Word is Third World pope need not apply, but why not? (GREELEY ALERT)

ROME -- No Third World cardinal need apply for the job, so says the buzz here in these grim, rainy days after the burial of the pope. It is not yet the time for a South American or African pope -- kind of like the days when it was said it was not yet the time for a black baseball player or a black quarterback or a black head coach in the NFL. The buzz comes from certain Italian and especially curial cardinals (not all of either) and their allies in the "new" movements like the Legionnaires of Christ. It is designed to counter the media buzz of a few days ago about the possibility of such a choice -- an idea not totally lacking in intelligence.

Almost half of the Catholics in the world live in Latin America. Almost a fifth of them live in Brazil, a little less than 200 million Catholics in the largest Catholic country on the planet.

North Americans know very little about Brazil. It is a country, we fantasize, of string bikinis on Copacabana and Ipanema beaches, of carnival, of rings of slums in the hills not very far from the beaches, and an eroding Amazon rain forest.

In fact Brazil is the eighth industrial nation in the world, with its own internal Third World of 50 million people. Four-fifths of its population live in cities. It has over a hundred universities, a large and thriving middle class, five television networks and a thriving literary and artistic culture.

It is also one of the most religious countries in the world. According to research I have done with my Brazilian colleague Celi Scalon, 89 percent of Brazilians believe that there, certainly, is a God, the highest rate in any of the countries in which the question has been asked. Seventy percent believe that God is, personally, concerned about them -- also the highest proportion in the world. Finally, 55 percent of Brazilians claim to be "very happy," again the highest in the world. (The next closest country is Ireland, with 45 percent, The United States is at 32 percent).

The Brazilians also top the world in the proportion who pray every day: 75 percent. Forty percent of Brazilian Catholics go to church every week, about the same as in the United States. In my only experience of the eucharist in Brazil (on a holy day of obligation) the people filled the church, but in other respects were very like North Americans. Their faces glazed over in boredom during the homily, and they rushed for the exit just as the final hymn was starting.

Many Catholic Brazilians do not find an overlay of pagan religious beliefs and practices inconsistent with their more orthodox beliefs. One need only visit Copacabana on New Year's Eve or Salvador da Bahia on Jan. 6 or the whole country on Shrove Tuesday to observe festivals that are mostly pagan (but not necessarily evil). Moreover, zealous and hard-working evangelical sects have made great progress in Brazil. They are about a tenth of the population and have considerable political power, though they lose two out of five of their second generation.

Nine out of 10 Brazilian Catholics disapprove of both extra-marital sex and homosexual sex. Two out of five reject cohabitation before marriage and premarital sex. These rates are higher than in North America and in Italy and even Poland.

Brazil then is a deeply religious country and powerfully Catholic, despite the presence of remnants of paganism and vigorous Protestant missionary work. It also has enormous problems of social justice.

If the cardinal electors should choose a Brazilian pope, it would be a brilliant acknowledgment of the universality of the Catholic church and a potent sign of its concern about South America (about half of whose Catholics live in Brazil).

No one has the right to be a pope, no country can claim that it is necessary that the pope be one of theirs (though Italians tend to think that). There is only one reason to exclude a Brazilian as a matter of principle -- no one of theirs has the qualifications of faith, piety, intelligence, or ability. Just like there were no blacks smart enough to be NFL coaches.

Obviously such a man might disrupt the smug little monopoly the buzzers have on the Catholic church.

De-population is the hallmark of a declining civilization, and as these rates rise in most of Europe and Israel, the void is usually filled by an incoming population. It is found throughout the history of the Western World and should raise legitimate concerns among these cultures. Instead, depopulation is often looked upon as inherently "Progressive" when in fact it is generational suicide.

"Depends. A peasent may need those 14 kids to work the farm or bring in more money. Of course, that's only if they are male children."

Mr. Redhead was 7th of 8, four boys and four girls, in rural Minnesota. They ALL worked equally hard, especially since the three oldest ones were girls. Farm life in the 20's and 30's was as harsh as any peasant life. Girls' lives were double drudgery, because they not only had to work alongside the boys, they had to also help in the housework, butchering, cooking, canning, mending, endless laundry, house care. It was all hard work.

