Twilight Papacy

As Paul turns 80, bishops speculate on the future

It may have been a birthday celebration, but the words were tinged with melancholy. "We feel the fragility of human life," Pope Paul VI told a crowd of 100,000 in St. Peter's Square last week on the day before he turned 80. "The fear of God's judgment at the moment of death is always present and full of mystery."

Earlier, as the Pontiff entered St. Peter's Basilica, borne on a swaying chair, a choir of 10,000 voices performed. TV arc lights played across the colors of African robes and Asian pantaloons in the packed congregation. Paul sought no assistance as he rose from the papal throne and lifted the host and chalice. But his hands trembled visibly and he walked to the altar with a slow, painful shuffle caused by his arthritis. To symbolize his years, Paul personally gave Communion to 80 people.

For months, journalists had wondered aloud whether Paul would mark his birthday by resigning the office that he has on occasion observed to be more a burden than a joy. He fueled such discussion years ago by visiting the tomb of the reluctant Pope Celestine V, who abdicated the papacy.* Moreover, Paul revealed his attitudes on the aging when he de - creed that cardinals who reach age 80 are too old to vote on his successor -- and that bishops who lead dioceses must submit resignations at 75.

Paul is the fourth Pope in a row to pass his 80th birthday and the seventh out of eight in the past century. Indeed, late last week he tried to end the resignation talk when he told the Synod of Bishops assembled in Rome: "From this event in our lives, for all the time that God may wish to allow us, we have the firm resolution to dedicate all of our strength for the good of the church."

At present, it is clear that Paul feels strong enough to stay on the job -- though he might decide eventually to step down if his health deteriorates. He remains lucid and works at his desk every day, but the obvious agonies of his arthritis are forcing him to drastically reduce private audiences.

He now sees his bishops only in groups; many would prefer individual meetings on some topics and consider this a serious handicap. Decision-making processes within the Vatican show signs of Paul's flagging energy. Says one secretariat official: "Papers that we urgently require are delayed. Often we have to phone the Pope's secretary for instructions right on the eve of an important meeting--instructions we have requested weeks before." It is nine years since Paul has issued an encyclical (the last was his controversial birth control decree).

The Pope's birthday was a prelude to the week's major event in Rome: the opening of Paul's fifth Synod of Bishops.

Some 204 bishops, most of them elected by their fellow bishops from nations around the world, converged for a month-long discussion of catechesis, particularly the religious education of youth. Though that may sound like a housekeeping matter, the church faces confusion over basic pedagogical methods, even the content of Catholicism. One leading Vatican prelate speaks for many of his colleagues when he complains: "Much of the teaching going on today does not follow any orthodox principles." Synod progressives will be lobbying for alternatives to traditional approaches. To bring the factions together, Paul has appointed a special "commission on controversies" for the meeting.

The Synod was originally considered one of the major reforms of the Second Vatican Council and of Paul's papacy. It was the chief structural means for collegiality (power sharing between the Pope and the bishops). But its luster dimmed once Paul made it clear that Synod recommendations could be accepted, modified or ignored at his will. At the last Synod, in 1974, Paul limited the agenda to evangelization. Bishops struggled for weeks to broaden the meaning of that topic, then finally scrapped most of their final report. In the three years since, the Pope has taken no action on the Synod's proposals. In the Synod before that (1971), Paul overrode many objections and virtually dictated a reaffirmation of the celibacy rule for priests.

Still, the Synod remains the church's only international sounding board, and speeches there will be, dissected for hints on the bishops' attitudes toward the future direction of the papacy. The most pressing question will, of course, go unarticulated in the formal sessions: Who will succeed Paul?

The current field of candidates is wide and shifting. If the Pope were to die or resign there is a strong possibility that the college would turn to Sebastiano Cardinal Baggio, 64, the conservative, efficient head of the Vatican office for appointment of bishops.

Another prominent candidate is Sergio Cardinal Pignedoli, 67, who leads the office on relations with non-Christian religions and is the most widely traveled member of the college. If the next Pope is chosen from outside Italy, at least a possibility now that 27 of 117 voting cardinals are non-Italian, Holland's shrewd primate, Jan Cardinal Willebrands, appears to have a clear edge. With two decades of experience in the Vatican Curia, he knows the Italians well.

Speculation cannot be limited to these three. All are known as administrators, and in the pendulum philosophy of many cardinals, Paul's successor should exhibit a pastoral style, not unlike that of Pope John XXIII. Such an approach, they feel, might provide a far more accessible papacy and a welcome father figure for the world's 710 million Roman Catholics.

*In 1294, after only 161 days in office. The11th century Pope Benedict IX resigned once or twice (historians disagree) and Pope Gregory XII renounced the chair in 1415 as part of an effort to heal the Great Western Schism.

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