Reuters World News - Pope Francis: funeral, conclave and beyond

Episode Date: April 26, 2025

The world is bidding a final farewell to Pope Francis. On this special episode of Reuters World News podcast, we look at his legacy - and how the conclave choosing his successor will seek the shape the future of the Catholic church. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's like a member of the family, isn't he? Somebody very close to our hearts, somebody who made the church very accessible. He was a father of the church and he was a model of sanctity for me. It was an ordinary, beautiful man who lived his life as a follower of Jesus in his most sincere way. Tens of thousands from around the world have flocked to the Vatican to pay homage to Pope Francis. And next month, Roman Catholic Cardinals will be gather in the Sistine Chapel to elect his successor. On this special episode of Reuters World News, we look at Francis's legacy after inheriting

a deeply divided church. The ins and outs of choosing a new pope. And the direction his successor could take in tackling the many issues facing the church today. I'm Christopher Walgessper in Chicago. And I'm Tara Oaks in Liverpool. This weekend, the pageant. of the Catholic Church will be on full display as it gathers to bury its leader.

Pope Francis changed the face of the modern papacy by shunning much of its pomp and privilege. Will the next Pope do the same? Philip Palela spent 40 years of his life with Reuters covering the Vatican and has been roped in out of retirement for our coverage this week. Hi, Phil. Hi, how are you? Good to see you. Good to hear you. Good to see you. What's the atmosphere been like there this week? It's a very composed atmosphere.

I would say that it's less emotional than it was when Pope John Paul II died. And that was because he was on his deathbed for a few days. The light in his window was on constantly, and people were praying in square below. Francis did not live in those papal apartments, and he lived in a small two or three room suite in a Vatican guest house. And so he died alone with nobody under his window praying, et cetera. a couple of doctors and nurses in there, but for the most part, he died a very private life. What will his papacy be defined by? So his papacy was a very complicated one.

One of the main reasons was that Pope Benedict did not die, he resigned, and stayed in the Vatican far from the limelight to a certain extent. But there was always a presence of another man who was also dressed in white in the Vatican. And because Pope Benedict was much more conservative, the conservative wing of the church that did not like some of the changes that Francis was trying to initiate, some of them denied the actual validity of Francis's papacy, and many of them just outwardly said, you know,

that Benedict is still my pope. But Francis's legacy, I think, will be that he reached out as much as possible to the people who are disenfranchised. in society. Now, that might be migrants, that might be poor people. It might be people who have been pushed aside to the periphery, people who live in communities that have been overlooked. I think that they will feel the greatest loss in the passing of Pope Francis. Of course, you met him and you reported on him for the entirety of his papacy. How did you find him as a person? very friendly, very human, very personal.

I accompanied him on all of the foreign trips and I interviewed him twice. Both interviews lasted about two hours. The first one, this is very unusual for interview with a major leader. The two of us were the only ones in the room. So there were no media minders, no nobody, no spokespeople. It's incredible. It was charming. He really liked to laugh and he liked to tell little jokes and things like that.

But it wasn't all rosy, right? How did he react to some of the ongoing issues within the church, for example, the ongoing abuse scandal? Yes. No, it needs to be said that it is very clear that Francis did not succeed in trying to put an end to the sexual abuse scandals. Now, he tried hard, but he had a tin ear towards the beginning of this papacy where he did not really acknowledge. the depth of it, that changed a few years into his papacy. It was slow going. He did some things and he did change some church laws and he did put some legislation in place to make it easier to bring bishops to justice. But the advocates for victims of sexual abuse were

correct in saying that he didn't do enough. Francis Fuderal is going to be a who's who gathering of world leaders, right? President Trump will be there, Volodymy Zelensky of Ukraine. And Francis' opinions on global issues did put him at odds with some of the attendees, right? For the most part, he had good relations with most countries around the world. It all depends on their political leaders. So obviously, in a situation like United States, obviously, with the president like Trump, he clearly did not agree at all with Trump's views on immigration, mass deportation, those kind of things there. So the tension was more between, say, the Pope and leaders rather than the Pope and people of a country, for the most part,

okay. In the United States, there's a very powerful conservative way of the church, which criticized Francis with an enormous microphone. Now, those American Catholics have been in the limelight recently. U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance, a Catholic convert was one of the final people Francis met with publicly before he died. Our reporter, Jessica DiNapoli, has been looking into the prominence of the U.S. Catholic community. Thanks for having me. So to begin with, why is the Catholic Church in the U.S. so much in focus right now?

