Pope Hopper

 

I have been following the pre-conclave musings on the internet and the various traditional-leaning Catholic sites I regularly visit on the internet. For people minded-like to me in their religious views, there seems to be, at this very early stage in the selection of a Pope, equal measures of hope and dread. As of this point I have no idea what might happen, of who will be steering the Catholic Church in at least the near future, and that’s basically the boat we’re all in right now.

 

Here's a neat website that lists all the forty or so cardinal “candidates” for Pope:

 

https://collegeofcardinalsreport.com/

 

If you click on the link at the top, “Where They Stand” you get a concise breakdown on the positions these cardinals take on ten major issues of the day, such as ordaining female deacons, blessing same-sex couples, focusing on climate change, and promoting a “synodal church,” whatever that means, among others. It’s helpful if this interests you as you’ll probably hear meany of these names in the upcoming weeks.

 

What a great tool, as something like this has never been available in one place, sourced, for both laity and clergy alike.

 

Also, I have heard this conclave may take longer than average. We may not have a Pope until June. The reasons vary, but among the most convincing seems to me to range from the mundane (since Francis lived in the Casa Santa Marte, normally a Vatican guest house, there is no place for cardinals to stay and the shuffle is on to find hotel accommodations for 250 men) to the fact that Francis promoted many “from the peripheries”, i.e. South America, the Philippines, etc., that many cardinals do not know each other. So there will be a period of “getting-to-know-you” before the actual papal maneuverings begin.

 

As I typed the prior post on Monday, the thought of what would Hopper do if he was elected Pope? ran through my head. Hey, theoretically it’s possible I could be elected Pope. I’m a baptized male Catholic. However, for at least the past six or seven centuries the Pope has been a Cardinal, of which I am not. Still, though, what would I do if it was I who steered this barque of Peter?

 

I’ve written about it before. But here would be my plan, in no particular order but as fast as I could (or that Vatican machinery would allow me, provided I survive the poisoning attempts …)

 

- Suppress the Jesuit Order.

- Rescind Amoris Laetitia (Francis’s giving the OK for divorced and remarried Catholics to receive communion, citing himself in many footnotes).

- Rescind Fiducia supplicans (Francis’s giving OK to the blessing of same-sex couples).

- Lift the ban on the Traditional Latin Mass.

- Permanently banish Father Rupnik and allow criminal prosecution for his crimes and remove all his creepy artwork from any and all Church buildings.

- Remove Father James Martin from any position of influence.

- Undue the “agreements” with China which allow the Chinese communist government approval of cardinals from that country.

- Promulgate an encyclical, updated for the times, against the heresy of modernism, which touches EVERY aspect of Church, culture, and politics, including coining a better term for the heresy.

- Stop this false sense of humility. Return a sense of grandeur to the Church, and end this unnecessary antagonism to 2,000 years of tradition.

- End this “synodality” nonsense. No one knows what it means. Many suspect it means top-down tinkering with the Church disguised as a grass-roots movement. Many suspect it means further weakening the Church by undercutting centuries of teaching, dating back to prior popes, Fathers of the Church, the Apostles and Christ Himself.

 

There. That’s ten action items I’d address within the first months of my papacy.

 

My motto, inscribed upon my papal coat of arms, would be: “Challenge the world instead of compromising with the world.”  Provocare mundum pro compromissum cum mundo (if Google translate is to be trusted).

 

My hope is the next Pope will have a tenth of my bullishness (and a tenth is about all he probably could show if he wants to, er, survive his pontificate). The Church, and the World, is such a mess …