1. Conservative Catholics Take Stage in Rome, Looking to Shape the Church, By Elizabeth Dias, The New York Times, May 6, 2025
Brian Burch, President Trump’s nominee to be ambassador to the Holy See, dined at a head table next to Princess Gloria von Thurn und Taxis, the German aristocrat who befriended Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., and alongside current and former members of hard-right European political parties. One of them, Antonio Giordano, a member of the Italian Parliament in Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s party, welcomed the several hundred guests to Rome, and discussed their shared “urgency of protecting the family.”
“Only together we can effectively conquer the demographic winter,” he said, nodding to low birthrates and a push for pronatalist policies.
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Officially, the Catholic church was in a nine-day period of mourning following Pope Francis’ funeral. But in Rome, by happenstance of previous scheduling — or by divine providence, as some organizers believe — what has come to be called “America Week” was also taking place.
An annual elite fund-raising week for Catholic projects, America Week is largely led by influential conservative Catholic organizations that are united in their commitment to advancing traditional principles concerning marriage, faith and family.
It started in connection with the Papal Foundation, a U.S.-based charity that raises millions of dollars for Vatican projects through donations that start at seven figures.
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The Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty, a policy group that endorses free-market economics, held a conference for entrepreneurs. The world’s largest Catholic news organization, EWTN, hosted a dinner on the roof of the Waldorf Astoria. Film producers spoke with philanthropists about potential projects.
The NAPA Institute, a conservative Catholic-oriented network, led a “once in a lifetime” pilgrimage for the Jubilee Year, in which guests stayed at the Hotel de Russie and had a private dinner with Cardinal James Harvey at the garden outside his residence to honor his 50 years as a priest. Cardinal Harvey is one of the 10 American cardinals with a vote in electing the next pope.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/06/us/conclave-pope-conservative-catholics.html
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2. Survivors Urge Cardinals to Discuss Sex Abuse Crisis in Choosing Next Pope, By Elisabetta Povoledo, The New York Times, May 6, 2025. Pg A8
Cardinals are not the only ones who have arrived in Rome for the conclave to pick Pope Francis’ successor.
Since Francis’ death last month, survivors of sexual abuse and those who monitor the Roman Catholic Church’s handling of abuse cases have also arrived, hoping to persuade cardinals to make the issue a priority when considering who should next be pope.
“I think it’s very important to remind them that we will not go away,” said Matthias Katsch, a Berlin-based board member of Ending Clergy Abuse, an advocacy group that represents survivors from 20 countries.
Matteo Bruni, the Vatican spokesman, said on Friday that during pre-conclave meetings this past week the cardinals had discussed sexual abuse in the church, and considered it a “wound to be kept open” so that awareness of the problem remained alive and concrete paths for healing can be identified.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/05/world/europe/pope-cardinals-sex-abuse.html
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3. In choosing a pope, cardinals will call on a partner: The Holy Spirit, By Michelle Boorstein and Anthony Faiola. The Washington Post, May 6, 2025, 3:00 AM
As the cardinals walk into the Sistine Chapel on Wednesday evening to open the papal conclave, they’ll chant the plaintive prayer that their forebears have sung for centuries: Veni Creator Spiritus. Come Holy Spirit.
The process of selecting a pope is fully a blend of the political and the spiritual, theologians and cardinals say, an effort to take all the humanness and experiences of the men in the conclave and partner with the Holy Spirit — in Christian belief, an equal person of the Trinity, with the Father and the Son — to decide together the leader the Church needs.
The Holy Spirit is like the backstage star of the conclave.
One theologian compares the concept to “the deep music in a song, the deep bass line” under the rhythm and melody. Some cardinals use Holy Spirit-accessing rituals that sound a bit like cognitive behavioral therapy. Pope Benedict XVI said it’s more like a “good educator” who doesn’t pick the pope but encourages.
