http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-te.keeler04apr04,1,1524858.story
Choosing A Pope
Crucial job awaits Cardinal Keeler at papal conclave
Archbishop to partake in honored task; 'Depend on God's Holy Spirit to
guide us'
By Robert Little and Janice D'Arcy
Sun National Staff
April 4, 2005
When word of Pope Leo XIII's grave illness reached the United States in
1903, Cardinal James Gibbons booked passage on every steamship leaving
for Rome, according to his biographers, lest he miss the opportunity to
vote for the pope's successor.
The Baltimore archbishop had learned the lesson of John McCloskey, a
New Yorker and the first American cardinal, who was halfway across the
ocean in 1878 when he missed his only chance to take part in the event
known as the papal conclave.
As he awaits his own ritualized sequestration inside the Sistine Chapel
to elect the next pope, Cardinal William H. Keeler - the first
Baltimore archbishop since Cardinal Gibbons eligible to vote in the
conclave - faces no such obstacles of timing or geography.
What he does face, the 73-year-old cardinal said this weekend, is the
same responsibility that has burdened the church's appointed leaders
for centuries.
"I have given a lot of thought and prayer to it," Keeler said over the
weekend, betraying more private thinking than normal for the reserved,
soft-spoken archbishop. "But I see it as something in which we really
depend on God's Holy Spirit to guide us as we take the next step."
Keeler and his aides said yesterday that he had not completed plans to
travel to Rome for the funeral of Pope John Paul II and the subsequent
election of his successor. He expects to celebrate Mass this morning at
the Holy Rosary Parish, a Polish church in East Baltimore, and then
attend an interfaith service late in the afternoon at the Cathedral of
Mary Our Queen.
But even as he Keeler maintained his quiet public demeanor, colleagues
and acquaintances said he is keenly focused on the task that many
consider among the most honored and anticipated of any church leader's
undertakings.
Cardinals all pledge secrecy where the conclave is concerned, and overt
politicking is taboo, but networking among papal electors is common,
and Keeler's work may well have built him a friendship with the man who
will be the next bishop of Rome. Cardinals from throughout the world
have called in Baltimore during the 10 years since his elevation to
cardinal, and many more have met Baltimore's archbishop during his
travels to the Vatican.
"We've had 263 changes of popes so far, and I'm confident it will work
out now according to the needs and the challenges of the time," Keeler
said. "Someone else will come along who will be able to lift up the
Gospel message and touch hearts."
Keeler enjoyed close relations with Pope John Paul, who made him bishop
of Harrisburg in 1984 and 10 years later elevated him to the College of
Cardinals, making him the third cardinal in Baltimore's history.
That friendship undoubtedly helped make possible the pope's visit to
Baltimore in 1995. Keeler was serving as president of the United States
Conference of Catholic Bishops, a position requiring him to meet
repeatedly with the pope while the trip was being planned. That
presidency also established Keeler as a significant voice in Catholic
issues nationally, and he still chairs the group's Committee on
Pro-Life Activities.
"He heads the oldest diocese in the country, and by virtue of that he
carries a certain status," Chester Gillis, chairman of Georgetown
University's Department of Theology, said of Keeler. "He obviously has
the confidence of Rome."
Keeler was born in San Antonio, raised in Pennsylvania and educated at
seminaries in Philadelphia and Rome. Pope John XXIII appointed him
special adviser to the Second Vatican Council from 1962 to 1965.
During meetings of the council in Rome, where Keeler was assigned to
take notes, he met a Polish bishop named Karol Wojtyla, who was himself
destined for higher office. "We all looked forward to him," Keeler said
of the man who would become Pope John Paul II.
Wojtyla spoke Latin with clarity - and, more importantly for a
note-taker, with brevity, Keeler said during a recent interview - and
left such an impression that Keeler remembered telling fellow priests
he thought Wojtyla would one day be pope.
"I wish I had a tape of it," Keeler said, smiling.
Keeler returned to the United States and quickly rose through the
hierarchy - from priest to bishop to archbishop - and he established a
reputation for ecumenical and interfaith work.
In 1987 he helped ease relations between the pope and Jewish leaders
after the pope upset Jewish groups by meeting with then-Austrian
President Kurt Waldheim, who had served in the German army during World
War II. That same year, Keeler coordinated the pope's meeting with
Jewish and Protestant leaders during a U.S. papal visit.
Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Washington-based Religious
Action Center of Reform Judaism, joined Keeler and other religious
leaders in Washington this year to call on President Bush to seek peace
between Israel and the Palestinians.
"He's mended many wounds that have gone back centuries," Saperstein
said of Baltimore's cardinal. "He has wall-to-wall respect in the
Jewish community."
Whereas Keeler has a low-key style publicly and a centrist reputation,
there are other American cardinals with more clearly defined ideologies
who are expected to take more of a lead in the conclave.
Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles is an outspoken advocate for
decentralizing church polices, and Cardinal Francis George of Chicago
is known internationally for his firm alignment with traditionalists.
Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington, D.C., is often regarded as
the best known internationally among the 11 American cardinals, and the
cleric who most tries to bridge the gap between American Catholics and
the Vatican.
Copyright © 2005, The Baltimore Sun