrote Massimo Franco, the Vatican expert for the daily Corriere della Sera. The numbers also tell a tale: Latin America had 19 electors, second only to Europe’s 61, and Cardinal Bergoglio may have gotten strong support from the region.

While Cardinal Bertone failed to give him support, Cardinal Scola certainly had his share of believers in the Italian Bishops Conference — it sent out a message congratulating him on becoming pope 20 minutes after Francis was named. The conference later blamed a technical glitch.

“The Argentine archbishop was elected after the third balloting when Angelo Scola had sent his votes toward him,” wrote Paolo Rodari, La Repubblica’s Vaticanista.

Another source of surprise was Bergoglio’s age, 76. A number of cardinals had suggested that a younger man was needed — in the early 60s range — especially after a pope resigned because of waning strength in old age.

Cardinal Bergoglio’s age may have cut both ways, said Mr. Ingrao, the Vatican expert for Panorama. Reformers may have believed it would motivate him to act quickly, while cardinals favoring the status quo may have hoped his papacy would be too short to effect much change.

“So there were thoughts about looking to someone much younger,” said Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard, archbishop of Bordeaux. “But there were two reasons” to choose Cardinal Bergoglio, he said. “First it was his personality that was the determiner. The other thing was that we remembered that we had popes like John XXIII who was old but he was decisive for the evolution of the church. So the question of age wasn’t such a big factor.”

The first public view of Francis was on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica, where he asked the crowd in the piazza for their blessing and then wished them a good rest, earning praise from many Catholics for his humble bearing and choice to name himself after the beloved St. Francis of Assisi.

On Thursday, his first full day as pope, he prayed at the St. Mary Major Basilica and passed by the clergy residence — where he stayed before the conclave — to pick up his luggage and pay the bill.

“I think this is the style of our new pope,” Cardinal Ricard said.

Elisabetta Povoledo and Rachel Donadio contributed reporting.
A version of this article appeared in print on March 15, 2013, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Choice of Pope Said to Follow Snubbing of Reform Favorite.

Behind the Campaign to Smear the Pope
Argentines who want their country to be the next Venezuela see Francis as an obstacle.
By MARY ANASTASIA O'GRADY

Argentines celebrated last week when one of their own was chosen as the new pope. But they also suffered a loss of sorts. Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, a tireless advocate of the poor and outspoken critic of corruption, will no longer be on hand locally to push back against the malfeasance of the government of President Cristina Kirchner.

Argentines not aligned with the regime hope that the arrival of Francis on the world stage at least will draw attention to this issue. Heaven knows the situation is growing dire.

One might have expected a swell of pride from Argentine officialdom when the news broke that the nation has produced a man so highly esteemed around the world. Instead the Kirchner government's pit bulls in journalism—men such as Horacio Verbitsky, a former member of the guerrilla group known as the Montoneros and now an editor at the pro-government newspaper Pagina 12—immediately began a campaign to smear the new pontiff's character and reputation at home and in the international news media.

The calumny is not new. Former members of terrorist groups like Mr. Verbitsky, and their modern-day fellow travelers in the Argentine government, have used the same tactics for years to try to destroy their enemies—anyone who doesn't endorse their brand of authoritarianism. In this case they allege that as the Jesuits' provincial superior in Argentina in the late 1970s, then-Father Bergoglio had links to the military government.

This is propaganda. Mrs. Kirchner and her friends aren't yet living in the equivalent of a totalitarian state where there is no free press to counter their lies. That day may come soon. The government is now pressuring merchants, under threat of reprisals, not to buy advertising in newspapers. The only newspapers that aren't on track to be financially ruined by this intimidation are those that the government controls and finances through official advertising, like Mr. Verbitsky's Pagina 12. Argentines refer to the paper as "the official gazette" because it so reliably prints the government's line.

Intellectually honest observers with firsthand knowledge of Argentina under military rule (1976-1983) are telling a much different story than the one pushed by Mr. Verbitsky and his ilk. One of those observers is Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, winner of the 1980 Nobel Peace Prize. Last week he told BBC Mundo that "there were bishops that were complicit with the dictatorship, but Bergoglio, no." As to the charge that the priest didn't do enough to free junta prisoners, Mr. Pérez Esquivel said: "I know personally that many bishops who asked the military government for the liberation of prisoners and priests and it was not granted."

Former Judge Alicia Oliveira, who was herself fired by the military government and forced into hiding to avoid arrest, told the Argentine newspaper Perfil last week that during those dark days she knew Father Bergoglio well and that "he helped many people get out of the country." In one case, she says there was a young man on the run who happened to look like the Jesuit. "He gave him his identification card and his [clergy attire] so that he could escape."

Ms. Oliveira also told Perfil that when she was in hiding at the home of the current minister of security, Nilda Garré, the two of them "ate with Bergoglio." As Ms. Oliveira pointed out, Ms. Garré "therefore knows all that he did."

Graciela Fernández Meijide, a human-rights activist and former member of the national commission on the disappearance of persons, told the Argentine press last week that "of all the testimony I received, never did I receive any testimony that Bergoglio was connected to the dictatorship."

None of this matters to those trying to turn Argentina into the next Venezuela. What embitters them is that Father Bergoglio believed that Marxism (and the related "liberation theology") was antithetical to Christianity and refused to embrace it in the 1970s. That put him in the way of those inside the Jesuit order at the time who believed in revolution. It also put him at odds with the Montoneros, who were maiming, kidnapping and killing civilians in order to terrorize the population. Many of those criminals are still around and hold fast to their revolutionary dreams.

For them, the new pope remains a meddlesome priest. In the slums where the populist Mrs. Kirchner claims to be a champion of the poor, Francis is truly beloved because he lives the gospel. From the pulpit, with the Kirchners in the pews, he famously complained of self-absorbed politicians. He didn't name names, but the shoe fit. Nestór Kirchner, the late president and Cristina's husband, responded by naming him "the head of the opposition."

As Ms. Fernández Meijide observed last week, "I have the impression that what bothers the current president is that Bergoglio would not get in line, that he denounces the continuation of extreme poverty." That's not the regime's approved narrative.

Write to O'Grady@wsj.com

A version of this article appeared March 18, 2013, on page A11 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Behind the Campaign to Smear the Pope.

Theological Notebook: John Allen's Papabile Profiles, Part 4

novak — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 06:23:40 GMT

I've been noticing two media outlets trying to do profiles of the papabile for the upcoming papal conclave. There are ones that I would rate as more serious ones from John Allen at the National Catholic Reporter, and less-informed ones from the Associated Press. I doubt I can fit them all into a single entry, so I'm going to jot Allen's down here for posterity and any future research I might want to do in looking back at the 2013 conclave.

Cardinal Francisco Robles Ortega of Guadalajara, Mexico
Cardinal João Bráz de Aviz of Brazil, Prefect of the Congregation for Religious
Cardinal Fernando Filoni, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples
Cardinal Antonio Cañizares Llovera, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship
Cardinal Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya of the Democratic Republic of Congo

Cardinal Francisco Robles Ortega of Guadalajara, Mexico
John L. Allen Jr. | Mar. 9, 2013 NCR Today

By consensus, if there were a Latin American Ratzinger in 2013, meaning a towering figure who seems as compelling a choice as then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger did in 2005, he’d probably be at the top of most handicapping sheets.

In a pre-conclave interview, Italian Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio said out loud what many of his brother cardinals may be thinking about where to go shopping for a pope: “It’s time to look outside Italy and Europe, in particular considering Latin America.”

Surveying the field, however, there’s no one slam-dunk Latin American runner, but rather several plausible candidates. The trick is to figure out which one stands the best shot of putting together the magic 77 votes that represent a two-thirds majority.

Facing that math problem, Cardinal Francisco Robles Ortega of Guadalajara, Mexico, might just be a good solution. In recent days, reports in the Spanish-language press have suggested that some other Latin American eminences are floating Robles’ name in the pre-conclave discussions.

(The thought may have occurred to him too; in a press conference shortly after Benedict’s resignation announcement, he said “it’s possible” that a Mexican could be chosen to be pope.)

Just 64, Robles certainly has a lot going for him. He lived at Rome's Pontifical Mexican College from 1976 to 1979 while studying at the Jesuit-run Gregorian University, and he was part of the Mexican delegation to the 1997 Synod for America. He also holds a great calling card in Italian popular Catholicism, which is a strong personal devotion to Padre Pio.

Robles is widely considered less conservative, both theologically and politically, than his fellow Mexican cardinals. He comes from a working-class family in Jalisco, and though he's never been part of the liberation theology movement, he has good relationships with progressive sectors of the Mexican church.

He served from 2003 to 2011 as the Archbishop of Monterrey, a city seen as Mexico’s commercial and financial nerve center with the highest per capita income in the country. While there, Robles repeatedly prodded his flock to be sensitive to the poor.

“Ill-gotten and ill-used riches close our heart,” Robles said in a typical homily. “We can pass our lives without even realizing the existence of the poor, the needy, the people who require our help.”

Robles commands the respect of his brother bishops in Mexico, having been elected in November 12 to take over as president of the episcopal conference. He’s also drawn good marks for his candor and lack of defensiveness, among other things offering an apology in a recent homily for “the scandals of those who lead the church.”

He also enjoys strong papal support. Benedict named Robles to Guadalajara in 2011, after he had already become a cardinal in Monterey, even though incumbent Cardinal Juan Sandoval Íñiguez was just 78. That created the anomaly of two cardinal-electors in the same diocese, something a tradition-conscious pope like Benedict prefers to avoid, but he was willing to step outside his comfort zone in order to move Robles into the spot.

Robles is also the lone Spanish-speaking Latin American named as a member of the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization, a project which is the apple of Benedict XVI’s eye. Benedict also tapped Robles to serve as one of three co-presidents of last fall’s synod of bishops on the New Evangelization.

Because Latin America until recently had been an almost homogenously Catholic zone, many Latin American prelates don’t have much experience in ecumenism or inter-faith dialogue. Robles, however, has led the Mexican bishops’ commission on inter-faith relations and served as the moderator of the Latin American and Caribbean Council of Religious Leaders-Religions for Peace, which brings together representatives of various religions.

Over the years, he’s shown a willingness to think outside the box in adapting to changing circumstances. During the 1997 Synod of Bishops for America, for instance, Robles Ortega floated the concept of “personal parishes” in Latin America’s mega-cities to appeal to people with similar interests. These custom parishes, he suggested, could be run by laity under the supervision of a priest.

Robles has had serious in-the-trenches pastoral experience, having led complex archdioceses in both Monterrey and Guadalajara. He’s also displayed some courage, publicly warning both political parties and social organizations that they should guard against infiltration in their ranks by drug dealers. He’s also a good prelate for the digital age, with both a Facebook page and a Twitter account.

In the period when cardinals were still giving interviews, they highlighted three basic qualities they’re looking for in the next pope:

A global vision, especially the capacity to embrace the two-thirds of the Catholic population that lives outside the West;
A capacity to lead the church in the New Evangelization;
An ability to govern, with some experience of Rome considered a definite plus in that regard.
Looked at the way, it’s not hard to see why Robles Ortega might strike some cardinals as more or less just what the doctor ordered.

Robles was born in 1949 in Mascota, a town in Jalisco state, as the third of sixteen children, where the first stirrings of his vocation began as an altar boy. (His father died on Christmas day in 2012.) After ordination to the priesthood in 1976, he was sent to Rome for studies at the Jesuit-run Pontifical Gregorian University.

He became the auxiliary bishop of Toluca in April 1991, at just 42 years of age. In 1996 he took over as the bishop of the diocese, before being named the Archbishop of Monterey in 2003. He was made a cardinal in November 2007, and then named the new Archbishop of Guadalajara in November 2011.

Here’s the case for Robles as pope.

First, he’s got a decade of experience in governing large ecclesiastical infrastructures, combined with just enough Roman seasoning that he wouldn’t enter the papacy as a complete naïf about the ways of the Eternal City. In a conclave in which governance is a major issue, but in which the Vatican’s old guard is also on the defensive, this outsider/insider combination could make Robles very attractive.

Second, Robles profiles as a reconciler in the decades-old division in Latin American Catholicism between progressives, especially the liberation theologians, and conservatives. Not only could he therefore straddle divides within the College of Cardinals, but he could also come off as someone who could heal divisions in the broader church.

Third, because of the close ties between the bishops’ conferences in Mexico and the United States, Robles could probably count on significant support from the 11 U.S. cardinals if his candidacy became serious, along with the 19 cardinals from Latin America.

Fourth, many cardinals have identified the New Evangelization as a key priority for the next pope, and Robles’ background on that project could be an electoral asset.

Fifth, Robles won good marks for his performance at the synod on New Evangelization last fall, where his co-presidents were Cardinal John Tong Hon of Hong Kong and Cardinal Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya of Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo – two men who might be able to galvanize Asian and African support for Robles.

As always, however, there are also reservations.

First, Robles may be seen as a bit too much of an outsider to be able to truly get control of the Vatican bureaucracy. Studying in Rome as a seminarian is not the same thing as working inside the system, learning to master its ways and means.

Second, while Robles comes off as a smiling and pastoral figure, Mexican observers also say he’s maintained a fairly low public profile and isn’t seen as particularly charismatic. He might strike some cardinals as a reasonably safe choice, but perhaps not a terribly inspiring one.

Third, the fact that Robles has at least kept lines of communication open with the more progressive sectors of the Mexican church may win him some street credibility, but it also may raise concerns among some cardinals about whether he’d be willing to drawn doctrinal or political lines in the sand if the situation demanded it.

Fourth, there’s a sense in which the logic for Robles rests on the part of the world he represents, and the fact that there’s no faction or group that has any particular bone to pick with him. While those are positive things, they may not strike some cardinals as quite enough to put someone on the Throne of Peter.

Still, there is a discernible buzz growing around Robles in Rome as we draw nearer to the opening of the conclave on Tuesday, which is perhaps in equal measure a reflection of his own qualities and the lack of a clear frontrunner.

Cardinal João Bráz de Aviz of Brazil, Prefect of the Congregation for Religious
John L. Allen Jr. | Mar. 8, 2013 NCR Today

Say the words “Brazilian pope” in Rome, and most people assume you’re talking about the candidacy of Cardinal Odilo Pedro Scherer of São Paulo, recently floated in the Italian media as part of a “ticket” being put forward by the Vatican’s old guard, with one of their own slated to take over Secretary of State.

Some observers take those reports at face value, while others believe they’re calculated to damage Scherer’s chances by linking him to what Sandro Magister describes as “the feudal lords of the curia.”

In any event, Scherer is not the only Brazilian waiting in the wings. There’s another runner from the world’s largest Catholic country, whose humble roots and pastoral outlook could make him an attractive choice: 65-year-old Cardinal João Bráz de Aviz, who generally goes by the simple appellation of “Dom João.”

The politics of the 2013 conclave may leave the door open to a compromise candidate between two factions which, at first blush, seem unlikely allies. Devoted Ratzingerians are furious at poor performance by Vatican mandarins, which in their view too often left Benedict XVI vulnerable to criticism and may have hastened his decision to step down, and they’re looking to shake things up. Moderates, meanwhile, would like a pope a bit closer to the ideological and theological center.

Both currents could intersect in Bráz.

Born in the city of Mafra in southern Brazil in 1947, Bráz de Aviz has served since January 2011 as prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, better known as the “Congregation for Religious.”

Braz comes from a poor family, with four brothers and three sisters, one of whom has Down’s Syndrome. His father was a butcher, and their surroundings were so rural that when a child was born, the family had to travel by horse-drawn carriage for 25 miles to have the baby baptized.

Braz entered a minor seminary in 1958, at the tender age of 11, which was run by the Fathers of the Pontifical Institute of Foreign Missions.

At the age of 16, he began a lifelong friendship with the Focolare, a word which in Italian means “hearth” or “fireside.” It’s a Catholic movement created by lay woman Chiara Lubich during World War II to promote unity and universal brotherhood, and it currently operates in 182 nations with some 100,000 members.

Braz was introduced to Focolare by a chance meeting with a Cubist painter. At the time, he said, he was very attracted by the new theology of liberation and its passion for the poor, but worried about the way it seemed to draw some clergy into ideological radicalism. The Focolare, he said, helped him maintain “the right balance”.

“They taught me that I always need to try to understand the path that the other person is on, how they see things, and to learn from it,” Braz said in a 2011 NCR interview. “It’s very important to find the good in what other person thinks and feels, not to condemn it or try to destroy it. For me, there is no other path.”

Certainly no one can accuse Bráz of having lived a sheltered life, disconnected from the sufferings of ordinary people in the developing world.

As a young priest, Bráz was once on his way to a village to say Mass when he stumbled upon an armored car robbery. He was shot during the crossfire, with bullets perforating his lungs and intestines and one eye. Although he survived and surgeons were able to save his eye, he still carries fragments of those bullets in his body.

First named an auxiliary bishop of Vitória in 1994, at the age of 47, Bráz de Aviz was tapped as bishop of Ponta Grossa in 1998, archbishop of Maringá in 2002, and finally archbishop of Brasilia, the national capital, just two years later in 2004.

Despite his rapid rise up the career ladder, Bráz de Aviz generally maintained a low public profile. When news of his elevation to a Vatican position broke in January 2011, the Brazilian newspaper O Estado de S.Paulo described him as “discrete and not well-known”.

Yet he could occasionally show some spunk. In 2006, Bráz publicly rebuked politicians for giving themselves a raise, asking how they could defend making over $400 a day while most of the people they represent live on $6 a day.

Church sources in Brazil recall Bráz as a centrist, not exactly part of the liberation theology current, but also distant from the church’s traditionalist wing.

One Brazilian journalist who covers the church told NCR that during his time in Brasilia, Bráz de Aviz was seen by supporters of the older Latin Mass as an “enemy.”

Bráz also kept some distance from the progressives. In December 2008, he threatened to boycott a gathering of Franciscans if Leonardo Boff – a renowned liberation theologian who left the order and the priesthood in 1992 – was on the same program. Sources said Bráz’s problem wasn’t Boff’s defense of the poor, but his advocacy of a “church from below” against the hierarchy.

During his brief stint in the Vatican, Bráz has carved out a reputation as a reconciler, including his approach to the still-thorny relationship with women religious in the United States. His efforts began even before he got to Rome, in an interview he gave to NCR the day his appointment was announced.

“I want to learn from them and walk with them,” he said of the sisters. “You have to see people up close, get to know them, what will help them overcome whatever problem there is.”

That profile hasn’t gone down well with critics, who charge that Bráz and his former deputy, American Archbishop Joseph Tobin, sent mixed signals with respect to the insistence upon orthodoxy and obedience coming from other Vatican officials.

Bráz has also spoken in blunt terms about the Legionaries of Christ, the order founded by the late Mexican Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado, who is acknowledged to have committed sexual abuse and misconduct.

“What is most worrying,” Bráz said in 2012, “is that at times the Legionaries aren’t aware of what is happening within their own movement.” An “overly severe discipline”, he said, is partly to blame, as well as the fact that the leaders have too much power, “sometimes in matters which the church has never relinquished authority over, like the questions of spiritual guidance and confessions.”

On the broader question of the clerical abuse crisis, he’s stressed compassion for victims: “We have to be concerned about the sanctity of the church, but we also have to be very close to those who were wounded, the victims,” he said in 2011.

In an interview with a Brazilian paper the day after Benedict XVI announced his resignation, Bráz argued that the times demand a church with “great listening skills.” (He also, by the way, appeared to hint that the time may not yet be ripe for a pope from the developing world.)

Bráz de Aviz is the fourth Brazilian to head a Vatican department, after the late Cardinal Angelo Rossi, who led the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples from 1970 to 1984 and later the Apostolic Patrimony of the Holy See, and who at one stage was the dean of the College of Cardinals; the late Cardinal Lucas Moreira Neves, who headed the Congregation for Bishops from 1998 to 2000; and Cardinal Claudio Hummes, who led the Congregation for Clergy from 2006 to 2010.

Each of those Brazilians at one point was considered a serious candidate for the papacy, though obviously none was ever elected.

There are four core reasons why Bráz could be the one to break through.

First, he’s had two years of Vatican seasoning, but he’s not associated with the ruling elite. Insiders know, for example, that Bráz appealed to keep Tobin in the number two position in his office, but that effort foundered in October 2012 when Tobin was named the Archbishop of Indianapolis. Some cardinals might see him as a good bet to break the mold – somebody who knows the system from the inside, but who also knows what it feels like to be steamrolled by it.

Second, his election would put a face on the two-thirds of the Catholic population that lives outside the West. It would also deliver a massive shot in the arm to the church in Brazil, which is facing defections both to mushrooming Pentecostal and Evangelical movements and to a rising tide of religious indifference.

Third, cardinals convinced that the next pope must be an effective evangelist might see Bráz as a compelling pitchman for the faith – a warm, avuncular figure skilled at reconciling diverse currents in the church and in engaging the outside world.

Fourth, cardinals most committed to the church’s social justice tradition would see Bráz as a strong carrier of that agenda.

Yet there are equally compelling reasons why Bráz faces an uphill climb.

First, his profile as a gentle and compassionate figure makes him personally attractive, but it may also raise doubts as to whether he has the grit necessary to really bring the Vatican bureaucracy to heel.

Second, he may be seen as slightly too centrist, too given to dialogue rather than proclamation, for cardinals who believe the next pope must carry forward the strong emphasis on Catholic identity fostered under John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

Third, Bráz may have difficulty attracting American votes. At the peak of the standoff between the Vatican and American nuns, American Cardinal William Levada was head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and it was well known that Levada and the Bráz/Tobin team were not always on the same page.

In a June 2012 interview with NCR, his last before leaving his Vatican post, Levada alluded to that tension, saying “it creates a perception that the Holy See is not united in its approach.”

Levada remains an influential figure, especially among his fellow Americans. By themselves the Americans only command eleven votes out of 115, but they have influence beyond their numbers.

Fourth, Bráz has not kept a high profile since coming to Rome, and is often not terribly well known to cardinals from other parts of the world. That’s likely an obstacle in a conclave in which, for a variety of reasons, many cardinals are not inclined to roll the dice on an unknown quantity.

That said, this butcher’s son, who carries the reminders of hardship and danger in his own body, could nevertheless be an attractive compromise candidate – an insider who’s also an outsider, a man who listens, and who has a beguiling personal story to tell the world.

Cardinal Fernando Filoni, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples
John L. Allen Jr. | Mar. 6, 2013 NCR Today

Quite obviously, the cardinals preparing to elect the next pope aren't looking at this as a PR exercise. If they were, they wouldn't have shut down their access to the media, thereby ensuring that speculation and external voices are likely to dominate coverage over the next few days.

If they were thinking in terms of news cycles, however, they might well ask: Who among us would give the church the best day-one story as the next pope?

Were that the question, 66-year-old Italian Cardinal Fernando Filoni would be a pretty good answer.

Consider this headline, which would likely be the main narrative if Filoni were elected: "The pope who didn't blink when bombs fell on Baghdad."

The reference is to April 2003, when Filoni was serving as the papal ambassador in Iraq. At a time when other diplomats fled for safety, as well as U.N. officials and journalists, Filoni refused to leave, saying he couldn't abandon the local Catholic community and other suffering Iraqis.

"If a pastor flees in moments of difficulty," he said later, "the sheep are lost."

Filoni remained in the country for the aftermath of the war, as Christians found themselves primary targets amid rising chaos. He refused to adopt special security measures, wanting to face the same risks as locals who didn't have access to guards and armored vehicles. He said his aim was to be seen "as an Iraqi, by the Iraqis."

That choice almost cost him dearly in February 2006, when a car bomb went off outside the nunciature, demolishing a garden wall and smashing window panes, but luckily leaving no one hurt. Afterward, a Muslim contractor showed up with 30 workers to repair the damage out of respect for the solidarity Filoni had shown.

Born in Taranto, Italy, in 1946, Filoni's seminary studies coincided with the period of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), and his episcopal motto is Lumen gentium Christus, recalling the council's dogmatic constitution on the church.

In a 2012 interview, Filoni said one of the ways he survived the upheaval of the 1970s, when he was doing graduate study, was by living in a parish rather than a college. As a result, he said, he kept contact with the practical concerns of real people instead of getting caught up in ideological debates.

Filoni earned doctorates in both philosophy and canon law from the Pontifical Lateran University. He also has a degree from Rome's Libera Università Internazionale degli Studi Sociali, a prestigious secular institution, where he studied "techniques of public opinion," specializing in journalism.

He entered the Vatican's diplomatic service and was posted to a series of increasingly challenging assignments. He served in Sri Lanka from 1982 to 1983; Iran from 1983 to 1985, shortly after the Khomeini revolution; Brazil from 1989 to 1992; Hong Kong from 1992 to 2001, where he opened a "study mission" on mainland China; Jordan and Iraq from 2001 to 2006; and the Philippines from 2006 to 2007.

These were hardly pleasure cruises. Filoni was in Tehran during the bloodiest period of the Iran/Iraq war and in China for the upheaval caused by the reforms of Deng Xiaoping.

Filoni is especially well-versed on China, given his decade in Hong Kong and his fascination with the country and its people.

Since May 2011, Filoni has served as Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, deepening his contacts with the church across Africa and Asia. It's tough to name a geopolitical priority in the early 21st century -- China, Islam or anything else -- that Filoni doesn't understand from the inside out.

He's not just a diplomat, however, but also a thinker respected for this theological acumen: In April 2012, Benedict XVI made Filoni a member of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

From June 2007 to May 2011, Filoni held the all-important job of sostituto, or "substitute," effectively the pope's chief of staff.

That aspect of his résumé is a mixed blessing because it means Filoni was on the scene for some of the more spectacular implosions of Benedict's papacy, including the cause célèbre surrounding a Holocaust-denying traditionalist bishop in 2009 and the surreal Boffo affair in early 2010. (The latter is too complicated to explain, but it pivoted on charges that senior Vatican officials were involved in a plot to smear an Italian Catholic journalist.)

