No telescope, however powerful, shows us. We see through a glass darkly -- the more so, possibly, because of that secular materialism mentioned earlier. We seemingly cannot as a society contrive to take with exhaustive seriousness that view of life which the pope propounded -- life, all life, as the gift of God, to be lived out under his authority. We can consider the physical church and its challenges in the way we can consider the challenges that a state and nation confront. We don't get far, though, without recollecting what Christ said to his chief apostle, a hasty, hot-tempered fisherman named Peter. He said to Peter that against the church the gates of hell itself would not prevail. That would seem definitive -- a nice balancing item on the next pope's worry list.
The thing is, good old secular materialism -- which all but fancies itself a new religion -- closes off, in the interest of something called "pluralism "or "diversity," too public discussion of the church's prospects, obligations and mission. We're constantly advised as to the baneful effects of preferring one view of truth to another.
As it happens, society's reluctance to give Christianity its old-time due (lest we seem to disparage others' differing convictions) may show the direction things will go under the next papacy. Secular materialism -- the view of man, and man's works, as central in the human narrative -- challenges God's own well-authenticated claim to centrality. From which challenge, you might say, all other challenges proceed: rampant disregard for the sanctity of life, lack of priests to administer the sacraments of a fading church, and the growing success of alternative faiths like Islam.
The next pope may discover his calling is to demonstrate tellingly that, in man's affairs, man doesn't come first, God does. A truly daunting task. But if it could be brought off, well, for one thing, we'd need no binocular-toting journalists to spread the news.