NEWS & VIEWS
NEWS & VIEWS Eleetittg a Pope It was like climbing into a time machine and being propelled back 14 or 15 years to Rome and Vatican II: an urgent press conference featuring many of the...
...As to Committee expectations, the moods of the spokespersons varied markedly...
...they're not members of the Committee for the Responsible Election of the Pope...
...He said he hoped this would be ,replaced by "reasoned, seasoned observation...
...He said he feared the name association might hurt the work of the Society...
...Basically it's a series of dossiers on those who will be participating in the next conclave, with special attention paid to papabili, the electables...
...Seharper is editor of Orbis Books, book-publishing arm of the Maryknol, l Fathers...
...In other words, it didn't matter who was elected...
...He appeared of the impression tbey'd find one...
...Distance can be a great diffuser of impact...
...We'll reconsider...
...Or during a thirdworld crisis...
...The right side is on the left...
...In Scharper's understanding, "cheeky" meant "backstairs chit-chat...
...The Committee thus has contracted wi~h the National Opinion Research Center to tell it what the computer divines...
...The difference is that then they were meeting down the street from where the bishops were sitting, and this made for all the difference in the world...
...It plans to gather information and make it available not only to the cardinals who will be doing the electing, but to interested individuals who, the Committee hopes, will be doing some influencing of their own...
...Isn't it contradictory in terms of what you're doing and the openness you're asking of the Vatican...
...Or during a groundswell of anti-Curialist sentiment...
...danish and coffee on the sponsors...
...They'll come up with the hard sociological data, and this will be gotten into the hands of the cardinals...
...We have no candidate for tomorrow," he said, "hut two years from now we possibly could have...
...Today the Committee for the Responsible Election of the Pope is dealing largely from across the ocean from the Vatican, and with a group spread all over the world...
...How would the conclave develop...
...He noted that Time had characterized .the newsletter as "cheeky...
...When a reporter asked how useful to anyone would be dossiers that ran from only a few paragraphs to a few pages, Andrews explained that the book represented but the beginning of what he expects will be a large flow of information, including computer readouts on papabili in a context of various scenarios...
...Andrews took exception to MacEoin's pessimism...
...Similar bands of lay people, forming similar groups and calling similar press conferences had their effect at Vatican II...
...pushed one journalist...
...Also distributed to journalists at the Princeton Club was a newsletter, Conclave Confidential, a "service" of the Committee available for $30 a year...
...Scharper didn't hop into the exchange, but it seemed obvious that he felt, because of the work of the Committee, the conclave could be effectively challenged to scrutinize candidates more carefully than would otherwise be the case...
...Come to think of it, there wasn't even a cardinal-observer at the Princeton Club...
...Andrews so promises...
...The Inner Elite had its coming-out at the meeting...
...James Coleman and Andrew Greeley of NORC will coordinate the computer research...
...The incongruRy of a pseudonym leaped out at the newspeople...
...JOHN DEEDY...
...We're looking for a candidate who is upbeat, optimistic, whose outlook to the world reflects the Christian message...
...Volume 1, Number 1 was signed "Paolo Sarpi," a pseudonym for three persons on this side of the Atlantic and three on the other...
...NEWS & VIEWS Eleetittg a Pope It was like climbing into a time machine and being propelled back 14 or 15 years to Rome and Vatican II: an urgent press conference featuring many of the old faces (Gary MacEoin at the conference table...
...and, of course, the familiar old worries, beginning with the worry about the Vatican old guard being too much in con~ol of things...
...The only thing really different was the setting...
...We plan to be around a while," said James F. Andrews, primary spokesperson for the Commi.ttee...
...at., i ., 4 August 1978:482 "We want to take in the expectations of our brothers and sisters, which are different and valuable," he said...
...MacEoin said the composition of the present College of Cardinals is so locked into the one "mind-set," that he had "no interest in who will be the next Pope...
...What would be the effects, for better and for worse, on a conclave...
...While they're at it, said Phil,ip Scharper, momentary co-chairman with Andrews of the Committee, he hoped there'd also be a reconsideration of t~he newsletter's tone...
...Scharper resigned from the Committee two days later because of the association of his name in press coverage of the Committee with the Maryknoll Society...
...Scharper likewise expressed the hope that the Committee for the Responsible Election of the Pope will evolve ecumenically, "in composition and therefore outlook...
...John O'Connor among the presspeople...
...The bishops could be confronted immediately and directly, sometimes as a body...
...et al...
...And maybe it can he...
...It's a monthly, four-page publication intended to provide "concerned Catholics with topical and behind-the-scene news from the Vatican...
...The Committee's in business to bring about a "consciousnessraising" regarding the next papal election and maybe an opening up of the election process itself...
...Instead of some unpretentious hall along the Via Conciliazione, this meeting was at the posh Princeton Club on West 43rd Street in New York CRy...
...The gathering was arranged by the Committee for the Responsible Election of the Pope, an ad hoc group of 25 Catholics who eschew the designation ad hoc...
...You've got a point," said Andrews...
...Andrews is chairman of the board of Sheed Andrews and McMeel, publisher of Mac Eoin's book and the newsletter...
...What, for instance, if the conclave took place in the time-setting of a More-type kidnapping...
...His word will count, as SA&MCM is underwriting the Committee...
...The cardinals were all of a kind...
...The influencing, it can be presumed from MacEoin's new book, The Inner Elite, will be in the direction of progressive candidates who line up on the right side of old issues, like birth control, and of new issues, such as women priests and a married clergy...
Vol. 105 • August 1978 • No. 15
