UNITED STATES
New York Daily News
Lupica: Don’t bet on it, but Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation presents a chance for a narrow-minded Catholic Church to get it right
The last pope’s record on sex abuse an abject failure, the church needs someone who can overcome long-standing hypocrisy and inaction and bring the church into modern times on issues like homosexuality and female priests. Frankly, the church would be wise to choose someone younger, who will have more vigor and be likelier to look forward. It probably won’t, though.
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Sunday, March 3, 2013
Mike Lupica
It is the Saturday Vigil Mass this past weekend at a small church outside the city, and there is a young priest standing in the back of the church wearing a black vest and his collar, handing out straw baskets to the various parishioners who will help with the collection on this day.
After the money is collected, because the Catholic Church is always pretty great at that, the priest will put on his vestments and help with Communion.
Before he does, I walk over and ask him a question.
“Do you think there’s any chance the cardinals will get it right this time?”
Meaning, when the College of Cardinals officially begins to decide who will succeed Benedict XVI — another who became the face of the Catholic Church with his chin on his chest — as Pope.
The priest just smiled and shrugged, maybe because there is no good answer for a young man to give in a church too often run by old men. It was illness that made Benedict XVI’s predecessor, John Paul II, look as frail as he did at the end. It was just age with the former Joseph Ratzinger, who at 78 was the oldest man to become Pope in nearly 300 years and retires more than seven years later, and not a day too soon.
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