The Current - It’s time to pick a new pope. How does the conclave work?

Episode Date: May 6, 2025

The conclave to select a new pope starts Wednesday in Rome. Matt Galloway talks to journalist JD Flynn and writer Randy Boyagoda about who the frontrunners are, how long the conclave might be, and how the next pontiff might shape the future of the Catholic Church.

1942, Europe. Soldiers find a boy surviving alone in the woods. They make him a member of Hitler's army. But what no one would know for decades, he was Jewish. Could a story so unbelievable be true? I'm Dan Goldberg. I'm from CBC's Personally, Toy Soldier. Available now wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway and this is the current podcast. The countdown is on. More than 130 cardinals from around the world have gathered in Vatican City to choose the next pope. We really do not know.

We just wait for the Lord to tell us. It's not our time. It's God's time. So I think it's important that the cardinals really get to know each other, hear each other out and pray and to ask for the Lord's direction. Well, I hope there's a pope that is like Jesus because the pope is supposed to be the vicar of Christ on earth. Those are the archbishops of Singapore and New York. The highly secretive election process begins tomorrow. Cardinals will be sequestered throughout the papal conclave until the plume

of white smoke curls from the chimney atop the roof of the Sistine Chapel signaling that a new pontiff has indeed been chosen. This decision comes with intense responsibility and will shape the direction and future of the Catholic Church. J.D. Flynn is a Catholic journalist, co-founder and editor of the Catholic news website, The Pillar. He's in Rome. J.D., good morning. Morning, Matt. How are you? I'm well, thanks. You have been there since the Pope died. Just describe what Rome is like right now. Well, you know, right now we're on the eve of the conclave and so everywhere you go,

the Romans, the Roman people themselves are sort of very proud of being the home of the Vatican and the home of the Pope. They tend to have a sentimental affection for the Pope as sort of one of their own. And so everywhere you go in Rome right now, whether you're talking to a waiter or a store clerk or people on the street, everybody's talking about who it will be. And the Romans pay much more attention to cardinational politics than most people, and so everybody's got a favorite and a dark horse and they're happy to talk with you about the long odds favorites too. So it's a very exciting time to be in Rome. It only comes along once every 10, 15, 20 years or so, and so it's an unusual experience, but everybody's everybody's looking now to the Cardinals as they head

into the Conclave tomorrow. Mad Fientist And so those of us who have seen the movie, The Conclave, we all think we know what's going to happen. We think we know how it unfolds, that the mystery has been revealed. But for people who haven't seen the movie, or perhaps don't follow this as closely as you, describe briefly what the Conclave is and how it works. That's right. And you know, Matt, I feel I'm a terrible conclave expert because I myself have never seen the movie. I need to rectify that.

It's very good. But I will tell you, the Pope is the universal leader of the Catholic Church. Catholics believe he is the vicar of Christ on earth, entrusted. The first Pope, St. Peter, was entrusted by Jesus himself with authority to lead the church and that the first Pope, St. Peter, was entrusted by Jesus himself with authority to lead the church and that the popes carry that authority even now as the Bishop of Rome. And so when a pope dies or resigns, senior leaders in the church who are called cardinals, bishops from around the world who've been named cardinals, gather in Rome.

They spend several days sort of praying and talking with one another, having kind of confabs and coffee meetings and dinners. And then they're locked into the Sistine Chapel, an extraordinarily beautiful 16th century chapel painted, of course, by Michelangelo. They're sequestered from the outside world and the idea is that there are many, many people who would like to influence the conclave, but ultimately it comes down to this deliberation of the cardinals. And so they stay in a little guest house at the Vatican and spend all of their time during the day in the Sistine Chapel talking with one another and taking votes

until two-thirds of them are able to reach some consensus and elect the next Bishop of Rome as Pope. Nothing leaks out. Mobile phones are taken. In the era of instant communication, nothing will leak out. You know, they're sweeping, they sweep the Sistine Chapel for bugs, they sweep the guest house for bugs. A friend of mine, with reason to know, told me yesterday that they even changed all of the light bulbs in the Dome of Santa Marta,

the house where the cardinals stay, to ensure that there weren't any listing devices or anything like that. So the idea is really to give the cardinals themselves the sort of sequestration, which is a very, very rare thing in the modern world, if you think about it, and to avoid the possibility that a cardinal might be influenced in some way in his selection of the Pope.

