Electing a New Pope

[00:00:00] Foreign how does the Catholic Church go about electing a new Pope? In this episode, we're going to break this down for you, break down the whole process, how it's happened in the past, how's it going to happen this time? And hopefully this will answer all the questions you might have about how the Catholic Church goes about electing a new Pope. Hello, I'm Eric Simmons, your host, editor in chief of Crisis magazine. So what I want to do today is obviously, Pope Francis died earlier this week. And so I want to do today is break down a lot of the questions people are asking Catholics and non Catholics about how a new Pope is elected. What's happening right now between Popes, so to speak. So this might be a good episode to share with your friends who are asking you questions about the process. You might not know all the answers. Hopefully, we'll address all the major issues and all the major questions here today. Okay, so the first question I just think I have to address right off the bat is the question, does God choose the Pope? This is something that is often confused. People hold the wrong answer to this. [00:01:22] Catholics in particular often don't know the answer to this. And it's really simple, no, God does not choose the Pope. And so what I mean by that is that God does not make it so that the person he wants to be Pope is automatically elected. People will often say this, so Catholics will say this, that, oh, the Holy Spirit chooses the Pope. Who, whoever the Pope is, the Holy Spirit chose him. It's not how it works. God has both. He has a will for what he wants to happen in this world, but he allows. He permits many things to happen that aren't part of his direct will, his active will. So there's his active will and his permissive will. That's why there's so much evil in the world. Obviously, God never wills evil. And all the evil in the world, God did not will. And if you look at the history of popes, there's been many bad ones. And it'd be kind of silly to say that the Holy Spirit chose them to be the Pope. [00:02:20] What happens is, is that there's a human process that goes on, which we're going to detail here today, of selecting a new pope. And we pray that the people who are participating in that process, that they are open to the Holy Spirit, that they will listen to the Holy Spirit, and that they will choose the person the Holy Spirit wants them to choose as the next Pope. And the Holy Spirit is active, trying to open up the hearts and Guide the people who are electing the next Pope. But God respects our human freedom. He respects our free will. He never forces us to do anything we don't want to do. [00:03:03] So if the cardinal electors, they don't want to listen to the Holy Spirit and they elect somebody else, God will allow that to happen. [00:03:12] Now, even if that does happen, if a Pope that the Holy Spirit didn't really want gets elected, God can still work his will in the Church. He can still make his plans and purposes occur, even through our failed attempts to follow Him. It does not mean he actively chooses the Pope, but he does. Even if he allows a Pope to be elected who might be a very evil man, for example, he can still make his plans and purposes work in this world. So let's not fall for the false belief that God chooses the Pope, but yet also let's pray for the cardinal electors so that they might elect a Pope that is faithful, that is holy, that is wise, is courageous. All the things that we want in a Pope. So let's pray for that. And if we pray and we fast, I think that does have a real impact on the ability of the cardinal electors to listen to the Holy Spirit and to be led by Him. Okay, that's, that's kind of. I wanted to get that out of the way first because I know that's a, that's a common misconception among Catholics and non Catholics about what Catholics believe about how the Pope is chosen. Okay, so the next question I want to address is who can be elected Pope? So who is eligible to be Pope? Well, this might be a little surprising to you as well, but the person talking to you right now, me, I'm eligible to be Pope. Actually, any baptized Catholic male is eligible to be Pope. [00:04:44] And so anybody could be selected. They could, they could. Who is a baptized male Catholic? They could select J.D. vance, for example. They could select your pastor of your parish. They could select the bishop of your diocese. However, that's not going to happen in history. The way it's worked is the cardinal electors choose one of their own. And in fact, I think it's been maybe 7, 800 years since that didn't happen. And so of the people who go into to vote, and we're going to talk about that in a bit, who that is, they will choose one of their own. So one of the electors who goes in a cardinal elector will come out of Pope. That is almost guaranteed. It is about as guaranteed as anything we can predict, is that they will pick one of their own. But technically, anybody Any baptized Catholic male can be elected as Pope. [00:05:41] Okay, next question. How have popes been elected? Historically, this is something that has changed over time. I think people need to recognize that this