Papabile: Papal predictions thread

[Caliga]

So I wonder where he stands on curial reform?

This is how I recommend he conduct a reform of the Curia:

[CountDeMoney]

I actually didn't think Jesuits were allowed to accept church office at all.

There's nothing barring them from it;  it's just traditionally not their thing.   They're doers.

[Camerus]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324077704578358662310569372.html

A Pope From the People

The cardinals choose an Argentine pastor from a missionary tradition.

The Church of St. Peter, a mere 2,000 years old, certainly is capable of surprise. The now-retired Benedict XVI was the first pope in 600 years to resign, and on Wednesday the conclave of 115 cardinals in Rome chose the first non-European pope in a millennium, the first from Latin America, and the first Jesuit. To adapt a Biblical metaphor, perhaps the cardinals decided for a change to follow their flock.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio—now Pope Francis—has spent nearly his entire career in his native Argentina in the pastoral role as a priest and bishop. Though he knows the politics of the Vatican bureaucracy, he is not a creature of it. As an outsider he might thus be in a better position to shake up a Curia that has too often failed the church and recent popes. The church needs a hierarchy that disciplines priests who violate their vows and that cares more about spreading the gospel than gaining someone's ear.

As a pope from Latin America, Francis also represents something of a compromise between the fading Catholicism of Europe and North America and the dynamic church of the developing world. The Latin church is strong but has lost members to more evangelical Christian sects. Francis understands the challenges that Catholicism faces from an energetic, often intolerant Muslim world and from authoritarian governments in the likes of China.

As a Jesuit, he also carries the strong missionary and educational traditions of that muscular order of priests. The Jesuits led the Catholic vanguard into the New World, and millions of Americans have been educated at their high schools and such universities as Marquette and Georgetown. It's somehow appropriate that by choosing the name Francis, the new pope is echoing both the gentle, pastoral St. Francis of Assisi and St. Francis Xavier, the Catholic evangelical.

Notably, however, Pope Francis did not join those Jesuits who became enamored in the last century with "liberation theology," an attempt to do the impossible and blend Marxism with Christianity. His Christianity is less political than personal and theological, though he is not afraid to confront political malfeasance.

Amid Argentina's financial crisis in 2002, then Cardinal Bergoglio offered a sermon in Buenos Aires in which he declared "To those who are now promising to fix all your problems, I say, 'Go and fix yourself.' . . . Have a change of heart. Get to confession, before you need it even more!"

Interrupted by applause, the cardinal added, "The current crisis will not be improved by magicians from outside the country and nor will [improvement] come from the golden mouth of our politicians, so accustomed to making incredible promises."

It will come as no surprise that the Kirchner clan that has ruled Argentina for the last decade are not among his admirers. Perhaps Pope John Paul II, who faced down Communism in Poland, saw a kindred spirit in Bishop Bergoglio when he made him a cardinal.

Much is being made of Francis's age and that he is another doctrinal conservative. His 76 years do suggest his papacy will not be long, and a pope in his 50s would have more energy to clean out the Curia and travel the world. But the papacy is, more even than most other high offices, what God and the man make of it. Even short-timers can be consequential if they choose their priorities well.

As for the lament that Pope Francis is merely another Catholic who believes in Catholic dogma, what do you expect? This is a familiar complaint of secular Western elites who think that religions need to be less religious to survive in the modern world. This strikes us as a misreading of the appeal of Christianity since its founding. And it helps explain why so many in the West seem intellectually and morally disarmed at the aggressive spread of modern Islam.

We'd even suggest that as Western culture asserts ever more proudly the superiority of its moral relativism, the more it might want to listen to religious traditions that argue on behalf of moral absolutes and the inherent dignity of every human being. It's possible this new pope from "the end of the Earth," as he put it in his first blessing, has something to teach those who like to believe they're at the center of the universe.

[Caliga]

They're doers.

I bet.

[CountDeMoney]

Knock it off, Father Funbags.

[Sheilbh]

Edit: Incidentally on O'Malley I think he'll get a lot of votes in the first round. Normally the Cardinals like to vote for undoubtedly holy candidates, who've no chance of winning, in the first round. For example I think in 1978 Basil Hume (another religious) did very well in the first vote.

