Benediction?

"We have a Pope," came that keenly awaited announcement. And since the Pope was none other than Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, we have what could be the beginning of a new civil war within the Roman Catholic Church. "This will definitely widen the rift within the Church," Frances Kissling from the US-based group, Catholics For a Free Choice, told Outlook. "The very conservative people will be happy that this will mean a continuation of the papacy of John Paul II. The rest will be unhappy for that reason."

Pope Benedict XVI, as Ratzinger has named himself, could take that orthodoxy further than Pope John Paul II ever did. For long years, he headed the powerful Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that enforced strict orthodoxy and punished those who strayed from it. Dissenters called it the department of the Holy Inquisition. And that has already created a wide rift within the Church.

The doctrine means a series of severe 'Nos'. No contraception, not even use of condoms in Africa to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS. No ordination of women or of married men as priests; no abortion and certainly no homosexuality. Ratzinger was the one saying most of these 'Nos'. As recently as 2001, he issued a notification asking Spanish theologian Marciano Vidal to retract his theses on contraception, abortion and homosexuality that departed from the official Vatican line.

These positions are right by orthodoxy, wrong by liberal standards. Given the many millions who hold liberal views, particularly in the West, the new Pope will have a job on hand holding the faithful together as the liberals rapidly distance themselves from orthodoxy. "He is very German, he does not comprehend cultural differences," Rea Howarth from the Quixote Centre in Washington told Outlook.

Among the most influential emerging voices in the Church is of Tissa Balasuriya, a priest and theologian from Sri Lanka, and founder of the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians. Two days before the cardinals entered the conclave to elect a new Pope, Fr Balasuriya had said that Church leaders need to move away from "a model of Roman Empire". He acknowledged Pope John Paul II's contributions to the causes of social justice, human rights and peace, but said they were marred by his "authoritarian rule of the Church". He said the Church needs to change the way it sees and governs itself.

"Today, we see a world of war, a world of great socio-economic inequality and injustice, and large-scale exploitation of the poor and the weak, especially of poor women. It is dominated by global multinational corporations, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, World Trade Organisation, and mobile global finance." The Church, said Fr Balasuriya, can either be a force for social justice or maintain status quo.

Church conservatives, led by Ratzinger, see such moves as an attempt to introduce Marxist values into faith. Ratzinger sees the West as a society in moral decline that needs the values of the Church to restore it to decency and stability. Ratzinger's orthodoxy meant he declared rock music morally evil and opposed Turkey's membership of the European Union on the grounds that it is an overwhelmingly Muslim country.

Ratzinger took it upon himself to question Balasuriya. But voices of dissent could rise now that Ratzinger is Pope and the liberals failed to win a change from church orthodoxy. Balasuriya was respectful of the new Pope but remains committed to seeking changes in the Church. "I think we could approach the situation positively and press for reforms in the Church," he told Outlook.

In his sermon on Good Friday, Ratzinger spoke of "dirt" and "arrogance" that had crept into the Church. Cleansing the Church, he said, must mean resisting modernity. Given those firm views and a growing opposition to them among liberals, the Catholic Church is coming to mean very different things to opposing sects of the faithful.