`The overall assessment I would offer of the (Catholic) Church's ecumenical drive is, on the whole, a positive one. Yet, the Catholic Church still has to take some fundamental steps and among these is the manner in which the Primacy of Rome is exercised. There is no single method for exercising the Petrine Primacy, in the 2,000 years of the Church's history there have been many different ways. In any case, the Pope himself has declared himself open to a reconsideration of the primacy . . ."
These comments were made by Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, the Archbishop of Milan, in a recent interview with Italian state radio, RAI. Cardinal Martini's interview was but the most recent sign that this has been an autumn when senior and influential Church figures have become increasingly preoccupied with the choice of the man who will lead the Church in the early years of the next millennium.
Given that the all-too-obviously frail John Paul II will be 80 on May 18th next, such concern is only natural. John Paul II's epoch-making reign on the seat of Peter has been in "end of pontificate" mode for some years now and while, in the past, ghoulish speculation about his successor appeared to arouse more interest in the media than in churchmen, this autumn has been different.
Bishops who attended last month's Second Synod for Europe in the Vatican admitted candidly to reporters that the question of the "Next Pope" had recurred frequently during private, informal conversations. Nor was the matter dealt with only in an informal, off-the-record context, since some significant addresses at the Synod appeared to hint at a possible "job description" for the Next Pope.
For example, in his recent radio interview, Cardinal Martini was picking up where he had left off during the Synod when he had called for more "collegiality" in Church affairs. He had gone on to propose some kind of Vatican Council 3 when suggesting that a new body might be created, an effective body of Bishops and laity, men and women who would come together to plan the Church's way forward in the next millennium.
Significantly, that call was totally dismissed at the final Synod press conference where Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi, the Archbishop of Genoa, told reporters that Cardinal Martini's call for a new body "had found no echo" within the Synod.
To those not familiar with Vatican ways, this put-down may seem insignificant. To those in the know, this public rebuff looked like nothing less than a pre-Conclave skirmish. Not only is it extremely rare for Cardinals to disagree in public, but it is important to understand just who these Cardinals are and what they represent. Martini (72) is among the best-known Cardinals in the Church. A Jesuit and a heavyweight theologian, he has for long seemed to embody a more "open", "liberal" and less beseiged Church. For years, the world's media (but not his fellow Italian Cardinals) have seen in him an ideal successor to John Paul II. It is now highly unlikely that Cardinal Martini will ever become Pope, but his clout within the College of Cardinals makes him a grande elettore i.e. someone whose opinion may prove decisive in choosing the next Pope.
Cardinal Tettamanzi (65) has for some time now been tipped as the leading Italian candidate to succeed John Paul II. Formerly secretary to the Italian Bishops' Conference, he appears to have the support of senior Curia figures. During last month's Synod, he was informally pointed out to a number of bishops and Synod workers as "the Next Pope".
When Cardinals Martini and Tettamanzi disagreed, their divergance of opinion concerned the Church's way forward. Put simply, this was a disagreement between those who long for change and innovation and those who wish to maintain the status quo; between those who wish for a greater regional autonomy within the Church and between those who believe in the current, heavily centralised, Vatican-dominated Church; between the local Churches and the Curia.
Speaking at a Synod briefing, the Archbishop of Saint Andrews and Edinburgh, Keith O'Brien, was remarkably frank in outlining the "them" and "us" tensions between (some) local Churches and the Curia: "We are all the Vicars of Christ in our dioceses, that's the teaching of Vatican Council 2, but some of the people around here don't seem to think that way . . . I'm not saying that we come to blows but certainly there is a lot of tension between the Curia and the local bishops. I mean when you are faced with Curia Cardinals in our small group meetings, well, you wouldn't exactly call them a phalanx, but they are certainly pretty intimidating . . ."
Faced at local level with profound and complex problems such as priestly celibacy, falling vocations, falling Church attendance, the role of religious and lay women, widespread Catholic disregard for Church teaching on sexual morality and divorce (to name but a few and to say nothing of the sex scandals that have undermined the Irish Church in particular), many Bishops tend to believe that the Curia has, at best, totally lost contact with the "coalface" of their evangelical mission. At worst, some suspect that the ageing, end-of-pontificate Pope has surrounded himself with an ageing, end-ofpontificate Curia vehemently opposed to change of any sort and at all times.
"This is certainly an older Church now than it was . . . to some extent the movement of reform launched by Vatican 2, its momentum, has been slowed down by the Curia," suggested Archbishop O'Brien last month.
