Papabile, n., pl. papabili: Colloquial term coined by Italian media to reference a cardinal or other official of the Catholic Church who could potentially be elected pope. Literally “pope-able.” To be taken with salt, grain of.
The recent illness and hospitalization of Pope Francis understandably raised the question of what might follow his trailblazing dozen-year pontificate. (He’s merely been implementing the Second Vatican Council, but that’s for another article.) With the movie Conclave recently showing at the Academy Awards, papal elections are already on people’s minds. But now the question feels a little more pressing.
Any consideration of who might succeed Francis is inherently flawed because it works backward from the actual process, in which the cardinals meet to discuss the current needs of the church and the world and then discern from there who is best suited for the job. They also do a lot of praying to the Holy Spirit, who is full of surprises.
The Italian saying “He who enters the conclave a pope exits a cardinal” cautions against presuming any frontrunner is a sure bet. And as John Allen once noted to a group of student pilgrims in Rome (that included me), history is littered with the carcasses of journalists who try to predict the identity of the next pope.
Additionally, the rationale behind any candidate presumes that the cardinal electors have decided to follow a certain “model” or “program” in the wake of the previous pope. While they try to avoid anyone too similar to the previous pontiff (“A thin pope follows a fat pope,” say the Italians), we still have history showing that a strict “pendulum theory” is not in play.
For instance, 1939, 1963, and 2005 each saw the election of a pope who continued the legacy of his predecessor (Pius XI to Pius XII, John XXIII to Paul VI, and John Paul II to Benedict XVI, respectively.) Theoretically, this could mean that Francis—who was the “new direction” candidate in 2013—could have a successor who will continue his approach, while also integrating it into the life of the church as the new “business as usual.”
Following that logic, here are a dozen voting cardinals who have been the subject of media speculation and who might fit that bill:
Italy
Cardinal Pietro Parolin
Age 70
Cardinal since 2014
Cardinal Parolin is the consummate Vatican diplomat, having served in the Vatican Secretariat of State—the department overseeing the Vatican’s relations with countries around the world—in the early 2000s, before becoming nuncio (ambassador) to Venezuela, a tricky assignment. Pope Francis quickly made Parolin his Secretary of State, at the time the second-highest-ranking official in the church, and he has held the post ever since.
Vatican diplomacy has made news under Parolin, including its role in brokering the U.S.-Cuba thaw a decade ago and the 2018 Vatican-China agreement. No Vatican Secretary of State has been elected pope since Pius XII in 1939, as World War II was breaking out. With the current geopolitical climate considerably volatile, it’s possible the cardinal electors could once again see the need for a diplomat.
Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, O.F.M.
Age 59
Cardinal since 2023
An Italian-born prelate who has served in Jerusalem for over 30 years, Cardinal Pizzaballa is a scripture scholar who has ministered to Hebrew-speaking Catholics in the Holy Land (he himself is fluent) and from 2004–2016 as the custos of the Holy Land. This is the head of the Franciscan community in Jerusalem charged with the care of sacred Christian sites, including the Catholics portions of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
Elevated to cardinal about a week before the Israel-Hamas war broke out, Pizzaballa is another church figure accustomed to serving against incredibly fraught environment. Pizzaballa is just under 60 years old, so the cardinals could decide that he is too young. However, if they foresee a long, tumultuous road ahead for the church and the world, they could also err on the stability of not having to elect a new pope for, say, 25–30 years.
The rest of Europe
Cardinal Mario Grech
Malta
Age 68
Cardinal since 2020
In 2013 the Europeans fumbled the papacy for the first time in a millennium. It could be doubtful that they’d regain it again so quickly, especially as their percentage of voting cardinals has dwindled in recent years. However, Pope Francis called on Cardinal Grech to lead the defining event of his pontificate, the years-long Synodal Journey, a behemoth process that consulted the entire global church to discern our needs and direction for the future.
Grech, who was born in Malta, was made Bishop of Gozo in 2005. In 2020 he was appointed as Secretary General of the Synod of Bishops. Grech brought the synodal process in for a smooth landing and did so with a genial, even poetic embrace of the big vision of the pope. His election, especially as someone only in his late 60s, could mean the synodal journey has only begun.
