Pope John Paul II, and who his successor must be.

[Patrish]

In the 21st century, Your Eminences, the Catholic Church must vigorously address three related and pressing challenges that threaten the vitality and relevance of Christianity.

I refer, first, to a new and aggressive secularization, borne into the heart of modern societies by the dynamics of globalization. In traditional as well as developed societies, increasing materialism opens the way to a form of secularism that is indifferent or hostile to religious faith. A second critical development bearing directly upon Catholicism's future is the fierce internal contest for the soul of Islam, the great world religion that is both the Church's main rival for adherents and its potential ally against a purely materialistic concept of human development. And finally, the advent of genetic engineering and related forms of biotechnology underscores the need to upgrade dramatically Catholic education and expertise in the sciences and in bioethics.

The pontiff who succeeds His Holiness John Paul II (Karol Wojtyla) must address these three challenges boldly. In some cases, the new pope will draw on the example of John Paul II, but he must also define new horizons of understanding for the Church. Unless the next pope perceives the links between these challenges and their roots in the context of a historic debate over the relevance of religion to humanity, Catholicism will be unable to provide a viable alternative to the extremes of intolerant religious militancy and the self-absorbed materialism of a global consumer society.

The Challenge of Secularism

The notion that the human experience can be understood through purely empirical and social-scientific analyses, without reference to humankind's transcendent origins and orientation, is certainly not new. The reduction of the human being to an object is the abiding temptation of the modern world; witness the degradation of life in the wars, genocides, torture chambers, and social inequalities of the 20th century. But this erroneous view of humanity has found a powerful counterpart in the robust new form of globalization that now dominates economic, political, and cultural interactions among peoples. The commodification of social relations that turns individuals into cogs in the wheels of industry and politics now shapes virtually all forms of human interaction—even religion.

For more than a century, the Catholic Church has warned against understanding humanity through concepts taken exclusively from biology, economics, and psychology. With renewed vigor since the pontificate of John XXIII and the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), the Church has proclaimed that belief in the sacredness of human life is the only secure foundation for protecting human dignity. In reaffirming this cornerstone of Catholic social teaching, the next pope must display the vigor and creativity of John Paul II, who has traversed the globe proclaiming that human dignity is God's gift to every individual. Advocacy of human rights, including the crucial right of religious freedom, must remain the central message of Roman Catholicism to the world. This task is not easy: John Paul II was rebuked when he spoke out on religious freedom during a trip to India, where Hindu militants accused him of Catholic proselytism. Nor are advocates of religious freedom welcome in secular strongholds such as post-Soviet Central Asia or China, or in nations dominated by an ethno-religious majority, such as Saudi Arabia, Bosnia, or Sri Lanka. Lack of popularity or governmental disapproval never stopped Wojtyla, nor must it impede his successor.


This fundamental embrace of human dignity and human rights is the moral foundation of evangelization. In bringing Christ to those who have or have not heard the gospel, John Paul II dramatically rejected alliances with states and their coercive power. Concordats with friendly nation-states, whose friendship with the Church often came at a terrible moral and spiritual price, are a thing of the past. The next pope cannot return to a pattern of affiliation with any government. Civil society—the cradle of political self-determination and the arena for expressing human freedom in culture and religion—is the milieu within which to enact the divine mission of bringing Christ to the world and the world to Christ.

The next pope must recognize that religious faith is increasingly seen as counterproductive (at best) in a world seduced by material wealth, skeptical of truth, and wary of authority. In much of Western Europe, assertions of religious identity are often met with scorn and almost willful misunderstanding (e.g., the recent spectacle of Muslim girls in France being suspect for wearing veils to school). In Iraq, Syria, Indonesia, Malaysia, Algeria, and parts of Latin America, active religious groups of all kinds have suffered intimidation or outright persecution. In the United States, conservative Christians embrace liberty and the U.S. Bill of Rights, even as they struggle with the temptation to regulate what properly belongs only to God—the consciences and moral compasses of their fellow citizens.

For the Catholic Church to gain the world but lose its soul through capitulation to free-market globalization would be disastrous. Thus, the next pope must preserve the power of religious discourse—the particularity of the Christian story, with all its scandalous affirmation of forgiveness, love of enemies, and resurrection—even while “translating” the story so that it reaches those inside and outside the Christian world. The Christian argument for human rights and equitable development must be made recognizable to financial and political leaders, especially those for whom faith appears irrelevant. Protecting human dignity and granting economic and political agency to the billions of poor people who are increasingly marginalized by globalization must be defended as sound public policy, not only as good religion.

