Intrigue and attacks as the papal conclave begins

A hundred and thirty-three mostly elderly men will on May 7th process into the intimidatingly beautiful Sistine Chapel to begin electing the next Roman Catholic pope. The cardinal-electors, who must have been aged below 80 when the previous pontiff died, have a daunting responsibility. A pope is not just the spiritual leader of more than half the world’s 2.5bn or so Christians. Believed by the faithful to be God’s representative on earth, he has absolute control of his church. The cardinal-electors need only count their number to see that. The rule, introduced by Pope Paul VI in 1975, states unequivocally they “may not exceed 120”. The late Pope Francis simply ignored it. You can if you are supreme pontiff.

To prepare, the cardinals have been meeting informally: in the spacious apartments of those who head Vatican departments and over lunches and dinners. The agreement that put Benedict XVI on the throne of St Peter in 2005 was reportedly clinched in a nearby restaurant known for specialities from the Abruzzo region. The most important encounters are between “kingmakers”—cardinals who can deliver the votes of a faction or geographical bloc, but who sometimes emerge as candidates themselves.

For this conclave these kingmakers are said to include Timothy Dolan, the conservative archbishop of New York; Jean-Claude Hollerich, the progressive archbishop of Luxembourg; Luis Antonio Tagle, a moderate from the Philippines, who heads the Vatican department that mostly deals with the global south, and Matteo Maria Zuppi, head of the Italian bishops conference whom Francis made his special peace envoy for the war in Ukraine.

The cardinals, including those over the age of 80, have also been meeting more formally, in closed sessions known as congregations. At these, there seems to have been more talk of progressive concerns, such as outreach to the young, than of those dear to conservatives such as the importance of doctrinal certainty. That was to be expected. Most of the cardinals were appointed by Francis, a liberal. The obvious choice for the liberals would be Francis’s secretary of state, the Vatican’s top official, Pietro Parolin.

But secretaries of state make many enemies. Cardinal Parolin has been criticised in particular for a deal with China that gave the Communist leadership sway over the appointment of bishops. And Church insiders caution that the progressive camp suffers from a handicap familiar to secular left-wingers: it is split, with each faction wanting a different pope. Cardinal Parolin has been the bookies’ favourite, although betting markets have little real insight.

Several factors will weigh on the conclave. They include dirty tricks. Already, a video has circulated that shows Cardinal Tagle once sang John Lennon’s anti-religious anthem, “Imagine”. And a rumour, denied by the Vatican, was put around that Cardinal Parolin, who is 70, fainted during the congregation on April 30th. Though many Catholics balk at the idea, politics are unavoidable. Conservatives may have felt they had the wind in their sails following the election of President Donald Trump. But his sharing on social media of a doctored photo of himself as pope may have undone any advantage his presidency afforded. It has probably scotched Cardinal Dolan’s prospects: Mr Trump had endorsed him.

Demography and geography will also count. When the cardinals elected Francis in 2013, they reached outside Europe for the first time since the eighth century. The representatives of the global south will cast fractionally less than half the votes. But almost three-quarters of Catholics live in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Can the conclave ignore that arithmetic? Paradoxically, it might help the traditionalists. The Catholicism of the periphery tends to be relatively conservative. An alliance between rich world hardliners and less progressive representatives of the poor world to support a moderately conservative cardinal like Peter Erdo, the archbishop of Budapest, or Fridolin Ambongo Besungu of Kinshasa, might carry the day.

But, at 65, Cardinal Ambongo is youthful by the standards of the college of cardinals. That is a handicap: the cardinals will think at least twice before handing absolute power to someone who could reign for a quarter of a century or more. Several other papabili (literally, pope-ables) fall into that category. Mario Grech, a Maltese prelate who manages a key church assembly, the Synod of Bishops; Jean-Marc Aveline, the archbishop of Marseille; and Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem are all in their 60s too.

It requires a two-thirds majority to elect a pope. That favours compromise, perhaps only after many rounds of voting. And the brusque swing from conservatism under Benedict to liberalism under Francis may favour someone difficult to pigeon-hole as either traditionalist or progressive: a pope in the mould of Paul VI, who strove to calm the waters of Catholicism after the Second Vatican Council. Several papabili fit the bill. But only two are from outside Europe and over the age of 70. One is relatively unknown: Lazarus You Heung-sik from South Korea, who runs the Vatican’s department for the clergy. The other is Peter Turkson, a popular Ghanaian, but who was felt to have struggled as head of a mega-department created by Francis to deal with a broad range of social issues. The only certainty about this conclave is that the electorate has a wide range of qualified candidates from which to choose. ■

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