Because, of course, the Pope is a global leadership figure. He is a moral voice on the global stage. And so it's true that there are lots of civil governments that would have interest in who the Pope is. There are lots of business interests that would have interest in who the Pope is. There are lots of business interests that would have interest in who the Pope is. And so the idea is to give the Cardinals as much freedom as possible from any possibility of influence as they make this decision. There are great and colorful cliches that follow this process. One is, always follow a fat Pope with a skinny one. And this is about the idea of creating balance, right?

You have said that the Church is sharply divided, that the last 12 years have not been easy for the Catholic Church. What is your sense? Will there be a sense of balance that is going to be struck between Francis and whoever follows? Well, the fat skinny pope thing, which is a very great kind of image, is as much about sort of activity, the degree to which the Pope becomes this sort of very visible and active leader. And in one sense, Francis was a very sort of fat Pope, so to speak, in that his 13 years of papacy were filled with just so much activity. His landmark Synodon Synodality Project, which was this sort of global consultation process in the church, a lot of other changes, of course, all the things that came along with COVID, a lot of

sort of theological debates. And so for a lot of the cardinals, the idea is now maybe a pope who will be focused on sort of internal governance, but less engaged with the world in order to sort of allow the church to kind of catch her breath, to allow some division to heal among cardinals who were divided and Catholics who were divided, very honestly, during the Francis Papacy, to sort of just let everything kind of shake out a little bit after a very kind of tumultuous 12 years. One of the other cliches is that those who enter the conclave as a pope leave as a cardinal. Are there frontrunners? Yeah, there are frontrunners.

And at the pillar we ran the numbers on that cliche just over the over the course of the 20th century to figure out how often the frontrunner gets elected. And it's about half the time actually that the frontrunner gets elected. So the cliches not as true as you'd like it to be, unfortunately. But there are certainly front runners in this case. Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who was the Vatican Secretary of State, has been regarded as a front runner. Cardinal Luis Tagle, a Filipino Cardinal who is a Vatican official, has been regarded as a front runner. But the really interesting thing that's happening with this election, Matt, is that over the past week I'd say

the sort of momentum for some of those frontrunners has begun to deflate significantly and the enthusiasm for them has begun to wane. So now on the eve of the conclave I've spoken with electors who say they're not sure who they'll vote for even in the first round. That it really is sort of anyone's race so to speak and the field is kind of widening rather than narrowing as we get closer to the election. It is 2025. You have said that there is there's a meme candidate? There is so Cardinal Pira Batista Pizzabal. He's got such a great name. He does indeed. He's the Latin, he's the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem and he has been an

incredibly forceful figure in the Holy Land during the during the Israel-Gaza War. At one point Cardinal Pizzabal very publicly offered to exchange himself for the Israeli hostages. He offered to sell land to Hamas in exchange for hostages, if that would satisfy things. He has been a very fierce advocate both for the hostages but also for peace. And of course, his flock, there are Christians who live in Gaza, and so he has spoken out both for the human rights of Christians and Gazans more broadly, and at the same time, he has spoken out both for the rights of, the human rights of Christians and Gazans more broadly and at the same time, you know, it was spoken out for the Israeli hostages. And so, you know, on the one hand, he has been this very sort of powerful global figure

in the Middle East. On the other hand, he's gotten a lot of social media sort of fame because he's got this cool name and Pizzaballa and people say, you know, if Pizzaballa became Pope, he could take the name, you know, Papa John, you know, he could take the name John and then be Papa John of Pizzaballa. So people are having a little bit of fun there, I think. You have also said, these are your words, don't sleep on lesser known curial cardinals. What sort of message do you think it would send if somebody lesser known were to be picked? Or if, and I don't know that the two are connected, but if the cardinals picked a pope from Asia

