RESIGNATION SHOCKS CALGARIANS
Bishop says Benedict tried to heal rifts
The next pope should be one capable of moving the Catholic Church further into the modern age of communication, says Bishop Fred Henry, Calgary’s Roman Catholic Bishop.
With the surprise announcement Monday that Pope Benedict XVI is resigning at the end of the month due to health reasons, speculation has already begun on who will become the next pontiff when the cardinals meet at the Vatican in March to decide the future of the church.
Henry said the church is probably going to need a person who is going to be in tune with technology and the modern media.
In December, Benedict brought the papacy into the social media limelight, joining Twitter.
“I would hope we would be able to improve ... our communications in terms of getting that Gospel message out through the use of technology,” Henry said.
“One of the things that we definitely need is clarity of teaching again ... authentic teaching according to the tradition, according to the scriptures, and out of that we must become a people of deeper conversion and confident enough to be able to share faith and to witness to the faith in a world which at times seems to have lost its way.”
Stephanie Hugo, who was attending mass at Sacred Heart Church on Monday, said she was surprised by the pope’s announcement, but “he was getting kind of old already.”
“I think he was all right. He tried,” said Hugo, adding the cardinals should pick someone younger as the next pope.
Larry Hollohan, who was also attending mass at Sacred Heart, said he was shocked.
“I enjoyed him … I thought his com- mand of trying to solve the church problems of the scandals, I think that burdened him a lot. It didn’t show, but I’m sure he felt it quite a bit,” he said.
“We should definitely see a younger man probably (as the new pope). Someone in his 60s or something like that. I was watching some of the news on TV. Certainly they want someone that’s more in tune with the 21st century.”
Henry said the news was surprising, but not shocking because the pope had hinted in the past that if his health would prevent him from continuing in his duties, he would be prepared to step down.
He said it may be too early to actually talk about Pope Benedict’s legacy, but added that Benedict did attempt to heal many of the rifts within the church and “bring them into this position of unity.”
“We probably need somebody in the same ilk. Somebody who ... is prepared to read the signs of the times.”
One of the cardinals who has been mentioned as a possible successor is Cardinal Marc Ouellet of Quebec.
“He’s an incredible individual ... We’ll see what the Holy Spirit has in store for us. But I think ... we’ll get the type of person that we really need at this time,” said Henry.
Gerry Turcotte, president of St. Mary’s University College in Calgary, said the news was unexpected.
“If the cardinals were taken by surprise, the laity will be even more so,” Turcotte said. “But in another way, I guess he was very frail and seemed to be really slowing down quite significantly of late.
“I think he’s a much more theologically focused pope. I think he followed a very charismatic (Pope John Paul II). I think I heard somebody refer to Pope John Paul as the
Trying to solve the Church problems of the scandals, I think that burdened him a lot. LARRY HOLLOHAN
rock star pope. Pope Benedict was really a man of great scholarship and really returned to that side of the church and made some very important studies and comments on theology. That was more his focus.”
Turcotte said all the potential candidates to become new pope are unique.
“The office is transformative. So you don’t always know what’s going to happen when a pope takes office. I think what needs to be happening now is a more youthful appointment probably than Pope Benedict this time around,” said Turcotte. “But after that it’s all very much a mystery.
“What needs to continue is a lot of the healing that’s been taking place over the last decade over some of the big scandals. Certainly the type of work that Pope John Paul did which was a bringing together of the world’s Catholic community, but also that really powerful interfaith work that he did needs to continue. That will really depend on who is chosen as a successor.”
Irving Hexham, with the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Calgary, said Benedict’s legacy is going to be what he wanted it to be, which is essentially scholarship.
“He was an outstanding scholar … He’s written a lot of important books and I think he wanted to be remembered by his books — he’s attempting, among other things, to bring about an academic revival within Catholicism by his example,” said Hexham.
He said he believes the cardinals will choose someone from a nonEuropean country as the next pope — perhaps an African or a Latin American or a Filipino.
“My guess is that they’ll be fairly conservative and they’ll continue in this tradition that’s been established,” said Hexham. “I think they’ll get somebody who is following in the tradition of John Paul and now Benedict.”