One immense advantage of this enormously entertaining Synod is that it enables us to find out what each of the Purpled Fathers is really like. They no longer have the luxury of hiding behind protocol and good manners. Nor do they appear to have the old diplomatic assumption among Catholic hierarchs that One doesn't rock the boat. It's like a beauty contest in which people parade before us and we have to decide which of them we would vote for to be Miss Urbi et Orbi.
Personally, I've backed Mueller for a long time, and still do: his erudition and his very decorous behaviour set him rather apart from many of his colleagues. But a second German theologian so soon after Ratzinger might be too much for some of the Cardinal Electors. So then, surely, it has to be Sarah that all right-thinking chaps in the Conclave will be voting for? I bet Gamarelli has already got his measurements. Curial experience ... has ideas on Liturgy ... is obviously a Catholic ... Melchiades II, perhaps, after the last African Pope?
And, if it really is true that we are heading for the Second Great Western Schism, who are the Antipapabili who will strut their stuff in the St Gallen Anticonclave? Will the successful candidate call himself Martinus VI as a gesture to the imminent 500th anniversary of the Great Disaster?
My thoughts aren't quite so well worked out as your own, Father, but Cardinal Sarah has jumped out at me as very papabile for next time round, depending on when next time round is, of course. He could be the recipient of votes from several quarters, perhaps enough to push him over the bar. A black pope with red shoes - what a happy thought! :-)
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking that if doctrine is to be settled at the level of "national bishop's conference" perhaps the choice of next pope ought to be settled at the level of "people in pews".
ReplyDeleteWe'll all have a vote!
(Save the Liturgy, Save the World)
Say The Black, Do The Red.
ReplyDeleteI've been reading "God Or Nothing". ++Sarah seems to have great admiration for Paul VI, so I wouldn't be surprised if he became Paul VII
ReplyDeleteI agree Father. The Synod is getting rather amusing. I mean who was it said that humour comes into its own when things get really desperate?
ReplyDelete"Martinus VI"?
ReplyDeleteThere was a Martini not so very long ago who, though now deceased, would have had the papacy. Even so, it appears he has grasped it from the grave.
Cardinal Sarah (laudably) takes apparent pains to appreciate the virtues of each Pope -- certainly for the papacies he has lived through.
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