or from Africa? Well there's a couple things going on here. One, the Vatican is in a very serious cash crisis right now, in a very serious management crisis. The Vatican's balance sheets are not doing well, in part because of COVID, but some other sort of long-term management issues as well. And so the question for a lot of observers has been, do the Cardinals themselves understand the perilous state of Vatican financial affairs, and will they choose somebody who can sort of right the ship from an administrative perspective? If they do that, you'd expect to find someone with a less public profile, who's sort of a good managerial hand, and understands the

really labyrinthine, Byzantine processes of getting things done in the Vatican enough to kind of reform them. That would be, I think if you saw a lesser profile pope, probably it would mean that sort of administrative substance went out over style. There is though momentum for sure for a pope from another part of the world. There's momentum for Cardinal Friedland in Bango, who's the Archbishop of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo. And Cardinal in Bango, by the way, is sort of a hero for peace in the Democratic Republic of Congo. And Cardinal Mbongo, by the way, is sort of a hero for peace in the Democratic Republic of

Congo. He has sat the government down with various rebel groups to sort of negotiate peace processes and things like that and probably spared the lives of hundreds, if not thousands of people in so doing. There's also momentum. You know, we have heard Asian Cardinals sort of say, Latin America had a chance and now it's sort of time for the Asian church to have a chance to lead. And so, we wouldn't be surprised to have a chance to lead. And so, we wouldn't be surprised to see a pope from some part of the world other than Europe, but I think the real question is, are the cardinals kind of looking now to address some of these long sort of suffering administrative issues that are plaguing the church? And just finally, you have said that this will be in some ways a referendum with a couple of

questions, which is one is what sort of Pope Francis was, but also, does the church need to make a course correction? Is there a sense that those issues will be at front and center of who's decided? Pete You know, the College of Cardinals as a body don't know each other especially well. Francis made it a point to name cardinals from all across the world and they gathered in Rome very infrequently. So, the first couple of days they were here, they were speaking very cautiously, trying to feel one another out and get a sense for where things are. But over the last few days, the criticisms of the Francis Papacy, very honestly, have become

overt among the cardinals Francis appointed. And so I do think there is a sense that Francis' sort of theological style is not the direction that the church needs. What's at the heart of those criticisms? Just needs. What's at the heart of those criticisms? Just briefly, what's at the heart of those criticisms? Well, there's a sense among some cardinals that Francis was theologically ambiguous, that the Catholic Church's doctrine should be taught very clearly and that the sort of hard edges of that should be known. Francis in a lot of his theological pronouncements was much sort of more vague on the details

of Catholic moral teaching, Catholic sexual teaching, Catholic social teaching. And I think for a lot of people that vaguely led to confusion or in some cases great frustration. I don't know, you said that at the pillar you had run the numbers on the cliches. I don't know whether at the pillar you run the numbers on who may or may not. The betting markets are open of course. We live in a betting culture now where people can place a wager on whoever they think. Do you predict front runners? Do you predict who may come out on top?

Look, I just told my wife I think it would be unethical to lay down money on who I think is going to be the pope because I've been listening to all this stuff for a little while. But I would not bet, right now I would not bet on a front runner. I think the momentum has shifted. I think we may get a longer conclave than people are expecting and at the end of that conclave we may see someone emerge on the Loggia very different from who we expected. Now the thing about predicting papal conclaves, Matt, is in three days it could turn out I was wrong about every single thing I said, and then I'll have to explain to you why I

was wrong, of course. But I would predict a long conclave and somebody we're not expecting. That was the other question I was going to ask is how long will it take? But the answer is it will take as long as it takes. It'll take as long as it takes. The longest conclave in the 20th century is five days, but we have had in the history of the Church conclaves which have lasted for years. So we shall see. Goodness. JD Flynn, it's a real pleasure to talk to you and I hope we have the chance to talk again. Thank you very much. Yes, thanks much for having me.

JD Flynn is the co-founder and editor of the Catholic news website, The Pillar. He was in Rome. Hey there, I'm David Common. If you're like me, there are things you love about living in the GTA and things that drive you absolutely crazy. Every day on This is Toronto, we connect you to what matters most about life in the GTA, the news you gotta know, and the conversations your friends will be talking about. Whether you listen on a run through your neighbourhood

or while sitting in the parking lot that is the 401, check out This Is Toronto, wherever you get your podcasts. Randy Boyogota is a novelist, English professor at the University of Toronto, practicing Catholic, writes about contemporary Catholic matters for publications like the New York Times, The Walrus and the Globe and Mail.

