Click to ENLARGE. News story snippets from ‘Google News‘.
Never mind what Jesus would say.
I am more interested in what John Paul II or John XXIII would have said. Or even ‘Paul VI’, ‘John Paul I’ or ‘Benedict XV’ (not XVI).
I am nonplussed.
Yes, in May of last year some had started to worry that he might become “Putin’s Pope”.
I have often said that Francis is very like Trump!
There are a couple of ‘S’ words that readily spring to my mind as I sit here stewing about Francis and this stupid statement. One of these ‘S’ words is SENILE.
You could easily call John Paul II the ASTUTE POPE. He was that.
Wow! This one is convoluted and much depends on semantics, nuances & interpretations.
At a SUPERFICIAL level one can argue, somewhat persuasively, on both side, BUT it gets tricky when you really start drilling down.
ONE of my initial reactions was: “NO ONE but BUT NO ONE, on earth, has authority over the pope“. Can we all agree on that? As long as he is ensconced within the Vatican State he is unimpeachable, totally powerful, ABOVE THE LAW, untouchable & even infallible in certain scenarios (particularly when it comes to dogma, i.e., basically Church teaching). So, to say the pope doesn’t have the AUTHORITY is confusing. He might NOT, but who can legitimately challenge that? That is the question. Cardinals can spout their own opinions but they have NO POWER. Talk about being impotent. All talk, no trousers. Muller can asset anything in words, BUT he can’t do DIDDLY in terms of action.
So, my first contention is: ‘so, who can refute the pope, meaningfully & LEGALLY, on earth?‘ I don’t think there is anyone who can, BUT PLEASE correct me.
Then there are precedents. Many popes played a pivotal role in defining today’s teaching as to the Trinity! That is pretty basic & we only got to where we are today thanks to the hands-on involvement of a number of popes. Check out the whole ‘filioque‘ controversy. It was popes that made the determination.
Then there is the ‘Assumption of Mary‘. A couple of popes made that real.
Then there is Paul VI, birth control & Humanae vitae. That is pretty fundamental & far reaching Church teaching.
Then we also have papal infallibility. Wow. That absolves popes, in matters of dogma, on possible errors in doctrine! I am really not sure whether Muller got this one even vaguely right.
Tell me what you think. MY initial druthers is that Muller is not 100% correct on this.
Click to ENLARGE & read here. From my ‘Electing the Next Pope‘ book.Click to ENLARGE & read here. From my ‘The Conclave‘ book. Click to ENLARGE & read here. From my ‘The Conclave‘ book.
There is tremendous merit & HISTORICAL significance to this proposal.
It will take papal elections back to its roots; to its origins.
The pope, as the ‘Bishop of Rome’, used to be elected by JUST the Romans — clergy & laity.
For the first 395 years of their existence ALL cardinals lived in or around Rome. You had to be in or around Rome to be a cardinal until 1163.
It is the NEED for this tie-in with Rome that ensures that all cardinals, even today, are assigned a ceremonial (& mainly symbolic) Church in Rome.
So, saying that conclaves be restricted just to Rome-based cardinals is NOT crazy. It has deep historic import.
Cardinal Brandmuller (93) is RIGHT.
I have said the same things, more than once. There is no longer any cohesion or collegiality within the College of Cardinals. They don’t know each other & they certainly no longer have a common tongue in which to talk with each other!
It is probably the most disjoint & dysfunctional All Boys Club of all times.
Brandmuller is being provocative to raise his issue, i.e., the College of Cardinals is OUT-OF-CONTROL. Post Paul VI popes have lost all restraint & common sense when it comes to creating cardinals. They are creating them willy nilly with no regard for the consequences.
But, Francis, for one would just laugh at this proposal. This move would nullify all of his brash & blatant moves to make sure the next pope is one of his acolytes. So, great idea, but it will not go beyond this speech.
Paul VI (1963 — 1978) introduced the 80-year aging out rule for cardinals in 1970 — to take effect as of January 1, 1971. It was a totally arbitrary move & it was well recognized, from the start, as being a blatant move by the (sometimes canny) pope to exclude traditionalist cardinals from the next conclave — to increase the chances that another ‘liberal’ would be elected.
In 1970 there had been NO pope who have lived beyond 85-years in 67-years. So, 80 looked like a decent retirement age for cardinals.
However, since 1970, we have had 3 popes IN A ROW who have reigned after turning 84. The last two popes were still popes when they turned 85.
So, cardinals must retire (due to their perceived aging) at 80, but popes can breeze on past 85? That seems unfair.
Starting with John XXIII, in 1958, popes have claimed that the Church must keep up with modern times & trends.
That was John XXIII’s rationale for exceeding the prior 70 max limit for the College of Cardinals. There were more Catholics around the world & as such there should be more cardinals to represent them.
Well, since 1970 longevity, especially among the pampered prelates, have increased. More and more are living well into their 80s. How many over 90s have we seen of late. So, isn’t it time the 80 year cutoff was reexamined — especially now as the current pope inches towards his 86th birthday?
