In recent days, numerous names for a possible new pope have been circulating in the halls of the Vatican and the editorial offices of the press. The atmosphere sometimes resembles that of a football club’s general meeting, where members want to elect their new president as quickly as possible.
But it seems unclear whether most people are aware that the future of the largest religious community, or rather the entire world, could depend on the election of the pope. The preservation of power by those currently in office disguised as continuity, the egotistical ambitions of colourful personalities touted as charisma, and fear of disrupting the liberal world order are certainly not reasonable criteria for electing the Bishop of Rome, who leads the universal Church.
Here, then, are some obvious criteria for any wise choice:
1. Good reputation
Today, as soon as their reputation is damaged, priests are immediately placed on temporary retirement by most dioceses. People have had enough of all the scandals. If this applies to ordinary priests, how much more should this caution apply to the future pope?
Whether it be sexual rumours, financial irregularities, connections with controversial secret societies, or political blackmail, the most elementary caution dictates that such persons should not even be considered for the Chair of Peter until the rumours and allegations have been completely cleared up. Nothing remains hidden today. But if a cardinal has repeatedly been in the press because of sexual, financial, or political ambiguities, or even has an ambiguous reputation, he will be confronted with his past even more so as pope.
The Church today can no longer cope with a pope with a past. The pope’s reputation must be as white as his robe!
2. Freedom from “movements”
A pope must be there for everyone, without preferences or dependencies. There are many spiritual families and groups among the clergy and laity in the Church, and all contribute in their own way to the vitality of the Church. The pope is the father of all: he must therefore stand above groups and movements. He must not proclaim and live a particular spirituality, much less a particular ideology, but rather the breadth and greatness of the Church.
For reasons of prudence alone, a candidate who is too committed to a movement of clergy or laity and has thereby lost much of his independence should not be elected. The Bishop of Rome must be open to all communities.
In the past and present, the affiliation of popes with religious orders has not always promoted unity. The powerful “pressure groups” of lay movements restrict the freedom of the pope if he is committed to them. The pope needs freedom for all!
3. Simple faith
The faith of many Catholics in secularized society has grown weak. Theological subtleties, so-called paradigm shifts, and constant adaptations of the Faith to the tastes of the day lead to confusion and disinterest among many.
The pope must therefore be a man who lives the Catholic Faith as clearly as he proclaims it. The promotion of worship through liturgy and catechesis, the revitalization of the faith of young people, popular piety, regular reception of the sacraments, etc.—that is, the essential elements of the life of the Church that give it strength and make it open to grace—must be at the center of his work.
Of course, the Church cannot and must not fulfil Christ’s mission without theological scholarship, without political commitment, without cultural relevance, without concern for the poor and disenfranchised, without the richness of different spiritualities. But all these expressions of her rich life depend on the content of the faith and the life of faith revealed by Christ to the apostles and their successors. This faith must be accessible to all.
The Pope has the task of protecting the faith of the simple, which is the faith of all of us, from the arrogance of artificial intellectualism and from being watered down by the spirit of the times. The pope’s way is the way of Christ, not the way of “synodality”!
4. Fatherly charisma
The Church does not live for or from show business. The future pope will be the center of attention, as were all his predecessors. His charisma should therefore be that of a father to all, not that of a vain actor, snobbish artist, or dazzling careerist.
We do not need a beautiful pope; we need a good pope whose kindness is paired with seriousness and whose love knows that those entrusted to him wish to be led by him to Christ. A good shepherd who is not afraid of wolves and who knows that it is not about him, but about the Son of God, whose place he only represents but can never fill. For him, humility in his demeanour does not mean ostentatious pauperism, and when he goes to the poor and persecuted, he does not call a camera crew every time.
Certainly, the pope needs charisma. Dry and soulless political bureaucrats who, through their constant calculations, serve their own ambitions more than the good of the flock, are out-of-place today. Charisma is necessary, but papal charisma comes from within, not from without; it comes from the Holy Spirit and is visible in the grace of office.
If the pope is aware that he will soon have to give an account of all his actions to God, he will become humble of his own accord. If he recognizes with St. Paul that he has only to pass on what he himself has received (1 Cor 11:23-26), he will not confuse creativity with self-expression. If he understands that he is only a representative and administrator, he will always act according to the will of Christ and without arbitrariness.
