What More Can He Hope To Accomplish?

By Robert Sullivan

As a rule, old popes don't retire; they sit upon St. Peter's throne until called to their reward. John Paul is of the mold. Though he turns 80 in May and suffers from Parkinson's disease and a bad hip, the frail Pontiff has given no hint that he will be the first in six centuries to resign. Certainly John Paul will at least finish out Jubilee Year 2000 as Pope--God willing.

What more does he plan to accomplish? He will create additional Cardinals and canonize new saints. He will keep up his push for warmer relations not only among Christian denominations but also among Christians, Jews and Moslems. He will publish a new social catechism that addresses inequities between rich and poor countries. And he hopes to keep traveling the world.

The Pope is expected to elevate more than 20 bishops this year to bring the College of Cardinals to its full complement of 120 voting members. John Paul, having already named more saints than any other Pope, plans on Sept. 3 to declare two of his predecessors blessed. The elevation of John XXIII, hero of the progressive Vatican II initiatives of the early 1960s, will raise no hackles, but that of Pius IX, an oppressor of Jews in the mid-1800s, will. (The march toward canonization of another Pius--XII--has stalled in the face of renewed charges that he stood by silently during the Holocaust.) John Paul also plans to bestow sainthood on two women this year--the Polish nun Faustina Kowalska, who died in a Nazi concentration camp; and Katharine Drexel, an American socialite turned educator who dedicated her life to teaching poor blacks and Native Americans in the first half of the 1900s. And he has started his late friend Mother Teresa down the beatification path, waiving the five-years-posthumous rule in her case.

In May the Pope will visit Fatima in Portugal to beatify two shepherd children to whom the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared there in 1917. For John Paul, the visit will have a mystical significance: his personal motto is Totus tuus (All yours--giving himself to Mary). When he survived the 1981 assassination attempt by Mehmet Ali Agca, the Pope noted that the attack occurred on the anniversary of the Fatima apparition, and he credited his survival to intercession by the Blessed Virgin.

There may be other trips too for this traveling man, who in 91 journeys abroad as Pontiff has already logged more miles than all previous Popes combined. John Paul hopes to overcome snags with Saddam Hussein's government and venture to Ur, in southern Iraq, birthplace of Abraham. He wants to go to Damascus and visit the site of St. Paul's conversion. And he would like to go to Russia, but not without an invitation from the Russian Orthodox Church--which is not likely to be offered. This Pope, who has made much progress in Catholic-Jewish relations, has largely failed in his push for unity among Christians, as Orthodox churches rebuff him and Anglicans ordain women. Still, we can expect the man who helped dismantle communism to keep applying mortar to Christianity's schisms.

Whom will the College of Cardinals elect to follow this extraordinary Pope? Not likely an American. U.S. Catholicism is seen as out of step with Rome--too worldly, too liberal, too full of dissent and disobedience. Forty percent of the Cardinals who will elect the next Pope are from developing nations, and there has been speculation that the next Pope could come from the growing ranks of African or Latin American bishops. But don't count on it. Says Father Richard McBrien, former chairman of the department of theology at Notre Dame: "The next Pope will be an Italian Cardinal in his 70s. The Cardinals don't want another long-term Pope, and after having made a bold move in electing a Slav, they're not going to elect a black Pope. Even though Italians no longer dominate, they're still the largest bloc, and an Italian is a safe choice."

Which Italian? Moderates might back Dionigi Cardinal Tettamanzi, archbishop of Genoa, while conservatives could go for Giacomo Cardinal Biffi of Bologna. And then there is Carlo Maria Cardinal Martini, a Scripture scholar and the archbishop of Milan, who has long been seen as a possible progressive successor to John Paul. "Martini would be the best candidate," says McBrien. "He'd be outstanding." The only sure bet is that whoever follows John Paul II will find the shoes of the fisherman very large to fill.

--With reporting by Greg Burke, with the Pope

With reporting by Greg Burke, with the Pope