Posted on 04/03/2005 12:34:54 PM PDT by Perdogg
Lagos: The fourth-ranking cardinal in the Vatican and the African with the best chance of succeeding Pope John Paul II began his stellar church career as a child of poor pagan parents in a mud-brick bungalow in the forests of southern Nigeria.
Cardinal Francis Arinze, the 72-year-old Prefect of Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, is seen by many as a credible candidate to become the first African to rule the Holy See since the death of Gelasius I in 496 AD.
And if the college of cardinals sitting in the Sistine Chapel does decide that the Holy Spirit has chosen Arinze to lead the Church, the tiny Nigerian farming village of Eziowelle might well become a place of pilgrimage for the world's hundreds of millions of Catholics.
Pilgrims would be best advised to come in the early months of the year, however, as when the rains return at the end of April the track is all but impassible, explained the village priest Father Philip Chinedu Nwafor as he drove his battered old Mercedes Benz into town earlier this year.
"The state government has promised to repair the road," he said, as school children and villagers called out "Father" as he passed along the bumpy track the way to the building at the heart of Eziowelle's 6,000-strong community; the Saint Edward Roman Catholic Church.
It might be a while before the road is repaired - Anambra State is in such crisis that lawmakers meet among the ruins of a state assembly building burned down last year by political thugs - but Eziowelle has something else to be proud of as the world begins to wonder about the papal succession.
"His name will work magic for us. We cannot say when this will be, but we are hopeful that Arinze's name will soon begin to bring the good things of life to the village," declared 68-year-old Celestina Emecheta, who was born four years after Eziowelle's most famous son.
The house where he was born is still standing; a somewhat ramshackle bungalow of mud-brick and rusting corrugated iron, painted in faded chocolate brown and framed on one side by a mango and a pawpaw tree.
A newer, concrete family home stands close by, but Arinze's fame has not brought riches to his relatives. The grave of the cardinal's mother is marked by a simple heap of dark red laterite soil.
"He does not want an elaborate grave for his parents and this grave as it is is an ample demonstration of his simplicity and humility, qualities for which he is known," said Father Philip as he showed a reporter around the village.
Once a year, in August, Cardinal Arinze leaves the marble halls of the Vatican and returns to Eziowelle to stay in the parsonage and celebrate mass in the humble surroundings of Saint Edward's church.
It was here, as an eight-year-old child of parents who worshipped the traditional deities of the Igbo people, that Arinze first heard the teaching of the church from the Reverend Cyprian Micahel Iwene Tansi, a missionary who became his mentor and was in 1998 beatified by Pope John Paul II.
Since those days the village has become a devout and energetic Catholic community, proud to have sent a cardinal, nine priests, 14 reverend sisters and one reverend brother to do the work of the church.
Now, perhaps, Eziowelle could become the first village in sub-Saharan Africa to send a Pope to the Vatican. Many feel Arinze would be the perfect candidate.
He was ordained a priest in November 1958 and eight years later became Africa's youngest bishop, leading the Catholics of the market city of Onitsha, a trading centre on the lowest downstream crossing of the mighty Niger River.
He became an archbishop in 1967 and stayed in Nigeria through its brutal civil war, in which Arinze's Igbo people faced the Nigeria federal army in a losing battle, which saw around a million people die of disease and starvation.
In 1985, the pope summoned him to Rome to work in the Curia - the church's governing body - and he won a reputation as an able diplomat and a staunch defender of the conservative values championed by the present pontiff.
He became an expert on Islam and led the Vatican's interfaith dialogue, a job which some feel could be his key qualification.
John Paul II's reign will be remembered for his role in facing down Communism and championing the cause of Eastern Europe.
The next 20 years will may see the church seeking way a way to live alongside an increasingly restive Muslim world.
Whether this record will be enough to land him the top job remains to be seen, but in Eziowelle his neighbours have faith that the Holy Spirit will make the right choice.
"God put Arinze there as number four in the Catholic hierarchy. We are glad at this. We are happy and will accept whatever God has planned for him," said Chief Igwe Michael Okonkwo-Etusi, the traditional ruler of the village
I think we'll all be suprised as to the actual choice.......but the Austrian is a centrist.
