John Paul II

We'll spend the week paying proper homage to JPII - he was a good man and made some significant contributions to the state of our world. His leadership of our church caused problems for many, however, and hopes abound in some Catholic sectors for a new leader with a broader vision.

Of course, that kind of thinking leads us right back to where we began - waiting for someone to give us permission to believe and act in a proscribed "Catholic" way. Do we have any say in that?

One of our priest friends wrote a comment stating that we need to believe in the Nicene Creed in order to be Catholic. "He descended to hell and on the third day he rose again from the dead." Find a hundred Catholics and you'll get a hundred different explanations of that sentence. "I believe in God..." How do we define God? Does the Church tell us how to do that? How can anyone? We humans simply cannot definitively imagine God. It's not within our ability.

It's a worthy question to ask what a new Pope can bring to the table besides permission.