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Roula Khalaf, editor -in -chief of the FT, selects her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.
The writer is a biographer of Pope Francis and Co-author “Let’s leave Dream: the path to a better future” with him
Today, the cardinals cry and bury Pope Francis. In doing so, they will take discreet looks, wondering who will come afterwards.
The nerves will be raised in anticipation of electing the 266th successor from Saint-Pierre, but they will not be alone. The cardinals believe that their task is to discern the choice of God and to have the Holy Spirit to help them. To do this, they must consider the state of the world and the Church, listen carefully to each other and keep an open mind and heart. From Monday until they entered the conclave in early May, the contours of the next papacy are beginning to emerge, in daily discussions in the Synod room and in informal evening rallies where they will throw names. “I heard good things about Cardinal X. What do you know about him?”
As when buying a property, it is one thing to make a list of ideal qualities and another to look at what is really on the market. No cardinal can meet all expectations: choices must be made, which in turn reflects the priorities. This is where the perspectives vary. But the Conclave The cliché of a battle between the blocks of “progressive” and the blocks of “conservatives” arguing on ethical or doctrinal questions is perhaps the least useful way to hide these disagreements.
It was largely true once, when the papal elections were decided by Europeans. But the Catholic Church is today a universal and multipolar institution made up of numerous “centers”, a fact that Francis – the first non -European pope in several centuries – sought to reflect in the diversity of his appointments.
The cardinals currently come from 94 different countries. Admittedly, Europe remains the heavy goods vehicle with 53 voters, but its congregations shrink quickly. Most Catholics these days are in the Americas, which have 37 voters. But congregations develop the fastest in Asia and Africa, which have 23 and 18 voters respectively.
While the western church finds it difficult to maintain its heavy inheritance of properties, in the southern continents, it does not have the resources to build churches and schools fairly quickly for an expanding herd. Cultural differences are now increasingly shaping the discussion of ethical questions, but these are not so much disagreement on the doctrine itself, on the way this doctrine is applied.
It is more useful to frame the differences between cardinals in terms of evangelizing the church. How should he bring the Gospel to society, in order to create a house for everything that reflects what Jesus called the “Kingdom of God”? This concerns what one could call the “style” of the Church – its way of being, its culture, its state of mind. And here, some of the differences between the cardinals are deep, as their answers revealed to the Francis era.
The reforms of the deceased pope reflected his deep understanding of what the Church must do in what he called the “change of era” marked by the general expulsion of Christianity of the law and culture. Francis deplored the “negative vision” of the decreased social relevance of the Church, the contrasting with what he called “demanding vision”. Negative opinion, born from frustration to loss of prestige, seeks to recover or consolidate what it is attached to. His criticism of secularization masks what Francis called a “nostalgia for a sacred world, a revolving society in which the Church and its ministers had greater power and social relevance”.
The exciting vision, on the other hand, understands the dramatic changes of the last decades as a shock given by God which gives the Church the possibility of changing both its internal culture and how it relates to the world, in order to better execute what François called the “style of God”. Last year, he spoke of the need to embrace a “minority Christianity or, better, a witness Christianity”. It is a witness to mercy and joy, humility and service, simplicity and freedom, a love that forgives, in which the Church, released from attachments, can better reflect the own way of relating to humanity and build a more fraternal world.
In the way he exercised the papacy, Francis gave us a masterclass in the style of God. He was a captivating evangelizer, a convincing, engaging and humble teacher, who was attentive to the complexity of people’s lives. Without fear of diversity, he all let being “seen”, in particular those that society are away. The big numbers in Rome this week are proof of its deep impact.
However, this style has rendered many leaders of the uncomfortable church, especially in the United States and Eastern Europe, where cultural-war Catholicism remains strong. Here, Francis is accused of minimizing the requirements of the doctrine and of compromising the clarity of the teaching of the Church. Such a criticism reveals the idea to which some – not most, but many – the cardinals remain attached: an institution that moralized by teaching, which requires loyalty, gives a cultural identity and seeks power alliances.
But the world for which this institution was created has evolved. The future of the Church is now listed, as at the beginning of the centuries, in its witness from below, in its ability to walk with the researchers and the wounded of this world. The 2025 conclave fight will not be on the doctrine, but to know if the decline of institutional Christianity is considered a call to go back and double, or to awaken the conversion that Francis embodies so powerfully.
