The Ben Mulroney Show - The legacy of Pope Francis and what happens next

Episode Date: April 21, 2025

Guests and Topics: -The legacy of Pope Francis and what happens next with Guest: Michael Higgins, Author of The Jesuit Disruptor: A Personal Portrait of Pope Francis If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! https://globalnews.ca/national/program/the-ben-mulroney-show Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Okay, Martin, let's try one. Remember, big. You got it. The Ford It's a Big Deal event is on. How's that? Uh, a little bigger. The Ford It's a Big Deal event. Nice. Now the offer? Lease a 2025 Escape Active all-wheel drive from 198 bi-weekly at 1.99% APR for 36 months with $27.55 down. Wow, that's like $99 a week.

Yeah, it's a big deal. The Ford It's a Big Deal event. Visit your Toronto area Ford store or Ford.55 down. Wow, that's like $99 a week. Yeah, it's a big deal. The Ford It's a Big Deal event. Visit your Toronto area Ford store or Ford.ca today. Breaking news, a brand new game is now live at Bet365. Introducing Prize Matcher, a daily game that's never ordinary. All you have to do is match as many tiles as you can. And the more you match, the better.

We also have top table games like our incredible Super Spin Roulette, Blackjack, and a huge selection of slots. So there you have it. How can you match that? Check out Prize Matcher and see why it's never ordinary at bet 365. Must be 19 or older Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you or someone you know has concerns about gambling visit connexontario.ca, T's and Z's apply. It is great to have you here to kick off a brand new week. I'm Alex Moose, a man from Mr. Ben Mulroney, who will be back with us on Tuesday. And of course, we wake up to the news, I think a little surprising to most of us, because we just saw him give Easter greetings on Sunday.

And it was the first time we'd seen Pope Francis in public anywhere since battling a very severe case of pneumonia. But we wake up now this morning and Pope Francis has in fact passed away at the age of 88. And so look, this is a pope who ushered in a lot of firsts. First brought in from Latin America. He was the first pope who was a Jesuit. And the first to take the name Francis. He was also pretty much the first pope to be open, more open, prioritizing things like empathy for the poor and the disenfranchised.

He was open to homosexuality, talked about things like climate change. And you will recall in 2022, made a very historic trip to here in Canada where he gave an apology for the Roman Catholic Church, their role in residential schools. So there are a lot of things will happen over the coming days but certainly what was his imprint and who will be picked next. Let me bring in someone who knows an awful lot about the Pope, Michael Higgins. He's an author and wrote the book The Jesuit Disruptor, a personal portrait of the Pope. Thanks so much for joining us. My pleasure.

All right. What would you say? I mean, I think it's not that he wasn't elderly and had been sick for a while, but the fact is I think because people saw him in public yesterday, this comes as a great shock. What happens and where do you see the memories of this Pope, the direction of how he will be remembered? Well, I wrote a whole book about this so it's a matter of getting a sound bite. First of all, I think

most of us are surprised that he died when he did. His recovery seemed on His recovery seemed unfolding. His physicians allowed him back into the Vatican with a quite truncated schedule, but he did meet with King Charles and Queen Camilla, and he also met with Vice President Vance. So it's not as if we didn't anticipate that he would die. At one point, I actually said in an interview that I thought he would survive this current bout, but that he would be so weakened by the experience that I would be extremely surprised

that he survived 2025. Well, he died just shy of Easter Sunday. Wonderful symbolism, really. And now we begin the process of bringing the Cardinals to Rome, arranging for the funeral, which will be watched globally, as you know, and then begin the process of electing his successor, going into what is called conclave, which is the gathering of the cardinals under the age of 80 who can still exercise their voting prerogative. And as I understand, you know, he was the first pope brought in from Latin America, so the Americas, and he won't be buried in Rome.

He will go back to Latin America. That is significant? Oh no, no, no. He won't be going back to Latin America. He will be buried in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome. He is not going to be buried in St. Peter's, which is a departure from his immediate predecessors. But that was by choice, right? That's his choice, yes. And why would he want that, not to be buried where the others are?

