Paul Wilkes: When in Rome
From John Paul II's funeral to Benedict XVI's election, Beliefnet's correspondent reports on the momentous events in Rome.
Week 1: Dispatches 1-6
Week 2: Dispatches 7-11
Dispatch 12: The Other German
Dispatch 13: Snapshots from the Conclave
Dispatch 14: Collegiality and the College of Cardinals
Dispatch 15: Pope Benedict XVI
Dispatch 16: Anatomy of an Election
Dispatch 17: Print Out This List
Print Out This List
As I rode to the airport after spending three weeks in Rome, the brilliant purple flowers of the Japanese cherry trees were blazing in their full spring glory. Three weeks before, there was nothing. Brown, naked branches. When I arrived, a pope had just died; I leave as his successor has just begun his reign.
That successor, who appeared unbending as the Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger who unequivocally railed against relativism and extolled fundamentalism as the conclave began, became the Benedict XVI who at his installation Sunday proclaimed humbly that he would “...listen, together with the whole church, to the word and will of the Lord.”
This dramatic transformation of a doctrinal watchdog into a gentle pastor has the Catholic world -– and the entire world -– wondering what to make of Benedict XVI. Do his words signal a new, more dynamic and open Catholic Church or, like the blossoms, the flashy onset of still another predictable season?
Many say we should wait and see and, of course, that is what we must do. But let me offer a way to do that. I want to put before you a series of questions, a series of litmus tests, so that we can better evaluate this man -– with the incredibly difficult job he has –- in the months ahead.
Print out this list and tack it onto on your bulletin board or attach it to the refrigerator with a magnet. Every once in a while, take a look. I assembled these questions after consulting a wide range of Catholics -- priests, an advertising executive, a CPA, a former writer for a diocesan paper, an executive at one of our major TV networks, a diocesan staff person, a dozen others.
What do you think? What are your impressions and questions?
Anatomy of an Election
What went on inside the papal conclave that stunned the world not only by acting quickly, but by choosing a conservative loyalist to virtually step into the footprints of the conservative John Paul II?
Someday we may know the full story, gleaned from words spoken openly or leaked inadvertently by one or some of the 115 cardinals of the Catholic Church who were sequestered in the Sistine Chapel and vowed to secrecy—under the pain of excommunication—not to reveal any of proceedings.
But after talking to Vatican insiders and others with years of access to the Curia, and after piecing together shreds of evidence from interviews with church leaders and other experienced Vatican watchers, here is this reporter’s reconstruction of what may have occurred.
Although there had been enormous speculation about the possibility of electing a pope from the Third World, it was obvious early on to Vatican experts that this was an extremely outside possibility. The churches of Africa and Asia, though growing, are still relatively young and fielded no strong candidates. Cardinal Arinze’s name surfaced only to sink quickly; apparently he couldn't gain traction. The church of South and Central America had cardinals like Hummes of Brazil and Maradiaga of Honduras, but at 70 and 62 respectively, both were too young to promise the shorter papacy that cardinals seemed to want following the lengthy reign of John Paul II.
No Americans were ever serious choices; they have neither great support nor standing among their peers—besides which the cardinals would never allow a spiritual seat of power to be occupied by one whose country already powerfully dominates world politics and economics.
As for the Italians, although the name of Tettamanzi of Milan had been circulating for months, if not years, as a sort of John XXIII-type of portly, fatherly figure, he was in fact neither imbedded in the hearts of Italians generally (and this tide of public sentiment is not only an element in papal elections, but part of the home-court advantage of Italians), nor was he considered a major player among the cardinals. That he did not speak English was considered a distinct disadvantage.
As for the progressive cardinals, there were but few of them, and support did not appear to coalesce around any specific candidate. Martini was retired and reputed to have Parkinson’s Disease, Danneels of Belgium, Murphy-O’Connor of Great Britain, and Kasper of Germany, while darlings of those who wanted to set out on the bold path marked by Kasper’s eleventh hour plea, were anomalies among John Paul II's choices, and outnumbered by the vast majority of conservative-leaning cardinals he had appointed. More moderate candidates like Policarpo of Portugal and Lustiger of France would only surface as viable if progressive and conservative voting blocs were deadlocked.
