{"id":3331,"date":"2013-03-12T09:15:33","date_gmt":"2013-03-12T14:15:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=3331"},"modified":"2013-03-14T21:26:28","modified_gmt":"2013-03-15T02:26:28","slug":"the-popestakes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=3331","title":{"rendered":"The Popestakes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Looks like the new Pope contest begins today, Tuesday<\/a>! Anything could happen, but my prediction, for what little it’s worth, is that an old Italian will get it, someone around 78. Perhaps Cardinal Bertone, despite some rumors of his incompetence<\/a> as Vatican Secretary of State, and his tie-ins with all the bad stuff going on<\/a> in that little fiefdom. Or 79-year old Cardinal Re (not mentioned as a front-runner, admittedly, but who was taken seriously<\/a> in the 2005 papal conclave). <\/p>\n

In my opinion, the cardinals should want to play for time. They know that a “southern hemisphere” pope is inevitable, but may want to give the leading candidates a few more years to mature. So they will — or should, anyway — elect an interim, so as to buy maybe 5 or 6 years. The new\/old Pope could profitably spend that time mopping up the Curial mess that is being left behind by Benedict, then imitate his predecessor by quitting while he’s ahead (if he hasn’t conveniently died by then). <\/p>\n

When that day comes, I’d say that the top 3 in the race would be Turkson from Ghana, Tagle from the Phillipines and the German fellow from Brazil, Cardinal Scherer. I’d venture that Tagle<\/a> is the true “Holy Spirit” candidate, but it depends more on Church politics than Divine inspiration. Otto Scherer supposedly has real support<\/a> this time around, as he is the favorite of the embattled Curia insiders<\/a>. It’s probably a way for the disgraced old school to seem progressive, while in return, their “New World Man<\/a>” would give them a break. A nice little dirty deal.<\/p>\n

Right now the betting odds favor Milan Cardinal Scola<\/a>, a 71-year old Italian conservative. One report calls him Benedict with a bit more likability, something like JP2. Scola could hang around for 10 years or more, and the Church would remain stuck in the JP2\/Ratzinger mud for the next decade. If the cardinals go with Scola, I’d say that the Church is on the road to spiritual sclerosis (to play on words a bit . . .). But then again, in some quarters, Scola is looked at as a potential reformer<\/a>, given that he was never part of the ‘old boy’ network behind the recent Vatican corruption scandals<\/a>. I.e., he would make the Church institution run better and thus do its dirty work even more efficiently, e.g. with the social justice-minded American nuns. To Scola’s credit: he has made some good noises about Christian-Islamic dialog.<\/p>\n

Supposedly, Canadian Cardinal Oullet has a shot if there is a deadlock between two powerful factions (e.g. Vatican insiders versus outsiders). The 61-year old prelate seems like a plain vanilla modern conservative. Again, more status quo, but possibly for two decades. And a Canadian Pope still wouldn’t get many Americans back to the local parishes on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Actually, my prediction here is mostly wishful thinking; just some dreams of a Catholic Church hearing the call of the Spirit once again, as it perhaps did half a century ago, when I was a child. But politics are politics, so there’s probably not much to speculate on other than what name Scola, Oullet or (outside shot) Scherer will take on as Pontiff, sometime this week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Looks like the new Pope contest begins today, Tuesday! Anything could happen, but my prediction, for what little it’s worth, is that an old Italian will get it, someone around 78. Perhaps Cardinal Bertone, despite some rumors of his incompetence as Vatican Secretary of State, and his tie-ins with all the bad stuff going on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3331"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3331"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3331\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3334,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3331\/revisions\/3334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}