Pope John Paul I: The Game of the Name

When it came to choosing a papal title, the relatively unknown Albino Luciani showed political instincts that may explain his rapid election. The native son of sleepy Canale D’Agordo, remote village in northern Italy’s Dolomite Mountains, opted for John Paul I as the name he will carry as Rome’s 263rd pontiff.

Pope John Paul’s tastes for nomenclature symbolize a merging of two divergent attitudes toward change within the Roman Catholic Church, as represented by his two immediate predecessors, Pope John XXIII and Pope Paul VI. Pope John was an unceasing agent of change, while Paul advocated controlled, gradual transition. Backers of each view were polarized.

That may be why earlier front runners cast in the mold of John or Paul lost out. And that may explain why the 65-year-old Luciani, whose record showed he could bridge the two factions, became the College of Cardinals’ choice.

At first view, John Paul I looked like a pope who would resemble Pope John’s charmingly simple, gregarious style, but Pope Paul’s firm traditionalism in faith and morals. But behind the balanced-equation image projected by his chosen name lies a personality much more complex, whose stamp on the office only time will reveal.

John Paul’s past points to an unpretentious, open pontificate that will identify with the daily problems of all classes, colors, and conditions of men. Alone among the Italian candidates, John Paul’s prior experience was almost entirely pastoral. He has served neither in the Curia (the church’s administration) nor in the Vatican’s diplomatic service, unlike any of his recent predecessors. This fact bode well for his election. The expanded number of progressive and moderate cardinals wanted a Vatican outsider; the traditionalists wanted an Italian.

Pope John in 1958 appointed cleric Luciani as bishop of Vittorio Veneto, a town at the foot of the Alps. One of Luciani’s first problems in that post was a scandal involving two priests and $10,000 in bad checks. At a meeting of the 400 priests in the diocese he announced that he intended to refund the missing money out of the revenue from church property rather than seek ecclesiastical immunity from Italian civil law.

Pope Paul made Bishop Luciani patriarch of Venice in 1969 and named him a cardinal in 1973. The bishop plunged into his work with enthusiasm—riding to mainland parishes by bicycle, doing away with official pomp and ceremony, and instructing parish priests to sell their churches’ gold ornaments to provide for handicapped children.

In 1976 he shocked archdiocesan officials by selling several works of art to raise money for retarded children. Lest others accuse him of selling only church property, he added to the auction two pectoral crosses of considerable material and sentimental value—gifts to him from Popes John and Paul.

Yet John Paul has a reputation as a stern conservative. He is said to reject birth control, abortion, divorce, and the concept of women priests, and to have little sympathy for the emerging grassroots movement in the church.

Several liberal Catholic observers suspect that Vatican traditionalists are deliberately utilizing the pages of the Vatican’s official organ, L’Osservatore Romano, to cast the new pope in a rigid conservative stance at the outset, and thus limit his freedom of action in the future. They insist that Luciani was part of the majority that recommended a loosening of the church’s birth control position, a view Pope Paul disregarded in issuing his 1968 Humanae Vitae encyclical. Not only did John Paul later maintain a discreet silence on the subject, they report, but he also substituted a milder explanation of his own on the ruling. Whatever John Paul’s true instincts, they often are modified by a nonprovincial outlook and a cultural flexibility that run deep.

The morning after his election, the new pope told the cardinals assembled in the Sistine Chapel, “We want to preserve intact the great discipline of the church.… We want to remind the church that its first duty remains that of evangelization.… We intend to dedicate our considered attention to everything that can favor [ecumenical] union, without doctrinal retreat but also without hesitation.”

The new pope has a demonstrated capacity for growth and change. At Vatican II, after considerable study and some agonizing, he moved to support the new position on religious liberty for non-Catholics.

Moreover, he hosted in Venice last year (see the August 12, 1977, issue, page 30) an evangelical-Roman Catholic dialogue on mission. Participating was an eight-member Roman Catholic team appointed by the Vatican Secretariat for Christian Unity, on the one hand, and an ad hoc international group of evangelicals on the other, that included Anglican minister John Stott, German theologian Peter Beyerhaus, and Fuller seminary president David Hubbard.

He has already hinted at cracking the doors to collegial rule. A move toward collegiality (sharing the pope’s absolute prerogatives with the church’s bishops in a more democratic manner) really amounts to a retooling of the papacy itself. And it is the obstacle of the papacy that has halted moves toward ecumenical union.

