Transcript

Welcome back to The Lila Rose Show.

So happy that you guys are here.

I'm excited to have you here because this is such a special moment with the conclave.

It is.

I know everyone was very excited today, like, Is there gonna be white smoke?

Uh, and we didn't get it.

Mm-hmm.

Was that un- did you think there was a chance we would get white smoke today?

If we had white smoke today, there would only be about two possible cardinals it would have been.

Ooh, okay, I got it.

And, and so

Franco, can you pull up the, uh, the white smoke picture actually?

So we can see it.

It's so These images are so iconic too, and so gorgeous.

I mean, this is like, you know, the, one of the most beautiful places on planet Earth, Italy, and then-

Yeah.

the gorgeous Vatican.

Let's get up the white smoke.

But, Joe, you just said Sorry to interrupt you, but you just said there were only two candidates that could have possibly, you think, made it in-

Yeah, I think if, if it had been white smoke-

that, to be popes.

I would feel like I'd have a 50/50 shot at knowing-

Whoa.

who the candidate was.

Whoa.

Crazy.

Um, with, you know, a small margin of it being somebody else.

But it just wasn't likely.

So I mean, a little bit of background for why this is.

Yes.

The College of Cardinals is more geographically diverse than at any point in history.

Wow.

And, you know, uh, Pope Francis really made a point of, you know, choosing from the global peripheries, and so, you know, many countries have their first cardinal ever.

Mm-hmm.

And so, Italy has the most cardinals still, but it only has 17.

So you don't have-

How many total?

Uh, out of 130

It says it's 133.

Yeah, 133.

Okay.

But as a result So, okay, Italy has the most at 17, but 17 out of 133 is nowhere near a two-thirds majority.

So even if you're beloved by every other cardinal in your country, most of the rest of the world probably doesn't know you very well.

There are a handful of exceptions, people who are in positions where they're crossing paths with a lot of the world's cardinals by virtue of the role that they were in, uh, under the prior pontificate.

And so there's only a handful of people who are even well enough known that they would have been, like, an obvious-

Mm-hmm.

shoo-in, everybody knows them, they have an opinion about them, uh, and that would be Cardinal Parolin and Cardinal Zuppi.

And s- I was skeptical it was going to be I mean, and it could still be one of those two.

The media was treating them much more as kind of, like, obvious, um And, and I was a little skeptical that they were gonna go that route.

And so, as of today at least, I feel vindicated in that.

I, I wasn't at all surprised by the black smoke.

Where Sorry, where is Cardinal Parolin and Cardinal Zuppi, where are they from?

Um, so Cardinal Parolin was Secretary of State-

Okay.

for, uh, Pope Francis.

And Cardinal Zuppi, he was I believe he was, um, in Rome, and then was He actually became, uh, the Cardinal Archbishop of Bologna.

And he's been the, kind of, point man for Pope Francis in an informal way for major issues.

Like Ukraine, uh, he was a kind of papal representative.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, and then actually the controversial thing that I think could be of interest to cardinals this time around, both Parolin and Zuppi were really influential in the Vatican China deal in 2018, um, where they tried to improve relations, but I know it was a very controversial deal in terms of whether the Church actually-

Mm.

uh, came out ahead on that or whether they kind of got played by the, by the Chinese.

And so as a result, like But i- it shows, like, those two are both very involved and, um, because of this Zuppi's also been involved with the Congregation for Bishops, and so as a result Oh excuse me, the, the Provost.

But he, Zuppi has been involved with, like, a lot of the things that, um, that Pope Francis did, so a lot of bishops kind of crossed paths with him.

Whereas, uh, you know, a lot of the cardinals from the rest of the world, they haven't had a lot of opportunities to interact with one another, so that was the first reason I was, I was skeptical we were gonna get an obvious person day one.

Um, Zuppi seems like the person Pope Francis probably wanted if he got to handpick, uh, his successor, but Zuppi's been pretty controversial.

He, uh, he wrote one of the essays in the Italian version of Father James Martin's, uh, To Build a Bridge.

And so on a lot of, uh, cultural issues, if you want to put it that way, uh, Zuppi has a strong side and, and on a lot of controversial issues.

So is Cardinal When you say if it had happened today, if we got white smoke today, meaning they-

Mm-hmm.

they elected a pope, it would have been Cardinal Parolin or Perlin Parlin?

Uh, Parolin, yeah.

Parolin or Cardinal Zuppi.

Is it your view though that because they were not chosen today, it's unlikely that those cardinals are gonna be in the-

It's-

seriously in the running-

They-

going forward?

Uh, it's not that they're completely out of the running.

Okay.

But they aren't, like, just like a shoo-in.

Got it.

It wasn't like You know, 'cause those were the two who you look at them and thought, Okay, these are the two most strongly identified with Pope Francis.

Got it.

And, um, Cardinal Tagli, like, stylistically people will compare him to Pope Francis, but in terms of the actual governance, those were the two who, um And I'll give you an example.

Mm-hmm.

Benedict XVI was very much the right-hand man-

Mm-hmm.

of John Paul II, and Pope Pius XII was very much the right-hand man of Pope Pius XI. So both of them, uh, were chosen, but that's actually a little bit exceptional in the Church's at least more recent history.

There's an Italian saying, After a fat pope, a skinny pope.

And it's classically like-

Is that W- wait, did that happen?

Well, it

Who's fat and who's skinny?

Well, the other, other way around between Well, I guess you could go John XXIII to Paul VI, but Pius XII to John XXIII.

I don't know where they were 1,000-

Okay, well-

when he's getting-

John XXIII was a little more Uh, he had kind of my build and, uh, Pius XII was, like, real thin.

Okay.