Most observers, however, place the primary blame for those episodes at the feet of Filoni's former boss, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone. Conventional wisdom is that Bertone and Filoni, once close, had a falling out. True or not, the perception helps. To some cardinals, Filoni could seem the perfect man to lead a reform of the bureaucracy -- an insider who knows where the bodies are buried, yet not terribly complicit in the perceived malaise.

Here's the argument for why Filoni could emerge as a surprise contender, especially if the early rounds of the conclave suggest none of the leading candidates can get across the two-thirds threshold.

First, cardinals have said over and over again they want a pope with global vision, especially someone who can embrace the two-thirds of the 1.2 billion Catholics in the world today who live outside the West. Arguably, nobody among the 115 electors has broader life experience and understanding of the diverse situations around the world than Filoni.

Second, the highest political and diplomatic priority facing the next pope is likely to be the defense of religious freedom, especially in hotspots where Christians find themselves in the firing line. Given that Iraq is a harrowing symbol of this anti-Christian violence, Filoni is in a unique position to raise consciousness on the issue.

Signs of his sensitivity are everywhere. When he became a cardinal in 2012, he asked for a Greek Byzantine image of Christ wearing a purple mantle to be placed on the cards handed out at his reception, saying it symbolized "the reality that even today, the church in so many parts of the world continues to pay a price in blood."

Third, despite being a career bureaucrat, Filoni can display a deft pastoral touch, including an appreciation for simple things. For the Year of Faith, the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples is distributing a rosary with beads of different colors between the decades representing the continents: white for Europe, red for America, yellow for Asia, blue for Oceania and green for Africa. The idea is to encourage people to pray for evangelization throughout the world.

Arguably Filoni would be an asset to the new evangelization apart from his own ability as a missionary because he understands what the contours of effective evangelization look like in different global environments.

Fourth, Filoni could appeal to both staunch conservatives and more moderate cardinals. He usually comes off as a man who won't brook compromises on Catholic identity but also someone with great tact in engaging forces hostile to the church.

Fifth, many cardinals are looking to the next pope to be more of a business manager, among other things restoring the trust ruptured by the Vatileaks affair. If protecting confidentiality is part of that concern, Filoni could be a perfect fit; it's said when he gets up from his desk at Propaganda Fidei to go the bathroom, he locks his office door, just to be sure roaming eyes don't stray across whatever papers he's left behind.

Yet for a variety of reasons, Filoni has to be considered a real long shot.

First, aside from a few brief stints in parishes as a young priest, he has little pastoral experience and has never run a diocese. Many cardinals regard such in-the-trenches seasoning as a prerequisite for the next pope. (It's worth recalling, however, that much the same criticism was voiced of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in 2005, and it didn't stop him from being elected on four ballots.)

Second, there's a strong anti-Italian and anti-old-guard humor percolating among many cardinals these days, frustrated with what they see as antiquated and dysfunctional ways of doing business in the Vatican. In that light, a career bureaucrat who worked inside the system during some of its recent implosions would probably face serious question marks.

On a related note, some cardinals have expressed concern that because they have not been given the confidential report prepared for Benedict XVI on the Vatican leaks affair, they don't know to what extent it might raise questions about insiders such as Filoni. Although Spanish Cardinal Julian Herranz Casado, one of the three over-80 prelates who wrote the report, apparently told a General Congregation meeting Tuesday that "no cardinal was involved," that may not be enough to allay concerns.

Third, the instinctive reaction even of Filoni's admirers to the idea of him becoming pope would probably be, "Isn't he better suited to be Secretary of State?" Many cardinals may never get past that thought in sizing him up.

Fourth, Filoni is seen as an ally of the Neocatechumenal Way, one of the new movements in the Catholic church. Moderates tend to detect a whiff of fanaticism about it, while some conservatives object to its penchant for playing fast and loose with liturgical rules. Veteran Italian writer Sandro Magister has described Filoni as a "fiery supporter," which may raise eyebrows.

Fifth, Filoni has not been mentioned prominently as a possible pope in the run-up to the conclave, which means many cardinals probably haven't given him much thought. At a time when cardinals are conscious of finding someone who doesn't bring any baggage to the job, they may feel less inclined to roll the dice.

For all those reasons, it's probably unlikely that Filoni will get a serious look. On the off-chance that he does, however, those day-one headlines about the "Hero of Baghdad" might be awfully tempting.

Cardinal Antonio Cañizares Llovera, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship
John L. Allen Jr. | Mar. 6, 2013 NCR Today

One shouldn't presume that continuity with Benedict XVI will be the top concern of all 115 cardinals now getting ready to elect his successor, since many of them believe the "pope emeritus" was a great teacher but a mixed bag as CEO.

Yet for those who do see continuity as job number one, their candidate might well be the man known around Rome for years as "the little Ratzinger."

Cardinal Antonio Cañizares Llovera, 67, has led the Congregation for Divine Worship since December 2008, after six years as the Archbishop of Toledo and Primate of Spain. The nickname "little Ratzinger" comes from earlier in his career, when Cañizares served as the chief of staff for the doctrine committee of the Spanish bishops' conference from 1985 to 1992.

They were years of high drama, as Spanish theologians were prominent in the church's intellectual Avant-garde. Cañizares played the same role in Spain that then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger did at the global level in holding the line against these currents, and the two men became close friends.

(The qualifier "little" works in another sense too, as Cañizares is a fairly short man. In pictures with the pope, Benedict often seems to tower over him.)

Both admirers and detractors of Cañizares have embraced the nickname "little Ratzinger," suggesting that whether you find his similarity to the retired pope encouraging or distressing, everyone can agree it fits.

Born in 1945 in Utiel, located in Spain's Valencia region, Cañizares studied theology at the Pontifical University of Salamanca and was ordained to the priesthood in 1970, amid the ferment of the immediate post-Vatican II period. Like his mentor Joseph Ratzinger, Cañizares became concerned that the baby was being tossed out with the bathwater, that too much of the church's intellectual and spiritual tradition was being either watered down or set aside.

During the 1970s, Cañizares taught theology in a string of universities and seminaries, with a special interest in catechesis. He founded an association for Spanish catechists, and also directed a theological journal called Teología y Catequesis.

Cañizares was named the Bishop of Avila in 1992, at the age of 46. It was evident this was a bishop with a passion for the life of the mind; in 1996, he founded the Universidad Católica Santa Teresa de Jesús de Ávila, more commonly known as the Catholic University of Avila. In the spirit of Teresa of Avila, the university offers a program in Catholic mysticism along with degrees in business, law and engineering.

In 1996, Cañizares took over as the Archbishop of Granada. Just before his appointment, he was also named a member of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, cementing his friendship with the future pope. He also helped compile the Spanish edition of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

He moved up the ladder again in 2002, becoming the de facto leader of the Spanish church as the Archbishop of Toledo, and entered the College of Cardinals in Benedict XVI's first consistory in March 2006.

His years in Toledo overlapped with the first term of Spain's Socialist Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who became the bogeyman of the European Catholic imagination by challenging the church on virtually every imaginable front – from liberalizing abortion and gay marriage to trimming tax subsidies for Catholic schools and other institutions.

The Spanish leader became such a metaphor for secularism on steroids that when Barack Obama was elected in 2008, the most common reaction among Vatican officials was the hope that he wouldn't become a "global Zapatero."

Cañizares emerged as the most acerbic critic of the Zapatero regime, so much so that when he relocated to Rome in 2008 some Spaniards thought it was tantamount to the church waving a white flag after Zapatero's reelection.

In truth, the move probably wasn't an instance of the old Roman principle of Promoveatur ut amoveatur, "promoting to remove." Instead, Benedict is a pope keenly interested in the church's liturgical life, and he wanted a figure of trust to take over the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments from Nigerian Cardinal Francis Arinze.

(The perceived urgency of moving a "Ratzingerian" into that office was all the greater since plans were already in motion to name the congregation's secretary, Malcolm Ranjith, as the new Archbishop of Colombo in Sri Lanka.)

As the Vatican's top liturgical official, Cañizares has publicly expressed reservations about taking communion in the hand, arguing that receiving it on the tongue in a kneeling position better expresses a spirit of adoration.

Cañizares also robustly defended Benedict's decision in 2007 to widen permission for celebration of the old Latin Mass, arguing that "even if there weren't a single traditionalist" in the Lefebvrist camp to appease, the pope would still be right to make the liturgical heritage of the church more broadly available. In November 2012, Cañizares celebrated a Tridentine Mass for a group of traditionalist Catholic pilgrims loyal to the pope.

In 2011, Cañizares established a new commission within his office for liturgical art, architecture and music, the apparent purpose of which is to promote a more reverent, traditional ethos in all those fields. Recently Cañizares said that if French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre had ever seen the post-Vatican II Mass celebrated the right way, he might never have split with Rome.

At a personal level, Cañizares is also reminiscent of Benedict XVI. He may be tough as nails on doctrine, but he comes off in person as mild, gracious, and a little shy.

The case for Cañizares as pope is easy to roll out.

First, he represents intellectual and spiritual continuity with Benedict XVI as much, and arguably more, than any other single figure in the College of Cardinals. Given that 66 of the 115 cardinals who will be voting were named by the pope emeritus, that's probably no small electoral advantage.

Second, at least on paper Cañizares ticks off most of the boxes on the cardinals' wish list for the next pope. He's in the right age window at 67 for a papacy that's neither too long nor too short; he's got a mix of pastoral and Vatican experience; and he's an expert on catechesis at a moment when the church's highest internal priority is the New Evangelization.

Third, Cañizares' theological and liturgical views may be polarizing in some circles, but on a personal level he's seen as kind and non-threatening. In an election in which personal relationships count at least as much as issues, that profile could take the Spanish prelate a long way.

Fourth, there was considerable speculation in the Italian papers back in 2008 that Cañizares was being removed from Toledo at the inspiration of Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Secretary of State, who supposedly wanted to launch a sort of Ostpolitik with the Zapatero government. Whether that's true almost doesn't matter; at a moment when there's fairly strong discontent among many cardinals with Bertone's performance, the perception that Cañizares isn't part of his team may work in his favor.

Yet the case against Cañizares is fairly strong too.

First, governance is shaping up as a key voting issue in the 2013 conclave, and many cardinals may look at Cañizares and see a photocopy of Benedict XVI: a great mind and a prayerful soul, but someone ill-suited for the administrative and managerial dimension of the papacy.

Second, in terms of languages, Cañizares is truly comfortable only in Spanish. While that's the native tongue of almost half the world's 1.2 billion Catholics, many cardinals believe the next pope not only has to be proficient in Italian, to play his role as the Bishop of Rome, but also English, which is the dominant language of the world's media.

Third, for those cardinals looking for someone who can reconcile diverse currents in the church, and who can engineer a sort of détente with the secular world, Cañizares may be seen as a few notches too far to the right.

Fourth, a Cañizares papacy would likely be similar to that of Benedict XVI in another sense, in that he would likely be more focused on the internal life of the church rather than the ad extra dimension, engaging issues in the outside world. At a moment when the defense of religious freedom is seen as an urgent priority, especially in light of growing anti-Christian persecution around the world, some cardinals may believe the times call for a more "political" pope – someone who can mobilize the diplomatic and social capital of the church to make a difference on the global stage.

Fifth, Cañizares gave an interview in 2009 to a Catalan TV station at the time the Ryan Report appeared in Ireland, arguing that abortion is a far more serious crime against humanity than child sexual abuse by clergy. While many cardinals may agree in principle, they may also not want the next pope to have to spend the early days of his pontificate trying to explain his views on the sex abuse crisis.

(To be clear, Cañizares said in the same interview that the behavior of some Catholic priests and nuns in Ireland was to be totally condemned, and that they had committed crimes "for which we have to ask forgiveness".)

If this were the conclave of 2005, when continuity was the driving issue, Cañizares might well profile as a front-runner. It's a different mood in 2013, however, and for cardinals seeking to remedy what they perceive as the managerial deficiencies of the last eight years, he might not seem the best choice.

Nonetheless, in a fairly wide-open race it's just on the cusp of possibility that the "little Ratzinger" could be tapped for the church's biggest job.

Cardinal Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya of the Democratic Republic of Congo
John L. Allen Jr. | Mar. 5, 2013 NCR Today

A pope, of course, is not merely a spiritual leader but also a head of state, since the Holy See is a sovereign entity that enjoys diplomatic relations with 179 nations. There's an awfully good case that no one in the College of Cardinals is better prepared for that aspect of the job than Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the lone cardinal to have previously served, more or less, as a country's chief executive.

Back in the early 1990s, what was then Zaire was feeling its way towards life without strongman Mobutu Sese Seko, who ruled the country from 1965 to 1997. A transitional "High Council of the Republic" needed someone with moral authority and a reputation for independence to lead the process of drafting a new constitution, acting as the de facto national leader during the fin de regime period.

Nobody from the political class fit the bill, so the nation instead turned to the then-Auxiliary Bishop of Kisangani, a polished and urbane cleric named Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya. He not only served as president of the council, but also as transitional speaker of the national parliament in 1994.

Monsengwo gets mixed reviews for how well he handled the role – in part because it wasn't really his diplomacy that brought an end to Mobutu's rule, but the First Congo War and the armies of Laurent-Désiré Kabila. When Monsengwo later spoke out against Kabila's anti-democratic tendencies, charges that the archbishop had been "pro-Mobutu" become a staple of government rhetoric.

Some Catholics agreed that Monsengwo had been overly soft, especially given the persecution they'd experienced at the hands of the Mobutu regime. At one point Mobutu ordered all Christians in the country to adopt non-Christian names, and at another he ordered crucifixes and pictures of the pope to be taken down in Catholic schools and replaced with images of himself. For a time, Cardinal Joseph-Albert Malula of Kinshasa was forced into exile.

Critics accused Monsengwo of vacillating while Africa was gripped by genocide. Admirers, however, say Monsengwo was trying to find a third way between dictatorship and chaos, noting that it's one thing to stand on the outside of the political process and toss bricks, quite another to remain within it and try to get something done.

In any event, if one dimension of papacy is to engage tough political and diplomatic questions, nobody's been down that road before quite like the Cardinal of Kinshasa.

Born in Mongobele, in what is now the DRC, in 1939, Monsengwo belongs to the royal family of his Basakata tribe; his name actually means, "relative of the chief." As a young he was sent to Rome for studies, first at the Pontifical Urbaniana University, home to seminarians from the developing world, and then to the prestigious Pontifical Biblical Institute.

He also put in a stint at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Jerusalem, where one of his teachers was a promising Italian Jesuit named Fr. Carlo Maria Martini, who went on to become the cardinal of Milan and one of the leading intellectual lights of the Catholic church. In Jerusalem, Monsengwo became the first African to earn a doctorate in Biblical studies from the institute.

After doing pastoral work and teaching in the local seminary during the 1970s, Monsengwo became a bishop in 1980, at the tender age of 40. He was consecrated by Pope John Paul II himself during the pope's May 1980 trip to Zaire, his first outing to Africa.

Monsengwo was immediately elected the president of the Congolese bishops' conference, a post he would hold again in 1992. He became the Archbishop of Kisangani in 1988, and the Archbishop of Kinshasa in 2007. Benedict XVI raised him to the rank of cardinal in November 2010.

Now 73, Monsengwo obviously enjoys the esteem of the former pope. Not only did Benedict make him a cardinal, after a long stretch in which many people thought Monsengwo's window of opportunity had closed, but in 2008 Benedict tapped Monsengwo as the relator, or general secretary, of the Synod of Bishops on the Bible. In February 2012, Benedict also invited the African prelate to deliver the Vatican's annual Lenten retreat.

Monsengwo is a member of the Vatican's powerful Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, which coordinates support for local churches all across the developing world.

He's a familiar face on the Roman scene, frequently sought after as a speaker on African affairs and geopolitics. For years, he's been the go-to voice for media outlets in Rome on matters pertaining to the Catholic church in Africa, in part because he speaks fluent Italian. (Remarkably, Monsengwo is said to be at least passable in fourteen languages, including both the major European languages and a variety of tribal dialects.)

Monsengwo has continued to act as a voice of conscience in the post-Mobutu period. On more than one occasion, the Kabila government confiscated his passport to prevent from travelling abroad and voicing his criticism in the international arena. He's also had cross words for the new regime under President Denis Sassou Nguesso, most recently questioning the legitimacy of the November 2011 general elections – a stance for which, according to the media outlet Jeune Afrique ("Young Africa"), he was subjected to a "lynching" in state-controlled media.

In other contexts such language might be hyperbole, but Monsengwo has literally put his life on the line. In 2010, two men dressed as priests showed up wanting to see him, when their stories didn't check out the police were summoned, who found handguns hidden under their cassocks. When Monsengwo's 22-year-old nephew was murdered in South Africa in 2012, many Congolese suspected the involvement of political factions in the DRC threatened by the cardinal's moral criticism.

The case for Monsengwo as pope rests on three points.

First, he would symbolize the phenomenal growth of Catholicism in sub-Saharan Africa, where the church's following shot up by almost 7,000 percent during the 20th century from 1.9 million to more than 130 million. By 2050, the Democratic Republic of Congo is projected to become the fifth largest Catholic country in the world, with a Catholic population of just under 100 million people.

Second, Monsengwo's life experience could position him to revitalize the political and diplomatic activity of the Vatican, something that many observers believe went into eclipse under Benedict XVI. After a pontificate more focused on the inner life of the church, some believe, it's time for a pope more vitally focused on the raging external questions of the day – war and peace, the pathologies of globalization, the rise of Islam, and so on. In that context, Monsengwo could seem an attractive candidate.

Third, Monsengwo is an urbane and sophisticated thinker who could appeal to a variety of different constituencies within the College of Cardinals. With his vast experience of government, both ecclesiastical and secular, he could be seen as someone who can take control of complex organizations and make them work – an important selling point in a conclave in which governance, especially in the bureaucracy of the Vatican, looms as a major voting issue.

However, there are also some serious reservations.

First, some cardinals may find the intricacies of Monsengwo's role during the end of the Mobutu regime and the 1994 genocide hard to fathom, and worry that they don't really know enough to make an informed assessment.

Second, Monsengwo is an undeniably impressive figure in terms of both intellect and political savvy, but he's not the most dynamic presence on the public stage you'll ever meet. He can come off as cerebral and stiff, which may cause some cardinals to wonder if he's really the pitchman the church needs to give legs to the "New Evangelization."

Third, although Monsengwo is an old Roman hand in one sense, he's never worked in the Vatican and could require some "one the job" training to get his hands around the bureaucracy. To really fix the place, some cardinals believe what's required isn't so much a diplomat as a tough-as-nails CEO.

Fourth, at 73 Monsengwo is just on the cusp of being seen as too old for the job, especially on the heels of a pope who just resigned for reasons of age.

At the moment, Monsengwo figures on many lists of papal candidates, but nobody seems to have him on their "A" lists. Yet in a wide-open race, if nobody gets close to a two-thirds votes after the early rounds of the conclave, all sorts of options may be on the table – including the only cardinal with a previous stint actually running a country.

Theological Notebook: John Allen's Papabile Profiles, Part 3

novak — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 23:11:13 GMT

I've been noticing two media outlets trying to do profiles of the papabile for the upcoming papal conclave. There are ones that I would rate as more serious ones from John Allen at the National Catholic Reporter, and less-informed ones from the Associated Press. I doubt I can fit them all into a single entry, so I'm going to jot Allen's down here for posterity and any future research I might want to do in looking back at the 2013 conclave.

Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, Argentina
French Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue
Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga of Tegucigalpa, Honduras
Cardinal Robert Sarah, president of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum
Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith of Colombo, Sri Lanka

Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, Argentina
John L. Allen Jr. | Mar. 3, 2013 NCR Today

ROME John Allen is offering a profile each day of one of the most frequently touted papabili, or men who could be pope. The old saying in Rome is that he who enters a conclave as pope exits as a cardinal, meaning there's no guarantee one of these men actually will be chosen. They are, however, the leading names drawing buzz in Rome these days, ensuring they will be in the spotlight as the conclave draws near. The profiles of these men also suggest the issues and the qualities other cardinals see as desirable heading into the election.

While there are still no tracking polls to establish who's got legs as a papal candidate, the 2013 conclave at least has one objective measure not available in 2005: past performance. Many of the cardinals seen as candidates now were also on offer the last time around, and someone who had traction eight years ago could be a contender again.

By that measure alone, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, Argentina, at least merits a look.

After the dust settled from the election of Benedict XVI, various reports identified the Argentine Jesuit as the main challenger to then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. One cardinal later said the conclave had been "something of a horse race" between Ratzinger and Bergoglio, and an anonymous conclave diary splashed across the Italian media in September 2005 claimed that Bergoglio received 40 votes on the third ballot, just before Ratzinger crossed the two-thirds threshold and became pope.

Though it's hard to say how seriously one should take the specifics, the general consensus is that Bergoglio was indeed the "runner-up" last time around. He appealed to conservatives in the College of Cardinals as a man who had held the line against liberalizing currents among the Jesuits, and to moderates as a symbol of the church's commitment to the developing world.

Back in 2005, Bergoglio drew high marks as an accomplished intellectual, having studied theology in Germany. His leading role during the Argentine economic crisis burnished his reputation as a voice of conscience, and made him a potent symbol of the costs globalization can impose on the world's poor.

Bergoglio's reputation for personal simplicity also exercised an undeniable appeal – a Prince of the Church who chose to live in a simple apartment rather than the archbishop's palace, who gave up his chauffeured limousine in favor of taking the bus to work, and who cooked his own meals.

Another measure of Bergoglio's seriousness as a candidate was the negative campaigning that swirled around him eight years ago.

Three days before the 2005 conclave, a human rights lawyer in Argentina filed a complaint charging Bergoglio with complicity in the 1976 kidnapping of two liberal Jesuit priests under the country's military regime, a charge Bergoglio flatly denied. There was also an e-mail campaign, claiming to originate with fellow Jesuits who knew Bergoglio when he was the provincial of the order in Argentina, asserting that "he never smiled."

All of that by way of saying, Bergoglio was definitely on the radar screen. Of course he's eight years older now, and at 76 is probably outside the age window many cardinals would see as ideal. Further, the fact he couldn't get over the hump last time may convince some cardinals there's no point going back to the well.

That said, many of the reasons that led members of the college to take him seriously eight years ago are still in place.

Born in Buenos Aires in 1936, Bergoglio's father was an Italian immigrant and railway worker from the region around Turin, and he has four brothers and sisters. His original plan was to be a chemist, but in 1958 he instead entered the Society of Jesus and began studies for the priesthood. He spent much of his early career teaching literature, psychology and philosophy, and early on he was seen as a rising star. From 1973 to 1979 he served as the Jesuit provincial in Argentina, then in 1980 became the rector of the seminary from which he had graduated.

These were the years of the military junta in Argentina, when many priests, including leading Jesuits, were gravitating towards the progressive liberation theology movement. As the Jesuit provincial, Bergoglio insisted on a more traditional reading of Ignatian spirituality, mandating that Jesuits continue to staff parishes and act as chaplains rather than moving into "base communities" and political activism.

Although Jesuits generally are discouraged from receiving ecclesiastical honors and advancement, especially outside mission countries, Bergoglio was named auxiliary bishop of Buenos Aires in 1992 and then succeeded the ailing Cardinal Antonio Quarracino in 1998. John Paul II made Bergoglio a cardinal in 2001, assigning him the Roman church named after the legendary Jesuit St. Robert Bellarmino.

Over the years, Bergoglio became close to the Comunione e Liberazione movement founded by Italian Fr. Luigi Giussani, sometimes speaking at its massive annual gathering in Rimini, Italy. He's also presented Giussani's books at literary fairs in Argentina. This occasionally generated consternation within the Jesuits, since the ciellini once upon a time were seen as the main opposition to Bergoglio's fellow Jesuit in Milan, Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini.

On the other hand, that's also part of Bergoglio's appeal, someone who personally straddles the divide between the Jesuits and the ciellini, and more broadly, between liberals and conservatives in the church.

Bergoglio has supported the social justice ethos of Latin American Catholicism, including a robust defense of the poor.

"We live in the most unequal part of the world, which has grown the most yet reduced misery the least," Bergoglio said during a gathering of Latin American bishops in 2007. "The unjust distribution of goods persists, creating a situation of social sin that cries out to Heaven and limits the possibilities of a fuller life for so many of our brothers."

At the same time, he has generally tended to accent growth in personal holiness over efforts for structural reform.

Bergoglio is seen an unwaveringly orthodox on matters of sexual morality, staunchly opposing abortion, same-sex marriage, and contraception. In 2010 he asserted that gay adoption is a form of discrimination against children, earning a public rebuke from Argentina's President, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.

Nevertheless, he has shown deep compassion for the victims of HIV-AIDS; in 2001, he visited a hospice to kiss and wash the feet of 12 AIDS patients.

Bergoglio also won high marks for his compassionate response to the 1994 bombing in Buenos Aires of a seven-story building housing the Argentine Jewish Mutual Association and the Delegation of the Argentine Jewish Association. It was one of the worst anti-Jewish attacks ever in Latin America, and in 2005 Rabbi Joseph Ehrenkranz of the Center for Christian-Jewish Understanding at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut, praised Bergoglio's leadership.

"He was very concerned with what happened, Ehrenkranz said. "He's got experience."

Nevertheless, after the conclave of 2005 some cardinals candidly admitted to doubts that Bergoglio really had the steel and "fire in the belly" needed to lead the universal church. Moreover, for most of the non-Latin Americans, Bergoglio was an unknown quantity. A handful remembered his leadership in the 2001 Synod of Bishops, when Bergoglio replaced Cardinal Edward Egan of New York as the relator, or chairman, of the meeting after Egan went home to help New Yorkers cope with the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In that setting, Bergoglio left a basically positive but indistinct impression.

Bergoglio may be basically conservative on many issues, but he's no defender of clerical privilege, or insensitive to pastoral realities. In September 2012, he delivered a blistering attack on priests who refuse to baptize children born out of wedlock, calling it a form of "rigorous and hypocritical neo-clericalism."

The case for Bergoglio in 2013 rests on four points.

First and most basically, he had strong support last time around, and some cardinals may think that they're getting another bite at the apple now.