Outspoken Catholic columnist Andrew M. Greeley says that while “historically understandable,” the present “highly centralized, juridical, legalistic, and authoritarian papacy is by no means either necessary or normal.” He calls for the new pope to “change drastically” the style of papal administration by giving the synod of bishops real power and by delegating more responsibility to the church’s national hierarchies throughout the world.

The new pope’s first challenge may come from factions of the extreme right and left within his own church. French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre heads a worldwide band of traditionalists who believe it was a mistake to end the centuries-old tradition of Latin mass. In defiance of Vatican orders, Lefebvre insists on celebrating mass in Latin and ordaining sympathetic priests. John Paul must decide: Should Lefebvre be excommunicated, creating a rare case of formal schism?

In the early days of Pope John Paul’s pontificate, Catholic attention will shift from Rome to Puebla, Mexico, where the Conference of Latin American Bishops (CELAM) will meet in October. The issue there will be the theology of liberation, a doctrine that places the church on the side of the poor and oppressed (often in sympathy with Marxist views and opposed to established strong-man governments).

“At their Medellin [Colombia] meeting ten years ago,” explains the National Catholic Reporter in an editorial, “the Latin American bishops, representatives of the Church traditionally aligned with wealth, government, and military, aligned themselves with the poor.” That new alignment is being fought over in Latin America and in the Vatican, the editorial reported.

“If the new pope urges [the Latin American bishops] to hold to their course as champions of the poor and oppressed, no other Catholic hierarchy in the world will be able to hold back from doing the same in this century,” the liberal weekly predicted.

The Ramadan Riots

The rash of violent protests that convulsed Iran during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan (August 5 through September 3) may cause severe repercussions in the non-Muslim West.

Last month, riots, bombings, and arson attacks culminated in the deaths of more than 400 in a theater fire in Abadan. The violence was more religious than political. The thirty-four million citizens of Iran are overwhelmingly Muslims of the Shia branch. During Ramadan, Muslims fast during the day and abstain from all sensual pleasures. When the lunar month falls in the full heat of summer, as it did this year, tempers and tensions can rise.

Leading the unrest are the ayatollahs, Muslim clergy who serve as conservative opinion leaders in most Iranian towns. They have long been unhappy with the wholesale violation of religious tradition that has accompanied Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi’s modernization drive.

The Shah faces the greatest challenge of his thirty-seven-year reign. If he should be toppled, the West fears that an unfriendly regime could shut off the flow of oil through the Straits of Hormuz—energy jugular for the West through which 50 per cent of its oil passes.

The current problem commenced in January, when police in the religious shrine center of Qom fired on a crowd of demonstrators, killing at least a dozen of them. The killings caused an outrage in all the bazaars of Iran, and antigovernment feeling increased.

Since then, nearly every major city in the country has experienced mass rioting. Isfahan, Iran’s second largest city, is under martial law. Special targets of the ayatollahs’ ire were physical symbols of modernization and Western influence—particularly banks (a violation of the Muslim prohibition of usury), theaters (depiction of the human image), and luxury restaurants (drinking of alcoholic beverages).

Previous threats to the Shah’s authority have been primarily political. The present rebellion poses a greater threat to his rule because of the deep religious roots of his people. (Muslim countries have no traditional policy of church-state separation.)

The Shah’s most dangerous foe is Ayatollah Khomeini, exiled to Iraq for his criticisms of the Shah after religious riots in 1963. Tape recordings of his sermons are smuggled by the thousands into Iran and played at secret Muslim gatherings.

The Shah has bowed somewhat to the mounting wave of protest. He has switched prime ministers, from an American-trained technocrat to the more traditional Sharif-Emani, who immediately ordered a shutdown of all casinos and gambling houses. Observers question whether these cosmetic changes will suffice until next Ramadan.

Schism in Guatemala

An ultraliberal priest has broken with the Roman Catholic Church and founded an independent church in Guatemala. Cleric Jose Maria Ruiz Farlan, known throughout this Central American country as Padre Chemita, was twice an unsuccessful candidate for mayor of Guatemala City; he has immense popularity in the slums, where he founded a number of schools and clinics. Padre Chemita has repeatedly accused the Guatemalan church hierarchy of siding with the rich and powerful.

Mario Cardinal Casariego—widely regarded as one of the most conservative churchmen in Latin America—ordered him to retract public statements critical of church authority. After he refused, Chemita was excommunicated. Then, Chemita publicly burned the decree and announced the formation of the Guatemalan National Catholic Church with eight priests.

“The reality of the Catholic Church in Guatemala is very sad,” the priest said. “The evangelical church is advancing here and the authorities of the Catholic Church don’t do anything about it. There are over a million evangelicals in our country because our Church is a conservative Church that lives in the past century.”