He is on his way to Rome tomorrow. We've reached him in Red Deer, Alberta this morning. Randy, good morning to you. Good morning, Matt. Do you wanna pick up a little bit on what JD was talking about there? You wrote an opinion piece in the Globe that said that the conclave will be a referendum

on the papacy of Francis. What did you mean by that? Well, I meant by that that inevitably, as the cardinals have gathered in Rome in these series of consistories and the informal side meetings, they will be reflecting on the last 13 years on the significance of Francis's papacy. And of course, now, they will have to make some decisions through their discernments, through their conversations, of course, now they will have to make some decisions through their discernments, through their conversations, of course, through voting about not whether simply to replicate the France's papacy, which makes no sense, but instead what parts of it to continue and

to deepen and what parts of it perhaps to refine or to change. Now, I don't think, as I said in the same piece for the Globe, it's entirely or exclusively a referendum on on Francis, but it absolutely is to some degree. I'll give you a very clear historical analogy upon the death of John Paul II in 2005 in the election of Benedict XVI. That was a clear vote of continuity given the closeness of then Cardinal Ratzinger to John Paul II during his papacy and his prominence leading something called the Congregation

for the Doctrine of Faith, in a sense, kind of John Paul's right-hand man, quote unquote, when it came to matters of doctrine. That was a decision for continuity. And so we will see, as JD was just saying, we will see the degree to which Francis' successor is a form of continuity or not. And that in itself will be a referendum. You describe Francis as a disruptor. Yeah, well, that's what makes this, to my mind, kind of interesting is that there is no institution

that comes to mind for me, never mind any position like the papacy, with a greater sense of deep continuity. The succession of the papal succession goes all the way back to Christ choosing Saint Peter. And yet by every vantage, whether you are a Francis supporter or Francis critic, he did approach the papacy in ways that were disruptive of many of the norms that are long associated with the office itself. And so it does create this kind of paradox, I think, what does it mean in an institution committed so fully to continuity, elect a successor to someone who disrupted in some ways that continuity disruption is in the

eye of the beholder. Can you explain, give me an example of that disruption? Because there will be people who will say that's too much, there will be people who will say it's nowhere near enough. So from your perspective, what was an example, a clear example of that disruption? Well, I think the most obvious example would be his approach to the papacy itself.

His willingness, for example, to give off the cuff or in formal interviews, often in the back of airplanes during papal visits. And because of the authority associated with the pope, often those sorts of statements, even though not formally any change to Catholic doctrine, would invested with a greater significance, given the authority of the pope. It would be hard to imagine either Benedict XVI or John Paul II offering impromptu remarks on often core matters of Catholic teaching, whether about sexuality or about the question of the church's involvement, let's say, in something like Canada's residential school system, rather than the more formal, careful, prudent version

of things that we've seen in the past. And so that was really exhilarating for many people. It did suggest a kind of spontaneity and an openness to kind of thinking things through in real time, again, at odds, disruptive of normally what we associate with the more careful, considered, slow approach of papal thinking in the past. But at the same time, that really frustrated people. It frustrated people seeking clarity. It also frustrated people hopeful

of greater change inside the church who realized that those comments didn't necessarily translate into any significant changes in doctrine itself, just greater conversation and indeed debate. So all of that says to me, disruptor. I wanna come back to that in a moment. There are 11 million Catholics in this country.

How significant do you think the election of the next pope is for Canadians? Well, I do think it matters. It matters because really for about 150 years now, the papacy has had this significant global connection. What I mean by that is in the late 19th century under the papacy of Pius IX, we saw a great deal of emigration from Europe to places like Canada, the United States, Australia, elsewhere. And at the same time, the rise of printing technology at that point meant that things like a picture, a portrait of the popes suddenly started showing up in a lot of Catholic homes. So a practice

that goes on to this day, and it was a certain sense of connection back to your home country as much as to this global faith. Versions of that, I think, continue through to this day. Every Sunday, Matt, all over Canada and in dozens of different languages, Catholics pray for the Pope currently, praying, of course, for the repose of the soul of Pope Francis and praying for the Cardinals electing a new Pope. So, there is this direct and felt connection that ordinary Catholics have to the papacy itself, to the Holy Father. So for that reason, it matters. And then, as you said, you know, self-identified, something like one in four Canadians, thinks of themselves, calls themselves a Catholic, identifies as Catholic.

