Ianus bifrons—two-faced Janus—was the Roman god of liminal spaces, doorways, beginnings and endings, and transitions in general. So, here are some “January” reflections in both the calendar and the etymological senses of the term: Three stories to watch and three prognostications for the Year of Our Lord, 2025.
It’ll be another doozy of a year, but not for the reasons you’d expect if you only read the headlines on the Vatican pages.
Christian persecution (especially in the Holy Land)
The war in Gaza will wind down and the aftermath of Syria’s fourteen-year civil war will ramp up. The tiny Christian minority in Gaza will be pressed and squeezed from every side, while the more sizeable Christian minority in Syria—Christians of various Churches constituted roughly 10% of the population before the war—will face more than just rough treatment and may come in for anything from systematic harassment to Decian or Diocletian-level persecution.
The role of the Catholic Church will be crucial in both places and throughout the region, not least because of the Catholic Church’s strong presence in both places as a social force punching far above her weight.
In Syria, Christians are on tenterhooks because they tended to support the rule of the country’s recently ousted strongman president, Bashar al-Assad. Christian support for Assad was not the consequence of personal sympathy for his monstrous persona or ideological affinity with his Ba’ath Party politics, but the result of calculated necessity in an impossible situation.
The Assad family, which ruled Syria for more than a half-century after a military coup in 1970, belongs to an ethno-religious minority offshoot of Shia Islam called Alawism, with Alawites constituting between 10% and 12% of the total Syrian population, roughly the same as Christians.
The short version of a millennia-long and an irreducibly complex story is that Syria is mostly Sunni Muslim, but the population is very diverse and the social fabric an intricate weave of familial, confessional, and religious threads, all with political heft and significance.
The complexity of the situation in Syria especially—though by no means exclusively insofar as regards the Alawite minority—aptly and starkly illustrates the need for Christians in the West to know and understand how vastly diverse the Muslim world really is.
Concretely, life has been hard for Syrians, unbearably brutal for a great many Syrians of every ethnic and religious stripe. It has been so for more than a decade. Timely international assistance will be essential to any rebuilding worth the name, but getting it is easier said than done. Major regional and global powers from the US, Russia, China, and Iran are all interested.
Things are not going to get better overnight, and they may well get worse for some people before they get better.
Ecumenical tectonics (eyes on Ukraine)
Incoming US president Donald Trump has promised an end to the illegal Russian war of aggression in Ukraine, but nobody on the Ukrainian side of that bloody and destructive conflict is expecting a happy or even minimally satisfactory proposal for resolution to come from Trump, whose admiration for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is well known.
The eyes of the world will be on Ukraine, but for a set of mundane reasons only tangentially related to the deep cultural drivers of the major civilizational question at stake, namely: Which Christian Church will be the global representative of Ukrainian Christianity?
Most Ukrainians are Orthodox, but Orthodoxy in Ukraine is more splintered than divided, with some divisions running through Russian Orthodoxy along political lines and other divisions running through Ukrainian Orthodoxy generally along the fault line separating Constantinople and Moscow.
The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church may establish itself as the leading voice of Ukrainian Christianity. If that happens—and there is a good deal to suggest it is already happening under the careful leadership of Sviatoslav Shevchuk, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church’s young and energetic Major Archbishop—the geopolitical and ecumenical repercussions will be significant.
One word: Conclave
The likelihood of a papal conclave increases with each passing day—everybody knows this—and everybody knows the next election will be one with no shoo-in front-runners.
Usually, there are voting blocs discernible in any papal conclave, but the election that will pick Francis’s successor is particular inasmuch as the fragmentation of the College of Cardinals is—in ways measurable and immeasurable—greater than the prevailing wisdom appears to warrant or even realize.
Much ink has been spilt over how little the red hats know of one another, but Vatican Watchers have talked relatively little about how fractured—and fractious—the various cardinalatial factions are internally.
