Whether by luck or divine intervention, our Vicar for Communications and Editor of Catholic Outlook, Br Mark O’Connor FMS was in Rome for Easter and has extended his stay to cover one of the most significant events in the Church’s history. This is his third letter.
‘It’s not easy being Pope’
We live at a Kairos moment. Our church and world desperately need spiritual and ethical leadership. One pope who powerfully provided this, and inspired millions of believers and even non-believers has now disappeared into the mystery of God. We now await a new pastoral leader with both anxiety and hope.
Some church historians are comparing it all with the year 1963. The great Pope John XIII had just died. He put forward a magnificent vision of renewal by calling the Second Vatican Council. But it was the less charismatic but balanced and capable administrator in Paul VI, who was then chosen to implement it. Could this happen again?
Of course, such a moment in history will surface many ideological and theological options. Some will tend to be extreme. As William Lynch SJ once commented: “The revolutionaries, whether on the right or the left, will attack and destroy…Persons of imagination will imagine; they will build and compose…They will not fall back on simple thrusts of the will but on acts of imagination.”
Yes, we need a Pope of pastoral imagination, compassion, authenticity and energy – someone who can connect with ordinary people. A pope who rejects the anarchist extreme capitalist philosophy of Elon Musk who recently pronounced, “The fundamental weakness of Western civilisation is empathy, the empathy exploit.” Nothing could be further from the truth of the Gospel than such a sinister ideology.
Instead, let’s constantly pray, in these days for all the Cardinals, as they discern the Holy Spirit’s presence and elect a new servant of the servants of God, for our critical times.
Let’s have prayerful empathy for all the Cardinals, whatever their ‘take’ on things, as they face this solemn and sacred duty to elect a new successor of Peter.
Dom Helder Camara in 1984. Image: Wikimedia Commons
I am reminded in these days of an incident I personally witnessed in 1985. The conclave begins on May 7. Exactly 40 years earlier on that same day, May 7, 1985, Dom Helder Camara of Recife, Brazil – during his memorable visit to Australia – attended a press conference in Melbourne.
Suddenly news came through that Leonardo Boff, the then Franciscan liberation theologian had been ‘silenced’ by Cardinal Ratzinger and this had been approved by St Pope John Paul II.
The media went into a frenzy and peppered little Dom Helder – this champion of the poor – with questions demanding that he condemn both Ratzinger and especially St Pope John Paul II for this injustice handed down on high from Rome.
The diminutive Dom Helder – who uncannily resembled E.T! – simply paused and was silent for a few moments. I think he was praying. And then he defused the commotion by gently voicing one of the most empathetic and reconciling things I have ever heard from a bishop.
‘Friends’, he quietly pronounced, “It’s not easy being Pope.”
That was it! That was his only answer! And the room fell silent. There was a sacred peace that descended, even amongst the hardened and cynical journalists present in that dingy parish hall of All Saints in the rundown inner suburb of Fitzroy, Victoria.
Dom Helder refused to categorise, polarise or rush to judgement. “Who am I to judge?” was written all over his face.
We all instantly knew we were in the presence of a man of deep holiness, humility and compassion. May we all pray to be like Dom Helder in the coming tumultuous days.
It’s not easy being Pope and it’s also very complex to elect one!
Cardinals at the translation of Pope Francis’ coffin into the Vatican Basilica on 23 April 2025. Image: Vatican Media
Amidst all the endless speculation about possible papal candidates, I offer a simple, perhaps naive way of looking at the choices ahead.
Not focusing so much on individual candidates but their ‘stances’ as the pilgrim people of God journey on. Certainly, it’s just one way of looking at the complex realities of these days.
And of course, it’s foolish in the extreme to believe that anyone can ‘predict’ accurately who will be the next pope.
But for your further reflection and research are the ‘categories’, briefly and some links.
As the people of God go forward with daring and courage (see Joshua 6:7), different paths for our pilgrim people of God seem to be emerging. The overall scene is well described in the following articles:
- A Contentious Conclave?
- Francis: A son of the Council who matures it and moves it forward
- Cardinals ask the perennial question: What does the church need?
- Conclave roundup: Parolin’s star falls, spotlight on synodality
‘Two roads diverged in the woods,’ or is it four?
Imagine ‘driving the vehicle’ of the Catholic church into the future. Some of the ‘trip planners’ have some very different instructions for our new pope as we journey ahead.
1. Reverse!
A small minority of Cardinals, the ‘usual suspects’, are openly hostile to the vision of Pope Francis and are giving belligerent speeches in the pre-conclave meetings. A key one of them German Cardinal Müller has even openly attacked Pope Francis as a ‘dictator’.
And as Austen Ivereigh has commented:
Meanwhile, the strategy of the well-organised anti-Francis pushback – lavishly funded from the United States – is already clear: to portray the pontificate as “divisive”. This allows cardinals Müller, Sarah, Burke et al. – who spent the Francis era sowing confusion and opposition against him – to pose as unifiers. Their framing has been roundly and widely refuted. “It sounds really good,” said Cardinal Czerny, who was a close ally of Francis in Rome. But it means reversal.
