VATICAN CITY (AP) — A pervasive announcing in Vatican circles is that in case you “enter a conclave as pope, you leave as a cardinal.”
It implies the sacred and secretive procedure isn’t any recognition duel or marketing campaign, however instead the divinely impressed election of Christ’s Vicar on Earth by way of the princes of the church.
Nonetheless, there are all the time front-runners, referred to as “papabile,” who’ve no less than one of the most qualities thought to be important to be pope — similar to the ones depicted in terminating pace’s Oscar-nominated movie “Conclave.”
Any baptized Catholic male is eligible, even though best cardinals had been decided on since 1378. The winner will have to obtain no less than two-thirds of the vote from the ones cardinals beneath month 80 and thus eligible to take part. Pope Francis, who died Monday, appointed the immense majority of electors, incessantly tapping males who percentage his pastoral priorities, which implies endurance instead than rupture.
Any individual seeking to handicap the result must understand that Jorge Mario Bergoglio was once thought to be too used to be elected pope in 2013 at month 76, and that Karol Wojtyla wasn’t on any front-runner lists going into the 1978 conclave that elected him Pope John Paul II.
Some imaginable applicants:
Cardinal Peter Erdo
Erdo, 72, the archbishop of Budapest and primate of Hungary, was once two times elected head of the Council of Eu Episcopal Meetings, in 2005 and 2011, suggesting he enjoys the goodwill of Eu cardinals who form up the largest balloting bloc of electors. In that capability, Erdo were given to understand many African cardinals for the reason that council hosts usual classes with African bishops’ meetings. Erdo had much more publicity when he helped prepare Francis’ 2014 and 2015 Vatican conferences at the public and delivered key speeches, in addition to all through papal visits to Budapest in 2021 and 2023.
Cardinal Reinhard Marx
Marx, 71, the archbishop of Munich and Freising, was once selected by way of Francis as a key helper in 2013. Marx nearest was once named to go the council overseeing Vatican funds all through reforms and belt-tightening. The previous president of the German bishops’ convention was once a robust proponent of the arguable “synodal path” procedure of discussion within the German church that started in 2020 as a reaction to the clergy sexual abuse scandal there. In consequence, he’s seen with skepticism by way of conservatives who thought to be the method a ultimatum to church harmony, given it concerned debating problems similar to celibacy, homosexuality and ladies’s ordination. Marx made headlines in 2021 when he dramatically presented to renounce as archbishop to compensate for the German church’s vile abuse file, however Francis temporarily unwanted the retirement and instructed him to stick.
Cardinal Marc Ouellet
Ouellet, 80, of Canada, led the Vatican’s influential bishops workplace for over a decade, overseeing the important thing clearinghouse for attainable applicants to go dioceses all over the world. Francis stored Ouellet within the activity till 2023, even if he was once appointed by way of Pope Benedict XVI, and thus helped make a selection the extra doctrinaire bishops most popular by way of the German pontiff. Thought to be extra of a conservative than Francis, Ouellet nonetheless decided on pastorally minded bishops to mirror Francis’ trust that bishops must “smell like the sheep” in their flock. Ouellet defended priestly celibacy for the Latin Ceremony church and guarded the forbid on girls’s ordination however referred to as for ladies to have a better function in church governance. He has excellent contacts with the Latin American church, having headed the Vatican’s Pontifical Fee for Latin The usa for over a decade. Since 2019, his workplace has taken price of investigating bishops accused of overlaying up for predator clergymen, a task that will have made him negative buddies amongst the ones sanctioned but in addition may have given him numerous in a different way invisible and most likely compromising details about fellow cardinals.
Cardinal Pietro Parolin
Parolin, 70, of Italy, has been Francis’ secretary of order since 2014 and is regarded as some of the primary contenders to be pope, given his prominence within the Catholic hierarchy. The veteran diplomat oversaw the Holy See’s arguable do business in with China over bishop nominations and was once concerned — however no longer charged — within the Vatican’s botched funding in a London actual property project that resulted in a 2021 trial of any other cardinal and 9 others. A former ambassador to Venezuela, Parolin is aware of the Latin American church effectively.
He can be distinguishable as somebody who would proceed in Francis’ custom however as a extra sober and timid diplomatic insider, returning an Italian to the papacy upcoming 3 successive outsiders: St. John Paul II (Poland); Benedict (Germany) and Francis (Argentina). However time Parolin has controlled the Vatican forms, he has negative actual pastoral revel in. His ties to the London scandal, by which his workplace misplaced of tens of thousands and thousands of greenbacks to sinister do business in and shady businessmen, may just depend towards him.
