Most of the 115 cardinals who will sequester themselves in the Sistine Chapel to find a successor to John Paul II will find themselves in terra incognita in more ways than one.
First of all, all but three of them -- Cardinal Jaime Sin of Manila, who is too ill to attend the conclave beginning April 18, German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and William Baum of the US -- have never taken part in a previous election, having been made cardinals by the late Pope.
But more important, their choice will have to reflect a desire both to preserve the heritage of the Roman Catholic Church and to take the necessary initiative to keep it afloat.
PHOTO: EPA
"The future Pope will find it difficult not to continue the work of his predecessor, but it will be even more difficult to continue it," said Cardinal Jose Policarpo, patriarch of Lisbon.
The cardinals will share a concern for preserving the unity of the Church, which has been sorely tested by the widening gap between the countries of ancient Christianity and the Third World.
The same concern motivated John Paul II, who made concessions while trying to contain some of the ripple effects of the reforms of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s.
Like a shepherd who must surround his flock quickly to keep it together, the late Pope circled the globe several times in a bid to prevent dangerous divergences.
Examples include African priests in open sexual relationships, high divorce and remarriage rates in Europe and North America, and the sometimes violent social militancy of Latin American priests immersed in liberation theology.
These dangers persist, and John Paul II's successor must continue to address them.
The task is made all the more difficult by the fact that the problems of the Church in the developed world seem highly abstract in the Third World.
Faced with a dwindling recruitment base and an aging European clergy, the idea of dropping the celibacy requirement for priests may become thinkable.
This could come about after a transition phase during which married men above a certain age would be ordained. Of course, the most radical reformists speak of ordaining women.
Many want to see more progress in the ecumenical movement, which stagnated under a John Paul II attached to Roman dogma including that of papal infallibility.
In the developing world, where priests are signing up in growing numbers and women are consigned to age-old traditional roles, such radical ideas seem foreign indeed.
Third World dioceses are also resistant to ecumenism in the face of aggressive Protestant sects.
As for celibacy, a rarely expressed concern in poor countries is that priestly salaries could hardly be expected to pay for the upkeep of a family if priests were allowed to marry.
While John Paul II achieved consensus against abortion more or less throughout the Church, the same cannot be said of condoms, especially in Asian and African countries staggering with rapid population growth and the devastating AIDS pandemic.
In addition to ethical and social issues, the cardinals meeting at the Vatican will also have to think about the internal problems of the Catholic Church, beginning with reform of the Curia, or Church hierarchy, and demands for strengthened collegiality.
The winning candidate -- whose choice is meant to be inspired by the Holy Spirit -- will have to seem able to address these problems while at the same time preserving both the unity and the diversity of the universal Church.
A ship that appears to be taking on the identity of a scrapped gas carrier exited the Strait of Hormuz on Friday, showing how strategies to get through the waterway are evolving as the Middle East war progresses. The vessel identifying as liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier Jamal left the Strait on Friday morning, ship-tracking data show. However, the same tanker was also recorded as having beached at an Indian demolition yard in October last year, where it is being broken up, according to market participants and port agent’s reports. The ship claiming to be Jamal is likely a zombie vessel that
Japan is to downgrade its description of ties with China from “one of its most important” in an annual diplomatic report, according to a draft reviewed by Reuters, as relations with Beijing worsen. This year’s Diplomatic Bluebook, which Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s government is expected to approve next month, would instead describe China as an important neighbor and the relationship as “strategic” and “mutually beneficial.” The draft cites a series of confrontations with Beijing over the past year, including export controls on rare earths, radar lock-ons targeting Japanese military aircraft and increased pressure around Taiwan. The shift in tone underscores a deterioration
LAW CONSTRAINTS: The US has been pressing allies to send warships to open the Strait, but Tokyo’s military actions are limited under its postwar pacifist constitution Japan could consider deploying its military for minesweeping in the Strait of Hormuz if a ceasefire is reached in the war on Iran, Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Toshimitsu Motegi said yesterday. “If there were to be a complete ceasefire, hypothetically speaking, then things like minesweeping could come up,” Motegi said. “This is purely hypothetical, but if a ceasefire were established and naval mines were creating an obstacle, then I think that would be something to consider.” Japan’s military actions are limited under its postwar pacifist constitution, but 2015 security legislation allows Tokyo to use its Self-Defense Forces overseas if an attack,
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) yesterday faced a regional election battle in Rhineland-Palatinate, now held by the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD). Merz’s CDU has enjoyed a narrow poll lead over the SPD — their coalition partners at the national level — who have ruled the mid-sized state for 35 years. Polling third is the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which spells a greater threat to the two centrist parties in several state elections in September in the country’s ex-communist east. The picturesque state of Rhineland-Palatinate, bordering France, Belgium and Luxembourg and with a population of about 4 million,
RSS