According to aides to two non-American cardinals, Ratzinger entered the conclave with significant backing: Julian Herranz of Spain, head of the Vatican's department for interpreting legislative texts; Dario Castrillon Hoyos of Colombia, head of the department in charge of the clergy; and Alfonso Lopez Trujillo of Colombia, president of the Pontifical Council for the Family. All three have ties to the conservative renewal movement Opus Dei. Apparently, the Spanish-speaking cardinals didn't back a Latin American candidate, as many people speculated they might.
Now, looking back, the conclave may have played out in a very predictable fashion. As Cardinal Theodore McCarrick said after an otherwise news-less press conference this morning at the North American College, “For us in the conclave, it was a moment of grace. And a time of angst” that they would choose the right man.
So, a certain nervousness was present. The cardinals’ every move had been broadcast around the world for the past two weeks. They were both pleased with the coverage, and they felt vulnerable and overexposed. They knew as soon as the white smoke floated from the Sistine Chapel chimney, they would be descended upon once more to say where the new pontificate would be heading. They wanted to come out with heads high, having proven themselves capable of making such a momentous decision in a reasonably short period of time.
So why not choose a pope who would assure the “continuity” that had become the iconic word in the days before the conclave—and one they all knew well? No one filled that description better than the powerful and popular pope's right-hand man, Joseph Ratzinger.
The histories of papal conclaves tell us that the first vote, which occurred Monday afternoon, is often a straw vote in which dominant candidates receive substantial, but not conclusive, support. Other “favorite son” candidates—for instance, a younger man voting for the venerable cardinal who mentored him, just so his benefactor could take to the grave his single step toward the Chair of St. Peter—would receive a wide but shallow sprinkling of votes. Traditionally, these votes change on the second ballot.
The estimate in the Italian press of Ratzinger’s first-round votes fluctuated between 40 and 50. Who else might have received a substantial number of votes to challenge Ratzinger, creating a deadlock whereupon a compromise candidate would have to be found? That is the mystery we may someday discover. Today, 24 hours after the vote, I cannot find out if there ever was a serious challenger. It may be that the bloc favoring conservatism and continuity were united around him, while those opposed were divided among a number of other candidates.
Cardinal McCarrick experienced angst; Cardinal Marc Oueliet of Canada was so restless he had to reach for a bible in the middle of the night, and then first thing upon rising. He had drawn one of the larger rooms in Domus Sancta Marthae, the residence built especially for the conclaves. Cardinal Ratzinger, now the front-runner, had a room no bigger than a “broom closet,” the Canadian noted.
In the conclave the cardinals wore their elegant scarlet robes, at meals, clerical black. There, at table, and while walking the Vatican grounds, they chose various other cardinals from other parts of the world to speak with, to talk about the qualities of various candidates, the needs of the church. “It was like a tower of Babel,” Cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte, another Canadian, related to the press after the conclave. “It wasn’t always easy to be understand.” Cardinals sought a common language, sometimes even lapsing into Latin when all else failed.
On Tuesday, chanting the Litany of the Saints, the cardinals filed once more into the Sistine Chapel. Each round of voting was an excruciatingly slow process, taking about three hours, with each cardinal coming forward to deliver his vote and three cardinals doing the tallying. Some men read, others prayed the rosary, or nodded off to sleep.
As the two votes continued on Tuesday morning, Ratzinger’s numbers probably increased, but were not sufficient to elect him. Who was in his camp from the beginning? Certainly, many within the Curia who knew that Ratzinger could be trusted to keep the powerful bureaucracy intact. In matters like this, he was not an innovator. Among the ideologically like-minded, Ratzinger had the advantage of being the conservative star among ordinary conservatives—he had clamped down on alleged abuses in the church language and liturgy, whipsawed theologians, had written the controversial Dominus Iesus which unequivocally stated the primacy of Catholicism and the “deficiency” of other Christian faiths and non-Christian traditions. He was akin to an American evangelical Christian. In Ratzinger’s case: salvation through not only Jesus Christ, but in the Catholic Church alone.
