April 8, 2005 Episode no. 832
Monsignor Lorenzo Albacete:
I don't think the pope changed at all during the course of his papacy. I think he was consistent from the very first day until the end. One of the things that impressed me most was this steadfastness. Obviously there have been physical changes. There was also growth in understanding this or that point, in realizing aspects, dimensions of his original agenda that he had not perceived before. He could not have perceived, say, the collapse of the Soviet empire, the end of communism as a major threat to the world or to Christianity, the rise of religious intolerance again, of fundamentalism. Many things like that were not in his mind in 1979, but in his response to all of this he has attempted to move the Church to its point of departure, namely, he attempted to tell us, try from each point to figure out, Christianity is about this one man, Jesus of Nazareth, it's about this one man. You take away this man, you have a religion, a politics, a philosophy which may or may not be good, but you no longer have Christianity. The question is: What can be said about this man in the 21st century? Again and again and again, he brought every issue that he discussed to that question: let us confront what the mystery of Christ says about these important aspects of human life. That has been unbelievably consistent, and I think his successor will pick it up from there. It started with the Second Vatican Council, but with John Paul II, just the length of time he was there, and with someone who had already passionately thought this through in his own life, it's amazing how consistent he was.
I think he changed the papacy through his travels, really, his use of the media, his use of big theater. Remember, the pope was above all a performer. If you had left this man alone, I mean, nothing else in his life, his original impulse was the theater and poetry -- to write and to appear. When he went to study in college, he studied words. I mean, he has written essays on the theater of action, of gestures and all of that, published by UCLA. Who ever heard of a pope being published by UCLA on the theater of the word? This was his passion, and it always has been. He used it very well as a pope, with the great spectacles, and was able to make the papacy something really close to the people. Before, the pope in Rome was a remote figure; no one could even catch a glimpse. He had people coming to the summer home with the swimming pool to discuss neurosurgery; I attended one of those myself, and it was an amazing thing. So I think he made the papacy much more accessible, in contact with real people out there -- depending less, therefore, on the establishment's interpretations, the establishment within and between the pope and the people.
I think that the cardinals will look for someone who can continue to do this too. They might want a little correction, they might want a little rest, because John Paul II has also been a very powerful philosopher, theologian, and fighter, and some people are somewhat threatened by an apparent aggressiveness on his part. I think they will look for somebody who appears more relaxed, but who's also able to be good at communications, and someone who realizes the most important fact of Catholic life, that the majority of the Catholic people are not in what we call the West and Western Europe. You have to have a Church that responds almost primarily to the great masses of the so-called Third World. They would want somebody who is quite able to understand that -- either an Italian, because Italians can be very broad-minded, or else a Latin American, an Asian.
I don't think major theological changes can be made -- somebody who's going to approve abortion or ordination of women, all of that. The cardinals are not looking for that but for someone who would understand that maybe there are more important issues, or that these depend on deeper issues, and let's concentrate on the deeper ones. Because it's not just that it would be someone who is going to change this teaching, but someone who understands that the reason the teaching doesn't come across -- it's not bad will, it's that the people don't have the experiences that the Church feels or thinks they have. You have to go back again, as I say, to a more basic position, to someone who will emphasize more the basics and less the things that are consequences of the basics. The cardinals will be looking for that.
I want to say that the pope was one of the most decisive factors in my life. As I look back on my own life, I consider my meeting with him and the chances I had to be with him to be one of the great lights that has sustained me, and his death itself is a teaching. Though I'm not looking forward to joining him very soon, when the time comes it will be great to see him again.
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