Pope Francis

Surprise was the reaction in Rome on hearing of the elevation of Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Archbishop of Buenos Aires, to the Papacy. My colleagues in Rome told me that the Plaza was unusually quiet as the people tried to figure out what was going on.  I guess the Cardinals showed that they elect the pope on their own terms, and now everyone is wondering who Pope Francis is, how he will lead, and what will characterize his pontificate.

Intra and Extra: Challenges for the Pope in the Church and the World

The Pope’s main role is to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In his first homily as Holy Father he asserted just this. “We can walk as much as we want,” he said  “we can build many things, but if we do not confess Jesus Christ, nothing will avail. We will become a compassionate NGO, but not the Church, the Bride of Christ.”  He also has a Church to govern—and he’ll face serious challenges on both fronts.  On the inside, the Church continues to reel from scandals and abuse. The curia needs to be reformed and the bureaucracy cleaned up. On the outside, Pope Francis faces a growing and hostile secularism, religious persecution from a number of fronts, dwindling number of believers in traditionally Catholic lands, including Latin America, and increasing ignorance of the basic tenets of Christianity. But there are also some real positives. The Church continues to grow in the Global South—especially in Africa and Asia. Belief is still high in Latin America, though many Catholics are leaving for the Pentecostals or evangelicals. Among U.S. Catholics, Hispanics are now the majority.  And while the Church in the West may be getting smaller, it is also more vibrant and serious. Younger Catholics are orthodox and evangelical, and dissenters like Hans Kung are aging and less influential each day. Pope Francis also has the advantage of following Blessed John Paul II and Benedict XVI, whose interpretation of Vatican II and whose intellectual and spiritual guidance set out a framework for the New Evangelization.

Francis brings several important things to his papacy. The most obvious are that he is a Latin American, and not a member of the Roman Curia. The Curia needs reform, and being an outsider with experience of diocesan dysfunction will serve him well. Further, as Archbishop of Buenos Aires he not only dealt with extreme poverty, corruption, lack of rule of law, and social and economic volatility that is common in the developing world, he also has had to contend with virulent and aggressive secularism that is common in the West.  He has been a fearless defender of human life and family, has called abortion the “death penalty for the unborn,” and has been unafraid to clash with political leaders over corruption, reminding them that social corruption is rooted in personal sin.

He also brings a long record of engagement with the poorest of the poor. Read more on Pope Francis: For the Church, the City, and the World…

The conclave to elect a new pope began today in Rome.  Guy Dinmore and Giulia Segreti from the Financial Times describe the first day:

Cardinals sequestered in the Sistine chapel held their first vote to choose the 266th pope to lead the Roman Catholic church but black smoke emerging from their burnt ballot papers on Tuesday night signalled no one had secured the two-thirds majority needed for election.

Read more on Rev. Sirico on the First Day of Papal Conclave…

Michael Severance, operations manager of Acton’s Rome office, is asking the question on everyone’s mind, “Who will be pope #266?” In The Catholic World Report, Severance makes note of the “amateur assessments” first:

By now we have heard every hypothesis from scores of budget-pinching and rookie mass media stumbling on Piazza San Pietro’s uneven cobblestones. They multitask as correspondent-producer-fixers and are armed with the latest generation of smartphones, tablets, and other species of espresso-stained electronic gadgets that replace expensive backroom media techs.

You wonder when they have time to actually research their cases, much less post and broadcast their news.  But indeed time—moltissimo tempo—they have had.

They have spoken of the “Bergoglio comeback” (apparently he was a runner-up in 2005) and the mightily leveraged “Italian block” that will surely vote in one of their own to fill a 35-year power vacuum.

They have analyzed and lobbied for non-traditional but surely viable candidates from Latin America (Cardinal Scherer of Brazil), Africa (Cardinal Turkson of Ghana), and Asia (the “baby” 54-year-old Cardinal Tagle of the Philippines).

Severance, however, believes that there are more serious contenders. He interviewed several people with above-average insight into the conclave: Read more on Who Will Be Pope #266?…

The conclave to elect the new pope is scheduled to begin tomorrow afternoon after the public Missa pro Eligendo Pontifice (Mass for the Election of the Roman Pontiff) which is scheduled at 10am Rome time.   It was at this mass in 2005 after the death of John Paul II that the then Cardinal Ratizinger famously spoke of the “dictatorship of relativism.”   At 4:30 pm Rome time, the cardinals wearing full choir dress will enter the Sistine Chapel singing the hymn Veni Creator Spiritus (Come Holy Spirit).  Cardinals will enter into conclave (from the Latin cum clave, meaning “with key”) and they will be locked away from the world with no access to television, newspapers, or mobile phones until they have elected the new pope.

As the Conclave gets underway and the world waits to see who will be the next pope, here are some helpful hints for making your way through the media storm that is already underway.

1. The papal election is not a U.S.- or European-style political event.

In our hyper politicized world where almost everything is reduced to politics it is hard for our imagination to process a public event like the election of a new pope outside of the structures of politics.  That’s not to say there’s no politics in the Church.  There’s too much of it.  Way too much. And it’s always a factor.  Nevertheless trying to understand the papal election if the light of the American political system or interest and lobbying groups will not be of much help. Read more on A Guide to the Conclave…

Update: Video Interview with Kishore from Rome.

Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith

As the world awaits the beginning of the conclave, many are looking at non European Cardinals as potentials for the next pope.  Channel News Asia points out that “68 per cent of the world’s Catholics currently from Latin America, Africa and Asia, there are increased calls for the next pope to be a non-European.”

Read more on Jayabalan: Possibility of a Non European Pope…

On the website of Crisis Magazine, Acton Research Director Samuel Gregg looks at the “tsunami of unsolicited advice from pop atheists, incoherent playwrights, angry ex-priests, and celebrity theologians that has erupted since Benedict XVI’s abdication.” Then there’s Hans Küng’s article in the New York Times:

Read more on Samuel Gregg: Catholicism, True Reform and the Next Pope…

On April 19, 2005, Joseph Ratzinger was elected to become the next Pope after John Paul II. Several Acton Institute analysts wrote articles looking ahead to what kind of papacy the world could expect from Benedict XVI. Take a look and let us know how we did. (We’ve added links where they are still available).

Read more on Looking Back: Acton Experts on Benedict XVI’s Election…