is not a divine institution. The aspects of how a pope is elected, it wasn't divinely revealed by our Lord that, okay, when you select a new bishop of Rome, which is what the Pope is a successor to St Peter, which is what the Pope is, this is how you're going to do it. He did not leave a specific method for selecting the next pope. And so the Church has had multiple ways, and historically there's been multiple ways that popes have been chosen. In the first couple hundred years, maybe till about the third century, first or third century, the popes were basically elected where they were chosen among the clergy of Rome. So the church in Rome basically just said, the local church said, who do we want to be bishop? Our bishop has died. Who do we want to succeed him? And they just selected somebody from that. And so we don't have a lot of details actually, of exactly how they went about that process. Was it only the clergy voted? Did they let the laypeople vote? There's, there's, you know, evidences of both those things happening. But essentially what happened was it was just the local church in Rome elected their own next bishop, starting after the, the, the Roman Empire became Christian. So we're talking about the 4th century or so. Then what we started to see was the influence of the Roman Emperor, including after he had moved to Constantinople and, you know, when the Byzantine Empire in Rome had fell, that still was the case. [00:07:16] It still happened that the local clergy in Rome would elect the next pope, but they had to get confirmation from the Byzantine, the Roman and Byzantine emperor before he officially became pope. This is, for example, the story of Pope Gregory the Great. When he was elected, he was elected in 590, and at that point, Rome had fallen the Roman Empire, but the Byzantine Empire still lived on. And so the, the Byzantine Emperor was in Constantinople. And so what happened was, is after the pope died, there was an acclamation among the people that Gregory should be the next pope. [00:07:57] And so they sent somebody to Constantinople to have the emperor confirm it. Well, the funny thing is Gregory didn't want to be the Pope. He very much resisted the idea of being the Pope because he didn't feel like he could do it. Obviously, we call him Gregory the Great now. So he was up for the task. And he actually sent somebody to try to stop that messenger, to try to stop, to try to tell the Emperor. No, I don't want to be pope. But ultimately, as we know, that was unsuccessful and he did become the pope. But during this process, from about the 4th to about the 7th, 8th century, the local clergy in Rome elected the pope, but they got confirmation from the Byzantine or the Roman or Byzantine emperor. [00:08:41] Next. The next stage was kind of from the 8th century or so until about the 11th century. And this is probably, let's be honest, the worst time for the papacy in the history of the papacy. And it was also the worst way in which they selected because essentially what happened was Roman noble families, they dominated the elections and they decide who the next pope will be. And they often pick the next pope based upon, for political reasons to. To enrich their families. And popes would be murdered by other Roman noble families. And so this was a time of, honestly, chaos. It's actually the nickname for this time for the papacy is called the pornocracy, because there was so much just sin and corruption that went on during this time. And so during this process, though, it was basically the noble Roman families dominated and they decide who the next pope will be, typically somebody from their family, like a nephew or something like that. And that person and that pope was basically beholden to that Roman noble family. [00:09:44] However, in the 11th century, fortunately, this did not stay forever. In fact, this is what led to the College of Cardinals. You notice I haven't mentioned cardinals yet because they didn't exist. The office of cardinal did not exist. And something we should note here is cardinal is not a sacramental office. What I mean by that is cardinal is a title in the church. It's not a new sacrament or the expansion of a sacrament. You know, a bishop is a sacramental office. A cardinal is just a bishop who happens to have another title in the Church. Sacraments always originate from our Lord. So obviously the cardinal, which didn't start until the 11th century, doesn't have that. You know, it isn't a sacrament. [00:10:29] But in 1059, Pope Nicholas II created the College of Cardinals from the Roman senior clergy. And this was partly to try to combat the Roman noble families taking over the papacy. So Nicholas II, in 1059, he created the College of Cardinals. [00:10:50] And so this is how in the College of Cardinals, one of their jobs and the College of Cardinals was created for really two reasons. One was to elect the next pope. And the second reason was to advise the pope. And so this was the senior Roman clergy at this time. So if you were a cardinal, it meant you were a senior Roman clergy. There weren't at first, at least cardinals from England or France or anything like that. Soon that began to happen