Names of frontrunners — to be taken with communion-wafer-sized grains of salt — have surfaced.
One is Maltese Cardinal Mario Grech, who presided over the so-called synods, consultative bodies intended to give more power in daily church decision-making to laypeople, women and small peripheral churches.
Another is Cardinal Robert Prevost, an American who served in both Latin America and Rome, and is considered a potential bridge-builder between opposing factions. Earlier this week Prevost gave a speech calling for more participation in the selection of bishops, who are normally chosen by the pope, from local bishops’ conferences, a key demand of groups protesting clerical abuse, according to one cardinal that POLITICO spoke with.
That momentum comes as the stars of earlier frontrunners wane. Those include Holy See Secretary of State Pietro Parolin, a hardened Vatican diplomat who built a broad coalition among clerics who wanted a more reformist approach to the papacy that would preserve Church institutions without a total rupture with Francis’ radicalism. But skepticism from progressives, as well as a coordinated smear campaign, may have hurt Parolin’s chances.
Twists and turns were par for the course in the pre-conclave lobbying period. Giovanni Angelo Becciu, once the Holy See’s chief of staff, withdrew from the conclave in connection with a 2023 conviction over a fraudulent London real estate scheme using Vatican funds.
Some episodes were more comic than dramatic: One cardinal persistently failed to locate his seat in the general congregations, landing on a different one every time, according to the cardinal quoted above.
With any luck, the cardinals will have an easier time choosing a new pope than that confused old cleric had in locating his chair. But there’s no sign of consensus yet: After that first vote Wednesday, it was only black smoke — after a longer-than-expected three-hour wait — that darkened the Roman sky.
