What The New Job Specs Are

By DAVID VAN BIEMA

Star Quality

"You can reach the whole world by television," Belgian CARDINAL GODFRIED DANNEELS told Time shortly before the death of the Pope. "You can be very close to everyone, individually." That observation is notable less for its shopworn truth than for the fact that Danneels, a blunt-spoken former liturgy professor on some short lists to be the next Pope, has essentially conceded the degree to which John Paul II's personal magnetism and its electronic deployment have made photo-ready charisma a nearly essential element of the papal job description.

"John Paul was lucky because the bar was set very low," says David Gibson, author of The Coming Catholic Church. "John XXIII had charisma, but he didn't travel. Paul VI traveled, but he didn't speak other languages very well. John Paul II ran the table." To follow that act, many observers agree, his successor will need to speak several languages, have a ready smile (or at least a telegenic frown) and, as Gibson puts it, be able "to make news by virtue of who he is" as much as by what he has done.

Two Cardinals who are often tagged with the word charismatic are Honduras' OSCAR RODRIGUEZ MARADIAGA and Austria's CHRISTOPH SCHONBORN. The first is a polymath with a c.v. that includes eight languages, debt-relief work with the rock star Bono, some music playing of his own and what an observer calls an "effervescence." The second possesses a different charm (see box). The cosmopolitan scion of generations of European and Catholic nobility, he has what John Allen, author of Conclave, called a "princely bearing," which has kept him in good stead among world leaders. Never before have musical chops and impressive posture--as opposed to the men's formidable professional accomplishments--been quite so important to their papal chances as they may be now.

Yet there are signs of what might be called a movement against the tyranny of charisma. "The people are voicing their opinion for another figure who can hold the spotlight like Karol Wojtyla," says Vittorio Messori, a church historian who helped focus that spotlight by editing the late Pontiff's best seller Crossing the Threshold of Hope. "But what the church needs now is structure, governance and patient service." That sentiment is echoed by a surprisingly wide cross section of clerics who think that the former Pope's flair for the symbolic gesture sometimes came at the expense of administrative housecleaning. Even JOSEPH CARDINAL RATZINGER, John Paul's theological enforcer as well as a possible Pope, has grouched about a certain "untidiness."

Says a Vatican official, addressing an issue that is expected to get relatively little play at the conclave: "The sex-abuse crisis showed that we need a manager. There wasn't enough action from Rome because the Pope was too much of a delegator. It leaves you ill equipped to respond to crises, since no one wants to pass bad news up. There's a need to find someone who will do the nitty-gritty and handle the balance sheet--and not just the financial balance sheet."

Could a relatively colorless manager like GIOVANNI CARDINAL BATTISTA RE, head of the Congregation of Bishops, ride such a sentiment to St. Peter's chair? Probably not. More likely, the electors will try to find a John Paul--like inner glow combined with a head for institutional detail. Says Chicago's FRANCIS CARDINAL GEORGE: "Maybe you have to do both."

Global Smarts

The Coming Catholic Church's Gibson uses a novel analogy to explain another attribute the Cardinals may seek. "Just as Bill Clinton was considered the first African-American President," he suggests, "John Paul could have been considered the first Third World Pope." With his wholehearted visits to Brazilian favelas and his efforts on behalf of debt forgiveness, says Gibson, the late Pontiff's evident Europeanness did not prevent him from becoming "a hero in the southern hemisphere."

With the proportion of global south Catholics at two-thirds and climbing (even as Latin American practitioners engage in near hand-to-hand combat with encroaching Pentecostal Protestantism), preventing deadly poverty is as much a matter of church survival as it is a spiritual commitment to the beatitude "Blessed are the poor in spirit." Moreover, unlike some of the late Pope's doctrinal stances (or his no-condoms position on aids prevention in some of the same locales), economic justice is win-win, a cause to which theological absolutists in Rome or Lagos and cafeteria Catholics in the moneyed West all feel some cultural affinity and obligation.

Thus the south's champions in the conclave will be many, some with formidable credentials. Rodriguez Maradiaga did not just hang with Bono. Calling debt "a tombstone pressing down on us," he presented a 17 million--signature petition for debt relief at a G-8 meeting, and he has bent German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's ear on the topic. In the 1980s, Brazil's CLAUDIO CARDINAL HUMMES backed strikes and defied his country's dictators by letting leftist labor leader Luis Inacio Lula da Silva (now Brazil's President) make speeches during Mass. He has spoken out in favor of the organization of the landless in Brazil. Asked his priorities by Time, he immediately replied, "Evangelization and solidarity with the poor." Some outside the Third World have been almost as involved. Milan's DIONIGI CARDINAL TETTAMANZI, sometimes tagged as front runner for the papacy, famously blessed antiglobal protesters in Genoa despite political fire from the Italian right.

If there is a counterposition, it is advanced by a group that Monsignor Brian Ferme, a dean at Catholic University who knows several of the papabili, describes as "not denying the inequalities of injustices but arguing that if you get the church's internal priorities right, its external work will proceed that much more effectively." Roughly translated, that is a line long familiar to some conservative Protestants: Take care of the souls, and the pocketbooks will follow. Yet to become Pope, anyone pursuing in that camp will need to convince his brethren that he does care about the pocketbook part of the equation.

