Habemus Papam

 

Habemus Papam

The College of Cardinals has elected U.S.-born Augustinian Cardinal Robert Prevost, who has taken the name Pope Leo XIV

V. Let us pray for Leo XIV, our Pope.

R. May the Lord preserve him, and give him life, and make him blessed upon the

earth, and deliver him not up to the will of his enemies.

O God, shepherd and ruler of all the faithful,

look favorably on your servant Leo,

whom you have set at the head of your Church as her shepherd;

grant, we pray, that by word and example

he may be of service to those over whom he presides

so that, together with the flock entrusted to his care,

he may come to everlasting life.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Victory in Europe +80

 

80 years have passed since the original Victory-in-Europe Day celebrated Germany's "Unconditional Surrender" in 1945. As the actual events increasingly recede from living memory, the importance of remembering and commemorating them has correspondingly increased.

As on previous major anniversaries, London seems to be one of the main celebratory sites. Indeed, the UK seems to have devoted much of the week to commemorations, beginning with a military parade and a flypast over Buckingham Palace on Monday and concluding with a commemorative service in Westminster Abbey at noon London time today. That is fitting, since it is Victory in Europe that is being commemorated. For most of Europe (at least Western Europe) that also meant liberation. 

Symbolically at least, V-E Day also commemorates the beginning of the post-war European order - 80 years of relative peace and unprecedented prosperity in Western Europe. That the relationships and institutions which have historically contributed so much to maintaining that peace and producing that prosperity now seem to be in decline gives this anniversary an otherwise poignant note, as well as one of warning about what the uncertain future may hold.

V-E Day is also an appropriate occasion to remember the so-called "Greatest Generation" - those of my parents' generation (also the John Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush generation) that made these 80 years of relative peace and prosperity possible. They were a unique generation, formed in Depression and tried in war, who were in many ways the last typical generation of humanity, before we Baby Boomers came along with our unprecedented experience of security, well-being, and almost unlimited possibilities. (The reality for many individuals was, of course, less unique, but the overall experience of our generation was unique and set the stage for the even less typical experiences of subsequent generations, who have inherited a world which would have been almost unrecognizable prior to V-E Day.)

So, today, we remember the greatest victory inhuman history, that concluded the most calamitous war in human history. We memorialize its many victims, both soldiers and so many more civilians. (Indeed, as Tony Judt memorably wrote in Postwar, in occupied Europe "World War Two was primarily a civilian experience.") And we especially salute the warriors who won the war, that "Greatest Generation," whom JFK in 1961 famously characterized as "a new generation of Americans--born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage--and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world."

Photo: My Father's Map of his Service in Europe from June 8, 1944 through V-E Day, May 8, 1945.

Conclave (NOT the Movie)

 

Later today, the College of Cardinals will walk in solemn procession from the Pauline Chapel of the Apostolic Palace to the Sistine Chapel to begin the conclave that will elect the next successor of Saint Peter. How long it will take for them to do so, how long until we see white smoke rising from the Sistine Chapel's famous chimney, only God knows.

This is the seventh conclave in my lifetime. Most people in the world are younger than I, and most are probably less close followers of Church affairs than I am. For many, therefore, their main image of what happens in a conclave is based on the recent hit movie Conclave, based in turn on the 2016 best selling novel by Robert Harris. I personally enjoyed both the book and the movie - apart from the ridiculous surprise ending. That said, fiction is fiction. The conclave that starts today is the real thing, not a movie or novel. 

The movie is, however, a good primer on the ceremonial side of the conclave, effectively highlighting the extreme seriousness and solemnity of the process. This is, of course, in conspicuous contrast to the increasing unseriousness of almost everything in the secular world nowadays. Serious and solemn indeed is that formula each cardinal recites as he casts his vote: I call as my witness Christ the Lord, who will be my judge, that my vote is given to the one whom I believe should be elected according to God. Solemn and serious too is the setting, the Sistine Chapel facing Michelangelo's fresco of the Last Judgment!

