CNS STORY: Pope to lead a church facing diverse challenges around the world

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FUTURE-THIRDWORLD Apr-14-2005 (1,050 words) xxxi

Pope to lead a church facing diverse challenges around the world

By Barbara J. Fraser
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The man whom the cardinal-electors choose as pope in the conclave set to begin April 18 will lead a church that faces diverse challenges around the world, from killer diseases like the recent outbreak of the Marburg virus in Africa, to free trade agreements in Latin America, to severe poverty in Asia, to a growing Muslim population and decreasing number of Catholics in Europe.

"When the cardinals come together, they will be looking for someone to lead the universal church," said U.S. Jesuit Father Thomas Reese, editor of America magazine. That means addressing issues such as poverty, hunger and the economic effects of globalization in developing countries; continuing ecumenical dialogue in Europe and the United States; and keeping channels of communication open with non-Christians in Asia, Africa and Europe.

Much media speculation has focused on whether the next pontiff will be from Europe, where the Catholic population dropped by nearly 3.4 million between 1997 and 2002, or the developing world, which has seen the largest numbers of new Catholics baptized in recent years. Cardinals from Brazil, Honduras, Argentina, Chile and Nigeria are mentioned among the most likely candidates for pope.

Just as Pope John Paul II, a native of Poland, is credited with having played a role in the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, a pope from Africa, Asia or Latin America could leave a mark on his own part of the world.

Nevertheless, the face of the church varies from region to region, and experts caution against reducing the issue to a choice between a European or a "Third World" pope.

"Asia is absolutely not Latin America, and Latin America is not Africa. Lumping them together is a very simplistic way of looking at things," said Msgr. Felix Machado, undersecretary of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue.

In Asia, where only 2.9 percent of the population is Catholic, according to the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, "one of the challenges is that Christianity has always been perceived as a foreign religion. The church must win credibility and truly make itself Asian," Msgr. Machado said.

With Catholics representing a large percentage of the population in only East Timor and the Philippines, interreligious dialogue is an important issue for the church in most of Asia. Much of the population also struggles with "scandalizing poverty," despite the shift of high-technology industry to countries such as India, Msgr. Machado said.

The poverty affecting 43 percent of Latin America's 534 million people is of particular concern to the church in that region, where conferences of bishops have spoken on human trafficking and on the impact of free trade agreements on poor merchants and farmers. An estimated 20 million Latin Americans have emigrated from the region in search of jobs, according to the U.N. Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean.

Other challenges are posed by a return to democratic governance in many countries in the past two decades and the inroads made by evangelical and Pentecostal movements, according to Bishop Andres Stanovnik of Reconquista, Argentina, secretary-general of the Latin American bishops' council, or CELAM.

"In Latin America, we must deepen our faith and commit ourselves to the consequences of the encounter with Jesus Christ. This must be manifested in concrete gestures of solidarity," Bishop Stanovnik told Catholic News Service in a telephone interview from CELAM headquarters in Bogota, Colombia.

Four Latin Americans have been mentioned as possible candidates for the papacy: Cardinals Claudio Hummes of Sao Paulo, Brazil; Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga of Tegucigalpa, Honduras; Francisco Errazuriz Ossa of Santiago, Chile; and Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, Argentina. If the next pope is from Latin America, "it would signal that the one thing that unites us is our concern for social justice," Father Reese said.

Poverty and disease are among the greatest challenges faced by the church in Africa, where more than 25 million people are living with HIV or AIDS and 12 million children have been orphaned by the disease. Other illnesses, such as malaria, also threaten to "undermine very quickly any educational or health progress that has been made," said Father Kieran O'Reilly, superior general of the Society of African Missions.

The challenges facing the church in Africa vary from country to country, according to Cardinal Peter Turkson of Cape Coast, Ghana.

"The African church is on the increase, and membership and vocations are growing," Cardinal Turkson told CNS. Challenges, however, include political and tribal strife, government corruption and the need for interreligious dialogue.

The election as pope of an African -- such as Nigerian Cardinal Francis Arinze -- would have an impact not just on the church, but on the entire region, Father O'Reilly said, "because no matter where you look in the world Africa really doesn't matter to most people who make decisions."

In Europe, meanwhile, the Catholic population has decreased in recent years, posing a challenge to church leaders not only there, but also in other regions.

Because the African church was built up by European missionaries, "if the image of the church in Europe is of a dying church, it gives us an orphaned feeling," Cardinal Turkson said. "It is important that the church in Europe come back alive."

The decline of European Catholicism also poses an obstacle to dialogue with non-Christians in Asia, said Msgr. Machado.

"People of other religions, especially Muslims, are saying why are you practicing (Catholicism)" when it is in decline in Europe, he said. "The church in Europe does need to revitalize, because otherwise it is held up in our parts of the world as a failure of Christianity."

If the cardinal-electors look at the situation in that light, they might choose a pope from a West European country, to give the region a boost. Nevertheless, analysts say, a pope from a developing country would send a strong signal of solidarity and might give the church greater influence in social justice issues.

"Suddenly it would become the real universal church," Father O'Reilly said, "and maybe Europe will rediscover its Christian identity and roots, led by somebody who can show us a vision of the risen Christ as they have expressed it in their culture, whether it is South America, Central America, Africa or Asia."

END

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