Yes non-Catholics, you should care who the next Pope is
At least if you care about the future fight against Christo-fascism.
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Well for all of Pope Francis’ faults, you have to give it to him, living just long enough to get through Holy Week, have his number two lecture J.D. Vance (and by extension the American radical traditionalist movement) on compassion, and then immediately dying a few hours after meeting the Vice President is actually iconic behavior.
Like most queer/progressive/left leaning Catholics (insert my typical disclaimer about my use of the word “Catholic” as applied to myself here), I have complicated feelings about Pope Francis and his legacy. I am squarely in the camp of people that appreciate the progress he pushed the Church towards, but still strongly criticize the fact that it was far from the revolution the Church needs. I don’t think he did enough to address sexual abuse in the Church. I don’t think he did enough for gender equality and queer rights. His stance on reproductive rights will continue to harm generations of child bearing people. And I certainly don’t think he did enough to curtail the influence of the radical conservative wing of the Church on secular governments. I recognize that as an ancient and gigantic institution, the Church is slow to change, and as I said, I appreciate and recognize the changes that happened during his papacy, but I would still fight him in a Denny’s parking lot given the opportunity…just maybe after every single other pope before him.
So yeah, complicated.
But the part of his legacy that I’m most concerned about isn’t just relevant to people who in any way identify as Catholic. What I’m worried about right now is if his efforts to stack the College of Cardinals with progressives will be enough to hold back the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), Opus Dei, and other highly conservative groups from becoming even worse when it comes to undue influence on secular government.
Yes, even if you aren’t Catholic you should still care about who the next pope is.
Let’s take a step back and talk about what happens next, in case you aren’t Catholic/didn’t see "Conclave" (side note, go watch "Conclave" y’all)/were never banned from watching TV until a new Pope was declared by your Catholic mother the last couple of times they’ve needed to pick out a new guy. 15-20 days from now (traditionally it’s 15 days, but they can extend to 20 days if necessary) the members of the College of Cardinals, an all-male group of high ranking Catholic officials appointed by the Pope, will arrive in Rome for the Papal conclave. Technically since 1917, any ordained Catholic priest can be appointed to the College, but typically these are Bishops who have long and respected service records in the Church and who have played the political game within the Church well enough to get the Pope’s attention. Cardinals are considered eligible to participate in a Papal election until they are 80 years old, and in the modern era, the new Pope is pretty much only chosen amongst their own ranks. Technically speaking the Pope does not have to be a Cardinal, or even a priest, the only real requirement is that you be a baptized, male, Catholic, but these days it’s relatively inconceivable that the College would not pick one of their own.
Once the conclave begins, the Cardinals are sealed off from the outside world. They do not have access to phones or the internet, and can only communicate amongst themselves until a new Pope has been chosen. The only non-Cardinals they will see are the sisters that run the “Casa Santa Marta” where the Cardinals stay during the conclave, though they of course do not vote or have any political power in this process. The new Pope will be elected by supermajority, and the Cardinals will not leave until a new Pope is elected and announced. This is where the chimney watching comes in. After each round of voting, the ballots are burned, mixed with a chemical that creates either black or white smoke that rises through a chimney over St. Peter’s Square – the only communication the outside world receives from the College during this time period. Black smoke means that the vote was inconclusive, white smoke means that a new Pope has been selected and will be announced to the public shortly.
No one knows how long the process will take. The longest recorded conclave, starting in 1268, took two years and nine months. The shortest in October of 1503 lasted only a few hours. More recently conclaves seem to take only a few days, and Pope Francis’ own election took less than 24 hours. If I had to hazard a guess, I’d think we’re looking at a shorter period of time, probably at most a week, but most likely closer to one or two days. Well over 80% of the current College was appointed by Pope Francis. This does not guarantee that the new Pope will be a progressive – Francis was elected by a College appointed by two highly conservative popes after all, nor does it guarantee that they will be all of the same political mind. But it does indicate that there will be at least some commonalities in their mindset towards the future of the Roman Catholic Church. Once a new Pope has been selected, he will take on a new name, don the papal vestments for the first time, and be announced to the public. Habemus Papam: We have a Pope.
The Pope, even in the modern era, holds a considerable amount of power. Roman Catholics, while a relative minority in the United States, still make up the global majority of Christians, and is generally considered to be second only to the Mormons in terms of institutional wealth (this number is hard to accurately determine, however, as the Church is made up of hundreds, if not thousands, of smaller, pseudo-independent organizations that are ranked separately from the Vatican itself, so really consider it 1 or 2 depending on how you count it.) The Vatican has permanent observer status at the U.N., meaning that while it cannot vote, Church representatives attend meetings and exert influence in ways that no other religious institution has been able to on a global scale. In the United States, while the political history of Roman Catholics has always been complicated (there’s a reason we’ve only had two Catholic presidents), the USCCB, Opus Dei, and other Catholic religious and political groups are beyond influential in our politics. As just one major example, you only need to look at our current mess of a Supreme Court, the only majority Catholic branch of government, to see this type of religious interference in action.
