Category: The Pope

Recently I quoted from Universi Dominici Gregis–the apostolic consitution of John Paul II governing the conclave and other matters to be taken care of upon his death–and gave the oath that is taken by those involved in the conclave who are not cardinal electors (e.g., support personnel). The cardinal electors take a different oath. Here it is:

53. In conformity with the provisions of No. 52, the Cardinal Dean or the Cardinal who has precedence by order and seniority, will read aloud the following formula of the oath:

We, the Cardinal electors present in this election of the Supreme Pontiff promise, pledge and swear, as individuals and as a group, to observe faithfully and scrupulously the prescriptions contained in the Apostolic Constitution of the Supreme Pontiff John Paul II, Universi Dominici Gregis, published on 22 February 1996. We likewise promise, pledge and swear that whichever of us by divine disposition is elected Roman Pontiff will commit himself faithfully to carrying out the munus Petrinum of Pastor of the Universal Church and will not fail to affirm and defend strenuously the spiritual and temporal rights and the liberty of the Holy See. In a particular way, we promise and swear to observe with the greatest fidelity and with all persons, clerical or lay, secrecy regarding everything that in any way relates to the election of the Roman Pontiff and regarding what occurs in the place of the election, directly or indirectly related to the results of the voting; we promise and swear not to break this secret in any way, either during or after the election of the new Pontiff, unless explicit authorization is granted by the same Pontiff; and never to lend support or favour to any interference, opposition or any other form of intervention, whereby secular authorities of whatever order and degree or any group of people or individuals might wish to intervene in the election of the Roman Pontiff.

Each of the Cardinal electors, according to the order of precedence, will then take the oath according to the following formula:

And I, N. Cardinal N., do so promise, pledge and swear. Placing his hand on the Gospels, he will add: So help me God and these Holy Gospels which I touch with my hand.

Also,

HERE’S A HANDY LINK TO UNIVERSI DOMINICI GREGIS IN CASE YOU WANT TO LOOK ANYTHING UP DURING THE CONCLAVE.

Several readers have e-mailed links to

THIS PIECE BY SECURITY EXPERT BRUCE SCHNEIER ON THE POSSIBILITIES FOR HACKING THE PAPAL ELECTION.

His conclusion: The Church has a good system in place that will be extraordinarily difficult to hack.

EXCERPTS:

What are the lessons here? First, open systems conducted within a known group make voting fraud much harder. Every step of the election process is observed by everyone, and everyone knows everyone, which makes it harder for someone to get away with anything.

Second, small and simple elections are easier to secure. This kind of process works to elect a Pope or a club president, but quickly becomes unwieldy for a large-scale election. The only way manual systems work is through a pyramid-like scheme, with small groups reporting their manually obtained results up the chain to more central tabulating authorities.

And a third and final lesson: when an election process is left to develop over the course of a couple thousand years, you end up with something surprisingly good.

GET THE STORY.

Fr. Richard John Neuhaus is over yonder in Rome right now reporting on Romish goings on and doing a blog while he’s at it.

HIS LATEST POST CONTAINS SIGNIFICANT SPECULATION ON WHO THE NEW POPE MIGHT BE.

So do his prior entries, so read them, too.

(Cowboy aht tip: Southern Appeal.)

Meanwhile back at the ranch, the rats at the New York Times write

AN EDITORIAL DISGUISED AS A NEWS STORY DEVOTED TO HANDWRINGING OVER THE POSSIBILITY THAT RATZINGER MIGHT BECOME POPE.

Many folks have commented on the interesting coincidences that surrounded the death of John Paul II (e.g., in connection with Divine Mercy Sunday). My Benedictine priest friend has noticed a possible coincidence with the electino of the new pope. He writes:

We have what seems to be a striking arrangement of God’s provident care this very year.

Saturday, April 16, is the final day of official ceremonial mourning for Pope John Paul II (the Vatican began the nine days with April 8, the day of burial itself).

The day after is the fourth Sunday of Easter, the papally-designated annual "World Day of Prayer for Vocations". The fourth Sunday of Easter always has a section from the Gospel of the Good Shepherd, John 10, no matter which year of the "triennium" we may be in. However, this particular year of 2005, year A of the triennium, has as the first reading on this Sunday Acts 2 in which Pope Saint Peter calls 3,000 to repentance and baptizes them.

