AH Challenge: Habemus papam

Rome, 200X

St Peter's Square. White smoke emerges from the Sistina's chimney. The speaker emerges onto the balcony and intones the traditional formula:

Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum:

Habemus Papam!

Eminentiussimum ac reverendissimum dominum

Dominum Ioannem

Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae Cardinalem Küng

Qui sibi nominem imposuit Ioannis vicesimi quarti

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Küng

How? Obviously, a POD post Vatican II would be most interesting, but I'm happy to hear ideas.
 
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Let's be friends

His emience mends fences with the Congregation of the faith quicker.
Sparing himself the wrath of Benedict XVI.
He has powerful friends.
I think he would be a world leader.
 
I was thinking about a fairly early POD, since Küng is hardly 'papabile' with his career and publication history. My main question would be how we can get the Catholic Church become an institution that feels a sense of kinship with a man like him. Küng was a star theologian, a golden boy like Ratzinger. The two got along very well back in the day (they were on the team that took down the great inquisitor Ottaviani). I could even see his views staying a bit more along the party line if the church had embraced him. But I can't quite see the church deciding to do that. Küng has the brains and skills for a brilliant career, but his spirituality is very inclusive.
 
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