Scandals, sniping and ‘church speak’: Tensions rise ahead of papal conclave

As cardinals prepare for the largest papal conclave in history, battle lines are being drawn over the direction of the church.

In their pre-conclave sessions in a sprawling Vatican auditorium, the assembly of cardinals is so large that members are wearing name tags. Some have delivered broadsides against the norm-challenging late pope in terms atypically sharp, while others say his successor should continue his mission.

As cardinals from Myanmar to Malta ready themselves for the largest papal conclave in history,
battle lines are being drawn over the direction of the Catholic Church.

Pope Francis sought to drag the church out of the bedroom, de-emphasising condemnation and embracing a motto of “todos, todos, todos” – everyone, everyone, everyone. But as they prepare to enter the Sistine Chapel on Wednesday (Thursday NZT), some cardinals are now pushing for sharper direction from a more hierarchical church that returns to doctrinal discipline.

In some ways, Francis left the church better off than he found it. The tumult over clerical abuse and financial corruption has dimmed since 2013, and the faith has continued to grow, albeit slowly, in most parts of the world. But the forces buffeting the church – secularism, the growth of evangelical churches – remain present even as new fault lines have opened, particularly between church traditionalists and reformists.

In closed-door morning group sessions and in private meetings, described in Vatican briefings and to The Washington Post in greater detail by seven people familiar with them, cardinals are outlining the challenges confronting the church in a time of religious and ethnic strife, surging nationalism, secularism and rising anti-migrant sentiment. The papacy, they say, needs an evangeliser.

Cardinals, at least in the main pre-conclave meetings, have thus far kept the discussions high-altitude, avoiding a digression into specific issues dividing the church, such as the ordination of female deacons and whether to permit married priests. But a critical test looms: how to rally around a successor to Francis while the church is wrestling with deep divisions.

One option being discussed, Cardinal Anders Arborelius told The Post, is the creation of a papal “cabinet” – or group of senior cardinal advisers to the pope.

“It’s such a complicated situation in the church and in the world … for one person,” said the Swede, whose name is circulating on lists of top contenders for the job. “It’s nearly impossible. You need to have a team around him and help him with all these issues.”

‘Like speed dating’

In many ways, the real action is happening offstage, in Vatican hallways, or in the cafes and restaurants of Rome, at dinners, lunches, coffees and cocktails, where men in black and scarlet cassocks huddle in back corners and delicately lobby.

Campaigns and intrigues are swirling. The Vatican on Friday was forced to deny a report in the Italian press that one front-runner – Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state, its No. 2 job – had required emergency medical treatment after a blood pressure surge.

That came after unnamed cardinals suggested to the National Catholic Reporter that the staid Parolin had “failed the audition” for pope last Sunday with a dud of a Mass.

The daggers, meanwhile, are out for progressive contender Cardinal Luis Antonio Gokim Tagle of the Philippines; videos that show him allegedly acting un-papally – in one, he grooves briefly with a sacred statue during Mass – have lit up the internet.

Cardinals have pointedly said during pre-conclave discussions that stamping out sexual abuse by clerics must be a priority for the new pope – but survivors’ advocates have been aghast to spot two tainted cardinals, thought to have been sidelined by scandal, roaming in and around Vatican City.

Some of the discussions underway are in “church speak”, as one voting cardinal put it, when “you speak about something without naming it”. Instead of speaking directly about US President Donald Trump and Christian nationalism, for example, “somebody could mention, for instance, that ‘we have to pay attention that Christianity [isn’t] used by politics’”, said the cardinal, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to freely discuss church deliberations. But “we all know what is meant by that”.

Trump, for his part, weighed in on the deliberations on Friday with the subtlety of a sledgehammer: the White House posted a picture of the president in white papal robes and mitre.

The extent of the Vatican’s financial woes – donations are down, and its pension system has a gaping deficit – has come into sharper focus with a closed-door rundown by Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Germany. The church, some cardinals are arguing, desperately needs a moneyman and manager.