The responsorial psalm is "The Lord is my shepherd." The second reading is from the first letter of Pope Saint Peter saying, "For you had gone astray like sheep, but you have now returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls."

Monday, April 18, is the beginning of the election to discern who has the vocation to serve as the next pope. John 10 continues to be proclaimed at Mass on this Monday and and also on Tuesday.

Next Sunday, given that recent conclaves have lasted less than a week, we may already have a new pope. If so, it is possible the new pope might choose that Sunday for the inauguration Mass of his pontificate.

In the first reading for next Sunday (Acts 6), Pope Saint Peter and the other apostles will ordain the first deacons. In the second reading, the first letter of Pope Saint Peter, the first pope exhorts the Church to come to Christ, to be built up as a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, for we are "’a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own, so that you may announce the praises’ of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light." In the Gospel, Christ the Divine Cornerstone speaks to us of his "Father’s House" that has "many dwelling places."

God is building up the Church indeed!

Many folks have commented on the interesting coincidences that surrounded the death of John Paul II (e.g., in connection with Divine Mercy Sunday). My Benedictine priest friend has noticed a possible coincidence with the electino of the new pope. He writes:

We have what seems to be a striking arrangement of God’s provident care this very year.

Saturday, April 16, is the final day of official ceremonial mourning for Pope John Paul II (the Vatican began the nine days with April 8, the day of burial itself).

The day after is the fourth Sunday of Easter, the papally-designated annual "World Day of Prayer for Vocations". The fourth Sunday of Easter always has a section from the Gospel of the Good Shepherd, John 10, no matter which year of the "triennium" we may be in. However, this particular year of 2005, year A of the triennium, has as the first reading on this Sunday Acts 2 in which Pope Saint Peter calls 3,000 to repentance and baptizes them.

The responsorial psalm is "The Lord is my shepherd." The second reading is from the first letter of Pope Saint Peter saying, "For you had gone astray like sheep, but you have now returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls."

Monday, April 18, is the beginning of the election to discern who has the vocation to serve as the next pope. John 10 continues to be proclaimed at Mass on this Monday and and also on Tuesday.

Next Sunday, given that recent conclaves have lasted less than a week, we may already have a new pope. If so, it is possible the new pope might choose that Sunday for the inauguration Mass of his pontificate.

In the first reading for next Sunday (Acts 6), Pope Saint Peter and the other apostles will ordain the first deacons. In the second reading, the first letter of Pope Saint Peter, the first pope exhorts the Church to come to Christ, to be built up as a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, for we are "’a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own, so that you may announce the praises’ of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light." In the Gospel, Christ the Divine Cornerstone speaks to us of his "Father’s House" that has "many dwelling places."

God is building up the Church indeed!

HEREZA STORY ABOUT AN EVANGELICAL RADIO HOST LOSING HIS JOB.

The reason he lost his job?

When a caller asked, he entertained the question of whether Pope John Paul II is in heaven and said it is not certain but is a matter between him as "an individual and the Creator."

Now, I always hesitate to comment on such matters when I haven’t heard the original because there can be many nuances that have been dropped out (like an ultra-snotty attitude being displayed at a sensitive moment), but assuming matters are as the press report indicates, should this guy have lost his job?

Of course he overlaid the discussion with the common Evangelical notion that one must be "born again" in an event distinct from baptism and then said that whether John Paul II was born again was a matter between him and God, but stripping the erroneous theological overlay away, it amounts to this: John Paul II’s salvation is not a cetainty and depends on the state of his soul at death, which is something nobody on earth today can say with infallible certainty.

Y’know who else says that?

The Catholic Church.

Until such time as John Paul II becomes a canonized saint, that’s exactly what the Catholic Church would propose to the faithful regarding his soul (minus the born-again-apart-from-baptism stuff). Individual chuchmen, including individual members of the Magisterium, might propose something different, but that’s what Church teaching would say.

So if those were the grounds on which he was fired, I’m just kinda cool towards firing the gent.

There might be other grounds on which to fire him (e.g., he’s teaching all kinds of false doctrine or he talked about John Paul II in an ultra-snotty way at a sensitive moment), but merely questioning the salvation of an individual (who the Church has not yet proclaimed to be in heaven)–that just don’t do it for me.

I thus appreciate the ecumenical sentiment of the station’s general manager, who said:

"WORD-FM needs to function in this city in support of the entire church — that means everybody — and not focus on denominational issues."

