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Next pope is set to be another conservative

Traditionalists close ranks to ensure their grip on church will endure

Jamie Doward, religious affairs correspondent
Sunday March 27, 2005
The Observer

It is a question being asked with ever greater urgency in the upper
echelons of the Roman Catholic hierarchy: to what extent will Pope
John Paul II's legacy to the church be a clone of himself?

As the world watches the pain-racked pontiff's superhuman attempts to
remain as spiritual head of more than a billion Christians, his most
loyal lieutenants are closing ranks to ensure that his conservative
philosophy continues to hold sway. A cabal of aides, some of whom have
been with him since his earliest days, guard access to the Pope's
apartment and disseminate the line that the pointiff is still very
much in charge. A handful of spiritual allies fulfil his duties during
Easter week and help stage-manage his brief appearances.

The pontiff's inability to attend any of the Holy Week events has
given them an added poignancy that has invited comparisons with the
suffering of Christ. 'It's obvious that the Pope is carrying a very
heavy cross indeed, and he is giving a marvellous example of patience
in the face of suffering,' said US Archbishop John Foley.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1446336,00.h
tml

http://tinyurl.com/5j4gb

Next pope is set to be another conservative

Traditionalists close ranks to ensure their grip on church will endure

Jamie Doward, religious affairs correspondent
Sunday March 27, 2005
The Observer

It is a question being asked with ever greater urgency in the upper
echelons of the Roman Catholic hierarchy: to what extent will Pope
John Paul II's legacy to the church be a clone of himself?

As the world watches the pain-racked pontiff's superhuman attempts to
remain as spiritual head of more than a billion Christians, his most
loyal lieutenants are closing ranks to ensure that his conservative
philosophy continues to hold sway. A cabal of aides, some of whom have
been with him since his earliest days, guard access to the Pope's
apartment and disseminate the line that the pointiff is still very
much in charge. A handful of spiritual allies fulfil his duties during
Easter week and help stage-manage his brief appearances.

The pontiff's inability to attend any of the Holy Week events has
given them an added poignancy that has invited comparisons with the
suffering of Christ. 'It's obvious that the Pope is carrying a very
heavy cross indeed, and he is giving a marvellous example of patience
in the face of suffering,' said US Archbishop John Foley.

But the Pope's suffering has prompted speculation over the direction
in which his successor will take the church. As pressure mounts for a
modernising Pope - prepared to brook discussion on female priests,
celibacy and contraception - conservatives are battling to keep their
authority. They want to preserve the centralised structure established
by John Paul II.

The conservatives know they have statistics on their side. The fact
that 97 per cent of the 120 cardinals who will be eligible to vote for
the pontiff's successor were appointed by John Paul II himself makes
it almost inconceivable that a moderniser will become the next Pope.

They were also reassured by the Pope's recent decision to entrust the
German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, a hardline conservative, with
composing this year's Good Friday meditation. Ratzinger is head of the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the church's chief think
tank, which has dominated discussions on sexual morality and birth
control, and prevented liberals from gaining ground.

'Christ suffers in his own church,' Ratzinger wrote in the
meditations, which were approved by John Paul II. Ratzinger used the
meditations to describe the 'falling of many Christians away from
Christ into a godless secularism', which some have taken as a
reference to the church's need to emphasise its conservative values in
a modern age.

Ratzinger, 78, is one of the few members of John Paul II's inner
circle considered 'papabile' - a cardinal who could become the next
Pope - but he is viewed as a long shot.

Claims about who will succeed should be treated with caution. In 1978,
the year John Paul II was elected, a book entitled Which Pope? came
out, listing the favourites with no mention of John Paul II.

Nevertheless, the smart money is going on the College of Cardinals
appointing the first 'third-world Pope', chiefly as a response to
shifting demographics within the church. Since John Paul II became
Pope, the church in the northern hemisphere has lost followers while
the south has gained. Today nearly 65 per cent of Catholics live in
Africa, Asia and Latin America.

With the college's inherent bias firmly stacked in favour of cardinals
from the southern hemisphere, Vatican watchers believe the most likely
candidate will be Cardinal Francis Arinze, 72, of Nigeria. He would be
the first black African pontiff since Gelasius I (492-496). Arinze is
said to take a hardline position on abortion and contraception and
denounces homosexuality. Other third world favourites are Cardinal
Oscar Rodríguez, 62, from Honduras, who teamed up with Bono to
campaign against third world debt, and Cardinal Claudio Hummes of
Brazil.

However, some senior members of the hierarchy fear that, with
Christianity's influence on the wane in the West, there is a powerful
need for a European Pope to be appointed to arrest decline.

One name mentioned is 71-year-old Cardinal Godfried Danneels of
Brussels, but he is thought too liberal. Meanwhile, the more
conservative members of the European camp admire 58-year-old Cardinal
Christoph Schonborn of Vienna. Schonborn, though, suffers from his
relative youth. John Paul II has served more than double the length of
time of the average papacy, and the cardinals believe the next Pope
should not be in the role for so long. The present Pope's longevity
has meant he has been able to shore up his power base by surrounding
himself with the like-minded.

It has meant that, even when his health has been ravaged by
Parkinson's and related breathing problems, the Pope's position has
been unassailable, his invisible hold over the church, if anything,
strengthened by his suffering.

'What's important in my mind is to see that the church functions.
Nothing has stopped,' said André Vingt-Trois, the Archbishop of Paris,
emphasising that the Pope is still very much in charge. Indeed he is.
Regardless of who succeeds him, long after John Paul II has died, his
influence will linger.

tml

http://tinyurl.com/5j4gb

Next pope is set to be another conservative

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1446336,00.h
tml

http://tinyurl.com/5j4gb

Next pope is set to be another conservative

Traditionalists close ranks to ensure their grip on church will endure

They were also reassured by the Pope's recent decision to entrust the
German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, a hardline conservative, with
composing this year's Good Friday meditation. Ratzinger is head of the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the church's chief think
tank, which has dominated discussions on sexual morality and birth
control, and prevented liberals from gaining ground.