Even “liberal” cardinals who were happy enough to ride Francis’s coattails and maybe even to be the tail that wagged the dog for a while, are fairly tired of the “Buenos Aires-on-Tiber” modus gubernandi that has prevailed since March 2013. “Conservative” cardinals, meanwhile, agree more on what’s wrong than they agree on what’s right. There are divisions and divisions-within-divisions within each group, to the extent there even are such groups within the College.
The cardinals who will gather to elect the next guy will be divided along different lines: “What are or ought to be the priorities of the Church’s global head?” is only one of the questions for which there are at least three times the number of opinions as there are men who have them.
Added to the difficulty and complexity of the task is the business Francis will leave unfinished.
Two issues Francis will leave for the next guy are the reform of ecclesiastical justice and the general leadership culture in the Church, and the reform of Vatican finances. The issues are closely related, critical, and urgent.
It matters little whether one believes Francis made some real progress on either front (or on both) or is of the view that Francis made one or the other problem measurably worse. He did not fix them, nor will he have done by the time he leaves office. Perhaps the task is too great for any one man, but that observation is marginal. The purpose here is to assess the circumstances of global Catholicism with a view to understanding how those circumstances will affect the cardinal-electors’ agenda.
The cardinals are going to have to settle on a profile before they can pick candidates.
The next guy will need better language skills than Francis, strong team-building and administrative abilities to fix the Church’s central governing apparatus, savvy to manage a Holy See in difficult diplomatic and political straits, strength of will and know-how to keep the Holy See and Vatican City minimally solvent, and charisma—in the colloquial sense—to reassure a sorely tried and thoroughly exhausted global body of the faithful.
Most importantly, the next guy needs to have no skeletons in his closet, and that is a tall order.
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Here’s a suggestion for the upcoming conclave.
How about let’s try a pope who’s *Catholic*?
brineyman, what a novel idea, indeed!
One of my frequent prayers is for a pope who will restore the Church. (Don’t ask me to define “restore.” I have a vague notion of what it means, and I’m sure the Lord knows far better than I.)
A courageous traditional Catholic capable of fulling that mission are rare given the odds have been stacked against him but we can simply hope and pray as there is little we can do other than stand our ground with the Faithful Remnant within the Church.
“…The next guy will need better language skills than Francis, strong team-building and administrative abilities to fix the Church’s central governing apparatus, savvy to manage a Holy See in difficult diplomatic and political straits, strength of will and know-how to keep the Holy See and Vatican City minimally solvent, and charisma—in the colloquial sense—to reassure a sorely tried and thoroughly exhausted global body of the faithful.
Most importantly, the next guy needs to have no skeletons in his closet, and that is a tall order…”.
HUH??? I don’t think that was the original job description! Maybe, just maybe, it’s time to revert back to what actually worked in building Christ’s Church.
Over the past 12 years of Rorschach-chart theology, one interpretation is to see a straight line from parts of Amoris Laetitia (Chapter 8 with a footnote) to the subtle abdication in-sin-uated into Fiducia Supplicans.
The straight line (pun intended!) to accommodate the annexation of the Church into the homosexual subculture, and more generally to amputate morality from the Faith and from moral absolutes–a coherence found still in the Vatican II Documents, the Catechism as a “fruit of the Council,” and the unmentionable Veritatis Splendor.
Now, going into the next conclave, here again are prayers for the assembled cardinals as they stand together (!) for what the Eucharistic Church actually IS, and not only for what the Church membership DOES while only “walking together” into town hall gatherings:
https://www.oxfordoratory.org.uk/news.php?newid=1290
http://catholicdevotions.org/2013/03/prayer-for-the-election-of-a-pope-papal-conclave-for-electing-the-sovereign-roman-pontiff/
https://www.usccb.org/prayers/prayer-election-new-pope
https://dailycatholicdevotions.blogspot.com/2013/03/novena-prayers-for-conclave.html
https://www.chausa.org/prayers/cha-prayer-library/prayer/a-prayer-for-the-election-of-a-new-pope
https://www.praymorenovenas.com/novena-for-the-papal-conclave
I find your repeated use of the word “guy” referring to the next Pope to be jarring and gratuitous, in an otherwise interesting article.
