Is Cardinal Ratzinger Possible Pick for Next Pope?

Swing to Ratzinger boosts chance of becoming Pope
By Bruce Johnston in Rome
(Filed: 13/04/2005)

From www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main



A late upsurge in support for Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger days before next week's conclave has boosted the chances of the Vatican's doctrinal chief becoming the next Pope.

The German-born cardinal, feared by liberal Catholics as a dour enforcer of orthodoxy, won over many sceptics with the touching, human tone of his sermon at the funeral of Pope John Paul II, often described as his alter ego.

His supporters even pointed out that he looked the part of a Pope during last Friday's service.
The momentum in favour of the Bavarian is so marked that Spanish cardinals have reportedly voiced concern that at 78 he may be too old a Pope for their public at home to accept.
His supporters argued that Cardinal Ratzinger was the best candidate "to pick up the broom" and sweep away the mess of a church in such disarray that an American cardinal disgraced by the paedophilia scandals said Mass for the Pope in St Peter's on Monday.

Cardinal Ratzinger, the dean of the college of cardinals, made his uncompromising views on the state of the church clear in comments made only days before the last Pope's death.

In a Good Friday homily, he wrote: "Lord, often your Church seems to be about to sink, and to be a boat full of holes... The face and clothing of your Church shock us. But it is we who are sullying it."

Such forthright opinions have impressed the Ratzinger lobby, but his rivals will use them as more evidence of his grimly ideological stance.

The conventional wisdom that "he who enters a conclave as a Pope comes out as a cardinal" will also work against him.

But the biggest barrier to his election as Pope is still his divisive record as the arch-conservative guardian of Vatican orthodoxy.

"He has too many enemies due to his heavy-handed, centralised and arrogant approach to theology," said one Vatican insider, while admitting that otherwise he had "all the requisites for the job".

According to one Italian newspaper, "for many [in the Church] he is not welcome".
It quoted a friend of the cardinal's as saying: "In order to try to push him out of the race, someone has been spreading rumours that he belonged to Nazi organisations.

"Like all German children at the time, he was in the Hitler Youth. He's admitted it himself in a book. But he was hardly more than a child, since he was just 12 years old."

It was also revealed yesterday that the failing health of other cardinals is being used as an argument to sideline certain candidates when voting begins in the conclave on Monday.

"Depression, sudden changes of mood, heart or orthopaedic ailments" are on the list of shortcomings circulating in the Vatican, according to one observer.

He added that one cardinal had been marked down because he was said to "wear a surgical corset and has difficulties walking".