From the Russia-Ukraine conflict to relations with America, China, and the Middle East. Pope Francis leaves a heavy legacy for the cardinals who will elect his successor.
This article was originally written in italian and can be read here. The english version is translated by artificial intelligence.
If among the favorites to succeed to the Throne of Peter is Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State since 2013, it becomes clear how — beyond the mediator qualities recognized by much of the College of Cardinals — the issue of a world in flames (or “in pieces,” to use one of Pope Francis’s favorite expressions) enters into the conversations of these days among cardinals gathered in Roman trattorias or more sober morning congregations. It’s a bit like 1939, after all: there’s no Hitler ready to expand the Reich into the heart of Europe, but the Putin threat looms in the East, Trump’s hundred days had none of the mythical aura of Napoleon’s before his final exile to Saint Helena, the Middle East is as ablaze as ever, and the Israeli-Palestinian question is igniting passions — even among foreign cardinals upset by the absence of prominent Netanyahu government officials at Saturday’s funeral.
Francis was indeed an evangelizing pope, a great catechist, and a bishop of Rome attentive to the marginalized and discarded, but he was also a political leader like few others on the global stage. He himself once told a Belgian magazine that Europe’s problem was the lack of worthy leaders — whereas he, whether in Strasbourg or while receiving European awards at the Vatican, demonstrated that he was one (whether people liked his positions or not is another matter). No diplomacy, no tactical prudence: his impulsive personality led him to make initiatives that often drove the Secretariat of State mad. When Putin invaded Ukraine, Francis walked out of Casa Santa Marta and went to the Russian embassy: “I felt I had to go there and said I was willing to go to Putin if it would help. From that moment I had a good dialogue with the Russian embassy. When I brought them prisoners, they released them — even some from Azov. The embassy behaved very well in releasing those who could be released. But the dialogue ended there. At that point, Lavrov wrote to me: ‘Thanks, if you want to come, but it’s not necessary.’”
When asked about the causes of the conflict, he quoted something he had heard somewhere, saying that he wasn’t justifying the Kremlin, but “if NATO barks at Russia’s borders…”. Then there was Kyiv, to which he sent ambulances through the almoner, Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, and his comment that “if you see you’re defeated, you must have the courage to raise the white flag.” Kirill, the man he embraced in Havana in a joint declaration — which would horrify today’s fans of todos, todos, todos for its stances on family and ideological colonization — was later called “Putin’s altar boy.” Vatican officials were often left scrambling to contextualize and clarify. Never to deny — they couldn’t: the Pope gave live interviews on TV. Impossible to say, “That’s not true.”
It was the same pattern with the Middle East: late-night calls to Gaza were not particularly well-received by the Israeli government — though, as shown in certain leaked videos, Francis mostly asked the local community how their day went, what they ate, what they did. Like a father would.
There were clashes with the Israeli embassy to the Holy See and painful rifts with Jewish communities, which accused the Pope of undermining sixty years of dialogue (including “setbacks” noted by Rome’s Chief Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni, who nonetheless paid respects to Francis with a visit to his casket). Relations with the United States were cold — freezing, in fact. His mentor, Father Juan Carlos Scannone, responded to early accusations that his former student was anti-American by saying, “It’s not about having reservations about the United States per se, but about the U.S. as a hegemonic power. The Pope doesn’t support hegemony, from any side. He prefers a multipolar world.”
Major American donors and philanthropists realized this quickly — even threatening to withhold funds for the renovation of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York. And in twelve years, despite attempts — not entirely successful — to reshape the U.S. episcopal hierarchy, little has changed: American Catholicism, a minority among minorities, thrives in more conservative communities. Data on Mass attendance and vocations confirm this: nearly all new priests, sociological studies say, lean traditionalist. In the last presidential election, more than half of American Catholics voted for Donald Trump, considering him the “lesser evil.” After all, the Pope had hinted mid-flight that he didn’t particularly like either the reelected president or his Democratic challenger, Kamala Harris: “They’re both against life — whether by throwing out migrants or by killing children.”