And so-

You're not fat, Joe.

Well, okay-

Come on.

No, John XXIII was, like, more-

Oh, he was?

fat by, like, Italian standards than maybe-

Okay.

American standards.

He just liked his gelato.

But, but it was-

I don't know.

It's more just, like, an expression.

Okay.

So in the same way that, like- the president often loses seats in the midterm election for his party-

Got it.

because people say, All right, we like a lot of what he's doing, but we want to push back on these things.

Well, with every conclave, the cardinals there, they know what the pope is like.

They know the strengths, but they also know the weaknesses.

Mm-hmm.

And that's not like a dig on Pope Francis or any pope.

Every pope has strengths and weaknesses- and so one of the things the cardinals are considering are, do we want to keep going in the direction we've been going in terms of the style and the emphases and everything else, or do we want to maybe shore up some of the areas where the prior pope was weak?

And, and you see this very conscious sort of deliberation happening.

I would say you see it with, uh, certainly the move from Benedict XVI to Pope Francis.

One of the things that I think Benedict himself would have told you is, he wasn't great in terms of, uh, some of the governance stuff.

For example, the Vatican finances were a mess, and their, you know, like, cracking down on internal corruption, and, like, that kind of administrative style wasn't his style.

He's much more the style of a university professor and a theologian.

And so one of the things they were interested in, in choosing Pope Francis, was, well, he would have been Bishop of Buenos Aires.

Like, he had a lot more practical experience in, you know, even the, the boring kind of management stuff, uh, that, that factors in.

And, and maybe this is Like, so I guess 'cause I'd stress two things.

One, I wouldn't be surprised if the cardinals choose someone who is different than Pope Francis in some obvious ways, and the media will make that out to be like a huge, like, co- like, Oh, they reject Pope Fran- but it, that's pretty normal.

And, uh-

And sorry to interrupt, but by-

Oh, yeah.

when you say you wouldn't be surprised if they, the cardinals pick someone different from Pope O- Francis in obvious ways, I know you're talking about, like, the joke of fat pope versus skinny pope, but you're more speaking towards what might be perceived as the strength and weaknesses of that pope, picking someone else who had-

Exactly.

the opposite strength and weaknesses-

Right, and this-

just to kind of, you know, in God, in, in their best prudence, help, you know, m- respond to the Holy Spirit working, uh, amongst the conclave-

Right.

to find someone to help, you know, augment good things that Pope Francis is doing and maybe double down on areas where maybe there was less activity that they had hoped there would be more of.

That kind of a thing.

Exactly.

Okay.

So, e- e- I mean, this is a huge role, and every pope is going to fall short in some regards.

And one of the questions they're going to face are like, do we keep leaning into the areas where maybe the prior pope was strong or do we need to take, uh, a greater attention to the areas where the prior pope was weak?

And historically, they've tended towards that latter option.

Um, there have been a handful of exceptions, but they've tended towards, you can see, if you look at, like, each particular pope and say, What were some of his weak areas?

And then look at his successor and say, Okay, this is, this is what they were discerning.

Uh, the second thing I'd say about it, though, is their analysis isn't going to be the same as ours at home.

Mm-hmm.

Meaning, we're often looking at this in terms of, like, left/right or conservative/liberal, which those labels aren't super applicable in the Church.

I get what they're expressing, but a lot of what they're looking for are also just intangibles and maybe more tangible things about leadership.

Mm-hmm.

How effectively, uh, will this person lead?

How charismatic are they?

How good are they at balancing a budget or, you know-

Interesting.

you know, running any sort of organization, because someone can have all the right views and maybe be a, a beautiful, you know, theologian or preacher or something else, but if they can't govern, that is something that they have to take into consideration.

And so, you know, I always think about it just in-house.

Um, Chris Cerk is the president of Catholic Answers, and he, it makes a lot more sense, with all due respect to all of my, uh, fellow apologists.

It makes a lot more sense for him to be in that role-

Mm-hmm.

than for any of us because his skillset is much more suited for it.

And that's just, like, not, if, if you put it to, like, a popular vote and said, Who's gonna be the next president of Catholic Answers?

I think they would choose somebody who is, you know, a g- a good apologist, but you need someone who's also just good at running things, and the papacy works somewhat similarly.

Chris Wilson asks, What are the odds that we get an American pope?

I would say very low but not zero.

Okay.

Um, Prevost is the name that I, someone's here thrown around as a possibility because of his work with the Congregation for Bishops.

He knows a lot of the cardinals.

Cardinal Prevost.

Mm-hmm, and he's from Chicago.

Do we have a picture of him, Franco?

I don't know.

He's, yeah, he's not-

If you-

super well-known actually among Americans.

If you had a percentage you would say Cardinal Prevost is gonna be the next pope, this American cardinal, what would you give it?

I would put it in the low single digits.

Okay.

5%, maybe.

So I'd, uh, you know, I'd, I'd say probably even sub five.

Mm-hmm.

A- again, I don't think it's super, like, he's not on my-

Okay.

uh, on my short list, but the, the names you'll hear on the short list, and then last time around, Cardinal Dolan-

Yeah.

and Cardinal O'Malley, their names were both mentioned.

Yeah.

Cardinal Dolan is still under 80.

Uh, Cardinal O'Malley is not.

So they're not impossible, but I-

Yeah.

I think it's unlikely.

The prevailing wisdom was while America's kind of running the world politically, it's probably not likely that there's also gonna be an American who is-

Interesting.

uh, the pope.

There's a, the picture I think Franco just pulled up, you-

Oh, yeah.

bump it back.

Cardinal Prevost right here, and then you mentioned Cardinal Dolan-

Mm-hmm.

and Cardinal O'Malley.

