What to Look for in a New Pope

UNITED STATES
Wall Street Journal

By Peggy Noonan

The next pope should be a man who can greet the world with a look of pleasure on his face, with a smile of joy. He should not come forward with the sad, bent posture of one who knows the world is in ruins and only the facades remain. He should be joyous anyway.

What he has ahead of him looks fairly impossible. He has to confront The Scandals in a way that allows the world to believe that they are over, that a corner has been turned and there will be no going back.

The Scandals seem now as great as the scandals that prefigured the Reformation. They are that dangerous to the Church, threatening to tear it down in the eyes of the world. The next pope must understand this. In his first months, he should take dramatic action, including the wholesale retirement and removal of as many as possible of those involved.

It would be wonderful if, at the moment the new pope is declared—Habemus Papem, “We have a pope”—not only the doors of the Vatican balcony were opened to reveal him but every window in the Vatican and the great doors of Saint Peter’s itself. Open the doors, be vital, invite sunlight, show the world that a new time has begun.

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