A New Pope

Like everyone else, I was quite surprised to learn on Monday that Pope Benedict XVI was going to resign. He was getting old enough that everyone just expected him to die in office like everyone else.

Naturally that has set off a flurry of speculation about his successor. Quite a number of men are considered in the running and Paddy Power has set odds on just about every member of the College of Cardinals. However, because of the so-called Prophecy of St. Malachy, interest has focused predominently on two men to suceed as Peter the Roman:

The first is Cardinal Tarcisio Pietro Evasio Bertone. He is currently the Vatican Secretary of State and seen as Pope Benedict's right hand man. He also happens to be from the Romano region of Italy, giving him an easy identification as a possible Peter the Roman. However, there are a few things going against him.

First is his age. He just turned 78 and the Vatican has a bit of a habit of replacing a long pope with a short one and a short one with a long one. If Cardinal Bertone were elected, his reign would look to be as short or possibly shorter than Benedict's.

Second, Cardinal Bertone is strongly tied to the policies of Pope Benedict and his elevation would be seen as a continuation of those policies. However, those policies are not particularly popular with the cardinals and much of the leity right now.

Third, Cardinal Bertone has been tied to several controversies in the past few years and his elevation would only increase these levels.

The second man that is getting a lot of Peter the Roman buzz is the current betting favorite, Cardinal Peter Turkson. After the world-wide work that Pope John Paul II did, many in the Catholic Church have expected a non-European pope. If it weren't for his age, Cardinal Francis Arinze would probably have the inside track, but he just turned 80 and I suspect that the Vatican is looking for a man a bit younger than Benedict was when he took office.

Cardinal Turkson fits the bill much better. He is only 64 and seen as a strong leader from Africa. He also has the distict advantage that although he is from Ghana and oversees Churches in that region of Africa, he has held Vatcian office for several years and is well aquainted with Vatican politics. He has been stationed in Rome long enough that people in Ghana refer to him as Peter the Roman as a badge of honor.

There is one other point that Cardinal Turkson fits while others do not: he is dark skinned. I've not been able to find a credible source, but there seems to be a belief that the last pope will have dark skin (the notations usually read "black pope"). This tidbit is not in St. Malachy's prophecy of Peter the Roman when read, but it is credited to him. I suspect that it may have come from a "reading in" of the prophecy rather than any specific wording. Early beliefs probably centered around this pope being evil and then evolved into his having dark skin.

We should find out next month anyway and then we can evaluate everything from there.