And so whomever is the next leader of the Church matters, I think, in real and felt ways to the great diversity of Catholics within Canada itself. Actually, it's an interesting question in part because what you described on Sundays speaks to how we think about faith in this country and the place of faith in this country. Absolutely. You know, I live in Toronto, as you know, and it always strikes me as interesting that the, probably the most significant weekly gathering in the greater Toronto area is not for a Leafs game or for a concert,

but rather it's the hundreds of thousands of people who go to mass in dozens of different languages all around the Greater Toronto area itself. In other words, it is this significant component of our urban life, of our national life. It really does matter at the level of, again, not necessarily experts weighing in on church politics and who's going to be the next leader, but rather just, you know, kind of ordinary Canadians for whom going to daily Mass, or sorry, going to certainly Sunday Mass is just understood to be part of their lives. And it does suggest kind of a perspective or set of experiences that kind of go against the general sense

that the First World West is the kind of place where religious observances in decline, where increased wealth and secularization mean nobody wants to go to church anymore. You know, I would reconsider that in the context, I think, significantly of how important immigrant communities remain for the church across the West, including very much in Canada. If you go to any GTA church outside, let's say, the 416 Corps, these places are packed

and they are packed with people who are newly arrived immigrants or the children of immigrants through to this day from all over the world. And so in that, I mean, there are a lot of people who would be in that flock, if I can put it that way, who might be pushing for more disruption. There will be people who we saw this conservative Catholics in the United States and beyond who are displeased with Pope Francis. What are you hoping for from the new pope? I would say that one of the great goods of Pope Francis's papacy is that people paid attention to the church, to the papacy itself, I think, in ways that we haven't seen, certainly

since the kind of the high points of John Paul II's papacy. If you think about it in retrospect, you only ever heard about Pope Benedict in times of controversy when he had inadvertently offended someone. Whereas Francis had a kind of interpersonal genius to him that really captured attention from the start. And I think it spoke to a deep longing on the part of many people, Catholic or otherwise, who saw in him someone who was sincere,

someone who was open to everyone around him. There's that famous picture of his embracing and kissing a severely disfigured man early in his papacy. Just that sense of openness created this chance for people to engage with the proposals associated with Catholicism itself, thanks to his person. And so the question now becomes, will his successor be able to sustain that global interest in the message of the gospel and the teachings of the church? Who knows? I mean, this goes back to your conversation just now with JD Flynn.

You know, think about it in terms of ad extra, ad intra, those two Latin terms, ad intra. Will it be someone, will his successor really focus on some of the interior challenges facing the church these days? And if so, probably that wouldn't be someone who engages people nearly as much as Pope Francis did. If it's add extra, if it's going out into the world, people will respond, people will be maybe,

continue to be excited, but you know, Matt, we shouldn't expect Francis to, you know, I think that would be unfair to whoever the person is who succeeds Pope Francis. He had a very particular charism, a certain gift that came from who he was and how he lived his faith that turned into a charisma. We should expect a different kind of charisma or else we're just setting ourselves up for disappointment. I have to let you go, we're out of time, but you are heading off to Rome later today. Why are you going?

Why do you feel like you need to be there? Well, I wanna be there in both, I think personal and professional ways. I wanna be there in personal ways because it's a great opportunity to be near the center of my faith during a consequential time. And then, as a writer, as someone who researches and talks about this kind of stuff,

it's an exciting time to be there. And so I'm glad to be there, and we'll be looking forward to writing about it and talking to folks about it from there, both family and friends, and then people back home and elsewhere who wanna follow the news. Safe travels, and it's good to speak with you as always. Randy, thank you very much.

Take care, Matt, thank you. Randy Boygoda is a novelist, English professor at the University of Toronto. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.