ROME
The New York Times
By ELISABETTA POVOLEDO
Published: February 11, 2013
ROME — Pope Benedict XVI’s surprise decision to resign on Monday immediately set off a flurry of speculation about his replacement, who will be called upon to guide the Roman Catholic Church through an increasingly secular era in which the church has lost the certainty it claimed for centuries.
Some Vatican observers predicted that the growing importance of the developing world to the church could weigh on the decision and, perhaps, lead to the choice of a non-European pope. But the voting bloc of cardinals coming from Europe remains sizable and influential, experts said.
“It’s a premature question, though it’s clear that two non-Italian popes in a row have broken the notion that the pope has to be Italian,” said Alberto Melloni, a historian of the Roman Catholic Church and director of the John XXIII Center in Bologna, a liberal Catholic research institute. “But the church is not the Austro-Hungarian Empire where leaders alternate between countries. The pope is first of all bishop of Rome, and then the leader of the universal church.”
Vatican experts argued that vision, rather than geography, would likely determine who would replace Benedict, and that the ability to communicate with a distracted world would be high on the list of desirable qualities. As nearly all of the cardinals eligible to vote were appointed by the current pope or his predecessor, John Paul II, it is likely that the next pope will share strong continuity in terms of vision and doctrine.
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