wfn.org | [UCC NEWS] UCC leader reflects: 'What kind of Pope?'

[guessb@ucc.org]

United Church of Christ
United Church News
The Rev. J. Bennett Guess, News Director
216-736-2177, guessb@ucc.org

April 15, 2005
For immediate release

What kind of Pope?
By John H. Thomas

[Editor's note: In light of the April 18 start of a Roman Catholic conclave
to select a successor to Pope John Paul II, the Rev. John H. Thomas, a
respected ecumenist who is the general minister and president of the
1.3-million-member United Church of Christ, today (April 15) released the
following reflection.]

Following the days of mourning for the remarkable life and legacy of Pope
John Paul II, the Christian world waits for white smoke from the cardinals'
conclave signaling the election of a new pope. While the conclave is
shrouded in secrecy, protected from the lobbying of interest groups
throughout the church and beyond, the baptized around the world will be
pondering what kind of pope they yearn for in this next period in the life
of the Catholic Church. What are my yearnings?

The frailty of John Paul II in recent years tended to make us forget the
incredible vitality of the early years of his papacy, a vitality that
brought energy to the church and excitement to young people. I yearn for a
pope who can demonstrate a similar intellectual, spiritual and physical
energy at a time when particularly the church in the United States is
struggling to move beyond the demoralizing effects of the clergy abuse
scandal.

John Paul's facility with language and his extensive travel helped the
churches of the southern hemisphere gain a new sense of visibility,
prominence and voice in the life not merely of the Catholic church, but of
the church universal. I yearn for a pope who can continue to engage the
church in Europe and North America with the church in Africa, Asia, Latin
America and the Pacific.

John Paul was a consistent and courageous moral voice for peace and against
economic and political injustice. I yearn for a pope willing to offer the
same clear and forthright prophetic word against politics defined by
militarism and economics favoring the privileged.

Important interfaith initiatives marked this papacy, including significant
outreach to the Jewish and Muslim community. I yearn for a pope eager to be
the pontiff - the bridge builder - in these crucial relationships that
offer the world such challenge and promise.

During this papacy many of us in the Protestant community have sensed a
waning of commitment to the ecumenical enthusiasm of the Second Vatican
Council. While important agreements were reached and historic personal
encounters took place, and while most of us personally enjoy significant
collegial friendships with Roman Catholics, many episcopal appointments, a
number of statements from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,
and a pulling back from important liturgical agreements have been
troubling. I yearn for a pope who can revitalize a more open and hospitable
Catholic ecumenical engagement both at the international and local levels.

Protestants must understand the inherently conservative character of
theological work in the Catholic Church. Its work is carried out with a
very different understanding of the relative weight of Tradition and
contemporary context in theological inquiry from that of the Reformed
churches. Nevertheless, there has been a disturbing trend marked by
celebrated early confrontations with theologians like Hans Kung, Leonardo
Boff and Charles Curran and continuing throughout this papacy that has
increasingly limited the parameters of acceptable theological investigation
in the Church. I yearn for a more intellectually venturesome pope willing
to encourage the creativity and risk-taking of the Catholic theological
community.

Throughout John Paul's papacy the Catholic Church's readiness to hear the
voices of women among the baptized has remained limited. To women who have
testified to their sense of God's call to ordained ministry the Church
has
spoken a consistent "no." I yearn for a pope whose devotion to Mary is
matched by a commitment to the bold claims of the Magnificat that upend
convention, for a pope who might help the Church begin to recover in the
ancient texts of Scripture and the earliest experiences of the Church an
affirmation of the ministry of women and of their equality in the Church,
texts and experiences all too often obscured by centuries of patriarchy.

Churches throughout the world are torn by disagreement over the membership
and ministry of gay and lesbian persons. With many other churches, the
Catholic Church has tried in vain to express compassion and care while
at
the same time voicing traditional theological judgments that demean and
exclude. I yearn for a pope prepared to risk for the sake of inclusion, who
will ask the Church to enter into a time of self-reflection and pastoral
listening with its gay and lesbian members that might shape new and
welcoming moral and theological understandings.

Protestants should not yearn for a "Protestant Pope." What we should yearn
for is a "catholic" pope in the best sense of that word, a pope with a
universal horizon of compassion and commitment, a pope attentive to the
widest range of voices yearning for a place of responsibility and
discipleship in the church, a pope loyal to the whole historical sweep
of
Christian faith and practice, not just to certain aspects of it. Above
all,
we should yearn for a pope committed to living out the ancient title of
"servant of the servants of God," a vocation to which John Paul II
throughout his papacy was so deeply and wonderfully devoted.

###

[The Rev. John H. Thomas, the United Church of Christ's general minister
and president, served as the denomination's chief ecumenical officer for
eight years before being elected to his present office in 1999.

A widely respected ecumenist, Thomas played a key role in several momentous
ecclesiastical agreements, including the UCC's full communion partnership
with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the Lutheran-Reformed
Formula of Agreement that led to full communion recognition between the UCC
and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Presbyterian Church
(U.S.A.) and the Reformed Church in America. He has been a leader in
Churches Uniting in Christ, a coalition of nine Protestant denominations
committed to "living the unity of Christ more fully."

Thomas has been nominated for a third and final four-year term as the UCC's
national leader, subject to "call by election" by delegates at the UCC's
General Synod, July 1-5, in Atlanta.]