Revealed: The pious powerbrokers who plan to pick the next Pope
Cardinals with their own political leanings and ambitions stand ready to choose Francis’s successor – and the direction of the Catholic Church.
The message popped up on phones across the Vatican City at lunchtime on Monday. Sent via email and WhatsApp to all the cardinals in Rome, as well as other senior church figures, it requested their urgent attendance at a gathering that night to pray for the health of the Pope.
The head of the Catholic Church, 88, has been in hospital for more than two weeks with bronchitis and pneumonia in both lungs.
Last weekend he was in a critical condition after suffering a “prolonged asthmatic respiratory crisis”.
Additional tests discovered anaemia and a problem with his kidneys. He showed signs of improvement but then suffered a bronchial spasm on Friday that led to a “rapid worsening”.
There has been much speculation about the Pope’s condition and whether he would resign should he eventually recover.
The cardinals who will pick his successor have begun wondering which of their colleagues is up to the job of being Christ’s representative on Earth.
If history is any guide, their final choice will owe as much to theology and ideology as to personal ambition.
The Monday prayer meeting was presided over by “His Eminence, the Cardinal Secretary of State, Pietro Parolin”, the message said.
Parolin, 70, is from Schiavon in the north of Italy, and is effectively the prime minister and head diplomat of the Vatican. He is viewed as a liberal figure in the church. He is also seen as a leading member of the papabili: the likely candidates to become the next pope.
“After a few weeks of impotence, Parolin is now trying to show … he can be a leader,” one church source said. Parolin gave a short speech on Monday night calling on Catholics to pray for the pontiff – a normal act in any other circumstance, but now seen through the Machiavellian lens of aspiration.
In the nights that followed, evening prayers were led by other liberal cardinals allied to the Pope, including Luis Tagle, 67, a Filipino who is the head of the church department responsible for evangelisation, and Giovanni Battista Re, 91, the Italian dean of the College of Cardinals.
The college is an exclusive club consisting of 252 prelates elevated by successive popes rewarding merit, long service or political favours. Its machinations are portrayed in the film Conclave, based on the Robert Harris novel and nominated for eight Academy Awards.
Although every cardinal is permitted to wear the traditional crimson robes of their station, only the 138 aged under 80 vote in the conclave. They are broadly split into five camps: liberals, soft liberals, moderates, soft conservatives and conservatives.
Battle lines are drawn over theological matters, such as blessing same-sex couples and ordaining female priests.
The public statements of every voting cardinal have been analysed and a score assigned based on how liberal or conservative they are.
To take two examples, Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, 66, from Luxembourg, is marked as a high-scoring liberal because he has voiced support for ordaining female priests, relaxing priestly celibacy and blessing same-sex unions, while Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Muller, 77, from Germany, is a high-scoring conservative for his opposition to female ordination, changes to celibacy and restrictions on the old Latin mass.
The analysis found that liberals such as Parolin and Tagle form the largest grouping but no faction holds an overall majority.
The fine balance could mean longer deliberations than typical; in both the 20th and 21st centuries, no conclave lasted longer than four days.
“Each cardinal will have three questions in his mind when looking at a potential candidate,” said Thomas Reese, a Jesuit priest, journalist and author of Inside the Vatican. “Firstly, will this man be a good pope for the church, which really means ‘does he agree with me about where the church will go in the future?’. He will also be asking, ‘Do I personally get along with them?’ and ‘How, if he is elected, will he be received in my home country?’.”
A former senior Vatican employee explained that geography significantly affects decisions. “The European cardinals are absolutely terrified about the total collapse of Christianity in Europe and they are much more inclined towards liberalism,” they said. “Then you’ve got the cardinals from parts of Africa and Asia whose view is that European Christianity is dying because they’ve gone too liberal.”
Francis, an Argentinian who has led the church for 12 years, is considered a liberal pope and has ordained a large number of cardinals from Latin America and developing nations who share his views.
Edward Pentin, a senior contributor for the National Catholic Register and author of The Next Pope, said: “It’s not uncommon for popes to stack the deck, but Francis has appointed 110 of the 138 voting cardinals – really a large number.”
Some cardinals may base their decision on personal ambition. Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem and another of the papabili, is a highly regarded candidate from the conservative wing of the church, particularly due to his increased profile since the conflict in Gaza began in October 2023.
At 59, he is considered a young prospect. “A younger cardinal … might want to elect an older man. That way you might have a chance (at) the next conclave,” Reese said.
At the prayer gathering in Rome last Monday, eyebrows were raised when Cardinal Raymond Burke, 76, an arch-conservative American, entered St Peter’s Square.
The Pope has previously called Burke his “enemy”, and in 2014 removed him from his job as the Vatican’s high court justice.
Two years ago, Francis evicted him from his subsidised apartment in Rome after he compared the church to a rudderless ship.
When Burke arrived on Monday, he was spotted deep in conversation with Monsignor Marco Agostini, the Pope’s deputy master of ceremonies.
One source speculated that Agostini, 62, an Italian who regularly celebrates the traditional Latin mass, is working behind the scenes to ensure a conservative successor to Francis.
“There are always certain factions, I think, who try to further their own positions,” Pentin said. “But by and large the cardinals aren’t necessarily doing it because they want to grasp power but because they want to protect the church and help it become better.”
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