I don’t know! That is my standard answer when people ask one another who will be the next pope. Other than the American cardinals (whom, I presume, are not considered serious candidates) I can only recognize a couple of cardinals’ faces. There are so many cardinals, whom I know next to nothing about. Not only can I make no predictions, I think all such outsider predictions are pointless.
This may be somewhat true on the inside as well, even for some of the cardinals themselves. There are 133 cardinals from 70 different countries who will vote in the conclave. Of these, the 108 appointed by Pope Francis will obviously be doing this for the first time. Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki of Cologne has been quoted as saying that he expects a “longer, more complex conclave” because of the “heterogeneous” make-up of the cardinal electors, the majority of whom have had little chance to get to know one another. So, maybe, the best anyone can really do is try to guess what qualities the cardinals might be looking for in their discernment.
Meanwhile, as the May 7 Conclave approaches, the media (and especially social media) are alive with intense speculations about who might be the next Pope, and, less pointlessly perhaps, about what qualities the Cardinals might be looking for in the next Pope. Most such speculations suffer, however, from secular media’s natural drift to variations of the « conservative-liberal » political dichotomy. The obvious problem with that way of formulating the matter is that those primarily political and secular categories can be applied to the Church only in a very partial and inadequate way. The primary preoccupations of the Pope (and, for that matter, the wider Church) are not the same as those of secular political actors, and the categories they use in discernment are different. Popes and bishops routinely respond to issues in ways that sometimes seem « conservative » to a secular mentality, at other times in ways that may seem « liberal » to that same secular mentality. (The USCCB, for example, is widely perceived as « conservative, » but on certain issues – like immigration – they are extremely « liberal. ») So using those secular political words is a category mistake best avoided, in favor of words and concepts that are more at home in a religious milieux.
One religious word, which we are hearing a lot these days as a possible priority for a potential pope, is unity. We pray for unity every day at Mass, but what exactly does it mean to want the next Pope to be a unifier? Everyone recognizes that there are factions within the Church. Most recognize that division and polarization have harmed the Church and have likely limited her effectiveness in today’s world. However that may be, while unity is presumably the opposite of division, it can also be contrasted with uniformity. Unity, it is usually claimed, need not mean uniformity and is compatible with the rich diversity to be found in the Church. Indeed, the Church’s diversity was on display at the papal funeral, both the Church’s ethnic and generational demographic diversity and its ritual and liturgical diversity.
The liturgy has traditionally been of those aspects of the Church’s life which exemplify unity within diversity, where one rule of worship has always been seen as compatible with a diversity of liturgical rites. Until the 20th century, in addition to the diversity of Eastern Rites, even within the Latin Rite there was a diversity of rites (Dominican, Carmelite Carthusian, Milanese, etc.) But this almost universally applauded unity-within-diversity runs up against the contemporary controversy about unity and diversity in terms of the coexistence of ordinary and extraordinary forms of the Roman Rite. Pope Francis’ apparent hostility to the small minority of Catholics strongly attached to using the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite has led to some otherwise faithful and devout Catholics feeling persecuted in the wake of Traditiones Custodes. Given the obvious diversity of liturgical styles presently experienced even within the ordinary form of the Roman Rite. it seems less than helpful to treat the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite as uniquely divisive. So some accommodation, a « truce » in the liturgy wars, would possibly be one component of the unity that some cardinals might be looking for when they vote for our next Pope. A Church not endlessly at war with herself about liturgy would be a Church with much more energy to devote to her mission
Unity is also obviously desirable in doctrine. While Francis did not actually alter any fundamental doctrine, some have complained – quite loudly in some instances – about what they perceive as confusion and lack of clarity in some papal teaching, primarily in matters of morality. These may be code words for hostility to some of Pope Francis’ pastoral initiatives, his outreach to groups which have hitherto been – or at least have felt themselves to have been – marginalized in the Church. Pope Francis’ personal informality and inclusive personal style were an important part of his appeal both inside the Church and among many outside the Church. It is reasonable to suppose that the cardinals would want someone who can continue to appeal to the world as widely as Francis did (even if some may also want a Pope who will speak somewhat more formally and precisely on matters which touch on doctrine). Obviously the Pope is a pastor, and it is evident that the world wants him to act as a pastor, but the pronouncements of a pope (however informally or casually uttered) carry a greater degree of presumptive doctrinal weight in the wider world than those of an ordinary pastor. Stylistically, in the last 60 years, the Church has had more formal popes (e.g., Paul VI and Benedict XVI) and more informal popes (e.g., John Paul II and Francis). While the informal popes have both been far more popular with both Catholics and non-Catholics, a greater appreciation of formality in papal style cannot be ruled out as something some cardinals may desire to vote for.
The Pope is also an Administrator of a complex of institutions, including the Roman curia and the Vatican city-state, which, as is well known, are currently running deficits. Financial management is obviously not the only or even primary quality sought in a pope, but it is an important administrative value that can only take root if supported from the top. So being ready and willing to permit and support some structural and institutional and cultural reform in the running of things in the Vatican may well also be something some cardinals may want to vote for.
On the other hand, one of the key points made by then-Cardinal Bergoglio in the 2013 pre-conclave congregations was the need for the Church to go beyond herself to evangelize. The future Pope Francis famously said: « When the church does not go out of herself to evangelize, she becomes self-referential and therefore falls ill (cf. the woman bent over herself in the Gospel). The evils which, over time, arise in ecclesial institutions have their root in this self-referentiality, which is a kind of theological narcissism. » That sentiment, which may have helped elected Francis 12 years ago, remains as relevant today.
Francis was a lifelong beneficiary of Jesuit formation and its intense Ignatian spirituality. Whatever his other qualities, whoever emerges on the loggia at the end of the conclave will need to be a person who is deeply grounded spiritually, who is alive to God’s presence in our contemporary situation and alert to how to share that awareness with the wider world.
Photo: Cardinal Giovanni Battists Re, the Dean of the College of Cardinals, leads the fifth general congregation meeting of cardinals in the New Synod Hall at the Vatican April 28, 2025. (CNS/Vatican Media).
