Say the Cardinals elect Cardinal Arinze Pope? What would be the effects of having a black man as the earthly head of the world's largest Christian group?
WI Arinze becomes Pope?
- Thread starter Francisco Cojuanco
- Start date
White supremacists everywhere would go nuts almost immediately.
Strangely enough, he may not be the first in such a situation. Of course, there was less concept of race in the Fifth Century...
OTOH, he's in the grand scheme of things not the most conservative possibility. Ranjith of Sri Lanka would be even more so.
What would happen to Ratzinger, though? Does he stay on at the Holy Office, or does a hardliner like Ranjith take over (remember Ratzinger for most of his career was considered somewhat just slightly conservative)?
Wasn't Ratzinger thinking about retiring from the CDF not too long after 2005? Also, isn't Ranjith's main claim to fame his liturgical reform credentials? I would think that without somebody like Ratzinger in the Throne of Peter, there wouldn't be such an emphasis on liturgical reform, and Ranjith might not become such a big deal.
I agree with Westbrook's comment that there would be less of a focus on Europe. Perhaps we'd see more of a focus on interfaith dialogue?
Also, I would bet Papa Arinze would be treated a good deal more sympathetically by the media than Ratzinger has been.
That's pretty doubtful IMO. Arinze doesn't seem to be any more substantially charismatic than Ratzinger. Once we've got past the initial razamataz of a black pope, the media is still left with a not terribly appealing or outstanding vanilla conservative Pope.
And that's before we get onto HIV in Africa, and the fact that the world's most prominent African is telling his own continent not to not use condoms. Oh yes, the media would have a field day with that.
Would he be as big a diplomatic/media clutz as Ratzinger has been? Probably impossible to judge, but possibly not.
It might be worth pointing out here that by all accounts Arinze went absoutely nowhere in the conclave btw, and that Ratzinger's main opponent is rumoured to have been Jorge Bergoglio. So this really is probably out there stuff.
An African pope would IMO really be a taken as a symbolically significant shift (final shift?) in the church's orientation away from Europe etc and much more towards the developing world. Which is perhaps one reason why the cardinals would be unwilling to go that far.
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Not very much, really.
white vs. blacks is more a USA problem than a south european or south american one.
During the last conclave in Italy there was even a popular song wishing for a Negro Pope.
Well, what I was thinking of was that with Arinze,
1.) the media wouldn't have the whole Hitler Youth, Inquisition, God's Rottweiler thing to play off on
2.) you bring up a good point on how Arinze is still likely to make some embarassing gaffes, but I doubt he'd stumble into something as big as the "Regensberg Address" fiasco.
3.) It would be a lot harder to implicate him in the sex-abuse scandal.
Although you make a very good point about HIV in Africa. There's no way he's going to avoid taking a whole lot of flack there.
And that also leads me to think that even if Arinze does avoid Ratzigerian slip-ups, on the other side of the coin a "vanilla conservative pope" like him might not have the panache to make some of Ratzinger's successful media coups, like his mosque visit in Turkey or his meeting with sex-abuse victims.
So you're right, Papa Arinze wouldn't have totally smooth sailing in the piazza mediatico.
If Ratzinger is eliminated as a contender at the conclave sayr due to serious health problem then Arinze becoming pope does become a real possibility.
JP II wanted to prove that you can be a philosophical pope and political pope at the same time. Unfortunately he was unable to do that and be a sound administrator as well.
Ratzinger remains a theologian at heart. Arinze OTOH would take administration more serious.
He would take firmer steps towards dealing with the child abuse scandal. He may rule that homosexuals are completely unsuitable for the priesthood which will generate controversy.
He would take stronger action towards liturgical abuses and initiate a more sweeping reform of the reform. He will likely ban altar girls.
His approach towards ecumenism would be quite different that Ratzinger. He would emphasize a very low level practical interfaith cooperation with other religions (incl. Islam with which he worked with effectively in Nigeria) towards achieving common goals instead of of pursuing the grand fantasy of absorbing other Christian sects. One interesting lemma of this is that he would give very little attention to the SSPX.
There will be a broad campaign to try to restore discipline in the church. This is likely to result in many squabbles.
JP II wanted to prove that you can be a philosophical pope and political pope at the same time. Unfortunately he was unable to do that and be a sound administrator as well.
Ratzinger remains a theologian at heart. Arinze OTOH would take administration more serious.
He would take firmer steps towards dealing with the child abuse scandal. He may rule that homosexuals are completely unsuitable for the priesthood which will generate controversy.
He would take stronger action towards liturgical abuses and initiate a more sweeping reform of the reform. He will likely ban altar girls.
His approach towards ecumenism would be quite different that Ratzinger. He would emphasize a very low level practical interfaith cooperation with other religions (incl. Islam with which he worked with effectively in Nigeria) towards achieving common goals instead of of pursuing the grand fantasy of absorbing other Christian sects. One interesting lemma of this is that he would give very little attention to the SSPX.
There will be a broad campaign to try to restore discipline in the church. This is likely to result in many squabbles.
Speaking of the SSPX, how would a non-Benedict Pope treat the in-Trads? I'm talking the motley combination of ex-SSPX members reconciled with Rome before SP, and the Trads that never left.