Church is focusing on pope's successor

VATICAN CITY — Giving signature red hats to 30 new Roman Catholic cardinals, Pope John Paul II on Tuesday put what may be the finishing touches on the group of men who will elect his successor.

The gilded ceremony in St. Peter's Square capped a series of events here that yielded clues and speculation aplenty about the Roman Catholic Church after John Paul.

In recent days, several cardinals who gathered here this week to celebrate John Paul's 25th anniversary as pope talked more than they often do about the current situation of — and future challenges for — the church.

One clear theme that emerged in interviews with many of them was they worry that church decision-making had become too centralized during the quarter-century of John Paul's reign.

That concern suggested that his successor would be someone who could be trusted not to hoard power in Vatican City. A cardinal who has made his career in the field might have a significant advantage over one who is entrenched and invested in the Catholic bureaucracy here.

"The main thing that the next pope has to be able to manage is collegiality," said Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor of Britain, using a favored Catholic buzzword for giving prelates outside of Vatican City more authority and influence.

The next pope is unlikely to be progressive in his interpretation of church teachings and traditions regarding the vow of celibacy, the ordination of women or homosexuality.

That is because John Paul has not been liberal on those issues, and he has appointed all but five of the 135 cardinals who are currently under 80, and thus eligible to vote in the next conclave.

But in other ways, the next pope could lead the church in a new direction.

Several cardinals said that the chances of a non-European pope had increased, both because John Paul had broken the long Italian grip on the position and because the church was expanding most rapidly in the southern hemisphere.

"It's quite likely that the cardinals will look at a much wider horizon in choosing the next pope," said Murphy-O'Connor.

But many Vatican officials say privately that Italians, who represent 23 of the eligible cardinals, could be poised to take over the papacy anew, for one simple but compelling reason.

"They've spent 25 years figuring out how to," said one Vatican official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, referring to the length of John Paul's reign. His election ended more than 450 years of Italian domination.