Next pontiff has solid foundation to rebuild Church

THUS PASSES the glory of the world. These words used to be intoned at the beginning of each papal reign, to remind the new Pope that although he may be a grand temporal figure, as Christ's vicar worthy of respect and the trappings of earthly success, yet his true vocation is not for this world, but for the next.

- By Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg

The job of the Church is to save souls by bringing people to the teaching of Christ. It has to engage the secular society to do this but must not become absorbed by it.

This is always the greatest challenge to the Church. When Christ was tempted by the devil, he was offered power over all the kingdoms of the world, if only he would bow down to Satan.

Christ refused, but the Church is endlessly tempted, especially as the numbers going to mass in the West declines, and the secular world laughs at, even mocks, its moral teaching.

It is not impossible to envisage a situation when the congregations decline so much and vocations to the priesthood are so low that the pressure on the Church to accept the spiritual void of modernity becomes unstoppable.

Father Joseph Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI, saw this very clearly as he showed in a 1969 radio broadcast. He predicted the difficulties the Church would face in an unbelieving world but he had hope as well as circumspection.