Right.

Yeah.

And those names are probably more familiar-

Yep.

to, to ordinary, like, American Catholics.

Well, yeah, like Ca- Cardinal Dolan, I think, was just added to the, uh, Council on Religious Liberty by the-

Yeah.

by President Trump.

So you're saying-

It'd be very strange to have-

It would be strange to have-

the pope on the President's council.

It-

Yes.

Yeah.

Usually, the papacy is sort of a counterbalance to the secular powers of the world.

Interesting.

And so we have, I mean, we have a long, like a 2,000-year history of this, of times where the secular sphere had too much control-

Mm-hmm.

in the papacy, so you have the Byzantine emperors who had too much say, uh, during one era.

You have the French at a later era, and then you have this longstanding, it's very strange relationship between the pope and the Holy Roman Emperor where the pope would, would crown someone Holy Roman Emperor, and then, you know, a few years later, he'd invade Italy and try to kill the pope.

Crazy.

And so just, like- it was this recurring thing.

Wild.

And, and so the wisdom of the Church, and there's no rule about this, but the wisdom of the Church is typically you don't want someone who might even be perceived as beholden to the most powerful kind of secular forces-

Mm-hmm.

um, you want someone who can work with them but counterbalance them as needed.

If you have someone who's, like, really divisive, let's say, uh, you know, let's say hypothetically, you've got an extremely liberal and an extremely conservative candidate .

and just, you know, for the sa- and this is not accu- let's say it was, like, 50/50.

Like-

Sure.

50% of the cardinals love the left guy, 50% love the right guy and then They realize pretty quickly they're deadlocked.

Mm.

They're then going to be actively looking for someone else who is amenable to-

Meets in the middle.

Yep.

Right.

And so, one of the kind of candidates whose name has been thrown out there for that is Cardinal Pizzaballa.

He is young.

He turned 60 on the day Pope Francis died.

And that's very youthful by papal standards, because it might mean he's pope for 30 years.

Can you pull up his picture, Franco?

So this is Cardinal Pizzaballa.

Love the name.

Yeah, it's totally-

Um, and is he the one who said he would ch- he told Hamas that he would love to take the place of one of the hostages?

Yeah.

He, he offered to trade with the hosta- uh, trade places with the hostages.

And he's been the Patriarch of Jerusalem-

Mm.

and has been, on the one hand, like, a great advocate for Palestinian Christians and for, you know, victims of violence in Palestine.

He's also stood up to Hamas and he's been Like, I think people on, on both sides of the conflict have looked at him as a real honest broker and someone who isn't just, like, a partisan-

Mm.

but has actually navigated this very tricky situation with a tremendous amount of grace and dignity.

And he doesn't have a, a lengthy track record on, on other, like, hot button issues, so he seems like the obvious From the outside, he seems like the obvious sort of compromise candidate.

If, you know, like let's say you're someone who, you know, you love the Latin mass, you love You know, you're probably gonna say Cardinal Sarah or Burke or somebody like that.

Mm-hmm.

And if it's like, okay, they don't have nearly enough votes to get to two thirds, Pizzaballa looks pretty amenable.

He, he looks like he's okay with the traditional mass and he's, you know, he's able to navigate geopolitics and he's able to do all of these things to lead the Church well.

But then the danger, of course, is this is someone young, so if, if you miscalculate it, if you bet wrong, the consequences of that are, are more long-ranging.

Another common question can Well, maybe not so common, depending who's asking, but can the pope be married?

Is it at all possible to have a married pope?

It is.

It, it might be complicated, it re- But there's no canonical reason it couldn't happen.

There's a dispute as to whether Peter was married or not, because there's a reference in the Bible to Peter's mother-in-law, but there's no reference to a wife or children.

And as he's following Jesus around, you know, the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head, uh, h- this was not the kind of life that seems fit-

Mm-hmm.

for a married man.

You know, it's, it's hard enough I'm, I'm on the road one night right now.

Mm-hmm.

If I was on the road for three years, my wife might have some stronger words, you know?

Um, and so they're following Jesus for three years, and then for decades after that, they're going around preaching in various places.

You know, he's in Jerusalem, he's getting arrested, he's going to Antioch, he's going to Rome.

Does he have a wife and kids who are somewhere in the picture, either in Rome or maybe accompanying him Uh, either in, you know, Galilee or accompanying him on the road?

We don't know.

There's no reason canonically it couldn't happen, but I don't think the Biblical case for him being married at the time he's an apostle is actually as strong as people think.

There's a couple passages that I, I see getting misused a lot.

So, I'm not convinced Peter was a married pope.

Meaning, if he had a mother-in-law, meaning his wife had passed away is what you're saying.

Exactly.

He seems like-

Interesting.

he could've been a widower.

Wow.

And in fact in, in Matthew 19, he says to Jesus, um, We've given up everything to follow you.

What then shall we have?

And Jesus then speaks about those who've given up having a family to follow him, which, if that's responding to the question he was just asked by Peter, he seems to be implying Peter has given up marriage and children to-

Maybe remarriage, it sounds like.

Right.

Exactly.

Interesting.

That makes a lot of sense, because when you think about the goodness of our Lord, you know, i- uh, he, him tearing a ma- a married man away from his wife and children, th- first of all, that's not scriptural.

There's not actual-

Right.

an example of that.

It might be just an implication that somebody might make about the scripture-

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

but it, it makes sense, you know, on a certain gut level that our Lord would not have done that.

Right.

Of course, I don't, I'm not gonna speak for our Lord, but it just seems that i- unless it's explicit in scripture, which it's not, it makes more sense that i- if he had been married, Peter, he had a mother-in-law, she had passed away.

Yeah.

