Why do world powers observe this conclave more interest than in the past?
Photography published by Donald Trump With a liturgical miter and a papal tunic, along with his statements in recent days about his desire to become a high pontiff, they show a unprecedented interest in a president of the United States in the role of the Vatican in world politics.
More discreet, on the other hand, are the French president Macron and the Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni: according to press sources, Both are trying to get a Pope of his liking.
In times of large international tensions, religious radicalization and nuclear apocalyptic rhetoric, the temptation of the countries of influence the conclaveIt is strong.
A less centralist Catholic Church?
The conflicting international political framework, external to the Church, overlaps with decisive internal changes in the Vatican imposed by Pope Francis, who led the Catholic Church to look at both geographical and faith.
Consequence: Polarization among the cardinals on the choice of the future Pope can be among centralizers and internationalists, Francesco Clementi, Professor of Public Law compared to the University of Rome La Sapienza suggests.
“In the conclave, there will be a comparison Between an interpretation of the Church based on the return to an idea of the central government and the other that the European Church, in front of the western crisis, must decentralize in some way as possible. “
As Reforms of ecclesiastical institutions initiated by the late Pontiff They were definitely walking to the second hypothesis, the internationalization of the executive structures of the Vatican and decision making.
Pasquale Ferrara, General Director of Political Affairs and International Security at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Italy and a professor of diplomacy and negotiation at the University of Louis in Rome, “,”, “Pope Francis named the Cardinals of the four corners of the world. This multinational composition contributes to the sensibilities of the conclave very different. I think this conclave will precisely have the role of taking the outskirts of the world to Rome. “
In 2013, many observers called the Argentine Jesuit Jorge Mario Bergoglio de Pope of the Americas.
In the United States, the faithful and the political world believed that the Vatican axis had been Dislocated from traditional Eurocentrism to the American world.
But the active positions of Pope Francis and the criticisms of issues such as the rights of migrants, the social fractures of the current economic order, the wars, the deep dialogue of the Church with China and Russia, and the criticisms of Israel disappointed some of the expectations of the United States by then, the president of Barak, Obama, twelve years ago.
“It is evident that all the values contained in the encyclical laudato if they ‘contradict a socioeconomic model that Pope Francis considers the evil, that of turocapitalism, environmental devastation and a kind of private neoperialism of Big-Tech,” says Pasquale Ferrara.
These transnational problems are not only a country, although they are a substantial part of American reality: “It is a circumstance, not a country as such, it is a bit reductive to think about it as a pro or anti -American theme.”
At the funeral of Pope Francis, the political agenda of the conclave?
War and peace, for example, are historically expensive political issues for all potatoes, as it should be, since the The Gospel inspires the action of the Catholic Church.
However, it is true that Pope Francis imposed on his diplomats active mediation roles, in conflicts between Russia and Ukraine and Gaza, far beyond the vulgar memories of “You will not kill” command.
ADVERTISINGIncisive political positions have attracted both criticism and enthusiasm to the Jesuit Supreme Pontiff.
Vatican diplomats and, in particular, the cardinal parolin had, in some cases, to correct the tone of certain phrases of the supreme pontiff, as “NATO that offers the doors of Russia”where the Vatican seemed to put authoritarian regimes and liberal democracies at the same ethical level.
“An excess of Real policy“says Professor Stefano Ceccanti, constitutionalist and former Italian deputy of the Democratic Party.
In 1965, with the Council of the Vatican II, which opened the Church to modernity, “In the wave of the affirmation of Christian democratic parties in Europe and the Catholic, Democratic and Anti -communist president of the United States, John F. Kennedy, the Catholic Church, with Pope Paul VI, established that Democracy is the political regime closest to evangelical ideals“, Diz Stefano Ceccanti.
ADVERTISINGOpenings and understandings with non -democratic countries in the western sense, such as Russia, China and others, have created some perplexity even within the Church.
“In some cases, the difference between the need for the coexist Church and interacts with non -democratic countries, such as China, and the awareness of differences (substantial for church doctrine) between established democracies and non -democratic regimes, has not been well understood,” Stefano Ceccanti.
The White House leader and the president of Ukraine spoke in a chapel of the Basilica São PedroTogether with a section of the ancient sarcophagus of the emperors (Adriano and Otão) he became a baptismal sink at the end of the 17th century, time of political triumphs for the Jesuits.
Years in which the order founded by San Ignacio de Loyola exerted great political and cultural influence in the main European and remote courts of the newly discovered world.
ADVERTISINGThe fleeting appearances of French president Macron and of Starmer of the British Prime Minister in conversations between the United States and Ukraine, in São Pedro and a Third empty rusty chair They also visible.
Some commentators played with the fact that the chair was not really empty, but occupied by the Holy Spirit, the trinitarian entity that inspires cardinals in the choice of potatoes.
Business art can go to the point of proposing a Joint Business With the Holy Spirit for the control of the future papacy?
The Secretary of State, cardinal voter and one of the candidates for the Papacy, Pietro Parolin, would have preferred a meeting between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky in an inspired and more relaxed atmosphere.
ADVERTISINGHowever, Trump had already reviewed some of his positions regarding the Russia of Vladimir Putin.
Diplomacy and decentralization, tools of the next pontiff
In the case of the war between Russia and Ukraine, Cardinal Parolin and British Archbishop Richard Gallegher have always made it clear that Russia is the aggressor and affirmed the right of Ukraine to defend itself, “As the Council prescribes with the concept of self -defense, a more restrictive idea than only war,” says Stefano Ceccanti.
The two cardinals realized the Vatican’s policy with the positions of the European Union and the United Kingdom with the providential appearance of Emmanuel Macron and Keir Stmerer.
Give relevance to the external and peripheral dimension of the Catholic Church It is also important to revitalize the traditional center of its historical and spiritual action, Rome and Europe.
ADVERTISINGAs the internationalization of the church grows, respect for local diversity should also grow.
In some situations, such as Amazon, the principle of partial exceptions had already passed to mandatory celibacy, then not approved by Pope Francis, as is also the tradition in the churches of the east rite and also of the accessories to whom Cardinal Ratzinger, then Pope, built a Special structure to move with their wives to the Catholic Church, Stefano Ceccanti, I conclude:
“We will have to get used to having solutions to some a bit more decentralized and diverse questions. In this sense, the appreciation of local symbols goes in a more realistic direction.”
It remains to be seen, for the future Pontiff, the presence of the Catholic Church in the world will have to be done in Continuity of the reforms initiated by Jorge Mario Bergoglio, or backward and recover traditional political relations with Western powers, as in the days of Benedict XVI and John Paul II, the latter as active as Pope Francis in international politics. He was, by the way, one of the architects of the end of communist regimes in the east.
ADVERTISINGCardinal Parolin launched the foundations for A new international Vatican policy. But for many observers, the new composition of the conclave, with cardinals of remote pieces, can bring many surprises.
