A well-liked saying in Vatican circles is that should you “enter a conclave as pope, you permit as a cardinal.”
It implies the sacred and secretive course of is not any reputation contest or marketing campaign, however relatively the divinely impressed election of Christ’s Vicar on Earth by the princes of the church.
Nonetheless, there are at all times front-runners, often called “papabile,” who’ve a minimum of a few of the qualities thought-about essential to be pope — very similar to these depicted in final yr’s Oscar-nominated movie “Conclave.”
Any baptized Catholic male is eligible, although solely cardinals have been chosen since 1378. The winner should obtain a minimum of two-thirds of the vote from these cardinals underneath age 80 and thus eligible to take part. Pope Francis, who died Monday, appointed the overwhelming majority of electors, usually tapping males who share his pastoral priorities, which suggests continuity relatively than rupture.
Anybody attempting to handicap the result ought to do not forget that Jorge Mario Bergoglio was thought-about too outdated to be elected pope in 2013 at age 76, and that Karol Wojtyla wasn’t on any front-runner lists going into the 1978 conclave that elected him Pope John Paul II.
Some potential candidates:
Cardinal Peter Erdo
Erdo, 72, the archbishop of Budapest and primate of Hungary, was twice elected head of the Council of European Episcopal Conferences, in 2005 and 2011, suggesting he enjoys the esteem of European cardinals who make up the most important voting bloc of electors. In that capability, Erdo received to know many African cardinals as a result of the council hosts common periods with African bishops’ conferences. Erdo had much more publicity when he helped arrange Francis’ 2014 and 2015 Vatican conferences on the household and delivered key speeches, in addition to throughout papal visits to Budapest in 2021 and 2023.
Cardinal Reinhard Marx
Marx, 71, the archbishop of Munich and Freising, was chosen by Francis as a key adviser in 2013. Marx later was named to move the council overseeing Vatican funds throughout reforms and belt-tightening. The previous president of the German bishops’ convention was a powerful proponent of the controversial “synodal path” technique of dialogue within the German church that started in 2020 as a response to the clergy sexual abuse scandal there. Because of this, he’s considered with skepticism by conservatives who thought-about the method a risk to church unity, given it concerned debating points similar to celibacy, homosexuality and ladies’s ordination. Marx made headlines in 2021 when he dramatically supplied to resign as archbishop to atone for the German church’s dreadful abuse document, however Francis rapidly rejected the resignation and instructed him to remain.
Cardinal Marc Ouellet
Ouellet, 80, of Canada, led the Vatican’s influential bishops workplace for over a decade, overseeing the important thing clearinghouse for potential candidates to move dioceses around the globe. Francis stored Ouellet within the job till 2023, though he was appointed by Pope Benedict XVI, and thus helped choose the extra doctrinaire bishops most popular by the German pontiff. Thought of extra of a conservative than Francis, Ouellet nonetheless chosen pastorally minded bishops to replicate Francis’ perception that bishops ought to “odor just like the sheep” of their flock. Ouellet defended priestly celibacy for the Latin Ceremony church and upheld the ban on girls’s ordination however referred to as for ladies to have a better position in church governance. He has good contacts with the Latin American church, having headed the Vatican’s Pontifical Fee for Latin America for over a decade. Since 2019, his workplace has taken cost of investigating bishops accused of protecting up for predator clergymen, a job that will have made him no buddies amongst these sanctioned but in addition may have given him numerous in any other case confidential and probably compromising details about fellow cardinals.
Cardinal Pietro Parolin
Parolin, 70, of Italy, has been Francis’ secretary of state since 2014 and is taken into account one of many major contenders to be pope, given his prominence within the Catholic hierarchy. The veteran diplomat oversaw the Holy See’s controversial cope with China over bishop nominations and was concerned — however not charged — within the Vatican’s botched funding in a London actual property enterprise that led to a 2021 trial of one other cardinal and 9 others. A former ambassador to Venezuela, Parolin is aware of the Latin American church properly. He can be seen as somebody who would proceed in Francis’ custom however as a extra sober and timid diplomatic insider, returning an Italian to the papacy after three successive outsiders: St. John Paul II (Poland); Benedict (Germany) and Francis (Argentina). However whereas Parolin has managed the Vatican forms, he has no actual pastoral expertise. His ties to the London scandal, by which his workplace misplaced of tens of tens of millions of {dollars} to dangerous offers and shady businessmen, may depend towards him.