Cardinal Robert Prevost
The speculation of an American pope has lengthy been taboo, given the geopolitical energy already wielded by way of the US. However the Chicago-born Prevost, 69, can be a first. He has intensive revel in in Peru, first as a missionary and later an archbishop, and he’s these days prefect of the Vatican’s robust dicastery for bishops, answerable for vetting nominations for bishops all over the world. Francis obviously had an vision on him for years and despatched him to run the diocese of Chiclayo, Peru, in 2014. He held that place till 2023, when Francis introduced him to Rome for his wave function. Prevost could also be president of the Pontifical Fee for Latin The usa, a task that assists in keeping him in usual touch with the Catholic hierarchy within the a part of the sector that also counts probably the most Catholics. Along with his nationality, Prevost’s comparative early life may just depend towards him if his brother cardinals don’t need to decide to a pope who would possibly reign for any other 20 years.
Cardinal Robert Sarah
Sarah, 79, of Guinea, the retired head of the Vatican’s liturgy workplace, was once lengthy thought to be the most productive hope for an African pope. Loved by way of conservatives, Sarah would sign a go back to the doctrinaire and liturgically minded papacies of John Paul II and Benedict. Sarah, who had prior to now headed the Vatican’s fund workplace Cor Unum, clashed on a number of events with Francis, none extra significantly than when he and Benedict co-authored a accumulation advocating the “necessity” of persevered celibacy for Latin Ceremony clergymen. The accumulation got here out as Francis was once weighing whether or not to permit married clergymen within the Amazon to handle a clergyman insufficiency there. The implication was once that Sarah had manipulated Benedict into lending his title and ethical authority to a accumulation that had the entire appearances of being a counterweight to the Francis’ personal instructing. Francis pushed aside Benedict’s secretary and a number of other months nearest retired Sarah upcoming he grew to become 75. Even Sarah’s supporters lamented the episode harm his papal probabilities.
Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn
Schoenborn, 80, the archbishop of Vienna, Austria, was once a scholar of Benedict’s, and thus on paper turns out to have the doctrinaire instructional chops to enchantment to conservatives. Alternatively, he changed into related to certainly one of Francis’ maximum arguable strikes by way of protecting his outreach to divorced and in a well mannered way remarried Catholics as an “organic development of doctrine,” no longer the rupture that some conservatives contended. Schoenborn’s oldsters divorced when he was once a young person, so the problem is private. He additionally took warmth from the Vatican when he criticized its while refusal to sanction high-ranking sexual abusers, together with his predecessor as archbishop of Vienna. Schoenborn has expressed help for civil unions and ladies as deacons, and was once instrumental in enhancing the 1992 replace of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the guide of the church’s instructing that Benedict had spearheaded when he headed the Vatican’s doctrine workplace.
Cardinal Luis Tagle
Tagle, 67, of the Philippines, would seem to be Francis’ select for the primary Asian pope. Francis introduced the pervasive archbishop of Manila to Rome to go the Vatican’s missionary evangelization workplace, which serves the wishes of the Catholic Church in a lot of Asia and Africa. His function took on larger weight when Francis reformed the Vatican forms and raised the utility of his evangelization workplace. Tagle incessantly cites his Chinese language lineage – his maternal grandmother was once a part of a Chinese language public that moved to the Philippines — and he’s identified for changing into emotional when discussing his youth.
Although he has pastoral, Vatican and control revel in — he headed the Vatican’s Caritas Internationalis federation of fund teams sooner than coming to Rome completely — Tagle can be at the younger aspect to be elected pope for occasion, with cardinals most likely who prefer an used candidate whose papacy can be extra restricted.
Cardinal Matteo Zuppi
Zuppi, 69, the archbishop of Bologna and president of the Italian bishops convention, elected in 2022, is carefully affiliated with the Sant’Egidio Society, a Rome-based Catholic fund that was once influential beneath Francis, in particular in interfaith discussion. Zuppi was once a part of Sant’Egidio’s group that helped negotiate the top of Mozambique’s civil conflict within the Nineties and was once named Francis’ bliss envoy for Russia’s conflict in Ukraine. Francis made him a cardinal in 2019 and nearest made cloudless he sought after him answerable for Italy’s bishops, an indication of his astonishment for the prelate who, like Francis, is referred to as a “street priest.”
In any other signal of his determined leanings and closeness to Francis, Zuppi wrote the creation to the Italian version of “Building a Bridge,” by way of the Rev. James Martin, an American Jesuit, in regards to the church’s wish to enhance its outreach to the LGBTQ+ crowd. Zuppi can be a candidate in Francis’ custom of ministering to these at the margins, even supposing his relative early life would depend towards him for cardinals looking for a shorten papacy. His public had sturdy institutional ties: Zuppi’s father labored for the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, and his mom was once the niece of Cardinal Carlo Confalonieri, dean of the School of Cardinals within the Sixties and Seventies.