Fear of hardliner pope
2005-04-10 18:39
Vatican City - Public disappointment with the choice of cardinals electing a successor to John Paul II could be great if the next pope is a hardliner, as seems likely because the majority of the college of cardinal electors is conservative, Vatican watchers warn.
"All popes must be conservative," Chilean Cardinal Jorge Arturo Medina explained on his arrival for John Paul II's funeral and the conclave that is to elect the next pope.
"A pope cannot be a liberal as far as Church doctrine is concerned," he said.
John Paul II named 114 of the 117 electors in the college.
His ultra-conservative views on celibacy, contraception and homosexuality included a refusal to back the use of condoms which may have helped Aids ravage Africa, but he was extremely innovative in other areas.
Reportedly following a request by Joseph Ratzinger, the influential dean of the College of Cardinals, the "princes of the Church" agreed unanimously Saturday not to give interviews to the media ahead of their conclave whose start has been set for April 18.
Ratzinger, who will be 78 on Saturday, is the head of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and celebrated the funeral mass for John Paul II on Friday.
With the backing of powerful Italian Cardinal Camillo Ruini, 74, Ratzinger, who is German, has been fighting ideas brought forward by the leader of the Roman Catholic Church's pro-reform wing, Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, the 78-year-old former bishop of Milan.
"If their views prevail at the conclave, many of the events of John Paul II's papacy will never be repeated," said Sandro Magister, a respected Italian Vatican watcher.
"Camillo Ruini, in a speech made in Lublin, Poland in October 2002, identified a certain number of actions that should never happen again," he said.
"Among them are the ecumenical encounters at Assisi (central Italy), the 'mea culpa', the many trips, the huge mass rallies and the many sanctifications and beatifications," he added.
Magister noted that John Paul II drew a lot of criticism for calling the ecumenical meetings promoting Christian unity and for his apologies to other faiths, such as Jews and the Greek Orthodox Church.
Another Vatican watcher, Giancarlo Zizola, said the pope's fiercest critic was Cardinal Giacomo Biffi, the 76-year-old archbishop of the northern Italian city of Bologna.
Biffi has spoken out against the pope's decision to ask for forgiveness for mistakes made by the Roman Catholic Church in the past and to launch inter-religious dialogue in general.
Ratzinger and Ruini are often cited as possible "papabili" - men who could be pope - but many Italian Vatican watchers see them more as popemakers.
"The hardliners count many Latin American cardinals among their ranks such as Dario Castrillon Hoyos of Colombia, his compatriot Alfonso Lopez Trujillo and Jorge Arturo Medina of Chile," said Zizola.
They are being supported by Catholic movements like Opus Dei, Communion and Liberation, which have become more influential during the 26-year papacy of John Paul II.
"The coalition between some electors of the Curia (the Vatican government) and the fundamentalist wing may be heterogenous but they do agree on a program of authoritarian restoration," he said.
This program wants ecumenical dialogue - between Christian denominations - and inter-religious dialogue, such as talks with Muslims and Jews, to be conditional on a clear reaffirmation that only the Roman Catholic Church holds the truth and is the world's supreme moral authority, said Zizola.
Ratzinger couldn't agree more.
"The more a religion conforms to the world, the more it becomes superfluous," he said in an interview with the conservative Italian news magazine Panorama six months ago.