St. John's Professor Meghan Clark Talks About the Death of Pope Francis
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Bloomberg Audio Studios. Podcasts, radio, news. Paul Sweeney and I begin our coverage of the death of Pope Francis, I should say, excuse me, Pope Francis. And what we're trying to do is bring you informed people about his life,

the present and the future that we will see for the Catholic Church and its reach across 1.4 billion people worldwide. We start strong with excellence out of Fordham University, Boston College. Megan Clark joins us now with St. John's University where she does important work on moral theology among others. Megan, thank you so much for beginning our coverage of the death

of the Pope. You wrote a while back on Thomas Aquinas, and you said, "Good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided." How permanent is the method, the process, the pastoral effort of Pope Francis? Or do you look at it as a one-off Pope versus what the future would bring?

I think that Pope Francis, I don't think anyone, it's wise to call him a one-off in terms of the impact that he had on both the Roman Catholic Church and the world. What Pope Francis really showed us is how to take the method of Vatican II and really globalize it and live it in ways that inspired billions of people.

Do we understand how unique he was? I've always thought from a distance from the church that we really don't understand the moment there where he took over from Pope Benedict. How unique was it, was I believe 13, 12 years ago? We knew something was a little bit different when he came out in all white.

and insisted that before he give the square his blessing, that he asked everyone to pray for him. I think that every pope is a little bit unique, and they bring all of their life experience and their challenges and their gifts and their graces, but there is something about Pope Francis's humility and humanity that just deeply connected with people.

Megan, now the Catholic Church and the Holy See and the Cardinals, they turn their attention to electing a new pope. What are the pulls and pushes that we're going to see over the coming days? So it's going to take a while. And Pope Francis will have all of the papal funeral process. And a whole lot of people have to get to Rome before they will begin a conclave.

But really, the most important thing for everyone in that room is going to be really trying to figure out and pray. Where is the Holy Spirit guiding them to really figure out?

what the church needs. And that's, you know, we're here in the United States, but it's a global church. And so kind of what we think of here often as kind of the big issues aren't always the big issues for the cardinals coming from places like Congo or El Salvador or all across the world. And Megan, you know, the Catholic Church, the Holy See, it's not unlike or not too dissimilar to a lot of

countries around the world where there are profound liberal elements of the church and profound conservative elements of the church. To what extent will they have to, I guess, agree on electing an ex-Pope? Who has maybe the upper hand, do you think? I think the reality is the majority of the College of Cardinals were elevated to the status of cardinal by Pope Francis at this point. And so I think that's going to be something that...

because he has been Pope for quite some time. I think the reality of

how to continue the level of engagement globally, not just of kind of church leaders, but of the people that happened over the last two, three years with the Synod. You had really mobilizing and conversations starting in every small diocese across the world. And so I think there is going to be attention to continuing this to be a listening church.

as Pope Francis has tried to show us how to be, to be a listening church. - And Megan Clark of St. John's, with us as we continue our coverage of markets challenged this morning, looking to the events in Washington as well, and also the death.

Pope Francis. Megan Clark again out of Fordham in Boston College just with very early work. Her book, "The Vision of Catholic Social Thought" was profound in 2014. Megan, as simple as I can, this is a Pope that had to deal with social media. I go back through my childhood, Paul, all of us in our experience. These are Popes that moved at slow motion. How does a Catholic Church

and your study of its theology, how does it change in a world of social media? It has to be more responsive and more visibly present in ways it didn't have to before. And I think we saw that with Pope Francis's attention to the environment.

He really focused our attention most on the environment and the plight of migrants around the world and did that. He knew how to do that by both what he said, but also where he went and who he met with. And he would go to the people in places. And so things like his...

first visit was to migrants at Lampedusa was something that was a pastoral choice to do, but it also was in a global media world, something that was astute. Okay, but his parents were Italian. He was in Argentina, the first pope since the 15th century, I believe, to be outside of the Italian European orbit. You're saying that is now entrenched with his work of 12 years?

I think the...

that Pope Francis made, as well as the pastoral message of really focusing our attention on the margins of society and the world and on the need to protect our common home. They were priorities before Francis, but he moved them to the center. And I think that that's something that's going to stick around.

Megan, is there a frontrunner to be the next pope? Is there maybe a geographic part of the world that maybe needs to show leadership? I think that there's really no way. I'm a scholar and a theologian, so I'm not going to—

I'm not going to play into the politics. I will say that, you know, with Pope Francis, the Holy Spirit certainly surprised everybody. So we will see. Megan, that was beautifully answered, and I'm sure the compliance at St. John's University is in awe of your ability to dodge Paul's difficult question.

Megan, what to me is so interesting, and thank you so much for getting our coverage of this process, if you will, of the Catholic Church. We all have our images, but one of them is a recent movie. Did you see Conclave? I did. I did. How off the mark was it, Professor?

Well, Hollywood always takes its liberties. But the thing that I will say about that movie is that I do think you get a sense of the difficulty that lays before the Cardinals in the coming weeks, as well as everything else aside, everybody who will be in that room to determine who will lead my church is going to be

people who in goodwill are prayerfully trying to figure out who is the best. Because it's not about ideologies. It's not about positions, theological or political. You know, you're you're electing a person and the person that Jorge and Mario Bergoglio are.

had the grace to lead the church really powerfully and beautifully. One of the highlights, most important moments of my life is getting to meet Pope Francis after working on a project in 2022. And, you know, there,

there is just something that was communicated by just being around a holy man that, yeah, they gotta try and figure out

who has the grace and the strength and the courage. - Megan Clark, thank you so much. We hope we can call on you in the next coming days. A Fulbright Scholar out of Fordham in Boston College and now at St. John's University. - Every business starts with an idea. How can you go from daydreamer to industry leader? Amazon Business accelerates your journey.

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