The next pope

Catholics watching images of the recent papal Mass in Lourdes will have been saddened at the palpable extent of Pope John Paul’s physical decline, even after years of observing illnesses devastating this once robust pontiff.

So it is no surprise that as close an associate as Cardinal Godfried Danneels should be speaking of a time without Pope John Paul, whose sheer perseverance through years of affliction have forced more updates to already drafted obituaries than most newspaper editors would care to remember.

While Pope John Paul has defied predictions of his death for many years, the day may approach sooner than later when the world’s cardinals will be called to Rome to bury the old pontiff and elect a new one.

It is not premature to ponder, even in a Catholic periodical, what calibre of man might succeed Pope John Paul.

The pundits tend to look at individuals who may become the next pope on basis of nationality, philosophy, connections and age. Some anticipate an interim pope who will warm the seat for a younger man (a role once ascribed to Pope John XXIII, who proceeded to launch the greatest Church reform in centuries). Some would like to see a progressive reformer; others would prefer a pope who might continue John Paul II’s conservative agenda without what they regard as aberrations, such as his ecumenical détente and frankness on issues of social justice and peace.

Inter-faith issues and social justice will undoubtedly remain high on the agenda of whichever man is to become pope (these areas may well form part of his mandate).

And yet, he will have to be quite unlike the inimitable John Paul. The next pope will have his own style and priorities, and he will interpret the needs of the Church in his own way and from a different perspective.

He will have to consolidate the accomplishments of John Paul’s pontificate, but also be called on to introduce certain reforms. He will not liberalise the Church’s position on issues such as clerical celibacy or artificial contraception (such consideration may well be the domain of a later pope), but he will be expected to offer a greater measure of episcopal collegiality, a pillar of Vatican II which has been diminished over the past few decades.

The cardinals–many of them diocesan archbishops who are not content with what they see as the exceedingly centralised ways of the Vatican–may well elect a man who has the fortitude to reform a potentially resistant curia.

The next pope will also have to engage with a restive laity, which clearly is no longer inclined to offer unquestioning acquiescence with every ecclesiastic decree.

At the same time, the growing influence of lay movements–from Opus Dei and Focolare to the Community of Sant’Egidio–will introduce alternatives to the traditional diocese/parish organisation of the Church. A new pope will have to navigate the inherent tensions between these movements and conventional Church structures.

The next pope will have to seek ways to unite an increasingly polarised Church. It is difficult to discern Christ amid much of the bile that marks dialogue (if any at all) between “conservative” and “progressive” Catholics. Communion within the Catholic Church is not served by dissimilitude and alienation, and the next pope will need to coalesce the various tendencies.

These are but a few of the formidable tasks that will confront the next pope. Whoever may succeed Pope John Paul II, may God then grant him the strength to meet these challenges.