If you thought the movie Conclave was dramatic, what is about to happen in the Catholic Church is even more momentous.
For me as a nun and a progressive Catholic, there was never going to be a good time for Pope Francis to die. While there is still a long way to go, the 12 years of his historic papacy were marked by greater respect for, and better listening to, LGBTQ+ people. He called out dictators and unjust economics, warmakers and climate chaos. Every day, for a year-and-a-half, he phoned a Catholic parish in Gaza. When he was dying in hospital, he texted instead.
Yet it feels like Francis’s death could not have come at a worse moment: answerable only to love and not the stock market, he stood against everything the Trump administration lunges towards: the persecution of minorities, mass deportations and climate injustice.
Among the last things Francis did before his death on Easter Monday was to meet the US Vice President, JD Vance, with whom he has publicly rowed over immigration policy. I like to think he met with Vance to force him a Catholic, to look him in the eye and justify the deportation of migrants to, say, Salvadoran mega-prisons. I think it was one, last, effortful act of radical nonviolence.
When Francis died, we lost an extraordinary voice for justice, one that was impervious to economic bullying, immune to the lure of Mar-a-Lago. Vatican diplomacy is delicate – the Holy See is a non-member state at the United Nations, and has diplomatic relations with most countries – but it is not threatened by tariffs, and wields a great deal of soft power. It also holds immense electoral sway in the United States.
For this reason, Francis’s death leaves the Catholic Church at a crossroads. It is true that the College of Cardinals, 135 of whom make up the conclave who will meet to select the next pope, is stacked with Francis’s 110 picks, but that does not mean they share his views. Francis’s focus was shifting the centre of power away from white, European Catholicism, and towards a diversity that better reflects the global church. It was anti-racist, not political.
Nevertheless, the English-speaking bloc has disproportionate clout, and many will still be reeling from Francis’s public (and unusual) condemnation of the US bishops for siding with Trump. If conservatives within the conclave lean into this, and build enough momentum around culture-war issues like abortion, it is possible that an anti-Francis candidate could be elected.
I still hold out for the Spirit to blow in and send ballot papers spinning. The outpouring of love following Francis’ death demonstrates that the Catholic Church is pivoting – and, crucially, is seen as pivoting – from being an institution to a community, one for refugees, people experiencing homelessness, LGBTQ+ people.
Instead of being “against” equality, Francis’ church is against kleptocracy, war, unjust economics and the climate crisis. Jesus’s anti-capitalist peacemaking, his life lived for the God whose favourites are the poor and marginalised, has always been relevant. That got lost when Catholicism became obsessed with gatekeeping, and protecting, its own membership.
square LIZ DODD
I'm a nun - the Trump-Vance interpretation of Christianity is nonsensical
Read MorePope Francis threw those gates open: there is no “in” and “out”, just a community of humans seeking God in all sorts of ways. If the cardinals discern a new leader with the courage to continue building this community and dismantling the institution, the Church can stand proudly and authentically in opposition to bullies and dictators.Thankfully, there are some things the next man cannot undo, whatever his politics. Francis reimagined the papacy by the way he lived it, choosing to live in a guesthouse and not a palace, to return from hospital in his Fiat, not a helicopter. For the new pope to do otherwise – to return to the outdated pomp and grandeur – would be almost impossible.
For a church built on symbolism, this is Francis’s legacy. He will be buried in his favourite church in a scruffier part of Rome, not in St Peter’s Basilica, in a wooden casket; an enduring reminder of what the Catholic Church ought to be – a community against tyranny and inequality, at rest among migrants and the poorest, and an insult to all political philosophies that say that wealthy hate can win.
Sister Liz Dodd is a Sister of St Joseph of Peace
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