Second, Bergoglio is a candidates who brings together the first world and the developing world in his own person. He's a Latin American with Italian roots, who studied in Germany. As a Jesuit he's a member of a truly international religious community, and his ties to Comunione e Liberazione make him part of another global network.

Third, Bergoglio still has appeal across the usual divides in the church, drawing respect from both conservatives and moderates for his keen pastoral sense, his intelligence, and his personal modesty. He's also seen as a genuinely spiritual soul, and a man of deep prayer.

"Only someone who has encountered mercy, who has been caressed by the tenderness of mercy, is happy and comfortable with the Lord," Bergoglio said in 2001. "I beg the theologians who are present not to turn me in to the Sant'Uffizio or the Inquisition; however, forcing things a bit, I dare to say that the privileged locus of the encounter is the caress of the mercy of Jesus Christ on my sin."

Fourth, he's also seen as a successful evangelist.

"We have to avoid the spiritual sickness of a self-referential church," Bergoglio said recently. "It's true that when you get out into the street, as happens to every man and woman, there can be accidents. However, if the church remains closed in on itself, self-referential, it gets old. Between a church that suffers accidents in the street, and a church that's sick because it's self-referential, I have no doubts about preferring the former."

On the other hand, there are compelling reasons to believe that Bergoglio's window of opportunity to be pope has already closed.

First, he's eight years older than in 2005, and at 76 he would only be two years younger than Benedict XVI was when he became pope. Especially on the heels of a papal resignation on the basis of age and exhaustion, many cardinals may balk at electing someone that old, fearing it would set the church up for another shock to the system.

Second, although Bergoglio was a serious contender in 2005, he couldn't attract sufficient support to get past the two-thirds threshold needed to be elected pope. Especially for the 50 cardinals who were inside the conclave eight years ago, they may be skeptical that the results would be any different this time around.

Third, the doubts that circulated about Bergoglio's toughness eight years ago may arguably be even more damaging now, given that the ability to govern. and to take control of the Vatican bureaucracy, seems to figure even more prominently on many cardinals' wish lists this time. Although Bergoglio is a member of several Vatican departments, including the Congregations for Divine Worship and for Clergy, he's never actually worked inside the Vatican, and there may be concerns about his capacity to take the place in hand.

Fourth, there's the standard ambivalence about Jesuits in high office, both from within the order and among some on the outside. That may have been a factor in slowing Bergoglio's progress last time, and nothing has changed the calculus in the time since.

Whether Bergoglio catches fire again as a candidate remains to be seen; one Italian writer quoted an anonymous cardinal on March 2 as saying, "Four years of Bergoglio would be enough to change things." Given his profile, however, Bergoglio seems destined to plan an important role in this conclave – if not as king, then as a kingmaker.

French Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue
John L. Allen Jr. | Mar. 3, 2013 NCR Today

In the elaborate choreography of a papal transition, the most keenly anticipated moment belongs to the Protodeacon, meaning the senior cardinal in the order of deacons. By tradition, he's the one who steps out onto a balcony overlooking St. Peter's Square to deliver the Habemus Papam announcement, revealing the name of the new pope.

At the moment the Protodeacon is 69-year-old French Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, a veteran Vatican diplomat and president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue. Hence if anybody other than Tauran steps out, the eldest daughter of the church can get a jump start on celebrating the election of the first French pontiff in 635 years.

On paper, Tauran profiles as virtually the perfect anti-candidate, meaning someone who really shouldn't be in the running at all: a history of health scares, a career bureaucrat with zero pastoral experience, and a delicate personality at a time when many cardinals are seeking a strong governor.

Under the heading of "anything's possible," however, Tauran is still taken seriously in some circles as a longshot possibility, perhaps a fallback candidate in case of deadlock.

Born in Bordeaux in 1943, Tauran studied at the Jesuit-run Gregorian University, where he earned a doctorate in canon law in 1973, and then at the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy, the Vatican's elite school for diplomats.

Over the course of his career, Tauran served in Vatican missions in the Dominican Republic, Lebanon and Haiti before being named the Vatican's Secretary for Relations with States in December 1990, a position he held until 2003.

Today, many observers regard those years as the apogee of recent Vatican diplomacy, the last time the Vatican deployed its moral and political influence on the global stage in truly relevant fashion. That's not to say these efforts were an unmixed success; early in Tauran's tenure, French President François Mitterand blamed the Vatican's hasty recognition of Croatia and Slovenia for triggering war in the Balkans, and at the very end of Tauran's run the Vatican failed to persuade the Bush administration not to invade Iraq.

Yet the mere fact that major global powers such as France and the United States found themselves pondering the Vatican's next move suggests that, for good or ill, the Vatican mattered.

Tauran was especially outspoken in the run-up to the Iraq War, claiming that a U.S. invasion would be a "crime against peace" and a violation of international law. His comments irked the U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See, James Nicholson, who had previously been the head of the Republican National Committee. Privately, many American conservatives groused that Tauran reflected the usual French anti-Americanism, and celebrated in October 2003 when he was replaced with Italian Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo. (Now a cardinal, Lajolo too will take part in the conclave.)

Tauran was named the Vatican's archivist and librarian in 2003, and made a cardinal in the same year. Despite the red hat, many at the time saw the move as a demotion, or at least a step back, related in part to his diagnosis with Parkinson's disease.

In 2007, however, Tauran staged a comeback. Benedict XVI named him as president of the newly restored Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, an office the pope had originally tried to collapse into the Pontifical Council for Culture. That move was read as watering down the Vatican's commitment to inter-faith dialogue, and Benedict wanted to send a signal that he remained serious about it.

His decision to tap Tauran thus seemed to suggest that the French cardinal still had legs as a serious player.

As head of the council, Tauran has invested considerable energy in Catholic/Muslim relations, often stressing political questions such as religious freedom more than strictly theological matters, and forging ties with governments and statesmen as much as clerics and religious institutions. Not only does that reflect his diplomatic background, but it's perfectly consistent with Benedict's preference for "inter-cultural," as opposed to "inter-religious," dialogue.

For instance, Tauran recently came to the defense of a teenage girl in Pakistan accused of blasphemy for defacing some pages from the Qu'ran, arguing that she's illiterate and handled the pages of the holy book only because they were in a pile of garbage through which the impoverished teen was sifting.

Such interventions are not really the stuff of theological exchange; they're about deploying the moral resources of the Vatican to resolve a legal and political problem, which is what diplomats do.

In 2008, Tauran publicly thanked Muslims for bringing God back into public debates in Europe, anticipating Benedict XVI's "Alliance of Civilizations" speech in Jordan in 2009 in which the pontiff argued that Muslims and Christians are natural allies in the struggle against radical secularism.

Tauran is also a member of the council of cardinals that supervises the Institute for the Works of Religion, better known as the "Vatican Bank," as well as the Second Section of the Secretariat of State, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Congregation for Bishops – all important assignments that speak of genuine behind-the-scenes influence.

On a personal level, Tauran is seen as an unpretentious personality with a wry sense of humor, and a wide network of friends. Those friendships are surprisingly ecumenical; for instance, he's close to Anglican luminaries such as John Andrew and Roger Greenacre, and has been known to use an Anglican breviary for his private prayer.

In interviews with various media outlets, including NCR, several cardinals have described three qualities they're looking for in the next pope, aside from personal holiness and a keen mind: A global vision, a capacity to evangelize, and the ability to govern. One could make a good case that Tauran satisfies all three.

He's clearly got the global vision. We're talking about a citizen of the world, a man who's traveled widely, speaks at least four languages comfortably, and has been on the front lines of virtually all the world's major hotspots for the last three decades. Arguably, no one else in the running for the papacy can rival Tauran's command of the global situation.

Given that relations with Islam will have to be at the top of the next pope's agenda, Tauran's expertise in that arena is especially attractive.

Though he's never been a pastor, Tauran's intelligence and tact have the capacity to make Catholicism seem reasonable and a constructive force in the world, helping overcome prejudices secular society often fosters about the church. Moreover, the election of a Frenchman could be a shot in the arm for the church in one of the most thoroughly secular cultures on earth.

In terms of governance, Tauran is an old Vatican hand who knows where the bodies are buried, yet he's not associated with any of the meltdowns of the last eight years. When he was in the Secretariat of State, he had a reputation as a capable administrator who got things done.

In a recent interview with the French news agency I.Media, Tauran said the next pope should be "very open to dialogue with cultures and religions", be prepared to reform the Roman Curia, and be somewhere between 65 and 70.

Sound like anybody you know?

On the other hand, the case against Tauran is formidable.

First, some cardinals simply will not vote for a prelate who's never served as either pastor of a parish or a diocesan bishop. Even the man who took over from Tauran as foreign minister, Lajolo, has said publicly that he would not vote for a career bureaucrat because the church needs a "pastor of souls."

Second, Tauran's health is a real concern. Memories of John Paul's agonizing decline due to Parkinson's disease are still fresh, and while the pope's courage was inspirational, no one is anxious to live through such a long twilight again. Although Tauran's friends say he's fine, and he keeps up a demanding work and travel schedule, there have been recent hints of fragility. Last April, for instance, Tauran collapsed during the Vatican's Easter Sunday Mass and had to be escorted from the altar.

Third, some cardinals may regard Tauran as a bit too moderate, too diplomatic and pragmatic, to offer a principled defense of church teaching vis-à-vis the pressures of an increasingly secular culture in the West. Tauran is seen as a man of détente, but that may not be what some cardinals believe the situation requires.

Fourth, some American cardinals may still feel ambivalent about Tauran's blistering criticism of U.S. foreign policy in 2003. While the American bishops also expressed reservations about the Iraq War, and subsequent experience has proven Tauran prophetic that the first casualties would be Iraq's Christian minority, some Americans felt at the time that Tauran's rhetoric was over the top, occasionally flirting with anti-American prejudice.

Fifth, some cardinals may look at Tauran and see a better candidate for Secretary of State than pope. Even if they admire Tauran, they may think the papacy is better suited to someone else, who could then tap the diplomat for the role of "Prime Minister."

Tauran has figured on several lists of papabili in recent days, usually with the caveat that his health is a question mark. In that sense, Tauran may be among the greatest beneficiaries of Benedict's resignation, because cardinals may think that if his Parkinson's does progress, a "Papa Tauran" would have an exit option.

However, assuming Tauran does indeed step out to deliver the Habemus Papam announcement, we'll know immediately this is one longshot who didn't come through.

Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga of Tegucigalpa, Honduras
John L. Allen Jr. | Mar. 2, 2013 NCR Today

Let’s assume you’re a big-time Hollywood producer, and you’re developing a movie about a pope who makes the Catholic church seem fresh and hip. If you were to call Central Casting to fill the part, whoever they send up would probably look a lot like Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga of Tegucigalpa in Honduras.

Now 70, Rodriguez was just 58 when he was named a cardinal in 2001, and he took the world by storm. We’re talking about a tall, handsome prelate who plays both the saxophone and the piano, who’s trained as a pilot, who speaks six languages comfortably, who’s got a wide smile and genuine charisma, and who’s seen as a ferocious champion of the poor. He’s a massive hit on the lecture circuit and in media circles worldwide.

In Honduras itself, Rodriguez has long led the pack in terms of moral authority and social influence. In the 1990s, for instance, he was asked to lead a commission to restore the police force to civilian control. At one point during the deliberations, Rodriguez flew to Houston for a dental emergency, and awoke to discover that he had been named police chief! He scrambled to convey his regrets.

The story is illuminating: In a time of crisis, he was seen as the only figure most Hondurans would trust.

Rodriguez Maradiaga has been such an outspoken opponent of the drug trade in Central America that he’s had to move around with a military escort, given how often narco-terrorists have threatened his life.

When Rodriguez returned to Tegucigalpa from the April 2005 conclave, even though he hadn’t been elected pope, the local daily El Heraldo dedicated a special section to him under the headline, “Our Hope, Our Leader, Our Pride.”

For a time, Rodriguez Maradiaga was widely touted as a pope-in-waiting, such an obvious candidate to be the first pontiff from the developing world that he might as well start sizing curtains for the papal apartments.

Inevitably, however, such acclaim brought backlash, with some fellow prelates grumbling that he seemed to be running for pope, as well as occasions to stumble.

Rodriguez has represented the Holy See to both the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, charging that “neo-liberal capitalism carries injustice and inequality in its genetic code.” Yet critics sometimes whisper that his good intentions are not matched by command of the nuts and bolts of economic policy.

In 2006, Rodriguez responded to such criticism.

“We’re not Noble Prize winners in economics,” he said of socially engaged Catholics, “but we know humanity, and much of the time that’s enough.”

In 2002, Rodriguez set off a tempest in the United States by comparing media criticism of the Catholic Church in light of the sex abuse scandals to persecutions under the Roman emperors Nero and Diocletian, as well as Hitler and Stalin. He suggested that the American media was trying to distract attention from the Israel/Palestinian conflict, hinting that it reflected the influence of the Jewish lobby.

Those comments brought angry protests from both sex abuse victims and the Jewish Anti-Defamation League. Earlier this month, the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests put out a statement including Rodriguez on a list of candidates for the papacy with a troubling record on the abuse crisis.

Rodriguez later said in an interview with NCR that his intent was to draw attention to the suffering of peoples in the Third World, suggesting that the massive media attention to the scandals in the American press was disproportionate.

Critics also say that Rodriguez played with fire during a 2009 coup in Honduras, appearing to send contradictory signals.

When the left-of-center Manuel Zelaya came to power in 2006, Rodriguez seemed to support him, but later became critical, claiming that Zelaya was becoming radicalized under the influence of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez.

After the Honduran military seized power in June 2009, Rodriguez first remained silent, then read a statement on national television that seemed to bless the action. Facing criticism over what was perceived as an anti-democratic stance, Rodriguez backpedalled, insisting he merely wanted to avoid bloodshed.

Though it’s more of an insider affair, Rodriguez was also widely perceived as the loser of an internal Vatican power struggle in 2011. Rodriguez serves as the elected president of Caritas Internationalis, whose female secretary general was refused permission to stand for a second term by the Secretariat of State as part of a broader effort to ensure that Caritas moves more closely in the orbit of officialdom.

Defenders of Caritas hoped that Rodriguez could convince his fellow Salesian, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican’s Secretary of State, to back down, but it didn’t work.

Despite that baggage, many observers still take Rodriguez Maradiaga seriously as a papal candidate.

Born in Tegucigalpa in 1942, Rodriguez joined the Salesian order in 1961 and was sent on for higher studies, eventually earning doctorates in philosophy, theology, moral theology and clinical psychology.

Rodriguez did his theological training in the post-Vatican II period. Among other stops, he studied at the Alfonsian Academy in Rome, where he took classes from the legendary liberal moral theologian Bernhard Häring. Rodriguez calls the famed Redemptorist, who died in 1988, an “idol.”

Rodriguez was named auxiliary bishop of Tegucigalpa in 1978, at the stunningly tender age of 35. He became archbishop in 1993, and a cardinal in 2001.

Despite Rodriguez’s high international profile, observers say that in many ways he’s also been an adroit leader of the local church. In 2010, enrollment at the national seminary was 170, an all-time high for a country where the total number of priests is slightly more than 400. Before Rodriguez took over, there were fewer than 40 candidates.

The case for Rodriguez as pope is easy to make.

First, he would be a captivating symbol of the growth of Catholicism outside the West, and not merely because of the accident of birth. He’s long seen himself as a tribune for the peoples of the developing world; in 2006, distinguished Italian journalist Enzo Romeo published a biography of Rodriguez titled The Oscar in Purple: Cardinal Rodriguez Maradiaga, the Voice of Latin America.

Among many vintage Rodriguez sound-bites decrying injustice, he once said, “The colonialism of the past was based on warships, and the new colonialism on money.”

Second, Rodriguez Maradiaga seems ideally cut out for the part of “Missionary-in-Chief” for the Catholic church, a charismatic polyglot with vast experience of playing on a big international stage. His success generating vocations in Honduras suggests this isn’t just superficial charm, but a real capacity to inspire faith.

Third, Rodriguez would be able to play the role of mediator in many of Catholicism’s internal conflicts. He’s certainly no liberal by secular standards; he’s said publicly that any Catholic politician who supports abortion rights is automatically excommunicated, and in 2009 he backed Benedict XVI’s position that simply distributing condoms will not resolve the problem of HIV-AIDS.

Yet Rodriguez is also a darling of the center-left wing of the church for his lifelong advocacy of social justice concerns, his sympathy for liberation theology, and his theological pedigree as a disciple of Häring.

Fourth, Rodriguez served as the secretary general of CELAM, the bishops’ conference of Latin America, from 1987 to 1991, and as president from 1995 to 1999. As noted, he’s currently the president of Caritas Internationalis. Not only do those positions illustrate the wide respect he enjoys, both across Latin America and in Catholic circles around the world, but they also mean he’s got plenty of administrative experience. At a time when many cardinals believe the next pope has to be a more diligent business manager, that’s an attractive profile.

Fifth, Rodriguez speaks Italian fluently and studied in the eternal city, positioning him to be comfortable in the role of Bishop of Rome.

Yet there’s also sufficient doubt about Rodriguez that most observers still regard him as a longshot.

For one thing, he was widely seen as a compelling candidate the last time around, in 2005, but didn’t have any real traction inside the conclave. He wasn’t even the most successful Latin American candidate eight years ago, who was instead Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires in Argentina.

Second, Rodriguez Maradiaga is seen by some cardinals as a few notches too far to the left of center. It’s no stretch to imagine headlines in conservative media outlets declaring “Marxist Elected Pope!” should Rodriguez he chosen, and however genuinely concerned most cardinals are about poverty, they may not be ready to risk that sort of perception.

Third, Rodriguez’s decade-old comments on the sex abuse crisis could come back to haunt him, even though he’s tried repeatedly to stress his concern for victims and his support for rooting abusers out of the priesthood. Were he to be elected, Vatican PR personnel would have to work overtime to explain the new pope’s record, and especially in a conclave determined to find someone with clean hands on the abuse issue, that’s likely a real concern.

Fourth, Rodriguez has no experience of working inside the Vatican, and the fallout from the Caritas crackdown may suggest to some cardinals that he lacks the political heft to get things done. If he couldn’t move the ball with a fellow Salesian in charge, they might wonder, how would he really fare in bringing the old guard under control?

For those reasons, Rodriguez Maradiaga seems stalled on most handicapping sheets at the “B” and “C” level of papal candidates. Yet in the wake of one massively surprising twist to this story already, meaning Benedict’s resignation, almost anything seems at least thinkable.

Cardinal Robert Sarah, president of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum
John L. Allen Jr. | Mar. 1, 2013 NCR Today

Yesterday, we challenged conventional wisdom by suggesting there's another cardinal who might stand as good a chance as Luis Antonio Tagle of Manila to be the first Asian pope, in Malcolm Ranjith of Sri Lanka. Today, we'll give Africa the same treatment, because in addition to Peter Turkson of Ghana, there's another African currently working in Rome who might strike some cardinals as an equally compelling choice.

Insiders will tell you that Cardinal Robert Sarah of Guinea, President of "Cor Unum," the Vatican's charitable agency, could be a strong runner to become the first African pope since Gelasius I in 492.

We're talking about a man with far more Roman seasoning than Turkson, since Sarah studied at the Gregorian University in the 1960s and has worked in the Vatican since 2001 in positions considered more consequential. He's also got plenty of pastoral experience as the archbishop of Conakry in Guinea for 22 years, and he speaks French, English and Italian comfortably.

Sarah is seen as fairly conservative and fairly low-profile, a man who doesn't court media attention and who, perhaps as a result, has no track record of controversial or potentially embarrassing utterances. Moreover, he's also seen as an effective behind-the-scenes player, who recently prevailed in a standoff over the Rome-based charitable federation Caritas Internationalis.

Add all that up, and it's not hard to see why Vatican-watchers take Sarah seriously, perhaps not as a front-runner, but someone who could be waiting in the wings.

As a bonus feature, Sarah is 67, right in the wheelhouse of what many cardinals believe to be right age for a papacy that's neither too long nor too short.

Sarah was born in 1945 in what was then known as French Guinea, and entered the seminary in Ivory Coast. He returned in 1960 to continue his studies at home, but after a year the Marxist-inspired Democratic Party of Guinea nationalized all Catholic schools, including the seminary, and Sarah and his fellow candidates for the priesthood had to regroup. He eventually finished his undergraduate studies in Senegal, then headed for Rome to the Gregorian, followed by a stint at the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum in Jerusalem.

After just 10 years as a priest, Sarah was named the archbishop of Conakry in 1979, when he was barely 34 years old.

(As a footnote, Sarah was consecrated as a bishop by none other than Cardinal Giovanni Benelli, who served as the nuncio to Western Africa from 1966 to 1967 and got to know the promising young Guinean priest. Benelli went on to become the über-powerful substitute under Paul VI, earning nicknames such as "the Berlin Wall" and the "Vatican Kissinger." Lots of people still remember Benelli's tenure as the golden years of the Secretariat of State, when the trains really ran on time, and Sarah's connection might give him a boost with cardinals old enough to remember -- including, for instance, Giovanni Battista Re of Italy and Justin Rigali of the United States, both of whom worked under the famed substitute and came to be known as "Benelli's widows.")

In 1985, Sarah was elected president of the bishops' conference of Guinea, and became the primary interlocutor with the government in the chaotic period after the death of the Marxist dictator Ahmed Sékou Touré in 1984.

Sarah became an outspoken critic of authoritarian and corrupt regimes. When Pope John Paul II visited Guinea in 1992, Sarah publicly asked the pope to push African leaders to clean up their act.

"Tell the African governments that reforms will be meaningless if they are tainted in blood, provoking considerable human and economic catastrophes," Sarah told the pope.

When the ruling regime in Guinea tossed opposition leader Alpha Conde into jail in 1999 after a disputed election, Sarah publicly demanded his release.

While still in Conakry, Sarah was also elected president of the Episcopal Conference of West Africa, another sign that his fellow bishops saw him as a leader.

In October 2001, Sarah was called to Rome to become the secretary, or number two official, at the powerful Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples (better known as "Propaganda Fidei.") In that role, he became seen as a go-to figure inside the Vatican for bishops from all over the developing world.

Nine years later Sarah was tapped to take over at Cor Unum from German Cardinal Paul Cordes, symbolically expressing a transition in leadership of the church's charitable enterprise from the first world to the developing world.

On what Americans know as the "culture wars," meaning debates over abortion, homosexuality and the family, there's no doubt Sarah profiles as a staunch conservative.

During the 2009 Synod for Africa, he condemned a Western "theory of gender" which he said is trying to push Africa "to write laws favorable to … contraceptive and abortion services (the concept of 'reproductive health') as well as homosexuality."

All this, Sarah said, "is contrary to African culture and to the human truths illuminated by the divine Revelation in Jesus Christ." Africa, he said, "must protect itself from the contamination of intellectual cynicism in the West."

In May 2012, the Vatican issued new rules for the Rome-based federation of Catholic Charities, Caritas Internationalis, which stipulated that Cor Unum will monitor the group's Catholic identity, that it must approve any cooperative agreement between Caritas and other NGOs, and that top officials of Caritas must swear loyalty oaths before Cor Unum's president.

Insiders saw the rules not only as a way of bringing Caritas more closely into the orbit of officialdom, but as a major victory for Cor Unum and Sarah.

In December 2012, the Vatican issued new rules for Catholic charities generally, also aimed at beefing up Catholic identity and ties to the hierarchy. In signing the document, Benedict XVI wrote that he did so upon Sarah's recommendation.

Among other things, the rules state that a Catholic charity may not take money "from groups or institutions that pursue ends contrary to the church's teaching."

At the time, a European veteran of Catholic charities familiar with the drafting process for the new rules told NCR that Sarah played a leading role. The concern over taking money, he said, reflected Sarah's African experience. During the 1980s and 1990s, this observer said, Sarah became concerned that U.N. agencies and major NGOs were using their money and influence to undercut traditional African values.

The case for Sarah as pope is based on three primary considerations.

First, he would symbolically express the phenomenal growth and dynamism of Catholicism outside the West. Africa's Catholic population exploded from 1.9 million in 1900 to 130 million in 2000, a growth rate of almost 7,000 percent, and Sarah would put a face on this burgeoning Catholic footprint.

Second, Sarah is a classic embodiment of the prevailing ethos among many African prelates – deeply traditional on the culture wars, yet strongly progressive on social justice issues such as the environment, war and peace, economic equality and good government. In other words, he could draw support from both conservatives and moderates in the College of Cardinals, given that each bloc can find something to like.

Third, Sarah is an old Roman hand with a track record for getting things done. Many cardinals believe the next pope has to be more of a business manager, beginning with a serious reform of the Roman Curia, and might be scared off by candidates from the developing world who are outsiders to the Vatican, but that fear doesn't apply in Sarah's case.

On the other hand, Sarah remains a longshot for the papacy for several reasons.

First, many cardinals are looking for a pope who can be a successful evangelizer, the secular equivalent of which is a "salesman." In other words, they want a pope who can make a compelling case for Catholicism in the competitive lifestyle marketplace of the 21st century, which implies good communications skills and a degree of media savvy.

Sarah, however, is more of a behind-the-scenes figure than a showman. He comes off as warm, funny, and modest in person, but he's not always comfortable playing on a big stage.

Second, Sarah isn't that well known to many cardinals, despite having been in Rome since 2001. Precisely because he's kept a low profile, he's someone they've met at synods of bishops and other Vatican events, but he hasn't always left a strong impression. As a result, some cardinals may feel that casting a vote for Sarah would be akin to rolling the dice, and they may not be in a gambling mood.

Sarah has never been a major public personality, and some cardinals may wonder how he'd hold up under the intense spotlight that's always trained on the papacy.

Third, having a second African in the race could risk splitting the vote among those cardinals who think an African pope would be a good idea. Actually, one could argue that yet another African could also get a look, Cardinal John Onaiyekan of Abuja, Nigeria, who's arguably the biggest personality and most natural evangelist among the African prelates.

Despite those considerations, anything's possible in a conclave that seems, at least for now, to lack a clear favorite.

Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith of Colombo, Sri Lanka
John L. Allen Jr. | Feb. 28, 2013 NCR Today

During the run-up to the conclave, most of the buzz around papal candidates is generated by pundits and church-watchers, as opposed to the cardinals who will actually vote. As an index of broader opinion in the church, the buzz is often illuminating; as a guide to what might actually happen, it can be of limited utility.

The "Great Asian Hope" in the 2013 conclave could turn out to be a case in point.

On the buzz meter, the clear winner is Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle of Manila in the Philippines, whose nickname is "Chito." He's young, articulate, smiling, and media-savvy, with a reputation for simplicity and humility. Tagle is hugely popular back home, and tends to wow people wherever he goes.

Among the cardinals, however, there's another Asian who might seem a more compelling choice: Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith (formally, Albert Malcolm Ranjith Patabendige Don) of Colombo, Sri Lanka.

For one thing, Ranjith is 65, ten years older than Tagle, and probably right in line with the ideal age profile: Not as young as John Paul was in 1978, meaning he wouldn't have an overly long papacy, but not as old as Benedict XVI in 2005, meaning the church probably wouldn't face another transition too soon.

For another, Ranjith has extensive Vatican experience, so he wouldn't require the same on-the-job training as a complete outsider. He served as an official in the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples (better known as "Propaganda Fidei"), as the pope's nuncio to Indonesia and East Timor, and then as Secretary for the Congregation of Divine Worship. He also studied in Rome at the Urbanian University and is proficient in Italian, usually seen as a core requirement for a prospective pope.

For a third, Ranjith profiles as a "Ratzingerian," meaning a churchman cut from the same cloth as Benedict XVI. That's especially the case regarding his attitudes on liturgy, supporting the older Latin Mass and rejecting secularizing tendencies in Catholic worship.

In 1994, as a young bishop, Ranjith led a commission that denounced the theological work of Sri Lankan theologian Tissa Balasuriya, charging that he had questioned original sin and the divinity of Christ, as well as supporting women's ordination. The resulting furor first brought Ranjith into contact with then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who backed his position.

For a fourth, Ranjith has real pastoral experience, having served as the Archbishop of Colombo in Sri Lanka since 2005.

Cardinals looking to reach out to the developing world, while also consolidating the intellectual and spiritual legacy of Benedict XVI, might find these four elements of Ranjith's curriculum vitae awfully enticing.

Born in the small Sri Lankan town of Polgahawela in 1947, Ranjith is the eldest of fourteen children. In a 2006 interview, he said his vocation was stirred by the example of a French missionary from the Oblates of Mary Immaculate who served in his parish.

After earning his undergraduate degree in theology from the Urbanian, Ranjith earned his licentiate at the prestigious Pontifical Biblical Institute in 1978, with a thesis centered on the Epistle to the Hebrews. (While there, he studied under two future Jesuit cardinals – Carlo Maria Martini and Albert Vanhoye.) Ranjith also did some postdoctoral work at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Marked out from the first as a rising star, in 1991 Ranjith became an auxiliary bishop of Colombo at the tender age of 43. He coordinated John Paul II's January 1995 visit to Sri Lanka, and one can infer that he acquitted himself well from the fact that he was named the first bishop of Ratnapura nine months later.

Among other things, Ranjith promoted inter-faith dialogue. Buddhism is Sri Lanka's dominant religion, but the country also has significant pockets of Hindus and Muslims, while Christians make up roughly seven percent of the population of 20 million.

In 2001, Ranjith was brought to Rome to work at Propaganda Fidei and was simultaneously named president of the Pontifical Mission Societies, giving him a wide network of contacts across the developing world.

Ranjith was dispatched in 2004 as the papal ambassador to Indonesia and East Timor, becoming the first Sri Lankan to serve as a nuncio. It was an unusual move, since Ranjith was not a graduate of Rome's Accademia Ecclesiastica and did not come out of the Vatican diplomatic corps. At the time, there were whispers that perhaps Ranjith had been "exiled" because he was seen as slightly too conservative for some prelates, either in the developing world or his superiors at Propaganda Fidei.

That cloud seemed to lift nine months later, when the new pope, Benedict XVI, called Ranjith back to Rome to serve as the number two official at the Congregation for Divine Worship.

Over the next four years, Ranjith became something of a bête noire for liturgical progressives. He criticized communion in the hand, saying it was not envisioned by the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) and became widespread only after its "illegitimate introduction" in some countries. When Benedict authorized wider celebration of the old Latin Mass in 2007, Ranjith openly blasted bishops who didn't move quickly to implement it, accusing them of "disobedience ... and even rebellion against the pope."

Four years later he was moved out of Rome again, this time to become the Archbishop of Colombo. Some read this as a second exile; Italian Vatican writer Andrea Tornielli wrote at the time that Ranjith was "considered by his adversaries [to be] too close to the traditionalists and Lefebvrists." Others argued that it was a genuine promotion, intended to give Ranjith pastoral seasoning as the head of the diocese and to set him up as Benedict's point man across Asia.

He certainly didn't waste time. Four months after arriving, Rannith issued new liturgical rules for Colombo requiring that communion be received on the tongue and in a kneeling position, forbidding laity from preaching, and barring priests from bringing customs from other religions into Catholic worship.

During the successive four years, Ranjith has profiled as a staunch conservative on doctrinal matters and sexual morality, while also embracing the peace-and-justice elements of Catholic social teaching.

"Love for the liturgy and love for the poor, two true and proper treasures of the church, one might say, have been the compass of my life," he said. Ranjith once added that although he's not an "adherent," he shares some of the values of the "no-global" movement protesting neo-liberal models of economic globalization.

During a meeting with clergy in October 2012, he said that Sri Lanka should not sacrifice its moral standards in exchange for foreign development aid.

"We don't want gay marriages and red light districts here, and we can also do without development that is achieved after compromising the environment," he said.

He also showed that he can throw some political weight around. In 2010, he vowed to boycott all state functions until a member of Mother Teresa's Daughters of Charity who had been arrested for allegedly trafficking in babies was released. The charges were swiftly dropped.

Shortly after arriving, Ranjith also spoke out against proposals in the West to impose sanctions on Sri Lanka for alleged war crimes during its sixteen-year civil war, aimed at suppressing an independence movement among the largely Hindu Tamil minority. Ranjith comes from the majority Sinhalese people, but the Catholic church in Sri Lanka includes members of both ethnic groups, and by reputation Ranjith has promoted reconciliation.

The case for him as pope rests on three pillars.

First, his closeness to Benedict XVI, both personally and in terms of his broad theological and liturgical outlook, means that he would be seen as a vote for continuity with the policies of the last two papacies.

Some of Benedict's protégés might be inclined to see Ranjith favorably, such as Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna, whom Ranjith described in 2006 as a "dear friend."

Second, as an Asian, he would symbolically express the church's desire to reach out to the developing world, and to affirm the two-thirds of the Catholic population of 1.2 billion that now lives outside the West. Yet as a veteran Roman, he could be seen as a safe choice as the first pope from the developing world, someone who knows the Western mind and can navigate its culture.

Third, he has deep Vatican experience and has also tasted what it's like to be on the losing side of its internal tensions, which may suggest to some cardinals that he's the man to lead a reform of the bureaucracy. His résumé also suggests he has the toughness to push through changes over what is likely to be significant resistance.

Yet there are also some strong entries in Ranjith's debit column.

First, he may be a little too traditionalist for some of the moderates in the College of Cardinals – "more Ratzingerian than Ratzinger himself," as some put it. In 2006, he said of the Lefebvrists that he wasn't a fan, but that "what they sometimes say about the liturgy, they say for good reason."

Second, Ranjith has a profile as an insider, someone who speaks a distinctively Catholic argot and whose priorities are often focused on the internal life of the church. That may not be the right skills set for some cardinals who say they want a "Missionary in Chief," someone who can move the Catholic product in a competitive post-modern religious marketplace by appealing to the outside world.

Third, the fact that Ranjith was twice sent packing from the Vatican, whatever the actual motives, may suggest to some cardinals that he has a track record of ruffling feathers. If they're looking for someone who can bring together diverse camps and mediate some of the church's internal tensions, this history may give them pause.

Despite those drawbacks, Ranjith may still be the most plausible Asian candidate to pass muster among the 115 cardinals who will cast ballots in this election. He may not have the charisma or media sex appeal of other "third world" candidates like Tagle or Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga of Honduras, but to some cardinals he could seem an ideal one-two punch: Symbolically a candidate from outside the West, substantively a disciple of Benedict XVI.

Theological Notebook: John Allen's Papabile Profiles, Part 2

novak — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 23:07:18 GMT

I've been noticing two media outlets trying to do profiles of the papabile for the upcoming papal conclave. There are ones that I would rate as more serious ones from John Allen at the National Catholic Reporter, and less-informed ones from the Associated Press. I doubt I can fit them all into a single entry, so I'm going to jot Allen's down here for posterity and any future research I might want to do in looking back at the 2013 conclave.

Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco of Genoa, Italy
Italian Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, President of the Pontifical Council for Culture
Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna, Austria
Cardinal Péter Erdõ of Budapest, Hungary
Cardinal Odilo Pedro Scherer of São Paulo, Brazil

Italian Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco of Genoa
John L. Allen Jr. | Feb. 27, 2013 NCR Today

Back in 2000, former U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See Ray Flynn and writer Robin Moore published a novel called The Accidental Pope. Although they didn't have Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco in mind, if the 70-year-old Italian gets elected, there's a sense the title would fit him like a glove.

When Bagnasco was installed as president of the powerful Italian bishops' conference in 2007, known by its acronym CEI, he was seen as a compromise between competing camps. (CEI, by the way, is the only bishops' conference in the world whose president is named by papal appointment.)

At one level, the contest was between moderates, who wanted Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi of Milan, and conservatives, who wanted someone like Cardinal Angelo Scola (then of Venice, now in Milan) or perhaps Cardinal Carlo Caffarra of Bologna.

In another sense, it pitted Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the über-powerful Vicar of Rome and president of CEI during the John Paul years, against Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Benedict's Secretary of State. That clash wasn't over ideology, but primacy. John Paul had let Ruini do the heavy lifting in Italy, but Bertone aspired to become the new point of reference. Neither wanted a third player in the game, so they settled on Bagnasco, who seemed sufficiently low-profile to stay out of the fray.

Bagnasco remained in his archdiocese of Genoa rather than coming to Rome, which at the time was read to mean he would keep the wheels of CEI grinding while Ruini and Bertone slugged it out.

The bottom line is that Bagnasco was thrust into the spotlight largely because he profiled as someone who wouldn't do much with it. Over the last six years, however, something unexpected happened: He grew into the role.

As it turns out, Bagnasco had been quietly preparing for his star turn all along.

The son of a baker, Bagnasco was born in the small town of Pontevico in Italy's Lombardy region. He grew up in Genoa, where he became a disciple of the port city's legendary Cardinal Giuseppe Siri. (Widely believed to have been a candidate for the papacy in 1958 and1963, as well as the two conclaves of 1978, Siri was a conservative lion. Journalist Benny Lai once published a biography of him titled The Pope Never Elected.)

As a young priest, Bagnasco studied metaphysics (he's a convinced Thomist) and contemporary atheism at the University of Genoa, and complemented those academic interests with deep pastoral experience, among other things working as a chaplain for the scouts and for a federation of Italian university students. Despite his ties to Siri, Bagnasco never came off as intransigent; people who remember him from those days say he struck them as smart and keenly pastoral, with a gift for mediation and holding people together.

In 2003, Bagnasco was named Archbishop of the Military Ordinariate in Italy, a complex job because the military is scattered all across the country and the world, but one that typically isn't seen as a political stepping stone because there's no local church to lead and no local media to pay attention. Yet in 2006, when Bertone left Genoa to work for Benedict XVI, Bagnasco was tapped to take the reins.

At CEI, Bagnasco has led the opposition to civil recognition of same-sex couples, once stirring controversy when he appeared to compare homosexuality to incest and pedophilia. (Amid the furor, an anonymous envelope arrived at Bagnasco's office containing a single bullet and a picture of the archbishop with a swastika carved into it.)

Bagnasco also upheld a strong line against euthanasia in the anguished 2008 right-to-die case of Eluana Englaro, a 37-year-old woman who entered a persistent vegetative state in January 1992 after a car accident. She'd been kept alive by a feeding tube, which her father wanted to remove on the grounds that Englaro did not wish to live that way. The case became a national cause célèbre, comparable to the American debate over Terri Schiavo in 2005.

The father's wish was eventually granted, and Englaro died in 2009.

In general, however, Bagnasco has tried to lead the bishops into the political center, embracing the moderate government of technocratic Prime Minister Mario Monti and distancing them from their de facto alliance with the flamboyant conservative Silvio Berlusconi. On matters of social justice, Bagnasco has insisted that people have a right to employment and has questioned a press from Italy's business community for greater workforce flexibility, generally seen by pro-labor groups as a pretext for watering down job security.

Though the Italian church has yet to live through a massive sexual abuse crisis analogous to the United States, Ireland and other parts of the world, Bagnasco has taken positions that could allow him to be seen as a reformer. In 2010, he acknowledged that bishops may have covered up abuse in the past, saying such silence "must be corrected and overcome," and also indicated he was willing to meet with abuse victims "at any time" and expected his brother bishops to do the same thing.

Bagnasco called the sexual exploitation of children a "heinous crime."

Now 82, Ruini has withdrawn from the public to-and-fro, seemingly content with the role of elder statesman; Bertone's political heft has been compromised by perceptions of disarray in the Vatican. Bagnasco has filled that vacuum, emerging as an articulate, well-reasoned, and smiling pitchman for the church's concerns.

The case for Bagnasco as pope boils down to four points.

First, he's seen as someone adept at navigating the shoals of Italian ecclesiastical politics, a figure with friends in all the different camps, who's kept CEI largely intact and avoided any major fractures or embarrassments. At a time when many cardinals want someone who can put the Vatican back in order, that résumé could seem appealing.

Second, Bagnasco's pedigree as a disciple of Siri makes him more than acceptable to the traditionalists in the College of Cardinals, but his profile as a pragmatic centrist also means he could draw support from moderates.

Third, Bagnasco's academic study of contemporary atheism and his capacity to project a reasonable voice for the church in public affairs, unwavering on substance yet gentle in tone, could strike some cardinals as the right fit in terms of engaging an increasingly secular world in the 21st century. He also speaks multiple languages, generally seen as a basic requirement of the job.

Fourth, Bagnasco's history of being a compromise solution to thorny political problems could come in handy. By consensus, there is no clear front-runner in the 2013 conclave, and it's entirely possible that votes in the early rounds could splinter among two or three strong candidates. If none seems positioned to reach a two-thirds majority, heads may begin turning towards a figure more or less palatable to everybody, even if he didn't start out as their first choice.

On the other hand, there are some compelling reasons why Bagnasco might not pass the smell test.

First, there's an anti-Italian humor among some cardinals who see the recent breakdowns in the Vatican as the product of internal Italian squabbles. Reform, in their mind, often means breaking the Italian stranglehold, which doesn't seem to bode well for an Italian pope.

Second, Bagnasco may be recognizable in Italy, but he's not well known anywhere else. Some cardinals may worry about rolling the dice on someone they don't know all that well, especially at a time when the church faces fresh scrutiny amid various scandals, either real or invented, swirling in the global media.

Third, despite Bagnasco's polish and intellectual depth, some cardinals may question how effective he is at moving the ball vis-à-vis the church's concerns. In the recent Italian elections, for instance, Bagnasco and CEI appeared to back Monti's re-election bid, yet the incumbent barely got 10 percent of the vote. If that's the best Bagnasco can do in his own backyard, some cardinals may wonder, what can we expect him to accomplish in other parts of the world?

Fourth, Bagnasco was a player in the surreal "Boffo case" in 2009 and 2010, when the editor of CEI's newspaper was accused of harassing a woman because he wanted to pursue an affair with her fiancé. When it emerged that some of the supposed police documents in the case were fake, conspiracy theories accused senior Vatican personnel, including Bertone and the editor of the Vatican newspaper, of being behind the plot. Bagnasco backed Boff throughout, and later named him director of the bishops' TV network.

Despite an avalanche of commentary and coverage, at the end of the day, the truth of the matter still seems murky. Though most cardinals outside Italy probably weren't paying much attention, there may still be some question marks about Bagnasco's handling of the situation.

Despite those drawbacks, nobody paying careful attention to pre-conclave dynamics would count Bagnasco out of the running. In a wide-open field, somebody with a reputation for smarts, being orthodox yet pragmatic, and generally managing to keep his nose clean might just stand a decent chance.

Italian Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, President of the Pontifical Council for Culture
John L. Allen Jr. | Feb. 26, 2013 NCR Today

To date I haven’t included Italian Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi in my daily sketches of papal contenders, largely because I published a profile of him on the first day of the Vatican’s Lenten Retreat, which was led by the 70-year-old President of the Pontifical Council for Culture.

That profile can be found here.

Suffice it to say that I’m sticking to my guns: In many ways, Ravasi really is “the most interesting man in the church.”

Ravasi drew good reviews for his meditations during the retreat, organized as a series of reflections on the Psalms. At the end, Pope Benedict XVI thanked him for his “brilliant” work – “brilliant” being a word that often tends to crop up in sentences about Ravasi.

In most media reports, the only line from the retreat that got much play was Ravasi’s reference to “divisions, dissent, careerism [and] jealousies”, which made a nice sound-bite amid the “Vatican gay lobby” furor touched off by the Italian media.

Those who sat through the entire week-long experience in the Vatican’s Redemptoris Mater chapel, however, seemed to have favorable impressions. One cardinal said halfway through the week that Ravasi was coming off as “extremely impressive.”

Here’s the logic for Ravasi as the next pope.

First, he’s clearly got the cerebral heft. Whenever Ravasi appears in public, he coughs up literary allusions the way two-pack-a-day smokers do phlegm – regularly, and without thinking about it. In December 2010, he offered an impromptu welcome for a lecture at the Vatican by a Cambridge cosmologist. In the course of fifteen minutes, Ravasi cited Nietzsche, Kant, Levi-Strauss, Stephen J. Gould, and Isaac Newton – a pace of one quotation every minute and a half.

For bonus points, Ravasi added that he’s read not only Newton’s best-known works, but also his obscure commentary on the Book of Revelations – which, Ravasi laughingly said, was “awful”. He’s able to range so widely in part because he only sleeps about four hours every night, and he generally fills that extra time with books.

Second, Ravasi also has a striking popular touch. Whenever he goes back to his native Milan to speak he draws overflow crowds, often composed of young Italians not otherwise beating down the church’s door.

From 2002 to 2007, Ravasi wrote a daily column in the Italian Catholic daily Avvenire. Called “Mattutino”, or “morning prayer”, it offered a short thought for the day, often accompanied by a quote drawn from an array of authors, and was highly popular.

Third, Ravasi is a Vatican insider, but one not associated with any recent crisis. Many cardinals want the next pope to clean house inside the Vatican, but they also want someone who knows the system. Those are two qualities tough to find together, since creatures of the bureaucracy often aren’t necessarily the right ones to reform it.

Ravasi, however, is that rare figure who’s seen as in the Vatican but not of it.

He clearly has the courage of his convictions. In 2009 he hosted a Vatican conference on evolution, inviting scientists and believers into dialogue – despite what he called the “terror” of some in the Vatican, who felt it might open doors better left closed. (Ravasi said that Benedict XVI backed him on the project “completely”.)

Fourth, Ravasi could strike some cardinals as the ideal candidate to be the church’s “Missionary-in-Chief.” He’s a man of Christian tradition fully at home in the post-modern world. He’s also media savvy, and has thought carefully about how the church ought to engage the new communications revolution – what it means to evangelize in the age of kindles and iPads, 4G mobile phones and netbooks.

“We can’t just say that in order to maintain the purity of our message, we’re going to keep on using the same categories,” Ravasi said in a 2010 interview with NCR. “The result of that is usually that people don’t understand anything we say. What you get is deafness, not communication.”

Fifth, Ravasi is an admirer of Benedict XVI who’s conventionally seen as fairly conservative in theological terms. (There was a minor kerfuffle back in 2002 when Ravasi published an article about Easter, in which he said that Jesus was not “risen” from the dead, but that he “arose.” Some thought the comment heterodox, and three years later that doubt may have cost Ravasi an appointment as the bishop of Assisi. Benedict XVI, however, removed all doubt by naming Ravasi to his Vatican post.) No one, however, thinks of Ravasi as an ideologue.

There are also some fairly serious reservations.

First and perhaps most consequentially, Ravasi has almost zero pastoral experience. He’s never led a diocese, and his only real administrative position was heading the Ambrosian Library in Milan. Typically, many cardinals believe that a good dose of in-the-trenches pastoral seasoning is a sine qua non.

Second, Ravasi faces a problem of electoral math. He’s never been part of any particular Italian faction or circle of influence, preferring to go his own way. That’s part of his charm, but it also means that he has no natural base of support, no bloc of fellow cardinals whose votes are already in his pocket.

One veteran Italian Vatican-watcher said today that Ravasi doesn’t have “one tenth” the support among the Italians as Cardinal Angelo Scola of Milan, for precisely this reason.

Moreover, Ravasi’s job at the Council for Culture is not exactly cut out for forging political alliances. He can’t name bishops, or deliver aid to local churches across the developing world, or shape decisions on Vatican policy. The Council for Culture is basically a think tank with few tangible favors to bestow.

Third, some cardinals may see Ravasi as cut a bit too much from Benedict’s cloth – a scholarly personality who prefers the life of the mind to the nuts and bolts of running the church. In an atmosphere in which they want the next pope to take control of the reins of government a bit more firmly, that could be a drawback.

Fourth, even some cardinals based in Rome say they don’t know Ravasi well, aside from what they read in the papers. That’s a telling reaction to a man who’s worked in the Vatican since 2007, and who’s been part of the Italian church scene his entire life. Ironically, Ravasi may be more familiar to secular philosophers and academics than to many of his fellow cardinals.

Of course, in a race with no clear frontrunner, even longshot candidates may stand a better shot at breaking through. Perhaps those cardinals for whom Ravasi’s Lenten Retreat is still fresh may keep him in the back of their minds, especially if things get complicated and the candidates on today’s “A list” don’t seem capable of crossing that magic two-thirds threshold.

Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna, Austria
John L. Allen Jr. | Feb. 25, 2013 NCR Today

Although the election of a pope is in many ways a carefully scripted process, the closest thing to a wild card this time around may well be 68-year-old Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna.

Depending on who's doing the handicapping, the erudite Dominican is either an obvious, slam-dunk contender or somebody who's basically taken himself out of the running.

Schönborn certainly has the right pedigree for the job. A member of the ancient Austrian noble family of Schönborn-Buchheim-Wolfstahl, he's one of two cardinals and 19 archbishops, bishops, priests and religious sisters his family has produced. He's not even the first Schönborn to be the primate of the Austrian church; that honor fell to his great-great uncle, Cardinal Franz Graf Schönborn, who led the Austrian episcopacy under the old Austro-Hungarian empire from his position as the archbishop of Prague. (He had previously been the bishop of Budweis -- hence he was, believe it or not, a "Budweiser.")

Schönborn studied theology under then-Fr. Joseph Ratzinger in Regensburg, Germany, in the 1970s, and later taught at the prestigious Swiss University of Friborg. He served as general editor of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

In Vienna, he won high marks early on for steadying a church that had been rocked by a sexual abuse scandal involving his predecessor. As time went on, however, Schönborn's image became more mixed. He was involved in an ugly clash with the demagogic Bishop Kurt Krenn of Sankt Pölten, and many people preferred Krenn's blunt talk to Schönborn's shifting and evasive comments. Schönborn then carried out a purge of his staff, in one case informing his popular vicar general that he had been fired by leaving a note on his doorstep.

More recently, Schönborn has watched as hundreds of his own priests have gone into open rebellion, issuing a "call to disobedience" over issues such as celibacy and the role of women in the church. (The movement is actually led by the former vicar.) While Schönborn hasn't exactly welcomed the uprising, he hasn't shut down lines of conversation either, which some see as admirable pastoral sensitivity, and others as cowardice.

Two years ago, many people were ready to write an obituary for Schönborn's papal prospects after a highly public spat with Italian Cardinal Angelo Sodano, a former Secretary of State and still the dean of the College of Cardinals.

As a series of clerical abuse scandals exploded across Europe, which among other things cast a critical spotlight on Benedict XVI's personal record, Sodano created a sensation by calling that criticism "petty gossip" during the Vatican's Easter Mass.

In a session with Austrian journalists not long afterward, Schönborn not only said Sodano had "deeply wronged" abuse victims, but he also charged that Sodano had blocked an investigation of Schönborn's predecessor, Cardinal Hans Hermann Gröer, who had been accused of molesting seminarians and monks and who resigned in 1995. Schönborn reportedly said that then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger wanted to take action, but he lost an internal argument to Sodano.

Schönborn apparently thought that session was off the record, but the content leaked out anyway.

Schönborn was swiftly summoned for a one-on-one with Benedict, and afterward, both Sodano and Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the current Secretary of State, joined the conversation. When it was over, the Vatican issued a statement widely seen as a rebuke to Schönborn -- among other things, pointedly reminding him that it's not up to him to pass judgment on a fellow cardinal.

Now, however, Schönborn's willingness to break ranks and speak out in favor of reform on the abuse crisis may actually make him more attractive rather than less.

Schönborn also helped himself during last fall's Synod of Bishops on the new evangelization, when most participants ranked him as one of the two or three most impressive figures. People especially liked his suggestion that synod should be less about giving lofty speeches, and more about bishops sharing their practical problems.

The case for Schönborn is easy to make.

First up is raw intellectual chops. Schönborn is a polyglot, comfortable discussing complex points in multiple languages, and a genuine scholar in his own right. During last fall's synod, I asked another cardinal why people seemed drawn to Schönborn, and his answer was simple: "Intelligence attracts."

Second, Schönborn is an intellectual protégé of Benedict XVI, so much so that over the years he's almost been seen as the pope's "beloved son," but he also has keenly pastoral side and a capacity for nuance.

