The Journal – Fr Tony Flannery: We will know fairly quickly if this new pope is a reformer or not

The Redemptorist priest says many popes before Francis were not reformers, and it won’t be long before we see what way a new pope is going to go.

THESE DAYS, AS the Conclave is underway, I am being asked by various people who I think the new pope will be.

One man, who directed the question to me, continued on by giving his own answer: ‘It will make no difference anyway’.

I didn’t contradict him, but it set me thinking about what difference the occupant of the Chair of Peter has made at the various stages of my life.

Pope John XXIII was pope from 1958 to 1963. Alamy Stock Photo

I don’t believe I would have become a priest but for the election of John XXIII in 1958, and his historic convening of the Second Vatican Council. I had something of a crisis during my seminary years, and was on the point of leaving, but the new energy and fresh thinking that followed that Council convinced me to stay.

The next pope, Paul VI, though a good man in many ways, certainly created difficulty by banning all forms of artificial contraception under pain of mortal sin. Many a long hour I spent in dark, stuffy confession boxes trying to reassure married women that they were not in a state of sin and wouldn’t be condemned to Hell.

Pope Paul VI, head of the Catholic Church from 1963 to 1978. Alamy Stock Photo

And then came what I would describe as the long winter of John Paul II, who, over 25 years, restored the traditional doctrinaire Church which we thought we had left behind. We had no great hopes of a change when he died, because his main advisor, Joseph Ratzinger, was lined up to take his place.

I well remember sitting with a few colleagues when the word came through in April 2005 that there was white smoke from the Sistine Chapel chimney.

Pope John Paul II, who headed the Church from 1978 to 2005. Alamy Stock Photo

Habemus Papam, came the announcement, and then the first name, Josephus, and there were loud groans all around the room. The era of that pope had particular implications for me, since it was during his reign that I was suspended from ministry.

Francis and a lighter Church

To say that the years of Pope Francis made a difference would be an understatement. In the words of the psalm, one could say, ‘he restored the joy of our youth’.

So it will matter a lot to me who the next pope will be. A commentator for whom I have respect predicts that he will be elected by Friday. We will quickly get some measure of the man. How will he dress when he appears on the balcony? Will he come in a simple soutane like Francis, or ornately robed like previous popes?

And the second big indicator will be where he will choose to live, in the guest house as Francis did, or back to the papal quarters like all previous ones. That will be interesting.

Then, as the first few months go by, we should get an answer to three crucial questions about our new pope:

Will he be pastoral or doctrinaire? Very soon after his appointment, Francis called for freedom of speech in the Church, asking people to speak freely and without fear. And this then led on to what was probably the biggest initiative of his papacy, the process of synodality.

Will the new pope continue on this path, or will he revert to the traditional papal style of authoritarianism? Or, putting it another way, will Francis’s effort to reverse the pyramid, putting the laity at the top, and the clerical world there to listen and to serve, survive?

We should know that fairly quickly. One danger would be that we might get a pope who would speak all the right synodal language, but do nothing to progress it.

Which direction will the pope take the Church

Will the new pontiff continue the initiative begun with Francis’s encyclical, Laudato Si?

Climate change is one of, if not the greatest, challenges facing humanity. Francis became a world leader on this issue. It is of great importance that his successor continues in this vein.

What will his attitude be to the equality of women in the Church? This was one area where Francis was weak. He did make some changes, but ultimately, he had a fairly patronising attitude to women. I will be hoping for something much more decisive from the new pope.

Leaving my personal hopes and fears aside, the Conclave is an interesting event. It reflects the two dimensions of the church, the divine element and the human institution.

The cardinals began the Conclave with Mass and a prayer to the Holy Spirit, reminding us that the Church’s raison d’être is to lead us to the Divine, that, at its best, it celebrates love, hope and the courage to keep going in the face of adversity.

Pilgrims wait for the smoke to rise from the chimney on the Sistine Chapel as the conclave to elect a new Pope started this week.  Alamy Stock Photo

I am not sure that the claim that it was founded by Jesus, who lived and died as a Jew, stands up. But the message of Jesus is divine and reflects the goodness of God. The church grew out of the communities of people who believed in the teaching of Jesus, yes, the ordinary human people. And it is ordinary human people who will gather in the Sistine Chapel to choose the next Pope.

They will elect him, and we all know that elections do not always give us the best results and that they involve compromise. We also know that those elected can grow into their offices and that all growth springs from the spirit, the creative spirit. In the words of Hopkins, “The Holy Ghost, over the bent world broods, with warm breast and, ah, bright wings”.

Fr Tony Flannery is a Redemptorist priest who was forbidden to practice by his superiors in Rome in 2012 for speaking up on many issues. This continues to this day. More at TonyFlannery.com.  

Link to article in The Journal:

https://www.thejournal.ie/readme/new-pope-conclave-6698802-May2025