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00:00They will be staying as long as it takes.
00:02133 cardinals locked inside the Sistine Chapel
00:05to elect a successor to the late Pope Francis.
00:08A first vote expected around 7 p.m. local time.
00:15Transmissions jammed, all cell phones off inside of the hall.
00:21Yinka Oyotare has more.
00:24It's a process that has remained virtually unchanged
00:27for the last eight centuries.
00:30The highly secretive method of choosing a Pope
00:33is known as the papal conclave.
00:36In theory, any baptized Catholic man
00:39can be in the running for leader.
00:40But in reality, nearly every Pope
00:42has been a cardinal before they were elected.
00:46It's here in the Vatican's iconic Sistine Chapel
00:49that the College of Cardinals convene to hold a conclave.
00:53Around 120 cardinals under the age of 80
00:56will vote in secret for their chosen candidate.
00:59writing their name on a ballot
01:01and placing it in a chalice on the altar.
01:04After each round of voting, smoke is released from the chapel's chimney.
01:08Black smoke indicating that no candidate has been selected
01:11while white smoke signals that the church has a new leader.
01:15The process is shrouded in secrecy with communication devices prohibited during a conclave.
01:21Cardinals risk being excommunicated if they leak information.
01:25If no candidate receives the required two-thirds majority during the first ballot,
01:33another round of voting takes place.
01:35There can be up to four rounds per day.
01:37Under relatively new rules introduced by Pope Benedict XVI,
01:41if no one is selected after 33 rounds, the cardinals go to a runoff of the top two contenders.
01:52It's with the famous words habemus papem, meaning we have a pope,
01:56that the newly elected leader is presented to thousands of eager faithful
02:00from the main balcony of St. Peter's Basilica.
02:03Donning a fresh white cassock and a new papal name,
02:07honoring a saint or a previous pontiff, the new pope takes the reins of the Catholic Church.
02:12And with us to talk about it, from Chicago, Father Stan Chu Iwo,
02:20Research Professor of World Catholicism and African Studies at DePaul University.
02:27Thank you for being with us here on France 24.
02:31Thank you very much for having me.
02:33Just to be complete, you're also the president of the Pan-African
02:36Catholic Theology and Pastoral Network. With us as well, Jean Duchesne,
02:41special advisor to the Archbishop of Paris. Good to see you.
02:46Are we going to go through 33 rounds, Jean Duchesne?
02:50Could be. Who knows?
02:53It's not going to be one, that's for sure.
02:55No, certainly not.
02:57Tell us a little bit about why it's so open.
03:01Well, simply because they don't know each other.
03:03And even finding among all those guys, Pope Francis appointed 108 of the 133 cardinals, voters.
03:20And also they are very diverse because of their origin, but also because of their
03:34church identity. You've got religious people of various congregations.
03:39What does that mean, different church identities?
03:41Well, simply that they, for example, there's a big difference between the Carmelite and the Jesuits.
03:48Between the Benedictine and the Dominican.
03:52Between somebody who is a Thomist and somebody who is
03:56more an adept of modern theology.
03:58Right.
04:00And there are also great differences as far as spirituality is concerned.
04:06The theology, spirituality, whether people, you know, privilege the liturgy or the personal
04:14relationship to God. There are a lot of parameters.
04:19Okay. So that sets the table nicely. Stan Chuilo, you've just heard described so many unknowns with
04:29so many new cardinals appointed under Pope Francis. What do you see as sort of the dividing lines?
04:39Well, it seems like we've, have we lost the connection there with Chicago?
04:44I can hear you.
04:45All right. We can hear you. We can hear you perfectly.
04:48What are, what are sort of the fault lines? But before we go into names,
04:52uh, just what are the fault lines in terms of a reformist versus conservatives? What is the fault line here?
05:02I think that there are many fault lines here, but I will go back to what happened in 1963.
05:12We are exactly in the Catholic church at that kind of time.
05:16That is when John the 23rd had called for the second Vatican council.
05:24He initiated the council and in less than a year, he died.
05:28The cardinals then had to choose whether to continue the reform that he had initiated,
05:35the program he had outlined or to find a different part. And since the end of the second Vatican council in 1965 to today,
05:45I think the Catholic church has struggled with some of the issues that the second Vatican council tried to deal with.
05:53Number one, what is the relationship of the church to the modern world?
05:57Number two, how does the church reconcile itself to the fact that we now live in a post-Christian Western society and a post-Western Christian, uh, Christian world?