News Quote of The Day
April 1, 2005
Catholic League President William Donohue discusses with Imus the future of the Papacy.
Imus: "You mentioned the next Pope. What will the Catholics worldwide be looking for, or what will the Cardinals who are going to select the next Pope be looking for? "
William Donohue: "Well don't forget, you have 119 Cardinals devoted and there are 119 that are under the age of eighty. This Pope has appointed more than 95% of them, I like that. The fact of the matter is, I think... I don't know who the next Pope is going to be, but I tell you what, he's not going to be fifty-eight. My guess is you'll probably get some guy maybe around seventy. The reason I say that is, I think they are going to have to rethink the direction in which they want to go. Obviously the next Pope will be stylistically different from this Pope. This is the media Pope, the world traveler. In terms of changing..."
Imus: "Will he be Italian?"
William Donohue: "He will probably be an Irishman..."
Imus: "Really?"
William Donohue: "(Laughing) No I'm kidding. The way the Americans handle the sex scandal they are not exactly... well they are probably in last place. I don't know whether he is going to be Italian or not, but I tell you I think they are going to take some time to rethink some things. Quite frankly everybody says he's a Conservative Pope and what not. I mean, what exactly do they expect him to do? He's not going to change, most of the teachings of the church have been pretty well set. You could change things on celibacy and dealing with Deacons I suppose... if somebody wants to take that on. As far as changing the church's teachings on sexuality, everybody wants a free-for-all Hugh Hefner's type of world. You're not going to get it from the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church talks about restraint in a world where restraint is a dirty word. That's not going to change. The next guy who is committed is not going to be a poster boy for Hugh Hefner."
Should be an interesting next couple of weeks! The media is going to be going nuts speculating!
And when you take the Anglican/RC schism away from its European home, it may, God willing, be healed.
So basically, they nothing as a sin. Just a different lifestyle choice.
They fool themselves for the most part.
I pity them.
27 years ago no one (except perhaps a few Poles) ever thought Karol Wojtyla would become pope. The next pope may well be someone who is not being talked about now.
I just think that the cardinals will choose a younger person to helm the Church.
In the past, some countries would meddle in papal elections, even claim the right to veto a candidate they didn't like. I don't think anything good ever came out of that practice.
Sure does from that angle. My prayers for the traditionalist African Cardinal, the selection process, and any other worthy candidates.
Cardinal Arinze is hated and feared by the gay liberal feminist crowd as much as are the Anglican bishops from Nigeria, and for exactly the same reason: he is a rock solid traditionalist who sees strict adherence to classical church teachings as the only salvation for his African flocks. He tells people to sin no more, and to follow the Church's teachings about marriage, sex, and fidelity.
This drives the liberals nuts: watch them turn into racists as they denounce the African clerisy for being `simpleminded', `unable to grasp the nuances and subtleties of the modern world', etc.
It would seem that an African Pope would be the apotheosis of liberal aspirations to `diversity'. Think Clarence Thomas has it rough? Watch as the liberals hurl venom at this cardinal from a small Nigerian village.
God's will and prayer, concepts lost on the blaspheming masses.
+Arinze would be a great pope. Unfortunately, he that enters the conclave a pope usually leaves it a cardinal.
Ingebretsen told Cox News. "[But] it's a graduation; why he decided to do the pro-family thing no one seems to know."
Odd, and queer, and quite peculiar - a "gay" academic can't understand how a Bishop could deviate from the Leftist line while speaking at graduation. Could it be related to the fact that he "decided to do the pro-family thing" because he is a Bishop?
Ff--150 wrong? Not from what I know!
The correct guess is beyond anyone at this point, but the always-lovely Time magazine (koff koff) said that Cardinal Ratzinger is the front runner. I'll post the news search link in the next message, ping you now, and give everyone some relevant FR links:
Conclave Choosing Pope to Face New Issues ~~ AP ~~ April 3, 2005
Las Vegas Sun | April 03, 2005 at 13:31:12 PDT
BRIAN MURPHY ASSOCIATED PRESS
Posted on 04/03/2005 1:46:10 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1376668/posts
Who Will The Next Pope Be? (Not "who will be the next Pope")
Tanniker Smith
Posted on 04/03/2005 6:01:07 PM PDT by Tanniker Smith
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1376766/posts
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