But however much reason there may be to confidently hope for the salvation of John Paul II (and there’s a whole boatload of reasons to do so; in fact I wouldn’t oppose the next pope proclaiming him a saint on the spot), I don’t see firing somebody because he simply said that it’s not 100% guaranteed that John Paul II is in heaven.

As of this moment, that’s the position of the Catholic Church.

Now, if you want to fire somebody because they’re saying that one must be born again in an event apart from baptism and that’s pushing a denominational issue on the Christian community as a whole, feel free.

HEREZA STORY ABOUT AN EVANGELICAL RADIO HOST LOSING HIS JOB.

The reason he lost his job?

When a caller asked, he entertained the question of whether Pope John Paul II is in heaven and said it is not certain but is a matter between him as "an individual and the Creator."

Now, I always hesitate to comment on such matters when I haven’t heard the original because there can be many nuances that have been dropped out (like an ultra-snotty attitude being displayed at a sensitive moment), but assuming matters are as the press report indicates, should this guy have lost his job?

Of course he overlaid the discussion with the common Evangelical notion that one must be "born again" in an event distinct from baptism and then said that whether John Paul II was born again was a matter between him and God, but stripping the erroneous theological overlay away, it amounts to this: John Paul II’s salvation is not a cetainty and depends on the state of his soul at death, which is something nobody on earth today can say with infallible certainty.

Y’know who else says that?

The Catholic Church.

Until such time as John Paul II becomes a canonized saint, that’s exactly what the Catholic Church would propose to the faithful regarding his soul (minus the born-again-apart-from-baptism stuff). Individual chuchmen, including individual members of the Magisterium, might propose something different, but that’s what Church teaching would say.

So if those were the grounds on which he was fired, I’m just kinda cool towards firing the gent.

There might be other grounds on which to fire him (e.g., he’s teaching all kinds of false doctrine or he talked about John Paul II in an ultra-snotty way at a sensitive moment), but merely questioning the salvation of an individual (who the Church has not yet proclaimed to be in heaven)–that just don’t do it for me.

I thus appreciate the ecumenical sentiment of the station’s general manager, who said:

"WORD-FM needs to function in this city in support of the entire church — that means everybody — and not focus on denominational issues."

But however much reason there may be to confidently hope for the salvation of John Paul II (and there’s a whole boatload of reasons to do so; in fact I wouldn’t oppose the next pope proclaiming him a saint on the spot), I don’t see firing somebody because he simply said that it’s not 100% guaranteed that John Paul II is in heaven.

As of this moment, that’s the position of the Catholic Church.

Now, if you want to fire somebody because they’re saying that one must be born again in an event apart from baptism and that’s pushing a denominational issue on the Christian community as a whole, feel free.

I know others are more beatiful or moving, and I want to give them their due, but this picture has a special place in my heart. Used to have a postcard of it in my office at Catholic Answers for years (until we moved offices and it went missing).

Use this syntax to put your own favorite pictures of John Paul II in the combox:

<img src="http://xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx">

where the x’es represent the URL of the picture (make sure you don’t put http:// in twice).

You may also be wondering what the oath is that the folks involved in the conclave have to swear.

Here ’tis:

I, N.N., promise and swear that, unless I should receive a special faculty given expressly by the newly-elected Pontiff or by his successors, I will observe absolute and perpetual secrecy with all who are not part of the College of Cardinal electors concerning all matters directly or indirectly related to the ballots cast and their scrutiny for the election of the Supreme Pontiff.

I likewise promise and swear to refrain from using any audio or video equipment capable of recording anything which takes place during the period of the election within Vatican City, and in particular anything which in any way, directly or indirectly, is related to the process of the election itself. I declare that I take this oath fully aware that an infraction thereof will make me subject to the spiritual and canonical penalties which the future Supreme Pontiff will see fit to adopt, in accordance with Canon 1399 of the Code of Canon Law.

So help me God and these Holy Gospels which I touch with my hand [UDG 48].

It seems to me that this oath leaves something to be desired in two respects:

1. It contains no provision against the use or planting of electronic equiptment that may transmit or allow the monitoring of things going on in the conclave. (Bugs are not recording devices, typically, as far as I know.)
2. At least some of the spiritual and canonical penalties ought to be determined up front and included in the oath. At least some of them ought to be automatic (latae sententiae) lest folks get the idea that they only run the risk of being slapped with them if they get caught.