Click to ENLARGE. From one of my magic papal spreadsheets.
Francis, having become Pope in March 2013, held a cardinal creating consistory every year, as of 2014, until last year. See image above. The average gap between his cardinal creating consistories was 1.13 months — i.e., just over a year.
So, per his track record, he is due a cardinal creating consistory NOW.
But, ‘he’, or to be more precise the Church, has a problem.
Per the prevailing, inviolable LAWS ONLY 120 cardinal electors may participate in a conclave.
Right now we are at EXACTLY 120 cardinal electors.
As you can see from the image above, barring unexpected deaths, this 120 number only falls rather slowly during 2022. On June 7, 2022, it will be down to 116. So, there will be 4 slots vacant.
That was always dangerous. It was FINE as long as there was to be no conclave.
So, Francis, was gambling with his death — basically proclaiming that he will not die until the number fell to 120 or lower.
But, can he carry on with this gamble as he gets older & older?
Of course, he has another option — one that I have advocated for years.
He can RAISE the 120 limit — which was arbitrary in the first place, when it was set by Paul VI in 1973. That was 49- years ago.
Just like Paul VI, Francis can, at a stroke & arbitrarily, increase that number or do away with it altogether — saying that there is no limit to the number of electors that may participate in a conclave. [There is, however, a logistical problem here in terms of space. But, the Vatican can be creative.]
Another possibility, one that I have also previously talked about, is that of creating cardinals one at a time rather than holding a consistory where multiple are created. Absolutely, nothing — but nothing — to stop the pope doing that. So, he can create a new cardinal each time there is a new slot.
Click to ENLARGE. I created this using maps from Wikipedia.
To be fair, this wasn’t a hard record to achieve. As yesterday’s post highlighted papal travel, outside of Italy, is quite a recent phenomenon — pioneered by Paul VI in the 1960s.
Then John Paul II took it to new heights. He made papal travel commonplace. Given his lengthy tenure, 26.4 years, during which he travelled during each FULL year of his papacy, his record is going to hard to beat.
Benedict XVI, as you can see from the figure above, was not a great traveler. He tried to keep his travels short — never undertaking a trip with more than 5 stops. John Paul II, in 1983, made a trip with 11 stops. Paul VI’s last trip, in 1970, had 9 stops. Francis, in 2019, did a 7 stop trip. So, of the last 3 popes, in terms of tenure, Benedict XVI has been the pope least travelled. [You may come across references that say he only made 24 trips to 28 countries. That is wrong. San Marino, that he visited in 2011, is NOT a part of Italy!]
Note that Francis, though he has visited Latin America multiple times, has yet to visit his motherland, Argentina.
In marked contrast, Benedict XVI visited Germany 3 times; John Paul II Poland 9 times. In both instances they visited their motherland more times than any other country. They also both managed to make it home during the first year of their papacy. Ironically, Francis’ first visit, during his first year, was to Brazil which borders Argentina.
Click to ENLARGE. I created this using maps from Wikipedia.
How you react to this (or let it even register with you) will depend BOTH on your age & familiarity with papal history.
42 years mean, quite literally, two full generations. Yes, that means we now have two generations of folks, worldwide, independent of religion, who take it for GRANTED that popes travel. They are so used to seeing images of popes all over the globe, kissing the ground & holding Masses attended by hundreds of thousands.
But, if they ONLY knew how recent this all has been.
Between 1814 and 1964, i.e., 151 years, NO pope set foot outside of Italy. Just ponder that. 151 years between 1814 & 1964. This 1814 date, however, needs elaboration. The pope, Pius VII [1800 — 1823], was NOT outside Italy, in 1814, by choice! He was being held a prisoner, in France, by Napoleon. Pius VII did attend Napoleon’s wedding, by choice, in France, in 1804. So, that was the last time, prior to Paul VI, that a pope had left Italy by choice. So, we need to make a distinction between 1804 & 1814. First was by choice, the other wasn’t.
Prior to 1804 travel outside Italy had been quite rare & often undertaken under duress rather than by choice.
It was Paul VI, who became pope in 1963, that started this trend of popes travelling the globe. Paul VI travelled extensively between 1964 and 1970. In 1970 he had a 11 day trip covering 11 countries. That is a record, i.e., 11 countries on one trip. During that trip there was an attempt made on his life, in the Philippines, on day 3 of the trip. Paul VI was a trooper. He did NOT let this curtail his trip. He completed it. But, he did NOT make any further foreign trips THOUGH he would continue to reign for another 8 years.
Not so with his successors, bar poor the 33-day only John Paul I.
Even John Paul II, despite his infirmities in his later years, continued to travel abroad, year year, without fail, till the end.
Hence, the interrupted 42-year record until last year — & COVID.
42 years, uninterrupted, was quite the record. Don’t scoff at it.
In 2021 we, of course, had to reset the clock. Now, the popes will have to maintain an unbroken sequence of yearly overseas travel till 2063 before the current record is overtaken.