His age was perfect, 78, promising both continuity and brevity, a way for the cardinals to catch their breath after John Paul II’s long reign. And his credentials were impeccable. He had used the buzzword “fundamentalism” triumphantly and unequivocally at the Mass of the Holy Sprit that launched the conclave Monday morning. Although there was a sprinkling of cardinals considered even more traditionalistic than Ratzinger, they were too bizarre and not known well enough to be elected. There were actually not too many to the right of Ratzinger; he dominated and embraced a wide swath of the cardinals.
With the votes on Tuesday morning, his numbers may have grown while no one else’s did. Cardinals remembered little favors he had done for them. (In the press conference today, Cardinal Egan of New York noted that Ratzinger had left a retreat to return to Rome to send him off.) The Third World cardinals, who are equal in voting power but certainly not in influence, knew Ratzinger as their rabbi, their fixer. He could pave the way among curial offices, assist in getting needed aid, push through stalled paperwork. As Dean of the College of Cardinals, all roads led to him. Ratzinger could make things happen; the cardinals felt comfortable because while they didn’t know each other well, they all knew him, somewhat shy, self-effacing, prayerful, helpful, and courteous—as well as decisive and only second in power to John Paul II.
By Tuesday afternoon, perhaps the holdouts were capitulating. It was obvious who was going to win; why keep the world waiting? It would show a bold and clear-headed decisiveness on their part. Cardinals like to leave a conclave having voted for the eventual winner, the man before whom they would soon kneel, and pledge their troth, whose hand they would kiss in the ultimate act of submission to God’s will. After all, there was no real competition. Ratzinger’s name was called out over and over again as the votes were counted. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor of Great Britain recalled to the Associated Press the “suspense” in the great hall as the cardinals in the great room knew that they would soon have a pope. “When the majority was reached, after 77 or 78 votes, there was a sort of gasp all around, and then everyone clapped,” he said. Cardinal Ratzinger’s hands were still. He “had his head down,” Murphy-O’Connor said, “I think he must have said a prayer.”
The cardinals awaited the new pope's formal acceptance. In a low voice roughened by a cold, Ratzinger told them he would like to be known as Benedict XVI, honoring Saint Benedict, the patron saint of Europe, and Benedict XV, the pope who tried to stop the First World War. "I, too, hope in this short reign to be a man of peace," the new pope said, according to Cardinal Francis George of Chicago.
Then, as a body, the group rose to applaud their new leader. There were smiles. Cardinal Joachim Meisner, another German, wept. Joseph Ratzinger looked, according to Meisner, “a little forlorn” as he left to change into his papal vestments in the Room of Tears, given that name because the newly elected leader of the Catholic Church would often break down into tears, realizing what had just happened and what lay ahead.
"It's wonderful to be in a group of 115 people, and you're all equals. You're all talking: Eminence this, Eminence that, first name this, first name that. And then suddenly, one of you is different," said Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick of Washington. "He's no longer one of you. He's the Holy Father, the successor to Peter and the Vicar of the Christ."
This fraternity of equals now parted company, never to be the same again. Joseph Ratzinger proceeded to the balcony of St. Peter’s to be proclaimed Benedict XVI, the 265th pontiff. His fellow cardinals crowded onto other balconies to watch him address some 100,000 people below. The new pope was on the balcony for perhaps twenty minutes. After his election, Pope Benedict invited all the cardinals to stay and dine with him, as John Paul had done in 1978. They ate Italian bean soup, chicken cordon bleu and ice cream, washing it down with spumante. At the end of the evening, he returned to the humble room he had left that morning as Joseph Ratzinger to spend the night.
Pope Benedict XVI
With the word “Joseph” the applause erupted from the expectant crowd, which had overflowed St. Peter’s Square. They knew the rest of his name. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, a confidant of Pope John Paul II, his loyal head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, was now his successor. He will no longer be Joseph, but Benedict, Benedict XVI, the 265th successor of Peter, the humble fisherman, the rock upon whom Christ founded his church.
