Pope

[karohemd]

Nothing else on the news channels. Just let the old man die in peace. At 84 and after 10 years of Parkinson's, he's suffered enough...

What I found interesting is that the majority of the candidates for his succession are from poorer countries in Africa and South America which might lead to a new direction of the Catholic church. Hopefully.

Comments

[corone.livejournal.com]

I suspect that a Pope from one of those countries will mean a more hard-line direction for the church.
I think many of them are far less liberal.
A freind of mine (who was going to be a vicar once) told me that if the Church of England was just England, they would have gay vicars without any problem.
It was the African and other nations that were part of the C of E that were against it.

Still, Catholicism has been the same way for so long I can't see anything changing with a new Pope. They only seem to elect people who are in their late 70s anyway! :-)

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

*nods*

Age was something else they mentioned. JPII has had one of the longest papacies in history and apparently, they're more likely to elect someone who won't last that long...

[whiskeylover.livejournal.com]

Catholicism has changed hugely over the last couple of decades, and significantly under the present pope.

And given that the current pope is now 84 and has been pope for over 26 years, that shows that they do not just elect people in their late 70s.

While John Paul II's views on certain matters, such as abortion and contraception have been fairly conservative, he had an incredibly modern outlook as far as inter-faith dialogue and the ecumenical movement were concerned.

Also, a lot of his appointments have suggested a move towards a moderate successor, rather than a swing back to conservatism

[kyrthira.livejournal.com]

We could hope!

[scy11a.livejournal.com]

You're lucky! I spent a long night listening to the same bulletins every four hours on R4 (breastfeeding eliziam:
"The pope's not dead. He's still not dead yet. He's nearly dead but not quite etc....

I'm bored now.