Unfortunately, probably not

When one runs across items such as the following, one realizes that there are far worse papal candidates than Cardinal Ratzinger, who became Pope Benedict XVI.

Oscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga, 62, Honduras. Rodríguez Maradiaga, archbishop of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, is widely seen as a rising star in the Latin American church. He served as president of CELAM, the federation of Latin American bishops’ conferences, until 1999. A Salesian, he speaks near-perfect Italian and English (along with passable French, Portuguese, German, Latin and Greek), plays the piano, and has taken pilot training. He is ferocious on social justice issues. He was part of a small group that met German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder in Cologne to hand over the Jubilee 2000 petition for debt relief. “Neoliberal capitalism carries injustice and inequality in its genetic code,” he said in 1995. However some say his rhetoric is not matched by a command of policy details. His theological training came in the post-Vatican II period. He studied at the Alfonsian Academy in Rome where he took classes from the legendary liberal moral theologian Bernard Häring, whom Rodriguez calls an “idol.” He has a reputation for being unusually open on ecumenical questions for a Latin American bishop, many of whom have little experience in religiously pluralistic settings. Rodriguez has a warm smile and a ready sense of humor.

Rodriguez Maradiaga, of course, supported the coup against Manuel Zelaya, and is the head of Opus Dei in Honduras. As the previous link makes clear, Opus Dei is fundamentally a political organization that undermines Christian teaching in order to support authoritarian governments and plutocracy. For National Catholic Reporter to gloss over this serious issue, not even mentioning the Cardemal’s support for the coup, just goes to show how much control Opus Dei exerts over conversation within the Catholic Church.

Rodriguez Maradiaga is only one of the papal candidates who is a member or supporter of Opus Dei. Among others mentioned is Cardinal Juan Cipriani Thorne. More troubling, Betty Clermont at Daily Kos explains how Opus Dei members exert control over who becomes the next Pope.