The Next Pope? Twenty leading possibilities

Who Will Be the Next Pope? These 20 candidates have possibilties By John L. Allen Jr. Rome

Prognostication is a notoriously hazardous business, and the trash heaps of church history are littered with the carcasses of journalists who have tried to predict the next pope. Almost no one, for example, correctly anticipated that the archbishop of Kraków, Karol Wojtyla, would emerge from the second conclave of 1978 as Pope John Paul II.

In that spirit, the intent here is not to "predict" who will become the next pope, which is a futile exercise. Instead, the aim is to identify cardinals whose backgrounds, accomplishments, and personalities guarantee they will at least get a serious look as possible papal material. Doing so will illustrate the criteria cardinals typically employ in trying to size up who among their peers might be able to step into the "Shoes of the Fisherman."

Will the next pope be one of these 20 men? Perhaps. But all are certainly under consideration, and that by itself makes them worth a look.

"was it (bottoms-up form of government) layed out in the new testament?. .." ~ sanchez810

When one studies the history of New Testament "church government", one can readily see that the bottom-up, checks and balances, republican form of limited government that America's Framers gave us, is based straight out of the New Testament CHURCH GOVERNMENT example.

[Acts 6:3; 1:15, 22, 23, 25; 2Cor.8:19, etc.]

Paul, Barnabus and Titus are shown as installing the elders that were chosen by the congregations

[Acts 6:3-6; 14:23 and Titus 1:5].

Paul says to the whole church congregation: "Pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom whom we may appoint to this duty." (of servant aka deacon)

The apostles had the *unique authority* to found and govern the early church, and they could speak and write the words of God. Many of their written words became the NT Scripture.

In order to qualify as an apostle someone had to had seen Christ with his own eyes after he rose from the dead **and** had to have been specifically installed/appointed by Christ as an apostle.

In place of living apostles present in the church to teach and govern it, we have instead the writings of the apostles in the books of the NT.

Those New Testament Scriptures fulfill for the church today the absolute authoritative teaching and governing functions which were fulfilled by the apostles themselves during the early years of the church.

Because of that, there is no need for any direct "succession" or "physical descent" from the apostles.

1 John 2:27

"Sounds Hayekian!" ~ sanchez810

Yes, but it's the pure version of Capitalism without the interventionist meddling we see today (which has given Capitalism a bad rap).

I inadvertantly cut off the end of the article when I cut and pasted it in #190.

Here is the ending of it in its entirety if you're interested:

Does Capitalism Exploit People?

Capitalism is also attacked on the ground that it leads to situations in which some people (the “exploiters”) win at the expense of other people (the “losers”). A fancier way to put this is to say that market exchanges are examples of what is called a zero-sum game, namely, an exchange where only one participant can win. If one person (or group) wins, then the other must lose. Baseball and basketball are two examples of zero-sum games. If A wins, then B must lose.

The error here consists in thinking that market exchanges are a zero-sum game. On the contrary, market exchanges illustrate what is called a positive-sum game, that is, one in which both players may win. We must reject the myth that economic exchanges necessarily benefit only one party at the expense of the other. In voluntary economic exchanges, both parties may leave the exchange in better economic shape than would otherwise have been the case. To repeat the message of the peaceful means of exchange, “If you do something good for me, then I will do something good for you.” If both parties did not believe they gained through the trade, if each did not see the exchange as beneficial, they would not continue to take part in it.

Most religious critics of capitalism focus their attacks on what they take to be its moral shortcomings. In truth, the moral objections to capitalism turn out to be a sorry collection of claims that reflect, more than anything else, serious confusions about the real nature of a market system. When capitalism is put to the moral test, it beats its competition easily. Among all of our economic options, Arthur Shenfield writes,
only capitalism operates on the basis of respect for free, independent, responsible persons. All other systems in varying degrees treat men as less than this. Socialist systems above all treat men as pawns to be moved about by the authorities, or as children to be given what the rulers decide is good for them, or as serfs or slaves. The rulers begin by boasting about their compassion, which in any case is fraudulent, but after a time they drop this pretense which they find unnecessary for the maintenance of power. In all things they act on the presumption that they know best. Therefore they and their systems are morally stunted. Only the free system, the much assailed capitalism, is morally mature.
The alternative to free exchange is coercion and violence. Capitalism is a mechanism that allows natural human desires to be satisfied in a nonviolent way. Little can be done to prevent people from wanting to be rich, Shenfield says. That’s the way things often are in a fallen world. But what capitalism does is channel that desire into peaceful means that benefit many besides those who wish to improve their own situation in life. “The alternative to serving other men’s wants,” Shenfield concludes, “is seizing power of them, as it always has been. Hence it is not surprising that wherever the enemies of capitalism have prevailed, the result has been not only the debasement of consumption standards for the masses but also their reduction to serfdom by the new privileged class of Socialist rulers.”