What we need is a shepherd to whom everyone can truly say: Holy Father!
5. Experience, competence, and wisdom
Every pope who understands the office he is taking on will have to weep with Peter over himself. But that does not mean that a pope should be unprepared. To govern the Church and be a good shepherd, however, experience is needed. Experience with the flock entrusted to him, experience in leading other shepherds and their helpers, experience with the joys and sufferings of the pastoral task.
That is why wise colleges of cardinals have rarely elected a young pope, but usually a very experienced bishop who at the same time distinguished himself through great expertise in theology, philosophy, law, history, diplomacy, or even in all these and other fields, such as Leo XIII, Pius XII, John Paul II, and many others. Knowledge of the universal Church, the Roman Curia, world political affairs, different cultures and languages, the human heart, and a realistic, experienced love for the Church must distinguish every pope who wants to be in any way equal to this office.
Because every pope is only a poor human being, he needs grace, which, however, always presupposes and permeates nature. A wise and experienced pope is the best instrument of grace!
Of course, everyone will understand that these five obvious and simple criteria of reason exclude some of the candidates who are now eagerly promoting themselves and ambitiously striving for the papacy. It is unnecessary to add names because it is too obvious: Sapienti sat! Let us pray to the Holy Spirit that the Church may once again have a blameless, free, faithful, fatherly, and wise pope.
This pope will surely tremble before the yoke of the papacy. That is precisely why he should be found and elected: Come, Holy Spirit!
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Or, how about the binary/complementary marital ditty from 19th-century Lancaster in Europe: “Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue, and a Sixpence in your Shoe”…
OLD as the “successors of the Apostles” as at Asian Nicaea in A.D. 325 (the 1700th anniversary!), and other ecumenical councils such as the “real” (not virtual) Vatican II, and unadulterated “synods of bishops”;
NEW as in a complementary (!) “Ecclesial Assembly,” meaning fraternal “communio” among the distinctly ordained “sent” by Christ (sacramental, not clericalist) and the laity (also not clericalist, and whose distinct role is in the world);
SIXPENCE in your SHOE” as in restored marital and ecclesial vocations (both!), and Vatican solvency, and SHOES as in soles “walking-together”—while fully in step with interior “souls” (both!) as in Veritatis Splendor;
…and BLUE—still cardinal red, but maybe less blue than “black”—as from St. Augustine’s Africa?
Sensible criteria #1: he should not be a Marxist or a progressive.
Such a fun way to play classics! Hypakle
Amen. May the Pope be a willing Holy Father, the Vicar of Christ.
Allow a few things we do not want in a Pope:
1. A Machiavellian, pervert protecting Peronist.
2. An agenda driven ideologue.
3. An ambiguous globalist.
4. A narcissist.
5. A talented traitor to the teachings of Christ.
Happy Easter!
Yes, agree.
Knows and loves Jesus? # 1
Yes, I would also put that at #1. And at #2, “demonstrates strong faith”.
Great article!
The one comment I would question is “The Pope should not live for or from show business.”
My older daughter is a stage manager (Broadway, Royal Shakespeare, etc.) and she also teaches stage management in a secular college.
She is also a Catholic Christian. There are lots of Catholic Christians in “show business” and they need a pope who “gets them.” Their life and work makes it incredibly difficult to live their Christian faith, as the slightest comment deemed “offensive” can get them placed on an unwritten “blacklist” that will block them from getting paying work (and also ending any good influence they might have had on the cast and crew).
Once my daughter was stage managing a show during a rehearsal and she forgot that she was wearing one of those plastic “Jesus” bead bracelets–and it broke while she was backstage and the beads with Jesus’ pictures rolled all over the stage–she was terrified that the director would fire her on the spot and that she would be blacklisted from working on other shows (usually stage managers and other crew members don’t wear anything that could break during the show). Thankfully, the director saw the little pictures of Jesus on the beads and said, “This is great! Jesus is all over our show! We’ll be a hit!” But she learned her lesson from that close call.
I agree that the Pope should not seek to be a “star” or turn his work into a “show”. But I do hope the Pope has a heart for entertainment professionals (as did Saint Pope John Paul II because he was an actor!) and will be able to draw many of them into Catholic faith in Jesus!