I mean, uh, one of the reasons we don't think Jesus was married is there's no reference to a wife and kids for Jesus.

And this is, if, if you say to a Protestant, say, You know, I don't think Jesus was married, it's like, well, of course not.

There's no mention.

Then you're like And by the way, there's also no mention of any of the apostles having wives or kids.

And a lot of the same reasons it would be weird for Jesus to be married and have kids-

Mm.

are also reasons it'd be weird for the apostles.

Not all of the same reasons.

I mean, imagine your, your dad being God Himself.

But nevertheless, like, it, it's, it does seem to speak in terms of, if you wanna say fittingness-

Mm.

to maybe one of the reasons why it's unlikely we're gonna get a married pope.

Um, and also, the, the tradition in both the East and the West is not to have married bishops.

Even though the East will have married priests, they, they don't, uh, draw their bishops from, from the married priest population.

They draw them usually from the monks.

And that's, like, a matter of justice, because you have so much to offer a family and your wife and your kids, and the priesthood asks a lot of you and even more so the bishop position.

Yeah.

True.

The position of bishop e- even asks more of you.

So, that's kind of the idea.

And it's hard to envision someone doing both of those things well.

Yeah.

It's a lot.

We got a question here from Of The Sea.

Uh, backtracking just a moment here about Saint Peter.

Oh, yeah.

You were sharing about him, so here's a question.

She says, or they say, A question f- about Peter not having a wife, what about 1 Corinthians 9:5?

'Do we not have the right to take along a believing wife as do the other apostles and the Lord's brothers and Cephas?'

I'm so happy someone asked this- because I really wanted to do the deep dive there, and thought-

Okay.

Oh, this isn't a whole segment on, on Peter.

The people want it, so do it.

Let me tell you, if you read 1 Corinthians 9, two things you should know.

Number one, the Greek doesn't say wife there.

It me- it says woman.

And number two, wife makes no sense in that context.

Beginning in verse two, Saint Paul is talking about how the other apostles are financially remunerated, like, they're given financial benefits, and he and Barnabas aren't.

And- do they not have the right to receive payment?

And he hits this over and over again.

So you might say, well, in the context, what is this believing woman, uh, context?

Well, look at Luke 8. Jesus and the apostles were accompanied by wealthy women who would care for them out of their means, Mary Magdalene being the most famous.

And, uh, so Paul is saying, I could have this, I could have like a wealthy donor who takes care of all my needs, 'cause women weren't called to be apostles and one of the ways they would serve the apostolic ministry was supporting it financially.

And that's what Paul's talking It makes no sense to read that line as about marriage because the preceding four verses and the two verses after it are all about money.

That is fascinating.

And it's fascinating too that you're saying there are these, the wealth- there are these wealthy patrons, they were women-

Yeah.

who were supporting the apostles in-

Yeah.

in those early days of our Lord's ministry.

Very, very interesting.

Who would you say, in your view, is the top who are the top five candidates?

Now we're on day two-

Mm-hmm.

going to day two of the conclave.

So you said earlier there were these two candidates that you thought might be, if it happened today, one of them would get picked.

Yeah, well-

What, what do you think for tomorrow?

Who would you say are your top five?

I-

I, I'm gonna actually ask you, who you, who's your ultimate bet if you had to bet on a pope tomorrow?

That's a great question.

And I've gone back and forth-

Who would it be?

on this because I also don't want to just do the blatant, like, wish fulfillment of, like, who would I like.

Who would you like?

I mean, Cardinal Sarah would be great.

Why do you love Cardinal Sarah?

I, I-

Let's pull Cardinal Sarah up here too.

Or Sarah I've heard it both Sarah and Sarah.

Every time I pronounce it one way, somebody tells me it's the other way.

He's this He is a, he is, uh, extremely, um, pro-life, pro-family.

Obviously they're all pro-life and pro-family-

Yeah.

so dumb to even say this about our cardinals 'cause they're all pro-life and pro-family.

But he's written a bunch of beautiful books.

Yes, that's Well, so his-

Um-

his book on The Power of Silence is-

That is an amazing book.

really well-known.

I've actually I'm working on his book, Catechism and the Spiritual Of the Spiritual Life right now.

Mm.

And so he's got this tremendous, um, sort of reservoir of wisdom and just seems like a really saintly man.

Uh, he seems to have been encouraged by Pope Francis to be less vocal, uh, and, and he obeyed that, and so he sort of retreated from the public scene for, for a while.

How did that happen, when you say Pope Francis encouraged Cardinal Sarah to be a little less vocal?

I think he had a private conversation with I don't, I can't speak to that anymore.

Well see, he wasn't on X, right?

Was Cardinal Sarah on X?

Uh, I don't know if he was.

I didn't follow him on X.

Okay.

I don't really use a lot of X.

But he would just make a lot of strong statements on moral issues.

Yes.

And he would, and he would make controversial points.

Okay.

Like he described a lot of Western bishops as functional atheists.

And so that sort of stuff-

He's a little, a little harsh.

A little, yeah.

He-

Okay.

He, he comes on a little str Which is practically speaking, why I don't think he's likely to become.

Okay.

I think he's probably burnt a lot of bridges saying things that sound really good on X and maybe are less good if you're, you know, a bishop in the West, say.

That's why X loves Cardinal Sarah.

Yes.

And I love Cardinal Sarah.

I mean, h- his book, the, uh, what is the name again?

Of Silence?

Uh, The Power of Silence, yes.

Yeah.

The Power of Silence.

I mean, an incredible book.

Right.

But to your point, I think they're looking for someone of great measure, measure Like, virtue can be in the mean, right in the middle.

Right.

So someone of great prudence, of wisdom.

