CNS STORY: Ukrainian cardinal urges people not to overdramatize papal election

The whole CNS
public Web site
headlines, briefs
stories, etc,
represents less
than one percent
of the daily news
report.

Get all the news!

If you would like
more information
about the
Catholic News
Service daily
news report,
please contact
CNS at one of
the following:
cns@
catholicnews.com
or
(202) 541-3250

Copyright:

This material
may not
be published,
broadcast,
rewritten or
otherwise
distributed.

Copyright
(c) 2005
Catholic News
Service/U.S.
Conference of
Catholic Bishops.

CNS Story:

CONCLAVE-HUSAR Apr-6-2005 (540 words) xxxi

Ukrainian cardinal urges people not to overdramatize papal election

By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service

ROME (CNS) -- Ukrainian Cardinal Lubomyr Husar of Lviv said electing a new pope is a serious responsibility, but it is not as if the fate of the world rests on the cardinals' shoulders.

"Let's not overdramatize this," he told Catholic News Service in Rome April 6. "It is a serious responsibility because it is a serious job, but it is not as if the whole world depends on this. But the consequences are serious."

Cardinal Husar said an old adage applies strictly: "Work as if everything depends on you and pray as if everything depends on God."

The 71-year-old cardinal said, "My hope was that the late pope would live another 10 years so I would not have to take part in a conclave." Cardinals over 80 are not eligible to vote.

Cardinal Husar said that when he was elected to head the Ukrainian Catholic Church, an Eastern rite, people kept referring to him as the successor of Metropolitan Andrew Sheptytsky and Cardinal Josyf Slipyj, "and I am not them. I am me and the same thing will happen to the next pope."

"Someone has to fill the office," he said, but each successive pope will be different from his predecessors.

"We should not create too much of a mystique about this office," he said.

Cardinal Husar said he was looking for a prayerful person, not a saint, to be the next pope.

He quoted a saint who once said a bishop should be a man "who is not very healthy, not very saintly and not very wise."

"He had a point," the cardinal said. "He must be a man."

"I am very much against mystifying this. The person elected must say, 'I am who I am and God will do the rest.'"

Cardinal Husar said the cardinals' task is made difficult by the fact that "there are too many of us to really know each other."

He said with all the challenges facing the church and the world, "You cannot come up with a profile, then look around the room to see who fits."

One problem all of the cardinals see, he said, is "a lack of moral fiber all around the world."

"Addressing the problem of morality is not a matter of reciting rules, rules, rules, but of helping people to do God's will," he said.

For that reason, the next pope should be a cardinal who has pastoral experience, Cardinal Husar said. That does not exclude Vatican officials, because most of them served as bishops at one time, he added.

Cardinal Husar also rejected the idea that the cardinals, to guide their vote, would draw up some sort of master plan, such as choosing one of the older cardinals with a view to having a brief transitional pontificate.

"All those types of calculations are dangerous," he said.

Besides, he added, many people thought Pope John XXIII was elected to be a transitional pope, "and he called the Second Vatican Council and changed the face of the church."

"My message to all people is: Let us take this calmly, without mystifying or overdramatizing it. After all, there have been more than 260 popes in the church's history, and there will be more," he said.

END

Copyright (c) 2005 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
CNS · 3211 Fourth St NE · Washington DC 20017 · 202.541.3250