USA Africa Dialogue Series - Fwd: NigerianID | Why there will NEVER be a black Pope

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From: Rufus Orindare <batokkinc@att.net>
Date: Mon, Feb 25, 2013 at 5:27 PM
Subject: NigerianID | Why there will NEVER be a black Pope

 

The appeal of a non-European pope is understandable as it seems to reflect the hope that the church at the top of the pyramid would finally reflect the demographic reality of the faith on the ground, since the growing majority of Catholics live in the Southern Hemisphere.

Picking a pope from the Global South would also show that the church can embrace change -- not necessarily by altering a particular doctrine but by changing the way it expresses and embodies the faith. In that sense, a pope from the developing world would be a symbol with real substance, much the way people saw Polish-born John Paul II in 1978, the first non-Italian pontiff in centuries and one who came from behind the Iron Curtain.

So why not "a black pope, or a yellow one, or a red one, or a Latin American?" as Guatemala Archbishop Oscar Julio Vian Morales wondered after Benedict's announcement.

In reality there are several factors working against such a change, the biggest one being a structural bias that is hard to overcome.

A GLOBAL IMBALANCE

Simply put, the College of Cardinals is gerrymandered to favor an Old World candidate. It's set up like the U.S. Senate so that archdioceses with few practicing Catholics -- like many in Europe -- always have a cardinal and as much electoral weight as entire nations that have far more Mass-going Catholics but perhaps a single cardinal, if that.

Latin America, for example, is home to 42 percent of the world's Catholics, yet it claims just 16 percent of the College of Cardinals (19 out of 117 electors). Europe, meanwhile, has 24 percent of the world's Catholics (and a much lower rate of practice) but claims a full 53 percent of all the cardinals.

Similarly, Africa has 16 percent of the world's Catholics -- and growing -- and just 9 percent of the cardinals. Even U.S. and Canadian Catholics are overrepresented: 8 percent of all Catholics reside in North America but they account for 12 percent of the cardinals.

The imbalance derives in part from history: The pope is pope because he is the bishop of Rome, following St. Peter, the first bishop of Rome, who tradition says was martyred there. In the early centuries of Christianity, the bishop of Rome was elected by the people and priests of the city. Later, the election was held by cardinals, who are given honorary posts in the Diocese of Rome or serve in the Vatican bureaucracy.

Even now, numerous Italian dioceses and offices in the Roman Curia still automatically come with a red hat. And because Europe was the engine of Catholicism until the last century, a bishop who's appointed to one of its ancient or prominent dioceses also gets a cardinal's title. It's a tradition that has always invited some criticism.

"Is it not reasonable that they (the cardinals) be selected from every nation whose office it is to judge all nations?" St. Bernard of Clairvaux asked in the 12th century.

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