For instance, Schönborn has dropped hints that he'd be open to considering the case for married clergy, and given his patient reaction to the priests' uprising in Austria, it's unlikely that his first response as pope to any form of disagreement would be to crack heads.

Third, having faced the tumult in Austria, one could make a good argument that no senior official in Catholicism has a better feel for the demands of crisis management than Schönborn. Especially at a time when the Vatican is once again engulfed in crisis, that may be a very attractive feature of his résumé for other cardinals.

Fourth, Schönborn was an apostle of what's now known as the new evangelization, meaning the effort to relight the missionary fires of the faith in the heart of the secularized West, well before there was even a word for it. He's written widely on the subject, and at the pastoral grassroots he's encouraged the growth of a variety of spiritual and missionary movements in Austria, many of them appealing in a special way to youth.

Fifth, Schönborn has a high comfort level with the media and is used to playing on a big stage, certainly a plus for anyone who might occupy the world's most visible, and demanding, position of religious leadership.

The case against Schönborn, however, also has some fairly compelling elements.

For one thing, some cardinals may look at the fractious situation in Austrian Catholicism and say to themselves: "This guy has had 18 years to get the situation under control, and it hasn't happened. What reason do we have to believe he'd fare any better as pope?"

Whether that's a fair assessment or not, it's likely to weigh on some cardinals' minds.

Second, Schönborn's tiff with Sodano may help him in terms of public opinion, but it could still be a liability in the College of Cardinals. Not only is Sodano still the dean of the college and an influential figure, but other cardinals may wonder if Schönborn might be inclined to toss them under the bus if the stars aligned that way.

Third, Schönborn is certainly a well-known figure in Vatican circles, but he's never actually worked inside the system in Rome. For cardinals seeking someone who can push through a serious reform of the bureaucracy, that may be a question mark.

Fourth, despite Schönborn's considerable savvy, he occasionally has a penchant for saying or doing things that strike some people as ill-advised.

In 2001, for instance, Schönborn intervened on behalf of American Fr. Joseph Fessio in an effort to have Fessio's Ignatius Institute at the University of San Francisco granted a measure of autonomy by the Vatican, rendering it immune to the normal authority of the university's president.

That effort not only irritated the university's Jesuit administration, but also then-Archbishop William Levada of San Francisco, who was involved in negotiations to resolve the dispute. It also irked the Vatican's top education official, who saw it as an end-run around his own authority.

More recently, Schönborn has made public statements critical of the theory of evolution and appearing to endorse the "intelligent design" school, which critics see as creationism under another name. After an explosive New York Times opinion piece on the subject in 2005, Schönborn has been forced several times to clarify his views. (The thrust is that he's not opposed to evolution as a scientific theory, but gets off the train when it's lifted into a philosophical position that excludes God.)

Some cardinals may wonder if a prelate with a record of stirring the waters and then trying to back-peddle is what the Vatican needs right now.

Fifth, Schönborn would mark the second German-speaking pope in a row, and some cardinal may think it would be better to find someone from a different part of the world.

Given the widely varying reactions Schönborn tends to provoke, it's especially difficult to assess his chances for the papacy. In the post-Feb. 11 world, however, in which Benedict XVI has already done the previously unthinkable by resigning, it pays not to be overly dogmatic about anything -- including Schönborn's odds in the looming conclave.

Cardinal Péter Erdõ of Budapest, Hungary
John L. Allen Jr. | Feb. 24, 2013 NCR Today

There's a lot of chatter these days about a "Third World pope," and it's a realistic possibility. Politically speaking, however, it overlooks one bit of arithmetic: 61 of the 116 cardinals who will file into the Sistine Chapel still hail from Europe, so discounting candidates from the Old Continent means ruling out half the talent pool a priori.

Moreover, there are Europeans and then there are Europeans. Electing an Italian might strike some cardinals as heading back to the future, but choosing a pope from a long-neglected corner of the continent might seem almost as bold to them as picking someone from, say, Latin America.

If so, many church insiders believe that Cardinal Péter Erdõ of Budapest, Hungary, could get a very serious look.

A canon lawyer by training, Erdõ has been on the ecclesiastical fast track his entire career. In 2001, while he was still an auxiliary bishop and before he'd even turned 50, he was elected to his first term as President of the Council of Episcopal Conferences of Europe. He was reelected to a second five-year term in 2006.

In 2002, he was named the Archbishop of Hungary's premier see at the tender age of 50, and made a cardinal a year later. At 52, he was the youngest cardinal to participate in the conclave that elected Benedict XVI in 2005. Eight years later, there are still only five cardinal electors younger than Erdõ, who's now 60.

Yet as Indiana Jones once put it, "It's not the age, doll, it's the mileage." Despite his relative youth, few would suggest Erdõ lacks the seasoning to lead.

He also represents a persecuted church during the Soviet era, symbolized in the figure of Cardinal József Mindszenty, who was tortured and sentenced to life in prison by a Communist kangaroo court, took refuge in the U.S. embassy in Budapest for 15 years, and died in exile in Vienna in 1975. Earlier this year, Erdõ convinced the Hungarian government to formally drop the case against his predecessor originally filed in 1949.

Given his location in Hungary, where East meets West in Europe, it's no surprise that Erdõ is a leader in Catholic relations with the Orthodox churches, seen by many cardinals as a high ecumenical priority. He's reached out to Jewish leaders too, and was recently blasted by far-right forces in Hungary for having lunch at a well-known Jewish restaurant in Budapest.

Erdõ is certainly a person of trust in Vatican circles. In 2011, he was appointed as a member of the council of cardinals and bishops overseeing the all-important Second Section of the Secretariat of State, responsible for the Vatican's diplomatic relations. In the same year, he was dispatched by the Vatican to lead an investigation of the Pontifical Catholic University in Peru, charged with defiance of church teaching and discipline.

Erdõ also speaks fluent Italian, an important prerequisite for a possible pope.

On most matters Erdõ is seen as a solid conservative, but also as a pastoral figure with a practical grasp of what works at the retail level. During last fall's Synod of Bishops on the New Evangelization, for instance, many prelates were intrigued by Erdõ's description of "city missions" he's encouraged in Budapest, in which laity visit all the Catholic homes in a given parish to invite them back to church.

Erdõ could also draw surprising support from the developing world. As president of the European bishops he's forged strong ties with the African bishops, staging biannual meetings that alternate between a European venue and one in Africa. As a result, most of the African cardinals know Erdõ and like him.

As president of the European bishops, Erdõ coordinates support for the church across the developing world, earning gratitude from a number of cardinals in those regions.

Americans may be intrigued to know that Erdõ also has on-the-ground experience of the U.S., having won research grants in 1995 and 1996 to study at the University of California in Berkeley.

The case for Erdõ as a possible pope boils down to three key points.

First up, it's the math. His two terms as president of the European bishops suggest he's got solid support from that bloc, and his good ties with the Africans suggest that if his candidacy were to take off, they might come on board. It will take 77 votes to get to a two-thirds majority in this conclave, and the Europeans and Africans together represent 72.

Erdõ could probably count on the support of a few Latin Americans, including Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani of Peru, whose position Erdõ basically backed in the standoff over the university.

In other words, you start running the numbers, and it's not tough to envision a winning coalition.

Second, Erdõ is seen as a capable administrator, someone tough enough to get things done. That's likely a sine qua non in the current climate within the College of Cardinals, many of whom are determined that the next pope must get the Vatican's internal bureaucracy under control.

Third, Erdõ has good conservative credentials, among other things gaining an honorary doctorate at the Opus Dei-run University of Navarra in 2011. Yet he also profiles as a broker of compromise and consensus, with the capacity to hold a highly disparate body of European bishops together.

He also embraces many of the social justice concerns that tend to loom large for more centrist cardinals. In a 2007 speech to the bishops of Latin America meeting in Brazil, Erdõ voiced solidarity with their concerns, including increasing poverty and environmental destruction.

The knocks on Erdõ can also be laid out in three points.

First of all, he can exhibit a pessimistic streak about the relationship between the church and the broader culture. At the synod last fall, for example, he blasted the media.

"Many of the mass media broadcast a presentation of the Christian faith and history that is full of lies, misinforming the public as to the content of our faith as well as to what makes up the reality of the church," he said.

While many cardinals would probably agree with that, some may wonder if it's the right tonality for a pope they want to reach out to the wider world.

Second, while Erdõ is seen as an effective behind-the-scenes figure, he's not exactly the most dynamic personality in public settings. Some cardinals may wonder if he has the stage presence to be pope.

Third, his youth may cause some cardinals to wonder if a vote for Erdõ would mean an option for an overly lengthy pontificate. The last two popes were well into their eighties when their pontificates ended, meaning "Papa Erdõ" could conceivably rule for twenty years or more.

If he can get past those barriers, however, Erdõ could seem an attractive possibility, especially in a conclave in which there doesn't appear to be any clear front-runner.

If a candidate from outside the West doesn't have traction, the 2013 conclave could still produce a slightly exotic choice, potentially giving the church a "Goulash Pope."

Cardinal Odilo Pedro Scherer of São Paulo, Brazil
John L. Allen Jr. | Feb. 23, 2013 NCR Today

For a long time, Brazil’s great hope to be pope was a veteran of the all-important Congregation for Bishops, giving him a reputation as an insider who knows how to make the Vatican work, but with vast experience too of running a complex archdiocese in the world’s largest Catholic country. Seen as close to the pontiff he served, this Brazilian was never tainted in the mind of some cardinals by association with his country’s progressive liberation theology movement, but wasn’t part of the most ferocious reaction against it either.

We might as well be talking about Cardinal Odilo Pedro Scherer of São Paulo, but in fact the reference in that paragraph is to Cardinal Lucas Moreira Neves, a longtime intimate of John Paul II and former prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, who died in 2002 from complications related to diabetes.

For the better part of the decade before his death, Moreira Neves was seen as tanto papabile, the leading candidate to be the first pope from Latin America. He seemingly had it all; Roman seasoning, in-the-trenches pastoral mettle, and a reputation for doctrinal orthodoxy as well as a capacity for reconciliation. For most of the 1990s, the Brazilian was at top of virtually every “next pope” short list.

Today, many observers believe the mantle of the leading Latin American papabile has been inherited by the 63-year-old Scherer, who profiles as a sort of remembrance of things past vis-à-vis his renowned Brazilian forerunner.

Born in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul in 1949, Scherer comes from a family of German immigrants from the Saarland. As a seminarian he studied at Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University, then held a series of teaching and pastoral assignments in Brazilian seminaries before being posted to the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops from 1994 to 2001.

Scherer’s next stop was as an auxiliary bishop in São Paulo, typically seen as one of a handful of the world’s most challenging archdioceses. Though more liberal prelates in Brazil initially viewed him with suspicion because of his Roman grooming and basically conservative outlook, Scherer quickly carved out a reputation for pragmatism and brokering consensus, becoming secretary general of the Brazilian bishops’ conference in 2003.

Scherer took over as archbishop of São Paulo in March 2007, and became a cardinal just eight months later.

In broad terms, he’s come to be seen as a more traditional figure than his two predecessors in São Paulo – Cardinal Paulo Arns, who was a champion of the liberation theology movement, and Cardinal Cláudio Hummes, a Franciscan seen as a moderate. Scherer is certainly robustly pro-life. When Brazil’s Supreme Court voted in 2012 to legalize the abortion of fetuses with malformed brains, he made headlines by asking who the court would next define as undeserving of life.

Yet for the most part, Scherer does not come off as a hard liner. On liberation theology, for instance, he’s applauded the movement’s social mission while criticizing its Marxist leanings. Scherer has also embraced the strong environmental concerns of the Brazilian bishops, especially with regard to the Amazon. In 2004, he called on the Brazilian government to strictly control the expansion of farmland in the Amazon, “so that measures are no longer taken after the problem is already there, after the forest is felled and burned.”

Scherer has also offered proof that he’s capable of making his decisions stick, perhaps suggesting to his brother cardinals that he’s tough enough to lead.

In 2012, for instance, the students, professors and staff at the Pontifical Catholic University in São Paulo voted to reelect the university’s rector. Scherer, however, acting as the university’s grand chancellor, instead appointed a candidate who had come in third. The students first filed a lawsuit in protest, then went on strike, and even tried to block the new rector from entering her office, surrounding her and the bodyguards she was forced to hire and forcing them to flee in a taxi.

Scherer, however, refused to back down, and today his pick, Anna Cintra, is indeed the university’s rector. (It's worth noting that Scherer spent this political capital in order to name a woman to the university's top post.)

Scherer clearly has the esteem of Benedict XVI. When the pope created the “Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization,” a project that’s the apple of his eye, he named an A-list of heavy-hitter prelates around the world as its first members, and Scherer was one of just two Latin Americans in the mix.

Here’s the argument for Scherer as a papal candidate.

First, at the symbolic level, he would be the developing world’s first pope. His German roots, however, give him a cultural and linguistic tie to the Old World, so in a sense he could strike many cardinals as a “safe” bridge between the church’s past and its future.

Second, Brazil may be the world’s largest Catholic country, but all is not well for the church there. Not only have mushrooming Pentecostal and Evangelical movements siphoned off a significant share of the Catholic population, but in 2007, at the time of Benedict XVI’s trip to Brazil, the state-run Institute of Geography and Statistics estimated that the percentage of Brazilians with no religious affiliation had shot up from 0.7 percent to 7.3 percent in the last two decades.

In that context, the choice of a Brazilian pope could offer a massive shot in the arm to the church in a country destined to be one of the world’s emerging superpowers in the 21st century.

Third, Scherer’s experience in what’s widely seen as one of the Vatican’s most important departments, the Congregation for Bishops, coupled with his reputation for administrative chops, may suggest to some cardinals that he could execute a much-desired reform of the Vatican’s bureaucracy.

He’s dropped hints over the years that he grasps the case for modernizing the Vatican’s operations. In 2009, for instance, at the peak of the global furor over lifting the excommunication of a Holocaust-denying bishop, Scherer bluntly conceded that the Vatican hadn’t done a very good job of explaining its logic to the world.

“When we use our own jargon, sometimes everything seems clear to us, but not to anybody else,” Scherer said. “Church spokespersons have to remember that the general culture no longer has a religious formation, so our words or deeds can be misunderstood or misinterpreted.”

Fourth, Scherer’s Italian is very good and he obviously knows the lay of the land in il bel paese, suggesting he would be comfortable serving as the Bishop of Rome.

Fifth, Scherer is by-the-book when it comes to doctrinal orthodoxy, making him a safe choice for conservatives in the College of Cardinals, but he’s also seen as a pragmatist who wouldn’t necessarily impose his own views on the entire church.

There are, however, some significant question marks.

First, despite Scherer’s Vatican résumé, many cardinals say they don’t know a lot about the Brazilian. The nature of working at the Congregation for Bishops is to stay out of the spotlight, meaning he didn’t leave a deep impression during his time in Rome, and since returning to Brazil, Scherer has not maintained a particularly high international profile. Some cardinals are saying that he looks great on paper, but they’d like to get a better sense of the man in the days ahead.

Second, if the cardinals want a “missionary-in-chief,” somebody who can be a compelling salesman for the Catholic message, some Brazilians will tell you that Scherer isn’t necessarily the guy. He’s personally gracious and approachable, but in public settings he can sometimes come off as a bit too buttoned-down and cautious, and few people would really describe him as “dynamic” or “charismatic”. That’s true not just of his personal style, but also the kind of Catholicism he’s willing to embrace.

For instance, Scherer has voiced reservations about Fr. Marcelo Rossi, Brazil’s most famous Catholic priest, whose exuberant liturgies draw tens of thousands of eager Brazilians a former glass factory on the southern edge of São Paulo. (Rossi once actually celebrated Mass for two million people on a Formula One race course.) Scherer has testily said of Rossi that “priests aren’t supposed to be showmen,” but many Brazilians insist that Rossi is actually the “New Evangelization” in action.

Third, given his ancestry, some cardinals may look at Scherer and see not necessarily the first Brazilian pope, but potentially the second German pontiff in a row, and ask themselves if that’s the right profile.

Fourth, the last two Brazilians who came to Rome, Hummes and Cardinal João Braz de Aviz (who currently heads the Congregation for Religious), both have been seen by insiders as nice guys but somewhat inconsequential, so there may be some built-in ambivalence about a Brazilian candidate.

Fifth, some observers question how effective Scherer has been at stemming the tides of Pentecostalism, secularism and religious indifference that have eaten away at Brazil’s Catholic base. It’s unreasonable, of course, to expect anybody to reverse decades of cultural trajectories all by themselves, but some cardinals may nevertheless think, “Do we want the whole church to go the way of Brazil?”

A decade ago, Moreira Neves died before his chances of becoming pope were ever tested in a conclave. Today, despite these reservations, Scherer may well be the man to carry Brazil’s chances one step further – whether he actually is elected is anyone’s guess, he seems certain to get a serious look.

Theological Notebook: John Allen's Papabile Profiles, Part 1

novak — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 23:03:29 GMT

I've been noticing two media outlets trying to do profiles of the papabile for the upcoming papal conclave. There are ones that I would rate as more serious ones from John Allen at the National Catholic Reporter, and less-informed ones from the Associated Press. I doubt I can fit them all into a single entry, so I'm going to jot Allen's down here for posterity and any future research I might want to do in looking back at the 2013 conclave.

Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle of Manila, Philippines
Argentinian Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, prefect of the Congregation for Eastern Churches
Cardinal Marc Ouellet of Quebec, Canada
Ghanaian Cardinal Peter Turkson, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace
Cardinal Angelo Scola of Milan

Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle of Manila, Philippines
John L. Allen Jr. | Feb. 22, 2013 NCR Today

One could make a pretty strong argument that nobody's chances of becoming the next pope benefit more from Benedict XVI's resignation than those of Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle of Manila in the Philippines.

Under ordinary circumstances, Tagle's youth would be seen as an almost insuperable bar to election. At 55, he's three years younger than John Paul II was when he was elected in 1978, so a vote for Tagle would be tantamount to a vote for another long papacy, perhaps as much as 30 years.

Tagle actually looks even younger. The story goes that in the mid-1990s, when then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger introduced Tagle to Pope John Paul II as a new member of the Vatican's International Theological Commission, Ratzinger jokingly assured the pope that the youthful-seeming Filipino had, in fact, received his first Communion.

Especially with a figure many cardinals regard as something of an unknown, a choice for such a young pope would strike them as an awfully big risk.

Now that the precedent has been set that a pope can resign, however, the calculus is different. Tagle could give the church 10 or 15 years, then step aside -- a thought that may well induce some cardinals to look past his age to other qualities.

When they do, they're likely to find a lot to like about the man touted as the "Great Asian Hope" to take over the Throne of Peter. One Filipino commentator has said Tagle has "a theologian's mind, a musician's soul and a pastor's heart."

Earlier this year, before the news of Benedict's resignation broke, a Filipino business journal named Tagle its "Man of the Year," describing him as "young, unassuming, and without airs," a bishop "who more than understands contemporary ideas."

Born in Manila, Tagle went to seminary in Quezon City and later did his doctoral work at The Catholic University of America in Washington. He also studied in Rome before returning to the Philippines to serve as a pastor and teacher. He was seen as a rising star in the Asian church, explaining his appointment in 1997 to the Vatican's main doctrinal advisory body. He was named bishop of Imus in 2001.

Theologically and politically, Tagle is considered balanced. He's taken strong positions against the Philippines' proposed Reproductive Health Bill, which includes promotion of birth control. Yet his towering social concern is defense of the poor, and he's also got a strong environmental streak.

Tagle's doctoral dissertation at Catholic University, written under Fr. Joseph Komonchak, was a favorable treatment of the development of episcopal collegiality at the Second Vatican Council. Moreover, Tagle served for 15 years on the editorial board of the Bologna, Italy-based "History of Vatican II" project founded by Giuseppe Alberigo, criticized by some conservatives for an overly progressive reading of the council.

In the Imus diocese, Tagle was famous for not owning a car and taking the bus to work every day, describing it as a way to combat the isolation that sometimes comes with high office. He was also known for inviting beggars outside the cathedral to come in and eat with him. One woman was quoted describing a time she went looking for her blind, out-of-work, alcoholic husband, suspecting she might track him down in a local bar, only to find that he was lunching with the bishop.

Here's another typical story. Not long after Tagle arrived in Imus, a small chapel located in a run-down neighborhood was waiting for a priest to say Mass at around 4 a.m. for a group mostly made up of day laborers. Eventually, a youngish cleric showed up on a cheap bicycle, wearing simple clothes and ready to start the Mass. An astonished member of the congregation realized it was the new bishop and apologized that they hadn't prepared a better welcome. Tagle said it was no problem; he got word late the night before that the priest was sick and decided to say the Mass himself.

Tagle is a gifted communicator, making him a sought-after speaker and media personality. He drew rave reviews for his performance at a 2008 International Eucharistic Congress in Quebec, where observers say he brought an entire stadium to tears. He's a very 21st-century prelate -- he hosts a program on YouTube, and he's got his own Facebook page.

Tagle has also been a leader in pushing the church in Asia to take an aggressive stance on clerical abuse. He was among the keynoters at an international summit on the abuse crisis held last year at Rome's Gregorian University that several Vatican departments co-sponsored.

"Our mission [is] to protect human dignity, especially of the most vulnerable, the children," he's said.

The case for Tagle rests on three pillars.

First, he's an effective communicator and missionary at a time when Catholicism's highest internal priority is a new evangelization. There's a sort of E.F. Hutton quality about Tagle: When he talks, people listen.

During last fall's Synod of Bishops on the new evangelization, for instance, Tagle gave a standout speech cited by many participants as one of the most impressive things they heard all month. Tagle argued that in the Asian context, effective evangelization means a church that's humbler, simpler, and with a greater capacity for silence.

Second, Tagle incarnates the dramatic growth of Catholicism outside the West, putting a face on the dynamic and relatively angst-free form of Catholicism percolating in the southern hemisphere. He would certainly be a symbol of the church in the emerging world, but given his intellectual and personal qualities, hardly a hollow one.

Third, Tagle now has in-the-trenches pastoral experience of administering a large and complex archdiocese in Manila. Although he's only been on the job since 2011, Tagle generally gets good reviews in terms of his capacity to make the trains run on time.

The drawbacks to Tagle's candidacy can be expressed in four main points.

First, his age is still a problem. At least some cardinals don't like the idea of popes resigning, seeing it either as taking some of the luster off the papal office (as one former Vatican official said to me, "Now he might as well be the archbishop of Canterbury!") or as an indirect admission of failure. In any event, church law states no one can compel a pope to step down, so it will be entirely up the next pontiff to decide. In that light, the resignation hypothesis may not be enough for many cardinals to get past Tagle's youth.

Second, Tagle has zero Vatican experience other than attending the occasional synod, and his soft-spoken and humble demeanor may strike some cardinals as ill-suited for the housecleaning many believe the next pope will have to carry out inside the Vatican.

Even if one's not prepared to embrace conspiracy theories, such as a sensational report in La Repubblica Thursday that a shadowy gay lobby may have been involved in the Vatileaks affair and helped shape Benedict's decision to resign, most cardinals nevertheless feel that the right people were not always named to the right jobs under Benedict, and there was little accountability for poor performance.

As one longtime Vatican-watcher put it in the wake of the disastrous Holocaust-denying bishop affair in 2009, instead of an anguished papal letter of apology, "there should have been a row of heads on pikes all the way down to the Castel Sant'Angelo. That, they would have understood."

Some may well wonder if Tagle is really the guy to get tough.

Tagle could perhaps take the edge off some of those concerns by dropping hints about whom he might be inclined to choose as his Secretary of State, but that would veer awfully close to campaigning for the job.

Third, some cardinals may perceive Tagle as a bit too much to the left of center (as the "center" is defined, naturally, in the College of Cardinals) especially because of his connection to the Alberigo history of Vatican II.

Fourth and most basically, some cardinals may look at Tagle and see a promising young churchman, but somebody who's not quite ready for prime time. One can imagine a number of them saying quietly to one another, "He'd make a great pope ... someday."

Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, prefect of the Congregation for Eastern Churches
John L. Allen Jr. | Feb. 20, 2013 NCR Today

If the process of picking a pope were like a hiring process in any other walk of life, Cardinal Leonardo Sandri’s résumé would probably be a slam-dunk at least to get him past the initial screening and earn him an interview.

We're talking about a 69-year-old, so he's in the right age window, not too old or too young; he's an Argentine by birth who's spent most of his life in Italy, so he brings together the First World and the Third World at the precise moment when Catholicism is seeking a bridge between the two; and he's a veteran Vatican official with a reputation as an adept administrator at a time when many cardinals believe getting the Vatican under control has to be at the top of the next pope's to-do list.

In other words, there's a lot to like about Sandri as a papal candidate.

Currently the prefect of the Congregation for Eastern Churches, Sandri was born in Buenos Aires in 1943 to Italian immigrant parents. He served briefly as a parish priest in Argentina before being sent to Rome for studies in 1970, where he entered the Vatican’s diplomatic service. In addition to stints in Madagascar, Venezuela and Mexico, Sandri also worked in the Vatican embassy to the United States from 1989 to 1991.

(That brief sojourn in America could have important electoral consequences, given that another young priest working in the embassy at the time was a St. Louis native named Timothy Dolan, who is today the cardinal of New York and a good friend. If so inclined, Dolan might be able to deliver several Anglophone votes for Sandri.)

Sandri was later named to the all-important post of "substitute," essentially the Vatican’s chief of staff, under Pope John Paul II and later Benedict XVI from 2000 to 2007. When John Paul died on April 2, 2005, it was Sandri who stepped out into St. Peter’s Square to announce, "Tonight we all feel like orphans."

Sandri speaks English, French, German, Italian and Spanish, and is seen as an affable figure basically free of any ideological agenda.

The case for Sandri as a possible pope is easy to make.