It could play a unique role this year, cardinals and theologians say. The conclave to choose a successor to Pope Francis — 133 cardinal electors — will be the largest ever. For the great majority of cardinals, it will be their first. Those who were created in recent years — Francis named his last group in December — are unlikely to know many of their peers. Two dozen come from countries that have never participated in a conclave.
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Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, writing in 2013 on the conclave that elected Francis, praised the prayers of St. Ignatius. “If you put a lot of thought, time, and prayer into making a decision, once you make it — tough as it is — you’ll sense some interior serenity and peace.”
But “most of the time,” he wrote, “God doesn’t answer audibly. When people say they actually hear God’s voice, we usually call Bellevue Hospital and ask if they’ve got room for another patient.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/05/06/holy-spirit-role-papal-conclave/
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4. How EWTN is shaping US conservative Catholic views of the papal conclave, By Helen Coster and Joseph Ax, Reuters, May 6, 2025, 5:53 AM
As cardinals gather in Rome this week to select the next pope, global news networks covering every twist and turn will be competing against a small but influential Catholic broadcaster based in the Alabama town of Irondale.
The Eternal Word Television Network was launched by a nun named Mother Angelica in the garage of the town’s Our Lady of the Angels monastery in 1981.
Since then, it has grown into a global media conglomerate with nearly a dozen TV stations, a book publishing division, a newspaper and radio affiliates.
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The majority of EWTN programming deals with the Catholic ministry: broadcasting Mass, specials on saints, rosary prayers and talk shows centered on family, marriage and faith.
“I think EWTN has a great deal of influence on certain portions of the Catholic population in the U.S.,” said James Martin, an American Jesuit priest, writer and editor-at-large of America, the Jesuit magazine. “Many Catholics, even if they may not agree with their commentary at times, find them to be the place where they turn for church news and events.”
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Some of the network’s programming was critical of Francis, who denounced Trump’s mass deportation plans in February and broke from tradition by allowing priests to perform same-sex marriage blessings.
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Montse Alvarado, president and chief operating officer of EWTN News, said EWTN gave Francis a platform by broadcasting his words and letting him speak for himself – a reflection of the network’s love for him.
https://www.reuters.com/world/meet-us-catholic-tv-network-that-drew-ire-pope-francis-2025-05-06/
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5. New York Deserves Better than State-Sanctioned Suicide, By Timothy Michael Cardinal Dolan, First Things, May 6, 2025
Over the past two weeks, the world has witnessed a tremendous outpouring of love for Pope Francis, who died on Easter Monday, April 21.
His last public appearance was just the day before as he struggled to give his Easter blessing from the balcony overlooking St. Peter’s Square.
Our Holy Father, always a wise teacher, was not afraid to let us watch him die, much like his beloved predecessor, Pope St. John Paul II. Both men knew that our worth is based on who we are as children of God, not on what we can do.
Perhaps that is why what occurred this past Tuesday in Albany when the New York State Assembly voted 81-67 to approve a bill that would allow physician-assisted suicide, which its supporters euphemistically call “medical aid in dying,” struck me so hard.
This bill is a disaster waiting to happen.
For people of faith who believe in the sanctity of life from conception to natural death, the very idea of having a doctor give you a prescription to end your life prematurely is contrary to everything we cherish. When life ends is in God’s hands, not man’s. As the Bible says, no one knows the day or the hour.
But one need not be religious to see that assisted suicide is a terrible idea. It is a classic Pandora’s Box; once opened, its consequences cannot be contained.
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Pope Francis had much to say about assisted suicide in 2019: “[O]ne can and must reject the temptation-induced also by legislative changes-to use medicine to support a possible desire for death by the patient, providing assistance to suicide or causing death directly with euthanasia.” He called assisted suicide a “discarding of the patient” and “false compassion”-not, as its advocates might claim, an expression of a person’s freedom. New York and all our states can do better than this. Let us instead focus our formidable efforts on strengthening care for people at the end of life. They are finishing the race. Let them go with their hands held high, the way God and nature intended.
https://firstthings.com/new-york-deserves-better-than-state-sanctioned-suicide/
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6. Why I Want the Next Pope to Help Lost Souls Find Their Way, By Ashley McGuire, National Catholic Register, May 5, 2025, Commentaries
The Catholic Church — the role of the papacy in particular — first caught my attention when I was a semi-lapsed Protestant attending a quintessentially secular, Marxist-leaning university in Boston.
