On Sunday’s broadcast of “Face the Nation” on CBS, the Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan explained why the next pope might just be an American.
“Look, it is a divine and yet profoundly human institution, the Vatican,” Noonan said. “Sally [Quinn], you quote Jesus Christ well, but remember, he said to Saint Peter, before he was called Saint Peter, ‘On this rock I will build my church,’ and he said ‘even the fires of hell will not prevail against it.’ Sometimes the cardinals get a little frustrating because they act like, ‘Oh, good, it doesn’t matter what we do. It will always continue.’ I don’t think that’s probably the correct message to have been taken out of that, but the church has been around for a long time. It will be around for a long time.”
As for who will lead the Catholic Church, Noonan said the possibility of an American pope has been elevated, since Europeans no longer view the United States as a superpower.
“May I say I think an American is possible, a little bit, because the thing that used to keep an American cardinal from being picked was that America was a superpower,” she said. “In Europe, in Italy — they don’t see us as quite the superpower we were. Oddly enough, that problem gives a little boost to the American cardinals.”