Word: vatican
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...many as 20 names are already being bruited, including those of some non-Italians. Most of the candidates defy easy labeling, for as Britain's Peter Hebblethwaite, veteran Catholic editor and Vatican expert, wrote in The Spectator just before Paul's death: "Any candidate who comes along with a conservative or progressive label must expect to be defeated. The next Pope cannot be the Pope of a faction within the church. He will have to rule from the center and be the servant of unity...
Redemptorist Theologian F.X. Murphy, a shrewd observer of papal politics since the Second Vatican Council, singles out two qualities that the new Pope must have: "pazienza e presenza, " the patience to deal with a pluralistic, decentralized church and the commanding presence to lead and guide. Similarly, U.S. Sociologist Father Andrew Greeley, in a detailed "job description" for the next Pontiff, concludes that he should be a "hopeful, holy man, who can smile, delegate responsibility and trust other human beings." If he is, Greeley observes, "it does not matter whether he is progressive or moderate...
Sebastiano Cardinal Baggio, 65. Inducted into the Vatican diplomatic corps as a 23-year-old priest, Baggio (pronounced Bah-jee-o) has moved steadily upward in a flawlessly loyal career. As signed first to Vienna, he soon became a Latin American virtuoso, serving in six countries and learning, as he went, superb Spanish, Portuguese, English and half a dozen local dialects. The pastoral job Pope Paul found for him in 1969 would have discouraged a lesser man: the Archbishopric of Cagliari in Sardinia. Baggio gamely traveled the island in a simple black cassock, exhorting fraternal love in place...
Salvatore Cardinal Pappalardo, 59, Archbishop of Palermo, might be a more conciliatory choice. A longtime teacher of Vatican diplomacy who was pro-nuncio to Indonesia during the anti-Communist bloodbath of 1965, Pappalardo capably moved into his faction-ridden Sicilian diocese as a unifying leader. A fellow southern Italian with an outside chance is Corrado Cardinal Ursi, 70, Archbishop of Naples. A widely admired pastor of the poor, Ursi travels from parish to parish to be sure all his people are cared for. His serious drawback is his parochialism: he speaks only Italian and has never served outside the country...
...warned that a divorce referendum in Italy would result in a resounding defeat for the church, which is precisely what happened. It is, however, unlikely that any Cardinal from a major Western nation, such as France, West Germany or, above all, the U.S., would be chosen, lest the Vatican be identified too closely with big-power politics. No Americans are considered papabili anyway...