The pope

[wishbone]

Does anybody know how liberal or conservative the current pope has been, in the context of the popes who preceded him? In the inevitable opening of the church to modern culture, was this pope more receptive than his predecessors were (to the modern ideas of their times)?

Does anyone know about the short-list of successors? Who is the favorite, and what is the chance that the next pope will soften the church's stand on abortion and contraception?

[BurgessLau]

Does anybody know how liberal or conservative the current pope has been, in the context of the popes who preceded him? In the inevitable opening of the church to modern culture, was this pope more receptive than his predecessors were (to the modern ideas of their times)?

Anyone answering this would need to know what you mean by three terms: conservative, liberal, and modern. Unless defined strictly, each term can name a package of good and bad elements. For example, "modern" can refer to the advances of science; it also can refer to the corruption of the arts (as in "modern art").

My answer to your question, while making certain assumptions, is that Pope John Paul II has been as good as one could have hoped for. His encyclical Fides et Ratio (Faith and Reason) is a sign of his mixed but relatively positive values, compared to his predecessors and some of his contemporaries in the Church hierarchy. His persistent struggle against communist oppression of Catholics in Eastern Europe was a positive sign too, sort of.

For good and ill, the current Pope has valued philosophy and consciously promoted intellectual activism for Catholics. The best of conservative Catholic intellectuals -- for example, Robert P. George (The Clash of Orthodoxies: Law, Religion, and Morality in Crisis and other works) -- echo the Pope's interests.

Does anyone know about the short-list of successors? Who is the favorite, and what is the chance that the next pope will soften the church's stand on abortion and contraception?

I too am intrigued by watching the upcoming Christian version of the Academy Awards ceremony. Who will the candidates be? Who will be selected? That man -- and we know the new pope will be a man, don't we? -- may set the direction of the Church for decades to come. He will also be an indicator of the state of the present Church.

[the tortured one]

Despite the fact that I have turned my back on faith, I have seen several redeeming qualities in Pope John Paul II. Besides his condemnation of communism and espousal of Capitalism, he has been very open and friendly towards science and progress. For example, pope JPII was the first pope to officially apologize for the condemnation of Galileo. The pope has been a strong advocate of evolution, despite the common ethos that all christians are hard liner creationists. I remember reading about the pope, once he attended a lecture by the scientist Stephen Hawkings. It was a rather abstract lecture in which he professed that he couldn't see the need for anything divine. (I wish I could find a transcript of that lecture, though I think it might be over my head.) Afterwards the pope approached Hawkings and expressed his gratitude for what he had done for science.

I try to focus on the positive aspects of a person before I focus on the negative, that is why I find a lot of redeeming qualities in the pope, even if he is the head of the Catholic Church.