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Posted: April 16
(Rome) After last week's papal funeral, the crowds have left our neighborhood around Piazza S. Pietro, which has returned to its normal level of tourists—except of course, for all the television crews waiting patiently for the election of the next pope. Within our Jesuit Curia, we still have five Jesuit Cardinals staying with us as they wait for the convocation. The amazing thing is how much a part of the community they have become, how very ordinary, in a good sense. Although they enjoy great prestige within the Vatican world, they are our brothers within the community. I witnessed their prestige when I accompanied Cardinal Avery Dulles from New York to the basilica to pray for John Paul II. Although police were guarding all entrances and restricting movement, a cardinal’s red hat proved to be a potent passport. We sailed past everyone.
Since then I have eaten with Cardinal Dulles numerous times. Avery is a character and a man of strong opinions, but just one of us. I treat him with respect, for his age and service to the Church; but I don’t ask him who he thinks will be elected the next pope. That is the question on everyone’s mind, but we are very good in the Curia at not invading the space of visitors with questions they would not want to have to answer. Of course, no one really knows who will be elected, and I have little faith in the predictions and list of “papabile.”
Another visitor in the house now is Father Tom Reese, the editor of America magazine and author of several books on the bishops. He is here to write on the papal transition for his magazine and has already served as expert commentator on numerous television programs. He wrote an editorial that seems to me to touch on the heart of the matter. Rather than focusing on which groups of cardinals follow which ideological bent and would make what deals, Reese wrote about the challenges facing the next pope, whoever he will be.
Many of the challenges come from the world in which we live, a world in which very different cultures bump into each other much more oftne than in the past. Understanding, mutual respect and dialogue will be ever more important, and the next pope must continue the good work that John Paul II did in this regard. (One of my favorite memories of his funeral mass was the justaposition of heads of states who had to come together in one place despite their differences; the Sign of Peace was the occasion for at least some of them to reach out to one another.)
Other challenges are internal to the church. Describing those needs, Reese wrote: “At the top of the list is the shortage of priests. The time for denial is over. There are not enough priests now, and the situation is only going to get worse. A church without sacraments is not Catholic.”
Since I have just come back to Europe from Latin America, Reese’s words struck home. In Guamate, Ecuador, I visited Father Julio Gortaire SJ who started a radio station to continue his decades-long effort to help the local people, who are almost all Quichua, develop a sense of their own dignity and rights. He also drove me around a few of the closest villages so I could take photographs. During the drive, he repeated what I have heard countless times in Latin America: that he can only get to some villages a few times a year, and the biggest ones at most once a month. Local catechists do what they can and lead people in prayer, but they cannot provide the sacraments. If the Catholic Church cannot respond to their needs, evangelical churches will.
Sometimes communication means the latest technology, but more often it means one person listening and responding to another person. Having enough people to communicate the Good News through the sacraments is a fundamental challenge for the Church. The pope did not create the challenge, but it is his responsibility to find a way to respond to it. My own experience in communication leads me to think that creativity is the only way to find a response.
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