At the same time the movie and book do also highlight the fundamental fact that these are real people making this decision - real people who, in spite of all they have in common as faithful Catholics and Cardinals, do come into the conclave with different different personalities, backgrounds, ideas, and desires, and so may actually disagree.

That is important to remember because, although we invoke the help of the Holy Spirit - and the Cardinals themselves will very explicitly and visibly do so - still it is they, not the Holy Spirit, who will pick the Pope. As Pope Benedict XVI famously observed "there are too many contrary instances of popes the Holy Spirit would obviously have not picked. I would say that the Spirit does not exactly take control of the affair, but rather like a good educator, as it were, leaves us much space, much freedom, without entirely abandoning us. Thus the Spirit's role should be understood in a much more elastic sense, not that he dictates the candidate for whom one must vote. Probably the only assurance he offers is that the thing cannot be totally ruined."

In the end, that is an important assurance. Christ's promise to his apostles, behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age [Matthew 28:20] and to Peter in particular, upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it [Matthew 16:18], remain the assurance we rely upon in this challenging moment of transition.

Photo: White Smoke from the Sistine Chapel announcing the election of Pope Francis, March 13 2013.

Jesus and Peter

Modern pilgrims in Israel can quickly sense the contrast between the dry, dusty desert of Judea, where Jerusalem is, and the relatively lush, green of Galilee, where today’s Gospel story [John 21:1-19] is set. Renewed annually by winter’s life-giving rains, the land around the large lake the Gospel calls the Sea of Tiberias (more commonly called the Sea of Galilee) is at its lushest and greenest in spring. And so, it was to that place at this season of the year, that Peter and six other disciples returned. It had been from those familiar shores that Jesus had originally called them to follow him. Now they’d come home – back to what they knew best. They went fishing. 

But this was to be no normal fishing expedition!

 

There’s a lovely little church on the shore that marks the supposed site of this event. In front of the altar is a rock, traditionally venerated as the stone on which the risen Lord served his disciples a breakfast of bread and fish. Staples of the Galilean diet, bread and fish seem to be staples of the Gospel story itself! Just a short walk away is another church, marking the site where Jesus had (not so long before) fed 5000+ people with five loaves and a few fish. Presumably, the disciples would have well remembered that earlier meal. Surely we should as well, as we also assemble here at the table lovingly set for us by the risen Lord himself. Here, in this church, as surely as on that distant lakeshore, he feeds us with food we would never have gotten on our own. Here too he challenges us, as he challenged Peter, with the question: do you love me?

 

Peter was asked this critical question three times – obviously in reparation, so to speak, for the three times Peter had earlier denied Jesus, his triple profession of love replacing his triple denial. 

 

Following Jesus and Peter as they walk along the shore, listening in on their conversation, we discover that what started out as a fishing story has now turned into a shepherding story.

As apostles, Peter (and his fellow disciples) have been sent by Jesus to cast their nets and draw people into the Church, which will continue the mission of the risen Lord in the world. But, within the Church, Peter is called to be Shepherd. Others will share in shepherding the flock, but Peter is particularly and singularly called to follow Jesus as the Church’s shepherd. Hence, the church that marks the supposed site of this story is called “The Church of the Primacy of Peter.”

 

What an apt image for us to reflect upon today, as the Church ends its nine days of mourning for Pope Francis, and the Cardinals prepare to enter on Wednesday into the conclave that will elect a new chief shepherd for the Church.

 

Proclaiming the primacy of Peter and his successors, the Second Vatican Council declared that, in order that the Bishops “might be one and undivided,” Christ “put Peter at the head of the other apostles, and in him he set up a lasting and visible source and foundation of the unity both of faith and of communion.”

