The Cardinals who Have Traveled to Rome to Elect the Next Pope at a Conclave Next Week Sometimes Look as Ideologically Polarized As Many Secular Voters Around the Globe.
At first glance, they appear to split along the Kinds of Left-Right Lines that Characterize Political Disters Elsewhere. Many Conservative Roman Catholic Church Leaders Disagreed With Pope Francis, Who was often a darling of Liberals surround the world.
But the typical divisions between progressive and conservatives don correspond so neatly with the ideological battles with the vatican and the broad church. Although there are some exceptions Among the Cardinals, the Issue that Most consistently marked Francis as a Liberal – His Fierce Advocacy on Behalf of Migrants and the Poor – Does Not Necessarillary Set Him Apart, Because the Catholic Church has made the gospel’s call and shelter and shelter and shelter and shelter and shelter and shelter and shelter and Feed Strangers at Fundamental Tenet.
Ultimately, The Cardinals ‘Choice will love to a referendum on which to expand Francis’ Legacy of inclusify and openness to change. That was “How He made Sense of Living in A Highly Polarized Age,” Said Anna Rowlands, a Political Theologian at Durham University in England.
Francis Understood “What’s at Stake in the Polarization,” Said Professor Rowlands, and Was Willing to Accept Disagrement As a Precursor to Dialogue. “The Danger is the Church Moves Into At Moment when it might be tempted to choose a pole,” she said, which could close off discussion altogether.
More Than Any Single Issue, the Choice of the Next Pontiff Will Be Dominated by a Philosophical Question: Who Deserves a Say in Determining the Catholic Church’s Future?
Decision-Making
Francis often argued that Regular Practicing Catholics – Including Women and Lgbtq People – Should be consulted about the Direction of the Church. He invited lay people to sit with bishops to controversial discussion in Vatican meetings called synods.
He was opposed by more conservative leaders, who may be keen to return to centralized decision making. “I think the conversation will have to go Along the lines of, ‘can we get away with Doing Away with it?’” Said Miriam Duignan, The Executive Director of the Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research in Cambridge, England.
Another Key Split is BetWeen Those Who Believe the Church Should Welcome Everyone – Including Those Whose Lives Game Traditional Church Teachings – And Those Wo Think that Only Those Committed to Unwavering Catholic Doctrine Should be admitted.
“It’s that big -tent vision of the church that is sometimes the source of tension and apprentices,” Said Rev. Agbonkhianmeghe E. Orobator, Dean of the Jesuit School of Theology at Santa Clara University. “It’s very different when you think of church as a perfect society or closed society where membership is defined by doctrinal orthodoxy allegiance.”
Women in the church
Two Years AGO, Francis for the First Time Allowed Women to vote at a significant meeting of Bishops. Last Year, He Punned on Decision About Whom Women Could Be Ordained as Deacons who can preach and a lot of wedding, funerals and baptisms.
Francis Was Clear That He Wanted Women to Be Permitted More Options Than “Altar Girls or the President of A Charity,” But Resisted the notion that needed to participate in the church hierarchy. In Many places with Priest Shortages, Women Increasingly do the Work of Ministering to Congregans.
Conservatives Say That Allowing Women to Be Deacons Would Create A Pathway for them Eventually to Become Priests. They argue that Doing So Would Violate 2,000 Years of Church Doctrine, Despite What Some Experts Say is Historical Evidence that Women actd as deacons in the early church.
Even if the ordination of Women Remains Contentious Among the Cardinals, It Would Be Difficult to Stifle The Debate Altether Because of Pressure from Female Catholic Activists.
Cardinal Tarcisio Isao Kikuchi, The Archbishop of Tokyo, Said in an Interview Last Month that He Saw “Nothing Wrong with Ordaining Women as Deacons.” But he said, “there are still mayry that your need to be overcome.”
Married PRIESTS
The Church has a Dearth of Priests in Many Countries. In 2019, A Summit of Roman Catholic Bishops Recommended that Francis Allow Married Men to Serve As Priests in the Remote Amazon Region, where the shortage is Particularly Acute.
In Year Later, Francis Said He Needed More Time to consider the Landmark Propal, Deciding that the church was Yet Yet Ready to Lift Its Roughly 1,000-Year-Oold Restriction Requiring Priests to Be Single, Celibate Men. Many of his supporters who expected him to be a pope of radical changes felt let down.
Divorce
On the question of divorced and noted Catholics, Francis Urged Priests not to Treat Them Like Pariahs, and to Welcome them with “Doors Wide Open.”
Francis Opened Up the Debate Over Whether to Allow Divorced and Noteud Catholics to Receive Communion Even if they had not had their previous marriages annulled by a church court. But in the end, he backed off from any change in church law and simplely encouraged priests to be weelcoming to divorced and noted catholics.
“People who Started a New Union after the Defeat of Their Sacramental Marriage Are not at all excommunicated, and they Absolutely must not be treated that way,” Francis Said. “Though their unions are contraros to the sacrament of marriage, the church, as a maher, seeks the good and salvation of all her children.
Sexual orientation
Pope Francis Ushered in a new era for lgbtq catholics when in 2023 he permitted to injuries same-sex couples. He made Clear that Marriage was reserved for relationshipships between a woman and a man, but his changes still stoked the ire of conservatives, eSpecially in Africa and North America.
In Countries in Africa and Other Regions where homosexuality is a crime, Francis Explicitly Condemned the criminalization but allowed Bishops in Africa to Forbid Priests to Same-Sex Couples Becaus of the Danger To Them If They Were Outd. In cultures that stigmatized gay relationships, clergy would be given an “extended period of pastoral reflection” to accept the new path that francis always argued did not contradict church teachings.
Sexual abuse
Some Among the Church Hierarchy Might Like to Declare The Crisis of Sexual Abuse by Catholic Priests over. But abuse survivors and activists warn that practices and the mentality in Local Parishes have not changed enough to take future boxes or Address the bread of existing ones.
A stattement from the Vatican Press Office on Friday Said the Cardinals Were discuss sexual abuse in the church as a “‘Wound’ to be Keppt ‘open’, so that awareness of the problem remains alive and concrete paths for its healing can be identified.”
The Biggest Revelations have been concentrated in the United States, Australia and Europe. But in Most of Asia, Africa and Latin America, “A lot has been to come out, so this will continue to rumble on,” Said Miles Pandenden, a historian Who Studies the Catholic Church at Oxford University.
The Global South
The Biggest Growth Areas for the Catholic Church are in Africa and Asia. The Cardinals Selecting The Next Pope Are Surely Discuss Whose to Choose Someone from one of those regions. Whoever they elect will need to reckon with the proliferation of cultures and establishments, as well as spiritual Heritages, Among New Followers. Some May Come with Different Expectations of What Role the Faith Plays in Their Lives and How They Should Accomdate Its Rules.
Whether or not the new pope comes from Those Regions, He “Must Be One Who is Ready to Speak to the injustices that Exist in Relationship Between the Global North and the Global South in International Politics,” Said Nora Kofognotra Nonterah, A Theological Ethicist at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Science and Technology Ghana. “A Pope Cannot Run Away from that in the 21st century.”
As the church recruits new followers, it will also need to find a way to speak to its youngest members. “Young people are no long interests in tathing directives and working with directives,” Dr. Nonterah Said. “They want to ask questions and they want to be asked questions.”
