Papal candidates - Short List?

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BroomWagon said:
But that said, the Church will need to consider all of these parts of the world. The choice for the next Pope seems very difficult. Difficult to please everyone.
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The task of the Pope has never been to please everyone. The task of every Pope is to lead and strengthen the Church, both in positive and “negative” roles. It is also to be, as the bishop of Rome, Vicar of Christ, and successor to St Peter, the conscience of the world. It is not to be a secular global diplomat, people-pleaser, or super-mediator on the global stage. All of those are tasks not realizable for a human being and not specific to the office of the papacy.

Every good pope we have ever had in the modern world has been the voice of conscience on several issues in the contemporary world in which he presided. That is an additional proper role for him, but it is not the desire of the Vatican to involve the pope adminstratively in secular or political affairs.

I agree with Lisa, that this is not about identity politics (symbols) or secular politics or even sizes of populations, but rather prioritizing for the Church, not for the secular world and what the secular world wants or what the Vatican or laity thinks the secular world needs.
 
Elizabeth502 said:
The task of the Pope has never been to please everyone. The task of every Pope is to lead and strengthen the Church, both in positive and “negative” roles. It is also to be, as the bishop of Rome, Vicar of Christ, and successor to St Peter, the conscience of the world. It is not to be a secular global diplomat, people-pleaser, or super-mediator on the global stage. All of those are tasks not realizable for a human being and not specific to the office of the papacy.

Every good pope we have ever had in the modern world has been the voice of conscience on several issues in the contemporary world in which he presided. That is an additional proper role for him, but it is not the desire of the Vatican to involve the pope adminstratively in secular or political affairs.

I agree with Lisa, that this is not about identity politics (symbols) or secular politics or even sizes of populations, but rather prioritizing for the Church, not for the secular world and what the secular world wants or what the Vatican or laity thinks the secular world needs.
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Not so sure about this, Pope Pius XII and Pope John Paul II were very instrumental in facing down evils from the secular world.
 
Elizabeth502 said:
The task of the Pope has never been to please everyone.
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Who said the Pope’s task is to please everyone?? That is a rather uncharitable thing to say. We are talking about the geography of where the next Pope will come from, Africa? Europe? North or South America and Asia. In that vein, it will be difficult to please everyone.
 
BroomWagon said:
Who said the Pope’s task is to please everyone??
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Nothing uncharitable about it. You merely implied that in your post to which I responded. I denied the implication. 🙂

It is not the task of a pope to be all things to all people, or even to most people. He is the spiritual head of a religious institution, and as that head the institution itself is his primary focus. That institution is worldwide, and he is tasked with fulfilling the need of a diverse and global Church, not global politics. His concern is not political nations per se, nor their internal needs.

Again, one of his tasks, which just about all modern popes have embraced, is to be the conscience of nations who are or may be engaging in immoral activity or have immoral policies. But that’s not the same thing as “pleasing everyone,” or even getting involved in national or international problems. The Pope is in a position to exert PR pressure, and in his travels sometimes to meet heads of State, to bring up pertinent matters only as those pertain to Truth/Morals, not to politics or personalities.

The size of populations, whether of major cities or of major nations, does not dictate per se a Pope’s priorities, nor the influence or perceived influence or future influence of a particular nation (like the U.S. or China).
 
Brendan_64 said:
Just because something is hard to live by is no reason to throw in the towel and say, “That’s just the way it is, we may as well benefit from the cheap goods, after all we can’t change things”. Wherever possible we should not buy goods from countries known to exploit others in sweatshops. There are alternatives for many things (more expensive granted) and you very easily buy food that is local (UK based for me) or at least European. To have a Pope to spell out the message that human exploitation isn’t acceptable and that we all have a duty to do what we can on this would make an impact and relieve at least some of the human misery involved.

Youthful idealism? I wish. The number after my name is the year I was born in.

Should we really not bother trying to live up to something that is difficult to live up to, and say “Oh well it’s going to happen anyway, I might as well benefit from it”. Many things about our Christian living are hard to live up to, does that mean we should just give up?
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I have always purchased household goods from discount and dollar stores, because in my view we are called to be faithful stewards of the resources God has blessed us with. That includes the money we earn and invest. And also money that we spend and make charitable gifts with. For I believe in the parable of the talents. We need to strive to make the most of the resources we command. There is nothing wrong with stretching your spending dollars, and acting in a fiscally responsible way for your well-being and that of your family. Sure, I would like to buy American made goods, and I strive to do so when possible. However, much of our household purchases come from China and there is no way around it. I am not going to deny my family of the best I can provide. On the contrary, I want to see their needs met, and want to see them prosper.
 
LisaA said:
Sorry you apparently didn’t understand. I KNOW what is involved with respect to Catholic Social Teaching. I’m on the RCIA team and this is “my” subject that I teach every year.

What I want to understand is YOUR interpretation of “social justice” and the role of the clergy, most importantly the leadership (Cardinals and the Holy Father). As I said, in my experience the term has VERY different meanings depending with whom you are speaking to and on what subject. As I also said our Social Justice committee was all wrapped up in squiggly lightbulbs and other environmental causes. When I was part of that team, my interest and focus was on Life and Migrant Worker Outreach. I frankly could not have cared LESS about lightbulbs or Volts or solar panels.

So what is YOUR interpretation?

Lisa
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I think you are right. Social Justice is about doing good for others. Doing the environmental thing is about stopping doing harm to others (or as most prefer “saving the earth”).
 
Cardinal Ravasi and Cardinal Tagle are, in my humble opinion, great men.👍

As is also Cardinal Scherer.🙂
 
BillyT926 said:
There are plenty of great men. I just want the right one for the job.
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Well, of course, that is what we all want here, surely?

