For those interested in Fr Greeley's perspective

[Maeve]

He is currently writing daily columns on the Church instead of weekly ones---you can access them here:

http://www.suntimes.com/index/greeley.html

[DemBones DemBones]

1. I certainly agree with Fr. Greeley's column today.

Here's part of it:

"However, everyone should remember that it is impossible to predict what a pope will be like after he is elected. John XXIII was a nice little old fat Italian man who was supposed to preside over an uneventful transition. They didn't realize he had the scheme of an ecumenical council up his copious sleeve.

When Paul VI was chosen, everyone assumed that as one of the major figures of the Vatican Council, he would continue to be a man of the Council. Yet in what many would consider a major tactical error, he spent much energy placating the most conservative of the Italian curalists who had insulted him before his election.

John Paul II had been active in the work of the Council, especially the document Gaudium et Spes (Joy and Hope), which presented an optimistic view of the possibilities of dialogue between the church and the modern world. It was assumed that the new pope would continue that optimism. However, he turned in the opposite direction and governed the church with tight centralized control, precisely to protect it from the modern world, which he repeatedly denounced.

My hope is that if the new pope is not Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, one of the great churchmen of our time, he will be someone from the Third World who will open up new perspectives in this narrow, rigid place. Yet a "liberal" pope can turn "conservative" when facing responsibilities of world leadership. Someone from the Third World, isolated from his origins, may easily become more Roman than the Romans."

I just posted in a thread that selecting Popes is not unlike selecting Supreme Court justices -- they just don't do exactly what is expected of them.