Updated April 22, 2025 at 13:33 PM ET
The death of Pope Francis has billions wondering who will succeed him – and what direction he will take the Catholic Church.
The next pope will be selected during conclave, a secretive gathering of cardinals from all over the world. All cardinals under the age of 80 can vote and a two-thirds majority is required to win. Conclaves are supposed begin 15-20 days after a pope's death or resignation.
Several factors will contribute to the selection process, including the diversity of thought among the voting cardinals and the current political state across the globe.
Massimo Faggioli, a professor of theology and religious studies at Villanova University and expert on the papacy, told Morning Edition all these factors will make it more difficult than usual to predict how the conclave will vote.
"So it's really a much more complicated chemistry this time, because also there's a very complicated international situation which affects different cardinals, different local churches in different ways," he said.
He added that the conclave is known to have its own way of thinking and not sure what an alliance with the United States may look like.
Faggioli spoke with NPR's Leila Fadel about the future direction of the Catholic Church following the death of Pope Francis.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Interview highlights
Leila Fadel: Cardinals that Pope Francis appointed come from every corner of the world with very different experiences and perspectives. How will that diversity shape the kind of leader they might choose?
Massimo Faggioli: We don't know. That's the mystery of the conclave always. But this time, particularly because being appointed cardinal by Francis means something for a cardinal from Asia. It means something else from Africa. It means something else for Chicago or Washington, D.C. or even New York. So it's really a much more complicated chemistry this time, because also there's a very complicated international situation which affects different cardinals, different local churches in different ways. And so this time, it's even more difficult than usual to make predictions even on the agenda of the conclave.
Fadel: You talk about the complicated political situation worldwide. Right now that's being shaped by wars, civil instability and polarization, and that includes the U.S. What role might that play in choosing a new pope?
Faggioli: Well, in the last century, it was clear that the Vatican and the United States were working like two parallel empires, one with hard and soft power, and the Vatican only soft power, of course. So there was this alliance, which went through difficult times like Iraq war and so on, but it was pretty stable. Right now it's much harder to understand if this alliance is still there and what kind of relationship there is because of what's happening between the U.S. government and the Catholic Church domestically, but also internationally. And so this might be a factor because the conclave has its own geopolitical thinking. Let's think about John Paul II, elected from Poland in 1978 during the Cold War. And so we don't know what it means now, but surely it's a factor that we did not have in conclaves of the previous hundred years.
Fadel: Say more about that. Is this going to be a pope then that engages politically differently?
Faggioli: All popes engage politically. This time, it might be a pope who is called to speak truth, not just to Russia or the Soviet Union, as it was during John Paul II, but meaning speaking truth also to American power, which means now something different from the truth that John Paul II or Pope Benedict spoke to George W. Bush or to Ronald Reagan. U.S. Catholicism is one of the biggest, most influential and the richest churches in the world. And so there are many different factors that the election of the pope has to take into account. Once America was a known known. Now it's a known unknown because of what the administration might do with Russia, with China and with Israel. There are so many unknowns now.
Fadel: Well, let's talk about Pope Francis's image. I mean, he was seen as a more liberal pope from issues on inclusion of LGBTQ Catholics to migrant populations. Could the next pope move to distance the church from those positions or continue that?
Faggioli: It's possible. Historically, we see in different conclaves a certain swinging of the pendulum. What the conclave and the next pope cannot do is to ignore and deny the changing features of global Catholicism, which is much less European, much less white, less North American, and more global south, meaning not necessarily liberal, but surely much more critical of capitalism as it is today, on certain cultural issues that we call liberal, but in the global south are more traditional.
Fadel: I'm just wondering what you're watching most closely in this conclave.
Faggioli: I'm watching for those voices that we haven't heard from cardinals from the margins that we haven't heard and might have an opportunity in those meetings in the Vatican to become more known because this is a much larger college, but also of figures that are less known.
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