A Pope from Toronto? Sizing up conclave politics

The Maple Leafs, Rob Ford and – the Pope?

Don’t look now, but the city Canadians love to hate has an outside chance to be the hometown of the Holy Father to the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics.

Granted, Toronto Cardinal Thomas Collins, 66, is a long-shot to win the two-thirds majority of his 115 fellow cardinals when they enter the conclave here Tuesday to begin the process to select a successor to Benedict XVI. But he has attracted some notice among the international press here who have him in the second-tier group of potential popes.

As for the man himself, he’s just happy to be a witness to one of the most historic papal elections ever.

Collins watched the elections of Benedict and the two John Pauls on TV and thought, “Gee, wouldn’t it be exciting to be in the crowd (in Rome) to see the white smoke and everything,” Collins told reporters here Sunday. “But now – oh my! —  I’m going to be there walking right into the Sistine Chapel and it’s just amazing. It’s very humbling and it’s just awesome!”

Collins, like every cardinal, has his own church here in the Eternal City. Given the fact that his grandfather was from Ireland, Collins was made the cardinal-priest for the national church of the Emerald Isle here in Rome, San Patrizio, or St. Patrick’s, about a 40-minute walk east from the  famous St. Peter’s in Vatican Square.

Collins’ St. Patrick is a young church by Roman standards, with its foundation stone laid in 1888 and completed in the first decade of the 20th century. Inside, Celtic stylings – the Irish harp, the Irish cross, shamrocks – mix in with traditional Roman and Catholic iconography.

On Sunday, for the second time since he became San Patrizio’s cardinal-priest in February 2012, Collins led a mass for about 100 parishioners.

Many parishioners, on their way out of the mass, could be heard to whisper to each other, “He could be the next pope!”

And while it’s true that Collins could be pope, another Canadian, Quebec’s Marc Ouellet, will be among the favourites when the conclave starts.

Ouellet, too, led a mass Sunday attended by a crush of international news organizations. Ouelett, though, like many of the favourites in the race, was not giving interviews.

Collins, on the other hand, was generous with his time and patient with questions from the half-dozen Canadian reporters outside his Roman church.

I asked him: How have you prepared yourself for the next week?

“This past week has been very wonderful. It’s been a very inspiring time, listening and all of this,” he said. “But now, I think, it’s really the time to step back and pray and reflect.”

Collins, born in Guelph, Ont., in 1947 and a graduate of Bishop Macdonnell High School (long since demolished), was named archbishop of Toronto in 2006 and became a cardinal in February 2012.

He never thought he’d ever vote for a new pope.

“The key question is: among the many wonderful possible people who could be the Holy Father, which one will be the one for this time? And so that’s what we’re mostly thinking and praying about right now. There’s been a lot of discussion.”

Lots, Indeed. Through eight days of “congregations”, cardinals have been on their feet talking to each other about everything from the state of the Vatican finances to the priorities of the next pope.

The cardinals will meet again Monday to hear more speeches from their ranks and once that’s done, they will have heard 150 speeches since they started getting together.

As Collins noted, with some good humour, most went well beyond the five-minute time limit.

To indicate their intention to speak, cardinals have little buttons at their seats which they press if they want to address the congregation. Collins joked that he was called up on to speak three days after he’d pressed his button.

The speeches have been all well-and-good, say those close to some cardinals, but the real politicking, if you can call that, has come at the coffee breaks, as cardinals circulate among each other, gossiping, pontificating, twisting arms, and cajoling.

Outside the cloister, newspapers here in Rome and around the world are pushing their own favourite candidates.

Vatican insiders believe that, on the eve of the conclave, an Italian cardinal, Angelo Scola, the Archibishop of Milan, is now in the pole position. Scola is a bit of a reformer, in that he wants the Vatican administration to be more accountable and transparent.

If the cardinals do not want an Italian who is is a reformer — and many cardinals do not want that apparently — they are looking at Odilo Scherer, a cardinal from Brazil.

So far as the reform-vs-establishment camps, Ouellet falls somewhere in between.

Among the knocks on Ouellet that has appeared in the non-Canadian press is that he’s dull as dishwater when it comes to public speaking. But he does speak in six languages, an important attribute for any future pope.

The reformers may be also be looking beyond Europe, perhaps to Filipino Cardinal Luis Tagle. Some though say he’s too young — 56 — which means he could be pope for the next 40 years! Or, if they stay with a European cardinal, it could be Christoph Schonborn, a Bohemian-born Austrian, who has been a sharp critic of the Curia – the Vatican administration – and who has argued the church should have done more to confront allegations of sexual abuse by priests.

And then there’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York City, already a media superstar in his own country and one who, by all accounts has charmed many of his cardinal colleagues. Dolan, who received his red hat at the same time as Collins, has also attracted a media throng here wherever he goes.

The knock on Dolan, though, is that many European cardinals might be reluctant to elect a “Superpower Pope.” America, the thinking goes, already has enough influence and clout. With the Roman Catholic church growing fastest in Latin America and Africa, an American Pope might seem a bit much.

Toronto’s Collins, who gave his mass Sunday in Italian and answered reporters in both French and English, could lie somewhere in between these groups.

“I don’t know what to expect,” he said Sunday. On Tuesday, he will join the procession of cardinals into the Sistine Chapel “and then the doors close — con clave, with the key — and boom! And then I can just imagine where you look around and say here we are, the only ones in the room are the cardinals and then they start the vote.”