Why? You dont expect the next Pope to be a woman, do you??
Let’s make an honest assessment of Christianity’s destruction in the Middle East, now almost complete, as the result of the wars initiated by G W Bush [father Bush 41 was strongly opposed to his son’s desire for war in Iraq].
Bush in that war failed to apprehend the entrapped Osama Bin Laden allowing him to slip away and decided to attack Iraq to demonstrate his decisiveness. Iraq posed no threat weakened by years of monumental embargo. US intelligence offering bogus knowledge of weapons of mass destruction.
Both Saddam Hussein and Assad belonged to the Ba’ath party, the only secularist Muslim governments on the planet, both nations protectors of their Christian minorities. Christians in Syria like those in Iraq supported both Assad and Hussein because of that protection. Iraq had Catholics in high cabinet positions, one who appealed directly to John Paul II. John Paul condemned the immoral fallacy of preemptive war against Iraq. All the US had to show was Shock and Awe, displayed to the world in an obscene world televised attack of superpower America blasting Baghdad with advanced weaponry.
That war and the mistreatment of Sunni Muslims brought us Isis, the eventual ascendancy of Shiite hegemony fostered by Iran. The destruction of the balance of power and the restoration of radical Shiite Islam eventually with support of US dollars as a policy to slow their nuclear ambitions and Middle East dominance from Iran to Syria and Lebanon.
Had the US and world listened and abided to John Paul’s appeals the impending death of ancient Middle East Christianity would not have occurred. This new regime in Syria is biding its time to eradicate the remnants of Syrian Christianity. War is not the answer to the world’s problems. Christ’s Gospel is.
Yours truly does not know enough to conclude whether or not “this new regime in Syria is biding its time to eradicate the remnants of Syrian Christianity,” nor whether we should revere Iraq’s Hussein because he tolerated/protected Christians—while also eradicating 182,000 Kurds and deporting even more, including the use of weapons of mass destruction (the 1988 Halabja attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halabja_massacre).
Three points and a Question:
FIRST, as an amateur from the back bleachers, my focus often turns too much on apparent details that, as possible pivot points, tend to get lost in later hindsight. “For want of a nail a shoe was lost, etc.” Example: a few altered details in Muhammad’s personal life in the 7th Century, and sectarian Islam in the 21st-century Middle East, would not even exist. Nor would ISIS.
SECOND, following are a few nails and horseshoes…
My recollection from sparse news accounts at the time are that the Iraqi scientific community had destroyed the weapons of mass destruction (WMD) because they feared Western actions, but they also feared to inform Hussein whose recent history and uninformed bluster seemed to confirm the continued existence of WMD. And, that the U.N. Security Council voted 15-0 in favor of “severe consequences,” a threat discounted by Hussein because of probably a dozen earlier such inconsequential warnings. And, later that a key Iraqi informant, claiming the WMDs existed, was simply gaming the United States into supporting his side in local intersectarian strife. And, that the overall strategy to invade Iraq was designed to conclude quickly—to prevent intersectarian eruptions and what eventually became ISIS….But, was crippled by removal of the northern half of the pincer strategy, by President Erdogan who only a week before the invasion withdrew his permission to cross through Turkish airspace (internal Muslim/sectarian politics?).
THIRD, in retrospect we see an unjust “preventive war,” rather than what might have been (yes, no, maybe?) a more defensible but deceived and overly complex “first strike”. The horror of it all, especially for little people in huge numbers who are always the collateral damage. The Honore de Balzac got it just about right, “bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.” Likewise, the compact, technocratic, tripwire, and modern geopolitical world. Missing is sound prudential judgment (an principle of the Catholic Social Teaching) which can be a bit less certain than quoting the Gospel.