That should read:
There is only One Word Of God, One Jesus The Christ, thus Christ’s One, Holy, Catholic, And Apostolic Church IS The Body Of Christ, and those churches that profess to be Christian while rejecting ,The Unity Of The Holy Ghost, reject Christ as The Head Of His Church, and cannot possibly be part of The One Body Of Christ until that moment in Time when they become reconciled with Christ and His One, Holy, Catholic, And Apostolic Church, outside of which, there is no Salvation.
Sensible criteria #2: he should be a real Christian who actually believes and defends the historic doctrines of the faith.
These are laudable and necessary criteria in selecting a Pope.
I would add that the Pope should be aligned in his teaching with the FULL Magisterium of the Catholic Church. The Pope should only teach in consonance with all previous Popes unless they’ve been declared heretics.
Secondly, the Pope must have demonstrated an ability and track record of listening to ALL members of the Church. Listening does not assume agreeing with but it does not mean dismissing members of the Body of Christ because they are not aligned with the Pope’s biases.
Fully agree, Diogenes Redux, with your additional criteria, particularly the first (which should immediately eliminate McElroy and many other Cardinals of his persuasion).
While we should all mourn and pray for the soul of Pope Francis, we can’t ignore the damage from his doctrinally ambiguous and inappropriate statements, his support of terrible clerics and his elevation of people like McElroy over Archbishops fully faithful to the Magisterium.
To continue down the path of Francis’s pontificate would be “business as usual,” which Larry Chapp in another current article has opposed with insight and cogency beyond my pay grade.
Come Holy Spirit in the Conclave!
A humorous criteria brought up by P Beaulieu relating to assessment is one’s okayness. “He [her bishop] affirmed my okayness!”.
Humor aside, the suggestions of course have value. They would correct some of the excesses of the recent past. Although the recent past during Pope Francis’ tenure has left us with an enormous challenge incomparable to anything that has preceded. That is the inculturation of a Christian culture to a new paradigm, mercy without responsibility to the Author of mercy, Jesus Christ. A quasi Christianity without Christ.
What soothes the reconstituted conscience to sin without guilt characterizes the deceptive. A doctrine, informal, that God’s mercy sanctifies all, neutralizing the Ascension command, penance for the forgiveness of sins. Many, likely the majority of Catholics no longer take the conditions for death dealing sin seriously. That is the major task for a new Roman pontiff.
Such a man must also be a person of exceptional strength of character, fortitude and justice, temperance and prudence. Prudence is understood as the deliberation of a moral act. Requisite for such a man is a fire tempered steel will to teach, by preaching and writing exactly what are the conditions for refusing sin, and those works of divinely inspired charity that reconcile us to Christ.
About “prudence,” in the well-seasoned secular world outside the bubble, this often translates into “street smarts.”
Street smarts is the ability—and the willingness—to nip things in the bud rather than later having to deal with governance crises and worse. In the secular world, for example, the camel’s nose under the tent was civil unions, then the oxymoron of “gay marriage” as even imposed by the courts, and then gender theory as infiltrated into the government school system. Another win or Secular Humanism as the “established” (!) and mandatory national religion…
In the ecclesial world, the camel’s nose (or whatever) under the tent, for example, was the posturing of brainstem “listening,” then the rainbow banner tribe prostituting the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, then a few photo ops for poster-child James Martin, and then on Vatican letterhead the double-speak of Fiducia Supplicans. The fallout? Well, a divided Church with der Synodal Weg butting-in with the adults still in the room–all of continental Africa, plus Hungary, Poland, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Peru, the Netherlands, and parts of Argentina, France and Spain, not to mention dismay from the Coptic Church and “shock” for the Orthodox Patriarch of Budapest.
Street smarts…something to weigh seriously when considering the homelands of the various papabili…and therefore also the ability to strategically clean house from top to bottom (so to speak) in the legendary first 100 days or less.
We can have a Pope that has all the attributes to be a good and holy Pope, but if significant numbers of clergy and Catholic theologians ignore him or even fight against him then it will be an uphill battle. Hopefully, a seed will be planted that will grow to be an oak tree.
There is some benefit to the next pope being a progressive modernist, at least the mask will be full removed.