Pope's meeting with cardinals could shape future policies

By John Thavis
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The world's cardinals are preparing to meet with Pope John Paul II in a consultative session that could help shape important pastoral policies for coming decades.

The May 21-24 meeting, known as an extraordinary consistory, was convened by the pope after he created 44 new cardinals in February. It is the first such meeting since 1994, and it offers a rare chance for the College of Cardinals as a whole to influence papal thinking.

The discussions will be free and open, held behind closed doors. The pope set no detailed agenda for the consistory, but instead held up his recent apostolic letter, ``Novo Millennio Ineunte'' (``At the Beginning of the New Millennium'') as a thematic guideline.

The apostolic letter is so broad that almost any topic could come up for debate. But as a preparatory move, the Vatican's Secretariat of State in April suggested several talking points for the cardinals.

They included the duty to announce Christ in the context of dialogue and religious pluralism, how the church promotes models of holiness, the challenge of religious sects, the relationship between Vatican offices and local churches, the role of the bishop, the church's response to globalization and economic injustice, the response of the faithful to church teachings on sexuality and other moral issues, the church's use of mass media, ecology and New Age movements.

Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said May 9 that these were ``just points to begin the discussion.''

``The topics of the consistory are related to `Novo Millennio Ineunte,' and it will go from there. It will be a very open meeting, open to any suggestions,'' he said.

The Vatican spokesman said the pope wants real input from the cardinals, and the meeting will not be overly structured. It will begin with two or three opening speeches -- Navarro-Valls did not say by whom -- but unlike synods of bishops, there is no set outline for discussion.

Navarro-Valls said he does not think cardinals will arrive with speeches in hand, but expects they will take notes and speak up during the assembly. All 183 cardinals, even those over age 80, are invited, but because of illness and other reasons, about 150 are expected to attend.

The pope will preside over the morning and afternoon sessions of the consistory and may ask the cardinals some specific questions, Navarro-Valls said.

This is the sixth -- and by far the most wide-ranging -- extraordinary consistory convened by Pope John Paul. Earlier sessions focused on particular themes: in 1979, 1982 and 1985 on the Roman Curia and church finances; in 1991 on the defense of human life and the problem of religious sects; and in 1994 on the jubilee year 2000, especially regarding the pope's ``mea culpa'' statements.

In his sermon to the new cardinals Feb. 23, the pope gave special attention to the role of the papacy and its importance for the future of Christian unity and church communion. Because he raised the question in detailed terms and asked the cardinals to help him resolve it, many saw this is a logical main topic of the May consistory.

The theme of papal ministry was not specifically highlighted in the ``talking points'' memo that went out to cardinals in April, sources said, but that does not mean it will not emerge as a key topic of discussion.

Some participants, like Honduran Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga of Tegucigalpa, have said the consistory would probably try to find a balance between internal and external issues. On one hand, many cardinals are concerned about increasing the forms of collegiality in the church, he said. But the cardinals cannot ignore the pastoral demands placed by wider social problems, such as global poverty, he said.

This is the first time the College of Cardinals has met in a consultative session in seven years, and during that time more than 60 new members have been added. Inevitably, the cardinals will come to better know each other and their respective opinions, through the discussions in the meeting hall and during informal chats during the breaks.

That has led some to characterize the meeting as a kind of ``pre-conclave'' -- a forum for evaluating potential papal candidates for the future.

Navarro-Valls said that would be a misreading of the consistory.

``In objectives, procedures and language, this has nothing to do with a conclave in any way,'' he said.

Instead, he said, it fits in with the pope's tradition of using the College of Cardinals in an advisory capacity. This was a common practice in the church's early centuries, when the cardinals constituted the ``senate'' of the church and, in part because they all lived in Rome, were consulted often by the pope.

Pope John Paul revived the practice because he was convinced the cardinals had valuable insights on church issues, Navarro-Valls said.

The meetings normally do not end with formal conclusions or statements, and the cardinals' input often remains confidential. It is not always clear whether the pope follows their advice or whether a consensus emerges on every issue.

In the last extraordinary consistory in 1994, for example, the cardinals unanimously approved an appeal on pro-life and pro-family issues. But their discussion of how far the church's self-criticism should go during the jubilee year was less conclusive, with many cardinals saying the pope should concentrate on the challenges of the present, not the mistakes of the past.

Six years later, the pope issued an unprecedented ``mea culpa'' statement on the church's historical wrongs, aware that he was taking a step that had stirred strong misgivings in the church's hierarchy.

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