Follow the Leader

  On my Facebook news feed our local news channel announced upcoming dates for the conclave.  The first responder posted, "Who cares?"  I stopped reading the others below it.  I try to avoid the comments section of religious news published by secular sources.  People can be so nasty.  It seems a glowing screen and qwerty pad give people an audacity they would be ashamed of in actual human interaction.

  People do care and at the least are certainly interested.  Every major news channel broke into regular programming just to air the cardinals entering the Sistine Chapel, having not yet voted at that time.  What is it that interests non believers?  The history? The misguided thinking the next pope will "get with the times?"

  Media commentators say the next pope will be an important one because he's going to need to bring back followers to a dying religion.  They say these are some of the toughest times for the Catholic church...

St. Peter is not Impressed

Caravaggio: The martyrdom of St. Peter, Crucified upside down

  Does the "success" of the Catholic faith rest in the hands of the pope though?  No because the election of a pope is not about a man.  It's about the Office, the Chair of Peter.

I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” (Matthew 16:18)

  From here the new pope will lead the faithful so that we can exemplify Christ like qualities and attract others.  He will guide us in ways to receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit which gives us the ability to love and moves us to share God's love with others.  He will teach us and give us intellectual positions to meditate and act on. The pope's human qualities and personality will play into this leadership, but it's up to me to respond to that lead.   It's up to me to respond to Christ.  And, it's up to me to prove to harden hearts that the universal church is not dying.