Pope Francis: funeral, conclave and beyond
2025/4/26
Reuters World News
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Jessica DiNapoli
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Philip Pallela
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Tara Oaks
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播音员
主持著名true crime播客《Crime Junkie》的播音员和创始人。
播音员: 我认为教宗方济各的去世对许多人来说如同失去一位家人成员，他是一位平易近人、虔诚的教会领袖，他使教会更容易亲近。他的离世标志着一个时代的结束，也开启了教会未来走向的新篇章。下个月，枢机主教们将在西斯廷教堂选举他的继任者，这将对天主教教会的未来产生深远的影响。
Philip Pallela: 教宗方济各的去世氛围比教宗若望保禄二世时更平静，因为他去世时比较私密。他的教宗任期复杂，部分原因是本笃十六世在世，且保守派质疑方济各的教宗地位。方济各的遗产在于他尽可能地接触社会边缘群体，例如移民、穷人和被社会忽视的人群。他是一位友好、人性化且注重个人关系的人，我曾多次采访他，他总是很乐意与人交流。然而，他在解决教会性侵丑闻方面不够成功，尽管他努力尝试，起初他并没有充分认识到问题的严重性。
Jessica DiNapoli: 美国天主教在全球天主教中虽然占比不高，但在美国国内及全球影响力都很大。美国天主教内部存在保守派和自由派的分裂，他们与方济各的观点存在差异。美国保守派天主教徒反对方济各在同性恋婚姻祝福和移民问题上的立场。自由派天主教徒赞同方济各在社会正义和环境问题上的立场。美国天主教保守派兴起是出于对教会变得过于自由化以及西方社会自由化趋势的反应。美国保守派枢机主教可能与非洲保守派枢机主教结盟，以影响下一任教宗的选举。
Tara Oaks: 教宗选举的教宗选举会议是一个秘密且庄严的仪式，大约133名枢机主教将参加。教宗选举会议在西斯廷教堂举行，枢机主教们宣誓保密。枢机主教们每天进行四次投票，如果获得三分之二多数票，则选举产生新教宗。投票结果通过烟雾颜色来公布：白烟表示选出新教宗，黑烟则表示未选出。新教宗当选后，会在“泪之室”换上白袍，然后在圣彼得大教堂阳台上宣布当选。教宗选举结果难以预测，许多被认为是理想人选的人最终并未当选。帕罗林枢机主教和塔格莱枢机主教是潜在的教宗人选，塔格莱枢机主教如果当选，将是首位来自亚洲的教宗。枢机主教们需要决定下一任教宗的政策方向：是延续方济各的进步政策，还是采取更保守的路线。帕罗林枢机主教被认为是中间派人选，更容易获得不同派别的支持。欧洲天主教徒人数下降，枢机主教们需要考虑是否选择来自亚洲或非洲等天主教发展地区的人选。下一任教宗很可能会比方济各更保守，但极端保守派人选不太可能当选。新教宗需要在保持连续性的同时，解决教会面临的重大问题。
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It's a very composed atmosphere. I would say that it's less emotional than it was when Pope John Paul II died, ... Francis did not live in those papal apartments. 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, etc. There were a couple of doctors and nurses in there, but for the most part, he died a very private life.
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 the 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've been pushed aside to the periphery, people who live in communities that been overlooked. I think that they will feel the greatest loss in the passing of Pope Francis.
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 an 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.
Yes. 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... acknowledged 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' funeral is going to be a who's who gathering of world leaders, right? President Trump will be there, Volodymyr 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 the United States, obviously, with a 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. people of a country, for the most part, okay?
Well, in the grand scheme of things, when you look at global Catholicism, U.S. Catholics are less than 10%, 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 that.
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
There is 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 St. same-sex couples.
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 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 and 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 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.
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.
There's a mass that is a procession into the Sistine Chapel, and one by one they take an oath 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.
Anyway, 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 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 the 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 papam, 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 conclave 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.
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 Tagre. He is now a Vatican official in Rome, but he is Filipino.
He was once the Cardinal-Elect Bishop 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 a 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 staid, 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 that Padillin is also one of the frontrunners is because he's right there in the middle. He could get both progressive votes and conservative conservative votes, whereas Tagliatelle 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.
Europe is in great decline. These traditionally Catholic countries like France, Italy, Spain, and Portugal, church attendance is way down in all of them. So the Cardinals will have to decide, do we want somebody from the old continent that basically represents where Catholicism is not being as practiced at any level near where it was, or Or do we want to be bold and elect somebody from places where the church is growing in Asia?
I think it's almost a given that he'll be more conservative than Francis was. Whether it 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. He appointed moderates. They didn't attack him publicly. 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 Cardinals will be looking for is a certain amount of continuity. The new Pope can't just say,
And day one, whoever's chosen.
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 a 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 marginalized in the past, whether it's going to be very important if the 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.
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