"De-population is the hallmark of a declining civilization, and as these rates rise in most of Europe and Israel, the void is usually filled by an incoming population. It is found throughout the history of the Western World and should raise legitimate concerns among these cultures. Instead, depopulation is often looked upon as inherently "Progressive" when in fact it is generational suicide."

I agree that we should not be looking to decline (I was pointing out that populations in Europe were declining, I didn't say it was good) but some stabilization would be good. Maybe a plateau, or a flattening, or even a slight decline would be healthy, given that automation in manufacturing and farming has made it so that fewer people are needed to produce more than ever. And now that improvements in medicine are pushing the life expectency into the 90's, we don't need to have ten children with the expectation that half of them would die, as it was in the 18th century.

You could not have said more truth with fewer words if you were St. Thomas More himself.

Thank you very much for that kind comment. As an attorney, I hold St. Thomas More in very high regards.

I, too, think Ratzinger would be good. I do like the nature of his statements about the aggressive secularism in Europe as well as filth within the Church and clergy. I also believe the Church in Europe and the U.S. could expect some major house-cleaning if he were pontiff. However, my concern is that his age may not allow him much time for such a daunting task in Europe or here. I have not heard much about the Cardinal of Vienna (Schoenborn)other than he is a younger student of Ratzinger.

Keep praying for the Holy Spirit to guide the Cardinals in their selection.

Sr. Guerra:

Clearly you honor your patron saint with faith and skill.

You are correct that Ratzinger's age suggests that his pontificate would be short. But that is not an entirely bad thing. This could be the mitigant that assuages the liberals in the Curia to stand aside and give him the latitude he needs to clean the filth from the clergy and episcopate He won't be around for long and therefore they needn't feel too threatened by him.

In the end, Ratzinger would be a bridge to a new, younger pope who, given the chance, will emerge from the recent crop of more orthodox bishops, men who were formed as priests during the tumultuous period following V2 and learned all the appropriate lessons. I am thinking of men like Chaput of Denver and Dolan of Milwaukee.

Whoever succeeds him will have a much easier job of spreading the good word after the foundation of the church is repaired. Schonbrun is said to be something of a "face man". He is splendidly orthodox and will play well in the media but is not strong enough to effect the reforms needed within the hierarchy. Arinze is a good man as well, but he will ignored by the Curia no matter what he wishes to accomplish and is likely to follow the JPII model of representing a loving spiritual force who uplifts the world while the Church crumbles on its foundation.

The church will do well with a Schonbrun or Arinze in good time. But it needs to be cleansed first. Either Ratzinger or the Milanese chap are the right men for the job.

I will heed your advice and pray that the Holy Spirit leads the cardinals to the man who Christ's church needs at this dark hour.

Only the lliberals consider a third world pope to be a problem. Arinze may forever smash the liberal lie that anti-life policies are responsible for Africa's problems. the reality is that their communism and their embrace of pagan tribal religion in the name of 'diversity' is at the very root.

The buzz comes from certain Italian and especially curial cardinals (not all of either) and their allies in the "new" movements like the Legionnaires of Christ.

So this is Greeley's take on things? Sounds like he's just trying to stir up trouble for those Cardinals and movements that are more orthodox in their teachings. The Pope loved the Legionairies; they are what the Jesuits used to be, faithful foot soldiers in the spread of the Gospel. The Jesuits relinquished that position years ago, when they became enamored of political power, and allied themselves, especially in the US with the Democrat party and it's liberal elites.

Greeley sounds like he want to make these more orthodox elements sound racist. The Legionairies got their start in Mexico, so I don't think they'd be averse to a Latin American Pope, or one from Africa, either for that matter.

Methinks Greeley is 'projecting' when he makes these statements. HE doesn't want a Pope from the Third World because it's more likely to be someone in the same vein at John Paul II, and Greeley and his lib friends do not want that!

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