Next Pope Could Be Italian, Person with Missionary Experience

Gazzetta Del Mezzogiorno
March 4, 2013

http://www.lagazzettadelmezzogiorno.it/notizia.php?IDNotizia=599016&IDCategoria=2694


(ANSA) - Rome, March 4 - A senior Vatican figure said on Monday that some non-Italian cardinals have asked for an Italian pope, after Benedict XVI, a German, stepped down February 28. "I have collected rumors from non-Italian cardinals that express this wish.

I would not put it as a priority, but it is a possibility," said Monsignor Claudio Maria Celli, president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications on the Italian radio station RAI RadioUno. "The new pope could also have had missionary experience.

It is one of the sensitivities that the Congregations will take into consideration.

The Church exists to announce the Evangelist, to announce Jesus Christ, and it must do so in a dialogue respectful of others' truths," explained Celli. "We live in a world that is increasingly multicultural and multi-religious and so, if on one side we must be conscious of what we carry in our heart - of the message of Jesus Christ, Him as the person in whom we have trusted our life - on the other side we must be willing to have a dialogue with everybody," Celli continued. Speaking of the conclave expected to begin soon, "We must look beyond the confines of Europe.

Just think of the emergencies in the entire Asiatic world, of the African reality, of that in Latin America.

A Church that forgets these realities would never respond to the mission entrusted to it by Jesus Christ," Celli said.