Who woulda thunk it? The Americans are folk heroes (Cardinals in Rome)

National Catholic Reporter ^ | 3/8/13 | John Allen Jr.

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ROME Journalism 101 teaches you to put your article’s bold claim at top, so people will pay attention, and then qualify it to death later if you must. So, here’s my bold claim: Against all odds, the American cardinals are emerging as the anti-establishment insurgents of the 2013 conclave.

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They're reportedly supporting Scola at this point. He seems respectable but after reading some of his stuff, it's DENSE. So dense, it's hard to interpret what he's saying at times.

[Houghton M.]

Theologically he’s fine, comes out of the ressourcement/communio approach which is where Ratzinger came from. It’s an evangelical Catholicism that doesn’t try to play “let’s find some neutral common ground”with modernity” game but simply confronts modernity with Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

I’ve used one of his books in teaching masters’ students in theology.

I don’t know if he has the same gut instinct for the liturgy that Ratziner has. People say Ouellet does not. Don’t know whether Scola can handle the curial bureaucrats and fiefdoms.

Ranjith’s my first choice but until a year ago, it would have been Scola or Ouillet and they remain my second and third choices.