What are the features of the Catholic Church that face in the conclave (and what role will Francisco’s inheritance play)

The choice of Pope Francis’s successor is a political decision, thus continuing religious rites and is the result of an election in which voters are a select group of eminent priests who, according to the doctrine of the Catholic Church, act under divine inspiration.

For the new Pontiff to be announced, the different groups of Cardinals that form the so -called conclave -each one with their particular interests -must form alliances and agreements throughout the process.

when the 135 cardinals with the right to vote – they have the right to vote until the age of 80 – are locked in the Sistine Chapel, the voting sessions will begin and some convergences and many disagreements will be consolidated, initiated in previous meetings or in informal contacts of recent days, weeks and even months.

In the secret meeting that will begin on May 7, new positions will be formed, especially after the results of each voting round are counted.

In the conclave, the Pope is only chosen when two thirds of the voters agree on the same name and, until this happens, there will be times when the meeting will be open to reflection and debate among the cardinals, named in reference to their red clothing.

“As the Pope was very sick and old, it is normal for the participants in the conclave to be speaking very discreetly about possible successors and performing surveys, obviously oral,” says the theologian, philosopher and journalist Sundays Zamagna, professor at the Pontifical University of São Paulo (PUC-SP) and the São Bento College, in an interview with BBC News Brazil.

“But although they do not usually let these managing of ecclesiastical power become evident,” he adds, some “provide small clues to their closest friends and collaborators.”

“Francisco wanted the future Pope to be aligned with him. And this is not a personal desire, but the desire for a trend,” the theologian and historian Gerson Leite de Moraes, a professor at the Mackenzie Presbyterian University, told BBC.

“He prepared, in the political sphere, the changes in the Cardinal College so that the wind of change will continue after his death.”

But this vision of succession as a game of partisan factions is far from unanimous.

The sociologist Francisco Borba Ribeiro Neto, director of the newspaper or São Paulo, of the Archdiocese of São Paulo, does not agree with the vision of the conclave as a merely political dispute.

“Imagine [el proceso] As a great assembly where deputies choose their president […] It is not adequate, “he emphasized BBC News.

In their opinion, the cardinals seek a consensus on the “ecclesial proposal” most urgent for today’s world. And, when analyzing the stage, sees two lines: on the one hand, “the great demand of the conservative sectors”; On the other hand, “the need for a more welcoming church, more capable of loving the excluded, those who suffer most, to those who feel aggrieved and marginalized.”

“I do not think we can think about the process of succession of the Pope as a matter of lines or parties, of being affiliated or not, of being together in the same strategy or not. This is how things are going,” he explains.

Considering that, among the 135 cardinals eligible to vote, 108 were named by Pope Francis himself, it is natural to imagine that Francisco’s party “will be the strongest in the conclave. But can this figure really be used?

There is no consensus between the experts and the religious figures of the Catholic hierarchy, either because not all those nominated by the pontiff who died on April 21 were aligned with him, or because they reject the idea that the election is based solely on political and circumstantial criteria.

“What we do not know is whether the cardinals will be faithful to their project started 12 years ago. Because the world has changed in these 12 years. The Church has advanced, but, on the other hand, the reactionaries have also gained hands to work,” says Moraes.

And there are nuances to take into account. Although names are very aligned with him, such as the Italian Matteo Maria Zuppi or even the Filipino Luis Antonio Tagle, the experts agree that Francisco did not leave a single natural successor: in the halls of the Holy See, Benedict XVI (1927-2022), for example, it was seen for a long time as the successor of John Paul II last.

“Francisco has named more cardinals [entre los electores actuales] than the previous potatoes. This will influence the succession, “says Zamagna.

“But I don’t see the Pope planning the succession of Machiavellian, as if it were a chess board. He did what he thought was necessary; he was never in his nature to want to incriminate people, always thinking about the good of the Church and the people.”