Leonard Leo, who has become one of the most powerful men in American politics, is the poster child for what I’m talking about here. He is at the center of a massive political and financial web, ranging from the Federalist Society to connections to the far right Catholic extremist cult Opus Dei. He has pulled the strings of SCOTUS appointments, alongside other political campaigns for years, and there is a strong argument to be made that he is one of the people most responsible for the overturn of Roe v. Wade. Thanks to his efforts, we now have a hyper-conservative Catholic majority on the Supreme Court that does not care about precedent, the rule of law, the separation of church and state, secular democracy, or basic civil rights and liberties, so far right so as to be incapable of representing even the majority of American Catholics, much less the majority of Americans who, again, are not Catholic. Now let me be clear that the religion of a Supreme Court Justice, or any secular political figure, in an ideal world, would not matter. But in the world we are in, this overtly radical form of conservative Catholicism has had disastrous consequences for the United States and will continue to do so for generations.
But Leonard Leo is just one man, and trust me when I say that he is not the only power player in American right wing politics with a rosary on his night stand and a strong belief in transubstantiation.
The Catholic Information Center, an Opus Dei operated bookstore and "intellectual hub" that offers weekday mass in central D.C. has become a central gathering point for the right wing Catholic elite in the nation’s capital. Offering weekday mass during the lunch hour, and “spiritual, intellectual, and professional formation to the [Catholic] women and men working in our nation's capital,” the CIC is very much the home base of Catholic fascism in the United States. The people working there and that are affiliated with it are actively trying to turn our government into a Christian nationalist hellscape through strategically influencing high profile Catholics towards extremist theocratic views.
Opus Dei has tried to white wash its history and make it seem like a benign group of lay Catholics and priests dedicated to living out their faith more deeply, the truth is much more fraught, filled with human trafficking, systemic brainwashing of its members through isolation, control, and physical punishments, and fascist affiliations going all the way back to the Franco regime in Spain during its founding. While very much a fringe group in terms of its numbers and what the majority of Catholics believe, the organization has gained major influence in many countries, and under Pope John Paul II began operating under a unique designation that made it answerable to no part of the hierarchy other than the Pope. In my own opinion, along with many others, Pope Francis did not do nearly enough to hold the organization to account. Though he offered two official statements calling for Opus Dei to get its act together, he never did anything truly actionable, putting secular democracy at risk not just in the United States, but globally, not to mention the risk to the thousands of members and future potential members who have been and will continued to be massively harmed for as long as the organization continues to exist. To refuse to take action was an act of massive, unjustifiable cowardice, and it will now fall to the next Pope to take on the challenge of disbanding and rebuking this extremist group.
It’s not just fringe groups that we need to be concerned about here in the states though. The formal hierarchy in the U.S. is well known for being far more conservative than the Francis Vatican, as well as the majority of American Catholics. Over the past several years a massive political rift has opened between the USCCB, whose membership comprises of the 248 bishops serving across the U.S., and Pope Francis over a range of issues, including LGBTQIA+ rights, the role of women in the Church, the political denial of the Eucharist to pro-choice Catholic politicians, and the Conference’s failure to address growing reactionary extremism amongst Catholics like J.D. Vance and Leonard Leo. Bishops’ conferences exist, in large part, to streamline the work of governing the Church, and they’re given a significant amount of autonomy and leeway, with the idea being that the bishops in any given region are better equipped to understand the ways different parts of Catholic theology are culturally impactful and understood in that region.
A while back I wrote a piece for the Freedom From Religion Foundation on the USCCB’s move to begin the process that would formally ban gender affirming care procedures in Catholic healthcare institutions. Because the bishops were a unified front on this matter, the Conference did not need papal assent to make this declaration, though the Pope could certainly exercise his power at any time to override it. This was not a popular move on the part of the Conference, as the majority of U.S. Catholics recognize that they are not the only patients at Catholic hospitals, which increasingly dominate the American healthcare system. Groups like the Catholic Health Association (the president and CEO of which is one of the Doctrine Committee’s consultants), Catholics For Choice, New Ways Ministry, and a coalition representing over 6,000 religious sisters in the United States have all released statements urging the bishops to involve and affirm transgender people in this decision-making process, as well as to keep in mind that not everyone who receives health care at Catholic institutions is Catholic. The Conference also regulates what kind of reproductive and end of life care can be given at Catholic health institutions, which typically is very little at all.
