As the Cardinals prepare for perhaps the most important days of their lives, let us, the faithful, keep them in our prayers in a fervent way. The devil is no doubt at work trying to confuse and misdirect their deliberations. The work of the conclave does not just fall on the 135 voting Cardinals, but on all the faithful, as an election of a pope is an ecclesiastical act that draws its purpose from the good of the entire Church. We are all invested in its outcome, so we should all offer our prayer and fasting that the Holy Spirit will guide the outcome.
That there is a solemn vote in the Sistine Chapel does not in itself make the vote inspired. In fact, I suspect there is a danger for some of the Cardinals to rely too much on the circumstances around the conclave, with its ceremony and majesty, and fail to observe the human factors shaping votes in one direction or another.
I am not a Cardinal, but I have had the privilege of knowing more than a handful of them professionally and personally. I remember one conversation I had with a Cardinal who voted in the last conclave. He did not reveal anything about the internal deliberations of the conclave, but he did, in exasperation to my perhaps excessive probing, say, “Jayd, we didn’t know what we were doing.” What a statement! A Cardinal admitted that he and some of his brother Cardinals did not know who they were electing.
In the last conclave, the Cardinals knew each other due to regular consistories or other meetings that brought them together. This time, it is widely recognized that the Cardinals do not know each other well. Pope Francis did not call them together, so they could not get to know each other. It seems it was intentional on the Holy Father’s part to keep the Cardinals separated as much as possible. Why? We can only speculate.
While the Cardinals do not know each other as well as perhaps they should, they have an advantage over the last conclave, at least as I infer from the conversation I reference above and more recent conversations. From the discussions I have had with a wide range of Cardinals, it seems there is an intentionality that did not exist last time. Perhaps after the great Saint John Paul II and Benedict XVI, Cardinals presumed everything was in good hands and the Holy Spirit would again identify a strong leader for the Church. What they got when they elected Cardinal Bergoglio, however, seems to be a person much different than what many of the electors expected.
They expected someone with a strong hand to reform the Roman Curia, who would carry on the ecclesiology of John Paul II and Benedict, and witness to the dynamism of a Church alive. This is not the place to review Pope Francis’ record, but it is fair to say his pontificate was something other than what many of the electors expected.
And so, the new electors, most of whom were appointed by Francis, hopefully have learned from history and should know that there is a need to genuinely know who they are electing. This is good news. Rather than allow a small, coordinated effort to shape the early votes of the conclave, there is reason to hope the Cardinals will be less naïve and better prepared to make their own judgements about the qualities of a candidate. They should also, hopefully, be doing their homework now and getting to know their brother Cardinals in a way that will allow them to positively choose a candidate with particular characteristics.
What are those characteristics? It seems to me that first and foremost is someone who can articulate the faith with clarity, which will then be a source of unity for the Church. There is too much confusion today about what it means to be Catholic, which inevitably creates division. There is a soft civil war within the Church today, in large part due to the lack of clarity in teaching and a seeming lack of confidence by some that the Church has a unique claim to the fullness of truth. The world needs clarity that only the Church provides. Sacrificing clarity for “relevance” has not served the Church or the world well.
Considering this, the greatest threat to the Church today comes from within. The uncertainty about what the Church teaches on central matters is a cancer to our faith, as a false notion of the sensus fidelium is being used to obscure the depositum fidei. Our generous invitation to “come and see” has become a doorway to a confused faith. This is the danger of the synodal vision that has dominated so much of the Church’s energy and resources in recent years. Consultation without doctrinal clarity is a recipe for deep divisions, which is what the latest expression of synodality produced.
A synodal church is good in theory but how it has been pursued in recent years has done more harm than good. The Church is not a democratic institution, and it should not be re-made to become one. The sensus fidelium is something that comes from those who believe and strive to live what the Church has taught for 2,000 years. It is not determined by voices who do not believe what the Church teaches. And so it is important for the next pope to more clearly define what synodality means for the universal church and correct how it has been abused to confuse the faithful.
We also need a pope who both personifies the faith with his holiness and is welcoming, but also who can articulate what it is we believe and why. The person need not be able to do this in spontaneous interviews (in which case he should refrain from such things), but he needs to be able to do it through what he formally teaches. He need not be a theologian of the caliber of John Paul II or Benedict XVI, but he needs to have clarity in thought and theological vision. He should stand above the debates that so easily distract us from Christ and our faith. The Catechism is a good place to start, and it should be a central tool in the next pontificate.
The unity of the Church comes from a common faith in Christ and the life he calls us to. When Christ is not the starting place for the faith, the Church becomes something other than what she is. Today, it is sometimes difficult to discern where Christ fits into the life of the Church when sociology or some form of polling seems often to be the starting point. The next pope should be centered in Christ and draw the faithful into a deeper relationship with him. All renewal begins with a deeper conversion to Christ. This is how saints are made, and this is the primary mission of the next Holy Father, the Vicar of Christ.
We also need a pope who understands the challenges of our age. Our internal theological divisions come in large part due to false ecclesiologies that dominated the post-Vatican II era and have, in recent years, been resurrected. Old debates that were dealt with by John Paul II and Benedict XVI have come back from the dead. The next pope should return to the authoritative interpretation of the Council given to us by the two theologian-popes who were deeply involved in the Council. This sort of return is not a turning back of the clock, but a return to the sources that guide the Church into the future. Renewal cannot happen separated from our Sacred Tradition. We hear much about reforming the Church when perhaps what we really need is renewal. Reform implies changing the Church into something different—giving her a new form. Renewal is to make it more of what it is meant to be. Pope Francis is celebrated as the pope of reform, but what we need now is a pope of renewal.
We also need a pope who respects the rule of law. Ecclesiastical law is a gift that guides the Church. It is not good for the law to be dismissed or arbitrarily applied, as has been the case under Pope Francis. And we certainly do not want the impression that favors are given to friends of the pope. A return to the law, which is just, is the first step to authentic curial reform. Without justice under the law, no institutional renewal is possible.
Finally, a Church from the margins is a good thing if what we mean by that is a Church that is a sign of contradiction to our secular age. We see this in various forms and in all cultures. The Church is not expressed in one way, but she does have one faith. It is encouraging to see the Church in poor parts of the world flourishing. There is much to gain from faithful witnesses from the margins, but that witness must be rooted in the one, apostolic faith. What we believe is more important than passing trends.
The next pope, wherever he is from, should be a man who personifies what it is to be a Catholic. Welcoming and compassionate, for sure, but also someone who is clear about what it means to be Catholic and what Catholics believe. What we need now is a pope from the heart of the Church: a man of profound faith, and a man who can govern and teach with clarity and intent. Come Holy Spirit, guide the Cardinal-electors to give us such a man.
Jayd Henricks is the president of Catholic Laity and Clergy for Renewal. He served at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for eleven years and holds a STL in systematic theology from the Dominican House of Studies. He has written extensively on the Church in America.