But as Cardinal Óscar Rodríguez Maradiaga SDB is fond of saying: “There are no reverse brakes in the church!”
2. Put the handbrake on!
There are others who seem to be suggesting they support Pope Francis’s pastoral leadership but suggest things should ‘slow down a bit’.
For this group, much discussion focuses on the gifts of Cardinal Pietro Parolin, 70, who has been Pope Francis’ second-in-command since 2013, when Francis made him Secretary of State. In that role, the cardinal is in charge of overseeing internal church affairs and guiding foreign policy. He is a good and holy man who has been a diplomat all of his priestly life. He’s never been a parish priest or a diocesan bishop.
A soft-spoken Italian and mild-mannered centrist, Cardinal Parolin is deeply familiar with the Curia, the church’s central administration, as well as the Vatican’s vast international network, having served for over 20 years as a diplomat and Under-Secretary at the Vatican-based body that oversees its international relations.
But it has to be said some of his “supporters are being far from diplomatic.”
3. Cruise Control please – let’s move forward at a steady pace!
Whilst recognising Pope Francis was unique, some Cardinals do embody a mature commitment to his vision and pastoral style as the way forward. The usual suspects are Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, from the Philippines, the “Asian Francis”; Cardinal Pizzaballa of Jerusalem; Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi of Bologna; Cardinal Cristóbal López Romero, the Archbishop of Rabat; Cardinal Grech of the Synod Office; and Cardinal Robert Prevost OSA whose names one hears as emblematic figures. See:
- Robert Prevost, the most Latin American of U.S. cardinals
- Mario Grech, defender of Pope Francis’ synod
4. Accelerate!
Finally, Cardinal Michael Czerny SJ and Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, SJ, Archbishop of Luxembourg are two prominent Jesuit leaders in the conclave who ‘symbolise’ a radical Gospel impulse to ‘accelerate’ the Pope Francis ‘model’ of the church as a “field hospital”. Both men are remarkably gifted and they are said to be fully committed to the expansion and deepening of ‘synodality’ as the path to reform the church. They are not spoken of seriously as ‘candidates’ and it’s hard to imagine another Jesuit pope – but stranger things have happened.
These are just a sampling of trends and ‘driving directions’ emerging. There are indeed many more names and pastoral nuances possible.
And if we don’t have a pope by the third day of the conclave, the chances of a complete surprise choice are quite high.
But don’t forget, we Catholics believe the Holy Spirit is ultimately the real driver in this discernment process.
One thing is certain – our dear Pope Francis has disappeared into the gracious mystery of God. Soon enough we will all follow him. God, after all, not the church as such, is our future.
The Tomb of Pope Francis. Image: Used with permission.
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National Book Award-winning writer, Patti Smith’s wrote a reflection on Pope Francis. After learning of his death on Easter Monday, she composed a poem for him and posted it on social media. Introducing the poem, she wrote, “Last night, before falling asleep, I reflected on the past twelve years with Pope Francis. Although I am not Catholic, I was drawn to his gentle, open, and steadfast sense of humanity. I felt safer knowing he was among us, doing his best to follow and preach the teachings of Christ. It is fitting that his final words to the public were strongly centered on peace. May he ascend to a loving place, visited by the doves of the air.”
As Mark Patrick Hederman OSB wisely observes: In the Christian idiom, disappearance does not mean failure or proof that something must have gone wrong. As the pilgrim People of God journeys through history, disappearance has always been necessary, so that the Spirit may come.
Hederman quotes the fine Australian poet, James McCauley aptly for our days:
“I am impatient for that loss. By which the Spirit gains”
And I leave you with some beautiful words from Kenneth Woodward:
“Pope Francis’s mode of evangelisation was altogether personal. His large bloodhound eyes took strangers in, one at a time, and the smile that emerged between his jowls said, “I see who you are.” Those same eyes went blank as window shades during must-do meetings: check out the photos of him with President Donald Trump.
Pope Francis needed to touch and to be in touch. That was his evangelistic gift. That is also the point of many of the stories that have emerged since his death. Juan Carlos Cruz, a gay Latino man I met because he had spoken out against the clerics who sexually abused him, heard at least once a month from Francis by phone and periodically visited him at the Vatican. After the Israeli army left Gaza with a single Catholic church standing, Francis called members of the parish almost daily to assure them of his continuing concern. The image of Francis embracing the disfigured head of a man with elephantiasis remains iconic.”
Pope Francis embraces Vinicio Riva after the general audience on 6 November 2013. Image: All rights and credit to Vatican Media
His personal example gave new meaning to E. M. Forster’s famous dictum, “Only connect.”
All the rest—the politics, the ideological infighting, the partisanship in and outside the coming conclave—is mere distraction. Whatever his institutional goals, the next pope will succeed if he, too, heeds the voice of the voiceless. Like Francis, he need only connect.
Very soon, one of the Cardinals will inevitably have to ponder these haunting words of Jesus, the true head of the church: “Someone else will lead you where you do not want to go” Jn 21:18.
Until my next letter.
God bless,
Brother Mark O’Connor FMS