First, heading into this conclave, many cardinals have talked about the desirability of finding a pope with a global vision, who can focus more on the concerns and struggles of the burgeoning Catholic population in the developing world, where two-thirds of the planet’s 1.2 billion Catholic today live. At the same time, they don’t want to elect a stranger to the Vatican and to the dynamics of church leadership in the West -- the media pressure, the legal and political climate, the institutional and financial burdens of the church in places where it has a large infrastructure, and so on.

In that regard, Sandri seems ideally positioned. Because of his roots in Argentina, he would be perceived by outsiders, including the media, as a "Third World pope," yet among insiders he’s seen as one of the Italians. Certainly nobody could accuse Sandri of being a wide-eyed naïf about the realities of church leadership on a big stage.

Second, most cardinals believe the next pope needs to be someone a bit more attuned to the nuts and bolts dynamics of governance. The common diagnosis is that we’ve now had two papacies in a row basically uninterested in the business management dimension of the job: John Paul II was focused on bringing the church’s message to the street and changing the tides of history while Benedict XVI has been a magnificent teacher and cultural critic, but neither man ever took the reins of church government directly into his own hands.

Especially for the last eight years, this diagnosis holds, the church sometimes has paid a steep price for this inattention -- the Williamson affair, the Vatileaks mess, the sometimes tone-deaf response to the child sex abuse scandals, continuing accusations about corruption in Vatican finances, and so on. Many cardinals believe the next pope will need to oversee a thorough reform of the Vatican, in the direction of modernizing its methods and outlook, embracing transparency and accountability, and making sure key personnel are a good fit for the jobs they hold.

On this score, Sandri is about as compelling a candidate as anyone’s likely to find.

He has a stellar reputation from his term as substitute under John Paul II, with most Vatican insiders recalling him as efficient, detail-oriented, and more interested in getting things done than in playing political games. If the cardinals are looking for a "governing pope," in other words, that logic could lead them by a short path to Sandri.

Third, Sandri is an old Vatican hand, yet he's not associated in the minds of most cardinals with the meltdowns under the current Secretary of State, Italian Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone. Sandri was named prefect of the Congregation for Eastern Churches in 2007. At the time it was seen as something of a demotion, though it did clear the way for him to become a cardinal. With the benefit of hindsight, however, the move did him a favor because he was out of the way by the time the Holocaust-denying bishop affair broke in 2009, the Boffo case in 2010, the Vatileaks mess, and other notorious breakdowns.

Fourth, it’s hard to find somebody in church circles who doesn't like Sandri. Granted, few might describe him as "charismatic," but he's almost universally seen as warm, open and possessing a lively sense of humor. A conclave is more akin to the election of a department chair in a university than to the Iowa caucuses because personal relationships are all-important, and Sandri has a lot of friends.

Fifth, as a product of the Vatican diplomatic corps, Sandri is a moderate on most matters both political and theological. As a veteran Vatican official, he passes the smell test for the most conservative figures in the College of Cardinals as someone who would hold the line on church teaching; yet for more centrist cardinals, he comes off as someone who's basically a man of the center. In a conclave in which there’s no longer any provision for going to a simple majority after thirty-plus ballots, compromise becomes even more essential in getting across the two-thirds threshold, and Sandri might be able to draw support from diverse quarters.

Yet there are also at least four prominent draw-backs to Sandri's candidacy.

First, many people in Rome look at Sandri and see a great candidate to be the Secretary of State, but not necessarily the pope. He has a proven capacity to make the trains run on time, but many people believe he has neither the evangelical drive of John Paul II nor the intellectual chops of Benedict XVI. Many cardinals have said they'd like to combine the best qualities of the last two popes, and they may not see that mix in Sandri.

Second, despite being born in Argentina, many cardinals have to remind themselves that he’s not actually an Italian because they're so accustomed to thinking of him that way. They may well see a vote for a Sandri as a vote for continuing the Italian stranglehold on the Vatican, suspecting that he'd rely mostly on his Italian buddies to fill key slots. At a time when some cardinals from other parts of the world are frustrated with what they perceive as a "re-Italianization" of the Vatican under Benedict, with occasionally disastrous results, they might see Sandri as a prescription for continuing the status quo.

Third, Sandri has little pastoral experience, either on the front lines in a parish or heading a diocese. Italian Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo, a fellow Vatican diplomat, has already said out loud he wouldn’t vote for a career bureaucrat because the times demand a "pastor of souls." It’s probable that some other cardinals are thinking the same thing.

Fourth, there's some concern about possible baggage Sandri might carry into the papacy from his previous posts.

For instance, Sandri was in the Secretariat of State under Cardinal Angelo Sodano in the late John Paul years, at a time when Sodano was offering vigorous support for the late Mexican Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado, founder of the Legionaries of Christ, who was later found guilty of a wide range of sexual abuse and misconduct. When Maciel celebrated the 60th anniversary of his priesthood at Rome's basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls in 2004, Sandri was dispatched to read aloud a letter of praise from John Paul.

While Sandri was not seen as among Maciel's staunch allies, few cardinals will probably be excited about the prospect of TV packages on the new pope featuring video of him extolling an abuser priest (though admittedly, the words were not his own.)

To take another case, Sandri has been linked in the Italian media to a cause célèbre in 2010 surrounding Angelo Balducci, an Italian public official indicted as part of a corruption probe. Wiretaps also revealed that Balducci, who held the honorific Vatican title of "Gentleman of his Holiness," was involved in a gay prostitution ring and could be heard negotiating for services with a member of one of the Vatican's choirs.

Those wiretaps suggested Sandri and Balducci were on a friendly basis while a rafter of secret Vatican documents published by the magazine Panorama in 2012 included a note suggesting Sandri had been involved in conversations about Balducci's bid to win procurement contracts worth $400 million for a G8 summit in 2009.

No one has accused Sandri of any wrongdoing, but his links with Balducci may come in for a closer look during the pre-conclave period.

More generally, holding senior positions in the Secretariat of State by necessity means being involved in the Italian financial and political scene, and some cardinals may wonder if there are other potential skeletons in the closet -- or, perhaps, even innocent situations that would nevertheless be tough to explain.

By consensus, there is no clear front-runner for the papacy. Inevitably, cardinals may have to settle for less than their ideal of what the next pope ought to bring to the job, coming as close as they can based on who's actually available. When they look at Sandri, they'll probably see a great deal to like, and at least some things to give them pause -- which, right now, makes the Argentine-cum-Italian basically no different than many other possibilities.

Cardinal Marc Ouellet of Quebec, Canada
John L. Allen Jr. | Feb. 20, 2013 NCR Today

As veteran Vatican writer Andrea Tornielli reminds readers today in La Stampa, one way to judge how serious a papal candidate may be is by how much whispering, rumor and character assassination that person generates. By that standard alone, one probably ought to take Cardinal Marc Ouellet seriously indeed.

The 68-year-old Ouellet, a native of Quebec who currently heads the Vatican's all-important Congregation for Bishops, has long been considered a formidable contender to take over the church's top job. He's got the brains, the languages and the life experience to satisfy the conventional wisdom about what it takes to be pope.

As recent days have shown, he's also got the baggage any public figure accumulates over a long and controversial career.

Profiles in the Canadian press have been mixed -- Toronto's Globe and Mail on Saturday was typical, asking, "Can the Cardinal who couldn't save his Quebec church save the Vatican?"

The gist was that Ouellet's tenure as archbishop of Quebec from 2002 to 2010 was rocky, and there's little indication he turned around the steep decline in faith and practice in Francophone Canada. (One profile pointed out that even some of his siblings are no longer practicing.)

Reporters have also resurrected moments of controversy in Quebec, such as wide blowback to a 2010 comment from Ouellet that abortion is unjustified even in cases of rape.

Here in Rome, observers have recalled that Ouellet is sometimes given to emotion, tearing up in delicate moments, with the not-so-subtle suggestion that perhaps he lacks the steel to lead. Others have recalled an embarrassing episode from 2003, when Ouellet's younger brother Paul, an artist and retired teacher, pled guilty to sexual offenses against two teenage girls. Marc Ouellet has never spoken publicly about the incident.

At the very least, should Ouellet emerge from the pending conclave as pope, no one will be able to say the cardinals didn't have enough background to make an educated judgment about what they're getting.

The pro-Ouellet argument generally works like this.

First of all, he's a genuine intellectual who could approximate the broad culture and theological acuity of Benedict XVI, and Ouellet is very much cut from the same cloth as the pope in terms of basic outlook. Like Cardinal Angelo Scola of Milan, Ouellet has longstanding ties to the circles around the journal Communio co-founded by the young Joseph Ratzinger.

Second, many cardinals would like a pope who can somehow bring the First World and the Third World together, and Ouellet could fit the bill. He's a polyglot, speaking six languages (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and German), and as a young priest he spent time teaching in Colombia during the 1970s and '80s. He's traveled widely, giving him a sense of the very different realities facing the church in various parts of the world.

Third, there are also many cardinals who want a pope who can launch a serious reform of the Roman Curia, implying a need for somebody who knows where the bodies are buried. Ouellet's résumé seems attractive on that score, too. He was a consulter at the Congregation for Clergy from 1995 to 2000 and put in a brief stint as secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity from 2001 to 2002 before returning to the Vatican in 2010 to take over the Congregation for Bishops. Those posts have afforded Ouellet insight into how the Vatican works -- and, sometimes, how it doesn't.

Fourth, Ouellet is universally seen as a deeply spiritual man with a keen prayer life, making him credible when he talks about the core components of Christian belief. Assuming the cardinals will be looking for personal holiness above all in the next pope, some believe that alone ought to put Ouellet near the top of the list.

Fifth, as a Canadian, Ouellet would represent a break from the European stranglehold on the papacy. Although the New World may not seem so "new" anymore to everyone else, this is the Vatican we're talking about, where they think in centuries. In that sense, a vote for Ouellet might attract some cardinals as a vote for broadening the horizons of the church.

If nothing else, Ouellet isn't an Italian, and some cardinals from other parts of the world believe the Vatican's management snafus under Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Secretary of State, have damaged the prospects of an Italian candidate.

Sixth, having served in North America at the peak of the sexual abuse scandals, Ouellet grasps the massive blow they've caused to the church's moral authority. In Rome, he's seen as among the reformers; during an international summit on the abuse crisis last February, he led a liturgy of repentance in a Roman church in which victims participated. Ouellet called the crisis "a source of great shame and enormous scandal" and said sexual abuse is not only a "crime" but also an "authentic experience of death for the innocent victims."

(Critics, however, charge that Ouellet has not used his Vatican position to press for greater accountability for bishops who covered up reports of abuse.)

The rap against Ouellet lays out this way:

First, some Vatican-watchers like to quip that he would basically be a "photocopy" of Benedict XVI -- another cerebral pontiff who prefers the life of the mind to the nuts and bolts of administration and who is perhaps too gentle, too nice, to really crack heads and bring the institution under control.

On a related note, Ouellet has repeatedly talked about the crushing burdens of the papacy, calling the job a "nightmare" in 2011. Some may wonder if he would be up to the magnitude of the task. That might be a special concern in the wake of a pope who was himself acutely sensitive to the demands of the position and who resigned because he said he no longer has the strength for it.

Second, the mere fact that Ouellet has Vatican experience doesn't necessarily mean he's the right guy to execute reform. Many cardinals in 2005 thought Joseph Ratzinger would be that man because of his 20-plus years in the Vatican, yet at least some would say today it never really happened.

Third, despite Ouellet's time in Latin America and his robust capacity for languages, he tends to be focused on the struggle against Western secularism, again much like Benedict XVI. Some cardinals from the developing world, where two-thirds of all Catholics today live, may wonder if he'd be equally energetic on the concerns that tend to loom larger for them -- relations with Islam, for instance, or the struggle to defend persecuted Christians in hot spots such as Syria, India and China.

Fourth, Ouellet is a Sulpician, and in some circles the Sulpicians are associated with liberalizing currents following the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), blamed by some conservatives for drop-offs in vocations and a loss of faith. Although no one faults Ouellet personally, some traditionally minded cardinals might wonder what impact he would have on the church if he couldn't leaven the culture within his own order.

Fifth, some cardinals believe the next pope has to be a missionary-in-chief, an effective front man for the new evangelization, putting a compelling face and voice on the Catholic message. Some may wonder if Ouellet is truly cut out for that role, a man who can be warm and witty in private settings but sometimes comes off as a bit stiff and withdrawn on the public stage.

Of course, no one human being could every perfectly capture everything the cardinals might want when they go shopping for a pope: a living saint, an intellectual giant, a political heavyweight, a Fortune 500 CEO, and a media darling who turns the world on with his smile. Inevitably, they'll have to make compromises, looking for someone who comes close enough on several of those measures to seem a credible candidate.

It's impossible to say whether Marc Ouellet will be the answer the cardinals come up with when they start doing the math, but given both his résumé and his personality, it's hard to imagine he won't be in the equation.

Ghanaian Cardinal Peter Turkson, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace
John L. Allen Jr. | Feb. 19, 2013 NCR Today

When it comes to "next pope" stories, nothing's sexier from a media point of view than the idea of a "black pope," referring in this case not to the head of the Jesuit order (traditionally dubbed the "black pope," ostensibly because of the black cassock the Superior General wears, but also a derogatory reference to alleged Jesuit intrigue), but a pontiff from Africa.

At the symbolic level, the notion of what's traditionally seen as the planet's ultimate First World institution being led by a black man from the southern hemisphere has an undeniable magic.

Among the 117 cardinals who will shortly gather in the Sistine Chapel to elect the successor to Benedict XVI, the name of Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana usually figures prominently on the short list of possible African candidates.

Indeed, Turkson himself has not been shy about embracing the possibility. In a recent interview with the U.K. Telegraph, Turkson openly speculated about what it would mean for him to become pope. (In a good candidate for understatement of the year, Turkson was quoted as saying that "it would signal a lot of [personal] change.")

Peter Kodow Appiah Turkson, 64, was born in Western Ghana to a Methodist mother and a Catholic father, a biographical fact he often cites to explain his interest in ecumenism. He studied at St. Anthony-on-Hudson Seminary in New York before it was closed in 1989, and also at the prestigious Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome. He became Archbishop of Cape Coast in Ghana in 1992, and went on to serve as president of the national bishops' conference and to play an active role in SECAM, the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar.

In 2009, Benedict XVI tapped Turkson as the relator, or general secretary, for a month-long synod of bishops on Africa. As things turned out he didn't need to pack for the trip home, because near the end of the synod the Vatican announced Turkson's appointment as president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.

Turkson is generally seen as affable, open, with a lively sense of humor and charmingly frank, not given to mushy diplomatic platitudes. Across Africa, he's seen as among the continent's most dynamic church leaders.

Not coincidentally, the headquarters of SECAM is in Ghana, reflecting the leadership role Ghanaians have long played in African Catholic affairs.

The case for Turkson rests on several points.

First, many cardinals want a pope with deep pastoral experience in a diocese; others are looking for somebody with Vatican background who can get the place under control. Since Turkson's resume features both, he could appeal to both those desires.

Second, in the abstract, some cardinals find the idea of putting a face on the burgeoning Catholic footprint outside the West attractive, and Turkson would certainly do that in a flash.

Third, for the most part Turkson would come into office without any baggage from the recent scandals to afflict the Vatican. He wasn't part of the Vatileaks mess, he hasn't had anything to do with the Vatican Bank, and he doesn't have any particular track record on the clerical sexual abuse crisis. (When SNAP, the leading victims' group, recently issued an evaluation of papal candidates, Turkson was among those the group said it didn't have enough information about to assess.)

Fourth, for a church committed to a "New Evangelization," Turkson would be an attractive and energetic leader perhaps capable of enticing people to take a new look at the Catholic church.

Fifth, he reflects the very traditional African ethos on matters of sexual morality and the family, meaning that Turkson's election would not be threatening to those cardinals most concerned with bolstering the church's pro-life stance. A recent profile of Turkson in the Independent dubbed him "Conservatism's Caped Crusader" for exactly that reason.

Sixth, relations with Islam will surely be high on the next pope's to-do list, and Turkson has personal experience since his paternal uncle is a Muslim. In Ghana, Turkson lived amid Muslims, and has been a leader in Catholic/Muslim relations across Africa. He's no pushover, either, taking a strong line on the need for Muslim societies to respect religious freedom.

The knocks on Turkson include the following.

First, the Council for Justice and Peace is not perceived to be among the Vatican's heavyweight departments, so there's doubt in some quarters about whether it's adequate preparation for the quantum leap to the papacy. Moreover, Turkson's friends were saying back in 2009 that he'd really prefer to return to Ghana rather than to serve in Rome, which might lead some to wonder if he's up to a far more demanding Roman gig.

Second, some conservatives see Turkson as a bit too center-left for their taste, especially on matters of economic justice. In 2011, his council issued a document titled "Towards Reforming the International Financial and Monetary Systems in the Context of Global Political Authority," which among other things expressed a clear rejection of 'neo-liberal' economic policies (in American argot, 'neo-conservative') and an equally clear endorsement of a "true world political authority" to regulate a globalized economy.

Critics, dismayed by the note's content, challenged its Vatican standing. George Weigel dismissed it as the product of a "rather small office in the Roman Curia" while Bill Donohue said it contains "neologisms" not found in the thought of Pope Benedict XVI.

Third, some wonder if Turkson is really ready for prime time. During last fall's synod on New Evangelization, Turkson used one of the meeting's opportunities for free exchange to show an alarmist Youtube video about Islam, which contained over-hyped statistics about Muslim immigration in Europe that had already been thoroughly debunked.

The blowback inside the synod was sufficiently strong that other bishops felt compelled to stand up and call off the dogs. Though Turkson quickly apologized, it left lingering doubts in some quarters about his judgment.

Fourth, Turkson's open commentary about the desirability of an African pope, even flirting with the idea of it being him, have produced a bitter aftertaste among those who think he's more or less campaigning for the job. Friends insist that it's simply Turkson being honest and a nice guy, not wanting to say "no" to reporters needing comment, and not wanting to duck obvious questions.

Yet in an electoral process where putting oneself into the spotlight is often frowned upon, being a nice guy sometimes comes at a price.

Cardinal Angelo Scola of Milan
John L. Allen Jr. | Feb. 18, 2013 NCR Today

By consensus, there's no slam-dunk, take-it-to-the-bank favorite heading into the next papal election, but the closest to thing to someone in pole position is probably 71-year-old Cardinal Angelo Scola of Milan.

Scola breathes the same intellectual air as Benedict XVI, coming out of the Communio theological school co-founded by the young Joseph Ratzinger in the period following the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). As a young theologian himself, he published book-length interviews with Henri de Lubac and Hans Urs von Balthasar.

During his college years, Scola met the famed Italian Fr. Luigi Giussani and became part of his Communion and Liberation movement. Of late, Scola has tried to put some distance between himself and the ciellini, as the center-right movement's members are known, especially because several leading Italian politicians identified with it have been engulfed in corruption scandals.

Still, in Italian ecclesial politics, Scola is inextricably linked with the movement, which cuts both ways -- some deeply admire Communion and Liberation; others, not so much. The linkage with Scola was solidified amid the Vatileaks scandal, which included a letter from Giussani's successor to Pope Benedict XVI in March 2011, suggesting that the previous two archbishops of Milan had fostered a critical stance toward some aspects of church teaching and that Scola was the best candidate to take over.

Intellectually, Scola's area is moral anthropology, a subject he taught at the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family at Rome's Lateran University before taking over as rector.

The case for Scola goes like this.

First, he's Ratzinger but with a better popular touch. He's comfortable with the media, often better off-the-cuff than when he sits down and writes a speech. His texts can sometimes be dense, but his spontaneous commentary is accessible and informal with a good dose of humor.

Second, as an Italian, he knows the lay of the land in terms of Vatican politics. Since finding someone who can take control of the Roman Curia is a perceived priority among many cardinals, that's a clear plus.

Third, Scola has extensive pastoral experience, leading both the archdioceses of Venice and Milan. He's not a career bureaucrat, and several cardinals have already publicly said they want a pope with real experience in the pastoral trenches.

Fourth, Scola launched the "Oasis" project back in 2004, designed initially to support Christians in the Middle East, but it's grown over time into a platform for dialogue with the Muslim world. Since relations with Islam are considered a major challenge for the next pope, Scola's background is another advantage.

Now for the case against Scola.

First, as an Italian, he gets swept up into the tribal rivalries of the Italian ecclesiastical scene. There are still some Italian prelates wary of Communion and Liberation, seeing it as already too powerful, and who might be reluctant to vote for a "ciellino pope."

It's important to understand that for the most part, these Italian divisions have little to do with ideology or competing visions of the church, though there are some such differences -- for instance, the circles around the former president of the Italian bishops' conference, Cardinal Camillo Ruini, are conventionally seen as slightly more conservative than those around the incumbent, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco. For the most part, however, the contrasts are more determined by personal relationships and networks of patronage.

Second, since Scola is a dedicated Ratzingerian in terms of intellectual outlook, those who believe the next pope ought to take a somewhat different approach, or at least have a somewhat different sense of priorities, might see him as a bit too much continuity.

Third, some cardinals believe the solution to the Vatican's perceived management problems is not to elect another Italian, but to break the Italian stranglehold on the place's internal culture. For this camp, the time has come to realize the long-promised "internationalization" of the Vatican begun under Paul VI and carried forward in fits and starts by both John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

Fourth, Scola may simply suffer from having been in the spotlight too long, allowing opinions about him to crystallize, and making it difficult for a sudden consensus around him to form.

How notorious is Scola as a possible papal successor?

Consider that another of the documents to make the rounds amid the Vatileaks affair was an anonymous memo, written in German and passed along to Benedict XVI by a retired Vatican cardinal, which was touted in the Italian media as proof of a sensational "plot to kill the pope." It purported to relay private remarks by Cardinal Paolo Romeo of Palermo, Sicily, during a trip to China, in which Romero allegedly said Benedict XVI would be dead within the year and replaced with a top Italian cardinal.

The name of that cardinal? Angelo Scola.

In a race in which too much publicity can sometimes be the kiss of death, that's probably not the kind of PR destined to help Scola's chances.

Fans, however, insist Scola has been in the spotlight for a long time precisely because he's among the most impressive figures at the senior level of the church, and that the fact that he hasn't wilted under the attention proves he's got the right stuff to be pope.

Theological Notebook: Pre-Conclave Meetings Beginning

novak — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 21:58:15 GMT

Jotting down media notes regarding the upcoming conclave, now that the process is really getting underway.

Cardinals begin pre-conclave meetings at Vatican
Cardinals meet; Vatican gives no comment on Scottish scandal
Cardinals begin pre-conclave meetings amid scandal

Cardinals begin pre-conclave meetings at Vatican
By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The College of Cardinals began their formal pre-conclave meetings March 4 with 142 members present, 103 of whom are under the age of 80 and eligible to enter the conclave to vote for a new pope.

Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, said the cardinals did not set a date for the conclave to begin and were unlikely to set a date until the 115 cardinal-electors expected were all present and until the cardinals felt confident they knew how much time they wanted for discussions beforehand.

One of the first decisions made by the cardinals was to authorize the drafting of a message to Pope Benedict XVI, Father Lombardi said. He did not know when the text would be completed and approved.

The cardinals also voted to listen that evening to Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa, preacher of the papal household, give the first of two meditations required by church law before a conclave.

The rules for electing a pope require the cardinals to choose two churchmen, "known for their sound doctrine, wisdom and moral authority" to present meditations "on the problems facing the church at the time and on the need for careful discernment in choosing the new pope."

Father Cantalamessa also gave the first meditation in 2005 after the death of Blessed John Paul II.

After praying for the presence of the Holy Spirit, the cardinals and those assisting them at the meetings took an oath of secrecy. During the pre-conclave meetings, known as general congregations, the cardinals have the services of translators working in Italian, Spanish, English, French and German, as well as ushers and other aides.

Father Lombardi also was among those who took the oath; he is authorized to give reporters only certain general information about the meetings. For example, he said, 13 cardinals spoke during a 45-minute discussion about how often the general congregation should meet and how the sessions should be organized, but he could not say who the cardinals were or what they suggested.

The cardinals also drew lots to determine the three cardinals who will serve three-day terms as members of the "particular congregations" to deal with ordinary matters in the governance of the church during the period without a pope. Serious matters must be brought to the general congregation.

The three cardinals chosen March 4 were Italian Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, former prefect of the Congregation for Bishops; Italian Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe of Naples; and Cardinal Franc Rode, former prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.

Each of the cardinals has been given a small prayer booklet, the rules for governing the church during the period without a pope and for electing a new pope, a list of all the cardinals and the official prayer book for the conclave.

The cardinals had a half-hour coffee break, the spokesman said, and used the time to meet cardinals they didn't know and to greet old friends.

Father Lombardi said only two cardinals -- Indonesian Cardinal Julius Darmaatmadja, the 78-year-old retired archbishop of Jakarta, and Scottish Cardinal Keith O'Brien, 74, who retired as archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh after being accused of sexual misconduct -- have formally informed the Vatican that they will not attend the conclave.

The cardinal-electors missing from the first congregation, he said, were Cardinals Antonios Naguib, former Coptic Catholic patriarch; Bechara Rai, Maronite patriarch; Joachim Meisner of Cologne, Germany; Antonio Maria Rouco Varela of Madrid; Zenon Grocholewski, prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education; Karl Lehmann of Mainz, Germany; Jean-Baptiste Pham Minh Man, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; Theodore-Adrien Sarr of Dakar, Senegal; Kazimierz Nycz of Warsaw, Poland; Dominik Duka of Prague, Czech Republic; Rainer Maria Woelki of Berlin; and John Tong Hon of Hong Kong.

Cardinals meet; Vatican gives no comment on Scottish scandal
Joshua J. McElwee | Mar. 4, 2013 NCR Today

ROME The Vatican announced Monday that 142 cardinals were present for the first meeting of the college of cardinals following the Thursday resignation of Pope Benedict XVI.
The meeting of cardinals was the first of several expected this week before the cardinals enter the secret meeting where they will elect the now-retired pope's successor, who will lead the 1.2 billion members of the Roman Catholic Church.