But Francis’s great passion was Asia, where he would have liked to go as a missionary in the footsteps of great Jesuits like Francis Xavier and Matteo Ricci. He dreamed of visiting Japan, and as Pope did all he could to open China to the Church. In 2018 he signed a secret agreement with Xi Jinping regarding the appointment of bishops, renewed multiple times with Cardinal Parolin’s support. Parolin, shaped by Villa Nazareth and a disciple of Cardinal Achille Silvestrini’s school (which backed Casaroli’s Ostpolitik diplomacy as opposed to the “diplomacy of truth” championed by Benedict XVI), worked diligently on the deal — though he never seemed fully satisfied, as shown by his careful answers to reporters: “We hope it can be improved,” he once said, in stark contrast to the reigning Pope’s enthusiasm for shaking hands with Beijing and his hopes of visiting the country someday.
Francis never changed his stance — not even when the Chinese violated the terms of the agreement by appointing bishops unilaterally, forcing the Vatican to ratify decisions made by the Communist Party’s plenum amid embarrassment and silence. Nor did he waver when, after mentioning the persecuted Uyghur population in passing, a high-ranking Chinese official sneered, “The Pope doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” Nor even when tanks surrounded Hong Kong, hundreds were arrested — including 90-year-old Cardinal Joseph Zen, who, once in Rome, was left outside Casa Santa Marta to avoid upsetting Xi.
And now Zen, 94, has come to Rome. He says he’ll make his voice heard against appeasement, against the agreement he always opposed, calling it a surrender — a capitulation to those who want the Church to disappear. “Both in Hong Kong and Rome, the strategy has been to pacify Beijing by showing submission. In recent years, not a single word of reproach has come from Rome about the atrocities committed by China. The whole world sees how the young are being beaten. Everyone sees it — in utter silence,” he said in a 2020 interview with Il Foglio.
Zen’s target was not just the Pope, but Parolin, viewed as the architect of the plan. The elderly Chinese cardinal is not alone, and this is not a solitary battle in a College unanimously defending the agreement: Cardinal Charles Maung Bo of Myanmar has expressed similar views. Among American cardinals, Rome’s embrace of Beijing hasn’t stirred much enthusiasm either.
Francis’s “geopolitical” legacy is thus complex and particular. Here too, many believe, someone is needed to restore order, to calm tempers and return the Church to the quiet, behind-the-scenes diplomacy of the past — the hallmark of the Vatican’s school over the centuries. For weeks, Church observers have focused on Cardinal Claudio Gugerotti, nearly seventy, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Eastern Churches. A polyglot who knows modern, ancient, and even regional languages, he has a cheerful and more “communicative” personality (as Cardinal Reinhard Marx repeatedly pointed out) than his fellow Cardinal Parolin. Some have added him to the list of “papabile” contenders.
In a world in pieces, Gugerotti brings solid diplomatic experience: nuncio in Armenia, Belarus, Ukraine, and the UK. But he too, like Parolin, belongs to the Silvestrinian diplomatic school, which left mixed impressions in Kyiv — his “coldness” is often contrasted with the current nuncio, Archbishop Visvaldas Kulbokas’s “warmth.” Like Parolin, he is considered an exemplary professional — but a desk man, with no diocesan pastoral experience. From the Church’s peripheries, several cardinals have stressed the need for a shepherd who has led a local Church. A group of conservative cardinals — especially those wary of Parolin’s closeness to the outgoing governance — had also considered Gugerotti a “peacemaker” candidate, until someone pointed out it would be odd to elect a Pope who had never attended seminary.
We shall see. The logic of the Conclave is unique: strong candidacies can falter after the extra omnes is pronounced. Twelve years ago, newsrooms were flooded with reports of cardinals assured of forty starting votes, only for the count to reveal half. That’s the history of papal elections — always repeating itself, at least in outside chatter, even in this new and unprecedented Conclave.
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Friulsardo, è nato nel 1986. Laureato in politica internazionale e diplomazia a Padova con tesi su turchi e americani, è stato arbitro di calcio. Al Foglio dal 2011, si occupa di Chiesa, Papi, religioni e libri. Scrittore prediletto: Joseph Roth (ma va bene qualunque cosa relativa alla finis Austriae). È caporedattore dal 2020.