Maybe a, a temperament that is strong, but very judicious, y- you know-

Yeah.

in its statements and decisions and

And so a- another African candidate who, um, I'm blanking on his name right now.

The, uh, the current Archbishop of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

I'll ask the chat.

Who is this cardinal?

Yes.

Um

Chat, we ha- we have stumped the shame-

No, not, not, not Turkson.

We have stumped Shameless Popery.

I Yeah.

The only time it's ever happened.

It's not.

It-

Asking him about the 132nd cardinal.

Um, yeah, let me I'm gonna-

So he's Ambongo?

Uh, yeah, Besungu.

Besungu.

B-E-S-U-N-G-U.

Okay.

Um, he has done a very masterful job of leading the bishops in Africa, which is cross-continent.

This is not an easy task.

Do we have his qui- picture, Franco?

Franco's pulling them up.

Here we go.

Besungu.

Yeah.

And so in response to the whole blessing of same sex couples thing, he put out a basic, like, this doesn't work for us as African bishops statement that was nevertheless very respectful.

Mm.

And the Vatican's like, Okay, fine, we get it.

Don't worry about it.

It was a masterstroke.

I mean, in terms of being able to get everyone on board basically, continent wide, and then to say something that was a respectful but strong to the pope, like, we don't think what you're doing here works, uh, and then to have the pope back down, is it was quite telling.

And he did that without being a provocateur, without, you know, burning bridges-

Mm-hmm.

still expressing his love for the successor of Peter.

Those kind of moments, uh, show a caliber of leadership.

I think he's still an unlikely-

Diplomacy, really.

Right, diplomacy, right.

I mean, he sounds like he's, he's morally str- you know, straight and narrow, and then he has a diplomacy.

Because I think that was the criticism of our w- blessed, or our lovely Pope Francis, you know, God rest his soul and let's pray for the preservance of his soul.

But the criticism often was a lack of precision in his statements.

Right.

It was confusing for people.

Uh, some of the, um, you know, statements out of the Vatican, they did not violate church teaching, but they seemed edgy.

You know, this-

Right.

idea of blessing same sex couples.

Mm-hmm.

It wasn't blessing the union.

It was blessing the individual-

Sure.

but the context seemed off.

Mm-hmm.

So I think there's a lot of, uh, confusion-

Yep.

understandably so.

And so you're saying this cardinal from the Con- Democratic Republic of Congo responded really beautifully in explaining why the approach that the Vatican was recommending, he would not disobey church teaching-

Right.

or anything like that-

Right.

so the Vatican But he would maybe pick a different pastoral approach.

Is that-

That's ex- that's exactly right.

that fair of a statement?

And, and the Vatican basically said, Okay.

It was received and we, we respect that and we're not gonna press it.

Mm.

And it was a very remarkable, uh, watching this, you know, from the outside of like, okay, how is this gonna go?

How are they going to receive this?

And then they received it well, and the whole, the whole intervention of what could have been a very tense situation- it resolved, I think, very nicely actually.

Um, and, and was also a reminder of another dimension that a lot of the talk is dominated As I said, the country with the most cardinals is Italy, and that's always been the case, but, and they only have 17 now.

The U.S. is number two with 10, but the Church in Europe is not thriving.

It's largely dying, whereas-

Hm.

the Church in Africa is growing quite a bit.

And so, you might have cardinals who say, We want to pay attention to what-

Hm.

you know, what you guys are doing, what you're doing well, where we're really struggling here.

And the moral issues facing different cultures and contexts aren't always going to be the same.

So, as the Church becomes more, uh, globally Southern, as you have more Catholics who are from Africa, from South America, um, from South Asia, then the issues that you're dealing with might be different.

And so to give one example, actually, a, a friend of mine who's from the Democratic Republic of the Congo told me he was raised by his aunt and uncle and that, you know, his uncle was a good Catholic, except that he had four wives.

And not, like, consecutively like we do, but concurrently.

And it was like, Oh.

And it was just like, I- I'm just not used to hearing about, you know, even in a Catholic context, having to deal with polygamy.

Whereas we have much more of a divor- a divorce culture, which they don't.

So, my point there is just like the, the challenges the next pope is going to face and that the Church is going to face during the next pontificate, they're not always going to be the challenges we're thinking of in the U.S. or people are thinking of in Europe.

And so as a result, someone from somewhere else may be bringing a different set of priorities to the table, uh, or a different set of concerns of things that they're maybe keyed in to.

Who are the other folks, the other folks , the other cardinals that you would say are top five-

Top f- okay, so-

in the running for the pope?

I think at top five, the names that I've heard thrown out a lot, Parolin, Zuppi, Tagle, as more of the sort of liberal-ish candidates.

Uh, Erdo and Sarah was like the two more conservative.

And the compromise one, I know I'm cheating by adding a sixth, Pizzaballa.

All of them have obvious strengths and obvious weaknesses, and so it's difficult to know kind of how all of that, uh, will play out.

Especially because the cardinals, as I said, they don't know each other very well, and a lot of them are coming from very different parts of the world where our read of like conservative/liberal may not make sense.

So like Cardinal Turkson is a great example in Ghana.

On some issues, he sounds, we would say, more liberal.

On some issues, he sounds like extremely conservative, and trying to like put him in a left/right sort of box, already, it's, it's a stretch to do that even in when we're talking about like an American or a European cardinal, uh, but it's much more the case when you're talking about someone from a different culture.

Do you think it's wrong for American Catholics or for any Catholics to be putting these cardinals in left/right boxes?

I think it is.

I, uh, uh, it's like this.

It's helpful to have some way of describing people who have certain tendencies.

And unfortunately, the vernacular we have is traditional conservative and liberal or traditional conservative and progressive.

