April 10, 2005

An Update on Cardinals Darmaatmadja, Ouellet and Bergoglio

OK, here's your papal conclave post for today. I've noticed that John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter has a list of 20 top possibilities for the next pope posted on that organization's website. The only names that are new to me as papabile on this list are Cardinal Darmaatmadja, a Jesuit and the Archbishop of Jakarta, and Cardinal Ouellet, the Archbishop of Quebec City. The latter is one of the youngest cardinals, and that could count against him. But he is multilingual, a clear doctrinal conservative, and popular with many in the current establishment. Cardinal Darmaatmadja is a very interesting possibility. Much attention is being given to the next pope's possible dealings with the Islamic world and the interest of the Church in protecting and appealing to the poor - Darmaatmadja would seem to have a strong resume for dealing with those issues. Still, while certainly an intriguing choice, and one that makes some sense if the Church is interest in reaching out to Asia, I'll be surprised (though not at all unpleasantly) if he gets the nod.

As to other contenders I've noticed that several news outlets have suggested the fact that Cardinal Bergoglio only has one lung might imperil his candidacy. I suppose it might - but if so, that's really silly. He's only had one lung for something like 50 years, and he's relatively young and seemingly in good health at the moment. And at a time when many cardinals seem to be concerned about starting another lengthy papacy I suppose it's conceivable that this could actually work in his favor since at 68 he's younger than a large majority of the College of Cardinals.

Finally I'll note that it's interesting to have seen quotations from a couple of cardinals this week that the default thinking still seems to be to pick an Italian as pope. I forget the exact quotation and which US cardinal it came from, but one of them stated (and another cardinal was on the record agreeing with him) that given that the pope is Bishop of Rome the next pope is likely to be an Italian - though if they can't agree on an Italian, then it will be someone from Latin America.

Posted by armand at April 10, 2005 04:25 PM | TrackBack | Posted to Religion


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