Cardinal Peter Erdo
Hungary
Age 72
Cardinal since 2003
One of two cardinals elevated by Pope John Paul II on this list, Cardinal Erdo has served as Archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest since 2002. A canon lawyer, Erdo is associated with a theological bent that is (insofar as these terms can really be applied to the church) more conservative than Pope Francis.
However, unlike many vocal critics of Pope Francis (living and dead), Erdo has shown the flexibility to dive in happily to the synodal processes of the church under Francis. This balance could make him an appealing consensus choice. Another possible mark in his favor: As a Hungarian, Cardinal Erdo has led his local church through a period in which a democracy has slid into autocracy, a possibly applicable skillset these days.
Latin America
Cardinal Sergio da Rocha
Brazil
Age 65
Cardinal since 2016
As the Archbishop of Sao Salvador de Bahia in the country with the most Catholics on Earth (as many as 140 million), Cardinal da Rocha would continue to represent the church’s shift to the Southern Hemisphere—and suggest that the papacy will stay in Latin America for the time being.
If da Rocha were elected, this would also represent continuation of the synodal vision of Pope Francis. In this case, he played a major facilitating role at the 2018 synod on youth in the church. It was a sign that Pope Francis sees him as a leader and someone close to his own vision. He is a prelate who could be described as a “Baby Bergoglio.” Whether that means he’s too close to a repeat of Francis remains to be seen.
Cardinal Carlos Aguiar Retes
Mexico
Age 75
Cardinal since 2016
Mexico has some 100 million Catholics, and Cardinal Aguiar Retes heads the second largest diocese in the world, Mexico City. He’s known Pope Francis a long time, having worked with him even before Cardinal Bergoglio’s election.
Aguiar Retes is also a leader in the high-profile Latin American Bishops Conference (CELAM). Bishops conferences, the national and regional bodies that have allowed bishops to collaborate in the post-Vatican II era, have enjoyed a boost in prominence, thanks to Pope Francis. Again, the question is whether a second consecutive Latin American would be a plus or a minus when the cardinals gather to vote.
Asia/Oceania
Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle
Philippines
Age 67
Cardinal since 2012
If there is a frontrunner going into the next conclave, it has long been considered the head of the Vatican’s evangelization office (and prior to that the Archbishop of Manila), Cardinal Tagle. Media-savvy, charismatic, and joyful, he would be the first truly fluent English-speaking pope in history.
Tagle is the only person on this list elevated to cardinal by Benedict XVI, but Francis also saw his potential by bringing him to Rome—from the only majority-Catholic country in Asia—and putting him over the church’s most important priority: to spread the gospel. (Rocco Palmo, author of Whispers in the Loggia, described the move at the time as a “dry run for the papacy.”) More recent years, however, saw a personnel meltdown at Caritas Internationalis, the global umbrella group for the church’s humanitarian work, also under Tagle’s purview. Whether it was a fluke or representative of the cardinal’s administrative chops is a question the electors will have to weigh.
Cardinal Lazarus You Heung-Sik
South Korea
Age 73
Cardinal since 2022
Cardinal You Heung-Sik has led the Vatican’s hugely important clergy dicastery since 2021. Prior to that, he led his home diocese in South Korea for over a decade and a half. You Heung-Sik has the distinction of being the first Korean to head a Vatican office, a reflection on the vitality of the church in his home country, as well as in Asia overall.
An interesting coincidence along those lines: South Korea is slated to host World Youth Day in 2027. In 2005 and 2013, World Youth Day took place in countries associated with the recently elected pope, Germany (Benedict XVI) and Brazil (neighbor to Pope Francis’ native Argentina, reflecting the overall shift of the church to the Global South. Finally, South Korea has long had a front row seat to the destructive threat posed by dictatorial regimes in the presence of its neighbor and adversary to the north.
Africa
Cardinal Peter Turkson
Ghana
Age 76
Cardinal since 2003
People have discussed the possibility of an African pope ever since the internationalizing of the Roman curia following Vatican II, as Africa and Latin America came to represent the growing edge of Catholicism. The only Ghanaian cardinal, Cardinal Turkson has presented a particularly compelling case in the years since being elevated by John Paul II: Biblical scholar, multilingual, drafter of Francis’ Laudato Si’ (On Care for our Common Home) encyclical on care for creation, soft-spoken but charming, shares a birthday with Vatican II.