where popes would select cardinals from around Europe, from around different parts of the church. [00:11:25] Then when we get to the 13th century, there were papal elections that. That had been going on for quite some time. It would take for. I mean, the longest papal election happened from 1268 to 1271. [00:11:40] That's three years. Yes. For three years, they were debating who should. They were debating who should be the next pope. So there's no pope for three years during that time because of this, because of the political process, but because of the controversies, you know, different reasons people, powerful figures, wanted to impact the election of the pope. Even though Nicholas II had created the College of Cardinals, that didn't mean there weren't political influences. If you read the story of papal elections, you'll find there's been a lot of funny business that goes on during papal elections. It particularly happened in the 10th and 11th centuries. But even after that, in the Middle Ages, we still get that. Obviously. Three years for a papal election. That's crazy. However, that led to another development in how popes are elected. We talked about the College of Cardinals happened in the 11th century as a response to the pornocracy and the corruption and the Roman noble families. Electing a pope. Well, the length of time that it was taking to elect a pope led to the creation of the conclave. [00:12:47] And the conclave is a Latin word. It means with key. With a key meaning. Now, what would happen is the cardinals would be locked up. They would be locked up, and they wouldn't be allowed to leave until a pope was elected. This was, hopefully, this was the reason for this, is to try to combat a couple things. First of all, was it not taking so long? Who wants to be locked up for three years? [00:13:11] The hope was that papal elections would be much faster. Secondly, it was to try to eliminate some of the outside influences of papal elections. And so we have the conclave that basically came about in the 13th century. And this is how it was done for. For many years. And it really is how it's still done today. [00:13:33] But there have been revisions. Like, for example, in the 16th century, the rules of secrecy really tightened because even though there was this conclave, these cardinals were locked up, there was still outside influences. This is the real challenge of papal elections is trying to make them not have outside political influences upon the cardinals. And it is true there are papal elections where cardinals were threatened with their lies if they didn't vote for a certain person. This is just documented. It's well known among Catholics. It should be well known at least. So conclaves don't always go smoothly and they often have. And papal elections general, don't go smooth. They often have corruption involved with them. But the Church has always tried to make it so that it's minimized that corruption, that outside influence, as much as possible. So in the 16th century, we started to see tighten rules for security. [00:14:29] And then basically what's happened is over time, the election process has got much more, much more efficient, much shorter. The rules of secrecy are very tight. And so right now, the, the rules today are essentially in place from rules that were created by John Paul II and revised slightly by, by Benedict XVI. So in 1996, JP2 basically set up the rules for the modern conclave. [00:14:59] And essentially what it, it is, is that it's kind of how we understand it. The conclave. The cardinals, all the voting cardinals, I'll explain who that is in a minute, are locked in. They're not allowed to talk to the outside world in any way, shape or form. And that, of course, is getting more and more difficult with the way communications has evolved. I mean, at least there was some protections against outside influence. When you couldn't have people, for example, in america in the 17th century influencing much of a papal election because they just couldn't communicate with them. But now, of course, with communication devices the way they are, you could easily have that happen. Now there will be restrictions, there will be attempts to prevent all of that happening. I can't guarantee, nobody can guarantee that it won't happen, that there won't be cardinals who communicate with the outside world during this, during the conclave, but they're not supposed to. And in fact, they will be excommunicated if you break these rules. And so right now, the way it works is that all the voting cardinals, they get locked in and they can't come out until they vote for a Pope. So that's the modern way, but this is historically how things have happened. [00:16:12] Next question that I want to address. Who votes in a conclave? Who are the actual electors? Essentially any cardinal who is under the age of 80 and still has his rights as a cardinal. There's actually a cardinal, I'm blanking on his name right now, who was stripped of his rights as a cardinal for, for various reasons a few years ago, he's not eligible to vote, even though he's under 80. But basically any cardinal under the age of 80 is allowed to vote. And right now that's 135 cardinal electors. [00:16:43] Now, I don't think every single one of them will be there. In fact, I heard that two were not attending. Then I heard that one of them was saying, no, I am attending. But often because of illness, not every electoral cardinal elector shows up. But right now there is 135 cardinals who are eligible. In fact, I think there was a Cardinal who turned 80 two days before Pope Francis passed away. So it would have been 136, but he's not eligible now because he turned 80 two days before. So basically, if you're 80, when the Pope dies under 80, you are eligible to vote. [00:17:15] Now in specifically this conclave, like I said, There's 135 cardinal electors. 