The USCCB is incredibly politically active, and shows no signs of stopping, something that despite the public arguments with Pope Francis seems unlikely to stop any time soon. The bishops frequently involve themselves in electoral campaigns, and are frequent faces during election season in conservative political circles. They play a major role in the rise of Christian nationalism in American politics, throwing their hat in with the conservative Evangelicals and Christian Fundamentalists in order to get their way on abortion, amongst other issues. As an aside, I think this was an absolutely nonsensical move on the part of the Conference, because the moment American Catholics cease to be useful to these groups, they’ll turn on the bishops as fast as they have anyone else. Many protestants are taught that “Catholics aren’t Christians” and that attitude certainly isn’t going anywhere any time soon. It’s going to turn into a case of leopards eating faces sooner rather than later, and even now we’re seeing Catholic agencies being targeted by the Trump administration for their work with immigrants and refugees.
Still, had the College of Cardinals gone with a more conservative choice to follow up Pope Benedict XVI, things could have been a lot worse. While it was the bare minimum, Pope Francis managed to create an environment where progressive Catholics could thrive, and initiated a synodal process that could (emphasis on could) pave the way for more women and lay people generally to retake power in parts of the Church, lessening the impact that the hierarchy has on a unilateral basis. The snail like pace of progress on issues like same-sex acceptance, trans rights, women’s ordination, reproductive rights and other major issues could have gone in the exact opposite direction at a breakneck speed, completely reversing the changes made during Vatican II in the 1960s. And now we stare down the barrel of yet another such reversal.
I don’t really know who I want for the next Pope. None of them seem like they will adequately address my issues and fears, though if I had to throw my hat anywhere I guess it would be to either Luis Tagle or Matteo Zuppi. But I can give you at least one example of who I don’t want to see that has frequently appeared on speculative short lists for the past several years:
Cardinal Raymond Burke.
Born in Wisconsin and the former Archbishop of St. Louis, Burke was appointed by Pope Benedict XVI, is well known as being one of the most hyper traditionalist conservative Catholic voices in the College, and could potentially be the first Pope from the United States. If you want a poster boy for everything that could be wrong with the Church, Burke is your guy. He frequently went toe to toe with Pope Francis claiming that he was not tough enough on abortion and same sex marriage, and that he was “persecuting” the traditional Latin mass by restricting its celebration. Widely considered one of the Church’s foremost experts on canon law, he’s reportedly a favorite pick of President Donald Trump, and has been mired in controversy regarding the handling of sexual abuse for years. His analysis as a canon lawyer of the sexual abuse crisis in the Church has consistently failed to hold the hierarchy accountable for its failures to protect children and other vulnerable Church members and consistent coverups of sexual abuse. Instead, Cardinal Burke blamed the “homosexual agenda” for the widespread abuse stating along with another Cardinal that: "The plague of the homosexual agenda has been spread within the Church, promoted by organized networks and protected by a climate of complicity and a conspiracy of silence[.]"
I can promise you that if Burke, or someone with a similar traditionalist bent becomes the next Pope, we will see a massive rise in clerical sexual abuse and political efforts to make conversion therapy mainstream, alongside a renewed push to push women out of any role in the Church and public life that does not involve having as many babies as physically possible. And every ounce of the Church’s considerable political resources will be spent on decimating secular liberties like science based healthcare, the freedom to marry and express oneself, legal protections from sex discrimination, protections from religious coercion in government, and beyond, not just in the United States, but in every part of the world. I would not be surprised if under a Burke papacy the resources spent on refugee and immigrant assistance, one of the few things the Church gets halfway right, go into radical fascist political movements instead.
That being said, I don’t think it will be Burke. I am cautiously optimistic that the Church will choose a moderate if not a relative progressive to carry on in this new era. I could be wrong, but with so much of the College being made up of Francis appointees, many of whom have extremely strong progressive records, I don’t think the odds are super high that we’ll be facing such a doomsday scenario.
Unfortunately, there is very little any of us can do about this (unless you’re a Cardinal and somehow reading this blog for some bizarre reason, in which case hit me up before you head to Rome and we can chat). The College will pick who the College picks, and while my optimism has the same level of caution as someone properly handling nuclear bombs, that optimism is still there. But if we’re going to keep fighting the Church’s influence on secular government, we all have to be aware of who is coming next, what his record is, and what he’s likely to do moving forward.
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Kat (they/them) is a queer lawyer, activist, and theorist focusing on the intersections of law, queerness, religion, and politics, with the occasional bit of theology, political theory, and legal theory thrown in for good measure. Originally from rural southern Indiana, Kat earned their B.A. in Political Science in 2019 before continuing on to earn their J.D. in 2022, both from Indiana University- Bloomington. A former Equal Justice Works Fellow for the Freedom From Religion Foundation, Kat has spent their professional career fighting for the separation of church and state and LGBTQIA+ rights. Outside of work you can find them at a ballet or contemporary dance class, sipping on dirty shirleys at their local gay bar, or playing video games with their cat, Merlin.