But it's terminology that I, I think is bad in two ways.

Number one, we risk making everything into politics.

Like, go online, look at like a funny video, and then open the comments and see how long it takes people to mention Donald Trump positively or negatively.

Like, we want everything to be through the lens of politics.

Mm-hmm.

And that speaks to an idolatry of our age and a really unhealthy obsession of our age.

Like, the American political system doesn't matter as much as we think it does and as we act like it does.

And, uh, we need to remember that.

It doesn't mean it doesn't matter.

It doesn't, like, those things matter, but not to the extent that we've given them authority over our lives.

Uh, so I don't like that we're using political labels.

And second, uh, the labels are also not super clear.

Hm, that's a great point.

So when you say someone's like a liberal Catholic, do you mean they love the poor or they think women should be ordained priests?

Or they think imm- we should, we give dignity to immigrants, right?

Right, exactly, like-

So what does that mean?

Yes, it's a great point.

where does Jesus fall in this spectrum, you know?

Yeah.

And like, if, what label are we gonna put on Him?

Is He a conservative, a liberal, a traditionalist?

I mean, He's all of those things depending on the context.

Hm.

But that's why I think that the labels fall short.

They, I get, I get it.

I sometimes use the labels for kind of an easy shorthand, but you have to be very clear about what it is-

Hm.

you, you mean by that.

Parolin was, like I said, Secretary of State, so we know he has the diplomatic experience and all of that.

I think that's one of the strengths.

You know, the world is in a state of crisis right now, so the next pope needs to be someone who can be a steady hand.

And he's not particularly flashy.

This is both a pro and a con.

A con because he maybe lacks some charisma, but maybe a pro because I think there are probably cardinals who'd be quietly relieved to not be constantly like, Oh, the pope was on an airplane, and he gave an interview and now we're gonna deal with that for the next week.

Mm-hmm.

And so having someone who keeps a low profile-

Mm-hmm.

uh, can be attractive.

Again, if you think about John Paul II and Benedict XVI, Benedict had the same vision of the Church JP II had, but a much more subdued profile.

Parolin might be that, uh, sort of the version of that for Pope Francis.

Someone who's-

Hm.

less likely to throw a statement out off the cuff, a little more precise, a little more You know, again, the background in diplomacy.

Uh, the cons, one-

Is this Parolin, by the way, that we've got up here with Holy Father Francis?

It looks like it, yes.

Okay.

There's Parolin.

Um, cons, uh, there's some concerns like with his age.

I think he recently had a heart attack, and so like his health as well.

So, uh, he seemed to be something of a frontrunner before the conclave, and then there were a number of concerns raised about maybe a lack of charisma and, uh, troubling kind of health signs.

So, those might be causing people who would've, would've supported him to reconsider.

Um, next, Zuppi, he, as I said, he was in Bologna.

Bologna's, it's like with-

Let me pull up Zuppi here .

we've got our pictures.

Bologna is a famously, um, liberal city in Italy and the Bologna School of Theology was the one kind of associated with doing Vatican II-

There he is.

as a rupture rather than, uh, kind of through a hermeneutic of continuity or reform.

And so Bologna is a little bit, like it's an important city, but it's also a little bit what like San Francisco is maybe in the US. Um, and Zuppi seems to sort of fit that in certain ways.

He is charismatic, I think, but he is a little bit doctrinaire.

I would, I would say liberal is, isn't named normally atta- or label attached to him a lot.

Uh, he was allowing like same-sex couples to get a blessing in church even before Fiducia Supplicans.

And so, all the things that made Pope Francis controversial within Catholic circles, he would probably be more of that.

Additionally, as I said before, both Parolin and Zuppi were involved with the China, um, relationship that I think to many Catholics minds has sort of backfired.

And so, that is going to be another area maybe in the con category.

Um, Pietro Pizzaballa, uh, as I mentioned.

Really quick-

Oh, yeah?

before you get to Pizzaballa.

Uh, in the chat people are saying Zuppi would be a disaster.

So, uh, there's a lot of people not liking Zuppi, Cardinal Zuppi, in the chat.

Again, we love all of our cardinals.

God bless them all.

We're grateful for all of them, but you're kind of saying some of the things that Pope Francis was the most criticized for are even more-

Probably-

down-

get a lot of the, right.

I'm not sure-

in Zuppi.

you're going to get all the things that Pope Francis was beloved for.

I think you're going to get a lot of the things that Pope Francis was controversial for.

How likely do you think it is that Cardinal Zuppi will make it?

If-

Will he be elected?

If we'd had an election today, or if we'd had whites smoke, excuse me, today, that would've, he was one of the two who I would've thought would be likely.

Okay.

Because he's, he's well known.

So, at least at this point we can say the cardinals know what they're getting with him and they haven't so far said, Yes, this is what we want.

At least not two thirds of them.

So you think it's, it's less likely that it's going to be-

It's-

Cardinal Zuppi because he wasn't today.

The longer we go, the less likely it, it is to be Zuppi.

Um, now that's not impossible.

You know, as I said before, uh, you get figures like Benedict who it might still take four or five rounds of voting even though they knew who Ratzinger was.

Um, without knowing what kind of, what the momentum is like in house, it's, it's very hard to give anything other than a largely uneducated guess.

I think everyone saying, Here's who it's going to be, is grasping at, at the thinnest of, uh, evidence.

I mean, we don't have a ton, but he is one of the ones who's better known and they haven't, two thirds of them haven't said yes to him.

That's what we can say so far.

So we're doing top six actually, right?

Yeah, I think we're top six.

That's what we're doing.

Top six.

So you've, so far you've named-

Oh, and then-

Oh yeah.