Reading The New York Times in the dining hall, I stopped at the story about Pope Benedict’s so-called “Regensburg Address.”
“What had this elderly and strangely dressed figurehead said that had people fire-torching convents?” I wondered to myself. I went back to my dorm room and printed it out and read it in one sitting.
It pierced my mind with its depth and clarity. After four years of moral relativism with an intellectual veneer, I was not accustomed to reading anything so strikingly … bold. A total takedown of relativism, it was written on a moral and intellectual plane I had never encountered.
This led to more Catholic reading, and it didn’t take long before Pope St. John Paul II’s theology of the body made its way to my desk.
I became Catholic two years later.
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Pope Francis, who himself embodied mercy and compassion, so vividly likened the role of the Church to that of a “field hospital after battle.” In a world rife with suicide, abortion, sex-trafficking, divorce, loneliness and hopelessness, that hospital needs more and more beds.
But sometimes the medicine is harsh or tastes rather bitter in a world that has soured on the truth.
As Pope Benedict once replied to a reporter trying to goad him with a question about the Inquisition, “Love is always linked to the truth, and if one separates love and truth, it is no longer love but a caricature of it. For example, if we have a drug addict, love is not to have him confirmed in drugs. … True love is to set him free even if he opposes. And so I would say true love is to help someone find the way.”
He helped me find the way. My hope and prayer is for a pope who can help others as well, with clarity, courage and compassion.
Ashley McGuire Ashley McGuire is a Senior Fellow with The Catholic Association, and author of ‘Sex Scandal: The Drive to Abolish Male and Female.’ She also co-hosts the nationally syndicated radio show, ‘Conversations with Consequences’ airing on EWTN radio. She lives in the Washington, D.C. area with her husband and five children.
https://www.ncregister.com/commentaries/why-i-want-the-next-pope-to-help-lost-souls-find-way-mcguire
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7. Next pope won’t be a woman. And that’s OK with Catholic women like me, Ashley McGuire, USA Today, May 6. 2025, Opinion
I can predict only one thing with certainty about the next pope: He will be 100% biologically male.
That fact and that he will be chosen by an all-male College of Cardinals, which convenes May 7, to lead a global institution that refuses to compromise on its teaching concerning an all-male priesthood will strike many as antiquated and even offensive.
Today, the prevailing view among cultural elites has rendered them unable – or more likely, unwilling – to define what a woman is, even in the most basic biological sense.
And while our contemporary Western culture struggles to delineate “woman” in the year 2025, the church has been fine-tuning its teachings on her as complement to man while fully his equal since anno Domini (A.D.) year 1.
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More than 2,000 years later, the church’s teachings on women remain radically countercultural. The church stands boldly athwart of a post-Christian culture where women are commodified, objectified and exploited through promiscuity and prostitution, sex trafficking, artificial reproductive technology and toxic reproductive pharmaceuticals, abortion and surrogacy.
Further, the church has been unflinching in its opposition to gender ideology, the logical ends of which erase women as a category, and at great cost to our basic legal standing and foundational human rights.
But because the Catholic Church does not ordain women as priests, according to social elite label makers, it must be sexist!
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In the 15 years since I entered the church after reading a series of Catholic thinkers on human sexuality, I have yet to meet a single Catholic woman of any political stripe, socioeconomic, professional or marital status, or age who has expressed frustration over the fact that the priesthood is all male. We love our priests. We do not want to be them.
The Catholic women I know – and I meet weekly in a church basement with a diverse group of them – are grappling with the same struggles as other women such as the pain of infertility, marital conflict, addiction and the challenge of forming happy families in a culture defined by radical individualism.
