TRANSCRIPT
They often say in politics that a president’s legacy is whatever legislation he signs into law or the justices he gets on the U.S. Supreme Court. Long after he’s left office, the stamp he may have placed on the high court will long survive him.
If you scoot across the Atlantic and land in Rome, you’ll see that a similar happening is underway when it comes to Pope Francis naming cardinals.
In what appeared to be a much longer stay last month in the hospital for Pope Francis — and what also looked like something much more serious, up to and including a heart attack (and may very well have been) — talk began circulating about his dying and then, of course, who would be the next pope.
As it stands right now, there are 123 cardinal electors (meaning cardinals under 80) who are eligible to vote in the conclave. Pope Francis created 81 of them, which, at 65.8, is a hair away from 66%. That’s important because you need two-thirds of the votes to win election by your fellow cardinals. That, of course, presumes that if you are one of the 81 Francis cardinals, you would vote for yourself.
However, by the end of this year, nine of these cardinals will turn 80 and will not be able to vote. That will shrink the number of electors down from its current 123 to 114. That means the arithmetic will have changed as well. Then, there will be 114 cardinal electors, meaning Francis will have created more than 68% of them — more than two-thirds.
Be that as it may, there is actual talk in Rome these days about a possible consistory — meaning when more men are raised to cardinal. The Roman rumor mill says that may happen as well before the end of the year, with at least two, and likely more, becoming cardinals.
If that happens, depending on the number, Pope Francis will have cemented a hold on the College of Cardinals approaching 3 out of every 4 who will elect the next pope.
That would virtually guarantee (as much as such things can be guaranteed) that the next man in white to emerge onto the loggia with white smoke belching out of the Sistine Chapel will be Pope Francis II.
In short, with the stacking of the deck, so to speak, some expected curial reforms on the way and some refining of the rules of the election of a pope – Francis’ shadow may be cast over the Church for quite the time to come.
Of course, for some Catholics, that will be bad news, perhaps even greatly disturbing. But regardless of how one might feel about it, Pope Francis II is the most likely outcome once this Francis has gone to his judgment.
But there is also much talk in Rome these days of the “weariness” factor, the curia and others fed up with all the intrigue and drama and bad PR surrounding this papacy. Many, in fact, long for a return to more sedate times — whatever those are in the Church.
There is no doubt that the next pope would be able to bring more drama to the Vatican than this one has. Entire industries it seems have arisen in his wake, with commentators and internet types scoring big numbers of eyeballs by merely discussing anything about him.
That said, a “Francis fatigue” seems to be setting in, and that is causing the sensationalists on the internet to come up with even more clickbait headlines — which of course perpetuates the whole cycle. More headlines, more fatigue. More fatigue, ratchet up the headlines and around we go.
It is hard to believe that all this will not be at least a factor — if not a heavy one — when the cardinals next gather for the conclave. Even among less orthodox cardinals, as well as curia members, we hear they are sick and tired of all this, one drama after another after another.
Another factor in the lead-up to the next pope is this: The percentage of cardinals who are from Europe now stands at its lowest number ever, 41%. And for the first time ever, it’s exceeded by cardinals from the Global South, at 45%.
The Global South is comprised of parts of Asia, Africa and Latin America. And it does seem appropriate when you consider that the largest numbers of Catholics are from there, hands down, more than the first-world industrialist nations.
This also means that the odds are better than they have been in a long while that the next pope may not be Caucasian, Italian or even European. But it is a safe bet that he will emerge from the crop of Francis cardinals, and what that combination may portend for the Church is anyone’s guess.
It’s no secret that many faithful Catholics would have no problem if Cdl. Robert Sarah was the next pope, but he turns 79 this June. It’s not about color; it’s about orthodoxy. What we do know is this: The next conclave may be the most examined and speculated on in a very long time.
