Papal stakes

A back story to the gathering of the Catholic Church's hierarchy at the Vatican in recent days has been the identity of the successor to Pope Benedict who is now close to his 85th birthday. If you had no prior knowledge of Vatican affairs, and for sure if you were tuned in to the American media, you would be forgiven for thinking that the startlingly outgoing and humorous new cardinal from New York would be high up the ladder in the succession stakes.

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And perhaps Cardinal Timothy Dolan is in such a place. Certainly, the man who is being described as the "rock star" of the American church is not easily ignored. His is a larger than typical presence in the sea of generally unfamiliar and oft inscrutable faces that is the College of Cardinals.

Dolan has several factors going for him. He is a doctrinal conservative who is not shy when it comes to defending the church's positions, as has most recently been the case in the controversy surrounding health services at religious institutions. The new cardinal is relatively youthful at just 62, yet as head of the Catholic bishops in the U.S. he sits atop a branch of the church that is crucial to its present and future prosperity in the more earthly sense.

But it's Dolan being American that may also be an obstacle to any hopes that his admirers have for an elevation to the highest office in the church.

Press reports have been focused in recent days on the proportional increase of Italians in the College of Cardinals with the suggestion not too far in the background that in the eyes of some senior prelates at least, Poland and Germany have been geographically far enough reaches in the story of the papacy to date. Tempus omnia revelat.

 

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