To us, the church is a source of community and boundless consolation. Being a Catholic woman is not about power but about love, self-sacrifice and friendship. These were the deeper hallmarks of Christ’s ministries, and they define authentically Christian life.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2025/05/06/pope-conclave-catholic-church-cardinals-women/83454359007/
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8. How the Next Pope Can Support Faithful Catholic Politicians, By Daniel Lipinski, First Things, May 6, 2025
Because our government has increasingly undermined religious liberty and the protection of genuine human dignity, there has never been a greater need for faithful Catholics in public service. Though I spent sixteen years in Congress, it was during the last eight-under the papacy of Pope Francis-that I gained a deeper understanding of how a pope can positively and negatively impact Catholic politicians striving to live the fullness of the faith. As we await the proclamation “Habemus papam,” I humbly offer some of the lessons I learned.
Pope Francis famously implored priests to “be shepherds with the smell of sheep”; to be present with their people. To his credit, Francis practiced this with politicians throughout his papacy, up until his final day when he met with Vice President JD Vance.
I had the opportunity to meet with Francis three times, as he held private audiences annually with representatives of the International Catholic Legislators Network, along with their families and staff. This is no liberal group; all attendees must demonstrate support of all Catholic doctrine in their public service. At these audiences, the pope took the time to meet with every person in the room. His warm greeting conveyed the value he placed on us, our families, and our work.
Pope Francis’s 2015 visit to Washington and his address to Congress-the first by a pope-was also a sign of encouragement for our service as representatives. In a country that is more than three-quarters non-Catholic, his presence was a boost for all Catholic politicians.
While this aspect of Francis’s papacy will always be fondly remembered, I cannot say the same about some of his freewheeling public statements. Very early on, I experienced how these comments could be used as a cudgel against faithful Catholic politicians.
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As a professor, I know this approach is a valuable pedagogical tool. In the real world, however, the devil and his allies thrive in chaos. It not only facilitates the type of direct attack I described; it introduces confusion into the consciences of Catholics struggling to be faithful in the face of tremendous political pressure. I rarely saw this internal battle end well.
I will always be appreciative of Pope Francis’s commitment to be present for those of us serving in public life. I am hopeful his successor will continue this approach. However, if we are going to see more Catholics living faithfully in the public square, this presence will need to be accompanied by greater clarity and less ambiguity in the communication of God’s truth.
https://firstthings.com/how-the-next-pope-can-support-faithful-catholic-politicians/
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9. Meet the conclave: Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline, The Pillar, May 6, 2025
In 1962, when Jean-Marc Aveline was almost four years old, his family hurriedly packed up their belongings and left Algeria, where they had lived for four generations.
The Avelines were pieds-noirs — settlers of European descent born on North African soil — and saw no future in Algeria after the country gained its independence from France after a brutal seven-year war.
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In 2019, Pope Francis named Aveline Pontier’s successor, placing him at the head of a roughly 741,000-strong Catholic community in a gritty, colorful city.
Aveline has been described as a disciple of the Jesuit theologian Henri de Lubac and the hermit St. Charles de Foucauld. He is also said to be “obsessed” with the theme of communion within the Church.
When Pope Francis launched a crackdown on the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass in 2021, Aveline reportedly reached out promptly to traditionalists in his diocese. Six months later, he celebrated an Extraordinary Form Mass at Marseille’s Saint-Charles parish.
Critics have accused Aveline of sitting on the fence on divisive Church questions, while supporters argue that he prioritizes consensus over individual viewpoints. When asked, for example, whether the Church needed married priests, he once replied: “Oh, I don’t know about that. These are questions that do not depend on opinions but on the needs of God’s people.”
Aveline received the cardinal’s red hat in 2022. Pope Francis signaled his appreciation again for Aveline a year later, when he made a two-day visit to Marseille, despite his wish to limit his European travels to the continent’s cultural and economic “peripheries.” The papal trip boosted the visibility of Aveline’s Rencontres Méditerranéennes initiative, which sought to promote communion among bishops in the countries around the Mediterranean Sea through regular meetings.
