After Pope Francis’ demise, debates start over his successor

As cardinals from around the globe begin to collect in Rome for Pope Francis’ funeral, conversations are already starting over his probably successor.

It is tough to know the way the 135 cardinals eligible to vote within the extremely secretive elections — often known as the conclave — will negotiate to steer the Catholic Church once they start subsequent month, or how they’ll in the end vote.

However beneath is a listing of a few of the best-known candidates who could also be into account.

Pietro Parolin

The present secretary of state for the Holy See, Parolin is an skilled Italian diplomat who has helped oversee the Vatican’s inner affairs but in addition labored on behalf of the Catholic Church around the globe in international locations from Venezuela to Vietnam. He is carried out a variety of duties — supporting peace initiatives in Colombia in addition to constructing bridges with Chinese language authorities in Beijing. Maybe extra cautious than Francis, he has nonetheless largely supported the late pope’s agenda, and will thus have earned criticism from these within the church who had been against that agenda. His deal to present the Chinese language authorities authority over the appointment course of for bishops within the nation additionally created some detractors who stated it hamstrung the church’s means to criticize human rights abuses. Parolin has, although, publicly criticized President Trump’s said plans to evict Palestinians from Gaza, and has beforehand spoken concerning the Israeli-Palestinian battle at a number of worldwide venues. And as a local of northern Italy who speaks a number of languages together with French and Spanish, he might attraction to different Italian, French and Spanish cardinals voting within the conclave.

Matteo Zuppi

Zuppi has been serving since 2015 because the archbishop of Bologna, a metropolis in north central Italy, and was made a cardinal in 2019. He has additionally served in a diplomatic operate for the Vatican, tasked by the late pope in 2023 with main a peace mission to Ukraine, that concerned journey to Moscow in addition to Washington and Beijing. He belongs to a Catholic humanitarian group referred to as Sant’Egidio, and beforehand labored to mediate conflicts in a number of components of the world, together with Mozambique within the early Nineties and South Sudan extra lately. He has appeared to comply with a equally progressive strategy as Francis, reaching out to members of the LGBTQ group and brazenly supporting migrants, with a transparent stance of assist for Francis’ efforts to uplift society’s most susceptible. Nonetheless, he has much less

expertise of Vatican governance and politics, and a few extra conservative-minded cardinals might view him as too near the late pope and much more more likely to be influenced by progressive actions inside the broader Catholic Church.

Pierbattista Pizzaballa

Appointed to be a cardinal comparatively lately by the late Pope Francis, Pizzaballa has served because the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem since 2020, the place he has devoted himself to a ministry in a area continuously mired by battle and humanitarian crises — most lately on the middle of the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. He celebrated mass inside the one Catholic church in Gaza this previous Christmas, telling attendees that all the Christian world was with them. He has advocated strongly for the rights of assorted Christian minorities throughout the Center East, and following the Hamas assault on Israel in October 2023, he supplied himself as a Hamas hostage to be swapped in return for Israeli kids who had been being held by the group inside Gaza. He has made few public positions on different controversial points contained in the Catholic Church, and is essentially faraway from Vatican politics as somebody who has served a lot of his ministry exterior his native Italy. His relative youth (he turned 60 this month), might lead some cardinals within the conclave to contemplate him too younger for the preach, however the truth he has typically averted taking positions on tough subjects might make it simpler for opposing conclave factions to contemplate him a extra impartial possibility for his or her vote.

Jose Tolentino de Mendonca

A Portuguese cardinal who has served because the prefect of the Dicastery for Tradition and Training, a comparatively new administration division contained in the church that focuses on selling cultural actions, heritage and the ideas of Catholic schooling. Born on the island

of Madeira, he spent a few of his early childhood in a former Portuguese colony that’s now the impartial African nation of Angola. He has written a number of volumes of poetry, studied the bible and held instructing positions earlier than taking up extra senior roles contained in the Vatican. Regardless of this broad expertise, nonetheless, he’s the youngest cardinal appointed by Francis, with whom he shares what’s extensively thought-about to be a progressive worldview within the context of the Catholic Church. That has been exemplified by his assist for a high-profile feminist nun, who has supported abortion rights and referred to as for the ordination of feminine monks. Tolentino de Mendonca has additionally expressed his sympathy for a extra tolerant strategy to same-sex relationships than the Church has historically allowed, arguing on a number of events that the Vatican ought to interact extra willingly with cultural modifications and modernity.

Luis Antonio Tagle

A Filipino cardinal appointed by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012, Tagle has been thought-about an in depth ally of Francis for a few years and shares most of the late pope’s values, particularly in terms of acts of charity in probably the most impoverished corners of the world. He beforehand led the church’s most important charitable department, Caritas, although it was overhauled and he subsequently stepped down as its head. Since 2019 he has been tasked with overseeing the Vatican’s division for evangelization, which seeks to develop the attain of Catholicism worldwide and has thus seen him work carefully with native church leaders in growing nations. Because the Catholic Church continues to develop in Asia, not like in Europe, the affect of bishops, archbishops and cardinals from the area has additionally elevated, and Tagle — who is understood informally as “Chito” — might characterize the almost certainly candidate for the primary ever Asian pope within the church’s two millennia. He was thought-about a robust candidate even way back to the final conclave in 2013, however for a lot of cardinals would have been thought-about too younger. Since then he has additionally helped shepherd inner debates over typically divisive points within the church, comparable to homosexuality and the potential for divorced or remarried Catholics receiving communion.

Fridolin Ambongo Besungu

As one in all Africa’s main archbishops who serves within the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s capital of Kinshasa, Ambongo oversees an area trustworthy that now numbers round seven million, and has develop into a strong and sometimes political voice in his native nation. He has typically taken tough positions within the face of opposition from influential politicians or armed teams, by defending human rights and democracy. He belongs to a Catholic

non secular order often known as the Capuchin Franciscans, an order that largely adheres to the teachings of St. Francis of Assisi — the person that served as a mannequin for the late pope, and impressed his selection of pontifical title. He has been a cardinal since 2019, has taken a robust and public stance in opposition to same-sex relationships, consistent with the usually conservative positions of many African church leaders, and was a number one member of a bunch of cardinals who opposed Francis’ determination in 2023 to permit monks to bless such relationships. But he remained near the late pope, and was chosen as one in all 9 cardinals to function his shut advisors, making him a possible contender for the papacy as a result of he might attraction to a number of constituencies inside the conclave that can quickly start.

Péter Erdő

A Hungarian professional in canon regulation and archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest for greater than 20 years, Erdő is a number one conservative candidate for the papacy and since he was made cardinal aged simply 50, he has typically taken sturdy positions on a variety of points that appear totally different to that of the late pope, together with on migration. He has typically appeared to ally himself with Hungary’s conservative president, Viktor Orban, and has beforehand stated welcoming refugees into the nation would equate to human trafficking — a stark distinction to Pope Francis’ compassionate assist for migration help teams throughout Europe. He isn’t often known as probably the most charismatic of audio system, however has voiced his opinions with much less ambiguity than many church leaders typically do, pushing for theological orthodoxy in his decade-long position as head of the Council of European Bishops’ Conferences. A broadcast scholar who can talk in quite a lot of languages together with Russian, German, Italian, French, Spanish and English, he maintains extremely conventional views on marriage and household, in addition to LGBTQ rights, and could be a papal candidate who would proceed to view Europe as a central factor within the Church’s future.