What’s next, a black Pope? Some think so…

The election of an African-American President in the US could be leading to more firsts, and not just in the United States, but as far reaching as the Vatican. “The election of Barack Obama as the first African-American US President could pave the way for the election of the first black Pope”, according to Archbishop Wilton Daniel Gregory. Archbishop Gregory of Atlanta believes that the election of Obama will set an example for the Catholic Church that could possibly extend all the way to the Holy See. He also comments on the fact that in recent years, since Pope John XXIII specifically, the Vatican has been bringing in Catholic Priests and Bishops from all across the globe to fill the Curia (Vatican hierarchy) creating a very diverse Holy See. In this way the Vatican has been setting an example for the rest of the Catholic Church to follow in racial acceptance and eliminating racial discrimination. Archbishop Gregory believes that election of an African American President in the United States is a sign that racial discrimination has been eliminated from our great nation. While it is great that we’ve elected a black president, I don’t think it by any means is a sign that racial discrimination has been eliminated. We might be a more tolerant country, and maybe it isn’t African-Americans who are being discriminated against anymore, but there is still racial discrimination in the United States.

Archbishop Gregory thinks that the Catholic Church is likely to follow suit in selecting the next Pope. During the last Conclave after the death of Pope John Paul II, many Cardinals thought that it was a definite possibility that the next Pope would be a Third-World Cardinal, someone from Latin American or Africa. The selection of then Cardinal Ratzinger was seen as selecting someone from the same mold as Pope John Paul II in order to maintain continuity and continue the work of John Paul II in the West to make the Catholic Church strong again. But now that the Catholic Church has been setting an example of racial acceptance for so many years and now the United States has elected an African-American leader it wouldn’t be too far to go to believe that the Catholic Church might be next to elect a Pope from a more diverse background.

What other far reaching affects has the election of an African-American president has on the world? It will be interesting to see in the next few years what impact this historical election has had on different parts of the world.

The article can be found here: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article5097668.ece