During the final session of the synod on synodality in 2024, Aveline was elected to the XVI Ordinary Council of the General Secretariat of the Synod, a body serving as a bridge between synodal assemblies.
https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/meet-the-conclave-cardinal-jean-marc
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10. Trump administration asks judge to toss suit restricting access to abortion medication, By Lindsay Whitehurst and Rebecca Boone, The Associated Press, May 6, 2025, 7:46 AM
The Trump administration has asked a judge to toss out a lawsuit from three Republican-led states seeking to cut off telehealth access to the abortion medication mifepristone .
Justice Department attorneys on Monday stayed the legal course charted by the Biden administration, though they didn’t directly weigh in on the underlying issue of access to the drug, which is part of the nation’s most common method of abortion.
Rather, the government argued the states don’t have the legal right, or standing, to sue.
“The states are free to pursue their claims in a district where venue is proper, but the states’ claims before this court must be dismissed or transferred pursuant to the venue statute’s mandatory command,” federal government attorneys wrote.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/05/05/abortion-medication-mifepristone/9338d892-2a02-11f0-a724-3bc879c9f843_story.html
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11. Letters from Rome 2025—The Papal Interregnum No. 8, By Xavier Rynne II, First Things, May 6, 2025
This will be the last in the papal interregnum series of Letters from Rome 2025.
The conclave to elect the 267th bishop of Rome will begin tomorrow with the Mass for the Election of the Roman Pontiff. In the afternoon, the cardinal-electors will process from the Pauline Chapel of the Apostolic Palace to the Sistine Chapel, where they will take their conclave oath, hear an allocution, and take a first vote. Assuming that first vote is not decisive, the electors will take two votes each morning, and two votes each afternoon, until a two-thirds majority is achieved, thus electing the 267th bishop of Rome.
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Carnal and Holy, Sacred and Profane, By Francis X. Maier
The Basilica of San Clemente is one of Rome’s treasures. It’s also a metaphor of the city itself. The upper church, dating from the twelfth century, is a stunning mix of mosaic and early Renaissance frescoes. But it’s merely the surface crust of a deeper and more complex experience. Below is the original basilica from the fourth century, with Byzantine and medieval frescoes ranging from the eighth to eleventh centuries. And below that is a series of Roman buildings from the late republic and imperial eras, including an altar to Mithras, the god of a popular mystery religion especially widespread in Rome’s legions. At the very bottom is a channel dating back to an early Roman water system.
Today’s Rome has layers as well. But they’re of a different sort. The city’s surface is a riot of carnality: gelato stands; restaurants; shrieking sirens; impossible traffic; body to body mobs of confused tourists, pious pilgrims, and professional beggars; cheesy religious article stores; a Capuchin crypt adorned with the bones of dead monks; Carabinieri with effusively overdone uniforms; the fashionista shops of Via Condotti; the Colosseum, Baths of Caracalla, and endless ruins amid the Jubilee Year’s portable toilets, scores of Christian churches, thousands of clergy and religious, and nonstop modern hustle.
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The heart of John Colet’s life and ministry, in a time of widespread confusion and deep corruption, was his call to repentance for sin, conversion of heart, a passionate evangelical witness, and a life of choices and actions that radiate God’s love and the truth of the gospel. Colet saw this as the only source of enduring reform and renewed Church life—the only answer to the crises and failures of his own time—and the essential task of what he called a “divine reformation” of Church and world, beginning again from a personal encounter with the foundations of the Christian faith.
The same applies to the world we face today. So for whomever emerges from this conclave as our next Holy Father, may God give him the wisdom and strength to live and lead accordingly.
Francis X. Maier is a senior fellow in Catholic studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and the author of True Confessions: Voices of Faith from a Life in the Church.
