Papa's health
We have been told the Pope is in critical condition tonight. He reportedly had an asthma attack on is anemic. This is on top of the double pneumonia.
Could this be it?
Will he be called home
or
Will he recover?
If this is the end, who do you think the Conclave will choose?
Could this be it?
Will he be called home
or
Will he recover?
If this is the end, who do you think the Conclave will choose?
Comments
I wish him a recovery and good health. Perhaps he might consider retirement.
You mean he was a lay member of the Jesuit order for 14 years before he became a priest?
Do not resuscitate ( or keep me comfortable but no ridiculous intervention). And yes as a newly retired medico I can say so.
*Do Not Resuscitate* was, in the UK some years ago, altered to *Do Not Attempt To Resuscitate*, which IMHO was a sensible move, reflecting reality.
/end of tangent/
As far as a successor to Pope Francis is concerned, I expect the job will be given to another elderly (probably) man...
Ah right. Yes I understand (I am from a medical family myself although IANAD). But mightn't that mean an indeterminate period of being unable to carry out his duties?
The people at the Vatican will keep things ticking over if the Pope becomes incapacitated. JPII was a shell of a man for several years before he died and things carried on.
They don't have to elect a cardinal, do they? I thought they could technically elect any baptised Catholic man. Electing a cardinal is most likely, of course, but a non-cardinal archbishop is not impossible. Admittedly it's ~650 years since they last did, so it would be almost as big a shock as Benedict XVI's decision to retire.
I'm not RC but I don't think this is quite correct? As an observer all the well situated candidates seem to range from conservative to ultra-conservative, and just because Francis appointed a lot of them, doesn't mean the mass of the cardinals are all liberals.
Mrs Gramps and I were talking about this last night. We wondered if the next one could be African or Asian.
Frankly, I cannot see an American named a pope. Tagle seems interesting.
This has occasionally happened many centuries ago when people often delayed baptism almost till the moment of death.
@stetson - not all members of the Jesuit Order or the Society of Jesus are priests. As sojourner said there are many years of preparation before ordination as a Jesuit priest and there are also Jesuit Brothers who are not priests. However as members of the Order they are not 'lay people' at least not in the way that the RC church would normally describe 'lay people'.
There are some people who may loosely be described a 'lay Jesuits'. These are usually young people who may carry out some voluntary service work for the Order without formally being members of the Society and I am not sure if the term is used in any official way.
Not monks. Monks spend their days in their monastery.
Jesuits are very much out there in the world. In Latin America they have been politically active at times on the side of the poor and have been made to suffer for it by unpleasant regimes. It was their political activism that made them very unpopular with governments in the late 18th century and they were suppressed for a while and expelled from various European countries and their colonies.
Yes, I wondered that, too.
/tangent
But, yes, he will die one day. I agree with @Sojourner that he won't "retire." He'll die with his boots on.
As for a successor, this thread is using the word "could" an awful lot. I find that a useless term. Under the rules, anybody "could" be the next Pope. You, me, Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump "could" be the next Pope....but none of that is going to happen.
Realistically, Africa is a likely source. Africa is pretty much the hotbed of Catholicism right now. Francis was from South America. I doubt they will go back to that well immediately...but Central America? That is a possibility. I could certain see somebody from Mexico being selected, particularly with He Who Must Not Be Named as President of the U.S. So, assuming (without wanting) that Francis dies in the near future, I would place my bets on a Mexican as Pope, followed by African.
Friars are Franciscans, founded by St Francis of Assisi.
Jesuits were founded by Ignatius Loyola and come under the umbrella term "clerics regular" i.e. clerics who live together under a Rule. It pretty much covers all who are not Benedictines, Dominicans or Franciscans.
Along with the Franciscans (aka Grey Friars), aren’t there also Dominican friars (aka Black Friars), and Carmelite friars (aka White Friars)?
Benedictine monks also take a vow of stability which means they join a specific community not just the order in general, and remain a monk of that community. Monks sing the Office together (it is a big thing) whereas Friars are not so tied to community in that way. Friars also tend to be more mobile and not spend their entire life as a member of a specific community, they join an Order, not a specific monastery or abbey.
So far as succession goes, he is very unlikely to be succeeded by another Jesuit.
In this case (we write while Francis lives) we have 74 of the 138 are European or North American, a bare majority; 18 African, 24 Asian & Oceanian 28, South American 18. Of the 138 electors, 34 are members of religious orders (I thought it would be higher, given Frank's inclination to appoint members of orders) but only 4 Jesuits. From the eastern churches, we have 6 electors.
From this, I would think we can't predict much. Perhaps that the succesful candidate will not be from the US, and not because of his own merits. And of course, we all have a list of those who Should Not Be Chosen.
The Benedictine vows:
- Obedience
- Stability
- and Conversion of Life
(Poverty/Simplicity and Celibacy come through working out the implications of the conversion of life)The Evangelical vow (Franciscan +):
Many orders will have their own version of the vows and differing rules.
As the terms are technical to the religious life if you are interested I suggest you at least google and read the AI summary as they do not quite mean what you may think they mean.
As above that doesn't mean they are all liberals.
That's inherent in the system or, more bluntly, that's the point. And given the age of most cardinals, turnover is inevitable.
At least they've dropped the cardinal-nephews.
That's the advantage of a long papacy. It's also the advantage of the rule (established in 1970) limiting cardinal suffrage in papal elections to those under 80 years old. It's a system that allows popes some say over their successors, but not direct appointment.
It does make you wonder what would happen if the Pope were in a coma for a number of years prior to death. Could you reach a situation where there were no eligible cardinals or is there a mechanism for appointing cardinals when the Pope is incapacitated?
https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2025-02/pope-francis-medical-condition-update-hspo-24-feb-pm.html
I like the fact that he's in touch with the RC parish priest in Gaza.
That seems unlikely, given that popes often appoint cardinals younger than themselves for this very reason. The youngest current cardinal just turned 45. Of the 252 current cardinals, 138 are currently eligible to be cardinal electors. 58 of the current cardinal electors are under 70 years old, so it would have to be a particularly long coma.
I bet the Catholic Church has a plan even for losing the whole college of Cardinals and the Pope in one go. Sort of equivalent to Governments working out on paper who would be in charge in the awful event of a bomb or something taking out all the current people. The UK equivalent would be taking out the whole royal family by blowing up Remembrance Sunday or the Government by blowing up Parliament during Prime Minister's Questions. There's bound to be a precedence order for how things carry on in the event of a disaster I'd have thought. Sounds like a Dan Brown plot now I come to think about it.
Edited to add: I'm glad the Pope seems to be doing better - long may that continue.
Or something by Walter M. Miller, Jr.