Mexico & Nafta - 21 October 2003
Sandoval rather than Rivera
The investigation into Juan Sandoval Iñiguez has come at an unfortunate time for him. His name had been bandied about as a possible successor to the current Pope. Sandoval comes from the far right of the church with an unequivocally hostile line to people advocating abortion rights, homosexuality and divorce. He has been quoted as saying that to be a protestant a person cannot have had a mother. He also claimed that provocatively dressed women cause rapes: he was forced to recant on this statement by feminists. Despite such howlers, Sandoval had been seen as much more of a potential Pope than his nominal superior, Norberto Rivera, the cardinal archbishop of Mexico City.
Vatican watchers say that Oscar Rodríguez Madariaga, the cardinal archbishop of Tegucigalpa, Honduras and Claudio Hummes, the cardinal archbishop of São Paulo, are the front runners among the Latin American candidates to succeed the Pope.
The argument that next Pope should come from somewhere in Latin America derives from the fact that the region is home to half the world's Catholics. Arguably, they (and Latin America) will be under-represented in the Conclave to elect the next Pope. There are 109 cardinals under 79 (the maximum age at which a cardinal can vote in a papal election) but only 21 of them come from Latin America. The Pope has announced that he has appointed a further 30 cardinals, but he has yet to formally install them. He is starting to do that as he celebrates the 25th anniversary of his pontifical election. Until he does, they cannot vote. What is striking about the college of cardinals is that all but five of the electors have been appointed by the current Pope. The Pope was elected on 16 October 1978 and was enthroned on 22 October that year.
Latin America has huge reserves of priestly manpower. In the region, the number of seminarians has jumped from 5,334 in 1972 to 28,802 in 2001, according to the Catholic Almanac. The bulk of the priestly manpower is in Brazil (16, 598 priests in 2001) and Mexico (13,173). The total number of priests in Latin America was 61,149 in 2001.
As cardinal archbishop of Guadalajara, Sandoval is the spiritual leader of the most Catholic part of Mexico. Jalisco was the state which was home to the Cristeros, who rebelled against the anticlericalism of the revolutionary settlement in 1927. The Cristeros waged a guerrilla war against the federal government for three years.
Now the archdiocese of Guadajara has four bishops, 1,300 priests, 800 churches and a seminary with more than 800 seminarians. Sandoval expected to become the chairman of the Mexican Bishops' Conference from November and some observers thought that this position would make him papabile.
Vatican watchers say that Oscar Rodríguez Madariaga, the cardinal archbishop of Tegucigalpa, Honduras and Claudio Hummes, the cardinal archbishop of São Paulo, are the front runners among the Latin American candidates to succeed the Pope.
The argument that next Pope should come from somewhere in Latin America derives from the fact that the region is home to half the world's Catholics. Arguably, they (and Latin America) will be under-represented in the Conclave to elect the next Pope. There are 109 cardinals under 79 (the maximum age at which a cardinal can vote in a papal election) but only 21 of them come from Latin America. The Pope has announced that he has appointed a further 30 cardinals, but he has yet to formally install them. He is starting to do that as he celebrates the 25th anniversary of his pontifical election. Until he does, they cannot vote. What is striking about the college of cardinals is that all but five of the electors have been appointed by the current Pope. The Pope was elected on 16 October 1978 and was enthroned on 22 October that year.
Latin America has huge reserves of priestly manpower. In the region, the number of seminarians has jumped from 5,334 in 1972 to 28,802 in 2001, according to the Catholic Almanac. The bulk of the priestly manpower is in Brazil (16, 598 priests in 2001) and Mexico (13,173). The total number of priests in Latin America was 61,149 in 2001.
As cardinal archbishop of Guadalajara, Sandoval is the spiritual leader of the most Catholic part of Mexico. Jalisco was the state which was home to the Cristeros, who rebelled against the anticlericalism of the revolutionary settlement in 1927. The Cristeros waged a guerrilla war against the federal government for three years.
Now the archdiocese of Guadajara has four bishops, 1,300 priests, 800 churches and a seminary with more than 800 seminarians. Sandoval expected to become the chairman of the Mexican Bishops' Conference from November and some observers thought that this position would make him papabile.