The question is: who is that to be? A question that non of us here are qualified to answer.

OTOH, we can all offer our opinions as to what we feel are the qualities of the papabile.

The one I admire very much in Cardinal Tagle, is his modesty: When asked whether he thought he would ever be pope, he said “Perhaps we should ask the Holy Spirit”.

🙂
 
BroomWagon said:
But that said, the Church will need to consider all of these parts of the world. The choice for the next Pope seems very difficult. Difficult to please everyone.
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Why geography, rather than the man himself - his character and spiritual nature - his practice of virtue and love for Holy Mother Church? His main job, after all, is quite simply, the preservation of the Faith.
 
The qualities of my top candidate would be…

the mind of Ratzinger and the heart of both Wojtyla and Ratzinger.
 
Cojuanco said:
My interpretation? Environmental causes within reason are important…

And before anyone accuses me of being a leftist: I am not a leftist…
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I’ve always been concerned about environmental issues, I think bec I grasp that we need healthy food to eat, water to drink, air to breathe; we don’t want toxic chemicals causing us cancer, miscarriages, and a host of other debilitating diseases; and we need a fair Holocene-type climate in which to carry on agricultural pursuits so that we and our billions of brethren will be fed on into the future.

In other words, the environment is fundamental/foundational in the material sense, and that is why God created it first, then put us in it to survive, thrive and “keep the garden,” not turn it into a wasteland. And he pronounced it good!

I think we should avoid the temptation to expect God to turn stones to bread or give water from the mystical rock for us once we’ve harmed earth’s ability thru God’s natural laws and provisions to produce food and other necessities.

I am a conservative on personal issues (chastity, etc), but a bleeding-heart liberal on social issues and not at all ashamed of that…and that’s after being reared and being a Republican in the 40s thru 60s. But I’m sorry to say I am not quite as radical as Jesus is – radical love and option for the poor, downtroddened, and outcast, railing at the “brood of self-righteous vipers” like us. It’s just that Christianity finally outweighed politics for me, but I’m still growing in Christ & have far to go…to the left and to the right. I consider the 10 Commandments (our duties and obligations to God and others) to supersede “My 10 Rights.” I consider America to be basically an un-Christian society, and have thought that way since I was a teen in the 60s. At first I thought it was hypocrisy (I’d hear good things in Sunday school, but few were following them in their daily lives), but then I came to realize we are not hypocrites, but indeed following and are true to our anti-Christian ideology, and have pretty much corrupted the Christian churches into this un-Christian ethos. We fit our Christianity to our self-centered, Enlightenment-based, rights-focused value system. I’m not a politician so I don’t have to lie by saying America is the greatest nation on earth and Americans the greatest people – we are NOT. We are worse than simply victims of a fallen nature.

Because societies like America and Australia are such rich and selfish-philosophy-based nations – and that has an impact on our clergy – I doubt that the Holy Spirit will select the pope from those types of countries, unless that specific cardinal has been able to overcome his unChristian culture in a very significant way.

My prayers are with my ailing nation, which like Cain does not accept responsibility for the evil it does, but denies, denies, denies any culpability. And my prayers are with the whole world.

Holy Spirit send us a good, wise, and prudent Shepherd, and may we all follow him gladly and come out of our evil (mine included) and selfishness.
 
Northumbrian said:
Well, of course, that is what we all want here, surely?

The question is: who is that to be? A question that non of us here are qualified to answer.

OTOH, we can all offer our opinions as to what we feel are the qualities of the papabile.

The one I admire very much in Cardinal Tagle, is his modesty: When asked whether he thought he would ever be pope, he said “Perhaps we should ask the Holy Spirit”.

🙂
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But I think pragamatism is important. We need Saints sure, but we need a Saint who is also disciplined, a great manager, and a guy who gets things done.

It’s tough because we don’t want to look at that temporal side of the job, but it’s real and important. We’ve had saintly men in the Chair of Peter over the past 150 years or so, but we’ve had few great managers of the Church.
 
LisaA said:
I didn’t say anything of the kind but enjoy your life in dreamland.
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And you enjoy your life insisting that it’s too difficult to try to do something that is right. Let’s just give up shall we?
 
The secular world and the People of God are not two separate entities. We are all part of the secular world (unless of course you are live a life as a solitary hermit) and it is the role of the Church to speak out about what is right and wrong for (and with) our wider society.

As an individual you cannot separate your own secular life from your religious faith. We cannot live two lives governed by different codes of conduct. As members of the Body of Christ on Earth, we cannot separate our Church community(ies) from the secular world. We are part of the secular world, and therefore it IS the business of the Church to voice what it thinks the secular world needs and to champion this.

The Church also has a duty, not just for those of us who are part of the Church, but to wider society as the entire planet and all it’s inhabitants are God’s people. Behind every injustice is sin, and the Church should not close it’s eyes to sins committed.
 
My view on environmentalism is this:

I’m all for making sure that someone isn’t dumping toxic waste into the local river…but the crux of the environmentalist agenda has become carbon emissions and “global warming/climate change/etc”. And I’m simply not sold here. The British MET office has shown zero overall warming in sixteen years. SIXTEEN YEARS! And yet glacial melting at the equator continues to be used as an argument to force people to scale back on the technological advances that have greatly improve the quality of life.

As for social justice…earned wealth is not wrong. And even these hedge fund managers everyone likes to beat up on usually make a valuable contribution to society (by, for example, managing retirement funds). I’m all for charity and giving, and helping those truly in need. But I’m also not comfortable depriving people and their children of the lives they have worked hard to build for themselves.
 
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