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What We Need Now, By Noelle Mering
Record numbers of young adults came into the Catholic Church on Easter weekend. The statistics are regionally mixed, but they confound the cynics. In France, over 17,000 catechumens were baptized during the Easter Vigil, marking a 45 percent increase in adult baptisms compared to the previous year and the highest number since records began in 2002. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles welcomed the highest number in a decade. Other U.S. dioceses report 24 percent increases in young adult baptisms compared to 2024. The United Kingdom saw a similar surge.
Then, on Easter Monday, they learned that Pope Francis—the 265th successor to Peter, but the first pope that they understood to be theirs—had died. A reflection on what the Church needs in its next papacy should consider this remarkable return of many young people to the faith.
What is striking is not only the number of young people entering the Church, but that they have done so after being formed—indeed, malformed—by a culture that relentlessly promised them a liberatory, god-like autonomy, warned them of the “oppression” and “bigotry” of the moral law, and raised them with a dogmatic rebellion to tradition.
https://firstthings.com/letters-from-rome-2025-the-papal-interregnum-no-8/
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12. ‘Papabile’ of the Day: Cardinal Fernando Filoni, By John L. Allen Jr., Crux, May 6, 2025
Each day between now and the May 7 conclave to elect a successor to Pope Francis, John Allen is offering a profile of a different papabile, the Italian term for a man who could be pope.
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At times there can be an odd dynamic to a papal election, almost like a tape delay, according to which candidates get their real bite at the apple in the conclave after the one in which they attracted the most attention.
Such was the case for Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina, who was a hot pick in 2005 and the runner-up in that conclave, yet he didn’t get elected until eight years later following the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI.
The reason for the tape delay is often simple: Age. When a candidate first bursts into prominence, they’re often judged too young, in the sense that their papacy would be too long. By the time another few years have passed they’re often right in the wheelhouse, with the ironic result that their chances go up even as conventional wisdom says their moment has already passed.
If there’s a potential contender for whom the same tape delay dynamic might play out today, it could well be 79-year-old Cardinal Fernando Filoni, who was widely mentioned as a possibility in 2013 but has somewhat flown below radar this time around.
Should his fellow cardinals decide to dust off Filoni’s résumé, they’d be reminded of a major selling point that came up twelve years ago: “The pope who didn’t blink when bombs fell on Baghdad.”
The reference is to April 2003, when Filoni was serving as the papal ambassador in Iraq. At a time when other diplomats fled for safety, as well as U.N. officials and journalists, Filoni refused to leave, saying he couldn’t abandon the local Catholic community and other suffering Iraqis.
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In an era of deep geopolitical uncertainty, Filoni may strike many cardinals as a safe pair of hands, someone with the diplomatic background and personal experience to be able to play on the world stage and not be out of his depth.
In general, Filoni could strike electors as a choice for broad continuity with the geopolitical and social agenda of the Francis papacy, but greater personal stability and reserve – which, frankly, might be a very attractive option.
https://cruxnow.com/papal-transition/2025/05/papabile-of-the-day-cardinal-fernando-filoni
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13. Vatican honors 167 Catholics killed in 2019 Sri Lanka Easter Sunday bombings, By Tessa Gervasini, Catholic News Agency, May 6, 2025, 7:00 AM
The archbishop of Colombo, Sri Lanka, announced this week that the 167 Catholics killed in the Sri Lanka Easter Sunday bombings in 2019 will be included on the list of “Witnesses of Faith” established by Pope Francis.
Inspired by an apostolic letter by Pope John Paul II, who wanted to ensure the legacy of the “unknown soldiers of God’s great cause” was not lost, Pope Francis created the Commission of the New Martyrs – Witnesses of the Faith in 2023. Francis sought to acknowledge Catholics who have lost their lives while professing their faith in the first quarter of the 21st century. Compiled by the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints in preparation for the 2025 Jubilee Year, the list is an ongoing catalogue of Christian martyrs who, the Holy Father said, “are witnesses of the hope that comes from faith in Christ.”
On April 21, 2019, terrorists bombed two Catholic churches, St. Sebastian’s and St. Anthony’s; an evangelical church; three hotels; and a private residence in Sri Lanka, killing more than 260 people.
Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, who has been the archbishop of Colombo since 2009, said that Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, has included the names of the 167 Catholics who died on the Witnesses of the Faith list, “considering the context of their heroism.”
Ranjith said they are being included to “honor their sacrifice.”
This past weekend, St. Anthony Church in Colombo held a vigil to honor the lives lost during the fatal bombings. Hundreds of people, including Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, and Islamic religious leaders, attended the gathering.
Following his attendance at the vigil, Ranjith traveled to the Vatican to take part in the conclave.
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/263861/catholic-church-honors-167-martyrs-killed-in-2019-sri-lanka-easter-bombings
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14. Counting to 89: Who can, what if they can’t, and then what?, There are a couple of ways and a couple of cardinals who might get to two-thirds of the electoral votes – and a few surprises possible if they don’t, By Ed Condon, The Pillar, May 05, 2025
After nearly two weeks of public mourning and private politicking, it is now fewer than two days until 133 cardinals retreat into conclave and begin the actual business of voting for the next pope.
A week is a very long time in politics, and even longer ahead of one of the most open papal elections in a half-century. And while the front runners remain the same, more or less, none of the names in common conversation look likely to march into Wednesday’s first ballot with numbers enough to persuade undecided cardinals that they are the inevitable choice.
Shortly after the funeral of Pope Francis, supporters of Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the erstwhile Secretary of State, were quietly confident that he would muster as many as 50 of the 89 votes needed to be elected when the first ballot is held Wednesday afternoon.
You don’t hear that kind of confidence, or the number 50, being put around quite so much now, after the cardinals have had a few days to reflect on his record in office and his personal reputation as a (un)reliable leader, though he still seems likely to poll at around 40.
Similarly, Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle emerged early as the other front runner, drawing very heavily on the expanded block of Asian cardinals and being pitched as the kind of young, dynamic preacher and emotional communicator who could continue in the Francis line.
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For a conclave allegedly looking for a return to good governance, that’s not nothing.
Other candidates that could come out suddenly strong after a deadlocked day three would be Cardinals Fridolin Ambongo of Kinshasa and Jean-Marc Aveline of Marseille, both of whom likely will go into the conclave with relatively small initial vote counts to their names.
While neither is in the front rank of candidates right now, both have broader swathes of sympathy and interest among the electors than the day one vote is likely to show. Both men have seen their natural bases of support (Africa and Europe, conservative and liberal) spread around supposedly more viable candidates of the gang of four frontrunners.
But, in the event those frontrunners begin to look like a busted flush, both cardinals could make a sudden jump to the front of the running.
At least that is how it looks for now.
With two days to go before the conclave begins, there is still time for a surprise or two.
https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/counting-to-89-who-can-what-if-they
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15. What Name Will the Next Pope Choose?, By Matthew McDonald, National Catholic Register, May 5, 2025
One of the first things billions will learn about the new pope, even before he steps onto the balcony overlooking St. Peter’s Square, is the name he has chosen.
After Cardinal Dominique Mamberti proclaims “Habemus Papam!” he will announce the supreme pontiff’s Christian name, then his surname. Then finally, he’ll reveal his regnal name — the one that will follow the word “Pope.”
Most likely, nobody will have ever called him that before. And after it’s announced, most people will never call him anything else.
It’s the first message a new pope sends — even before he speaks.
“I think the choice of name is extremely important and will set the tone for the entire papacy,” Karen Park, professor of theology and religious studies at St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wisconsin, told the Register by email.
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A pope can keep his own name if he chooses. Most popes during the first 1,000 years of the Church did.
But since 996, only two of the 170 popes have kept their birth names upon election: Adrian VI (1522-1523), from what is now the Netherlands, and Marcellus II (1555), from what is now east-central Italy.
In modern times, one of a new pope’s first informal acts is to explain why he chose the new name he took.