Tagle is the other more l- I'm, I'm, again, using liberal in heavy quotation marks.

He is very charismatic.

I think he's very, there's something very likable about him and he seems to have the kind of pastoral heart that Pope Francis is kind of famous for.

So, you know, there's stories about Tagle getting up to celebrate the 4:30 AM mass-

Mm-hmm.

um, to, you know, help workers who were on their way to go work.

Uh, they're, you know, there was, it wasn't his normal mass, but the, like the priest didn't show up, and so he got on his bike and he, he rode over to the church and he celebrated mass.

Where, where is Tagle from?

Here's a picture of Tagle.

Uh, the Philippines.

Okay.

And he is beloved by Filipino Catholics, uh, on the whole.

Cardinal Tagle.

Yeah.

So we, so you would put him top six?

I, I mean, I think the media is putting him top six.

Okay.

They put him in the top five or six last time around and I don't think he actually had that much of a shot.

So if someone wants the kind of stylistic, like if they are saying, We want someone who is going to remind us of Pope Francis in that way, Tagle seems like an easy choice in one regard.

Um, he also occasionally will say things that are off the cuff and you kind of grit your teeth a little bit and say, Oh, I don't know if he meant to say it like that.

So, he can be like Pope Francis in both the, the ways that are really inviting and the ways that are maybe more, uh, frustrating.

So, he, those would be the three sort of continuity candidates.

Maybe that's a good way to say it.

If people want continuity with what they just got with Pope Francis, then they're likely to gravitate towards one of those three people and maybe some others we just don't even have on our radar.

Um, if they want something that they felt like was lacking last time around, there's a, a handful of candidates.

Cardinal Sarah would be a, a good example of that.

I don't think he has the, the numbers.

I don't think he has the support, but it's easy to see what the appeal is with him.

I think one maybe telling indication I think, look, I think let's just say this, the man's not a politician.

What I think is actually very good.

In terms of whether he's likely to marshal the votes of 89 cardinals- I'm dubious.

Mm-hmm.

But like he showed up at the conclave with Cardinal Burke who is easily the most controversial cardinal in terms of more conservative or traditional cardinals.

So, that's not who you would show up with if you were being really like strategic, you know?

You, you'd find someone else- who is like a well beloved figure and not a lightning rod of controversy.

And you'd like hold his hand and walk in?

Right.

That, that is funny.

Well, I'm sure, I mean, in his, in his virtue, I'm sure he's not like gaming the system-

Exactly.

to try to be pope, so.

And, and, well actually, and I'm so glad you said this 'cause this is I just did an episode about this on Shameless Popery, that we, the way we're even speaking about it and thinking about it sounds like the way you choose a political candidate.

And in the reality of it, from everything we, we see and hear, it seems much more like the opposite of that.

That some of the greatest popes in history desperately did not want to become pope.

Pope Gregory the Great, after he was elected pope, wrote to the Roman emperor to see if he could get the election annulled somehow.

Wow.

Um, you know, actively like tried to not be the pope .

and you have-

Mm-hmm.

those kind of thing, and actually there's a beautiful letter, I believe it's letter five of Gregory the Great in his, like, book of letters, in which he writes to the other patriarchs just about what a burden it is to be pope, and how, uh, like, his world seems very dark now .

Like, he's just, like, he sounds depressed, um, and he talks about it 'cause, uh, and he gives two reasons-

Mm-hmm.

and it's, it's worth mentioning them.

Number one, as James reminds us in his epistle, the one who assumes the office of teacher assumes a, a higher, a harder duty of judgment.

The more God has given you, the more He's gonna judge you for, and so the one He's given the papacy is going to be judged for that.

This is one of the reasons Hebrews 13:17 tells us to obey our leaders, because they are men who are going to have to give account.

And Gregory was deeply and keenly aware of that.

Any cardinal with a halfway decent spiritual life realizes, If I'm going to become pope, my spiritual life just got harder, not easier.

I'm more likely to be under demonic attack, I'm more likely to be, you know, faced with temptations, and I'm going to be judged more harshly by our Lord.

Mm-hmm.

That's the first reason.

The second reason Gregory offered is that he wanted to basically live the life of simple prayer, like, he'd actually wanted to retire to a monastery, and instead he- he feared he was gonna have to live more like a secular prince than a spiritual father.

That the papacy has always been, uh, such an important role, that you have to deal with all these worldly affairs, you have to keep the lights on, you have to manage geopolitical things that- that come down the pipe, and so it isn't just like being a preacher.

It is so much more than that, and there's a burden with that.

And so as a result, I think only a foolish person would- would look at that and be like, Oh, yeah-

Mm-hmm.

I'm ready for that.

I think this would be a great duty to take on.

So, a lot of, uh, a lot of popes have pretty actively, uh, resisted becoming pope until it was clear that the Holy Spirit was, was inviting them into it.

There's a If anyone wants good spiritual reading, Pope Pius X, uh, his document E Supremi, S-U-P-R-E-M-I, which is on the restoration of all things in Christ, begins with him talking about how he cried about becoming pope and didn't want to be pope and explains why.

It's- it's pretty remarkable.

And then he explains, you know, all the situations facing the Church, and that's, you know, the Church 120 years ago-

Mm-hmm.

and you look at the world today and you're like, Oh, yeah, those would also be reasons why this would be a heavy spiritual burden.

So I- I give that-

Mm-hmm.

I know it's a long kind of aside, but just to say, like, if you're imagining they're a bunch of politicians glad-handing to try to become pope, nobody who's been in a conclave describes it that way.

Um, Cardinal O'Malley said it was like a very intense retreat.

Mm-hmm.

That it's- it's not about, like, Okay, you do this and I'll do that for you.

