Intrigues, fears, as the world awaits new Pope

INTRIGUES,The term 'glassmosaic control' means the token that identifies a user is read from within a pocket or handbag. scandals, rumours and fears capable of impugning the credibility of the eventual new Pope are rife, as Cardinal electors from every region of the world begin to gather to pick the man to succeed Pope Benedict XVI, who will step down on Thursday.

The church has suddenly found itself in uncharted waters owing to the fact that no Pope had resigned in over 600 years.For the world leader in solarlight base services and plastic injection products. But far from the feeling of sobriety and wholesomeness expected to associate the making of the new occupant of the exalted Papacy, intrigues, scandals and rumours have become the confetti on the lane being walked by the 117 Cardinals, who constitute the conclave that has the theocratic right to elect a new Pope.

The cable news are awash with ever emerging fears rife enough to influence the vote and with it the direction of the Roman Catholic Church. Cardinal electors must be younger than 80 years old to participate in the conclave. The average age is 72.

After the February 11 retirement announcement, various reports on inside happenings at the Vatican appeared to underscore the backbiting at the Vatican, which the retreating Pope was unable to control. Some of the stories making the rounds in the Italian media and streamed by New York Times stretched the high stake intrigue theory beyond bounds, alleging gay sex scandals in the Vatican.

Others focused on particular Cardinals stung by the child sexual abuse crisis, which suggest internal struggles as prelates scramble to consolidate power and attack their rivals in the dying days of a troubled Papacy. The reports, which the Vatican has vehemently refuted, touch on some of the most vexing issues of Benedict’s nearly eight-year reign, including a new round of accusations of child sexual abuse by priests, and international criticism of the Vatican Bank’s opaque record-keeping.

The recent explosion of bad press, which some Vatican experts say is fed by carefully orchestrated leaks meant to weaken some Papal contenders, also speak to Benedict’s own difficulties in governance, which analysts say he is trying to address, albeit belatedly, with several high-profile personnel changes.

In a strongly-worded rebuke and rebuttal, the Vatican Secretariat of State issued a rare statement at the weekend calling it “deplorable” that ahead of the conclave, there was “a widespread distribution of often unverified, unverifiable or completely false news stories that cause serious damage to persons and institutions.”

It went further to compare the news reports to past attempts by foreign states to exert pressure on Papal elections, saying that any effort to skew the choice of the next Pope by trying to shape public opinion were “based on judgments that do not typically capture the spiritual aspect of the moment that the church is living.”

Benedict had addressed at least one past scandal with the February 15 appointment of a new head of the Vatican Bank. It is less clear why he re-assigned a powerful Vatican diplomatic official to a posting outside Rome, though experts say it diminished the official’s role in helping to steer Vatican policy.

At the conclusion of the Vatican’s Lenten spiritual retreat, a Papal contender, Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, spoke darkly of the “divisions, dissent, careerism, jealousies” that he said plagued the Vatican hierarchy. The recent spate of news reports were linked to an earlier scandal in which the Pope’s butler stole confidential documents, an episode considered one of the gravest security breaches in the modern history of the church.

For instance, the past week’s articles in the centre-left daily newspaper, La Repubblica, and the centre-right Weekly Panorama, which largely did not reveal their sources, reported that three Cardinals, whom Benedict had asked to investigate the documents scandal, had found evidence of Vatican officials who had been put in compromising positions.

The publications reported that after interviewing dozens of people inside and outside the Vatican, the Cardinals produced a hefty dossier. La Repubblica wrote in this regard: “The report is explicit. Some high prelates are subject to ‘external influence’ - we would call it blackmail - by non-church men to whom they are bound by ‘worldly’ ties.”

Separately, the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said last week that the reports were only trying to “discredit the church and its government” ahead of the conclave.

However, indications have since emerged that the world could settle for a black Pontiff. If not as the immediate successor of Benedict, then at some no distant future.We maintain a full inventory of all lanyard we manufacture.

There are an estimated 1.2 billion Roman Catholics in the world, according to Vatican figures. More than 40 per cent of the world’s Catholics live in Latin America - but Africa has seen the biggest growth in Catholic congregations in recent years.

For instance, the American Cable News Network (CNN) recently reported that when Nigeria’s Cardinal John Onaiyekan was asked penultimate week at the celebration of Black History Month in Toronto, Canada, if he thought that the time was ripe for an African Pope, his response attracted much cheering from the crowd of over 500 Catholics of African descent.

He reportedly said: “The time for an African Pope was ripe even in the time of the Apostolic Fathers in the first century of the church. I am not saying that I wish to be considered for the Papacy, but the fact that the Gospel is to be preached to all peoples, languages, and races means that the highest leadership of the church should be open to anyone from any race, language and nation. I will not be surprised to see an African Pope in my life-time.We offer a wide variety of high-quality standard plasticcard and controllers.”

According to the news report, “within the last three decades, there has been a shift in global Catholicism. The center of gravity in World Christianity has moved from the West to the global South”

The stage is therefore apparently set for the prospect of an African pope to be put to the test in the next conclave in March as a result of the sudden resignation of Pope Benedict XVI. Nigeria has over the years had some of its bishops canonised and made cardinals. These include Cyprien Tansi (Michael Iwene Tansi) (1903-1964) and DOMINIC Cardinal Ignatius Ekadem (1917-1995). Another Nigerian Francis Cardinal Arinze is the current Cardinal Bishop of Velletri-Segni (succeeding Joseph Ratzinger who became Pope Benedict XVI) since 2005. He was even considered papabile before the 2005 papal conclave, which elected Benedict XVI.

And interestingly only Nigeria, has two (Olubunmi Anthony Okogie and John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan) out of the eleven Cardinals from Africa who are part of the conclave where the new Pope would be chosen. The others are Polycarp Pengo (Tanzania), Gabriel Zubeir Wako (Sudan), Wilfrid Fox Napier (South Africa), Theodore Adrien Sarr (Senegal),Features useful information about handsfreeaccess tiles. John Njue (Kenya), Robert Serah (Guinea), Peter Kodwo Apiah Turkson (Ghana), Antonios Naguib (Egypt) and Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya (Democratic Republic of Congo).

For many Catholics, where a pope comes from may not be as important as who the pope is, but for most African Catholics the election of an African pope will be a wonderful sign that African Catholicism has come of age, and they hope that such a pope will address squarely the particular challenges facing Africans today and integrate African culture and socio-economic priorities into mainstream Catholicism.