It is, of course, too simplistic to see the next papal election as one that will be dominated by a Curia v local Church confrontation. For a start, there are senior figures in the Curia who share Cardinal Martini's belief in the need for a rethink on papal primacy. On the same weekend that Cardinal Martini gave his radio interview, Basque Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, formerly President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and currently President of the Vatican's Grand Jubilee 2000 Committee, made similar noises.
SPEAKING at an inter-religious congress hosted in Genoa by the non-Vatican lay movement, Sant'Egidio, Cardinal Etchegaray said that the Pope is "not a superBishop", pointing out that in his 1995 Encyclical, Ut Unum Sint (on commitment to ecumenism), Pope John Paul had allowed for a reassessment of papal primacy.
Cardinals Martini and Etchegaray would both argue that their interest in the question of Petrine primacy (the universal authority claimed by the Pope as successor to St Peter) is related to future ecumenical developments, especially in the direction of both the Orthodox and Anglican churches. This may well be so, but such speculation obviously also forms part of a wider assessment of the "job description" of the Bishop of Rome, in particular of the next Bishop of Rome. In that context, too, the ongoing, internal Church debate seems focused more on the nature of the job than on potential candidates, even if there are plenty of the latter.
For example, when the Cardinal Electors (maximum 120, all under 80 years of age) meet in the Sistine Chapel to elect the next Pope, they will have to decide between an innovator and "a safe pair of hands", between a papacy that might mark a radical change of direction and one that would be perceived as a transitional, pastoral pontificate.
Given the epoch-making nature of this pontificate, Pope John Paul II will inevitably prove a very hard act to follow. Should the next Pope be as fluent a linguist, as gifted a communicator and as able a "politician" as John Paul? Would it not be better for the Church to opt for an older Cardinal, a transitional Pope who would project a more pastoral, apolitical and less aggressive image of his evangelical mission? Or, has the time come for the next Pope to consider change to controversial, non-doctrinal tenets of Church teaching such as priestly celibacy and the ban on women priests, teachings based on "Church" law rather than "Divine" law and seemingly heavily based on custom and practice?
On the other hand, is it realistic to expect change from a body of Cardinals, almost 90 per cent of whom have nominated by John Paul II? As the Church moves into the next millennium, would any weakening of the papal primacy not prove dangerous, leading to a potential schismic disintegration of the one billion strong Catholic Church? Many Curia figures argue that one of John Paul II's greatest strengths has been to hold the entire "show" together, pointing out that much of the antipathy provoked in the First World by his ultra-orthodox teachings on sexual morality find no echo in the developing world church.
The shakers and makers in this debate are, of course, the grandi elettori - Cardinals who might once have been papal candidates themselves but who have been outflanked by John Paul II's longevity. Among these are the German Joseph Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (formerly the Holy Office); the Cardinal of Prague, Miloslav Vik; the Cardinal of Paris, Jean-Marie Lustiger; as well as Cardinals Martini and Etchegaray.
AS for the candidates, the jury is still out. Cardinal Tettamanzi would be an "official" Church candidate, backed not only by the Italian heirarchy and the Curia but also looked on favourably by influential lay organisations such as Opus Dei and Communione e Liberazione. The current Secretary of State, Italian Cardinal Angelo Sodano, would be a "safe hands" choice, while "compromise" choices could include such as Belgian Cardinals Godfried Danneels, Archbishop of Brussels, or Jan Schotte, Secretary General of the Synod.
In recent years, media speculation has often suggested that the time has come for a non-European Pope from the Third World. In this context, the names of Nigeria's Francis Arinze, President of the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue, and of Brazil's Lucas Moreira Neves, Prefect of the Congregation of Bishops, are regularly touted. "New entries" in the papal succession stakes include the Cardinal of Bordeaux, Pierre Yet; the Cardinal of Vienna, Christoph Schonborn; and, intriguingly, the Cardinal of Sarajevo, Vinko Puljic. The first two enjoy huge respect from their peer group while Puljic would represent a hugely symbolic choice.
Intriguingly, it is possible that this list does not contain the name of the next Pope. The old Vatican saying has it that "he who enters a Conclave as Pope emerges as a Cardinal". Another one suggests that "he who is elected Pope is the Cardinal with fewest enemies". Curia figures remind one that the Pope's election is the expression of the divine will of the Holy Spirit, working through the Cardinals.
Paddy Agnew can be contacted at pagnew@aconet.it