Cardinal Robert Prevost
The thought of an American pope has lengthy been taboo, given the geopolitical energy already wielded by america. However the Chicago-born Prevost, 69, might be a primary. He has intensive expertise in Peru, first as a missionary after which an archbishop, and he’s at the moment prefect of the Vatican’s highly effective dicastery for bishops, answerable for vetting nominations for bishops around the globe. Francis clearly had an eye fixed on him for years and despatched him to run the diocese of Chiclayo, Peru, in 2014. He held that place till 2023, when Francis introduced him to Rome for his present position. Prevost can also be president of the Pontifical Fee for Latin America, a job that retains him in common contact with the Catholic hierarchy within the a part of the world that also counts probably the most Catholics. Along with his nationality, Prevost’s comparative youth may depend towards him if his brother cardinals don’t need to decide to a pope who would possibly reign for an additional twenty years.
Cardinal Robert Sarah
Sarah, 79, of Guinea, the retired head of the Vatican’s liturgy workplace, was lengthy thought-about one of the best hope for an African pope. Beloved by conservatives, Sarah would sign a return to the doctrinaire and liturgically minded papacies of John Paul II and Benedict. Sarah, who had beforehand headed the Vatican’s charity workplace Cor Unum, clashed on a number of events with Francis, none extra severely than when he and Benedict co-authored a e book advocating the “necessity” of continued celibacy for Latin Ceremony clergymen. The e book got here out as Francis was weighing whether or not to permit married clergymen within the Amazon to deal with a priest scarcity there. The implication was that Sarah had manipulated Benedict into lending his identify and ethical authority to a e book that had all of the appearances of being a counterweight to the Francis’ personal instructing. Francis dismissed Benedict’s secretary and several other months later retired Sarah after he turned 75. Even Sarah’s supporters lamented the episode damage his papal possibilities.
Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn
Schoenborn, 80, the archbishop of Vienna, Austria, was a pupil of Benedict’s, and thus on paper appears to have the doctrinaire educational chops to attraction to conservatives. Nonetheless, he turned related to certainly one of Francis’ most controversial strikes by defending his outreach to divorced and civilly remarried Catholics as an “natural improvement of doctrine,” not the rupture that some conservatives contended. Schoenborn’s dad and mom divorced when he was a teen, so the difficulty is private. He additionally took warmth from the Vatican when he criticized its previous refusal to sanction high-ranking sexual abusers, together with his predecessor as archbishop of Vienna. Schoenborn has expressed help for civil unions and ladies as deacons, and was instrumental in enhancing the 1992 replace of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the handbook of the church’s instructing that Benedict had spearheaded when he headed the Vatican’s doctrine workplace.
Cardinal Luis Tagle
Tagle, 67, of the Philippines, would seem like Francis’ choose for the primary Asian pope. Francis introduced the favored archbishop of Manila to Rome to move the Vatican’s missionary evangelization workplace, which serves the wants of the Catholic Church in a lot of Asia and Africa. His position took on better weight when Francis reformed the Vatican forms and raised the significance of his evangelization workplace. Tagle usually cites his Chinese language lineage – his maternal grandmother was a part of a Chinese language household that moved to the Philippines — and he’s identified for turning into emotional when discussing his childhood. Although he has pastoral, Vatican and administration expertise — he headed the Vatican’s Caritas Internationalis federation of charity teams earlier than coming to Rome completely — Tagle can be on the younger aspect to be elected pope for all times, with cardinals maybe preferring an older candidate whose papacy can be extra restricted.
Cardinal Matteo Zuppi
Zuppi, 69, the archbishop of Bologna and president of the Italian bishops convention, elected in 2022, is carefully affiliated with the Sant’Egidio Neighborhood, a Rome-based Catholic charity that was influential underneath Francis, significantly in interfaith dialogue. Zuppi was a part of Sant’Egidio’s staff that helped negotiate the tip of Mozambique’s civil struggle within the Nineteen Nineties and was named Francis’ peace envoy for Russia’s struggle in Ukraine. Francis made him a cardinal in 2019 and later made clear he wished him answerable for Italy’s bishops, an indication of his admiration for the prelate who, like Francis, is called a “avenue priest.” In one other signal of his progressive leanings and closeness to Francis, Zuppi wrote the introduction to the Italian version of “Constructing a Bridge,” by the Rev. James Martin, an American Jesuit, concerning the church’s want to enhance its outreach to the LGBTQ+ group. Zuppi can be a candidate in Francis’ custom of ministering to these on the margins, though his relative youth would depend towards him for cardinals looking for a brief papacy. His household had sturdy institutional ties: Zuppi’s father labored for the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, and his mom was the niece of Cardinal Carlo Confalonieri, dean of the School of Cardinals within the Sixties and Nineteen Seventies.