It- it's a much different process.

Is there anyone you have not mentioned yet that you think people should be paying attention to at this point as a potential candidate?

It's- it's a good question.

Uh, Cardinal Erdo from Hungary-

Mm-hmm.

is another one where he seems to just have a good head on his shoulders, seems to be smart and savvy, and, uh, a good conservative, diplomatic kind of candidate.

Uh, he hasn't made a ton of waves, but he- he seems to be a good, solid candidate.

I- I think, being honest, it seems to me more likely than not that the person being chosen is going to be a surprising pick to the world.

Wow.

Any- any- any guesses who that is, what surprise pick it is?

Okay.

I don't.

No, that- I think it'll- I think it'll be a surprising pick to me too.

It's not like me and the cardinals have a good sense of who it'll be.

I just think, and I- I could very, very well be wrong here, but every time around, the media has an idea of who they think it's gonna be-

Mm-hmm.

and they're almost always wrong.

And the way the process kind of works out under lock and key, which is, you know, what conclave means, uh, is just often very different-

Mm-hmm.

where, like, God can put someone forward who was a very unexpected pick.

Mm-hmm.

And the, you know, even the betting odds, I- I want to say Jorge Bergoglio, before he became Pope Francis, was 14th or 15th of, like, most common.

Uh, and, like, Cardinal Tagli was above him-

Mm-hmm.

by quite a bit.

And what it looks like from the outside world-

Mm-hmm.

versus what it looks like inside the conclave, they are two very different worlds.

What do you think, Joe?

Sh- we should, people who are Catholics, and then also people who just care, like our- our friend here in the chat who says, I'm not Catholic, but this matters-

Yeah.

you know, what posture should we have?

Should we be praying?

What do you recommend?

Yeah, we should be praying.

And I would say, don't pray for your guy.

Pray for God's guy.

Mm-hmm.

That's good.

You know?

That, uh, pray for all of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

And this is, I'm taking this advice pretty explicitly from Pope Clement XIV. Like, we, the one thing we know that the pope is going to need is, you know, all of the, yeah, the- the fruits of the Spirit, and that's true in every generation and every pope.

And so we want someone who possesses those traits, who is very in tune with the Holy Spirit, who is very prayerful, and will lead out of that, uh, docility to the Holy Spirit-

Mm-hmm.

that if that happens, and even if it's not the person I would choose, that is the person God has chosen and I really want that.

And whoever is elected pope, whether it's tomorrow, we get white smoke, or Friday, or unusually it might even extend beyond-

Yeah.

you know, beyond this week, what posture should we have, especially those of us who are Catholics, towards the Holy Father, who, regardless of, uh, who it is-

Yes.

Let's say it's a candidate that, you know, certain news groups are like, They're liberal.

Or, They're conservative.

Mm-hmm.

Or whatever it is, what should be the posture of people of- of faith, of Catholic faith?

How should they respond to whoever is elected pope?

Uh, the technical term is filial piety, like, this is your father, and so you wouldn't maybe choose your biological dad - and say like, Oh, you know I think everyone in, watching this can say, I love my dad.

There are some things that maybe he does really well and some things that maybe he struggles with.

I, my kids would be happy to go on your show and give a few hour long, uh, exegesis or excursus on that.

But- you still are called to love and obey.

And it doesn't mean things can't be hard, but if you're immediately like, I reject this person, they weren't my preferred candidate, you are spending way too much time online.

And you probably need to take a break from, including Catholic media-

Mm-hmm.

uh, for a while for your own spiritual good.

Like, you, you know, the, if you have that reaction of distrust and a refusal to submit, you're not making the Church better and you are making your spiritual life worse.

You know, again, Hebrews 13:17 says we should obey our leaders because they're men who are called to give account.

And we should make their lives easier rather than harder as a result.

That's what we're called to do.

How can I be docile to any morally illicit, uh, promptings that I'm getting from the Pope or from my bishop or from my priest?

Obviously, if someone's telling you to do something sinful, don't do it, but I don't think we're gonna have to worry about that.

Mm-hmm.

It's much more likely that some part of each one of us wants to run things, wants to lead things, and if you read Genesis, you know where that's coming from, and that's not coming from God.

That, like, I want to be God impulse or I want to be the Pope impulse, don't.

Remember the thing about how, like, the one who takes on that authority is judged more harshly?

If you live your life trying to be Pope in your head about, like, Here's what I think the Church needs to do, X, Y, Z, you're taking on a spiritual accountability you don't want and can't do anything with.

Mm-hmm.

So, don't do that for your own sake and it's gonna make your life more miserable and it's gonna make your judgment more hard or more difficult.

Very well said, Joe.

Very, very well said.

Can you close us with prayer, Joe?

Yeah, I'd be happy to.

This is such a, this is a Jubilee year.

Obviously, the Papal Conclave is happening and the world's kind of crazy.

It always has been.

Yeah.

But-

I'd be happy to.

bring us home.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

God, the Father, we thank you first and foremost for the gift of your Son, Jesus Christ.

In this season of Easter, we remember that in all the uncertainty of life, you've triumphed over death.

We remember that in John 21, you sent the risen Christ to invite Peter to feed his flock and we ask that you send your Holy Spirit to help the College of Cardinals to choose someone else to be a successor of Peter, to feed and nourish the flock of Christ.

You know all the ways that we're hungry.

You know all the ways that we're wounded.

You know our need for a good shepherd.

We know about the Good Shepherd of your Son and those shepherds that he promises to call in Jeremiah 3:15 so that we can be one flock with one shepherd.

I just ask this through the intercession of St. Peter and all the saints.

Amen.

Amen.

Awesome.

Thank you, Joe.