Quote du Jour (Religion Department) | As the Vatican Conclave Begins

As the Vatican Conclave looms near (on Tuesday, March 12) I find myself pondering the holy synchronicity of this happening during Lent during the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council during the Year of Faith, proclaimed as such by the first pope who has resigned in 600 years.

If you read my stuff you already know I'm keen on the Holy Spirit, so-called "lost person" of the Trinity. Not lost to me. For well over a decade, veni sancte spiritus has been my primary prayer -- and not because the priest at my very first Confession assigned it as my penance. 

I perk right up whenever I get to this in the Creed, "We believe in the Holy Spirit..." Even more so at, "who has spoken through the prophets."  Hans Kung, reviled by some Shiite Catholics as a heretic, has long-been a prophetic voice in the Roman church. Here's a paragraph I've pulled from a New York Times Op-Ed piece, "A Vatican Spring?" *  Veni Sance Spiritus!

. . .the church needs a pope who’s not living intellectually in the Middle Ages, who doesn't champion any kind of medieval theology, liturgy or church constitution. It needs a pope who is open to the concerns of the Reformation, to modernity. A pope who stands up for the freedom of the church in the world not just by giving sermons but by fighting with words and deeds for freedom and human rights within the church, for theologians, for women, for all Catholics who want to speak the truth openly. A pope who no longer forces the bishops to toe a reactionary party line, who puts into practice an appropriate democracy in the church, one shaped on the model of primitive Christianity. A pope who doesn't let himself be influenced by a Vatican-based “shadow pope” like Benedict and his loyal followers.

─  Hans Kung

* Of course I was thrilled to see the title for this piece because I've been trying for at least year (unsuccessfully)  to get some momentum for the hashtag #CatholicSpring on Twitter.