"A Pope of Our Time Must Be..."

Professor Hans Kueng, Catholic priest and theologian at the University of Tuebingen, West Germany, has clashed with the Vatican over such teachings as papal infallibility and birth control. In the following statement, made available to TIME, ten theologians, including Kueng* offer some answers to the question: What kind of Pope does today's church need?

The world is divided, into hostile power blocs and political systems, estranged races and classes, various ideologies and religions. Christianity is divided also. The Catholic Church, being the largest and a worldwide church, could, if truly united, perform an important service in this divided world. It could assist in a very concrete way to diminish and remove the tensions and contradictions in Christianity and in the world, and to render possible a more human life.

The Pope has a decisive role in the Catholic Church. Because of our concern as Catholics for the church and its service to humanity, we would like to speak for all who are hoping for a good Pope, a Pope who would above all try to help overcome the conflicts and contradictions which have arisen in the postconciliar church--a Pope of 'reconciliation! Only the best is good enough! A Pope of our time must be:

A Man Open to the World. He should know the world as it is, in its glory and in its misery; should accept what is good, wherever it be found.

He should--with all due respect for the past and for tradition--feel in a critical way at home in the present church and in the contemporary world, and should be open for the signs of the times and the changing attitudes of men.

He should accept critically the findings of contemporary science; he should abandon the outmoded curial style and should speak credibly in the language of people in this day and age.

He should radiate genuine humanity, personal limitations notwithstanding.

A Spiritual Leader. He should bring trust to his encounters with others in order that he himself be supported by trust.

He should have courage, being able to encourage others rather than merely scolding and admonishing.

He should not be authoritarian, but he should possess real authority in his office: What he needs is not only a formalistic, official and institutional, but also a personal, objective and charismatic authority.

He should be judicious and flexible in the manner of contemporary leadership, exercising his authority not by issuing decrees but by giving reasons; not by commanding but by inspiring; not by making lonely decisions in isolation but by wrestling for common consensus in open dialogue. In all he should be the guarantor of freedom in the church.

An Authentic Pastor. He is primarily Bishop of Rome. But as a universal pastor, he should be neither an administrator nor a general secretary, not a lawyer, diplomat or bureaucrat. He should be a pastor, a man in the service of men not institutions, a leader resolved not to rule but to serve.

Free of all personality cult, he should be open in kindness and simplicity to the needs of others.

Free from anxiety, he should be able to give positive guidance rather than prohibition in all the decisive questions affecting life and death, good and evil, including those matters where human sexuality is involved, He should not be a doctrinaire defender of ancient bastions, but rather--with all due respect for continuity in the church's life and teaching--he should be a pastoral pioneer of a renewed preaching and practice in the church.

A True Fellow Bishop. He should be confident enough of his own office to risk sharing his power with the other bishops, conducting himself not as a master over his servants but as a brother among his brethren.

He should accept the Synod of Bishops not simply as an advisory body but as a responsible, decision-making organ of the church, and he should extend concrete competence to the episcopal conferences and the diocesan councils.

He should give up the principle of centralism in the church, revise the system of nunciatures and renew the Curia not only externally and organizationally, but in the spirit of the Gospel, granting leadership positions to different nationalities and also to different mentalities, to the aged and to the young, to men and to women.

He should be familiar with recent developments in theology and should provide representation in the Roman Curia not only for traditionalist theology but also for other important streams in contemporary Catholic theology.

An Ecumenical Mediator. He should understand his Petrine Office as a primacy of service within Christianity, as an office to be renewed in the spirit of the Gospel and exercised with responsibility for Christian freedom.

He should promote dialogue and cooperation with the other Christian churches and should exercise his influence as a gathering, not a dispersing force for the unity of the church within plurality. He should give an example of Christian readiness to change, by removing the obstacles to church union on the part of Roman Catholicism and by promoting the cooperation of the Catholic Church with the World Council of Churches.

He should take seriously our spiritual relationship with the Jews, activate that which we share in common with Islam, and pursue the dialogue with the other religions.

A Genuine Christian. He need not be a saint or a genius. He can have his faults and his deficiencies, but whatever he be, he should be a Christian in the genuine sense of the term, namely a man who in thought, word and deed is guided by the Gospel of Jesus Christ as the decisive norm of his life.

He should be a convincing herald of the good tidings of Christ, firmly rooted in a strong faith and unshakable hope.

He should preside over the church in an attitude of calm, patience and confidence, ever aware that the church is not a bureaucratic organization, a business enterprise or a political party, but the encompassing community of believers.

He should exercise his moral authority with objectivity, with personal commitment, and with a realistic sense of proportion, taking as his goal not only the promotion of the interests of church institutions but also the broadest realization of the Christian message among all men. And in this connection he should see the engagement of his person and office for the repressed and underprivileged people of the world as his special duty and responsibility.

As Catholics, we call upon all the Cardinals to discuss the above criteria together in the conclave before naming the candidates and to base their decision on them in order to elect the best available candidate--whatever his nationality. They are deciding the future of the Catholic Church.

*Giuseppe Alberego, Bologna; M.D. Chenu, Paris; Yves Congar, Paris; Claude Geffre, Paris; Andrew Greeley, Chicago; Norbert Greinacher, Tuebingen; Jan Grootaers, Louvain, Belgium; Gustavo Gutierrez, Lima; Edward Schillebeeckx, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.

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