Throughout the morning, journalists and tourists in Rome had gathered outside the Paul VI Hall, where the cardinals are meeting in General Congregation, to watch the prelates come and go.

As the cardinals walked in, some stopped to say a word or two, but most kept quiet. Each cardinal carried a small black briefcase emblazoned with a golden seal of the special sede vacante period and the year 2013.

The meeting this morning, said Vatican spokesperson Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi, began with several prayers, including the "Veni Sanctus Spiritus." Each of the cardinals then took an oath on the Bible to keep the contents of the meetings secret at pain of excommunication.

Three cardinals -- Giovanni Battista Re, Crescenzio Sepe and Franc Rode -- were chosen by lot to help assist in the general functioning of the church in the time before the election of the new pope.

Together, the cardinals also decided to write a letter to now-Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, who is living at Castel Gandolfo during the conclave process.

The meeting, said Basilian Fr. Thomas Rosica, was "extremely cordial, warm, [and] fraternal." The cardinals, he said, have "deep concern for the needs of the church throughout the world."

The cardinals are expected to meet again Monday afternoon. They are to partake in a spiritual meditation led by Capuchin Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, who has served as the preacher of the papal household since 1980.

In 2006, Cantalamessa gained attention when he asked then-Pope Benedict to consider declaring a day of fasting and penitence for the sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests.

Vatican spokespersons were asked several times during Monday's briefing to elaborate on the Vatican's response to Scottish Cardinal Keith O'Brien, who said on Sunday he had had improper sexual contact with priests.

One Scottish reporter said the Scottish "are not very happy" with the explanation of O'Brien's resignation, asking what additional disciplinary action might be taken by the Vatican.

In response, Rosica read aloud from O'Brien's statement Sunday, adding, "That's all we can say. That's what's been said."

Cardinals begin pre-conclave meetings amid scandal
Mar 4, 2:19 PM (ET)
By NICOLE WINFIELD

VATICAN CITY (AP) - Cardinals said Monday they want to talk to Vatican managers about allegations of corruption and cronyism within the top levels of the Catholic Church before they elect the next pope, evidence that a scandal over leaked papal documents is setting up one of the most unpredictable papal elections in recent times.

The Vatican said 103 of the 115 voting-age cardinals attended Monday's inaugural session of the pre-conclave meetings, at which cardinals organize the election process, discuss the problems of the church and get to know one another before voting.

The red-capped "princes" of the church took an oath of secrecy and decided to pen a letter of "greeting and gratitude" to Benedict XVI, whose resignation has thrown the church into turmoil amid a torrent of scandals inside and out of the Vatican.

"I would imagine that as we move along there will be questioning of cardinals involved in the governing of the Curia to see what they think has to be changed, and in that context anything can come up," said U.S. Cardinal Francis George.

The Vatican's administrative shortcomings were thrust into stark relief last year with the publication of documents stolen from Benedict XVI's desk that exposed the petty infighting, turf battles and allegations of corruption, nepotism and cronyism in the highest echelons of the Catholic Church.

The pope's butler was convicted of stealing the papers and leaking them to a journalist; he eventually received a papal pardon.
The emeritus pope, meanwhile, remained holed up at the papal residence at Castel Gandolfo, his temporary retirement home while the discussions on picking his successor kick into gear in Rome.

No date has been set yet for the conclave and one may not be decided on officially for a few more days; the dean of the College of Cardinals has said a date won't be finalized until all the cardinals have arrived.

Twelve more voting-age cardinals were en route to Rome; some had previously scheduled speaking engagements, others were due in later Monday or in the coming days, the Vatican said. Their absence, however, didn't otherwise delay the conclave's preparations.

Speculation has mounted that the conclave might begin around March 11, with the aim of having a new pope installed by March 17, the Sunday before Palm Sunday and the start of Holy Week.

With 115 electors, 77 votes are needed to reach the two-thirds majority to be elected pope.

Those who were in Rome prayed together Monday, chatted over coffee and took an oath to maintain "rigorous secrecy with regard to all matters in any way related to the election of the Roman Pontiff."

The core agenda item is to set the date for the conclave and put in place the procedures to prepare for it, including closing the Sistine Chapel to visitors and getting the Vatican hotel cleared out and swept for bugs or other electronic monitoring devices, lest anyone try to listen in on the cardinals' secret conversations.

Yet the first day of discussion was rocked by new revelations of scandal after Scottish Cardinal Keith O'Brien admitted that his "sexual conduct has fallen below the standards expected of me as a priest, archbishop and cardinal."

O'Brien last week resigned as archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh and said he wouldn't participate in the conclave after four men came forward with allegations that he had acted inappropriately with them - the first time a cardinal has stayed away from a conclave because of personal scandal.

The Vatican on Monday refused to confirm whether it was investigating O'Brien, even though the Scottish church's press office said the allegations had been forwarded to the Vatican and that it expected Rome would pursue the case.

Pressed to respond to reports of a fifth accuser who reportedly approached the Vatican directly in October with accusations, a Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Thomas Rosica, read O'Brien's statement admitting to sexual misconduct and said the Vatican would say no more.

The Vatican and cardinals attending the session said the O'Brien case didn't come up during formal or informal conversations.
"It's a tragic moment for him," George said.

At a briefing discussing the priorities for the future pontificate, George said the next pope will have to follow canon law and keep priests who molested children out of parishes.

"He obviously has to accept the universal code of the church which is zero tolerance for anyone who has ever abused a minor child and therefore may not remain in public ministry in the church," George said. "That has to be accepted. I don't think that will be a problem."

Separately, the Vatican is still reeling from the fallout of the scandal over leaked papal documents, and the investigation by three cardinals into who was behind it.

American cardinals seem particularly keen to get to the bottom of the Vatican dysfunction, and they have had access to a very knowledgeable tutor, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, the Vatican's ambassador to Washington.

Vigano's letters to the pope were the most explosive leaks of documents last year; in them, Vigano pleaded with Benedict not to be transferred after exposing alleged corruption in the awarding of Vatican contracts that cost the Holy See millions of euros (dollars).

Vigano was named the Vatican's ambassador to Washington, and as such has been able to give U.S. cardinals a clear-eyed view of the true state of the Vatican, said Corriere della Sera commentator Massimo Franco.

"They have appreciated him very much because he doesn't read the Vatican situation with a rosy lens, a rosy view," Franco said in an interview.

In his new book "The Crisis of the Vatican Empire," Franco paints a portrait of a Vatican completely falling apart, with financial scandals at its bank, backstabbing among its ruling class and the sex abuse scandal discrediting the church on the global stage.

"If we think of the pope, in a way the pope decided to sacrifice himself because he couldn't change anything," Franco said.
Coupled with the upheaval of Benedict's resignation, the scandals have contributed to create one of the most unclear papal elections in recent times.

"It will be a very open conclave with a very unpredictable outcome," Franco said.

In one of his last audiences before resigning, Benedict gave the three cardinals who investigated the leaks the go-ahead to answer their colleagues' questions about the results of their investigation.

"There are members of the College of Cardinals who are interested in having information that has to do with the situation in the Curia and the church in general and will ask to be informed by their colleagues," Lombardi said.
---
Trisha Thomas and Rachel Zoll contributed to this report.

Personal: Journaling Note

novak — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 05:01:28 GMT

The journal has been kind of on the backburner. Part of this has to do with LiveJournal itself, as the company has gone considerably out of its way to make its product so much less user-friendly through 2012, particularly in destroying the usability of the photo album/Scrapbook. Well done. I'm also living close to family nowadays, and that has cut down on my "updating/explanation-of-what-I'm-doing" mission here, as well as the sheer numbers dominance of friends being more likely to expect their social updating via Facebook. And then there's just the fact that 2012 has been kind of a Mayan Doomsday of a year, anyway. But I'm not ready to give up on the thing yet....

Personal/Theological Notebook: The Ultimate Student Review

novak — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 04:16:32 GMT

[From Facebook:]

I just had to search back through my Fall 2011 course evaluations for some data. I wish I knew who it was who left the comment, "He knows his shit."

Theological Notebook: Celebrating Vatican II

novak — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 22:03:17 GMT

With a light touch, Benedict weighs in on the historiographical debates currently going on over the Council, fostering a moderate and realistic reading, reigning in the extremists.

At anniversary Mass, pope recalls 'authentic spirit' of Vatican II

By Francis X. Rocca
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Marking the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council and the start of a special Year of Faith, Pope Benedict XVI called on Catholics to revive the "authentic spirit" of Vatican II by re-proposing the church's ancient teachings to an increasingly Godless modern world.

The pope spoke at a special Mass in St. Peter's Square Oct. 11, half a century to the day after the opening ceremonies of Vatican II. About 400 bishops from around the world, including 15 of the 70 surviving members of the 1962-65 council, attended. Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople and Anglican Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury attended as special guests.

The observances featured ceremonies recalling milestones of Vatican II, including the enthronement of a book of the Gospels used at the original gathering and a re-presentation of the council's final "messages" to various categories of lay Catholics, such as artists, workers and women.

Vatican II, Pope Benedict said, had been "animated by a desire ... to immerse itself anew in the Christian mystery so as to re-propose it fruitfully to contemporary man."

He noted that Blessed John XXIII, in his speech at the opening of the council, called for both the safeguarding and the effective teaching of the "sacred deposit of Christian doctrine ... this certain and immutable doctrine, which is to be faithfully respected, (and) needs to be explored and presented in a way which responds to the needs our time."

"The council fathers wished to present the faith in a meaningful way," the pope said, "and if they opened themselves trustingly to dialogue with the modern world it is because they were certain of their faith, of the solid rock on which they stood."

One of the council fathers, retired Bishop William J. McNaughton of Inchon, Korea, traveled to the anniversary Mass from his home in Methuen, Mass. Speaking recently to Catholic News Service, he recalled the procession of more than 2,200 bishops into St. Peter's Basilica on the council's first day.

"Because television cameras from all over the world were taking pictures, all the lights were on in the basilica," said Bishop McNaughton, 85. "I thought I was at the gate of heaven."

The commemoration was less spectacular and less well-attended than the 1962 event.

"The many empty seats here, five minutes before the beginning of the Mass, show that we have many challenges, like decreasing interest in the church," Capuchin Father William Henn, an American who teaches at Rome's Pontifical Gregorian University, told CNS.

Pope Benedict's homily celebrated Vatican II but deplored much of what followed in its wake.

Many Catholics misunderstood or ignored the council's teachings under the influence of secular culture and "embraced uncritically the dominant mentality, placing in doubt the very foundations of the deposit of faith, which they sadly no longer felt able to accept as truths," he said. "Recent decades have seen the advance of a spiritual 'desertification.'"

Fifty years ago, history offered glimpses of a "life or a world without God," he said. "Now we see it every day around us. This void has spread."

Yet, the pope said, a "thirst for God, for the ultimate meaning of life" is still evident in "innumerable signs," including the growing popularity of religious pilgrimages.

"How come so many people today feel the need to make these journeys?" he said. "Is it not because they find there, or at least intuit, the meaning of our existence in the world?"

Calling for a revival in the church of the "yearning to announce Christ again to contemporary man," the pope stressed that any new evangelization "needs to be built on a concrete and precise basis, and this basis is the documents of the Second Vatican Council."

He reaffirmed past statements rejecting any expansive notions of a "spirit of Vatican II" that might be used to justify innovations diverging from traditional doctrine.

"I have often insisted on the need to return, as it were, to the 'letter' of the council -- that is to its texts -- also to draw from them its authentic spirit," the pope said. "The true legacy of the council is to be found in them."

The pope also reiterated one of his most prominent teachings about Vatican II, that it must be understood in continuity with the church's millennial traditions, not as a radical break with the past.

"The council did not formulate anything new in matters of faith, nor did it wish to replace what was ancient," he said. "Rather, it concerned itself with seeing that the same faith might continue to be lived in the present day, that it might remain a living faith in a world of change."

- - -

Contributing to this story was Sarah Delaney.

Theological Notebook: Pope Tawadros II Elected in Egypt

novak — Sun, 04 Nov 2012 19:36:04 GMT

I'm always curious to see the Church in its most ancient settings, and I couldn't help but notice the work of Pope Shenouda III over the years. I'm afraid that the new guy has his work cut out for him.

Egypt's Copts choose new pope for uncertain times
Nov 4, 12:51 PM (ET)

By AYA BATRAWY and MAGGIE FICK

CAIRO (AP) - Egypt's ancient Coptic Christian Church named a new pope on Sunday to spiritually guide the community through a time when many fear for their future with the rise of Islamists to power and deteriorating security after last year's uprising.

The death earlier this year of Pope Shenouda III, a familiar figure who led the church for 40 years, heightened the sense of insecurity felt by many Egyptian Christians. They will now look to Bishop Tawadros, who will be ordained Nov. 18 as Pope Tawadros II, to fill the void in leadership.

Tawadros, 60, was chosen in an elaborate Mass where a blindfolded boy drew the name of the next patriarch from a crystal chalice.

"The situation for us in Egypt is not stable," said 27 year-old Peter Nasser, a volunteer at the Mass. "We hope the incoming pope will make our problems known to the outside world," he added, voicing hopes that Tawadros will also raise the profile of Christians in this country.

Nasser accused the current government, led by President Mohammed Morsi of the Islamic fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood, of discriminating against minorities. He claimed the new leadership does not work in the interest of all Egyptians.

But even under authoritarian leader Hosni Mubarak, who ran Egypt for nearly three decades until he was ousted in February 2011, rights groups say police were lax in pursuing and punishing those who attacked Christians and few Copts were named to genuinely powerful posts in government.

Morsi, who was elected in Egypt's first free presidential race, has named a number of Christians as advisers and vowed to work closely with the community. But Christians are skeptical.

Morsi congratulated Tawadros and spoke of Egyptian "unity" and "brotherly love" between Copts and Muslims.

Copts, estimated at about 10 percent of the country's 83 million people, have long complained of discrimination by the Muslim majority state. Under both the old regime and the new Islamist leadership, violent clashes with Muslims have occasionally broken out, often sparked by church construction, land disputes or Muslim-Christian love affairs.

The newfound political power of Islamists in Egypt, who control the presidency and won parliamentary elections, has left many Christians feeling deeply uncomfortable.

Copts have faced sporadic, violent attacks by Muslim extremists. That has been compounded by deterioration in security and law enforcement since the uprising. In some cases, Coptic families or entire communities have had to flee their towns as a quick-fix solution to avoid more violence.

Yousef Sidhom, the editor of Egypt's main Coptic newspaper, said Copts are suffering from the increased lawlessness.

"There is great apprehension about what tomorrow holds for everyone," he said.

Another worry for Christians is that the new political powers are pressing for a stronger role for Islamic law in legislation. They are increasingly concerned about further marginalization and a possible curtailing of their rights of worship and expression.

Around Cairo's St. Mark's Cathedral, where the colorful ceremony to select the new pope was held at midday, there was a heavy police presence.

"We will pray that God will choose the good shepherd," acting Pope Pachomios told the packed cathedral as he used red wax to seal a chalice with three names inside and then placed it on the altar during Mass.
There was a moment of silence before the name was drawn by a blindfolded boy. When the new pope was announced, thousands of worshippers erupted in applause, tears and prayer.

All three senior clerics whose names were in the chalice were considered consensus candidates who stayed out of disputes both within the church and with other groups, including Islamists. Several candidates were eliminated because they were considered either too conservative or too liberal.

We "will start by organizing the house from within," Tawadros told reporters after he was named pope. "It is a responsibility," he said from the monastery complex of Wadi Natrun northwest of Cairo where he was praying. "Most important is ... that the church, as an institution, serves the community."

In a recent television interview, Tawadros said the youth-led uprising marked a turning point in the church's relations with younger generations.

Tawadros was formerly an aide to the acting Pope Pachomios and he was selected as pope on his 60th birthday, Egypt's state-run MENA news agency reported.

It said he was born Wagih Sahby Baqi Soleiman and had two sisters. Tawadros became a pharmacist who briefly managed a government-run pharmaceutical lab in Egypt until he went to a monastery in Wadi Natrun in 1986 where he studied religion for two years. He was ordained a priest in 1989.

The new pope will face tremendous challenges in navigating Egypt's changing political realities, where Islamists are now dominant and the liberal and secular groups behind last year's uprising are struggling. At the center of the political squabbling is the role of Islam in the new constitution, currently being drafted.

Christians, along with liberals and secularists, oppose demands by the Muslim Brotherhood and more conservative groups to enshrine a stricter adherence to Islamic law.

Violence is also an ongoing concern.

Copts have faced attacks since the uprising, and disputes with their neighbors have sometimes flared into deadly clashes.

On New Year's Eve 2011, about a month before the uprising began, the bombing of a Mass in the Mediterranean coastal city of Alexandria killed 21 people - the worst attack against Copts in at least a decade. No one has been arrested.

In October 2011, soldiers drove armored vehicles into a crowd in Cairo protesting the failure of the military rulers who took over from Mubarak to protect Copts. Twenty-six people, mostly Copts, were killed.
The papal election comes during a shift in Christian attitudes about their relations with the state. For years, Christians largely relied on the church to secure protection for their rights through the former pope's close relationship with Mubarak.

But Shenouda had longstanding critics within the community who questioned why a cleric should act as an intermediary between them and the state. Others criticized him for not being tough enough with the former regime.

"I don't accept that the church continues representing the community, but it should continue the role of serving the community," said Sidhom, the newspaper editor.

Following the uprising and the pope's death, more Copts, particularly youths, have been emboldened to act outside the church to independently demand rights, better representation and freedom of worship.

Some critics of Shenouda's papal style hope the change will usher in a patriarch who is head of the church but not necessarily a political leader of the community.

Kirolos Zakaria, 20 year-old engineering student, said he wants the Christian community in Egypt to participate more in politics, but he does not want to see the pope involved.

The process of electing a new pope began weeks ago and on Monday, about 2,400 clergymen and church notables drew up a short list of three. The other two candidates were Bishop Raphael, 54, a one-time aide to Shenouda, and Father Raphael Ava Mina, the oldest among them at 70, a monk in a monastery near Alexandria.

There was controversy surrounding the selection process with congregants wanting a greater say in selecting papal nominees. Another issue the church is grappling with is strict rules that allow for divorce only in the case of adultery or conversion.

---
Additional reporting by Sarah El Deeb.

Theological Notebook: Dalí Cover Story in "America" Magazine

novak — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 22:56:31 GMT

Score! Just got a note from Michael Fahey about enjoying my article on Dalí's The Sacrament of the Last Supper that clued me in to check online and discover that the Jesuits' ever-impressive weekly magazine America had at last printed the piece. (Trimmed down to half the size I'd submitted it in, I knew that it was going to be kept on file for a while, as it was not a time-sensitive piece.) It takes a while for America to ship out to the Midwest (and, Chris Bauer just mentioned to me, even longer for the latest issue to get to the West Coast), so I hadn't found out. But even more fun for me, I got the cover!

Theological Notebook: Brian Daley, S.J. Awarded the Ratzinger Prize

novak — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 10:30:19 GMT

L'Osservatore Romano published this English translation of the presentation of the Ratzinger Prize by Pope Benedict XVI to an old friend of mine from my Notre Dame days, Jesuit Patristics scholar Brian Daley, S.J., earlier this week, whose book on eschatology (The Hope of the Early Church: A Handbook of Patristic Eschatology) in the first several centuries of the Church was a key text in bringing me back to Catholicism, and which I'd read late in my undergraduate. Not only is that an admittedly odd route to answering the Christian denominational question, I also couldn't remember the name of the author of the book when I was describing it one night to Brian over sandwiches at Marci's Deli before we went to catch a showing of The River Wild. He looked slightly poleaxed, and then modestly sheepish as he dipped his head and said, "I... I wrote that." "Get outta town!" A funny memory. Anyway, with both his work in early Christianity and in his dialogue work with Orthodoxy Christianity, I couldn't be more pleased with his selection as a winner of the Prize.

The presentation of the Ratzinger prize to Jesuit patristic scholar Brian Daley and philosopher Rémi Brague
Discovering the Art of Living

The presentation of the Ratzinger Prize - considered the Nobel of Theology - took place on Saturday morning, 20 October, in the Vatican's Clementine Hall. During the ceremony Benedict XVI presented the prize to American patristic scholar Fr Brian Daley, SJ, and to French philosopher Prof. Rémi Brague. Fr Daley is the Catherine F. Huisking Professor at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, and Prof. Brague is Professor of the Philosophy of European Religions at Ludwig-Maximilian University, Munich.

Venerable Brothers, Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Brothers and Sisters,

I am pleased to address my greeting to all of you who have gathered at this ceremony. I thank Cardinal Ruini for his address, as well as Mons. Scotti who has introduced this meeting. I warmly congratulate Fr Daley and Prof. Brague who with their personalities add distinction to this initiative that is taking place for the second time. And I mean "personalities" in the full sense: the aspect of research and of all scientific work; the valuable service of teaching that they have both carried out for many years; and also, in different ways of course - one is a Jesuit, the other a married layman - their being committed in the Church, actively making their qualified contribution to the Church's presence in today's world.

In this regard I noticed something which made me think; namely, that both the prizewinners this year are competent in and involved in two aspects crucial to the Church in our times. I am referring to ecumenicism and to the comparison with other religions. Fr Daley, with his in-depth study on the Fathers of the Church, has chosen the best school for knowing and loving the one and undivided Church, also in the wealth of her different traditions; for this reason in addition he is carrying out a responsible service in our relations with the Orthodox Churches. And Prof. Brague is a great scholar of the philosophy of religions, in particular of Judaism and of Islam in the Middle Ages. Thus 50 years after the beginning of the Second Vatican Council I would like to reinterpret with them two of the Council documents: the Declaration Nostra Aetate on the Relations of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, and the Decree Unitatis Redintegratio on Ecumenism, to which, however, I would add another document that has proven to be of extraordinary importance: the Declaration Dignitatis Humanae on Religious Liberty. It would certainly be most interesting, dear Father and dear Professor, to hear your thoughts and your experiences in these areas where an important part of the Church's dialogue with the contemporary world takes place.

Actually, on reading your publications, some of which are available in various languages, makes this ideal encounter and comparison already take place. I feel it is my duty to express special appreciation of and gratitude for this effort to communicate the fruits of such research. It is a commitment that is difficult but of value to the Church and to all who work in the academic and cultural milieu. In this regard, I would simply like to emphasize the fact that both prizewinners are university professors, deeply committed to teaching. This aspect deserves to be highlighted because it illustrates the consistent policy and work of the Foundation which, in addition to the Prize, sponsors scholarships for those working on doctorates in theology, as well as study symposiums at university level, such as the one held this year in Poland and the one that will take place in Rio de Janeiro in three weeks' time.

Scholars such as Fr Daley and Prof. Brague are exemplary figures for the transmission of a knowledge that combines science and wisdom, scientific rigour and a passion for man, so that one may discover the "art of living". And this is a feature of people who, through an enlightened faith and life bring God close and credible to the people of today. This is what we need: people who keep their gaze fixed on God, drawing from this source true humanity to help those whom the Lord sets on our path to understand that Christ is the way of life; people whose intellect is illuminated by God's light, so that they may also speak to the mind and heart of others.

Working in the Lord's vineyard, where he calls us, so that the men and women of our time may discover and rediscover the true "art of living": this was another great passion of the Second Vatican Council and one which increasingly forms part of the commitment to the new evangelization.

I warmly renew my congratulations to the prizewinners, as well as to the Scientific Committee of the Foundation and to all the co-workers. Many thanks.

(©L'Osservatore Romano - 24 october 2012)

American priest celebrates receiving Ratzinger award in Rome
By Matthew A. Rarey

Rome, Italy, Oct 22, 2012 / 01:17 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- An American priest and scholar who was awarded the annual Ratzinger Prize for Theology by Pope Benedict XVI on Oct. 20 was both thrilled and surprised to receive the honor.

“It was a total surprise for me, but I'm really touched that they would think of me for this and that it would bear the name of our present Holy Father, whom I have always admired a lot,” said Father Brian Daley, a Jesuit professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame.

The 72-year-old shared the honor with French Catholic lay philosopher, Remi Brague.

“Fr. Daley and Professor Brague are exemplary for the transmission of knowledge that unites science and wisdom, scientific rigor and passion for man, so that man might discover the true 'art of living,'” the Pope said at the Vatican ceremony.

Established in 2010 by the Joseph Ratzinger Vatican foundation, the award is described as an effort to “promote the publication, distribution, and study of the writings” of the former university professor, known today as Pope Benedict XVI.

In an interview with CNA after Saturday's event, Fr. Daley reflected that the winners of the prestigious award tend to be those “who do the kind of theology and philosophy that the Holy Father himself is interested in.”

Pope Benedict, he noted, has “worked for so many years on the Church fathers and medieval theology – he has a wonderful book on Augustine, he has one on St. Bonaventure – and then also on the interface between faith and philosophy, faith and reason.”

“I studied the early Church,” he added, and co-recipient Remi Brague “works on the relationship of religion and faith within a democracy and modern culture, with both Islam and Christianity.”

“So, I think these are both things that the person of the Holy Father is very interested in.”

Fr. Daley, a scholar specializing in the early Church fathers, said these formative theologians and pastors should serve to inspire Christians of every age and advance the work of the New Evangelization, the topic being addressed at the bishops' synod currently underway in Rome and ending Oct. 28.

“I think there is that liberating effect” in reading about the early Church, he said.

“Many of the people we read, as Church fathers, are really good theologians – highly sophisticated people of many different skills and outlooks. They were not uniform. But they presented different approaches to making sense of the Christian faith in their own time.”

Touching on the role theology plays in the modern world, Fr. Daley said “we're always thinking about how we can make sense, how we can give account for the faith that we share.”

“Theology does that. What I do is one part of doing that. Seeing theology as something alive, that draws on its past but is constantly thinking about itself, enables us to continue that process with more freedom.”?

The award ceremony was not the first time Fr. Daley has met the Pope – the two became acquainted when he was studying theology in Germany and met the future pontiff at a seminar in 1970.

“He spoke on the subject of Christology; who is Christ for us?” Fr. Daley recalled. “It was a little group, maybe 20 people in all. And we all had dinner together and Cardinal Ratzinger celebrated Mass for us every day.”