 

In 1782, after the Austrian Emperor Joseph II had suppressed over 500 monasteries as part of the Enlightenment’s assertion of the State’s power over the Church, Pope Pius VI traveled personally to Vienna to try to negotiate with Joseph. The Kaiser (who not only thought there were too many monasteries, but also – at least according to legend – famously told Mozart his music had too many notes) conceded nothing, but the papal visit occasioned an enthusiastic reception by cheering crowds, demonstrating an unexpected depth of popular feeling for the Pope. An analogous occasion of imperial chagrin occurred in 1804, when comparably enthusiastic crowds turned out to greet Pope Pius VII as he made his way to Paris for Napoleon's coronation. Despite despotic political policies that attempted to diminish the power of the Church, a vibrant grass-roots Catholicism demonstrated its popular strength and the people's respect and reverence for the office and person of the Pope. If anything, the Pope's position at the heart of Catholic life may be even more central today.

 

So, whoever appears on the loggia of Saint Peter's as our next Pope, he will stand on a stage of uniquely universal prominence, from which he will be expected to shepherd the Church and advance her mission of following Jesus in a contentious and cacophonous world, which is so often at odds with that mission.

 

Typically, in these gospel stories of the risen Lord’s appearances to his disciples, there is that dramatic moment when Jesus is recognized, as when in the boat the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” But recognizing the risen Christ is not the end of the story. It is but the beginning of a life of following the risen Lord in the community of his Church. So, even before being formally entrusted with his special mission to shepherd the Church, Peter led the way, jumping into the sea and swimming to Jesus ahead of the others, already leading his flock, leading here by example, illustrating what it means, first, to recognize the risen Lord and, then, actually to follow him.

 

Discipleship is a lifelong process. So it was for Peter, as Jesus’ concluding words to him made clear – just as his words also make clear for us that we learn by doing, as Peter did. if we as Church do nothing to bring his risen life anywhere to anyone else right here and now in the basic bread and fish of ordinary life, then well may Jesus have to ask us over and over again, do you love me?

 

For in the end Jesus is also saying to each of us in his or her own way of life, in his or her particular role and vocation in the Church, Pope, priest, or layperson, what he first said to Peter: Follow me!

Homily for the Third Sunday of Easter, Saint Paul the Apostle Church, May 4, 2025.

Neither Conservative nor Liberal

I don't know! That is my standard answer when people ask one another who will be the next pope. Other than the American cardinals (whom, I presume, are not considered serious candidates) I can only recognize a couple of cardinals' faces. There are so many cardinals, whom I know next to nothing about. Not only can I make no predictions, I think all such outsider predictions are pointless. 

This may be somewhat true on the inside as well, even for some of the cardinals themselves.  There are 133 cardinals from 70 different countries who will vote in the conclave. Of these, the 108 appointed by Pope Francis will obviously be doing this for the first time. Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki of Cologne has been quoted as saying that he expects a “longer, more complex conclave” because of the “heterogeneous” make-up of the cardinal electors, the majority of whom have had little chance to get to know one another. So, maybe, the best anyone can really do is try to guess what qualities the cardinals might be looking for in their discernment.

Meanwhile, as the May 7 Conclave approaches, the media (and especially social media) are alive with intense speculations about who might be the next Pope, and, less pointlessly perhaps, about what qualities the Cardinals might be looking for in the next Pope. Most such speculations suffer, however, from secular media's natural drift to variations of the "conservative-liberal" political dichotomy. The obvious problem with that way of formulating the matter is that those primarily political and secular categories can be applied to the Church only in a very partial and inadequate way. The primary preoccupations of the Pope (and, for that matter, the wider Church) are not the same as those of secular political actors, and the categories they use in discernment are different. Popes and bishops routinely respond to issues in ways that sometimes seem "conservative" to a secular mentality, at other times in ways that may seem "liberal" to that same secular mentality. (The USCCB, for example, is widely perceived as "conservative," but on certain issues - like immigration - they are extremely "liberal.") So using those secular political words is a category mistake best avoided, in favor of words and concepts that are more at home in a religious milieux.

One religious word, which we are hearing a lot these days as a possible priority for a potential pope, is unity. We pray for unity every day at Mass, but what exactly does it mean to want the next Pope to be a unifier? Everyone recognizes that there are factions within the Church. Most recognize that division and polarization have harmed the Church and have likely limited her effectiveness in today's world. However that may be, while unity is presumably the opposite of division, it can also be contrasted with uniformity. Unity, it is usually claimed, need not mean uniformity and is compatible with the rich diversity to be found in the Church. Indeed, the Church's diversity was on display at the papal funeral, both the Church's ethnic and generational demographic diversity and its ritual and liturgical diversity. 

