For fans of the movie “Conclave,” the dean of the College of Cardinals is Cardinal Lawrence — a principled yet questioning Ralph Fiennes. The real-life dean is not a middle-aged man with sad eyes and a British accent, but a 91-year-old Italian who has spent most of his career serving in the Roman curia.
The dean, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, will preside over Pope Francis’ funeral on Saturday, but unlike Mr. Fiennes’s character, he will not run the conclave. He will not even attend, since only cardinals below the age of 80 can cast a ballot for the pope in the Sistine Chapel. Still, Cardinal Re will play an important role.
He has already summoned cardinals to Rome after the death of the pope, and he will preside over all the congregation meetings — the first of which took place on Tuesday — that the cardinals hold in the run up to the conclave.
In those meetings, cardinals decide on the logistics of the pope’s funeral rituals, but they may also give speeches and attract attention to specific issues. Some of the meetings can also set the agenda for the conclave, experts said. “The sausage of a papal election really gets ground” in the congregation meetings, said John Allen, the editor of Crux, an independent online news site covering the Catholic Church.
Before the 2013 conclave, then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio gave a speech during one of the congregation meetings that emphasized the church’s duty to come out of its comfortable shell to reach people at the “peripheries.” The speech made a significant mark and helped Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio rise to become Pope Francis.
But these meetings are also sometimes important for the dean.
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected pope in 2005, while he was serving as dean of the College of Cardinals. His handling of the cardinals’ meetings — his ability to read the room, be respectful and keep the meetings on track — elevated his position, experts said.
Cardinal Re is unlikely to be elected pope, but his role remains central in the meetings.
Mr. Allen predicted that Cardinal Re — a veteran Vatican official who is regarded as an influential figure in the Vatican — would handle the meetings in a largely “traditional” and serious way.
“He is not going to make anything up as he goes along,” he said, adding, “He is not going to be Ralph Fiennes from the movie.”
Once the conclave starts, the dean’s role is largely ceremonial. Since both Cardinal Re and his deputy, Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, 81, are too old to preside, the duty will fall on the oldest cardinal bishop among those who can vote, according to the Vatican’s apostolic constitution.
In 2013, during Francis’ election, Cardinal Re, who was then the deputy dean, filled in for the dean at the time, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, who was 85. It was Cardinal Re who asked the newly elected Jorge Mario Bergoglio which name he would choose as pope.
Emma Bubola is a Times reporter based in Rome.
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