Correctly predicting the outcome of the papal conclave that starts tomorrow would take intuition, access, and—most important—dumb luck. Think of a U.S. presidential election but with 133 candidates, an international electorate, and no polling. Still, news outlets publish innumerable lists of papabili, or potential popes, often based on blind speculation. The exercise can get tedious, but it will matter more than you might think: The media have never had so much influence on a conclave.
To understand why, consider that the late Pope Francis picked the most far-flung group of cardinals in history. Two dozen hail from countries that had never produced a cardinal, such as Tonga, Myanmar, and East Timor. Distance has made an unusual number of them strangers. Francis added to their unfamiliarity by convening the college of cardinals less often than his predecessors. Under his tenure, they gathered for an open discussion just once, in 2014, when only a minority of the current electors belonged to the body. (A group of cardinals used the occasion to object to the pope’s leniency on divorce—an experience Francis evidently didn’t want to repeat.)
Since Francis’s death last month, they have steadily congregated in Rome as they prepare to pick his successor—and many are meeting for the very first time. As Cardinal Anders Arborelius of Stockholm told reporters last week, “Up to now, we don’t know each other.”
In the absence of personal relationships, media have filled the gap. Cardinals know little about their peers beyond what they’ve read in the papers, which have formed their impressions of one another more than ever before. It’s perhaps fitting that a pontiff who relied so heavily on the press to shape his image and his message has, intentionally or not, granted journalists such a prominent voice in choosing his replacement, and deciding the future of the Church.
“We’re looking for the successor of Peter,” Cardinal Michael Czerny told me last week, referring to the first pope. “We’re not looking for a successor of Francis.”
Czerny, a Canadian Jesuit who worked closely with the late pope on issues including immigration and the environment, said that “the heritage of Francis is enormous, and we all want it to continue.” But “we’re not looking to prolong Francis.”
Even if they wanted to, it’s not entirely clear whom they would pick. Unlike his two immediate predecessors, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, Francis didn’t leave an heir apparent. Vatican officials fell out of his favor with extraordinary frequency. But one of the relatively few who kept his job throughout the pope’s reign is Cardinal Pietro Parolin. As secretary of state, Parolin held the second-highest position in the Vatican. In a geographically scattered college, no cardinal has met more of his peers than the well-traveled Italian.
Parolin, who has topped papabili lists, represents for many cardinals a sense of continuity with Francis. He has said “there cannot be a U-turn” in the path that the previous pope set for the Church, including the permission he granted for priests to bless same-sex couples (a decision that African bishops rejected en masse). Parolin also supported Francis’s controversial rapprochement with China. Despite their connection, however, the two experienced their share of conflict. In 2020, the pope removed hundreds of millions of dollars from the control of Parolin’s office as part of an investigation into financial mismanagement. Parolin was never accused of wrongdoing, but the episode left him embarrassed and weakened.
Since Francis’s death, Parolin has been the subject of rumors and attacks in both legacy outlets and on social media, including claims that Francis had lost faith in Parolin before the end of his life. A conservative newspaper in Rome reported last week that Parolin had recently been treated for a sudden drop in blood pressure, which the Vatican’s spokesperson categorically denied.
Still, many cardinals believe Parolin has the necessary skills and temperament—affable, mild-mannered—to conciliate factions in the Church that grew polarized under Francis. Some Vatican insiders have told me that even cardinals sympathetic to Francis are hoping for a more collegial, less autocratic successor. Parolin’s diplomatic background could help him fit the bill. So, too, could his nationality: The Italian cardinals would have an advantage in managing the Vatican, which remains a predominantly Italian institution.
Another Italian contender is Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, whose name recurs constantly in press coverage—not least because of, well, his name. Pizzaballa might be most famous thanks to an interaction he had with a journalist. When asked if he would exchange himself for children held hostage by Hamas, Pizzaballa said yes, a response that elevated him in the public imagination and, by extension, in the eyes of cardinals who might otherwise know little about him. Though he has not been particularly outspoken on questions of sexual ethics, theologically conservative cardinals have told me that they trust him on such matters.
Conservatives will represent a minority at the conclave, in part because Francis picked 80 percent of the current electors (that is, every cardinal who was under 80 years old at the time of the pope’s death). The number of conservatives from Western countries has declined sharply, but they could make common cause with like-minded electors from Africa and elsewhere in the global South, whose numbers rose under Francis.
One of the college’s most prominent conservatives is the German Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller. After Francis removed him as the Vatican’s doctrinal chief, Müller openly criticized the pope’s lenient approach to divorce and LGBTQ issues. He told me that the next pope should reaffirm traditional Catholic teaching on sexuality with more clarity than Francis did, and restore Pope Benedict’s priority of opposing the “dictatorship of relativism” in modern culture.
But Francis’s focus on poverty, peace, migration, and the environment has commanded assent from both theological liberals and many conservatives, including Müller. The future pontiff, he said, should counter rising geopolitical and ideological tensions by doing what Francis did: emphasizing “social justice as the foundation of peaceful coexistence.”
It’s a safe bet that the cardinals will pick a pope who promises to emulate Francis—at least on that set of issues. But I wouldn’t wager much else.
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