Lidice Meyer Pinto Ribeiro, professor at the Lusophone University, in Portugal, and author of the recently published book “Christianity in Female”, said that “Francisco expected his successor to maintain his reforms and take them further.”

But the current church does not live only from the “Francisco party.” He points out that the old institution “is divided into an opposite conservative group” to the measures implemented in recent years.

The theologian and writer Frei Betto, Dominican friar, sees the situation with caution and qualifies it as “unpredictable.” For him, “not all cardinals chosen by Francisco are progressive” and this would also happen because the Pope did not adopt a selection criterion “thinking about his succession.”

“The criteria was to provide the different regions of the planet of bishops to carry the cardinal’s badge, a purely honorary title,” he told BBC News.

Betto says that the Argentine Pope “also appointed conservative cardinals.” And he would have done it for the conviction that it was important to respect “the consensus of local bishops.” “I would never name a progressive in a country with a predominantly conservative episcopate,” he explains.

The sociologist Ribeiro Neto also points out that Francisco’s criteria to choose the cardinals “does not seem to have been the pastoral line, but rather the idea of ​​decentralization in relation to an initially Italcentric Church, and then Eurocentric.”

When Francisco became Pope, there were 28 Italian cardinals. Today there are 17. “It was the country that lost the most representatives,” he says.

“He did not name all the cardinals in his image and likeness,” Moraes agrees. “Francisco respected the work of other trends.”

Betto puts as examples of conservatives designated by Francisco the cases of Italian Marcello Semerao, the Chilean Fernando Natalio Chomali Garib and the Peruvian Carlos Castillo Mattasoglio.

Anthropologist Pinto Ribeiro also includes in this list of Congolese Fridolin Ambongo Besungu. Among those proposed to Cardenalate by Benedict XVI there are also strong names of the opposition, such as the American Raymond Leo Burke and the Guinean Robert Sarah. The Hungarian Péter Erdő is a rare survivor of those named by John Paul II.

The conservative wing of church leadership can be small in number, but is quite vocal. Among the Americans, Cardinal Burke, considered one of the greatest critics of the Argentine Pope, is seen as one of the opposition leaders. “We all know what there were and there are cardinals who disapprove of the renewal brought by Francisco,” says Zamagna.

Francisco knew it, of course. So much so that he evicted Burke from his apartment in the Vatican and removed him from some administrative functions he had in the Roman curia.

This was Francisco’s main tactic to govern in the midst of dissent: place friends in key positions. And move threads so that their detractors had less and less power.

Although the names aligned with Francisco are a majority, analysts understand that if in the first votes an adversary arises that ends up concentrating the votes of all those who do not agree with Francisco’s model, that papal candidate has the possibility of winning with a discourse of change, which in this case would mean a return to traditions.

Francisco faced an opposition that today has the support of the world’s extreme right. Without a doubt, many Catholics support the return of a more conservative trend.

Therefore, this conclave will be very interesting: it will determine how the Catholic Church will position in the coming years, says Moraes, professor at the Mackenzie Presbyterian University.

“Could a reactionary coalition form around some opposition name? Yes,” he adds.

Pope Francis himself said in his autobiography “Esperanza”, recently published, that the scrutiny process usually has a first round of “courtesy.” “You vote for a friend, a respected person …” he said. In this sense, it is like a tribute, a deference towards someone.

“Then a well -known and consolidated mechanism begins: when there are several strong candidates, the undecided, as was my case, give their vote to those who know they will not win. It is essentially about deposit votes, which wait for the situation to develop and develop more clearly,” he explained, speaking of what happened behind the scenes, telling their experience in 2013.

The first day of the conclave only one vote is made. From the second there are two: one in the morning and one in the afternoon. From these, some names end up becoming stronger than others. Until a vast majority deposits their confidence in one of the religious figures and it ends up being chosen.

Subscribe here To our new newsletter to receive a selection of the best content of the week every Friday.

And remember that you can receive notifications in our app. Download the latest version and act.