Surprising speculation from the panting heart of Rome! Noted Vaticanista Sandro Magister has just published a "classroom exercise" in which he predicts the next pope will be a cardinal from the New World. In yesterday's Chiesa, he wrote:
The metamorphosis underway in Catholicism worldwide is such that, if one wished to do a classroom exercise, the candidate for pope who most corresponds to it today is without a doubt Canadian cardinal Marc Ouellet, 68, multilingual, the former archbishop of Québec, which is one of the most secularized regions of the planet, a talented theologian of the Ratzingerian school, now the prefect of the Vatican congregation that selects new bishops, and above all for many years a missionary in Latin America.
Sr Magister's argument, concluded by that paragraph, is that the Church in Europe is moribund -- no argument there -- but "coming back strong" in the United States and growing by leaps and bounds in Asia and Latin America.
Walt confesses to being surprised by Sr Magister's rose-tinted view of the state of the Church in the USA. Some of the most poisoned fruits of Vatican II have been harvested in the USA. I refer to "clown masses" and other liturgical abuses, the plague of perverted priests and bishops and the ensuing cover-ups, the ferocious feminism and the general prevalence of "cafeteria Catholicism" amongst those -- espeically poewr-hungry politicians -- who have the nerve to call themselves "practising Catholics".
It's enough to make you think that the mainstream Church in the USA -- the majority of Catholics who accept Vatican II and all its errors -- has surrendered completely to the philosophies and forces of secular humanism.
But then, just when a traditionalist might be on the brink of despair, along comes a true leader like Francis Cardinal George, the Archbishop of Chicago, who has the courage to stick his head above the parapet and stand up for the freedom of the Catholic Church to preach and practise Her Faith as guaranteed by the Constitution.
Just last month, Thomas Cardinal Collins, Archbishop of Toronto, did the same thing, in the face of the Ontario government's forcing Catholics to make room in their schools for "gay-straight alliances", so called. The "anti-bullying" bill -- truly a bullying bill in disguise -- is now law, but the Cardinal made his stand and made his point. Catholic voters won't forget.
So, perhaps Sr Magister is right. Even in the namby-pamby mainstream Church, which tries so hard to be politically correct and not offend apostates, heretics and infidels, there are some who are beginning to say we have gone too far down the road to a secular, humanist, post-Christian society. If one of them is chosen to fill the shoes of St. Peter, so much the better for the Church and for the world.
Nos lecteurs d'expression française sont priés de lire "Exercice d'école sur l'identité du prochain pape".
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