108 of them have been select, were selected, appointed cardinal by Pope Francis, 22 of them by Pope Benedict and five of them by Pope John Paul II. And so 80%, in fact, 80%. 135 is exactly 80%. 80% of the cardinals were appointed cardinal by Pope Francis. So that's who's going to be voting in the conclave. Note that there are many other cardinals. There are many cardinals over the age of 80. I think there's over 240. There's almost at least 100 cardinals that are over the age of 80. They are not eligible to vote. [00:18:01] Next question, when will the conclave take place? So Pope Francis died on April 25. Under the rules of how these things are done, the conclave has to begin between 15 and 20 days after the death of the Pope. So the earliest day the conclave will start is May 6th. It likely will start on May 6th. They have not announced this yet. And so it might not be May 6, but that's the most likely date, is that May 6 is when the conclave will begin. [00:18:33] It might be as late as, like maybe May 12th or something like that, but May, yeah, May 11th or 12th. But May 6th is when it likely will start. And that's the earliest it actually can't start. [00:18:45] What happens before the conclave? So right now we're in this period, this kind of strange period for Catholics in particular, where we have no pope. It's called the interregnum, the interregnum period, the interim between reigns, between the reign of one pope and the reign of the next. It's also considered a time of sedevicante, meaning the seat is empty, meaning the seat of Peter, St. Peter, the chair of St. Peter is empty. There is no current occupant in, on the, on the throne of Peter. So that's what. That's where we are right now. There are very strict rules about what goes on during the interregnum. And one of them is that very soon after the pope dies, they start having what are called general congregations. This is daily meetings of all the cardinals. Now, this is all the cardinals, even the ones over the age of 80 and over, they're also eligible to come to these daily meetings. And essentially, and they started on the day after, I think it was the day after the Pope died on Tuesday, they started these meetings. And essentially what this. The purpose of these meetings is for the cardinals to get to know each other. This is particularly important this time because Pope Francis never called all the cardinals together. I think since 2015 or something like that. So many of the cardinals have never met many of the other cardinals. And so here they are going to get together to make one of the most important decisions in the church. They don't even know each other. They don't even know the people who they might want to vote for. And so they get together to get to know each other, but also really to talk about the state of the church. This is where they can. [00:20:21] Where cardinals can kind of express what they think is important. And this is, I mean, frankly, a campaign time. I mean, I hate to put it crassly. I do think sometimes Catholics get a little bit overly pious about this whole process. It's a very human process. Like I said, we pray the Holy Spirit works through the human process, but let's not act like this doesn't have political undertones and political processes involved. Essentially, this time, the general congregations and the time between, you know, when they're all in Rome, all the cardinals, it's a campaign season. [00:20:55] So what's happening is maybe a cardinal that many people are looking to as a potential next pope, he will maybe give a talk, a speech at one of the general congregations, or he might be talking what he thinks is important. So this is the campaign season for the next pope. And so, like I said, they meet every day in these general congregations. They also have particular, smaller congregations at times of groups of cardinals to make different decisions about how things are going to be done in the upcoming conclave right now during the time of no pope. Which leads me to my next question. [00:21:33] Who runs the church during the interregnum? Who is in charge of the Catholic Church? [00:21:38] The honest answer is nobody. There's nobody in charge. There were some news reports that now Cardinal Farrell, who is the. Who is basically in charge of some administrative functions while the between popes that he's the head of the Church right now. That's not true. There is no pope. That means there is no head of the Church right now. Obviously, Jesus Christ is our true