A Cardinal to Watch

VATICAN CITY — Among the "red hats" going out to 30 new cardinals today at St. Peter's Square, Canada's newest cardinal, Archbishop Marc Ouellet of Quebec City will be getting a lot of special attention.

While has spent the last week here continually relating his surprise at being named a cardinal, and laughing out loud at any mention that he may one day be elected pope, not everyone finds the concept risible.

At least one of his fellow new cardinals has said — off the record of course, as a certain decorum is maintained on the matter of papal succession — that Cardinal Ouellet has all the qualities to be elected pope, except that he is so new.

"New" is actually an understatement. Just three years ago, Father Marc Ouellet was teaching theology in Rome, after having served previously as the head of seminaries in Montreal and Edmonton. He was told in March 2001 that he would be ordained a bishop and appointed second-in-command of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity — with only two weeks' notice. After less than two years in that job, he was appointed archbishop of Quebec City — a clear indication that Quebec was a special priority in the eyes of the Holy See. And now a cardinal. Meteoric does not begin to describe the rise.

That's the question being discussed in Rome this past week, as Pope John Paul has presided over his anniversary ceremonies in a remarkably weaker condition than he was in last spring. The cardinals — again off the record — speak frankly that they need, as responsible electors, to talk with each other about the future. But at this stage the talk is not so much about who specifically should be the next pope — there will be time enough for that — but rather what kind of pope the Catholic Church needs.

Leaving aside all speculation about the next pope, that is why Cardinal Ouellet is getting so much attention in Rome. He is, many Vatican officials and visiting cardinals and bishops say, the kind of man the Church is looking for. Whether he will be in fact be that man is really a secondary question — at least for now.

The anniversary celebrations have been a way of illustrating what kind of man John Paul's successor has to be. First, a Christian disciple of deep prayer and an ability to make great sacrifices for the gospel. John Paul's old age has highlighted this aspect of the papal "job description" moreso than his early years of frenetic activity.

Second, a world-class intellect which can provide the necessary theological leadership in a world in which errors get equal time with the truth on the Internet, a media world where all ideas claim equal authority.

Third, a gifted communicator who can make relevant the truths of the faith in a compelling way in the media age. This is what the cardinals mean when they talk about John Paul's "public presence".

Fourth, a man who is so transparent with the joy of the gospel that he can say that the answer to every human problem is, as John Paul said famously 25 years ago tomorrow, "to open wide the doors to Christ."

Is Ouellet that kind of man? The polyglot's spiritual and intellectual resources are beyond doubt. His ability to communicate the faith appears strong, though he is so new that it will take time to tell.

Ouellet is getting major attention here because he seems to be that kind of man, and electors who point to him as papabile (literally, "pope-able") are using a kind of shorthand to say what the Church needs in this moment.

There are other stars amongst the new cardinals, including Angelo Scola of Venice, Bernard Panafieu of Marseille, and George Pell of Sydney, not to mention less-new cardinals. Like Ouellet, to say whether they are papabili is, at this point, rank speculation.

Yet the cardinals to watch are the ones who are already being watched by their brother cardinals and Vatican observers. Many factors go into choosing a pope — age, geography, personal charisma, relations with the others in the college. The immediate run-up to a papal conclave will focus on much of that. This period is for something more preliminary — the determination of what kind of pope is needed.

Cardinal Ouellet's prominence seems to suggest that whether or not he becomes the first pope from the new world, whoever succeeds John Paul will be a man like him.

— Father Raymond J. de Souza, a chaplain at Queen's University in Ontario is covering the 25th anniversary of Pope John Paul II, the beatification of Mother Teresa, and associated events from Rome for the National Post and Fox News.

Of course, the opinions of ANY Catholic are greatly appreciated.

Found the following article to be fairly clear in its portrayal of Cardinal Marc Ouellet. From GlobeandMail.com

* * * * *

Archbishop Marc Ouellet, a Quebecker with traditionalist views and close ties to Pope John Paul II, was among 31 men the ailing pontiff appointed cardinal Sunday, joining the select group that one day will elect the Pope's successor.

Archbishop Ouellet, who leads the Quebec City diocese, is a respected theologian who was the highest-ranking Canadian cleric during his stint at the Vatican. Canada has two other cardinals, Cardinal Aloysius Ambrozic of Toronto and Cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte of Montreal.

Laboriously announced by John Paul from his window overlooking St. Peter's Square, the appointments are a further and possibly final touch of the 83-year-old pontiff's already great influence on the College of Cardinals. The nominations come a month before the church celebrates the 25th year of John Paul's papacy.

The pontiff has named all but five of the cardinals who are under age 80 and therefore eligible to elect his successor. There are now either 135 or 136 voting cardinals, depending on the age of one of Sunday's appointments, whose name wasn't disclosed.

Such confidentiality often indicates that the new cardinal lives in a country where the church isn't welcome, and there was speculation that the secret appointee could be from China. Others suggested it could also be Monsignor Stanislaw Dziwisz, the Pope's private secretary.

Archbishop Ouellet, a Sulpician priest, has impeccable academic credentials but less experience as a pastor. He is an expert on Hans Urs von Balthasar, a conservative theologian the Pope greatly admires.

Supporters maintain it is simplistic to label Archbishop Ouellet's beliefs as conservative.

Nevertheless, in less than a year as archbishop in Quebec City, leading the so-called mother church of all dioceses north of Mexico, Archbishop Ouellet has made headlines with his forceful calls for a return to a larger role for the Roman Catholic Church.

"Quebec is languishing, far from the values that were the strength and glory of her forebears," he said at his Jan. 26 installation, in a homily that warned against "the idolatry of money, sex and the power of the media."

The province's low birth rate and its high number of teen suicides are "the sign of the gravest deficiency now ailing Quebec society: forgetting its spiritual heritage, its martyrs and its saints," he added in that speech.

In an another address, made before the Assembly of Quebec Bishops last March, he said the church shouldn't shy away from stating its views on marriage, considering "the massive influence" of the media on lawmakers and "the spectacular gains" of special-interest groups.

Marriage has a divine origin and is "by nature a social institution created by God to propagate the human species," he argued.

While he has expressed sympathy for gay people, "socially, you cannot place homosexual unions and the family on the same footing, otherwise you are touching at a most intimate fibre of our identity," he said in an interview with Le Soleil newspaper in January.

In another controversial interview with the same daily, he criticized school teachers for what he called their "Marxist" approach to education, holding them responsible for young people's "wretched ignorance" about Roman Catholicism.

As the second-in-command at the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity from 2001 until last year, Archbishop Ouellet has had opportunities to practise his diplomacy in the ecumenical world.

He has recalled how he worried — needlessly, it turned out — about offending Greek Orthodox officials visiting the Vatican who were shown relics pilfered from Constantinople by the Crusaders.

The Western Catholic Reporter weekly recounted how he got a standing ovation for his tactful manners during a conference for interchurch families in 1999.

The new cardinal-in-waiting said Sunday that he was so surprised when the papal nuncio told him of his selection that he asked him to repeat it. He said he then prayed in gratitude.

The third of a family of eight children from small-town Abitibi, he is a well-travelled 59-year-old who speaks French, English, Spanish, German and Italian. Although he has been rector at St. Joseph's Seminary in Edmonton and at Montreal's Grand Seminary, he has spent large parts of his life overseas, studying in Europe, teaching in Colombia and working at the Vatican.

The consistory, the installation ceremony where the new cardinals will receive their emblematic red hat, is to take place Oct. 21, during celebrations of the 25th year of John Paul II's papacy.

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.