Properly predicting the outcome of the Pope’s meeting that begins tomorrow will require intuition, access and (most importantly) luck. Think about the US presidential election, but there are 133 candidates, an international voter, without a vote. Despite this, the news media has released countless lists cheeseor potential pope, is usually based on blind guessing. This exercise can get boring, but it's more important than you think: the media never has a big impact on the meeting.
To understand why, consider the late Pope Francis’ choice of the most distant cardinal in history. From countries where cardinals never produced, such as Tonga, Myanmar and East Timor. Distance makes them unusual in number. Francis increased their unfamiliarity by summoning the College of Cardinals less frequently than his predecessors. Under his tenure, they had only once public discussions in 2014, when only a few current voters belonged to the body. (A group of cardinals took advantage of this opportunity to oppose the pope's leniency to divorce-Francis obviously doesn't want to repeat it.)
Since Francis passed away last month, they have gathered steadily in Rome as they prepare to pick a successor, with many meetings for the first time. "We don't know each other so far," when Cardinal Anders Aberylius of Stockholm told reporters last week.
In the absence of relationships, the media fills the gap. The Cardinals know much more about their peers than they read in their papers, and these newspapers are more impressed with each other than ever. It may be appropriate for a pope who relies heavily on the press to shape his image, and his message intentionally or not deliberately grants journalists such a distinguished voice when choosing his substitute and deciding the future of the church.
“We are looking for Peter’s successor,” Cardinal Michael Czerny told me last week, referring to the first pope. “We are not looking for Francis’ successor.”
"Francis' legacy is huge and we all want it to continue," said Czerny, a Canadian Jesuit, who works closely with the late pope to discuss issues including immigration and the environment. But "we don't want to extend Francis."
Even if they want, they are not completely clear who they will choose. Unlike his two predecessors, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, Francis is not obvious. Vatican officials were disappointed with great frequency. However, one of the people who kept their work throughout the Pope's reign was Cardinal Pietro Parolin. As Secretary of State, Parolin holds the second highest position in the Vatican. In a geographically dispersed university, no cardinal met his peers better than a good Italian.
Paloline, top of his head cheese List, representing the continuous sexy of many Cardinals with Francis. He said the path set by the former Pope for the church said “there is no turn”, including his permission to allow the pastor to bless the same-sex couple (the African bishop rejected the decision of his colleagues). Parolin also supports Francis’ controversial settlement with China. Despite their connection, the two experienced their conflict. In 2020, the pope pulled hundreds of millions of dollars from control of Palorin’s office, part of an investigation into financial mismanagement. Palorin has never been accused of wrongdoing, but the episode embarrasses and slapped him.
Since Francis' death, Parolin has been the subject of rumors and attacks on legacy media and social media, including claims that Francis lost confidence in Parolin before his life ended. A conservative Roman newspaper reported last week that Parolin was recently treated for a sudden drop in blood pressure, and a Vatican spokesman explicitly denied it.
Nevertheless, many cardinals believed that Palorin had the necessary skills and temperament (achable, gentle wisdom) that could polarize the church under Francis. Vatican insiders told me that even the cardinals against Francis would like to have a more cooperative, authoritarian successor. Parolin's diplomatic background could help him comply with the bill. Therefore, his nationality can be also: the Italian Cardinal will have an advantage in managing the Vatican, which remains an Italian institution.
Another Italian competitor is Pierbattisa Pizzaballa, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, whose name is often seen in news reports, not because of his name. Pizzaballa is probably the most famous one because of his interactions with a journalist. Asked if he would exchange himself for a child kidnapped by Hamas, Pisabala said yes, the response made him enhance him in the public imagination and in the eyes of the cardinals, who otherwise might have known nothing about him. Although he was not particularly outspoken on sexual morality issues, the theologically conservative cardinal told me that they believed him on such issues.
Conservatives will represent the minority at the meeting, partly because Francis chose 80% of the elected voters (that is, every cardinal who was less than 80 years old when the pope died). The number of conservatives from Western countries has dropped sharply, but they can join with like-minded voters from Africa and elsewhere in the global south, with Francis increasing the number under Francis.
One of the most outstanding conservatives in the academy is the German Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller. After Francis stepped down as head of the Vatican's doctrine, Mueller publicly criticized the pope's leniency towards divorce and LGBTQ issues. He told me that the next pope should reiterate traditional teaching about sex more clearly than Francis and restore Pope Benedict's priorities against "relativist dictatorship" in modern culture.
However, Francis' concerns about poverty, peace, immigration and the environment have directed theological liberals and many conservatives, including Mueller. He said future popes should offset geopolitical and ideological tensions by doing what Francis did: stressing that “social justice is the basis for peaceful coexistence.”
To be sure, the Cardinal will choose a pope who promises to imitate Francis, at least on this set of issues. But I won't bet.