Doctrinal Fidelity

"Not one comma will change in the doctrine." That is not the battle cry of some Vatican mossback but a matter-of-fact assessment by Andrea Riccardi, the well- connected founder of the Catholic social-justice group Comunit`a di Sant'Egidio. Among the major conclave topics, John Paul's conservative stance on faith-and-morals issues is least likely to be debated. That is unsurprising, since he made that stance clear in thousands of pages of explanation and appointed 113 of the electors. Says Catholic University's Ferme: "I don't think there is a shadow of a doubt among the Cardinals that there will not be woman priests or that the church must oppose abortion." No one better articulates such positions than Ratzinger, who as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has been enforcing them for more than two decades.

What may be in play in the conclave, however, is some papabili's position that it is all right to discuss such changes (a practice John Paul and Ratzinger limited severely). Belgium's Danneels, for instance, has predicted that the church may someday want to revisit its role for women. That charms the liberal, priest-challenged West, although it may not ultimately help his papal chances. Others may hope to project a pastoral openness or allow their priests a certain leeway while refusing to cross certain lines. "Flexibility keeps coming up" in Cardinals' statements, says Gibson. "Not compromise but flexibility." Finally, there are church positions that remain somewhat undefined, and the Cardinals' stance on such questions as how to apply the idea of the soul to biotechnological advances may help sway their colleagues.

Interfaith

John Paul's approaches to Islam were not quite so historic as those to Judaism, but his first-ever papal visit to a mosque, in 2001, and his apology for the excesses of the Crusades indicated his understanding that Islam is both one of Catholicism's great competitors and, in many places, its next-door neighbor. Sept. 11 was perhaps the first great issue that the Pope, by then physically weakened, addressed in a less than aggressive manner, and the Vatican sense of urgency regarding Islam's various faces, although as keen as the rest of the world's, remains papally undefined. "It's the 800-lb. gorilla sitting in the room," says a well-placed Vatican source. "It's huge and expanding, has violent elements, so what will be the church's modus operandi confronting this dynamic?"

Until recently, the conventional wisdom had it that the most plausible papabile to respond to such challenges was FRANCIS CARDINAL ARINZE, former head of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and a native of Nigeria, where Christianity and Islam come into contentious conflict. But his long service in the Vatican bureaucracy, or Curia ("He's more Curial than African" goes a typical comment), and his recent transfer to another department have dimmed his prospects. Some electors may side with Bologna's former ARCHBISHOP GIACOMO CARDINAL BIFFI, who has suggested that non-Catholic immigration to Italy should be limited. But theirs will be a minority view. Says Comunit`a di Sant'-Egidio's Riccardi: "The man chosen by the Cardinals can't be a Pope of the clash of civilizations." The most common posture in conclave will apparently be one of cautious outreach to what is, by origin, another Abrahamic faith. Two Cardinals normally regarded as conservative, Schoenborn and Venice's ANGELO CARDINAL SCOLA, have explored that; the latter founded Oasis magazine.

Collegiality

"It's the sleeper issue at the Conclave," says Father Richard McBrien, a professor of theology at Notre Dame. "I think it should go to the top of your list," says Catholic University's Ferme. Although little-discussed outside the church, there is one area in which the papabili may wish to distinguish themselves by openly criticizing John Paul's legacy: Rome's centralization of power at the expense of its local managers.

For all that they loved him, the late Pontiff's bishops did not thrive under him. The language of the Second Vatican Council had seemed to promise greater "collegiality" between bishops and the Pope (whose office for centuries was less powerful than now). But John Paul did not see it that way. He applied theological litmus tests for bishops' appointments and required national bishops' conferences to clear statements on doctrine with the Vatican. "Even conservative Cardinals of large archdioceses have been unhappy with the way the Curia has interfered with their authority," says McBrien. "They want a Pope who will respect that authority."

Curial Cardinals have tremendous sway in Rome, where their diocese-running brethren are usually only visitors. But diocesan Cardinals will make up the vast preponderance of the electors. That (along with several other factors) is why many Roman sources tout the chances of Ratzinger, a master of the Curial as well as the doctrinal universe, but why non-Romans see him as a potential kingmaker but never the king.

Age Suitability

Prior to the past few weeks, there was much talk that the conclave that replaced John Paul might discount relatively youthful papabili like Schoenborn, 60, and Rodriguez Maradiaga, 62. Reason: after John Paul's multidecade marathon, the electors would, as McBrien puts it, "be looking for a breather" and would try to avoid the possibility of another long-term Pontiff. There was much discussion of an older, interim figure, a caretaker who by definition would have to worry less about living up to John Paul's gargantuan legacy.

But a funny--or, rather, somber--thing happened during John Paul's hard final days. Vatican handicappers realized that there is a downside to an old Pope and a short papacy. A Vatican official who watched several electors view John Paul's body says, "The look in their eyes said the unstated, [that] the last thing we'd want is a decrepit [Pontiff]." Now fans of the interim solution have reluctantly had to return to regarding the full spectrum of Cardinal options.

So rather suddenly, the speculations and assumptions about papal succession--the sort bandied while a Pope still lives--undergo sober reassessment in the cold light of his passing. The theoretical contracts rather alarmingly into the real, conversations with the outside world truly do taper off, and the 115 men who now stand before one of the most important decisions they will ever make are reminded of precisely why they pray for the Holy Spirit's guidance in their task. --With reporting by Jordan Bonfante, Emma di Ravello and Jeff Israely/ Rome; Jeff Chu/ New York; and Marguerite Michaels/ Chicago

With reporting by Jordan Bonfante, Emma di Ravello, Jeff Israely/ Rome, Jeff Chu/ New York, Marguerite Michaels/ Chicago