Pope Francis in 2013 cited St. Francis of Assisi, the 13th-century paragon of humility and poverty. Pope Benedict XVI in 2005 pointed to the peacemaker Pope Benedict XV (1914-1922) and St. Benedict, the sixth-century founder of Western monasticism. St. John Paul II in 1978 is widely thought to have favored Stanislaus as a papal name, after the 11th-century Polish bishop and martyr, but instead chose John Paul to honor his immediate predecessor of that name and the two popes who led the Church through the Second Vatican Council.
https://www.ncregister.com/features/what-name-will-the-next-pope-choose
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16. New Pope Must Correct the Declining Course of Catholicism in Latin America, By Father Raymond J. de Souza, National Catholic Register, May 5, 2025, Commentaries
A plurality of the Catholic Church is in Latin America, at roughly 40% of the global Catholic population. The election of the Argentinian Pope Francis in 2013 brought fresh hope for a new flourishing of the Church in his native continent.
It has not turned out that way, and the dozen years of the pontificate have marked a falling backwards of the Church in Latin America. This papacy’s failure to improve the fortunes of the faith in Latin America has four main aspects: persecution, social doctrine, missionary withering and poor governance.
The health of the Church in Latin America is therefore a pressing issue for the cardinal-electors heading into the conclave, which will begin Wednesday. That requires a clear-eyed assessment of the current situation.
Latin America cannot be a marginal issue for the conclave; its sheer demographic weight means that is central. Pope Francis was able to bring something of the popular piety of his region to the Vatican — the papal Mass for Our Lady of Guadalupe is now a fixed annual appointment at St. Peter’s — as well as a sense of theology that resonates with the experience of the ordinary faithful.
How often did the Holy Father praise the wisdom of the abuela? Nevertheless, the Church in Latin American faces serious challenges — which requires the Church universal, in the person of the next pope, to pay attention.
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Despite hints about visiting his native Argentina over the last seven years, it was clear to close observers of the pontificate that he would never risk going back to Argentina, lest a visit do the same damage as it did in Chile. Far from being able to make a papal visit, Pope Francis struggled even to appoint bishops in the capital region, with multiple resignations in La Plata and Mar del Plata.
The first Latin American pontificate brought greater attention to Latin America. That attention needs to be sustained, with the cardinal-electors choosing a man who might built on what Pope Francis established and make the needed course corrections for the future.
https://www.ncregister.com/commentaries/de-souza-new-pope-correct-decline-catholicism-latin-america
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17. How the People’s Pope shielded sexual predators in the clergy – including one priest accused of violently raping nuns, By Damian Thompson, Daily Mail, May 3, 2025
When the world’s cardinals met in Rome last Monday for the first of their crucial pre-conclave discussions, they raised ‘the issue of clerical abuse’, according to a Vatican spokesman.
The cardinals are forbidden to reveal anything that was said.
But behind closed doors, the preparations for the conclave – which starts on Wednesday – are already mired in scandal.
Aside from doubts about the true age of Philippe Ouedraogo, a cardinal from Burkina Faso whom some claim is 80, meaning he’s too old to vote, and concerns about the presence of the Peruvian cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani, who faces sexual abuse allegations (which he denies), several cardinals have torn into the legacy of the late Pope Francis.
‘We have listened to many complaints against Francis’s papacy in these days’, one unnamed cardinal told America Magazine, a Jesuit publication.
In any case, we can be certain that Monday’s debate was haunted by a series of jaw-dropping scandals whose details are unknown to the vast majority of the 400,000 Catholics who attended Pope Francis’s funeral a week ago.
If they had known, the crowds would have been much smaller.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14675793/Peoples-Pope-shielded-sexual-predators-clergy-priest-accused-violently-raping-nuns.html
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TCA Media Monitoring provides a snapshot from national newspapers and major Catholic press outlets of coverage regarding significant Catholic Church news and current issues with which the Catholic Church is traditionally or prominently engaged. The opinions and views expressed in the articles do not necessarily reflect the views of The Catholic Association.
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