By itself, Benedict’s advanced age [of 85] probably would invite speculation about what comes next, even though there’s no indication of a health crisis. This is, after all, a pontiff who departs next week for a six-day trip to Mexico and Cuba.
Yet it’s not just a birthday that has people thinking about succession. There’s also a mounting perception that for all of Benedict’s brilliance as a teacher, something isn’t working in the internal governance of the Vatican, and it’s not likely to be fixed on his watch. The tawdry “Vatileaks” scandal is the most recent symptom of a series of maladies — an inability to keep personal conflicts under control (the Boffo affair), to anticipate the foreseeable results of policy choices (the Holocaust-denying bishop debacle) and to tell even positive stories effectively (the pope’s role in the sex abuse crisis).
While they are obviously well-meaning, I think both of these journalists overlook the fact that the current system of electing the Popes has given us the two greatest Popes in the last 100 years, if not longer, John Paul II and Benedict XVI. These two Popes have appointed the vast majority of sitting Cardinals, so there’s every reason to hope that Benedict’s successor will be cut from the same cloth. At least I devoutly hope so. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
1. Evan, I think that is unfair to the popes of the early 20th century who along with their late 19th century predecessors were spot on in predicting the modernist heresy. Benedict is a good pope, but it’s clear that his age and main talent as a teacher have not helped him in reining in the bureaucracy. The same goes for JPII, the great Catholic communicator, but also a poor administrator.
As for John Allen, I don’t really take him seriously. He has his good points, but it’s important to remember that he was the one who predicted ten years ago or so that Cardinal Ratzinger was going to retire to Bavaria because his health sucked.