No one knows the answer except the College of Cardinals who will cast their vote for a successor unless of course there is an 'unknown' hidden among them. In his book The Public Church published in 2001, Hans Küng writes that "if the Catholic Church is to have a future as an institution in the twenty-first century, it needs a John XXIV who should convene a Third Vatican Council, which will lead this Church from Roman Catholicism to an authentic Catholicity" (p. 211). "Even in the college of Cardinals," he continues, "quite a few are convinced that things cannot go on like this."

Küng considers John XXIII as "the most significant Pope of the twentieth century", and calls John Paul II "the most contradictory of the twentieth century". (ibid., p. 207).

On the other hand, in his imposing biography of Karol Wojtyla, Jonathan Kwitny, a famous American journalist, considers John Paul II as "Man of the Century". Kwitny, who drew on hundreds of first-hand sources to write such a majestic appraisal of Wojtyla's life, portrays John Paul II as "a man who brought fresh hope to millions of the world's oppressed and, who became perhaps the most important person in the resolution of the century's greatest story: the rise and fall of totalitarianism."

But by profession Kwitny is a journalist, and a non-Catholic at that, who looks at Wojtyla's many-sided personality mostly from the impact he had on social justice, peace, and human rights, whereas Hans Küng is a Catholic theologian who together with Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was a peritus at Vatican II but who prefers the priority of the whole Church of Christ to the 'authoritarian' attitude of Pope John Paul II.

One might doubt the sincerity of Hans Küng who could have borne a grudge against the Polish Pope for having withdrawn his permission to teach in the Church after his article "A year of John Paul II" appeared in the great newspapers of the world on the anniversary of the Pope's election. This article was just an "interim assessment" reminding people of the Second Vatican Council, which attracted public attention far beyond the Catholic Church.

And after such a long pontificate, Küng's assessment has not changed much because John Paul II still appears to him less of a successor to John XXIII than to Pius XII, that Pope who, "despite the tremendous personality cult which he enjoyed during his lifetime, has left relatively few positive traces in the most recent history of the Church" (ibid., p. 201). Why?

Because Küng considers John Paul II's conservatism and restoration as a 'betrayal' of Vatican II. Is he right? His erstwhile friend, now rival, Cardinal Ratzinger, disagrees with him. But Ratzinger, who worldwide is known for his conservatism, was not always like that. At Vatican II he was as liberal as Küng, and helped Cardinal Frings deliver one of the most stirring speeches in the four years of Council, calling on Cardinal Ottaviani's Holy Office to reform itself and to conduct fair trials instead of muzzling theologians.

Wojtyla got to know Ratzinger at the Council, and two decades later appointed him Cardinal to head the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. This is what Kwitny (not Küng) write about him: "And Ratzinger became the most controversial figure in the John Paul II administration, often accused of being a new Ottaviani and undermining the very reforms that - few people remembered - he helped stir as a young firebrand at Vatican II" (ibid., p. 180).

At that time, what Cardinal Ratzinger is now calling the "Council mischief" was for him the "true Council" as it has always been for Küng. That is why many people in the know speak of a reversal policy - a policy which does not denote the new beginning (aggiornamento) so much wished for by Pope John XXIII. Did his sudden volte-face have anything to do with his red hat? Or did he belatedly realise that he made a faux pas at Vatican II?

Granted, Küng might for various reasons be right after all in levelling such a harsh criticism at John Paul II, but how come then that this Pope succeeded, as no other Supreme Pontiff before him, in drawing the whole world at his funeral, believers and non-believers, Christians and members of other religions, heads of state, and common people, to the Vatican to pay their last respects to him? Just because he was a man with charisma, a media superstar, and "enjoyed a tremendous personality cult"? Or because he was a man of character deeply rooted in the Christian faith, and for many young Christians a living representative of Christ?

It is an open secret that Karol Wojtyla, coming from Poland, was a conservative and much averse to change especially in Catholic doctrine and morality. Together with his trusted mentor Cardinal Ratzinger, he managed to apply a brake to the progressive theologians during his pontificate by the new canon law (Codex Juris Canonici) promulgated in 1983.

This constant wrangling between extreme conservatives and progressives is bound to keep many important issues in the Church pending, such as: the collegiality of the Pope with the bishops, tangible progress in ecumenism, birth control, priestly celibacy, the ordination of women, remarriages of divorced persons, sexual morality and mixed marriages, etc.

As things now stand, the faithful quietly do what seems right to them or tacitly turn their backs on the Church which no longer understands them. Regardless of the Pope, Western secularisation and pluralism are spreading everywhere, and in certain countries the religious situation is really tragic. The Church has to deal with these problems of contemporary society, whether the outcry comes from Hans Küng or from a bishop who is in charge of a religiously 'volcanic' diocese. Refusal to acknowledge these obvious problems only helps things come to a head.

It is not my intention in this article to pit Pope John Paul II against Pope John XXIII or Hans Küng against Cardinal Ratzinger. Neither can I vouch for Küng as the sole spokesman of John XXIII who died after the first session of the Council to be replaced by Paul VI. Küng quotes his article A Year of John Paul II as the chief reason for the withdrawal of his permission to teach in the Church. Is he correct? Historically, he is right, but as I have read most of his voluminous writing, I cannot help feeling disturbed by his low Christology. No Pope can consent to Küng's denial of the Virgin Birth, the Incarnation, the Holy Trinity and the divinity of Christ, as expressed in most of his books.

To return to our original topic; the future Pope, whether he is John Paul III, John XXIV (actually duplicates don't exist), or most probably some other unknown Cardinal, has to be a man of faith and wisdom, who will have the courage to guide the Catholic Church to an entente cordiale with the religions of all the world, because as Hans Küng says, without at least a global ethics of all religions there can be no peace in the world.

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