While the cardinals were still talking to the media, one of the emerging divisions was between those hoping for a pope in the image of John Paul and those seeking a break from the recent past.
"We hope the man they appoint will be more or less like" John Paul II, Indonesian Cardinal Julius R. Darmaatmadja, the archbishop of Jakarta, said Thursday. Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick of Washington said in an interview Wednesday: "I think if you asked most of the cardinals, they'd say, give us a young John Paul II, not as he was in the last three or four years. Give us a healthy, vigorous John Paul II again."
Cardinal Francis George, archbishop of Chicago, checks his watch while talking to Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, archbishop of Washington, inside the North American College after morning meetings. During the conclave to select the next pope, which begins April 18, secrecy will be heightened.
(Andrea Bruce Woodall -- The Washington Post)
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On the other hand, Cardinal Bernard F. Law, who was archbishop of Boston before resigning two years ago over his handling of child sexual abuse by priests, told ABC News that John Paul was such a charismatic pope that "it would be a major mistake to try to clone him."
And Cardinal Edward M. Egan of New York said Thursday that "whoever is named . . . comes in with whatever he is. He would be very poorly advised to try to be Pope John Paul II or Pope Paul VI or John XXIII or anybody other than himself."
When Catholic leaders say they want another pope like John Paul II, they are placing a high priority on personal charisma -- the human face that the pope put on the church from behind the Iron Curtain, said Rocco Buttiglione, an Italian politician, philosopher and close friend of the late pope.
"I think the next pope should be very similar to John Paul II, not in his policies, not even in his philosophy, but in the core of his personality," Buttiglione said.
Those who call for a pope similar to John Paul also say it is vital to take a firm line on doctrinal matters and to evangelize in his tireless style. During his 26-year papacy, John Paul attended giant World Youth Day celebrations and visited 130 countries.
Those who call for a different kind of pontiff say the church needs an attentive manager, even if it means he must do less traveling and writing. John Paul, by his own admission, often left the Vatican bureaucracy to its own devices. "Perhaps I should reproach myself for not having tried to do enough to command," he wrote last year in his fourth book, "Rise, Let Us Be on Our Way."
Some church officials complain that the Vatican's departments have ossified into fiefdoms in which top officials must sign off on inconsequential decisions. They are also the only ones allowed to communicate with other departments.
McCarrick said there was "some truth" to the charge that John Paul did not constantly stay on top of the work in the Vatican offices, known as the Curia.
"This Holy Father felt that evangelization was one of the most important things that he wanted to do, and he wanted to do it personally, and he did it so well. When one does that well, obviously, when you're in Africa, you're not in Rome. And if you're in America, you're not in Rome," he said.
The late pope appointed all but three of the voting cardinals, and his long reign and vigorous style loom prominently over the process of finding a successor. Yet continuity is not ensured.
"History shows that after long papacies, the pope who follows usually takes a very different turn," said Christopher M. Bellitto, a historian of Catholicism at Kean University in Union, N.J.
Pius IX, who ruled from 1846 to 1878, feared revolutionaries and striking workers. He was followed by Leo XIII, who embraced labor rights. The authoritarian Pius XII, who reigned from 1939 to 1958, was followed by the open-minded John XXIII, who convened the Second Vatican Council and brought sweeping change.
Italians have an expression for the tendency to choose a pope who will counterbalance his predecessor. "Fat pope, thin pope," they say.
