SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
In just a few days, 133 cardinals will enter the papal conclave and elect the next leader of the Roman Catholic Church. For those cardinals, the period between Pope Francis' death and that election is a time for reflection and debate about the future of the church. They've been gathering every day here at the Vatican to talk about what challenges the church faces and what kind of person they might choose to face those challenges. Joining me now are longtime NPR Rome correspondent Sylvia Poggioli as well as NPR religion correspondent Jason DeRose. Welcome to both of you.
JASON DEROSE, BYLINE: Hello.
SYLVIA POGGIOLI, BYLINE: Hi. Good to be here.
DETROW: Sylvia, I want to start with these meetings. They're called general congregations. What issues are the cardinals discussing?
POGGIOLI: Well, according to official Vatican statements, the discussion has focused on big and kind of vague issues like the relationship of the church with the contemporary world, missionary outreach and relations with other religions, but also more specific problems like the worldwide clerical sex abuse scandals that have been handled very poorly nearly everywhere and the sorry state of Vatican finances, where there's been a big drop in donations. It's an institution that doesn't impose taxes and most of whose revenue comes from museums and real estate.
DETROW: Jason, you recently had an interview with one of these cardinals who will be making these big decisions. What did he tell you?
DEROSE: Well, I spoke with Cardinal Michael Czerny, a Jesuit from Canada. He's a newer cardinal, just since 2019, and he's concerned about the way some in the church talk about this idea of unity - the idea that the church must speak with one voice about issues like same-sex relationships or the role of women in leadership. He says that way of thinking really quashes discussion.
DETROW: What is an example of how the tension in that choice that's being framed is playing out in a concrete way?
DEROSE: Well, Scott, we've seen migration as a tension point among church leaders. Pope Francis, in fact, even chastised one prominent European cardinal for refusing to help refugees. Migration is about economic opportunities. It's about war. It's about climate change making certain places just too harsh to live. And Czerny says what's important is what the church and the world do about migration.
MICHAEL CZERNY: Certainly, the way in which we are responding to migrants is a good example of our incapacity to manage a very, very traditional human reality. It's a scandal, and we should pull up our socks, but, precisely, pulling up our socks is governance.
DEROSE: And Czerny sees governance as something both the church and the state need to do a better job at - governing themselves to respond to the needs of refugees and immigrants to care for some of the neediest people on the planet.
DETROW: Sylvia, you hear that interview, and they're talking about real-world political issues and theological issues of the church. Sometimes there's overlap. Sometimes there's not. How do those different factors play out in a conclave?
POGGIOLI: Well, there are new cardinals from places that never had cardinals before - Tonga, Haiti, South Sudan, for example. They're outsiders to the Roman bureaucracy here and the arcane ways of the Vatican. It's hard to predict how they'll vote. What will electors be looking for? Should the next pope continue Francis' reforms, and at a fast pace or slow them down? Age will be a factor for those wanting a short papacy, and charisma will also be very important. And there are many different views on geopolitics, for example, the agreement with China, of which Cardinal Pietro Parolin - who is a front-runner - is the architect, and which is very much opposed by conservatives, especially in the U.S. church.
DETROW: Jason, we're looking out at this centuries-old basilica in front of us, but we're also seeing big TV screens spread throughout it. How does technology change this centuries-old process?
DEROSE: Well, the church may be old, but it also always lives in the present, and technology is very much on the minds of the cardinals. In fact, Cardinal Czerny has a really arresting phrase he uses to talk about it.
CZERNY: The digital continent is actually where more and more people are spending more and more of their time. So the church has to go out into the new continent, just like our missionaries have done since Jesus rose from the dead.
DEROSE: Similar to the ways the church sent missionaries to the Americas or Asia or Africa, and it suggests that one of the things cardinals might be considering in the next pope is how open someone might be to new ways of being the body of Christ in the virtual world.
DETROW: I love that phrase - the digital continent. Are there examples of cardinals who really are at home there?
DEROSE: Well, there's a lot of talk about Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle from the Philippines. He's a little younger than many other cardinals at age 67. He's dynamic, and he has real presence online, only somewhat, though, through his own making. Scott, here is a TikTok video a fan made that uses AI to depict Tagle in papal scenarios, like speaking from that balcony here overlooking St. Peter's Square.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: He's young, he's emotional and he's not from Europe. Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, Filipino, global and deeply beloved. Some call him...
DEROSE: Tagle seems to be very much one of those missionaries to the digital continent. But that video, in particular, gives some people pause because it seems like a campaign ad, and a fellow cardinal in the Philippines asked people to stop making them.
DETROW: It absolutely sounds like a campaign ad. Sylvia, that's an extreme example of something that is a factor here. How do cardinals walk this line and campaign without campaigning?
POGGIOLI: Well, the word campaign is taboo here, but, of course, it's going on. The cardinals are not just meeting in the lecture hall. They're having conversations all over Rome in hotels, restaurants and cafes, wherever. They're getting to know each other. They're exchanging notes, making alliances, promoting their favorites. But that's all behind the scenes, and we get to see very little of that.
DETROW: Sylvia, one thing I've been thinking about all week is why non-Catholics should care who the next pope is.
POGGIOLI: When you first asked me that a few days ago, I answered facetiously, because many have seen the movie "Conclave." More seriously, I think the last three popes have been much more than just leaders of the Catholic Church. All of them, in one way or another, became political figures, as well. Pope John Paul II is considered by many to have been the catalyst to the fall of communism in Eastern Europe. On the negative part of the scale, Benedict XVI caused a global firestorm in the Muslim world - riots and even death - with his remarks that suggested the early spread of Islam had been accomplished through violence. And finally, there's Pope Francis. He became a superhero for the secular intelligencia by championing the fate of the environment and the plight of immigrants, the poor and victims of war. I have a sense that this time of so much fragmentation in a multipolar world, the next pope is also likely to play an important role on the global stage.
DETROW: That is longtime NPR Rome correspondent Sylvia Poggioli, as well as religion correspondent Jason DeRose. Thanks to both of you.
DEROSE: You are welcome.
POGGIOLI: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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