There was initial confusion in the square at 6 P.M., Rome time, as the smoke curling out of the Sistine Chapel's chimney was first murky then white, murky, white. But finally the great bell high atop St. Peter slowly began to move. There was no doubt now. “Habemus papam,” as Cardinal Jorge Arturo Medina Estevez announced from the famed balcony of St. Peter’s, “We have a pope.”
Cardinal Ratzinger had staked his candidacy on two crucial homilies over the past ten days, one of which was a glowing tribute to Pope John Paul II and his legacy at the pontiff’s funeral. The second was a bold statement of his traditionalist thinking at the Mass of the Holy Spirit that began the conclave on Monday. He condemned liberalism and relativism and firmly embraced, “fundamentalism” as the true path for Catholics.
That he was elected so quickly was testament to the collective will of the cardinals—virtually all appointed by John Paul II—that the deceased pope’s strict interpretation and enforcement of Catholic teaching be continued. While it may never be known exactly how the vote went within the conclave, since the cardinals are sworn to secrecy, both the speed and the outcome defied the predictions of most Vatican experts. Most expected the conclave to last until at least tomorrow, as the cardinals searched for a compromise candidate. Most also expressed skepticism that any of the obvious front-runners, Cardinal Ratzinger among them, would be chosen. But there obviously was no call for compromise if Ratzinger won so soundly in just the fourth round of voting.
The mood of the crowd in St. Peter’s was in keeping with the man chosen to be pope—happy the election was over, but restrained. The man who is now Pope Benedict XVI extended his arms to the crowd, clasped his hands together in a victory grasp, but seemed almost to force a smile from time to time. Those who have seen him outside of his official capacities say he is a good dinner companion, extremely intelligent, but a man careful with his words and emotions.
Chants of “Papa, Papa” rose up from the crowd, but died down after no more than a minute or so. It was not the emotional welcome that in 1958, for example, greeted Pope John XXIII, who was beloved by the Italian people and, with his pudgy face, immediately endeared himself to the rest of the world.
Benedict XVI’s more stern appearance was still greeted warmly, and people I talked to as the square emptied after the new pope’s somewhat short appearance and greeting, rendered only in Italian, were generally pleased with the choice. “Brilliant,” said John Goleska of Bristol, England. “ After all, the cardinals know best what we need.” Erich Eitel of Rostock in Ratzinger’s native Germany, who kept his hands reverently folded as the crowd waited for the announcement, struggled to put his thoughts into English. “Consistent” was the word he finally found that summarized his thinking. “Yes, in the line with John Paul II, a continuation.”
Two priests from England were beaming. “Liberal Catholics will just have to get used to it,” they said, their tone more suggestive of an attempt at unity than their actual words. An American seminarian said, following up, “It’ll be okay. It will be a short reign and Ratzinger isn’t all people say he is.”
The installation of Pope Benedict XVI will be held Sunday at St. Peter’s.
Collegiality and the College of Cardinals
There seems no better time than today to talk about the oft-tossed-about word “collegiality.” Cooperation is another way of saying it, or working as a group for the common good of the church. For this afternoon the 115 voting cardinals gathered together as a body to cast the first votes in this historic conclave.
For the conclave to choose the next pope is the most collegial of Catholic Church rituals. Not only do the cardinals dress exactly alike in their elegant cassocks, with row of red buttons and the blazing wide red sash, but each is considered a "prince of the church," equal among peers in the college of cardinals, their very exclusive club. In the run-up to the conclave, each cardinal was permitted a voice in conversations they held to discuss issues facing the church and therefore to collegially sketch out a rough job description of the kind of man who could best address them.
Of course, some voices were listened to more seriously than others. But when each cardinal writes down the name of another of the cardinals gathered in the Sistine chapel this evening, it will count no more and no less than any other--exactly one. That sometimes bugaboo word within Catholic circles--democracy--reigns here. And yet, once habemus papem,“we have a pope,” rings out across St. Peter’s Square and a white-robed figure appears at that great window, will the fraternite and egalite live on?