Well, in the grand scheme of things, when you look at global Catholicism, U.S. Catholics are less than 10 percent. But the U.S. is very wealthy and very influential. And then if you look at just the U.S. as a country, Catholics make up about 20% of the population. So in the U.S. itself, Catholics are a big part of the population. Now, I think it's important to kind of understand Pope Francis's relationship with the U.S. Catholic Church before he passed. not only the folks in the pews, but also church leaders. So by and large, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops had a lot of similar views to Pope Francis.

But within U.S. Catholicism, there is this growing group of politically conservative and theologically conservative Catholics that butted heads with him. They strongly disagreed with him. But that group, though it's small and growing, it is a minority. Pope Francis was relatively open to doing blessings of same-sex couples. That's something that people balked against. He also was openly critical of Trump's plans to deport millions of migrants. So that's where some of the tension comes in between U.S. Catholics and Pope Francis.

There's a strain of Catholicism that is very involved in social justice, and social teaching. And liberal Catholics, of which there are many, did love Pope Francis and aligned with his views on environmental justice, on protecting the rights of migrants, on giving blessing to same-sex couples. And to a certain extent, not really on abortion, because Pope Francis did equate abortion to like hiring a hit man to solve a problem. But more liberal Catholics did see him as someone protecting the social justice values that they also wanted.

So what is behind this conservative shift that we've seen among U.S. Catholic bishops as well as believers in more recent years? So what I've been told from experts is like people attending a Latin Mass, women wearing lace coverings on their head, no birth, control. What's behind it is kind of, it's almost a reaction. It's a reaction to the Catholic Church becoming too liberal in over decades, like incorporating more pop music into masses, having like looser sermons from priests. It's kind of a reaction to that. And it's a reaction to the rest of Western society, which is quite liberal. The way these believers see it, there's not a lot to hold on to from a values perspective. in the rest of Western culture.

So they're going back to the old ways to a very traditional church with a very big sense of a community. What's interesting is from an expert that I spoke to is that conservative cardinals in the U.S. could align with cardinals in Africa who are quite conservative, particularly on homosexuality,

to influence the selection of the next pope to be a pope who is more conservative, less like Francis, rather than one that is a little bit more progressive, kind of in the image of Francis. So Tara, Jessica just spoke about some of the church leaders from around the world who will be gathering in the Vatican to choose the next leader of the church. But I wonder, in your conversation with Phil,

did he discuss what the actual conclave process looks like? Right. And some people have seen the movie, Conclave, but I did talk to Phil about how a conclave works in real life. So it is believed that the number of cardinals who will go into the Sistine Chapel to vote for the next Pope will be around 133, more or less. And 89 of them, more or less, have been made a cardinal by Francis. There's a mass that is a procession. into the Sistine Chapel and one by one they take a note of secrecy on pain of excommunication, never to reveal what happens in that room swearing in inside the Sistine Chapel. It's a magnificent place frescoed by Michelangelo and on the wall behind the main altar

is a very severe Jesus, God who is looking down in a judgmental way. It's a very humbling place to make a decision. So they will, Cardinal electors, will have four votes a day in two sessions, and they will write the last name of a Cardinal on a small square piece of paper. They were told to fold it several times, also encouraged to disguise their handwriting if they want to. And then these pieces of paper are put into a chalice of some kind. And then they are brought up to a table in the front where there are the scrutiners who will then count them, and then announce the name. names of the candidates as they are being read out. And if a two-thirds majority has voted for the same person, then the new pope has been elected. If not, these ballots are then put, a needle is

used to thread them into one bunch, and they are then put in a stove, which is not always in a Sistine Chapel, it's put in specifically for the conclave. And ballots are put into the stove with a chemical additive that if no pope has been elected, it will emit black smoke. If a pope has been elected, it will emit white smoke. What happens then is that the new pope is taken into a very small room, which is called a room of tears, because it's just so emotionally packed.

