ROME – As pontiffs age or get sick, two developments are as inevitable as the rising and the setting of the sun: First, some people will begin to speculate about the next pope, and second, other people will get their noses out of joint about it.
In part, the umbrage reflects a pious sense that there’s something inappropriate, or unseemly, about discussing the next pope while the current one is still alive. It doesn’t help that the most fervid speculation generally comes from ideological opponents of the incumbent, so that in the St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI years it circulated more on the Catholic left, while today it’s more prevalent on the right.
All this comes to mind in light of a new project, just in time for Pope Francis’s 88th birthday, called “The College of Cardinals Report” – AKA Cardinalium Collegii Recensio, which means the same thing, but the Latin gives it a snootier ring.
It’s a slick, interactive website offering biographical information on all 253 current cardinals, with special attention paid to the 22 deemed papabili, meaning potential papal candidates. For them, the site also runs down where they stand on controversial issues such as female deacons, blessing same-sex unions, priestly celibacy, the Latin Mass, Vatican-China relations and the idea of a “synodal Church.”
Inevitably, some people already are complaining about the site, both on the grounds that it’s disrespectful and that it’s ideologically skewed to the right.
Let’s start with the first objection, to which the best reply probably is, “Get over it!”
Pondering the next occupant of the Throne of Peter not only is not disrespectful, it’s essential. The papacy is the world’s most important “soft power,” with vast potential consequences not just for Catholics but the entire world. For any journalist or analyst not to consider how that “soft power” might be deployed in the future would be irresponsible, even negligent.
In 2002 I published a book titled Conclave, in which, among other things, I profiled twenty papabili of that era. Some disgruntled Catholics, mostly conservatives, complained that such speculation was an effort to undercut the John Paul papacy and turn him into a lame duck. That was rubbish, but more to the point, it doesn’t even matter what my motives were — what matters is that, within my limits, I tried to provide information an informed electorate and public needed to have.
I can promise you this: Among the most avid consumers of this sort of information are the cardinals themselves. That’s not just out of morbid curiosity as to how they and their colleagues are being sized up, but also (and above all) because they realize that casting a vote for the next pope likely will be the single most important choice they ever make in their lives, and they feel obligated to try to get it right.
Yes, the theology of a conclave assigns a key role to the Holy Spirit, but that doesn’t relieve a cardinal of the burden of exercising his own intelligence and judgment. I recall that the late Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, whom no one could ever accuse of a lack of respect for the papacy, once told me he kept files of publicly available information regarding possible papabili and carried them to Rome for the conclave of 2005, in an effort to be sure he made the most informed decision possible.
More broadly, Catholics everywhere have a legitimate interest in knowing who the men are who may become their next leader, and satisfying that interest isn’t disrespectful – indeed, it’s more like a supreme homage to the papacy and to the investment Catholics around the world feel in the office.
Finally, I would point out that an incumbent pope himself contemplates his successor every time he names a new cardinal, because an inevitable question he must ask is: Would this man be worthy of being pope?
Bottom line: It’s time to jettison the tired canard that somebody who raises the question of the next pope is committing a mortal sin. It’s silly, and, worse, it’s dangerous. The papacy matters, so we all have a stake in where it goes next. (Surely that’s especially so in a synodal age, n’est-ce pas?)
As for the second gripe, that this latest effort is conservative, the obvious response is, “So what?”
Yes, Cardinalium Collegii Recensio leans fairly far to the right – the Latin is a dead give-away. Its selection of key issues represents standard traditionalist idées fixes, and its set of papabili reads at times more like a right-wing Catholic fantasy than realistic handicapping – For instance, Cardinal Raymond Burke? Seriously?
But all that, honestly, is irrelevant.
Despite the slant, there’s plenty of useful information and one can learn much by consulting it. The journalists involved in the project, Edward Pentin and Diane Montagna, are friends of ours from the Roman scene. We know them to be conservative, sure, but also smart, industrious, and well-sourced, and therefore it’s worth paying attention to what they say.
Anyway, no one’s assigned Pentin and Montagna a monopoly on next pope commentary. The only thing stopping others from building different, and possibly better, resources is the silly and almost self-refuting notion that doing so is somehow boorish.
Get over that, and the growth industry of conclave contemplation awaits.
By the way, here’s a proposal to calm the waters: I’d suggest that both those excited by next pope talk, and those dismayed by it, go see the new movie “Conclave” together. Its preposterous implausibility, cartoonish characters and politically correct denouement, despite some good acting along the way, might bring both sides together in shared derision – and, you know, sometimes even that can be a down payment on communion.