head, but there's no visible head here on earth. And so technically, nobody is running the church. But that doesn't mean everything falls apart. In fact, I think this is something people need to realize, is that the Catholic Church isn't as centralized as people think. It's actually run in a very decentralized fashion because dioceses are run by bishops. They don't need the Vatican orders from the Vatican order to run. It's not like all of a sudden, every diocese shuts down right now because there's no Pope. A bishop can continue to do confirmations. He can continue to make decisions. He can continue to run his diocese like he would at any other time while there is no Pope. Now, that doesn't mean that there's. You know, it's just chaos. It might be at times, but. But not any more than the normal chaos that happens in the Church. Like I said, there are strict rules about who does what. Administrative decisions that can be made, administrative decisions that cannot be made. So, for example, no new bishops can be appointed during this time. But obviously, the Church still needs to run. The Vatican still needs to run. You need to pay the bills, you know, all those type of things. You need to plan the Conclave. You need to do all those. You need to plan the Pope's funeral. All those things have to happen. And so certain cardinals are assigned to those to make that happen. [00:23:19] So that's basically what's happening right now. So right now, we don't have anybody running the Catholic Church, and that's okay. [00:23:27] Next question. How is a Pope elected? So what is the actual process that happens during the Conclave? So, like I said, what will happen is when the Conclave begins, all the cardinal electors will be locked in. They basically cannot have. They're not supposed to have any contact with the outside world. [00:23:44] And during the Conclave, what will happen is up to four times a day, there will be votes, and the votes will be by secret ballots. So what happens is each cardinal will get a piece of paper and they write who they think should be the Pope. [00:23:59] And they're supposed to write it kind of in an anonymous way, maybe hide their handwriting, something like that, because it's a secret ballot. Those ballots will then be submitted. There'll be a. I think it's like three cardinals who will count the ballots. They will announce it to the cardinals, the vote, and what happens is if a cardinal electorate receives at least 2/3 of the vote. So let's say there are. In fact, I'm going to do the calculation here because I forgot to do it beforehand. So 2/3, 0.67, we'll say just multiply by 135. That's 90.45. So basically, 91, assuming everybody's there. If a cardinal gets 91 votes, we haven't. Then he is elected Pope if he gets anything less than 91 votes, if nobody gets 91 votes, then they vote. Then they will vote again. And what they do is they space this out during the day. And during the day, during the rest of the day, they will have people, you know, cardinals will give speeches, they will maybe advocate for a certain Pope, they will talk behind the scenes, they will meet with each other in groups, things like that. And so they will do that. And now when a. [00:25:09] When nobody is elected, then what happens is nobody gets 91 votes. They take those paper ballots and they put them in the furnace, they burn it, and they make sure certain chemicals are such that out of the chimney will come black smoke. So when people always look to the chimney, you'll see many videos of this coming up, and there will be black. When black smoke comes out, that means that Pope was not elected, that there was a vote, but nobody got the required two thirds majority. [00:25:41] And this will continue. They will continue to have these votes. Now, let's say they just continue to vote over and over again. Nobody gets elected. Well, one of the stipulations currently in effect is after the 30, I think, 33rd or 34th ballot, if nobody's gotten a 2/3 majority, the cardinals are allowed to decide to have a runoff. Take the top two candidates who have gotten the most votes and say, okay, now the vote's just going to be between these two. However, even in that case, the winning cardinal has to get 2/3. So for some reason, after that, one guy gets 60%, another guy gets 40%. And that keeps happening. They just keep on going. [00:26:22] So essentially, they have to get. Somebody has to get 2/3 of the vote. Now, typically, how long is this going to last? It could last a very long time. Like I said, there's been papal elections have lasted years. Now, the truth is, modern elections are much, much shorter. In fact, the past five conclaves, it's never gone more than three days. There's never been more than 10 votes. I think the most votes have happened in a conclave has been eight. [00:26:49] And so it's unlikely we're going to see a conclave that lasts more than maybe three to five days. It is possible though, we are in a time in the Church where we're very divided and there's very extreme divisions between different ideologies, different theologies within, among the cardinals. So it is possible that we will have an extended conclave. I don't think it's likely