Although Pope John Paul II's various documents, as well as those of Vatican II, called for consultations with cardinals, bishops, priests, and lay people--even a radical reconsideration of the role of the papacy--there actually was very little evidence of give and take during his reign. John Paul II’s voice was heard consistently and clearly, and those who sought in the early years of his 26-year reign to register views or bring up issues that he did not want to consider soon found themselves considered unfaithful, then unwelcome, visitors whose very words or writings were going into their personnel file and would neither enhance their career opportunities nor promise access to the pope. By the end of his papacy, certain issues were banned from discussion, and even certain words were banned from use.
Meanwhile, the national groupings of the hierarchy throughout the world--in America called the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops--found their voices muffled. Instead of being active participants in the governance of the universal church, the bishops' dreams faded. Within their dioceses they may look like powerful leaders and teachers, but they are often considered more like branch managers called upon to carry out policies dictated by the home office of what has the appearance of a multinational corporation.
Some say collegiality may be the most crucial, overarching need in the new papacy–-listening, consultative, seeking the unifying balm for a fragmented church that has lived under what some writers even called a monarchical leader, not the more pious approbation, "servant of the servants of God."
So let’s hear from those on the outside looking in and from an insider now looking out:
“The word ‘collegiality’ can mean many different things,” says Father John Navone, who teaches at Gregorian University. “To a great extent it depends on the understanding of those who are defining it--from the broadest, most consultative approach to a more teamwork kind of approach that realizes these are complex times that demand complex thinking--but then clear statements that everyone supports.”
“In this administration, it meant ‘Do you hear me out there? Here is the way it will be,’ says a Rome insider who prefers not to be identified by name. “All this, very collegially, of course. The pope’s choices of bishops showed that he never expected them to be collaborators, but obedient followers.”
Although he was not appointed by John Paul II, Archbishop John R. Quinn served a good part of his time as the leader of the San Francisco diocese under him, from 1977-95. Every five years, bishops come to Rome for their ad limina visits. “These were very spiritual experiences for us bishops, to say Mass with the pope, to be in his presence--but there was a more ceremonial, than practical aspect to them. You would be brought into the pope’s presence for your eight to ten minute visit, he would point to your diocese on the globe, and you would make light conversation and leave.
“To me, it would have been more useful to talk of specific issues. For example, to say 'Archbishop Quinn, how did my encyclical Utunum Sint (On Christian Unity) register in your area of America? Are the Protestants talking about it? What can you do--what can I do--to help the dialogue?' That sort of interchange never took place. The pope would be more conversational at lunch, but I don’t think we bishops were as candid with the many difficulties that we were experiencing as we should have been.”
Catholicism’s revolutionary Second Vatican Council called for a return to a more participatory church so that a variety of voices would be heard. Twelve synods were held under John Paul II; Archbishop Quinn attended three. The archbishop's theologically tuned and very orderly mind often delivers responses in a linear fashion. “As for the synods--one, they were not well organized, two, they were highly controlled, and three, they were not very productive. We bishops offered our views and then when the synod document came out we were never referred to. The Vatican had written the report, not the participants.”
To which my Vatican source, who followed the synods, added, “It was something akin to the Politburo. It didn’t matter what you said. We have the conclusions and policies going into the meetings and we will have the same conclusions and policies when we leave.”
Archbishop Quinn noted an example. “When the Asian synod was in preparation, the Vatican sent out a directive saying that the word ‘subsidiarity’ was not to be used.” Subsidiarity means that church matters should be decided at the lowest possible level, rather than all decisions made by a central authority, namely, Rome. “You can imagine the impact this has; people will be naturally reluctant to express exactly what is at issue in their home diocese if certain useful words are banned from use.”
Father Tissa Balasuriya, the Sri Lankan theologian who was excommunicated by (and later reconciled with) the Vatican for his writings on Mary and original sin, on Saturday restated what to many is the obvious: “The national conferences should have a way to legislate within their own jurisdiction; they know the needs of their people better than Rome.
