From The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette-As the world awaits a new pope, polls are taken, essays written and hopes expressed for what he might change. Priestly celibacy? Contraception? The working language of the Vatican Press Office?
The latter would be most feasible, but probably would likely involve a tough internal political battle for the new pontiff and his aides. There are theological and logistical limits on the changes he can make. He can't create new doctrine out of thin air.
"Popes are servants of the church's settled tradition, not the tradition's masters," said papal biographer George Weigel, senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.
While the pope has authority to govern the church, he must answer to its doctrine as a president answers to the Constitution, said Edward Peters, canon law professor at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit.
"There are an awful lot of things he's in charge of, but he's not free to change a doctrine of the church or to alter the fundamental structure of things like the papacy," he said.
Some changes that laity say they want from a new pope may involve media-based misconceptions. A 2012 poll from the Public Religion Research Institute found that 60 percent of American Catholics want the church's public policy statements to focus more on the obligation to help the poor, even if that means speaking less about abortion.
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http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/news/world/what-a-pope-can-and-cannot-do-doctrine-limits-new-pope-on-changes-678697/#ixzz2N8Ib5s5g
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