NYT, 4/17/05 edition:

Most cardinals eligible to vote are now refusing media interviews – a consequence of the media blackout the cardinals decided to impose eight days ago. But some are talking on background to Vatican colleagues, church scholars, leaders of Catholic organizations and to Italian journalists who specialize in covering the Vatican. The New York Times spoke with several cardinals and more than a dozen people in recent contact with the cardinals. Most spoke on the condition of anonymity.

From the Telegraph last week:

Situated within the walls of the Vatican City, the 130-room, £10 million Domus S. Marthae – The House of Saint Martha – is about to fulfil the function for which it was built by the pope nine years ago. It is where, for the duration of the papal conclave, the 116 cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church who have gathered from around the world to elect a successor to John Paul II, will be quartered. In nine days’ time, the staff – including confessors and doctors as well as cooks and housekeepers – are charged with the mission of providing the cardinals with an environment free from all interference or pressure from the outside world during the length of the conclave. They, as with the cardinals themselves, are sworn to secrecy on pain of excommunication from the Church.

The conclusion that we draw is that the cardinals spoke with the NYT some time ago. It would have been nice of the Times to tell us, however; if the conversations were in the last few days, the newspaper of record really buried the lede, assuming the accuracy of the Telegraph report.

This April 17 story in the NYT is an excuse for the inevitable trashing of Cardinal Ratzinger. Here goes the Times again:

[I]nterviews with more than a dozen Vatican experts and church officials suggest that forces are lining up against Cardinal Ratzinger – who, at 78, may be judged too old, too uncharismatic and, perhaps most important, too rigid to hold together a polarized church that is a billion people strong.

We don’t care too much about Cardinal Ratzinger one way or the other, but how about considering that the most important stumbling block for the Cardinal might be his age, not what the Times sees as his rigidity. John Paul II was elected Pope at 58; John Paul I was elected at 66; Paul VI was also 66; John XXIII was 77 (and served only five years); Pius XII was 63. We have seen reports that Celestine III was the oldest elected Pope — 85 when he was elected in 1191, and also that Adrian I was the oldest Pope elected — at age 80 in 772.

Paul VI, who followed the briefly serving and oldest elected recent Pope, insitituted the policy change that only Cardinals under 80 could vote for a new Pope. With Cardinal Ratzinger now 78, it seems fair to question whether the Cardinals would elect a man who is himself almost too old to vote for the next Pope. Indeed, none other than the New York Times itself addressed this question in a previous story a week ago:

[A]ge may hurt. Cardinal Ratzinger turns 78 on Saturday. “This is a very strong personality, of great intelligence, faith and openness,” Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski told Reuters. “The problem is his advanced age.”

Of course if the Times had followed the logic in its prior story, it would have been unnecessary to write a piece on Cardinal Ratzinger’s being “too rigid” for the papacy.

We are making no prediction regarding the choice of the new pope, but if the choice is Cardinal Ratzinger, it would show a preference for doctrinal continuity with Pope John Paul II, and perhaps a decision to get some breathing room — in the form of a likely relatively short papacy — after the 26 year rule of a most popular and consequential man.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 16th, 2005 at 6:38 pm and is filed under General, MSM, Religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.