“It was a very intimate gathering. I don’t know if he remembers my presence there, but I definitely remember his. I never dreamed he'd be Pope.”

Theological Notebook: The Opening of Vatican II Remembered

novak — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 05:44:45 GMT

Today marks the 50th Anniversary of the Opening of the Second Vatican Council, an event that has rightly been called the major religious event of the 20th century, and which went a long way to restoring the thriving diversity of the ancient and medieval periods to the life of the Church, which was increasingly mired in early modern political forms of centralization and philosophy, and which were generally imagined to be the "ancient" heritage of the Church. I'm a Christian because of the richness of intellect and experience evident in early Christianity and passed on to and developed by subsequent generations. I'm a Catholic because of the retrieval of that heritage and opening up to reimagine it in the modern world that occurred at Vatican II.

A few notes for the day. Pope John XXIII's opening address has been posted in the blog of America, the magazine of the Jesuits. I copy that below. And the great Jesuit historian, John W. O'Malley, who I had the pleasure to hear and meet at Marquette, after the earlier pleasure of reading him over the years, has written a column on the occasion for The New York Times, which I also record here.

50 Years Ago: John XXIII's Opening Address

Today, Venerable Brethren, is a day of joy for Mother Church: through God's most kindly providence the longed-for day has dawned for the solemn opening of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, here at St. Peter's shrine. And Mary, God's Virgin Mother, on this feast day of her noble motherhood, gives it her gracious protection.

The Church In Council

A positive proof of the Catholic Church's vitality is furnished by every single council held in the long course of the centuries—by the twenty ecumenical councils as well as by the many thousands of memorable regional and provincial ones emblazoned on the scroll of history.

And now the Church must once more reaffirm that teaching authority of hers which never fails, but will endure until the end of time. For that was Our reason for calling this most authoritative assembly, and We address you now as the humble successor, the latest born, of this Prince of Apostles. The present Council is a special, worldwide manifestation by the Church of her teaching office, exercised in taking account of the errors, needs and opportunities of our day.

A History Of Triumph …

We address you, therefore, as Christ's vicar, and We naturally begin this General Council by setting it in its historical context. The voice of the past is both spirited and heartening. We remember with joy those early popes and their more recent successors to whom we owe so much. Their hallowed, momentous words come down to us through the councils held in both the East and the West, from the fourth century to the Middle Ages, and right down to modern times. Their uninterrupted witness, so zealously given, proclaims the triumph of Christ's Church, that divine and human society which derives from its divine Redeemer its title, its gifts of grace, its whole dynamic force.

… And Of Adversity

Here is cause indeed for spiritual joy. And yet this history has its darker side too, a fact, which cannot be glossed over. These nineteen hundred years have reaped their harvest of sorrow and bitterness. The aged Simeon's prophecy to Mary, the Mother of Jesus, proves true in every age: "Behold, this child is destined for the fall and for the rise of many in Israel, and for a sign that shall be contradicted." 1 Jesus, too, when grown to manhood, made it quite clear that men in times to come would oppose Him. We remember those mysterious words of His: "He who hears you, hears me." 2 St. Luke, who records these words, also quotes Him later as saying: "He who is not with me is against me; and he who does not gather with me scatters." 3

To Be With Christ Of Against Him

Certain it is that the critical issues, the thorny problems that wait upon men's solution, have remained the same for almost twenty centuries. And why? Because the whole of history and of life hinges on the person of Jesus Christ. Either men anchor themselves on Him and His Church, and thus enjoy the blessings of light and joy, right order and peace; or they live their lives apart from Him; many positively oppose Him, and deliberately exclude themselves from the Church. The result can only be confusion in their lives, bitterness in their relations with one another, and the savage threat of war.

A Pastoral Function

But the function of every ecumenical council has always been to make a solemn proclamation of the union that exists between Christ and His Church; to diffuse the light of truth; to give right guidance to men both as individuals and as members of a family and a society; to evoke and strengthen their spiritual resources; and to set their minds continually on those higher values which are genuine and unfailing.

No study of human history during these twenty centuries of Christendom can fail to take note of the evidence of this extraordinary teaching authority of the Church as voiced in her general councils. The documents are there, whole volumes of them; a sacred heritage housed in the Roman archives and in the most famous libraries of the world.

The Decision To Hold The Second Vatican Council

A Sudden Inspiration

As regards the immediate cause for this great event, which gathers you here together at Our bidding, it is sufficient for Us to put on record once more something which, though trifling in itself, made a deep impression on Us personally. The decision to hold an ecumenical council came to Us in the first instance in a sudden flash of inspiration. We communicated this decision, without elaboration, to the Sacred College of Cardinals on that memorable January 25, 1959, the feast of St. Paul's Conversion, in his patriarchal basilica in the Ostien Way. 4The response was immediate. It was as though some ray of supernatural light had entered the minds of all present: it was reflected in their faces; it shone from their eyes. At once the world was swept by a wave of enthusiasm, and men everywhere began to wait eagerly for the celebration of this Council.

Arduous Preparation

For three years the arduous work of preparation continued. It consisted in making a detailed and accurate analysis of the prevailing condition of the faith, the religious practice, and the vitality of the Christian, and particularly the Catholic, body.

We are convinced that the time spent in preparing for this Ecumenical Council was in itself an initial token of grace, a gift from heaven.

Hope For Spiritual Enrichment

For We have every confidence that the Church, in the light of this Council, will gain in spiritual riches. New sources of energy will be opened to her, enabling her to face the future without fear. By introducing timely changes and a prudent system of mutual cooperation, We intend that the Church shall really succeed in bringing men, families and nations to the appreciation of supernatural values.

Thus the celebration of this Council becomes a compelling motive for whole-hearted thanksgiving to God, the giver of every good gift, and for exultantly proclaiming the glory of Christ the Lord, the triumphant and immortal King of ages and peoples.

The Timing Of This Council

And now, venerable brethren, there is another point that We would have you consider. Quite apart from the spiritual joy we all feel at this solemn moment of history, the very circumstances in which this Council is opening are supremely propitious. May We go on record as expressing this conviction openly before you now in full assembly.

Pessimistic Voices

In the daily exercise of Our pastoral office, it sometimes happens that We hear certain opinions which disturb Us—opinions expressed by people who, though fired with a commendable zeal for religion, are lacking in sufficient prudence and judgment in their evaluation of events. They can see nothing but calamity and disaster in the present state of the world. They say over and over that this modern age of ours, in comparison with past ages, is definitely deteriorating. One would think from their attitude that history, that great teacher of life, had taught them nothing. They seem to imagine that in the days of the earlier councils everything was as it should be so far as doctrine and morality and the Church's rightful liberty were concerned.

We feel that We must disagree with these prophets of doom, who are always forecasting worse disasters, as though the end of the world were at hand.

A Basis For Optimism

Present indications are that the human family is on the threshold of a new era. We must recognize here the hand of God, who, as the years roll by, is ever directing men's efforts, whether they realize it or not, towards the fulfillment of the inscrutable designs of His providence, wisely arranging everything, even adverse human fortune, for the Church's good.

Civil Intervention Eliminated

As a simple example of what We mean, consider the extremely critical problems which exist today in the political and economic spheres. Men are so worried by these things that they give scant thought to those religious concerns, which are the province of the Church's teaching authority. All this is evil, and we are right to condemn it. But this new state of affairs has at least one undeniable advantage: it has eliminated the innumerable obstacles erected by worldly men to impede the Church's freedom of action. We have only to take a cursory glance through the annals of the Church to realize that even those ecumenical councils which are recorded there in letters of gold, were celebrated in the midst of serious difficulties and most distressing circumstances, through the unwarranted intervention of the civil authority. Such intervention was sometimes dictated by a sincere intention on the part of the secular princes to protect the Church's interests, but more often than not their motives were purely political and selfish, and the resultant situation was fraught with spiritual disadvantage and danger.

Earnest Prayer For Absent Bishops

We must indeed confess to you Our deep sorrow over the fact that so many bishops are missing today from your midst. They suffer imprisonment and every kind of disability because of their faith in Christ. The thought of these dear brothers of Ours impels Us to pray for them with great earnestness. Yet We are not without hope; and We have the immense consolation of knowing that the Church, freed at last from the worldly fetters that trammelled her in past ages, can through you raise her majestic and solemn voice from this Vatican Basilica, as from a second Apostolic Cenacle.

The Council’s Principal Duty: The Defense And Advancement Of Truth

The major interest of the Ecumenical Council is this: that the sacred heritage of Christian truth be safeguarded and expounded with greater efficacy.

That doctrine embraces the whole man, body and soul. It bids us live as pilgrims here on earth, as we journey onwards towards our heavenly homeland.

Man's Twofold Obligation

It demonstrates how we must conduct this mortal life of ours. If we are to achieve God's purpose in our regard we have a twofold obligation: as citizens of earth, and as citizens of heaven. That is to say, all men without exception, both individually and in society, have a life-long obligation to strive after heavenly values through the right use of the things of this earth. These temporal goods must be used in such a way as not to jeopardize eternal happiness.

Seeking The Kingdom Of God

True enough, Christ our Lord said: "Seek first the kingdom of God and His justice," 5 and this word "first" indicates what the primary direction of all our thoughts and energies must be. Nevertheless, we must not forget the rest of Our Lord's injunction: "and all these things shall be given you besides." 6 Thus the traditional as well as the contemporary Christian approach to life is to strive with all zeal for evangelical perfection, and at the same time to contribute toward the material good of humanity. It is from the living example and the charitable enterprise of such Christians as these that all that is highest and noblest in human society takes its strength and growth.

Contributing To Society

If this doctrine is to make its impact on the various spheres of human activity—in private, family and social life—then it is absolutely vital that the Church shall never for an instant lose sight of that sacred patrimony of truth inherited from the Fathers. But it is equally necessary for her to keep up to date with the changing conditions of this modern world, and of modern living, for these have opened up entirely new avenues for the Catholic apostolate.

Beyond Science

The Church has never been stinting in her admiration for the results of man's inventive genius and scientific progress, which have so revolutionized modern living. But neither has she been backward in assessing these new developments at their true value. While keeping a watchful eye on these things, she has constantly exhorted men to look beyond such visible phenomena—to God, the source of all wisdom and beauty. Her constant fear has been that man, who was commanded to "subject the earth and rule it," 7 should in the process forget that other serious command: "The Lord thy God shalt thou worship, and Him only shalt thou serve." 8 Real progress must not be impeded by a passing infatuation for transient things.

Bringing Home The Church’s Teaching To The Modern World

From what We have said, the doctrinal role of this present Council is sufficiently clear.

Transmitting The Truth Fearlessly

This twenty-first Ecumenical Council can draw upon the most effective and valued assistance of experts in every branch of sacred science, in the practical sphere of the apostolate, and in administration. Its intention is to give to the world the whole of that doctrine which, notwithstanding every difficulty and contradiction, has become the common heritage of mankind—to transmit it in all its purity, undiluted, undistorted.

It is a treasure of incalculable worth, not indeed coveted by all, but available to all men of good will.

And our duty is not just to guard this treasure, as though it were some museum-piece and we the curators, but earnestly and fearlessly to dedicate ourselves to the work that needs to be done in this modern age of ours, pursuing the path which the Church has followed for almost twenty centuries.

Nor are we here primarily to discuss certain fundamentals of Catholic doctrine, or to restate in greater detail the traditional teaching of the Fathers and of early and more recent theologians. We presume that these things are sufficiently well known and familiar to you all.

A Fresh Approach

There was no need to call a council merely to hold discussions of that nature. What is needed at the present time is a new enthusiasm, a new joy and serenity of mind in the unreserved acceptance by all of the entire Christian faith, without forfeiting that accuracy and precision in its presentation which characterized the proceedings of the Council of Trent and the First Vatican Council. What is needed, and what everyone imbued with a truly Christian, Catholic and apostolic spirit craves today, is that this doctrine shall be more widely known, more deeply understood, and more penetrating in its effects on men's moral lives. What is needed is that this certain and immutable doctrine, to which the faithful owe obedience, be studied afresh and reformulated in contemporary terms. For this deposit of faith, or truths which are contained in our time-honored teaching is one thing; the manner in which these truths are set forth (with their meaning preserved intact) is something else.

This, then, is what will require our careful, and perhaps too our patient, consideration. We must work out ways and means of expounding these truths in a manner more consistent with a predominantly pastoral view of the Church's teaching office.

The Right Way To Suppress Error

In these days, which mark the beginning of this Second Vatican Council, it is more obvious than ever before that the Lord's truth is indeed eternal. Human ideologies change. Successive generations give rise to varying errors, and these often vanish as quickly as they came, like mist before the sun.

The Church has always opposed these errors, and often condemned them with the utmost severity. Today, however, Christ's Bride prefers the balm of mercy to the arm of severity. She believes that, present needs are best served by explaining more fully the purport of her doctrines, rather than by publishing condemnations.

Contemporary Repudiation Of Godlessness

Not that the need to repudiate and guard against erroneous teaching and dangerous ideologies is less today than formerly. But all such error is so manifestly contrary to rightness and goodness, and produces such fatal results, that our contemporaries show every inclination to condemn it of their own accord—especially that way of life which repudiates God and His law, and which places excessive confidence in technical progress and an exclusively material prosperity. It is more and more widely understood that personal dignity and true self-realization are of vital importance and worth every effort to achieve. More important still, experience has at long last taught men that physical violence, armed might, and political domination are no help at all in providing a happy solution to the serious problems which affect them.

A Loving Mother

The great desire, therefore, of the Catholic Church in raising aloft at this Council the torch of truth, is to show herself to the world as the loving mother of all mankind; gentle, patient, and full of tenderness and sympathy for her separated children. To the human race oppressed by so many difficulties, she says what Peter once said to the poor man who begged an alms: "Silver and gold I have none; but what I have, that I give thee. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, arise and walk." 9 In other words it is not corruptible wealth, nor the promise of earthly happiness, that the Church offers the world today, but the gifts of divine grace which, since they raise men up to the dignity of being sons of God, are powerful assistance and support for the living of a more fully human life. She unseals the fountains of her life-giving doctrine, so that men, illumined by the light of Christ, will understand their true nature and dignity and purpose. Everywhere, through her children, she extends the frontiers of Christian love, the most powerful means of eradicating the seeds of discord, the most effective means of promoting concord, peace with justice, and universal brotherhood.

Promoting Unity Of The Christian And Human Family

The Church's anxiety to promote and defend truth springs from her conviction that without the assistance of the whole of revealed doctrine man is quite incapable of attaining to that complete and steadfast unanimity which is associated with genuine peace and eternal salvation. For such is God's plan. He "wishes all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth." 10

Unhappily, however, the entire Christian family has not as yet fully and perfectly attained to this visible unity in the truth. But the Catholic Church considers it her duty to work actively for the fulfillment of that great mystery of unity for which Christ prayed so earnestly to His heavenly Father on the eve of His great sacrifice. The knowledge that she is so intimately associated with that prayer is for her an occasion of ineffable peace and joy. And why should she not rejoice sincerely when she sees Christ's prayer extending its salvific and ever increasing efficacy even over those who are not of her fold?

Reflection Of That Unity Sought By Christ

Indeed, if we consider well the unity for which Christ prayed on behalf of His Church, it would seem to shine, as it were, with a threefold ray of supernatural, saving light. There is first of all that unity of Catholics among themselves which must always be kept steadfast and exemplary. There is also a unity of prayer and ardent longing prompting Christians separated from this Apostolic See to aspire to union with us. And finally there is a unity, which consists in the esteem and respect shown for the Catholic Church by members of various non-Christian religions.

Universality And Unity

It is therefore an overwhelming source of grief to us to know that, although Christ's blood has redeemed every man that is born into this world, there is still a great part of the human race that does not share in those sources of supernatural grace, which exist in the Catholic Church. And yet the Church sheds her light everywhere. The power that is hers by reason of her supernatural unity redounds to the advantage of the whole family of men. She amply justifies those magnificent words of St. Cyprian: "The Church, radiant with the light of her Lord, sheds her rays over all the world, and that light of hers remains one, though everywhere diffused; her corporate unity is not divided. She spreads her luxuriant branches over all the earth; she sends out her fair-flowing streams ever farther afield. But the head is one; the source is one. She is the one mother of countless generations. And we are her children, born of her, fed with her milk, animated with her breath." 11

Blazing A Trail

Such, venerable brethren, is the aim of the Second Vatican Council. It musters the Church's best energies and studies with all earnestness how to have the message of salvation more readily welcomed by men. By that very fact it blazes a trail that leads toward that unity of the human race, which is so necessary if this earthly realm of ours is to conform to the realm of heaven, "whose king is truth, whose law is love, whose duration is eternity." 12

Conclusion

Thus, venerable brethren in the episcopate, "our heart is wide open to you." 13 Here we are assembled in this Vatican Basilica at a turning-point in the history of the Church; here at this meeting-place of earth and heaven, by St. Peter's tomb and the tomb of so many of Our predecessors, whose ashes in this solemn hour seem to thrill in mystic exultation.

A Radiant Dawn

For with the opening of this Council a new day is dawning on the Church, bathing her in radiant splendor. It is yet the dawn, but the sun in its rising has already set our hearts aglow. All around is the fragrance of holiness and joy. Yet there are stars to be seen in this temple, enhancing its magnificence with their brightness. You are those stars, as witness the Apostle John; 14 the churches you represent are golden candlesticks shining round the tomb of the Prince of Apostles. 15 With you We see other dignitaries come to Rome from the five continents to represent their various nations. Their attitude is one of respect and warm-hearted expectation.

Saints, Faithful, And Council Fathers

Hence, it is true to say that the citizens of earth and heaven are united in the celebration of this Council. The role of the saints in heaven is to supervise our labors; the role of the faithful on earth, to offer concerted prayer to God; your role, to show prompt obedience to the supernatural guidance of the Holy Spirit and to do your utmost to answer the needs and expectations of every nation on earth. To do this you will need serenity of mind, a spirit of brotherly concord, moderation in your proposals, dignity in discussion, and wisdom in deliberation.

God grant that your zeal and your labors may abundantly fulfill these aspirations. The eyes of the world are upon you; and all its hopes.

Prayer For Divine Assistance

Almighty God, we have no confidence in our own strength; all our trust is in you. Graciously look down on these Pastors of your Church. Aid their counsels and their legislation with the light of your divine grace. Be pleased to hear the prayers we offer you, united in faith, in voice, in mind.

Mary, help of Christians, help of bishops; recently in your church at Loreto, where We venerated the mystery of the Incarnation, 16 you gave us a special token of your love. Prosper now this work of ours, and by your kindly aid bring it to a happy, successful conclusion. And do you, with St. Joseph your spouse, the holy apostles Peter and Paul, St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist, intercede for us before the throne of God.

To Jesus Christ, our most loving Redeemer, the immortal King of all peoples and all ages, be love, power and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

1 Luke 2, 34.

2 Ibid. 10, 16.

3 Ibid. 11, 23.

4 See pp. 20-23 above.

5 Matt. 6, 33.

6 Ibid.

7 Cf. Gen. 1, 28.

8 Matt. 4, 10; Luke 4, 8.

9 Acts 3, 6.

10 Tim. 2, 4.

11 De Catholicae Ecclesiae Unitate, 5.

12 St. Augustine, Ep. 138, 3.

13 2 Cor. 6, 11.

14 Apoc. 1, 20.

15 Ibid.

16 Cf. TPS, VIII. 273-8.

—October 11, 1962

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Opening the Church to the World
By JOHN W. O’MALLEY
Published: October 10, 2012

VATICAN II, which has been rightly described as the most important religious event of the 20th century, began 50 years ago today in St. Peter’s Basilica. Over three years, from 1962 to 1965, some 2,800 bishops from 116 countries produced 16 documents that set the Roman Catholic Church’s course for the future. Its proceedings were closely followed in the media, bringing the church into the homes of hundreds of millions of ordinary Catholics on nearly a daily basis.

An increasingly popular view, at least among critics, is that the Second Vatican Council failed to put the church’s house in order. Its most radical inward move was not to democratize the church (though it has often been described that way) but to reinstate an older, more collegial style in church governance. Under the council’s version of this teaching, known as collegiality, the papacy had the final word, but others in the church, from the bishops to the priests and the laity, had a voice, too.

The bishops at Vatican II felt that more than a century of centralization needed to be tempered. But in their euphoria, they failed to reckon sufficiently with the resistance of entrenched bureaucracies — jealous of their authority and fearful of disorder — to change. A more participatory mode of church life took hold for 15 years or so after the council, but from on high it began to be more and more restricted, to the point that central control is now tighter than ever.

This has led to widespread disillusionment and anger. Priests and parishioners feel that their voices are not heard. Some critics argue, not unreasonably, that a more collegial style of governance, or at least of consultation, would have addressed the clerical sex-abuse problem earlier and more effectively. The fact that collegiality now seems little more than an ideal resting quietly in the council’s documents — with little relevance for the real life of the church — stands as a major failure to carry out what the council intended.

What has been less appreciated about Vatican II, though it is as significant as the halting steps on governance, is that it took account of the world outside the church. The church validated for the first time the principle of religious freedom and rejected all forms of civil discrimination based on religious grounds. Thus ended an era of cozy church-state relations that began in the fourth century with Emperor Constantine.

Before the council, Catholics were not only forbidden to pray with those of other faiths but also indoctrinated into a disdain or even contempt for them. (This was, of course, a two-way street.) Now, for the first time, Catholics were encouraged to foster friendly relations with Orthodox and Protestant Christians, as well as Jews and Muslims, and even to pray with them. The council condemned all forms of anti-Semitism and insisted on respect for Judaism and Islam as Abrahamic faiths, like Christianity.

These epochal decisions have been carried out imperfectly, not surprising for an institution as large, lumbering and complex as the Catholic Church. While more recently the Vatican has seemed to drag its feet, the very fact that it is engaged in the process at all is a sign of progress.

The change is also felt at the grass roots. Two years ago, I taught a doctoral seminar on Vatican II to six students: one Catholic, one Jew, two Protestants and two Muslims. I have officiated at weddings alongside rabbis and Methodist pastors. Catholic colleges and universities now as a matter of course have rabbis, imams and Protestant ministers on their campus ministry staff.

What prompted such a turn? The life experiences of Pope John XXIII, which were unlike those of any previous pope, hold important clues. As a young priest, he had served in the Italian Army in World War I; later he spent nearly two decades as a Vatican diplomat in Bulgaria, Turkey and Greece, and was papal nuncio to Paris at the end of World War II. He knew diversity, turmoil, sin and evil firsthand, but he also knew goodness as he found it in people of other faiths and no faith. As far as I know, he never used the word “reconciliation,” but it captures, I believe, what inspired him.

The council, in its decree on the liturgy, also opened the Mass to symbols and traditions of non-Western cultures, permitting the displacement of Latin with vernacular languages. This reconciliatory move has played a part in the remarkable growth of the church in Africa and parts of Asia.

Pope John Paul II took up the work of reconciliation — famously with Jews, and less well known with Muslims. Pope Benedict XVI’s unfortunate comment in a 2006 speech in Regensburg, Germany, shortly after he was elected — in which he quoted a Byzantine emperor who said, “show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached” — received great publicity. But his reconciliatory gestures, like his address at a mosque in Amman, Jordan, in 2009 and his visit to Rome’s synagogue in 2010, have gotten less attention.

The post-Vatican II church was not a different church. But if you take the long view, it seems to me incontestable that the turn was big, even if failures in implementation have made it less big in certain areas than the council intended.

John W. O’Malley, a university professor at Georgetown and a Jesuit priest, is the author of “What Happened at Vatican II” and the forthcoming book “Trent: What Happened at the Council.”
A version of this op-ed appeared in print on October 11, 2012, on page A31 of the New York edition with the headline: Opening the Church to the World.

Theological Notebook: William of Saint-Thierry on the Love of Truth

novak — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 05:23:14 GMT

I was reading Rowan Williams and I came across a line I quite liked, given my insistence with Pannenberg that the criterion of public truth is an essential one for the task of theology, and for the (ultimately) necessary continuity and harmony of scientific and religious thought:

"The love of truth drives us from the world to God: and the truth of love drives us from God to the world."

The line was attributed to William of Saint-Thierry, but after looking around for some time, I could not find any source given for it, or for the original if this turned out to be a paraphrase. So I asked on Facebook (since I have an inordinate number of friends who might also read in such directions) whether, by any miracle of miracles, anyone could both manage to see this and to point me in the right direction.

And, wonder of wonders, Josh Warner came through with a consult from his former abbot, Dom Stanislaus, who wrote, "The quote is from # 11 of his Meditations (11:13). A similar balance occurs in On Contemplating God 1:1."

I love it when a plan comes together.

Personal: Babysitting Nieces

novak — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 05:00:28 GMT

[From Facebook:]

The nieces were strangely complaint as I made them turn off their insipid Disney Channel shows (the latest rage) and shuffle off for bed. Then I realized they were watching the shows on their iPods with headphones on. Nice!

And now they're up there (they're all sleeping together in the playroom) singing these Austin & Ally songs over and over again and laughing hysterically. Gonna be a long night of babysitting....

Personal: Moments with Nieces

novak — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 04:55:31 GMT

[From Facebook:] July 1:

Harassing Haley: "What did you just say?! 'Me and Grace is...'?! Who taught you how to talk? Who taught you grammar?!"
Haley: "Hulk!"

July 2:

Overwhelmed with little girl chatter this evening as Grace hosted two of her friends (our power and AC are on). Thus I found myself having dinner with three nieces and these two friends: the combined ages of my dinner companions equaled my own. Earlier, they had squealed gleefully to see a Wii representation that they'd made of me get eaten by a ghost in a game....

July 4:

None of my nieces are fond of fireworks and their volume. 5 year-old Sophie made sure to bring ear protection, explaining matter-of-factly to me, "Because I get infections."

July 10:

Sophie, aged 5, trying to dissuade me from eating their dog while they're on vacation, finally comes up with: "He doesn't have a lot of calories."