simply because if 80% of the cardinals have been, have been selected by Pope Francis, there's going to be some commonalities between them. They're going to be able to find a candidate that they can agree on. So I don't think that's going to happen. So when a candidate finally gets the 2/3 majority, what happens? So what happens after the Pope is elected? So first the Pope has to actually accept, I'm sorry, he's not the Pope yet. The cardinal has to accept the election. And it is, it has happened. I mean, there's no, it's hard to always definitively prove these things because of the fact that it's secret. But it has been rumored at least to ha it has happened that cardinals have turned down the papacy and they had to start all over and vote, vote anew. But let's say the Pope does accept the results. What he will do then he will take, he will take a papal name. Now, why does he take a papal name? This is a long tradition that I, and I'm, I wanted to make sure I got the details exactly right before I went on air and I forgot. Oops. I believe the way it worked happened was, is usually the Pope at first was just his name, he just took his own name. But then there was a man who was elected Pope whose name was Mercury and he didn't think it was appropriate that a Pope should be named after a Greek God. And so he, he chose a papal name. I think he chose the name John. But the point is that that's what started the tradition. And so now popes always take a new papal name and sometimes the name they take might reflect what kind of papacy they intend to have. So the papal name is very important. When we hear that if, for example, the next Pope takes the name pope takes name Pope Francis ii, well, that will tell us something that tells, he wants to be in line on some level with Pope Francis. If he takes the name Benedict xvii or John Paul III or Gregory or Pius XIII or something like that, that will tell us something, at least give a hint. But the Pope takes a name and then what happens? And then also then what happens is they take the ballots that were that, that of the winning election, they also burn them in the furnace, but they put in chemicals so white smoke comes up. And so what will happen then is you'll see smoke coming out, it'll be white, and we know we have a Pope. [00:29:34] Now, I remember from both the election, Pope Francis and the election of Pope Benedict, that often what happens is when the smoke first comes out, no matter what, it's kind of grayish. And then it becomes very obvious it's either black or white. And so don't jump to the gun too quickly. When you see the smoke come out, it might look a little grayish. Oh, is that white? And then it becomes obviously black. So that's something to note is when you're watching the, the chimney, look to see, you know, wait maybe, you know, 30 seconds before you jump the gun and say, is this, you know, has a Pope been elected? [00:30:08] The new Pope, though, after, you know this, he's been elected, he's accepted his election, he goes into what's called a room in which he is. Then the tailor comes and tires him with the papal garment, the papal cassock, the various papal garments that he's going to wear. This room is known as the room of tears. The reason for this is because typically, at least this is what's been told. The story that has been told is the man who has been elected Pope breaks down in tears because he recognizes the weight of what has been set upon his shoulders. The papal office, one of the most important offices in the world, one of the most decisive. I mean, the responsibilities of a Pope are just unbelievably incredible. And it hits them, and they. They usually break down in tears in the room, in this room, while they're getting dressed as the Pope. [00:31:05] Then what will happen is after the Pope is elected, he's, you know, he's dressed. Then the, The. The senior cardinal, there's. It's a. It's a specific type cardinal. He will come out onto the balcony at the. At St. Peter's and he will announce in a very specific formula that a new Pope has been elected. He will start with habemus popham, habemus papa, meaning we have a Pope. And then in his announcement, he will say the name, the actual given name of the person, you know, their born name, and then the name they've taken as the Pope. And that's how we will know who the Pope is. And then shortly after that, the new Pope will come out and usually give his first blessing to the world, maybe ask for prayers, you know something of that nature. [00:31:50] So that will happen soon. Within the next couple weeks, we're going to have a new Pope. And that's the process for how it happens. Now, the last question I want to address is simply who will be elected? And the answer is, I have no idea. And neither do you. Only God knows. Again, I didn't say God picked him, but he does know who is going to be the next Pope. [00:32:12] The truth is all of us are speculating. There's nothing wrong with speculating about who the next Pope's going to be, by the way. [00:32:19] It's not like we're not allowed to, as Catholics, to speculate on it. There's even a betting market on polymarket about who the next Pope is that is wrong to bet