In March 2013, Argentina’s Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergolio gave a roughly four-minute speech at one of the Vatican closure meetings before the conclave to elect the next Pope. The brief remarks that imagine a church that has escaped the island’s comfortable zone and self-referencing habits have grown.
When the Cardinals voted at the Sistine Chapel a few days later, they chose him to lead, and he appeared as Pope Francis.
On Monday, after hundreds of thousands of loyal people came to Frances’ funeral and burial over the weekend, the Cardinals will begin a critical week of such a meeting. There, church leaders considered to be papabili, or church leaders, including material from the Pope, will make a brief statement about the major issues facing the church. These meetings began the day after Francis passed away, but now they’re a short campaign trail that will pick up violently and lead to next month’s Conclave.
They give Cards, especially Cards under 80 who can vote in Conclave, the opportunity to feel each other and measure priorities, agendas and charisma. The meeting is also a congregation of the so-called generals and a forum for the outs of potential flames. The first rule of the Pope’s campaign is that there is no Pope’s campaign. In other words, self-expansion and transparent politics are taboo in non-campaign campaigns.
Or someone who enters the Conclave when the Pope leaves the Cardinal, as Vatican experts like to say.
However, not always. In 2005, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, then dean of Cardinal of the University, gave Pope John Paul II a humble man at the funeral. He famously condemned the “dictatorship of relativism.”
In this case, Homily at Francis’ funeral on Saturday was delivered by Cardinal Giovanni Batista, 91-year-old current dean of Cardinal of the University. Still, he grabbed the moment when he placed his thumb on the scale, pointing out the enormous crowd depicted in Francis’ charisma and the vision of the church, making an implicit argument that his fellow cardinals would need to choose someone in Francis’ mold.
“He was also a pope who paid attention to the signs of the era,” Re said. “And that the Holy Spirit was awakened in the church.”
Francis had no primetime platform for stump speeches. He instead impressed fellow cardiacs with his humility and the incitement of his remarks in the general congregation. “Natural Homo Politics,” Archbishop Paul Gallagher, Vatican Foreign Minister and close aide to Francis, said in a recent interview that mentions his political skills, including the world stage. “He really likes politics. That’s not alien to him.”
This year’s Conclave could start early on May 6th, and the challenge for potential candidates heading to this week’s meeting is being as skilled as winning support without asking for it. They also need to find the right message for now on whether to move forward, turn around, or jump in Francis’ footsteps. Many of the cardinals who voted were named by Francis in faraway countries – what they called “periors” usually do not have such a high-ranking cleric. Some Vatican experts have said it could benefit a well-known candidate, sometimes called “Asia Francis,” like the Philippines’ Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle.
There are many other candidates, some are more progressive, others are more conservative.
Anyway, the most Papaville cardinals are usually low and make the kingmakers of the Alliance do dirty work, but they don’t stomp so softly and leave no marks behind.
On Sunday, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, deputy commander of Francis and many in the Vatican are considered strong candidates, paid tribute to around 200,000 people at St. Peter’s Square at a special Mass for the Young People. But many cardinal electors were there too.
He spoke praises Francis. “We have to welcome his legacy and make it a part of our lives,” he said.
Cardinal Parolin knows the world well when it’s fluid. He also knows many of the voters and has implemented Francis’ vision, but he is considered more measured, which could make it more accepting of a large group of more moderate voters. And he is an Italian, and there is a sense that the Italian cardinals and other Europeans want a break from the periphery, so it’s a potential help. The Vatican man, Cardinal Parolin, is seen as far less hostile than Curia, the Roman bureaucrat who Francis runs the church.
The young people in the crowd at Sunday’s Special Mass were less interested in the work within the Vatican than they had a pope that inspired them.
“We’ll include more,” said Lala Capcelli, 19, of Italy’s Piedmont region.
On Sunday, reporters asked a Vatican spokesman when the conclave could begin. He said he didn’t know.
That too is determined only by the general congregation.
