Posted on 04/11/2005 10:23:35 AM PDT by Chi-townChief
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).
Brazil deeply religious
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.
A bold move
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.
Why then the buzz here against a Third World pope?
Obviously such a man might disrupt the smug little monopoly the buzzers have on the Catholic church.
Greely should stick with writting his 3rd rate steamy novels. He is no more in the know about the next Pope than I am.
(1) Greeley is a known scumbag.
(2) He was something of a Vatican insider in the early 70s, but following John Paul II's election he lost his juice.
(3) He was always a critic of John Paul II from the get-go, because of above-listed fact (1).
(4) He wants a Brazilian candidate because the only Brazilian candidate with enough prestige is liberal enough that Greeley can deal with him.
(5) Greeley wants to avoid the election of Cardinal Arinze at all costs and will talk down the chances of a Third World cardinal in general while advancing the Brazilian cause in particular.
(6) Greeley is a known scumbag.
I think reason's 1 and 6 are enough for me!
Of course not. In Catholicism, only Jewish rituals are evil. Pagan rituals are welcomed with open arms and always have been.
I wonder if Greeley would be as tolerant of six day creationism or Biblical literalism as he is of pagan beliefs???
And don't lump Greeley in with observant, obedient Catholics.
I had a feeling that the guy would be a liberal buffoon.
LOL I am not a big Andrew Greeley fan either. For all the honing in on Arinze from Nigeria, it seems that he doesn't have the personality that they seem to be looking for. The cardinal from Brazil seems to be a very compassionate man, but would probably seem too liberal for Legionnaires of Christ or Opus Dei types who have a lot of juice at the Vatican these days. It's funny that Legionnaires aren't appreciated in many US dioceses. I wouldn't mind seeing a third world pope to show the universal face of the Church.
And why, pray tell, should we care what a well-known modernist liberal priest and sociologist who has made millions of dollars from selling steamy novels tolerates, or doesn't tolerate?
Although technically a priest, he was so neglectful of his duties and such a media whore that he was basically put on permanent sabbatical years ago.
He is a visiting professor of sociology at the U of C and a consultant of sorts at NORC.
During the 60s and 70s he was a big anti-war protester, a supporter of Communist front groups within the Church like the Berrigan brothers and Plowshares, a big booster of Robert Drinan, an apologist for abortion, etc.
You can't say enough bad things about the guy.
I wonder if they are are avoiding a 3rd world pope because it will focus more attention on 3rd world problems. Populations are actually declining in Europe and America, while they are exploding elsewhere. Exploding populations can cause havoc on a nations, with poverty, slums crime. There is a lot of criticism that the Catholic church's policy on birth control contributes to these problems. So, I'm just guessing here, but maybe that is why they don't want to name a 3rd world pope.
It seems people are talking, but its the liberals and the media trying to create a "buzz" about certain candidates. The liberals seem to want a third-world candidate as part of the Church's affirmative action program. I do not want to imply that a third-world candidate is not possible, but only that I hope if it happens it is because the Holy Spirit has inspired the selection rather than that the "buzz", opinion polls, and political correctness have inspired the selection.
IMHO, the selection of an iron-curtain pontiff helped bring about the end of communism. The Church is growing in the third-world but dying in secular Europe. Maybe the Church needs a good, conservative European to bring Europe back into the fold of Christianity more than it needs a third-world pontiff to affirm what is already taking place.
You'd think a guy like Greely would have figured out how things work in the Vatican by now. Aparently not. It's quite possible that the person favored for Pope may not even get nominated in the first rounds. Those remaining after these first rounds of ballots have a better chance of getting a simple majority of 50% plus one.
A third world Cardinal for Pope? No way. Someone more well traveled and familiar with western culture and politics is needed to face the challenges ahead.
I will try to make my point in a more respectful manner.
I spent six years in the Catholic Church. Because I insisted on retaining my belief in the literal truth of the Bible I felt like a second class citizen.
Yet it always "got my goat" (so to speak) that native-born Catholic peasants from long-Catholic cultures could get away with believing what to me were the most scandalizing and primitive things (I'm not talking about dogmas here but what might perhaps be called "folk Catholicism"). No matter how outlandish or how similar to pre-chr*stian paganism they might seem, these beliefs were "Catholic" and perectly accepted by the higher-critical evolutionist clergy. Yet my wish to retain my beliefs in total Biblical inerrancy made me feel like a half-Protestant freak. Why were my beliefs so outlandish to over-educated sophisticates while medieval superstitions were not?
I hope that got my idea over without the crudeness I so lamentably displayed in my last post.
As to my comment about Jewish practicies being unwelcome in the Catholic Church (ie, "Judaizers") while pagan practices have always been chr*stianized with enthusiasm, that is simply an inherent part of the Catholic religion that ultimately led to my leaving. It isn't quite the same thing as my first point and was just thrown together with it because of my emotional state at reading Fr. Greeley's sickening hypocrisy.
I cannot agree with you two gentlemen(?) just as you can't agree with me, but there was no need for such childish behavior on my part as my last post. I ask your forgiveness and will strive to make my points in a more mature manner in the future. And this apology goes likewise to all other Catholics who were understandably offended. -_-
I'm quite familiar; hence the "Greeley alert."
I'd like to see Cardinal Arinze get elected Pontiff. Sure would make for an interesting administration.
Thank you for that graceful reply.
Ah, another "population control" freak. Subsaharan African nations have very low population densities, yet don't have the economic dynamism of certain areas of India (although they still have a long way to go) or China for that matter. "Population control" is where the left-wing anti-life wackos collude with the far-right racialists.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.