QUESTION: As has been said, “while one does have the right to offer non-resistance to the knife, one does not have the right to offer the necks of one’s family and others to the assailant.” With imperfect information and in an imperfect world, how are overly-weaponized nations to navigate better between moral absolutes, and the calculus of consequences for their actions and for their inactions, both?
Re CHSIII – Agreed.
Context is everything and “guy” here is inappropriate. Detracts from the overall article.
Altieri’s question of which Christian body will become dominant in Ukraine is interesting. Major Archbishop Shevchuk is certainly a prominent and courageous leader, although there’s the Russian imperial Orthodox issue.
Ever since Orthodox Prince Alexander Nevsky [later declared an Orthodox Saint] led the Russians to defeat the Catholic Teutonic Knights in the famed Battle of the Ice 1242 imperial minded Russia perceives Catholicism as its enemy. A Catholic dominant Ukraine would be the equivalent of a Nato Ukraine. But Russia’s predilections and prejudices can’t continue to decide history, unless of course Moscow were won over to Catholicism. Pope Francis seems to think that’s the solution with his apparent to many favoritism toward Russia.
Altieri envisions a powerful, competent religious leader as a dire need for our dilapidated Church. There are a few, one the Utrecht Nederlands Cdl Willem Eijk, another Cdl Pierbattista Pizzaballa patriarch in the Holy Land. Then we can’t leave out our present day Teutonic Knight Cdl Gerhard Muller who has of late shown signs of gallantry and dashing valor in opposing his boss.
Short and sweet:
We need a holy CATHOLIC priest who loves and adores Our Lord and will guard the deposit of faith. AKA a miracle.
The author couldn’t resist his impulse to graft his politics vis-a-vis President Trump into the “Ukrainian Christianity” topic, despite the utter disconnect to the topic. If Mr. Altieri was weighing options about salting the Ukrainian topic with politics, he would have done better to note the contempt that the Pontiff Francis has publicly voiced against the Ukrainian Greek Catholic faithful, whom he called “Uniates,” and even moreso, Mr. Altieri might have noted the preference of Pontiff Francis for the monstrously repulsive war-mongering Putin toady “Patriarch” Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Such would be fitting comments on Church politics!for the topic in the Ukrainian Christianity.
As to what “the priorities” of the Catholic Church might be going forward, the “Church establishment” including a Pontiff, and Bishops, might opt to act as if Jesus was the Head of The Body of Christ. But…there are pre-requisites to that which may be in short supply, among the “hierarchs” of western Europe, North America, South America, and Australia. Apparently, these aforementioned don’t cotton to the seemingly more Christ-oriented Bishops of Africa.
Perhaps the Bishops approved by the Communist State in China, as designed by the “Secret Vatican Accord,” will offer a world-wide version of their “Patriotic Church in China”? Jesuits and “Parolins” would no doubt be gratified.
As to the recent past, it is as if Herod was King, and Caiaphas was High Priest. The ruinous end of the first is two weeks hence. The end of the second is approaching.
Perhaps a faithful Catholic Bishop, a man like Cardinal Mueller, who the Pontiff Francis disdainfully and contemptuously called “a child,” might, in the governance of God, be sent to help our Catholic Church.
But despite the Pontiff Francis and all of his apostate Cardinals and Bishops and cheerleaders, Jesus Christ reigns in the hearts of the faithful, everywhere.
I, for one, was delighted to see the return of this writer to these columns after almost 4 months absence. His unflinching reporting of the current pontificate has, compared to the mealy-mouthed standards of so many so-called Vatican correspondents and notwithstanding the vile details he has often recounted, been a great consolation to me.
His evident frustration at the manifest abject decadence of so many of Pope Francis’s closest collaborators (Danneels, McCarrick, Zanchetta, Rupnik to name but four of them) may possibly have led him to use an infelicitous descriptor of the Pope Francis’s successor. Possibly.
But, not only when compared to the foul language which the Holy Father himself has been frequently reported as resorting to, it strikes me as, at most, little more than a minor pecadillo.
More power to your elbow, Mr Altieri; ad multos annos.