Thoughts on Cardinal Turkson

I don't quite understand why Cardinal Peter Turkson is the bookie's favourite for the papacy. His Eminence is young and African, intelligent and orthodox on matters of doctrine.

All this is wonderful and yes, it would be exciting to have an African Pope in that novelty kind of way. There is an excellent interview with Cardinal Turkson over at LifeSiteNews in which His Eminence discusses what it is like coming from a poor, very large family in Ghana.

To be honest there is only one thing that bothers me about Cardinal Peter Turkson and that is the fact that he seems not to like to dress as a Cardinal when he's being interviewed. I hope that he wouldn't be one of those Popes who says, "Don't call me 'Your Holiness', just call me Peter." Would His Eminence dress down as Pope?

The Bishop of Arundel and Brighton, who also has a tendency to treat every day as a mufti day, has used the Holy Father's resignation to criticise the new translation of the Mass. Now, that's what I call loyalty to the Successor of St Peter. I would have thought talking about the 'old Mass' was so 2010, but there you go.

The only other thing concerning about Cardinal Turkson is the fact that he is making it more clear that he really would rather like to be Pope. A headline in The Times today makes this clear:

Catholic Church is ready for a Third World Pope, says African cardinal

In the online hubbub concerning the election of a new Pope, the phrase that keeps going around is 'He who enters a Pope leaves a Cardinal.' This makes a great deal of sense. The Office of the Papacy should really hold Cardinals in such awe and fear and even trembling that it isn't something you 'campaign' for in the media, unless you think you are, you know, absolutely wonderful and 'up to the job'. If you think you are 'up to the job' then its probably not 'the job' for you, because, as Benedict XVI has shown us, the Office demands the utmost humilty and profound trust in the power of God.

The World has been ready for an African Pope for years and years, of course. If Turkson gains the seat of St Peter there would, for a month, be dancing in the streets about the black Pope and then a return to usual proceedings once he makes his first statement on condoms and homosexuality.

What the Church needs is a holy Pope ready to do battle against the forces that assail God's Church from within and without Her. Whatever Vatican politics are, I really cannot see how the next Pope's ethnicity and country of origin is of great importance. So, I'll be sticking £50 on Cardinal Raymond Burke and praying God clears my overdraft. What? In Lent? Yes! Anyway, I'm starting to advertise Catholic products for free at the end of each blogpost.