As the blog's resident College of Cardinals nerd I thought I'd briefly note that while the world's papers have been busy writing a flurry of articles on who might succeed the current pontiff given his prolonged hospital stay, there aren't really any new names emerging in those "the next pope" lists. The names of Cardinals Arinze and Tettamanzi are present on every one of them, and the names of Cardinals Hummes and Ratzinger are on the vast majority of them. Even the other names that fill out the lists are names that have been discussed for some time (like Cardinals Bergoglio, Schonborn, Scola, Rivera Carreara and Rodriguez Maradiaga). Of course none of this means that the next pope must be a name on one of these lists - but the odds would seem to point in that direction. As to what surprises there are, I'm a bit surprised not to see the name of Cardinal Ivan Dias of India on the lists, and I'm deeply troubled to see that the name of Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos continues to be mentioned prominently. While many of the cardinals from Latin America and Africa have continually made heartless remarks about the church's abuse crisis, his comments have been particularly appalling.
Posted by armand at February 7, 2005 12:09 PM | TrackBack | Posted to Culture