06:13So how do you deal with the question of diversity, cultural, pluralism, and inclusion?
06:19And thirdly, the question of the legacy of Pope Francis, who tried, I think, like the previous Pope since John the 23rd,
06:30he's been able to try to bring about the spirit of second Vatican council and implement it.
06:36Some will say he was disruptive. Some will say he continued with the spirit.
06:42So I think those three factors will play out. Uh, and we have already had it in the, uh, different speeches that, uh,
06:49the Cardinals have made in the course of the conclave, including the formula this morning,
06:53made by Cardinal Ray about the need for unity and to give, uh, hope to the world in the very complex situation we find ourselves today.
07:03Uh, that post-Christian world that you describe, uh, in the West, uh, and, uh, the, uh, the, the, the changing of, uh, of, uh, uh, where Catholicism is going, uh,
07:16did Francis not embody that just by the mere fact that he was from Argentina,
07:21that he was the first Pope in more than a thousand years, who was not a European.
07:28Yeah, surely he embodied it. And that is why, um, in the last hundred years or so,
07:37I have never seen a Pope so opposed internally by, uh, his own people. Pope Francis faced a lot of
07:46opposition. So I call him a post-colonial Pope because he understood that Christendom or restoring
07:56those ideals and projects of the past times will not work. You cannot meet today's challenges with
08:05yesterday's answers. And I think that he already began to recognize this. That's why, um, he did not
08:14embrace all the apportenances and paraphernalia of the papal office. He was simple. He was humble.
08:21He understood that in order to capture the cultural and spiritual imagination of the world today,
08:27the church has to reinvent itself in order to answer the many complex questions today. People are no
08:35longer simply satisfied with power, privilege, and tradition. They want to know how these traditions can
08:42speak to the poverty of the world today, the fear about the future, the rise in extremism in the world,
08:49both on the right and the left. So I think that he already embodied some significant movement away
08:56from, uh, the Western domination of Catholicism, Western priorities and practices, Western rituals that,
09:06uh, uh, was, uh, important to the rest of the global South and the rest of the world. Today, even in the
09:12Western heartland, the churches in France are emptying out. The churches in, uh, Italy are emptying out.
09:20The young people want to be connected. I mean, so you saw what happened when Notre Dame was, uh, uh, was, um,
09:28rebuilt. People have a hunger for Catholicism, for Christianity, for spirituality, but they are looking
09:35for a different form of Catholic, uh, Catholicism and Christianity that focuses on the people and not
09:43on us, the clergy, the bishops and the powers and the privileges. That in my mind is what Pope Francis
09:51did. And I think that, uh, the Cardinals, uh, will be considering whether to continue with that style
09:58or to chart a different course, but both decision, either decision has far reaching consequences
10:04for the future of Catholicism. John Duchesne, do you agree that this is the choice as laid out and
10:11in picking the next Pope? Well, it is one, of course, I agree. It is one of the choices
10:17because there are, there, there are other, um, uh, fault lines. There are other divisions
10:22in the church. And this is one between north and south rather than Europe and the rest of the world,
10:27because I would, uh, I think that the situation in the U S is not so different from what it is in,
10:32in, in Europe. You see, the, uh, the U S now is, I think, but, uh, of course, uh, uh, this is my
10:38impression from here, from here in Europe, that the U S also is experiencing secularization. The number
10:44of nuns is, is, is, is women. There are, there are other problems. There's more people in church,
10:50but they are losing members. Yes. Yeah. Uh, but, uh, there are other problems concerning the, um,
10:57the, the, the understanding of the liturgy, concerning the, what to do with migrants,
11:03concerning the, also the, the, the problem of, of, uh, of power in the church, the situation of women,
11:10concerning also sexual morality. So there are a lot of, uh, a lot of problems. And the situation
11:16now, of course, is that the, um, the West must realize that it has lost the illusion that, uh, it
11:25is the, um, the, um, the mother church. There's only one mother church. It is the historic church of
11:33the apostles. It's not the church of the West, because it is simply the, the, the, the, the
11:40place where it grew most in the first millennia. It's called Roman Catholicism. So doesn't that
11:44already in the name imply that it is Western centric? Yes, but, uh, there's a difference between
11:51Rome and Europe. Uh, Rome has always implied some kind of a universality, something that is not
11:58limited. It is, it is, it is the notion, uh, see Christianity is what has allowed Rome to go
12:05beyond the, uh, the empire simply because, uh, simply because of the gospel, because there,
12:11uh, there has to be one, a first. So what would be the, what would be the best choice for the next?
