Dr. Shannon Holzer - Professor, Houston Christian University Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The process of picking the next pope begins today in Rome,
six twenty three hour time here in Houston's Morning News,
joining us to talk about doctor Shannon Holzer, professor at
Houston Christian University. Even if you're not Catholic, doctor Holser,
the pomp, the circumstance, the ceremony, the traditions involved in
what happens in Rome in choosing the next pope. It's

(00:21):
a fascinating thing to watch, is it not? It is.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
It's very mysterious because once they get locked in to
the Sistine travel they don't nobody knows what goes on inside.
They're sworn to secrecy, and if any one of them
tells anybody else about what goes on inside, if there's
a leak, per se, that cardinal will be excommunicated. And
so you just have no idea what's going on. So

(00:46):
it's a whole bunch of speculation as to how they
I mean, we know some things about it, how they vote,
you know, the order of things. But it's a big mystery.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
Yeah, how did the tradition begin, the whole black smoke,
white smoke thing.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
Well, I can tell you that there was a time
in the thirteenth century when they went three years without
a pope and the people got really upset and they
locked the cardinals in the church and then they forced
them to make a decision because they were so mad
that they took the roof off the building and they

(01:25):
would only feed them bread and water, and they said,
you better get us a pope or we're not going
to let you out. And so that's where they get
the whole word conclave, from which means with keys or
locked in, And so you get this sense that the
people are making them make a decision. And so that's

(01:46):
what actually happens. They get locked in this room from
the outside, and it's a surreal experience from what the
cardinals have expressed. Once those doors locked, they realized, as
the gravity of the situation, we better, we better come
up with the pope.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
I had no idea it was based on a real
life event that that that that's what led to that,
and that they've taken that and they've turned that into
part of the ceremony of picking the next pope. What
kind of what kind of decision process do you think
these cardinals are going to make? You know, you always
wonder about, you know, whether or not for lack of
a better term, whether or not the next pope is
going to be a dei Higher. In other words, are

(02:25):
we going to pick? Are they going to pick somebody
from a country they's never had a pope before? Are
they going to pick somebody of color because they haven't
had somebody of color before? What are some of the
considerations they go into how they're going to decide who
the next pope should be.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
Oh, yeah, that's that's a great question, because you're right.
If they let's say, they say, hey, let's get a
guy from Africa, uh, and they want to dei Higher
and they.

Speaker 3 (02:49):
Go, hey, let's get this guy Surrah, he's black.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
He'd be a great edition because we you know, we're
made can progress. Well, the problem with that is that
people who want.

Speaker 3 (02:58):
Would say that they have a problem with those guys
from Africa because those cardinals are way more conservative in
their theology and approach to social issues.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
They reject the notion of the same sex marriage, they
reject climate change, they reject this idea of synodism where
that there's this in interreligious dialogue going on between the
Christians and other religions. So they don't like those guys.

(03:29):
So they would like the idea of, say, making them
pope for their social justice reasons. The problem is is
those guys don't stand on the same side of the
fence as they do in that area. There's a guy
from the Philippines, so that is highly like that, and
he's very to theologically and politically and socially to the

(03:51):
left that they may be interested in. So you'll find
that the more progressive Cardinals may vote that way. But again,
it needs two thirds of a majority to win that
guy's vote.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
So it's going to be fascinating to see how long
this process takes because there's politics in the church like
there is everywhere else. And I guess we'll know which
way the Catholic Church will be leaning once we know
who the pope is going to be. Doctor Holzer, thank
you for your time today. That doctor Shannon Holzer, Professor
at Houston Christian University,