UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism
Jerry Slevin
What is Pope Benedict XVI’s rush? If the Catholic Church can survive a month without a new Pope, it can survive six months as well. In the past decade, it has survived with a seriously ill Pope, John Paul II, and a very old Pope, Benedict XVI. The Catholic Church needs to be fixed and 120 Cardinals in red dresses marching around St. Peter’s Square on short notice is no way to do that.
Of course, Pope Benedict and his Vatican clique of mainly Italian Cardinals must know this and apparently intend to try to stampede the many shell-shocked Cardinals. Are Cardinals all that naive? Are they so impressed with Pope Benedict’s performance that they are prepared to rubber-stamp his hand picked successor? A mere third of the voting Cardinals can forestall any Vatican clique favored candidate until the Catholic Church structure is fixed.
Many Cardinals are likely to face criminal prosecutors during the next Pope’s reign. Unlike in the Reformation, they have no European monarchs protecting them from imprisonment. As an experienced Harvard Law trained and now retired international lawyer, I would advise any Cardinals who were my clients to go slower here. Fix the Church now. You will not be able to do that if you are behind bars. This is likely to be many Cardinals’ last chance to save themselves. Look what happened to Cardinal Mahony, who apparently has just been fed, in effect, to the Los Angeles prosecutors by a public shaming evidentally with the Pope’s blessing. Who will be next?
Yes, go to Rome, but demand first that a conference be convened soon before any election to be held far away from Rome to address seriously and comprehensively the Church’s major problems, which are just getting worse with the recent decades of papal inattention.
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