He had a special and long-term abiding veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary and was particularly attracted to this Basilica St. Mary Major in Rome, would often go there before he made a major trip, would return to the Basilica after he returned from a trip, and maintained a long and personally devoted commitment to the devotion of Mary. So it is not surprising. It's nothing more than a simple statement of his fond affection for the Virgin Mary and for his, well, his independence of thinking.

I mean, he's not the only pope who's been buried at St. Mary's Major. No, but again, he was different, right? He was picked, he was more progressive than other popes and certainly, I think, marched to his own drum or his own beat. What would then go into picking the next pope, right? Like, how does it work now? I mean, we go through the next few days, the next week and a half to two weeks of saying goodbye to this pope and honouring him. But what goes into picking the next? When does that process start? Well, it works this way. The cardinals who are the electors, that is those cardinals who are

under the age of 80, will gather in Rome and they'll have a series of what are called general congregations in which there will be talks and addresses and whatnot as they try to figure out who has the qualities and the competencies for the next pope. And then they'll begin the conclave, which is when they enter into secrecy and into the Sistine Chapel. They won't be housed, they'll be housed separately elsewhere. But then begins the process, the voting process,

by which the Cardinals choose somebody among themselves, although they're not confined to that. They can go outside the College of Cardinals, but over the last couple of centuries, that's clearly not been the pattern, and then elect the new pope. So you have, you're quite right, you have the death of this pope, and then you have the seas empty. So basically, some of the cardinals, the Cardinal Tamalingo and

the Dean of the college, will basically provide oversight in governance. And then you'll have the obsequies and funeral, and then you'll have the obsequies and funeral, and then you'll have the conclave, and then you will have the new pope come out on the balcony, the Apostolic Lugia, and it will be at that time that the world will know who the next pope is, where he's from, and indeed what his new name is. Yeah, and we'll see that, I guess, the signature white smoke. And before I let you go, would there be angling for that job? I know that might sound a little crass, but would there be people who are kind of politicking

for that position or do they really just allow the process to unfold? There's a traditional phrase that is used by journalists, Vaticanisti, but also by others in Rome that says that a cardinal who enters the conclave of a pope, exits a cardinal. In other words, if you do have ambition for the primacy of Peter, then you better not show it. But you know, when individuals gather together and they're in a position of power themselves,

you know,, motivation among them is going to be as various as it would be anywhere else. So some of them will go in and the primary concern will be to find the best person. And there will be a few who go in who will say, I think I'm the best person. And then the internal politics will play itself out under the governance of the Holy Spirit. That's Catholic thinking around this. All right. And truly, before I let you go, would they purposely move away from someone as progressive or would that matter? It depends on what they need. They understand the needs of the Church to be.

They'll look at the legacy of Pope Francis and they'll say, okay, what do we continue? What do we discontinue? What is important? What are the priorities? So there'll be a lot of reflection, because the Pope was Pope for well over a decade. He was hugely influential. And as a consequence, they'll need to assess what are the qualities we need in the next Pope. Yeah, well, he was definitely, I think a lot of people view this Pope Francis as someone who was quite different and believed in things that the Catholic Church wouldn't talk about. Certainly him coming to Canada, very, very famous visit here to Canada.

In closing, how would you, what will his legacy be? You can go to the Globe and Mail for that. A major piece that I wrote for them serves both as an obituary and as a legacy statement. It pretty well sums up what I think of Francis, as indeed does my book, The Jesuit Disruptor. In short, in a sound brief, I would say that, sound by feather, I would say that what Francis did was he humanized the papacy. He made it more accessible.

He exercised the ministry of humility to the world. And he communicated the priority of the personal over the abstract. Yeah. Well, in the days to come, certainly memories will come out. I appreciate your time, Michael. Thank you so much. It's my pleasure. Thank you.

Bye-bye. That is Michael Higgins. And if you want to read his book, it is The Jesuit Disruptor, a personal portrait of Pope Francis. I'm ready to eat. Want to kick your cooking up a notch? This is the moment you've been waiting for.

Flavor Network is giving one lucky viewer $15,000 to put towards the grocery bill. Oh, I love that. Tune into Flavor Network every night at 9 Eastern, or stream live on Stack TV. Look for the daily code word, and enter on our website for a chance to win $15,000. Oh my god, that's so good.

We're going to blow some minds. Let's do it. Visit flavornetwork.ca for more details and to enter now. Game on, people.