The Challenge of Islam

“There is no compulsion in religion,” says the Koran, and the world of Islam today seeks to avoid compelling and being compelled. This reality must influence the papal selection you may soon be asked to make. Certainly, the next pope must preserve and extend the Catholic realignment inaugurated by the Second Vatican Council and advanced by John Paul II—the realignment from state to civil society, from theocracy to democracy, from religious exclusivism to religious freedom. In addition, however, the next pope must take full measure of Islam as the most powerful global rival to Christianity for the hearts and souls of millions of Africans, Asians, Europeans—and, perhaps, Americans.

The most reliable demographic projections indicate that Christianity and Islam will continue growing exponentially until the Southern Hemisphere is awash in pentecostal, charismatic, militant, and heavily supernaturalist forms of both religions. Historian Philip Jenkins foresees a world population of 2.6 billion Christians in 2025, mostly concentrated in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Islam is projected to grow at a similar rate in Africa and Asia, with Nigeria alone boasting 150 million Muslims by 2050. European-style Catholicism has long been displaced as the dominant cultural expression of Christianity that is exported globally; it is being eclipsed by new forms of piety and religious solidarity shaped in part by the encounter with Islam.

But the relationship between Islam and Christianity as the world's most powerful missionary faiths extends far beyond competition and rivalry. Christianity has much to learn from the modern experience of Islam, with its fierce resistance to certain forms of accommodation with the Enlightenment, such as the privatization of religion and the “wall of separation” between religion and the state, and its scorn for “irreligious” or “indifferent” agents of modernization. Militant Christians and Muslims alike see themselves as the only remaining challengers to the agnosticism of an increasingly secular world. According to their separate critiques, which share surprising affinities, the materialism that threatens to evacuate religion of every last trace of the transcendent is the most insidious product of globalization.


The world caught a glimpse of the potential alliance between Catholicism and Islam during the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo. Vatican representatives joined Muslim clerics in denouncing portions of the 20-year Programme of Action adopted by the conferees, including proposed reproductive policies that depended heavily upon birth control and abortion. Secular and religious progressives expressed fear (and disdain) at the prospect of a global culture war pitting the two great patriarchal world religions against the enlightened forces of the democratic and liberalized rich nations.

To allay such fears, the next pope must be the architect of a Christian-Muslim dialogue that fosters alternatives to policies and programs that violate the principles of Catholic social teaching. These principles include the preferential option for the poor, the sanctity of human life, and the need to formulate policies serving the common good rather than narrow interests. Muslim religious values lend themselves to this communitarian construction of society, but much work must be done by Catholic and Muslim ethicists to achieve shared visions on issues ranging from “just war” to birth control.


Seems to me, that United States seems to wrapped up in secular decisions rather than the Catholic faith. I hope this isnt the case.

[Tsalagi]

O.K., so who is R. Scott Appleby, and why should the College of Cardinals take recognance of him?

Is it proper to start lobbying these old dudes who will select the next Pope? Can't he even wait until John-Paul's in the sod...errrr crypt before he starts flinging demands around?

T

[Tsalagi]

I just found him!

R. Scott Appleby

R. Scott Appleby is Associate Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame, where he directs the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism. After receiving a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, he served as co-director of the Fundamentalism Project, an international public policy study conducted by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

T

[jungleboy]

The next pope will definately have a challege. But the muslims and the catholics joining? Now that is a novel concept. However; it may be necessary. By 2050 the Chinese (buddest) and India (hindu) will have more that 4 billion people. So in order to maintain dominance thru numbers...

The US population is stable... We will constantly become a smaller percentage of the world population. (reasons to pray). And we will increase our consumsion rate. (more reasons to pray).

Even by 2025 the demigraphics of the world will be shifting. More of the full countries are sending people to the USA. (look around). To them the US is a rich wide open space. Opps, that's what the europeans saw when they got there, and look what happened to the people that were living there then.

Is the vatican a part of the EU? It is not part of NATO. I know Italy is.

Any bets on - from where and who the next pope will be??

[Tsalagi]

It won't be an handicapped American black woman with a spanish surname.

T

[Patrish]

Yep, the next GUY has to fill some big shoes.

Hope he can...and this is a hypothesis they are starting to already think about, so the office isnt empty for long.
Yes, the Pope is in bad health, and therefore putting it off wouldnt be the greatest thing either.
Gosh, I like the Pope we have.