In that room, there will be waiting three white cassock, small, medium, and large. It's very simple because nobody knows who's going to be elected pope, And then outside, the curtains under the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica will open, and a cardinal will come out and say to the world, abemus papon, which in Latin means we have a pope. And everybody will go crazy, cheering and clapping, etc. So are there any indications at this point in support coalescing around any figures as a potential successor? There's a Roman saying, it says he who enters the conclate as a pope comes out as a cardinal, meaning the people who are considered perfect candidates by either the media or Catholics around the world, whatever, are very often surprised. There's a set number of candidates that have got qualifications, the right age, speak the right languages, that kind of stuff.

One of the main candidates that pre-conclave coalescence has seemed to be forming around him is the Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who is Italian. The main point in his favor is that he is known by all the Cardinal electors because he has traveled to them. Other people who have been named as possible papal candidates is Cardinal Tagli, he is now a Vatican official in Rome, but he is Filipino. He was once the Cardinal Archbishop of Manila. He's very personable. He speaks a lot of languages. He would be the first Pope from Asia. He's relatively young for the Pope,

maybe a little bit under 70. The Cardinals have to decide what is the job description today for the leader of 1.4 billion Roman Catholics? Do we want to continue with Francis's kind of progressive policies? Do we want to sort of have a more sense? stayed less eventful papacy, just sort of managing the church between Francis's papacy and another papacy. They will have to decide that.

And so one of the reasons of Padillian is also one of the frontrunners is because, like, he's right there in the middle. He could get both progressive votes and conservative votes, whereas Tagler would probably not get too many conservative votes because he's seen as too much like Francis. And other people who are too conservative would not get the progressive votes. So they will have to take these things into consideration as they decide. And you mentioned the sheer size of the church and believers right now. What does that make up look like globally?

Europe is in great decline. These traditionally county countries like France, Italy, Spain, and Portugal, church attendance is way down in all of them. So the Cardinals will have to decide that we want somebody from the old continent that basically represents where Catholicism, is not being as practice at any level near where it was. Or do we want to be bold and elect somebody from places where the church is growing in Asia? Church is going in Africa and then they will have to decide.

And so are these growth areas you talked about like Africa and even American converts to Catholicism, they're more conservative. Is it likely that their next pope will be more conservative? than Francis was? I think it's almost a given that he'll be more conservative than Francis was. Whether he would be much more conservative than Francis was, probably not. Francis has elected more than 80% of the cardinal electors, so they've got to be, to a certain extent, they see things the same way Francis saw things.

But not exclusively. You appointed moderates. They didn't attack him publicly. and there were some conservatives who attacked him publicly, even sometimes to the point of insulting him, and saying that the church is like a ship without the rudder, kind of stuff like that. So it's very doubtful that someone who is an extreme conservative is going to be elected because you just won't get the number of votes.

One of the main things that the cardals would be looked for is a certain amount of continuity. The new Pope can't just say, okay, everything in my predecessor was wrong. And day one, whoever's chosen, What are the key issues the Catholic Church is facing right now that a new Pope would have to address? We have a situation out there where there's several major wars. So I think the first thing is going to be peace.

It's going to be like more of the universal thing rather than an internal issue. And then obviously there's going to have to confront the internal issues of whether the church continues opening up to groups such as homosexuals and others who felt marginalized in the past, whether it's going to be very important to Pope continues along that line as open as Francis was. The issue of women in the church is going to be important for whoever gets elected. It's going to be very difficult. I would swear that I'm not going to see women priests in my lifetime. But the issue of whether a woman can become a deacon may be something that will come to the fore again in the next papacy, things like that.

Thanks to Philip Polela, Jessica DiNapoli, and Joshua, McElway for their contributions, and our teams around the world covering the impact of the Pope's death. The Reuters World News team includes Kim Vennel, Sharon Reich Garson, Jonah Green, David Spencer, Gail Issa, and Christopher Wall Jasper. Our senior producers are Tara Oaks and Carmel Crimmons. Lila de Kretzer is our executive producer. Engineering, sound design and music composition are by Josh Sommer. We'll be back on Monday with our daily headline. show. To never miss an episode, follow along on your favorite podcast player or download the Reuters app.