The liturgy has traditionally been of those aspects of the Church's life which exemplify unity within diversity, where one rule of worship has always been seen as compatible with a diversity of liturgical rites. Until the 20th century, in addition to the diversity of Eastern Rites, even within the Latin Rite there was a diversity of rites (Dominican, Carmelite Carthusian, Milanese, etc.) But this almost universally applauded unity-within-diversity runs up against the contemporary controversy about unity and diversity in terms of the coexistence of ordinary and extraordinary forms of the Roman Rite. Pope Francis' apparent hostility to the small minority of Catholics strongly attached to using the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite has led to some otherwise faithful and devout Catholics feeling persecuted in the wake of Traditiones Custodes. Given the obvious diversity of liturgical styles presently experienced even within the ordinary form of the Roman Rite. it seems less than helpful to treat the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite as uniquely divisive. So some accommodation, a "truce" in the liturgy wars, would possibly be one component of the unity that some cardinals might be looking for when they vote for our next Pope. A Church not endlessly at war with herself about liturgy would be a Church with much more energy to devote to her mission 

Unity is also obviously desirable in doctrine. While Francis did not actually alter any fundamental doctrine, some have complained - quite loudly in some instances - about what they perceive as confusion and lack of clarity in some papal teaching, primarily in matters of morality. These may be code words for hostility to some of Pope Francis' pastoral initiatives, his outreach to groups which have hitherto been - or at least have felt themselves to have been - marginalized in the Church. Pope Francis' personal informality and inclusive personal style were an important part of his appeal both inside the Church and among many outside the Church. It is reasonable to suppose that the cardinals would want someone who can continue to appeal to the world as widely as Francis did (even if some may also want a Pope who will speak somewhat more formally and precisely on matters which touch on doctrine). Obviously the Pope is a pastor, and it is evident that the world wants him to act as a pastor, but the pronouncements of a pope (however informally or casually uttered) carry a greater degree of presumptive doctrinal weight in the wider world than those of an ordinary pastor. Stylistically, in the last 60 years, the Church has had more formal popes (e.g., Paul VI and Benedict XVI) and more informal popes (e.g., John Paul II and Francis). While the informal popes have both been far more popular with both Catholics and non-Catholics, a greater appreciation of formality in papal style cannot be ruled out as something some cardinals may desire to vote for.

The Pope is also an Administrator of a complex of institutions, including the Roman curia and the Vatican city-state, which, as is well known, are currently running deficits. Financial management is obviously not the only or even primary quality sought in a pope, but it is an important administrative value that can only take root if supported from the top. So being ready and willing to permit and support some structural and institutional and cultural reform in the running of things in the Vatican may well also be something some cardinals may want to vote for.

On the other hand, one of the key points made by then-Cardinal Bergoglio in the 2013 pre-conclave congregations was the need for the Church to go beyond herself to evangelize. The future Pope Francis famously said: "When the church does not go out of herself to evangelize, she becomes self-referential and therefore falls ill (cf. the woman bent over herself in the Gospel). The evils which, over time, arise in ecclesial institutions have their root in this self-referentiality, which is a kind of theological narcissism."  That sentiment, which may have helped elected Francis 12 years ago, remains as relevant today.

Francis was a lifelong beneficiary of Jesuit formation and its intense Ignatian spirituality. Whatever his other qualities, whoever emerges on the loggia at the end of the conclave will need to be a person who is deeply grounded spiritually, who is alive to God's presence in our contemporary situation and alert to how to share that awareness with the wider world. 

Photo: Cardinal Giovanni Battists Re, the Dean of the College of Cardinals, leads the fifth general congregation meeting of cardinals in the New Synod Hall at the Vatican April 28, 2025. (CNS/Vatican Media).