Word: italian
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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There was every indication that the conclave would be complex, difficult and possibly protracted. One Italian Cardinal who has been mentioned as a candidate joked that he was taking into the conclave "enough personal linen to last two months." Even as the first wave of Cardinals assembled, rumors drifted out of the Vatican of heated arguments, particularly over Paul's 1975 conclave decree, which directed that Cardinals age 80 and over could not vote for the new Pope. Among the 15 octogenarians thus excluded, several were trying to overturn the rule, in particular the archconservative Curialist Alfredo Ottaviani...
...question above all others hovers over the coming conclave: Will the next Pope be a non-Italian, as at least 50 of his 262 predecessors have been? The last Pope to be selected from beyond the Alps was the hapless Hollander Adrian VI, who served 20 months in 1522-23 while Luther's rebellion raged about...
...father. Would Romans applaud as enthusiastically for a Pakistani or a Canadian as he was borne down the main aisle of St. Peter's on the sedia gestatoria as they would for one of their own? A Vatican watcher points to the answer: "I don't know of one Italian Cardinal who would feel happy voting for a foreigner." Agrees W.A. Visser't Hooft, founder of the World Council of Churches: "It would take a concerted conspiracy of the non-Italian Cardinals to force it through...
What is more, the Pope has another task that can be daunting to a non-Italian: running the Vatican Curia, with its 1,200 ecclesiastical bureaucrats. Despite Paul's infusion of foreigners at top levels, Italians still dominate the middle-management echelon, particularly in the all-powerful Secretariat of State. Some liberals calculate that only a fellow Italian can really control the Curia and complete Paul's program of internationalization...
...major factor could be Italy's long-running political crisis. Communists control Rome and most of Italy's other major cities and are inching ever closer toward participation in the national government. For that reason, many analysts assume that a non-Italian is simply inconceivable. The crisis, however, cuts both ways. One American with Curial experience says that Italian bishops tell him that a non-Italian Pope is needed to shield the office from entanglement in no-win national disputes. Besides, remarks Jesuit James C. Carter (no kin), president of Loyola University of New Orleans, "the church is going...