While waiting for the election tomorrow and the results on Sunday one can perhaps take a break from politics and concentrate about another impending election. I refer to the election of the new pope.
Many commentators got it all wrong. They were predicting that the cardinals would rush into a conclave. Some were saying that the conclave would be held this weekend. Up till the point of writing the cardinals who are now meeting in their pre-conclave congregations have not decided on the date for the conclave. Probably a decision will be taken this evening.
It is very clear that the cardinals want to move forward with caution and that they want a long enough period of evaluating the present state of the Church. They have also decided that they will stop giving comments to the press. This is somewhat unfortunate. The American cardinals were giving daily press conferences. Now they have stopped. Other, directly or indirectly, were unofficially leaking information. It is not certain that these leaks have stopped.
I share with you a few comments made by, among others, some of the papabile.
Being a papabile is quite a daunting experience. Canadian cardinal Ouellet says that possibility of papacy 'makes me pray' while suggesting that other candidates are better suited to the papacy. In the past he had said that it would be a “nightmare” to be elected Pope.
Comments made by various cardinals show their different concerns and priorities.
Cardinal John Onaiyekan of Abuja, Nigeria, has expressed some frustration at the speeches delivered by cardinals during the congregation meetings this week. He told John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter that: “There are those who consider the running of the Roman Curia very important, but I’m more interested in how we’re able to project the message of Jesus to our people.”
Allen described the Cardinal as a gregarious, outsized personality with a formidable intellect. The Cardinal downplayed his own chances of being elected Pope said that “there’s nothing to stop an African from being the Pope.”
Feathers were ruffled when Nigerian Cardinal John Onaiyekan, Archbishop of Abuja, another papabile, told the National Catholic Reporter that he believed condom use is not only a right "but in some circumstances even a sort of duty" for couples where one partner is HIV-positive, in order to protect the other.
He courageously acknowledged that this viewpoint was not the Church's official view. He added that the Church's education work warning against promiscuity as an effective way of combatting AIDS had proved very successful.
The continuation of a policy of "zero tolerance" to sex abuse was emphasised Chicago's Cardinal Francis E. George. Whoever's elected pope," the cardinal said, "obviously has to accept the universal code of the church now, which is zero tolerance for anyone who has ever abused a minor child, (who) therefore may not remain in public ministry in the church. So that has to be accepted. I think that will not be a problem."
Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, one of the leading papabile, said that the Church must be prepared to concentrate on the essential task of evangelization. Cardinal Rodriguez Maradiaga also said that the Church should continue to root out corruption and abuse “because it is written in the Gospels that the truth shall set you free.”
The Argentinian born Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, Prefect of the Congregation for the Eastern Churches, who is often mentioned as papabile is calling for a greater role for women in the life of the Church. “The role of women in the world has increased and this is something the Church has to ask itself about. … They must have a much more important role in the life of the Church ... so that they can contribute to Church life in so many areas which are now, in part, open only to men.”
Cardinal Sandri also believes that “the Church is ready for a black pope, but maybe the world is not.”
Cardinal George Pell of Sydney, Australia, emphasised the need of a Pope “who can lead the Church and pull it together a bit.” Pell said that the government of the Church “wasn’t always done brilliantly” under Benedict. The Australian cardinal blamed the Pope’s aides.
Till next week, when the conclave will probably start we wait and pray.