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SUNDAY SPECTATOR
April 17, 2005
Urbi et orbi
Tomorrow the Conclave assembles in Rome for the election of a new Pope. I can promise my reader no revelation of who it will be. The Italians have a proverb that many have entered the Conclave a Pope and left it a Cardinal. God must know whom the Cardinals will choose; it is another question whether God will be pleased with their choice. Even to a "secular" audience it is interesting to reflect on what we want in a Pope and why we should want it. Now it is a custom quite established and confirmed in canon law that the Pope should be a Catholic; just as custom and constitutional law have established that the President of the United States should be an American. In both cases the office is so great that its influence extends far beyond the constituency it directly serves. Even people not Catholic nor even Christian have a stake in the selection of the next Pope for he will not only speak "urbi et orbi" -- to the city (Rome) and to the world -- but will be heard that way. I was struck many times during the reign of the late Pope by the praise or condemnation he received from Jews Muslims and agnostics (to say nothing of many Protestants). They spoke as if they had the right to an opinion and I think they did. Most often I was told that the Pope had done or said something that made a difference for better or worse to people outside the Church. Religious people generally even when not Catholic realize that the Pope is a kind of "backstop" for various moral and social issues. He is more than any man in this world able to draw a sacramental "line in the sand" on matters such as contraception abortion marriage and divorce euthanasia. This is why his enemies should so hate him: their hatred is a mark of respect for his power. But it is also why he should have such solid allies -- sincere religious people outside the Roman communion. The Pope's intransigence in the face of the Zeitgeist (my current favourite term for "the prince of this world") reinforces their intransigence; it helps them make a stand. And John Paul II himself did not hesitate to speak often not only for Catholics but as if for "all men of goodwill". He spoke with authority on questions of right and wrong in the full knowledge that Catholic moral teaching is in accord with natural law and therefore in accord with the teaching of all the world's great religions. You will hear essentially the same views expressed on moral questions by everyone from the Grand Mufti of Cairo to the Dalai Lama. The word "catholic" of course means "universal" and one cannot be a Catholic in the upper case without understanding the term in the lower. The world in our evangelical eyes consists entirely of two classes of people: those who are truly Catholic and those who ought to be. It goes without saying that not everyone sees it this way; and the peace of the world requires that everyone be allowed some degree of error. But on the moral statements which a Pope makes there has been pretty broad agreement from time out of mind. Given the times -- the unprecedented onslaught upon the moral order throughout at least the Western world in the last couple of generations -- I think it is more important that we have a Pope with a clear head and a strong spine than that we have one who is "inspirational". It would of course be nice to have both in one candidate but inspiration can come from many unpredictable quarters whereas doctrinal intransigence can come only from Rome. To make a crude analogy the late Pope John Paul II had many of the qualities of Leo XIII (reigned 1878-1903). We have had in other words a Pope of deep personal piety whose chief gift has been to advance the Church in the temporal world. While it is beyond my competence to advise God on his replacement and the Cardinals anyway won't hear I can only pray that we don't now get the kind of Pope we deserve. Instead one who will in the phrase from Ephesians re-establish all things in Christ even at the cost of unpopularity. To conclude this crude analogy what we need after a Leo XIII is I would think another Pius X. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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