As we go to press, no one knows what all may now know: the identity of the our next pope. Yet even to have seen the white smoke, to have learned which cardinal has been elected and what name he will take is not yet to know him. We will shortly learn the details of his biography, the personal strengths and resources he brings to his new office as well as the questions he is most likely to raise (or be posed).
Yet can we know our new pope – or anyone for that matter – without listening to what he says and watching what he does? That will take time. Like any real friendship, we hope that our relationship with our new Holy Father will be grounded in love, respect, truth and faithfulness. His burden and charge are almost overwhelming in a jaded world that continually hungers for spiritual leadership that speaks the truth with love and can heal, not just anesthetize, its hurt. The world needs more than white smoke. It takes the cleansing, freeing fire of the Holy Spirit to renew the face of the earth.
We have been confident that the College of Cardinals would hear the Holy Spirit’s call to bless us with the leader we most need now. We have expressed our hope that our new Holy Father would be both an effective steward and a visionary, able to manage the Church’s vast organizational structures effectively and with clarity. We also hope that he will inspire us by this personal holiness and zeal for souls.
Nothing is really more important than that our new pope be, first and foremost, a good and holy priest. Whatever may be his academic, linguistic or life-experience “credentials” – important as they are – nothing is more essential than that he be faithful to our Lord’s own example and, therefore, holy. So our prayer is not just for the “right” pope to be chosen but that he may be an unmistakable instrument of the Holy Spirit for all to witness – and this perhaps in spite of his own strengths and shortcomings.
Much has been said about the crisis in the Church that the new Holy Father faces. Every crisis that an institution experiences is more than structural. At its roots, it is also personal. The Church is no exception. Holy indeed through its divine foundation – Jesus Christ our Lord – it will only be able to fulfill its mission effectively as its individual members are holy and remain faithful. The best remedy to any crisis, it seems to us, is our own personal growth in holiness and fidelity to Jesus – to which our best leaders will challenge us by their own example. That is what we most hope to be inspired to by our new pope.