Some cardinals, freer now to dissent with the sede vacante – the seat of St Peter empty – are chafing against Francis‘ radical move to include laypeople in the church’s decision-making process. Some believe the change diluted the power and influence of bishops and cardinals.

During the pre-conclave sessions, Cardinal Beniamino Stella, 84, “openly attacked Pope Francis” for “bypassing the long-standing tradition of the church” by granting laypeople the authority to vote alongside clerics vested with Holy Orders, America magazine reported.

“We have listened to many complaints against Francis’ papacy in these days, but the speech by Cardinal Stella was by far the worst,” the Jesuit-run publication quoted an unnamed cardinal as saying.

Arborelius pushed back against the idea that cardinals had been repeatedly sniping at Francis in their pre-conclave speeches.

The choice, he said, isn’t easy. Cardinals are planning to have an extended session into the afternoon on Monday to continue deliberations. After the whirlwind of Francis‘s papacy, he said, some cardinals indeed want the next pope to be “calm and not so active”, a leader who could “build bridges and unify the church”.

In a perfect world, he said, they would select someone “with the prophetic voice of John Paul, the theological background of Pope Benedict” and a “heart of mercy”, he added, like Francis.

Anna Rowlands, who served as an expert appointed to the synod, or a major Vatican assembly, fretted over the future of a less top-down church. “There is a danger of seeing synodality as associated with the ‘softer’ practices of listening, empathy, dialogue … and in a moment of very macho politics those can seem ‘feminised’ practices,” she said in an interview at a cafe a few blocks from the Vatican.

One practical challenge for the cardinals has been getting to know one another. Dozens of cardinals are relatively new, and some come from countries such as Myanmar and Rwanda, which have never sent representatives to a conclave.

“This is like speed dating,” said the Reverend Thomas Reese, 80, a longtime Vatican watcher.

A global church

Somehow, the next pope must reconcile a global faith in tension. Church progressives, especially in Europe, are clamouring for faster reform – particularly on a greater role for women – than Francis was willing or able to deliver. More traditional churches in Africa, where the faith is growing the fastest, rejected Francis‘s 2023 authorisation of short blessings for same-sex couples and have pushed instead for pastoral outreach to people in polygamist relationships (something the church is now studying).

The US church, meanwhile, faces a struggle for its soul – with MAGA Catholics, led by some radically conservative Catholic clerics, politicising the faith.

Some observers fear a liberal pope could lead conservatives to break away from the church, while a conservative one could worsen the flight of more progressive churches, such as Germany’s, one of the church’s wealthiest. There, some 1.1 million Catholics have left the faith in just the past three years, many of them citing disgust over sexual abuse and a slow pace of reform. In recent years, Francis chided the German church for moving too fast toward reform.

“It is time to open the ordained ministries to all,” said Irme Stetter-Karp, president of the Central Committee of German Catholics. “For the sake of the church first, for the sake of women, for the sake of good pastoral care – that remains our expectation.” The church in Australia and the Amazon region, she said, were as open as the German church to ordaining women as deacons.

Cardinals have been pushing divergent concepts. Conservatives have been speaking of “unity”, and not alienating traditionalists with an overly progressive pick. Francis’ backers praise him for bringing “diversity” and inclusion to the church, a path, they say, that must be followed by the next pope.

The conservative-liberal split in the church looks very different around the world. In the United States, there are sharp divides, for instance, over transgender and abortion rights. In Europe, though, such issues “aren’t on the front burner”, said Joel Halldorf, a professor of church history and religion and modernity at University College Stockholm. Catholics in Europe generally are more focused – and divided – on topics like how to handle migration and peace, he said.

In Africa, the church’s quandaries include outreach to Catholics who believe in longtime regional practices, such as polygamy, that may be at odds with doctrine.

The cardinals gathered on Saturday and discussed multiple issues, the Vatican press office said, including the relationship between the pope and the Vatican, and how the pope should advance the cause of peace.

“Awareness emerged of the risk of the Church becoming self-referential and losing her relevance if she does not live in the world and with the world.”

– Stefano Pitrelli and Kate Brady contributed to this report