The Next Pope

With Pope Francis having been laid to rest, the Roman Catholic Church is now taking a breather known as an "interregnum" while the College of Cardinals assess each other and try to figure out who the next pope should be.  Then, a week from today, the conclave to select a new Holy Father begins in the Sistine Chapel (below). 

I'm not going to go through any potential candidates for the next pope, because there are too many of them and the next Holy Father might very well be someone no one's considered.   But there are obvious considerations among the cardinals as to what is required of the next pope at a time when Roman Catholicism is under immense pressure to adapt to modernity and at a time when Donald Trump, the most amoral world leader in eighty years (literally - Adolf Hitler committed suicide eighty years ago today), has unlimited power that threatens humanity.  Also, the Church must decide if it wants to continue along the trajectory that Francis set it on - now more likely given how Trump is happy to send migrants from predominantly Catholic countries to a torture chamber in a place ironically named for Jesus Christ Himself.

The cardinals believe that God chooses the the pope through divine guidance in their "scrutinies," or ballots, based on a two-thirds majority of those voting.  Because the pope, as the leader of the sovereign Vatican state, is a priest-king, he assumes monarchical trappings, from a title ("His Holiness") and a throne to regnal name, leaving his past name and identity behind.  Usually there's nothing in a name, but the new pope's choice of a name usually speaks volumes for how he envisions which path the Church should follow.  If the next pope chooses to be called Pius XIII or Gregory XVII, Catholics who yearn for reform in the Church will have to abandon all hope, as the last popes to take the names Pius and Gregory were doctrinaire reactionaries.  A pope who plans to continue Francis' reforms will likely either take his name or maybe become John XXIV or Leo XIV.  (Pope John XXIII began the last great reforms in the Church by calling the Second Vatican Council; Pope Leo XIII, the last pope of the nineteenth century, is best remembered for his 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum, which advocated for workers' rights.)  And it would be a breath of fresh air if the next pope takes an unprecedented name like, say, Thomas, after the skeptical apostle who demanded that his doubts we satisfied. 

One other thing.  Many Catholics, particularly American Catholics, fear and dread the notion of an American being chosen as pope, which has become a distinct possibility, given the U.S. Church's virulent arch-conservatism and hostility to modernity.  Even if the next pope is an American, that's no reason to fear the absolute worst.  The Catholic Church, as its name suggests, is a universal church; it is not rooted in American exceptionalism.  That's the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.