ROME—Despite an enormous amount of media chaff throughout April 2005, it was clear to those with eyes to see that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was the obvious, leading candidate to succeed John Paul II. There is no such clear frontrunner in 2013, although even more journalistic chaff is being vented into the atmosphere, primarily from Italian media sources whose ability to distinguish fact from fiction is not overly well-developed and who like to play Machiavellian games with this candidate and that.
Why no frontrunner? As the General Congregations of cardinals began on March 4, no cardinal had anything resembling the stature and authority of Ratzinger in 2005; that’s certainly one reason. But there are also unique dynamics shaping the 2013 conclave—and, ultimately, the selection of the next bishop of Rome.
1. Unlike 2005, there is an unsettling sense that the Church is in uncharted and perilous waters because of the abdication of Benedict XVI, an act that really has no precedent (other abdications having happened under very different circumstances). Will this abdication set up pressures on future popes, some of which cannot be imagined today? Does the possibility, already being bruited, that a very young man could be elected pope (because “he can do this for fifteen years and then retire”) suggest a fundamental alteration in Catholic understandings of the papacy, changes that reduce the papacy to a Catholic variant on the role of the archbishopric of Canterbury in the Anglican Communion?
2. While there were concerns about the Vatican bureaucracy in 2005—there always are when conclaves meet—there is, today, a widespread and firmly held conviction that the central administrative machinery of the Church is broken and that it must be fixed so that the Curia becomes an instrument of the New Evangelization, not an impediment to it. Needless to say, most of those involved in that curial machinery, i.e., cardinal-electors who are either serving in the Curia or are retired from it (and who are some 20 percent of the electorate), have a different view. The disconnect between the reformers’ perceptions of what’s been going on and the defensiveness of many curial cardinals has led to an undercurrent of anger that was not discernible in 2005, and that could lead to real tensions.
3. These two currents have, in turn, led to a strong reaction against what is perceived as an excessive and failed re-Italianization of the Vatican, the results of which were to make Benedict XVI’s life and work far more difficult. As with complaints about the Curia, complaints about “the Italians” are a staple of pre-conclave conversation; but the tone, this time, is different. As one Italian friend, a distinguished academic and active Catholic layman, put it to me, “our [Italian] culture has become corrupt,” and he believed, sadly, that that corruption had seeped behind the walls of the Vatican through the re-Italianization of the Roman Curia. A determination to deal with this aspect of the present Roman dysfunction will be another element in Conclave 2013 that was not present—or at least with such intensity—in 2005.
4. The Catholic Church is in the midst of a major change in leadership cadres or cohorts. Twenty percent of the 2013 electorate is retired. Only 8 percent of the cardinal electors are under sixty-five. Men who have spent their entire ecclesiastical lives in the waning years of Counter-Reformation Catholicism are slowly being replaced by men who have grown into ecclesial maturity in the first phases of Evangelical Catholicism, the Catholicism of the New Evangelization. The latter are the future, but their relative weight in this conclave is slight, and that tension will also be felt.
5. Finally, many cardinals admit that they don’t know their brother-cardinals very well. That’s a problem I anticipated in Evangelical Catholicism: Deep Reform in the 21st-Century Church, where I proposed a biennial or triennial meeting of the College of Cardinals to assess the progress of the New Evangelization—and to let these men take each other’s measure, with an eye to future conclaves.
George Weigel is Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. His previous “On the Square” articles can be found here.
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Comments:
(speed argues for safety) and due to rumors. Conservatives will be pleased because Scola is very much against birth control but...wait... he is also a Von Balthasar fan so can anyone really get to hell anyway. This might make three Popes in a row who hold out theoretic hope for Judas...as opposed to the certainty of his damnation found in Augustine and Chrysostom sermons. Oy.
The Secretariat of State must be able to better engage governments which persecute Catholics and Christians, encroach on religious liberties, etc. The Congregation for Catholic Education must go beyond Ex Corde Ecclesiae and the scolding that Benedict gave American CINO (Catholic in name only) universities during his visit to the US, and make the public case for a return to the principles that were overturned at the Land O Lakes conference in 1967.
The Church must be better prepared to address the challenges posed by today's environment, and putting all the burden on the Pope is not the answer.
As far as the afterlife, give me Balthasar's hope over certainty.
I hope you're doing well! You are breaking out of Weigel's narrow Vatican focus somewhat, but not entirely. You are still focused on the West, because that is where you are from.
One could make an equally strong case that the Church should place most of its energy and resources where it is growing fast and where money goes a long way (Africa, Asia) instead of spending lots of resources trying to convince people who don't want to listen (Europe, US).
You might be interested in reading John Allen's "The Future Church", where he analyzes the big picture demographic trends that will shape the 21st century church.
