Catholic Sensibility

Taking a break from surfing various speculations on the new pope to add a few general observations of my own. 1. The net parish has lined up in two camps: a large one wishing and hoping for their kind of man and a smaller one feeling it's unseemly to openly wonder, but who will post other people's opinions and links on their sites. Let's face it: we're all thinking about it. Hopefully there's some prayer time being put into it, too. 2. My wife was asking why the speculation that the cardinals might want an "interim pope." I've read the historical justification for these selections: compromise candidates to serve until one of the two parties can gain a stronger edge the next conclave. It has the neatness of using indecision as a means for the Holy Spirit to actually inspire a better, if not best choice. On the other hand, a truly do-nothing pope would risk being a drag on the Church in a time when most all of us admit the challenges are with us more than ever. 3. All the talk about the various nationalities or orthodoxies of papabili leave me to the Pauline passage in which he chides his listeners for identifying themselves as with Paul, or with Apollos, or with Christ (the first century analogues of the neo-orthodox, maybe). It would be great to have a pope dedicated to unity, as opposed to one who puts too much trust in cardinals to impose uniformity. 4. If the pope were more a bishop than a world figure or spiritual leader, it would make sense to select the next one from among the bishops or even the cardinals. If I were to be consistent with my stated position on the s/election of bishops, the clergy of Rome should be the first ones considered. But I'm happy to concede that the Bishop of Rome is much bigger than the Bishop of Rome used to be, perhaps even thirty years ago. The cardinals should be considering candidates outside of their club, but none of the big name speculators seem to have that possibility on their radar. 5. Keeping the speculation sensible, this conclave will make an important choice, but there will still be hundreds of conclaves for the Bishop of Rome yet to come. At most, until the continent of Africa completes its tectonic journey into Europe and Rome becomes just another mountaineering peak for visitors from out of town.