“There were two great fears during this papacy: the rise of national churches, and schism,” Bishop Quinn said when we talked at length by phone. “These are real fears; every part of the world cannot go about being ‘Catholic’ without any unifying structure. But I think we need not be so strong in the central administration of the church; there are other paths. In fact, the Holy Father’s own documents on collaboration are wonderful guides for the future. We just need to read and follow his words. And I recall a meeting he had with the Pennsylvania and New Jersey bishops where he encouraged their participation in the governance of the church. He has left us a wonderful roadmap for the future of the church.”
Archbishop Quinn was president of the American bishops' conference from 1977-1980, just at the beginning of John Paul II’s reign. For some, these were among the golden years of the American hierarchy, when the bishops spoke boldly, issuing documents on such issues as peace and the economy. “I think those letters did a great service to further the debate by stating church teachings as they relate to a present situation,” Archbishop Quinn said. “Not everyone agreed with us, which was good. They got enormous national and even international attention. They produced the desired effect, which was to raise the issues and engage in honest debate. I just don’t see that same initiative and imagination in the bishop’s group these days.”
In fact, the Vatican further clamped down on these national conferences of bishops in an innovative way, proclaiming they couldn’t rule on any doctrinal issue–loosely defined–without a unanimous vote. “Even when the Immaculate Conception was defined as dogma during Vatican I, 100 bishops left Rome so they wouldn’t have to vote. We bishops and the Vatican both know that such unanimity is a practical impossibility.”
And so, the stage is set for the next pope. Will he rule with the firmness of John Paul II, or lend an ear to fellow bishops and give more freedom to national bishops’ conferences? Which groups within the conclave will stand behind which men, who hold vastly divergent views of collegially, but who see their path as the right one?
“I just hope, in the best collegial style,” Father Andrew Greeley, the sociologist, novelist and Vatican-watcher known for his liberal leanings, told me over breakfast one morning, “that the cardinals have both a perception of themselves as a group looking out to the world and, hopefully, a perception of the world looking in upon them. What will that world see? Only the days ahead, the years ahead will tell us that.”
Snapshots from the Conclave's First Act
In the Catholic tradition, for mortal human beings, the primary source of continuing grace and sustenance is the sacrifice of the Mass. And this morning, the Mass of the Holy Spirit was said in Rome, asking God to guide the cardinals and officially opening the conclave that will select the new pope. What follows are some snapshots from a vantage point close to the altar:
“The small boat of thought of many Christians has often been tossed about by these waves,” he warns. But the sturdy bark of Catholicism shall not be buffeted or set off course by these passing storms. “Having a clear faith…is often labeled as fundamentalism,” he proclaims--and that is clearly the camp in which the cardinal wants to be situated. It is a strong, biblically referenced homily. It is also his final political speech to the gathered cardinals before the conclave begins. It will be looked upon as the platform that led to his successful election as pope or as a brazen attempt to sway the conclave, the final nail in his coffin.
The Other German
Either it will go down as one of the seminal moments in the events leading up to the conclave, or it will fade away as no more than a whisper, not even a footnote in history, much less a headline.
Last night, by chance I was in Trastevere, Rome’s Bohemian sector, attending Mass at the breathtakingly beautiful Santa Maria church. As the Mass began, I was surprised to see that the celebrant was wearing a zucchetto. From the back of the huge church, the skullcap looked purple, marking him as bishop. My eyes slowly adjusted. It was red. The sign of a cardinal.
It turned out to be not just any cardinal, but Walter Kasper of Germany, whom the Italian newspapers that morning had named as a member of a group of moderates and progressives trying to block the election of a fellow German prelate and current front-runner, the conservative Joseph Ratzinger.
Political coverage in the Italian press is notorious for passing along as (almost) fact tactfully dropped leaks that are meant to either promote a candidate or poison the well. So this must be taken into account, as the Vatican is a surely a political, as well as spiritual, institution--and there are those who want to float or to torpedo the candidacy of Kasper or any in his ideological camp.