This striking profile has, however, suffered by a general pigeonholing as a “progressive,” possibly explaining his not gaining traction as a candidate once the cardinals entered the Sistine Chapel in 2005 and 2013. Furthermore, in 2021, the pope moved him from his post as head of the Vatican’s human development (think peace and justice) office to a less prominent role, raising the question of whether he would fit the administrative aspect of governing the entire church.
Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungo, O.F.M. Cap.
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Age 65
Cardinal since 2019
If there’s a true sleeper candidate on this list, it’s this guy, strangely impressive for the leader of the largest diocese of Earth (Kinshasa has 7 million Catholics, per a probably-outdated statistic). Cardinal Ambongo Besungo is known for his humble demeanor, pastoral focus, and peace advocacy. While he might have a low profile in the Northern and Western Hemispheres, this fact perhaps drives home how the universal church is not bound by a Western/Eurocentric identity (at least not since Vatican II). Perhaps this could be an echo of the newly elected Francis’ comment that his brother cardinals fetched him from “the ends of the Earth.”
Another Francis echo lies in the cardinal’s identity as a religious priest rather a diocesan one. Religious orders are sources of reform and repair in the church. Perhaps it would be a logical progression to have a Jesuit pope named Francis followed by a literal (Capuchin) Franciscan. On the other hand, Ambongo Besungo is still quite young by Vatican standards. And a pope elected at age 76 has now wildly outlasted those early expectations for his tenure.
North America
Cardinal Michael Czerny, S.J.
Canada
Age 78
Cardinal since 2019
The current head of the Vatican’s human development office, Cardinal Czerny has spent the last several years leading the church’s global advocacy on behalf of immigrants. Having been a migrant himself—from Czechoslovakia with his parents at age 2—Czerny bridges between Europe and the Americas in a way reminiscent of how Francis’ background bridges between Italy and Argentina.
Beloved by those who know him and in charge of perhaps the most urgent issue portfolio in the church today, Cardinal Czerny is another candidate who could be seen as in training for a bigger job. Czerny’s advanced age is arguably one mark against him. However, with human life expectancies being what they are now, the oldsters might just have the edge – to ensure against an accidental 30-year reign! That said, Czerny is also a member of the Society of Jesus. And with Francis the first Jesuit pope in history, two in a row might be a bit much!
Cardinal Joseph Tobin, C.Ss.R.
United States
Age 72
Cardinal since 2016
A shock pick for cardinal in 2016—while still Archbishop of Indianapolis—Cardinal Tobin’s rise as a confidant of Pope Francis is not surprising, given his extensive time in Rome (both in the curia and, prior to that, as head of the Redemptorist order), multilingual abilities, and shared vision of a church of the peripheries. The early years of his tenure as Archbishop of Newark saw the fallout of the McCarrick abuse scandal, and he has since played a leading role on the Vatican’s synod planning and as a vocal advocate for immigrants.
The prospect of an American pope has long fascinated people, but the conventional wisdom has been that the cardinals were not about to hand the papacy over to the richest, most powerful country in history. However, the 2013 conclave that produced Pope Francis defied this tradition with the very real prospect of the election of Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston. (They ultimately didn’t have to resort to that.) This was before the election of Donald Trump, a figure whose rise to power has been inversely proportional to America’s standing in the world. Since the start of Trump’s second term, Pope Francis has already addressed the “major crisis” of Trump’s immigration policy. The cardinals could also send quite a message by making the President of the United States the world’s second most powerful American.
So there they are: 12 cardinal electors with prominent profiles in the universal church— and who quite likely will not be elected the next pope.
Note: The qualifications for the job are technically only that someone be a baptized male Catholic, despite the cardinals electing only from men in the room for centuries now.
Also: As this process unfolds, it’s important to remember that nobody is officially a candidate, and campaigning for the job is in poor taste. It’s also a sign of egotistical ambition and just plain bad judgment, given the crushing responsibilities awaiting the person the cardinals choose.
Header image: Wikimedia Commons/Agencia Luca
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