12:19What and who would be the best choice?
12:21The best choice? I, I don't know the, because it is difficult to say now because my, my opinion
12:30or my theory, it is that, you see, the colonels are likely to choose one guy, but this does not mean
12:38they know what they know about this guy does not foretell. Does it allow you to tell you what
12:44he will do when he spoke? And I think so. And what is important is not so much his origin,
12:50whether he's a European, an African, an Asian, a South American, or he comes from, from India,
12:56or God knows where, because the man who is elected Pope is no longer the same man.
13:02See, I, I, I remember I had the privilege of, um, uh, meeting, uh, the last three Popes before they
13:10became Popes. They, uh, Wojtyla, Ratzinger, and briefly, uh, Bergoglio. Now, Bergoglio,
13:20I, I remember very well Bergoglio as a, a very shy, unassuming man. Now, when he became Pope,
13:27he was different. It was the same thing with, uh, Ratzinger. Ratzinger clearly, uh, became Pope in
13:34spite of himself. He didn't want to become Pope. And, uh, and we saw the result.
13:39So, Stan, Stan Chuilu, uh, what kind of profile would fit best? Who would, uh, what part of the
13:46world? And, uh, uh, which, which you laid out for us the choice, what kind of candidate would be the
13:54best? And who's got the best shot? Well, you know that, uh, as good Catholics,
14:01that we believe that the Holy Spirit will lead the Cardinals to make the right choice. But like,
14:08well, Benedict himself said in one interview many years ago that sometimes also, uh, the choices that
14:16have been made didn't turn out well because the church is still human. I agree with, uh, Jen in
14:25terms of that the problems we have today in the Catholic church and in the world are complex.
14:34We cannot actually narrow this problem to one factor. But if we go back to the message that
14:42Pope Francis gave during COVID when he stood at St. Peter's Square and spoke to an empty space,
14:51signifying also the emptiness of our humanity. If you like, our naked humanity needs vulnerability. He said,
14:59we see that all of us are implicated in what happens to any of us. I think that such is the
15:06kind of Pope that we are looking for. A Pope who embodies something beyond where you come from,
15:14the color of your skin, your religion. A Pope who understands that humanity at this point in time
15:23is broken, rising tensions in the world. This morning we hear about the war about to begin if
15:30this care is not taken between Pakistan and India. We know of the war in Gaza, the war in Ukraine,
15:40you know, the war in Congo. So I think we're looking at the Pope who is a peacemaker, who actually embodies
15:48the word pontiff. The word pontiff means a bridge, a bridge, a bridge. Someone who will be a bridge
15:55builder, not someone who will actually polarize the world further. Someone who will try to bring
16:04especially many people in the Catholic Church who are trying to be included.
16:10Are you confident that that's the choice that the 133 cardinals will make, not the one of
16:17concentric circles of love as espoused by J.D. Vance? I love my family more than my neighbor, more than
16:24the people.
16:25Yeah. It's interesting you mention what is going on in the United States, because this is a classic
16:33example of the kind of Catholicism that, in my own thinking, is going to meet with many challenges.
16:40This idea of Christian nationalism, of thinking that American exceptionalism means that the rest of
16:48the world have to meet America, not on a common ground, but on the terms of America. So I think that
16:56it is much more than that. A Pope who understands that the world today is tired of extremism, whether it's
17:06from religion or from politics. It's tired of exclusionism, of protectionism. It is a world
17:14meant for all. So that's the kind of Pope, I think, that will capture the spiritual and cultural
17:20imagination of the world, especially young people who are disconnected. I teach at the university here,
17:27and I, once in a while, I come to Europe and I teach in universities there. And young people have a
17:33hunger for change. But if what we offer them is just the same tired old division, exclusion, confusion,
17:43ideologies, then we are creating a world that we will be sad about to hand over to the next generation.
17:52And it's just the beginning of this conclave. We'll see what those cardinals decide. Father
17:57Stan Chu-Ilo, thank you so much for being with us from Chicago. I want to thank you,
18:01Jean Duchesne, for joining us here on France 24.
18:05And by the way, we'll have live coverage later with France 24's Stuart Norval from St. Peter's Square.
18:14That's starting at 9 p.m. Paris time, right here on France 24.