(This is one in a series of articles on the men most likely to follow John Paul II as pope.)
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The College of Cardinals is filled with men of the Polish pope's conservative persuasion. Small wonder -- most owe their red birettas to John Paul II, especially those under the age of 80 and therefore young enough to elect his successor. But you never know -- perhaps the conclave will decide that the time has come for a more "moderate" pontiff, such as Godfried Daneels, 70, archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels in Belgium.
What does "moderate" mean in this context? Well, he favors more compassion for remarried divorcees, for example. Their current exclusion from the Eucharist is open to question, he suggested. Perhaps the Roman Catholic Church should emulate the Eastern Orthodox, who view the sacraments not as a reward for good behavior but as medicine for the soul.
While compassionate, this Fleming seems a little standoffish to many of his fellow Belgians. True, he is a wonderful speaker -- in public and on radio and television. But a backslapping ecclesial politician he is not: for that, it seems, he is just too Nordic. That and his health -- he has suffered a heart attack -- may be his major handicaps.
Daneels, praised by colleagues and friends for his high intelligence, has a reputation for being a superb pastor to modern man, whose condition he understands well. "Good master, what must I do?" (to inherit eternal life -- Mark 10:17-22) read the title of a magnificent pastoral letter he addressed to his contemporaries searching for a sense of life and a Christian existence.
He is by definition a missionary in the capital city of a largely de-Christianized continent, which would make him the right person to continue the John Paul II's efforts in re-evangelizing Europe. John Paul II recognized this quality in Daneels and thus appointed to the pontifical Congregation for the Evangelization of the Peoples, the council for the church's public affairs, and the Secretariat for non-believers.
But first and foremost he is an expert on liturgy and the sacraments. That's what he taught at the Great Seminary of Bruges, his hometown, and the University of Louvain. Here again, he confronts the challenges of modernity. How do you deal, he once wondered, with a generation that has seemingly lost its sense of the sacred?
