OK, Catholicism has been declining in Western society for time now. It would certainly make sense to shore up the house by electing an African Pope but this denotes a strategic withdrawal (a coitus interruptus if you will) because it would signify that the church admits defeat in a secular West and sees it's future in the 3rd world. Doing this may increase the numbers of it's adherents (and it's income) in the short term but may possibly result in a re-positioning of it's doctrines that damage it's foundations even further, possibly fatally. That would be quite a thing.
Underpinning their, dwindling, religious power is their financial power. This will enable the Catholic Church to dig itself in for an exceptionally drawn out, slow death.
My own personal take on it is that Catholicism is indefensible. It's crimes far outweigh any possibility of it be taken as a divine hope for mankind. From it's very inception and throughout it's history it's repeatedly been mired in corruption and exploitation for the benefit of a select few at the expense of a superstitious majority.
Like a great many historical institutions it's time may well have come since it's dogma and ignorance serves no use to humanity in a modern world.
I would be extremely happy to see the extinction of the Catholic Church within this century. It may be one of the biggest moral advancements the human race could ever take.