Once people realize that few things in life are free, that most things carry a price tag, and that therefore we have to work for most of the things we want, we are in a position to learn a vital truth about life. Capitalism helps teach this truth. But under socialism, Arthur Shefield warns, “Everything still has a cost, but everyone is tempted, even urged to behave as if there is no cost or as if the cost will be borne by somebody else. This is one of the most corrosive effects of collectivism upon the moral character of people.”

And so, we see, capitalism is not merely the more effective economic system; it is also morally superior. When capitalism, the system of free economic exchange, is described fairly, it comes closer to matching the demands of the biblical ethic than does either socialism or interventionism.

These are the real reasons why Ron Sider and his friends in the Religious Left should have abandoned the statist economic policies they promoted in the past. These are also the reasons why they should now end their advocacy of economic interventionism, which only encourages the consolidation of wealth and power in the hands of the few. Christians who are sincere about wanting to help the poor should support the market system described in this chapter.

The above is excerpted from:

Volume 39, Number 3; March 1999
http://www.schwarzreport.org/SchwarzReport/1999/march99.html
In Defense of Capitalism by Dr. Ronald Nash

This article is an excerpt from a chapter of Dr. Nash’s book, Why the Left Is Not Right. Please note that this book has been added to “The Schwarz Report Bookshelf” on the back page.

Eastern Rite Catholics and Eastern Orthodox permit men already married to be ordained priest, but once ordained, an unmarried man may not marry. Bishops must not have been married, so they frequently come from monastic clergy.

What most people do not realize is that the earliest discipline in the Church was for men still married when ordained to pledge (with their wives' consent) to cease marital relations with their wives. This was already "ancient" practice when the first surviving legislation emerges in the early 300s, so it very probably is apostolic in origin (see the book by Charles Cochini, _The Apostolic Origins of Clerical Celibacy_). In the 200s we know that men who chose not to remarry were preferred as bishops (if widowed at 35 or 40, the choice not to marry indicated maturity and self-control). This choice not to remarry as a widower helps make sense out of St. Paul's injunction in the epistle to Timothy that a bishop must be the husband of one wife. (It makes sense also in light of the "enrolled widows" mentioned in the New Testament: widowed women who chose not to remarry in order to devote themselves to prayer and the Church were then supported by the Church financially; the same principle les behind St. Paul in 1 Corinthians when he points out that the unmarried can devote themselves more fully to apostolic work, using himself as an example--there seems to be a fairly consistent principle at work here in the New Testament.)

That Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Rite Catholics permit ordination of married men represents a moderate change of discipline in the 690s. Even married men who were ordained were required by the legislation at the synod of Trullo in the 690s to abstain from marital relations when the time approached for them to celebrate the Eucharist. This is no longer the case, but it indicates that the ancient discipline of abstinence from sexual relations even for married priests, was in their minds. The bishop of Rome refused to ratify the changes made at Trullo, which is the origin of the divergence in practice between East and West--the East changed, not the West.

The basic text on which the changes at Trullo were predicated, a supposed speech by Paphnutius, a monk-bishop at the Council of Nicea, has been shown to be a pious legend. (See Cochini).

The differences between Greek East and Latin West were thus not as great as people assume them to be--that this issue looms so large today owes much to the campaign against celibacy and rejection of monasticism in the Protestant Reformation.

"South American Cardinals are too liberal and seem to be more pro Marxist, pro Sandinista and pro liberation theology .." ~ Coleus

Excerpt:

"...Since so many liberation thinkers are Roman Catholic, it is helpful to remember that the message of Pope John Paul II to the Third General Conference of Latin American Bishops held in Pueblo, Mexico (1979) contained a clear warning to liberation theologians. The pope spoke of people who:

"..Depict Jesus as a political activist, as a fighter against Roman domination and the authorities, and even as someone involved in the class struggle. This conception of Christ as a political figure, a revolutionary, as the subversive from Nazareth, does not tally with the Church’s [teaching]. . . . Jesus unequivocally rejects recourse to violence. He opens his message of conversion to all. . . . His mission . . .has to do with complete and integral salvation through a love that brings transformation, peace, pardon, and reconciliation."

Clearly, the pope agrees that the gospel must not be made subordinate to secular ends.

[snip]

Excerpted from the Schwartz Report Volume 38, Number 12; December 1998
http://www.schwarzreport.org/ SchwarzReport/1998/december98.html
True and False Liberation Theology, part 2 by Ronald Nash, Page 2
The second in a four part series taken from Dr. Nash’s book, Poverty and Wealth. This month, we look at the three theological tests. http://www.schwarzreport.org/

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