Many Guatemalans would agree with Padre Chemita’s assessment. Guatemala has one of the fastest growing evangelical communities in Latin America. Its 110 Protestant evangelical denominations make up an estimated 10 per cent of the six million population.

In contrast to the outspoken bishops of neighboring El Salvador and Nicaragua (see following story), the Guatemalan Catholic hierarchy has been virtually silent, despite reports of human rights violations among the campesinos and peasant workers, assassinations and torture of prisoners, political corruption, and flagrant land-grabbing by public officials.

But recent events have opened the bishops’ mouths somewhat. Early this summer, army troops massacred more than 100 campesinos on a protest march against expropriation of their land by wealthy ranchers. Also, a priest who actively defended campesino rights and protested forced military service was murdered by a vigilante group.

The National Conference of Catholic Bishops and other church groups vigorously condemned the crimes and called for equitable distribution of land. In light of these serious crimes, many observers feel that the controversy that exists between rebel priest Chemita and the authoritarian cardinal only distracts the people from the real problems facing the country.

STEPHEN R. SYWULKA

Somoza Face-off

Roman Catholic bishops served as mediators between Nicaraguan President Anastosio Somoza and leftist guerillas who occupied his national palace in Managua last month. Members of the Sandinista Liberation Front took an estimated 1,500 hostages, including some fifty government officials, most of them members of the Chamber of Deputies. After securing release of political prisoners and receiving an undisclosed cash ransom, the Sandinists flew to Panama with only Archbishop Miguel Obando y Bravo, the Primate of Nicaragua, two bishops, and Venezuelan and Panamanian envoys to guarantee their safe passage.

Earlier Bravo had spoken for Nicaragua’s six bishops when he called for Somoza’s resignation and the establishment of “a new socio-economic order.” Each step, he said, was needed to end the violence and unrest sweeping their nation.

Chinese Witness

Chinese evangelicals in North America must extend their witness to all segments of the Chinese community and to other ethnic groups as well. That was the call heard by 300 delegates to the third North American Congress of Chinese Evangelicals held last month in Toronto.

Professional people and students now dominate the memberships of many of the 280 Chinese congregations in the United States and Canada, and the report of a consulting firm warned that these congregations would become “middle class and affluent” if other Chinese groups were not brought in. Specifically, delegates were asked to evangelize the North American-born Chinese, the elderly, and the working class.

Congress chairman Ernest Chan also urged a stepped-up witness to the non-Chinese. Chan, pastor of a growing San Francisco Presbyterian church, said a broader missionary vision now is developing within many Chinese churches. Chan saw great missionary potential in Chinese students attending schools in North America who, if converted by the Chinese congregations here, could return to China with a Christian witness.

Chinese evangelicals, part of an estimated 750,000 Chinese living in North America, will meet in Los Angeles in 1980. The recently completed congress of the eight-year-old organization was held in a Chinese Christian stronghold; Toronto’s twelve Chinese congregations were described by congress chairman Chan as among the most flourishing churches anywhere.

LESLIE K. TARR

World Scene

Leaders of three major churches in India this summer formed a Joint Council that will represent three million Christians. Officials of the Church of North India, the Church of South India, and the Mar Thoma Syrian Church—already in full communion—took the further step to express common visible union though they agreed to respect each other’s heritage.

Refugees continue to flood into Thailand, according to a Christian and Missionary Alliance publication. Refugees totaled over 100,000 this year in the Southeast Asian nation. Housed in numerous camps throughout Thailand are 82,000 Laotians, 14,000 Cambodians, and 3,000 Vietnamese.

Archbishop Iakovos resigned as Primate of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America but the Ecumenical Patriarch Demetrios in Istanbul refused to accept his resignation. Iakovos had been invited by President Carter to attend Pope Paul’s funeral as part of the American delegation. He did not attend, though, and the archdiocese announced that his resignation had been tendered “because of the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s refusal to permit him to attend the funeral.” No reason was given for the denial of permission.

The seven Soviet Pentecostals, who for the last two months have camped in the lobby of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, have been moved to an apartment elsewhere in the building (see August 18 issue, p. 34). Claiming religious persecution, the seven members of two families still refuse to leave until the Soviets grant them emigration visas, and their move signifies that embassy officials expect a long wait. U.S. officials also may want them out of public view; already an Armenian woman and her two sons have joined the seven (but for nonreligious reasons) in refusing to leave until emigration visas are granted them.

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