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Lent in the Vatican: The Pope, the Curia, and the Conclave Sickness is not preventing John Paul II from fighting out his last battle. But in the meantime, maneuvers over his succession are underway. The contenders are Ratzinger, three Italians, and one outsider by Sandro Magister ROMA, February 11, 2005 – From the microphone in his room on the tenth floor of the general hospital operated by the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, "Policlinico Gemelli," John Paul II's post-Angelus blessing came to St. Peter's Square, his voice hoarse and broken. In addition to his infirmity, silence will now be increasingly more pronounced in the life of this pope. But nothing can stop him, much less induce him to resign: "Here in the hospital, too, I continue to serve the Church and all humanity." The Angelus of Sunday, February 6, carried by television stations all over the world, was a trailer, a preview of the next phase of the pontificate. This was true of both the images and the soundtrack. In St. Peter's Square, among the green balloons carried by members of the Movement for Life, stood Cardinal Camillo Ruini, John Paul II's vicar for the diocese of Rome and president of the Italian bishops' conference. By the pope's side at the window of the hospital could be seen Argentine archbishop Leonardo Sandri, the substitute secretary of state, and the young Polish priest Mietek, a fresh reinforcement for the pope's personal secretariat. The pope entrusted the reading of his message to Sandri, as he has done more and more frequently for almost two years. Fr. Mietek held in front of the pope a sheet with the Latin blessing and final "thank you" printed in large characters. The pope had wanted to say these words personally, and did so, with some difficulty. Sandri is, in effect, the curia. He's the one who makes the wheels turn, cardinal secretary of state Angelo Sodano's faithful and shadowy man of action. John Paul II has never taken charge of the ordinary governance of the Church; he has always delegated it to the Roman curia. And now that his strength is diminished, this delegation has become more broad and is reinforcing the power of Sodano and his men. The rule is that the head of each dicastery should leave his office when he reaches 75. Sodano will turn 78 in November, but he's still at his post. The pope didn't want to lose him. Joseph Ratzinger, who will turn 78 in April, is another one of these elderly cardinals who are irremovable due to the wishes of John Paul II. If Sodano governs the politics of the Church, Ratzinger is the one who watches over its doctrine. He has done so for twenty-three years, as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Among the 119 cardinals who currently have the right to participate in the conclave, Ratzinger is one of only three remaining who elected Karol Wojtyla in 1978: all of the others received the purple from the reigning pope. But his star is not on the decline by any means. There is a widespread group, and not only within the curia, campaigning for Ratzinger as the next pope. It is a group that made the cover of "Time" a month ago. Age is not a barrier, they note: Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli was elected at 77 years of age, and then convened Vatican Council II, no less, a revolution in the Church of the 20th century. Ratzinger's supporters now want him as pope precisely in order to repair the failures of that revolution and to guide the Church along a sure path. But there is another circle in the curia that is even closer to John Paul II: it is the one seen at the window of the February 6 Angelus in the person of Fr. Mietek. The leader of this circle is Stanislaw Dziwisz, from Poland, Wojtyla's personal secretary since he was the bishop of Krakow. Its second-in-command is another Polish archbishop, Stanislaw Rylko, president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity and the author of the pope's most important speeches. Dziwisz is much closer to John Paul II than were the previous papal secretaries, Pasquale Macchi, with Paul VI, and Loris Capovilla, with John XXIII. Pope Wojtyla's infirmity and difficulties in speaking have expanded his role even more. During the first days of the pope's recovery in the hospital, no other head of the curia who rushed to visit him had access to his room, not even the powerful cardinal Giovanni Battista Re. Dziwisz was the only one who stayed at the side of the illustrious patient day and night. And in the following days, when the first visitors came to the pope's bedside, precedence went to the churchmen in his secretary's good graces, like the bishop of Terni, Vincenzo Paglia, a member of the Community of Saint Egidio and an aspiring successor to Ruini as the pope's cardinal vicar. Nevertheless, the presence of cardinal Ruini in St. Peter's Square at the Angelus of February 6, and to a greater extent a key passage of the message read for the pope, disprove the claim that John Paul II doesn't decide anything anymore. It's the other way around. Some matters are closer than any other to