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Monday 25 February 2013

Not The Shoes of the Fisherman: An Interesting Interview with Weigel on the Upcoming Conclave and More


http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/341455/holy-roman-reforming-getting-down-business-future-kathryn-jean-lopez


Here is just a snippet: on an answer about the choice of a pope.


LOPEZ: These are men in the conclave. What if they don’t listen to what He says?
WEIGEL: Well, it’s been known to happen before. Cardinal Ratzinger himself once said that the role of the Holy Spirit in a conclave is to prevent the cardinals from electing a pope who would completely wreck the Church. That’s a kind of negative boundary, but, looking back over the relevant history, it has the ring of realism to it.
In the apostolic constitution that will govern this conclave, John Paul II suppressed the methods of electing a pope by “inspiration” ( a cardinal or cardinals gets up in the Sistine Chapel and proclaims his belief that Cardinal X has already been chosen by God, and at least two-thirds of the others agree — the scenario in Morris West’s novel, The Shoes of the Fisherman) and by “delegation” (the cardinals agree to choose a committee who will choose the new pope). John Paul’s view, I think, was that the conclave is a drama of discernment in which every elector ought to feel the full weight of his religious and moral responsibility. That they will do this under the gaze of the Christ of the Last Judgment, in the Sistine Chapel, rather underscores that point.