on the next Pope. That used to be an excommunicatable offense, by the way. It no longer is, but still don't do it. But there is speculation, most speculation. You know, I'm willing to bet that somebody who's been speculated to be the next Pope is going to be the next Pope. It's rare when, although they always say whoever goes in a papable comes out a cardinal, the truth is that usually one of the people people think is going to be the Pope is the Pope, you know, does become the Pope. It might not be the top candidate, but, you know, even though I had no idea who Jorge Bergoglio was before he was elected Pope, he was one of the top candidates, Cardinal Ratzinger. People did not first think he was going to be, you know, he could ever be elected. But in the days leading up in the interregnum period between JP2 and Benedict, he actually became the leading candidate. It was very. People thought there was a very good chance he would be elected Pope. In fact, that's a good example of what I was talking about with that, that campaign season. I don't. I'm not saying that Joseph Ratzinger actually campaigned, but people saw when he gave the papal, the homily at the papal funeral and many things he said, they realized this man could be a good Pope. [00:33:37] There can be surprises. There could be somebody that nobody has guessed will be the next Pope, but it's likely. There's about a dozen men who people think are going to be the next Pope. It's likely it's going to be one of those dozen. And how is how you know who will be selected? It's going to depend on a lot of factors here in America. Like the media will focus on, like, American political reasons. That's not the way the cardinals will select the pope. They're not going to select the pope based upon how he's going to react to Donald Trump. That just simply will not be part of the equation. There might be, maybe one of the American cardinals might. Might think like that, but for the vast majority of the cardinals, they don't care about things like that. There's a number of factors, though, in who is elected. The age of the pont of the cardinal is very important because do the cardinals want a pope who will reign a long time or a short time? There's like, the idea of, like, after a thin pope, a thick pope, and vice versa, meaning after a long reign, they'll pick somebody who will be older, he'll be a short reign. Like JP2 had a very long reign, and so Ratzinger was a little bit older when they picked him. That doesn't always hold, but it is a factor. So we've had a reign of 12 years. That's not that. Lots about an average, I mean, not modern average, you know, of a papacy. Will the pope. Will the cardinals want a pope who have a long reign or a short reign? So the age matters, the nationality matters. You know, do they. Do we want to go back to an Italian pope? Do we want a pope from maybe the peripheries, as they say, from Asia or for Africa or something like that? We had one from Latin America. Do we want to go somewhere else? Or do we want to go back to having a European pope or even an Italian pope? Like I said, their theological outlook obviously will matter. You know, how do they. How do they look at the various theological issues in the church? What is their knowledge? What is their pastoral experience? [00:35:28] What is their governance style? I think that's probably the most important things. I think in general, the. The most of the cardinals are not that far apart in their theological outlook. Yes, there are outliers on both kinds of ends of the spectrum. But in general, I'd be willing to bet that the majority, the vast majority of the cardinals agree on a vast majority of theological ideas. [00:35:54] So the question is, how will they govern? What's their personality? Will they be somebody who is very strong and will kind of order people around? Were they somebody with a light touch? I personally think they might go for somebody with a light touch, because Francis was not a light touch. You could say anything about him. He was not a light touch. And so in his governance style, I mean, they might want to go with somebody who is more of a light touch. So. But we're not gonna we don't know. Like I said, the speculation is often wrong. It sometimes is right, but all we can do is pray at this point. We can speculate for fun, but ultimately the cardinal electors are the only ones who will decide who the Pope is. So hopefully, I think that's all the questions I'm going to kind of address regarding the upcoming conclave. Hopefully this was helpful. Like I said, feel free to share it with your friends, with Catholics, non Catholics, who are confused or not unsure about what the process is. This is basically how it's going to happen. And like I said, within a few weeks, probably less, we're going to have a new pope. So we should be praying for that man right now, whoever he may be. God will apply our prayers to the proper person, of course, because he knows who it's going to be. Let's pray for the cardinals, obviously, who are in the who will be in the conclave electing the next pope, that they will listen to the Holy Spirit. Okay, that's it for now. Until next time, everybody. God love.