the heart of pope Wojtyla, and he wants to continue fighting for these with a resolution entirely unhampered by his physical frailty. One of the questions fundamental to him is "the defense of unborn life." Cardinal Ruini was in the piazza precisely for this reason: February 6 was the "Day for Life" in the Church of Italy. And the pope said in his message: "I am at the side of the Italian bishops." That means, concretely: at the side of the strenuous defense of the inviolability of the embryonic person, who is threatened by the upcoming referendums against law 40/2004 on artificial procreation. Among the typically Wojtylian battles that have distinguished this pontificate, the defense of life is almost certainly destined to continue with his successor as well, unlike other matters that will slip into the shadows, like the interreligious meetings such as the ones in Assisi and the "mea culpas." In the conclave that will choose the next pope, in fact, if Ratzinger himself is not elected, it will in any case be someone upon whom he will make his authoritative guidance felt, in agreement with Ruini, the other major elector. Both are convinced that the relationship between the Church and the modern world will be decided by what they call the "anthropological challenge," the confrontation between the Christian vision of man and the one that reduces him to a part of nature. Other than the present cardinals, the ones John Paul II might soon create would also enter the conclave. Expectations are that he will elevate these cardinals by June, or October at the latest. Among those who will certainly receive the purple are: Rylko; the archbishop of Bologna, Carlo Caffarra, a convinced adherent of Ratzinger's views; and the new archpriest of St. Peter's Basilica, Angelo Comastri. The latter was the preacher at the 2004 Lenten retreat for the pope and the curia, and he held everyone spellbound, beginning with Dziwisz and Rylko. As the archbishop of Loreto, he met John Paul II on his visit to the Marian shrine in September. The Polish friends of pope Wojtyla favor him as his successor. The new entry of Comastri could bring to three the number of Italian candidates for the papacy. The other two are Dionigi Tettamanzi, archbishop of Milan, and Angelo Scola, patriarch of Venice. Tettamanzi has never made any secret of his aspirations, and counts on combining the consensus of the moderate and progressivist wings of the college of cardinals. He advanced in Wojtyla's shadow, as the author of his speeches on the family and bioethics, but for a few years now he has put these topics aside and taken aim at globalization, plutocracy, and media hegemony. He has the support within the curia of Cardinal Re, and outside it of the network of the Community of Saint Egidio, whose initiatives of ecumenical and interreligious dialogue he has adopted. But he has lost the much more decisive support of Opus Dei. In the Vatican, the Opus Dei cardinal most active in view of the conclave is Julián Herranz, a great jurist and the president of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts. Ratzinger's leap to the top of the list of candidates for the papacy is also due to him; it took shape at the suppers for cardinals that Herranz organized at Opus Dei's heavily guarded villa in the Roman countryside, or at his new apartment behind St. Peter's Square. The rise of Scola's candidacy also owes a great deal to Opus Dei, which co-directs the "Marcianum" institute of studies founded in 2003 by the patriarch of Venice. Scola's intellectual formation took place in the wake of Ratzinger, so as for the cardinal of Vienna, Cristoph Schönborn, who is frequently cited as another candidate for the papacy. Scola is also gaining credibility outside of Italy, partly through a brand-new magazine in five languages, including Arabic and Urdu, "Oasis," which is sent free of charge to all the cardinals and bishops of the Middle East and the Muslim parts of Asia. But he is still far from garnering enough consensus. In short, two or three Italian candidates might enter the conclave and jockey for leadership, as happened between Giuseppe Siri and Giovanni Benelli in the memorable head-to-head of the second conclave of 1978, the one from which a new man, Wojtyla, finally emerged. If that scenario plays itself out again, the new man this time will be a Latin American cardinal. One of these stands out above all the rest: the Argentine Jesuit Jorge Mario Bergoglio, 69, archbishop of Buenos Aires, a man who combines intense spirituality and authoritative strength. Ratzinger chose Wojtyla in 1978. His choice will be decisive again this time. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> In low income neighborhoods, 84% do not own computers. At Network for Good, help bridge the Digital Divide! http://us.click.yahoo.com/hjtSRD/3MnJAA/i1hLAA/wpWolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> "[M]y ministry is that of servus servorum Dei." --Pope John Paul II (Ut Unum Sint, no. 88) "And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it." --Matthew 16:18 Yahoo! 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