More than 9 million Americans rose early to watch the funeral of Pope John Paul II on televisions at home or their local church, saying a final goodbye to a pope who was widely admired across the United States for the energy, vigor, and love that he showed throughout his 26 year papacy.

However, Americans, and the Roman Catholic Church in America in particular, had their problems with the last pontiff, and they view the upcoming papal election with a mix of hope, anxiety, and expectation.

In some ways, the Catholic Church in America seems one of the most vibrant and dynamic in the world.  It has grown to 67 million members from 47 million in 1965 (largely as a result of Catholic immigrants from Latin America), it is the most generous donor to the Vatican with almost $100 million donated annually, and it has more Catholic universities and colleges than any other country.

The Catholic Church has played an increasingly influential role in politics, with President Bush even borrowing one of John Paul II’s catch-phrases, “the culture of life”, in talking about Terry Schiavo, the brain-damaged woman from Florida who was taken off of life support in March and became the center of a national discussion about the right to die.

The Church is incredibly diverse, ranging from wealthy politicians in the northeast (like Senator John Kerry) to poor immigrants from Latin American in the southwest. But not all is well in the church, as it reels from a series of interconnected problems. The sexual abuse scandals of recent years seriously damaged the Catholic Church’s reputation, not to mention its financial standing, as several dioceses had to declare bankruptcy. The number of priests in America continues to drop, and the shortage has caused many parish churches to go without. In a New York Times study in 2005, the number of priests in Brooklyn dropped 51% between 1877 and 2004. Fewer and fewer Catholics go to church regularly, and more and more ignore certain Vatican teachings, as evidenced by the divorce rate. 6 million American Catholics, out of a total 67 million, have divorced and remarried without an annulment.

These problems can be explained in a number of ways, but they stem from a conflict between evolving, liberal values in the American Catholic population and the conservative, sometimes inscrutable, policies of the Holy See. More than ever before, Catholic beliefs mirror the beliefs of American society at large, on issues such as divorce, birth control, women’s rights, and abortion. A recent Gallup poll found that 78% of American Catholics think that the Vatican should allow Catholics to use birth control, and that 49% thought they should be able to divorce and remarry without an annulment. This at a time when John Paul II was taking the world church in a deeply conservative direction on social issues.

As a result, the American church has come to be regarded as a sort of renegade, as it pushes for more independence from the Vatican (or “collegiality” in Vatican-speak) and takes controversial stances on a variety of issues, and the Vatican has responded forcefully.

One example is the long fight over the English language version of the revised catechism. After years of delay, the Vatican refused to accept the “inclusive” language used, particularly the use of language that included both sexes.

In another example, in 1987, the Vatican removed Rev. Charles Curran, a Catholic theologian, from his position at the Catholic University of America for his criticizing the church's positions on contraception and homosexuality. It then insisted that American bishops issue a directive requiring all theologians at Catholic institutions to sign a pledge of orthodoxy. The problems of the American church, and its clashes with the Vatican, have helped to clarify in the minds of many Catholics what they want from the next pope. Most basically, they want him to embrace modernity. This encompasses a number of hot-button issues, from birth control to allowing priests to marry, from the ordination of women to stem cell research. A majority of American Catholics support these issues and want the next pope to support them as well.

A few things are clear about the future of relations between the American church and the Vatican. First, the next pope will not be an American. It would be too much to have a pope from the world superpower. Second, Americans will not win the pope over on all of these issues, because they diverge too much from John Paul II’s conservative teachings. Third, the Vatican will continue to view the American Church with a mix of consternation, at its independent streak, and admiration, for its religiosity.

20 aprile 2005