Cardinal Kasper’s sermon, on this weekend when the gospel reading of the Good Shepherd could have allowed him a warm and fuzzy appreciation of John Paul II, must be viewed as not only a direct rebuff to Ratzinger, but also as a bold and last-minute statement of progressives who believe the Church must chart another path.
Relying on the translation of National Catholic Reporter’s Stacy Meichtry, who also was there and who understands Italian, Kasper’s sermon seemed to be cautioning both those within the College of Cardinals as well as last night’s jammed church not to indulge in a hero worship that some have called “papidolatry .”
“Just as it is forbidden to clone others…it is not possible to clone Pope John Paul II,” Kasper said during his forceful 12-minute homily. "Every pope ministers in his own way, according to the demands of his era." His reference to cloning was particularly apt, linking bedrock Catholic teaching to the present moment—a surely not unconsidered statement about choosing the next pope.
"We need a pastor who is strong but compassionate," he said. "A pastor with a heart." Not exactly words that might be used to describe the other German cardinal. It is not a secret, either in the Vatican or within the Catholic world, that Ratzinger and Kasper occupy contrary positions. Kasper told an Austrian Catholic paper that Dominus Iesus--the pope’s statement, but which bore Ratzinger’s mark, affirming Catholicism’s supremacy--“offended people. And if my friends are offended (referring to his years of Catholic-Lutheran dialogue) then so am I. It’s an unfortunate affirmation--clumsy and ambiguous.” Clumsy and ambiguous are certainly not casual terms between a cardinal and the Vatican.
In various magazines, such as America in the United States and The Tablet in London, Kasper has repeatedly called for a scaled-down and more temperate church bureaucracy. He has openly supported divorced and civilly remarried Catholics in receiving the Eucharist, something they are currently forbidden under Church law. When Kasper registered his view, Ratzinger rejected this approach and maintained that only those who have received a marriage annulment and therefore are fully in communion with the Church could approach the altar to receive.
In a 2001 article for America, Kasper said his thinking on the Church of Rome and the Church of the People was “…Reached…not from abstract reasoning, but from pastoral experience. As a bishop of a large diocese, I had observed how a gap was emerging and steadily increasing between norms promulgated in Rome for the universal church and the needs and practices of our local church.” He said his people could not understand the many new regulations and therefore ignored them. Thoughts like these may be in many a bishop’s mind, but few are willing to publish them.
Kasper’s affinity for Rome’s Trastevere church also says much about the man. This is the home for the Community of St. Egidio, a powerful lay movement whose members both operate soup kitchens and travel internationally as ambassadors of peace.
That Kasper has been so outspoken as somewhat of a Catholic populist and was so unpretentious about saying the Mass I attended certainly sets him apart from the typical cardinal. He didn’t wear the traditional high-peaked miter and, while other priests were in attendance concelebrating with him, there was none of the clerical fussiness that often attends such occasions. At Cardinal Law’s mass in St. Peter’s last week with its profusion of lace and kneeling attendants, one would have thought a Medici was being crowned.
Kasper’s tone during the homily was conversational. The Mass seemed more like a weekend liturgy in a normal parish church--a church that included the well-dressed, those in jeans and leather jackets, many young people, young couples with children, as well as the woman who sells roses on the square outside.
Kasper had kept a low profile since the death and funeral of John Paul II. Until the Santa Maria sermon. One can only speculate: did he want his say before he was sealed into the conclave? Did he want to be able to say to himself, whoever is elected, that he did not remain silent while his brother cardinals did? What was he thinking as he prepared the homily? Perhaps some day we will know if, indeed, this is the headline and not just a footnote for the papal conclave.
“As the Gospel says, the pastor needs familiarity, mutual caring and reciprocal trust between him and his flock,” he said in that homily. “Let’s not search for someone who is too scared of doubt and secularity in the modern world.”
If this was not a direct rebuttal of the Ratzinger manner of systematically condemning the ways of the world and the proposing of a new course for the papacy, then either Stacy Meichtry’s translation was faulty or the acoustics were bad last night in Santa Maria in Trastevere. But I think neither was the case.
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