This is an abridged version of the interview Bishop Varden gave to The Pillar: https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/bishop-varden-were-never-passive

Catholic doctrine refers to the Roman Pontiff, the successor of Saint Peter, as “the visible head of the whole Church,” (Vatican II, Lumen Gentium, 18).

At the moment we, concrete members of the Church, are in this concrete sense headless. It is an uncomfortable state of affairs. This is a time to consent with hurting hearts, clear minds, and, in the midst of it all, gratitude, to the reality of what it is to be Catholic.

A rising chorus of voices is assessing the papacy just ended and prognosticating for the next. Everyone is suddenly an expert. Let us beware of reducing this time to gossip and more or less competent punditry.

We believe the Holy Spirit guides the Church. The fruits of the Spirit are “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Gal 5:22-23). Fostering these, we shall open ourselves to the Spirit’s inspiration.

Since the Church is a body, all of us have a part to play in cultivating, now, the peaceful attentiveness that enables intelligent, free obedience. Wherever we find ourselves as members, let us do what we can to bring peace into the body.

Let us find time for silence, adoration, intercession, quiet. From this the whole organism will benefit. And we shall make ourselves ready, together, to receive whatever blessing and task the Lord has in store.

[The election of a Pope] is not a matter of anyone winning. Think of the weight that will be placed on the future pope’s shoulders from the moment of his acceptance. Consider the account he will one day have to render to the Judge of all. The stakes are vast.

The fortitude and faith required of the Roman Pontiff defy imagination: that poor man must be at once very strong and very pliable; he must be intensely present in this world’s affairs yet live an utterly supernatural life; he must practise dispossession to a heroic degree, with not a moment’s respite; he must consent from the depth of his heart to the Petrine call: “when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go” (Jn 21:18). Who can live up to this?

Instead of considering the College of Cardinals as a stable of horses, and queuing at the betting shop, I think we should think and pray in these terms: Right now Providence is preparing a man of God’s choosing to assume a supremely privileged share in Christ’s Paschal oblation, to live out this intimate charge until death, in the scrutiny of a prying world whose attitude is fickle, which, in a moment, will turn from shouting “Hosanna!” to hissing, “Crucify!”

The pope has a wonderful and joyful mission: to proclaim Christ to the world! But the head we await will be crowned with thorns in a variety of ways. Soberly, then, we can recite the prayer designated as a collect in Masses “For the Pope to Be Elected” — and it is wonderful that we pray for him personally before we have the least idea of who he is: “God, as eternal Pastor you govern your flock with assiduous protection: grant your Church in your boundless kindness that pastor who will [best] please you by his holiness and be of [most] benefit to us through unsleeping solicitude.”