Pope Paul confounds soothsayers

A close aide of the Polish Pope said recently, that a number of journalists and critics who wrongly predicted his death over the past decade ‘‘are already in heaven’’.

But while some of his critics may already be in paradise, is the Pope himself running the shop back here on earth?

Aides say yes. Critics say no.

‘‘He is still in charge, signing off on documents and the naming of Bishops,’’ said an aide asked not to be identified.

On Friday, the Pope received three Bishops, one Cardinal, a group of pilgrims and was attending an anniversary concert in his honour by the choir and band of Russia’s Red Army.

Critics say he is not in charge, or at least, not as much as he should be.

‘‘The Church is going through what can be called a case of the blues, the blues of the end of a reign, which seems to be never-ending, marked by the Pope’s enormous physical frailty,’’ wrote the French Left-wing Catholic weekly Temoignage Chretien.

In his new book, The Pontiff in Winter British writer John Cornwell says the Pope is often distant in private meetings and suggests that the Vatican is being run by Papal aides.

‘‘For six years or so, gradually and without public awareness, John Paul had been leaving more and more of the running of the Church to others,’’ Cornwell writes.

But what Cornwell calls the Pope’s ‘‘dogged hold on power’’ for his refusal to step down, is held up as heroic Christian witness by his supporters. John Paul has left a conservative stamp on his Church of a billion souls, naming nearly all of the Cardinals who will choose his successor in a secret conclave after his death. But front-runners in the succession list appear and fade like the morning fog over St Peter’s Square in winter.

In 1994, the magazine of a leading US newspaper ran a cover story on his decline and named six possible successors.

Only two are still in the running. The others have either died, resigned or turned 80—the cut-off age after which, a cardinal cannot enter a conclave.

One who had faded from pundits’ list, but has now resurfaced, is 71-year-old Nigerian Cardinal Francis Arinze, who would become the first African Pope in some 1,500 years.

Arinze has worked in the Vatican for 20 years, many of them as the Pope’s pointman for relations with Islam.

Since September 11, 2001 and the war in Iraq, a key requisite in the Papal job profile is the ability to reach out to the Muslim world.

Other candidates mentioned recently include Claudio Hummes of Brazil, Dionigi Tettamanzi of Italy, Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga of Honduras and Christoph Schoenborn of Austria.

But an old Roman adage warns of trying to predict the outcome of the conclave. It says: ‘‘He who enters a conclave as a Pope, leaves it as a Cardinal.’’ —Reuters