The Pope as the Face and Statesman of Catholicism

When you see the speculation on the qualities of papal candidates, I am struck by the strange overemphasis on administrative management of the Vatican. A pope is not a manager; he is the face of Catholicism all over the world.

A pope can pick a manager to do just that: manage and thus free the pope for his real task of traveling, meeting, listening, and speaking. All we need is a pope who can select from a qualified pool of managers to handle administration. That should be easy to do.

In addition to being the face of Catholicism, the service of a pope also means implementing needed reforms. But that role is not the same as administrator or manager. The pope is the statesman with vision who enacts reforms--the administrator implements it.

If a prime qualification for a pope is being an administrator, then there is something fundamentally wrong with that expectation.