In fact, the problem is really in the other direction. Several Popes have had an honest human conviction that the United Nations is a good idea, which has lead many foolish people to pretend this is now Catholic dogma. Popes would like to see fewer executions -- this has always been the case, by the way. Unfortunately, because the wording in recent documents (including the Catechism) is awkward and fails to distinguish between what is owed due to the Law of Charity and what is owed due to the Law of Justice, there are plenty of Catholics at all levels who insist that "the Church now teaches that all executions are unjust and the death penalty should be universally eliminated," when neither the Popes nor the Catechism says any such thing.
It's good for a Pope to be careful. If one of us airs a wrong opinion, it doesn't cause much damage; no one takes us that seriously. If a Pope gets sloppy and starts giving careless opinions, real trouble can result.
As such, it should be an easy matter for an incoming pope simply to relieve all current Curial trouble makers of their positions with a single executive order, and then rebuild the governing structure of the church from the ground up on that basis.
This being the case, why is there so much fuss about this issue? The new pope just needs to DO it! Conservative Catholics, in particular, ought to be well aware of how simple the matter of dispensing with the troublesome Curial structure really is.
If you are in need of a refresher, go back and read your Vatican I!
One would like to think that reforming the Curia should be a matter of the Pope saying "make it so". Unfortunately, reforming any bureaucracy is difficult, and the mindset and skills needed to do that are probably not to be found in most clergy, even senior ones. (De facto considerations trumping de jure.) It will take a big broom to sweep out all that needs cleaning. Let's pray that the new Pope can use it effectively.
Prior to Judas' sin, Christ spoke to His Father..." Those whom thou gave me I guarded and not one of them perished except the son of perdition..." Jn.17:12. Judas hadn't sinned yet.
Justin Martyr points out that past tense predictions within the Bible are certain of outcome unlike conditional predictions... as when Isaiah speaks of Christ in the past tense (53:5) "He was pierced for our transgressions". Similarly Christ spoke in Jn 17:12 of Judas perishing or being lost or being destroyed (various translation) prior to Judas' final despairing act ( he had partly repented of the betrayal but had not trusted in God's foregiveness). The past tense prediction as in Isaiah spells certainty as the Fathers knew.
Mr. bannon, I hear you, and Hitler, Judas, etc. were probably only too happy to cast themselves into the inferno, fleeing at light speed the instant they beheld the face of our final Judge. I imiagine you've read Cardinal Dulles, "The Population of Hell." He says it very well and succinctly.
As a matter of dogma, the Pope has that big broom! He (that is, His Holiness Pope Francis) just needs the cojones to employ it. It might be helpful if he prearranged the "sweeping away" edict such that, at the appointed moment, a small cadre of robust, virile Swiss guardsmen were simultaneously to appear at the offices and residences of the curial officials to be swept away, so as to escort them cordially but firmly off the sovereign territory of the Vatican state.
Come on, now - why should this be so difficult to pull off? (- as long as it is professionally executed, perfectly timed, makes maximal use of the element of surprise, and is not foolishly bungled)?
And to top it all off, a coup-d'etat of this sort would be not at all doctrinally and judicially illegitimate, but rather would be fully in line with Catholic teaching concerning the nature of papal authority!
Personally, I think it's a beautiful idea, even though I reject the premise of divinely instituted papal authority on which it rests.
I am sufficiently confident of the judgment on Judas Iscariot that I will not pray for his soul by name -- which is a terrible thing to say, if you think about it. There are a few others I would also not feel comfortable praying for by name, including Adolf Hitler. Fr. Gabriele Amorth has said, plausibly enough, that both Hitler and Stalin were "consecrated to Satan," and Hitler died a suicide. It would feel sacrilegious to pray for him when I have so little cause for hope. On the other hand, I *do* pray for "those most in need of Thy grace," and I do not know who they are. Well, actually I do know one: myself.
Do the passages you quote remove all doubt? Not exactly. Remember how many heresies start from a plausible-sounding private interpretation of Scripture. That's one of the reasons God gave us Popes, after all. If I think a matter is obvious, but the Pope thinks it is not de Fide, I accept that it's not de Fide.
The Church will never declare de fide in respect to a subordinate theme like Judas. Out of 266 Popes, I guess that a minuscule number doubted Judas' being in hell. In your paradigm, Christ had no certain way of telling you Judas perished as long as two Popes after 1990 years doubted it in lower venues...a book and an address. Think about that. Protestantism is not 100% incorrect about scripture and Catholicism has passed authoritative judgement on a very low percent of passages anyway historically. Does that mean you might as well not read it until they do? I read the whole thing which means thousands of passages that the Church never addressed...and may never address.