And indeed, the Americans use alot of ways to avoid having children...so we will on the grand scale of the religion be minut, in comparison.
PLUS as it says, Americans have too many other worldly cares.

No, T, women wont be in the office, and the majority who were, were of Italian descent. Except John Paul II, who was Polish.

I just hope whomever they choose, he is a director of faith...but in the world we have today, I can only pray.

Yes, if we align with Muslims, it could bridge a gap and unite to world peace..one only hopes.

Yikes! WOuldnt want to be the next guy.

[Tsalagi]

Originally Posted by Patrish

No, T, women wont be in the office, and the majority who were, were of Italian descent. Except John Paul II, who was Polish.

Just a question, not a dig.
What right does an Associate Professor of History have to set the requirements for the next Pope?
It sounds like a board of directors out hunting a new corporate CEO!

Where does God fit into the concept? Do we not have anything from Him on what He is looking for, and how He would like His church to go? Or is He out of the loop and just sits on His throne saying, "I hope they choose a good one to take care of whatever problems until its time to send Junior back down to them!

That doesn't seem right, somehow.

T

[Patrish]

First, they should have led a pious life.

Second, they must be take an oath of some sort, to uphold the scriptures as it is to be left intact.

Third, they have to be a cardinal which 'IF' I am correct. Comes after a bishop, who comes after a Pastor, which is after being a priest.

OR maybe there are other 'jobs' in between...
BUT I am going by memory. And it is usually cardinal who has worked under the Pope. ....

Well, I have to look into how they get picked some more. I have a bad memory sometimes, and altho I learned this... doesnt mean I can remember in detail. LOL

[Patrish]

Ok..I was close.. Forgot the ArchBishops.

I found this explanation.
So, you wanna be Pope, huh? First, you have to be a priest. Duh, I know, but if I left it out, people would write in and tell me. It helps, these days, to get a good education in the meantime, and it doesn't hurt if that education is somewhere in Italy. A good, educated priest like you should have no time getting involved in the grass-roots scene, and get named a bishop (oversees a diocese, an ecclesiastical district consisting of a number of parishes, or local churches). To become an archbishop (oversees an archdiocese, a large and prestigious diocese), however, you really need to know someone in high office. Archbishops, you see, are anointed by the Pope himself. The next step is to get yourself into the College of Cardinals. Not so easy. Unless I miscount, there are only 166 cardinals worldwide, or about one for every 8-9 million or so Catholics worldwide. Of those, only 120 can vote for the next Pope when the Holy See becomes vacant. OK, in truth, there are actually Cardinal Priests and Cardinal Deacons in addition to Cardinal Bishops, but for the most part the hierarchy can be taken as a good guide.

After the current Pope is declared officially dead, the College of Cardinals votes for one of its own to succeed him. The vote is by secret ballot, with some Cardinals eligible for consultation but not voting. No contact with the outside world is allowed during this process, although at the next election, the public will be allowed to view the Cardinals at selected times. Unsuccessful ballots are burned with a substance so they burn black, and upon election, another substance is used so they burn white, and these smoke signals are the only way the world finds out the results of the election. The new pontiff must be elected by a 2/3 majority of all ballots cast, but according to a new rule instituted by Pope John Paul II, if no 2/3 majority is cast within the first 30 ballots, a simple majority is all that is required.

[Tsalagi]

Originally Posted by Patrish

First, they should have led a pious life.

Second, they must be take an oath of some sort, to uphold the scriptures as it is to be left intact.

Third, they have to be a cardinal which 'IF' I am correct. Comes after a bishop, who comes after a Pastor, which is after being a priest.

"Where does God fit into the concept? Do we not have anything from Him on what He is looking for, and how He would like His church to go? Or is He out of the loop and just sits on His throne saying, "I hope they choose a good one to take care of whatever problems until its time to send Junior back down to them!"
I see a nice, orderly business model. Foreman, Supervisor, Assistant Vice President, Vice President, CFO, CEO.
And it's sure better than they way they used to do it with kidnapping, poisoning, knifing, etc.
But how do you know that this is the man God wants to guide the affairs of the Church as opposed to a selection by the Board of Directors? It seems so cold and unsanctified (?) by some sort of Heavenly approval. If all these teen-agers and toast-makers get visions from Mary and others, why aren't the Cardinals influenced the same way?

T