“Where Shall We Go for Our Pope?”

Benedict XVI is a week away from his abdication, and the media is in its normal lather about all things Roman Catholic. When they’re not slamming the Church over sex-abuse, womens’ ordination, married priests or another of their favorite straw-men, they mostly prefer to pretend that Catholics don’t exist, or at best are a quaint bunch of superstitious people who pray to Mary and follow a man in a white hat. That is, until there’s a papal election to cover, and then they fall all over themselves Dan-Browning the secrecy, antiquity, and mysterious nature of a ritual that is more spiritual than temporal.

Of course, the most titillating storyline is, who will it be? Vegas bookies already have odds on the top candidates and will happily take your action. I’ve heard all kinds of names bandied about, including one that I’ve been talking about for the last four years, Timothy Cardinal Dolan. I met Cardinal Dolan when he was Archbishop of Milwaukee. He is a big, loud, genial, unpretentious, scholarly, and most of all a very holy man. I could see then that he was a man on whom God had laid His hand for greater service.

We’ll see.

The Italians, who are pretty used to this sort of thing, have a saying that the cardinal who goes into conclave a pope, comes out a cardinal. There is great wisdom in that on many levels. I was a little over one year old when Pope Paul VI was elected, but I do remember the elections of John Paul I, John Paul II and Benedict XVI. What I have seen and what the media often misses, is that the conclave is a work of the Holy Spirit. The man who stands on that balcony will be the pastor of 1 billion souls. May God have mercy on him!

For those who are interested, here’s a neat little interactive graphic on how popes are elected.