Aren't they all... religious?  I'm not sure how you could get more religious than a Roman Catholic Cardinal.

Yeah. But the clergy are divided into religious priests and secular priests. The latter are your average parish priest in a diocese. The former are, as fahdiz says, monks or they belong to another order within the Church. The general view has been that being secular was probably essential for Popes - so being Capuchin was a count against O'Malley, Sulpician against Ouellet, Salesian against Bertone and Jesuit against Francis

It's just another rule of the conclave, like 'he who enters a pope leaves a cardinal' and 'you always follow a fat pope with a thin pope' it's often wrong

And I think being the first Jesuit is several orders of magnitude more important than him being a first Latin American pope.

So, Francis of Assisi, Francis de Sales, or Francis Xavier?

Francis of Assisi, according to Cardinal Dolan. An especially interesting hint (as well as the 'rebuild my Church' and care for the poor message) because traditionally Jesuits and Franciscans hate each other

Hoo boy. Those guys are culty.

Less culty than Opus Dei - it's repulsive watching them work a room. But his closeness to them (and Scola's) was seen as black mark by some, from what I understand.

So, in other words, not much different than the rest of the Church abandoning the Society in Central and South America, like the soon-to-be-canonized Pole-Pope.

Except he also apparently personally saved two of his priests, hid many on church property and provided them with fraudulent papers to escape. On one occasion he gave a priest who looked like him his own passport to get out.

They're (originally) Italian, and they loooooooove them some Berlusconi, and they are pretty right-wing AFAIK, but I am not sure that they are neo-fascist.

Yeah. See the investigations going on in Milan. In fairness the Italian Church - under Bergnasco - has hugely distanced itself from Berlusconi. Unfortunately they attached themselves to Monti

I actually didn't think Jesuits were allowed to accept church office at all.

It's discouraged.

[Sheilbh]

A Jesuit.  Wow.  That's big.  I mean, really big.

Why?

Jesuits have tended to be at the fore of reform in the Church. Also as you say they are normally very lefty and really push the social teaching.

But as I say there's interesting hints here. He's a Jesuit who chose the name Francis, he's from a reformist movement but with close ties to the Communione e Liberazione lot.

Edit: Also do we still call the Superior General the Black Pope?

[Scipio]

The Black Ship!

[CountDeMoney]

Jesuits have tended to be at the fore of reform in the Church. Also as you say they are normally very lefty and really push the social teaching.

But as I say there's interesting hints here. He's a Jesuit who chose the name Francis, he's from a reformist movement but with close ties to the Communione e Liberazione lot.

Did you notice he wasn't wearing the fancy jeweled papal cross at the announcement, but his own wooden one?  Telling.

[Caliga]

Yeah, the Church needs to get rid of all of that fruity jewelry and shit like that.  If they weren't such works of art, I'd say dynamite all the grandiose cathedrals and shit too.  Jeebus wasn't about all that crap.  It's the same reason I hate all the goddamn megachurches.

[Sheilbh]

Did you notice he wasn't wearing the fancy jeweled papal cross at the announcement, but his own wooden one?  Telling.

Yep. And he didn't wear the red and ermine mozzetta, though one had been prepared. He's a bit more JPI than Benedict XVI I think.

[Caliga]

Dude, for real.  Benedict wins the Gayest Pope Ever award.  IIRC his great hobbies outside of writing about theological shit included listening to music (show tunes, I'm guessing), playing the piano, and petting cats.

[Scipio]

Jesuits have tended to be at the fore of reform in the Church. Also as you say they are normally very lefty and really push the social teaching.

But as I say there's interesting hints here. He's a Jesuit who chose the name Francis, he's from a reformist movement but with close ties to the Communione e Liberazione lot.

Did you notice he wasn't wearing the fancy jeweled papal cross at the announcement, but his own wooden one?  Telling.

He could almost pass for Metropolitan of the OCA.

[Razgovory]

Dude, for real.  Benedict wins the Gayest Pope Ever award.  IIRC his great hobbies outside of writing about theological shit included listening to music (show tunes, I'm guessing), playing the piano, and petting cats.

St. Peter's Basilica is quite inspiring.

[11B4V]

and petting cats.

Why the fuck do that. Nasty creatures.