Who Would Make a Good Pope?

[00:00:09] What qualifications should Catholics desire in a new pope? And which candidates do I think best meet those qualifications? That's what we're going to talk about today on Crisis Point. Hello, I'm Eric Sims, your host, Aaron chief of Crisis magazine. Before we get started, as always, I encourage you to smash that like button to subscribe to the channel. [00:00:29] You're probably watching this on YouTube, maybe you're watching on Facebook, maybe you're watching on X, maybe you're listening to on the podcast, some podcast platform. Wherever you might be consuming this content, please like and subscribe and let other people know about it. We always appreciate when you do that. Also, you can subscribe to our email newsletter. Just go crisismagazine.com put in your email address and we'll send you our articles one time a day, usually in the morning around 9:00 Eastern Time. You can also follow us on social media risismag at all the major social media channels. Okay, so. And also finally, for those who are joining the live chat, this is a live version of Crisis Point. Those joining the live chat, please enter your comments, your questions, and I'll try to address some of them at the end of the program. Maybe give your suggestions who you think or if you would be a good Pope or disagree with some of my suggestions as well. I'm going to give seven today suggestions candidates I think would make a good Pope. Now, I want to address a few things before I get into the seven, and that is, first of all, some people act like it's unseemly to have conversations like this before the Conclave or during the Conclave, that somehow we're not allowed to have a preference for a Pope. That somehow it's not, it's, it's like not devout or holy to have such discussions. Personally, I think that's like a pseudo piety that is just like you want to sound like, I mean, maybe you mean it sincerely. I shouldn't say that you want to sound like that, but it just sounds good. But it's like we're humans. We're allowed to have preferences. We're allowed to think, I, I want this person to be Pope, and I prefer if this person wasn't Pope. Ultimately, we have to accept whoever the College of Cardinals, whoever the Conclave elects as the legitimate Pope. But we're, it's okay to be like, I hope this guy gets it. I mean, I remember when Joseph Ratzinger was elected Pope, I was jumping up and down in excitement. I was super excited. I wouldn't. And when Jorge Bergoglio was elected pope. I wasn't. I had no idea who he was. [00:02:35] It's okay to be like that. There's nothing wrong with that. Secondly, I want to remind people of something I said last week in my podcast, and that is God does not actively choose the pope in every situation. [00:02:50] Popes are elected by men, men who have free will, men who can listen to the Holy Spirit or not listen to the Holy Spirit, either one. And so we need to pray, we need to fast, we need to do penance. We. I'm praying in novena right now, hopefully you are praying in novena right now for the election of a good and holy pope. And so because that, because we know God doesn't actively choose the pope in every situation, we can, and we have had bad popes. [00:03:24] We know there could be men who are elected, who have been elected in the past, popes who have been bad popes. We don't want that to happen again, but we know it could happen. And so it's okay again to be like, I hope this guy gets to be is elected pope and not this one. And again, I'll say it again, whoever's elected, though, we accept as the valid pope. If the College of Cardinals says, this is the valid pope and the church accepts it, that's who the valid pope is. [00:03:51] So let's ask now, though, what kind of qualifications do we want in a pope? Do I want in a pope? I mean, this is my personal opinion. I say I'll admit freely, but I imagine I share it with a lot of people, especially a lot of people who listen to this podcast. The first qualifications I have. How many do I have? One, Two? I have five qualifications I think for that would make a good pope for today. [00:04:15] The first qualification is holiness. [00:04:19] This should seem obvious. [00:04:21] I don't think it's the only qualification, though, because there have been holy popes who are bad popes, and, you know, there have been some actually pretty good popes who weren't that holy. But I think they would have been better popes if they were holy. So we want a holy pope, meaning somebody who loves Jesus Christ, who loves his mother, who is faithful to the Catholic, to the church, is faithful to following Christ wherever he might lead. So we want a holy pope. First qualification. Second qualification is we want orthodox pope. [00:04:53] I think that some would, you know, the seti of a contest would say, well, there's no way you could have any other. I disagree with that. I think you can have popes who have personally heretical views. I don't think that means they're no longer the Pope, but we want a pope who's Orthodox but really has a love of Orthodoxy. One of the things I feel like is common among the episcopate today is you have bishops who will toe the line on Orthodoxy, but they almost apologize for it. They wish the Church teachings would be different. [00:05:29] I want a pope who is not only Orthodox personally, but he loves Orthodoxy. He loves the teachings of the Catholic Church, and he thinks they are the best. They are the way to salvation. They are the best explanation of how the world works, how human, what man is, what God is, all those things. I want a pope who loves Orthodoxy, not just is personally Orthodox and kind of apologetic for it. So wholly orthodox. Third, I want a pope who is wise or prudent. You use either word here. Somebody who can make wise decisions. [00:06:08] Prudence, say, okay, I should do this. I shouldn't do that. In other words, would be a good governor of the Church. Because, after all, the pope is the head of the Church. He is in charge of the government of the Church. And so therefore, I want a pope who is both, you know, who is wise, who is prudent. [00:06:24] And so that's another thing we want so holy, Orthodox, wise. [00:06:30] Fourth, I want a pope who is courageous. [00:06:35] I think courage is very lacking in the Church today, especially among the episcopate, including the cardinals. We have a lot of people who are men who are not courageous, meaning they're not willing to stand up to the world. One of the things I admired about Pope John Paul II was he did have great courage. [00:06:54] It doesn't mean he was right about everything, but he did have courage to stand up, in many cases, to the world powers. We need a pontiff who is courageous to stand up to world powers, but also to stand up to. To the corrupt powers within the Catholic Church. Today. We need somebody who has a real strength. This is where I'll be. I'll be frank. This is where I think Pope Benedict failed. I think he failed this test. He was not courageous. I mean, he quit. He said, you know, pray that the wolves don't consume me, or whatever it was. And they did, and he quit. I don't think he had the courage really to stand up. They get a lot of good attributes. I actually think he was very. I think he was holy. I think he was holy. I just don't think he was courageous. So we need a pope who's holy, orthodox, wise, courageous. And what's the final characteristic? I want a qualification. I want a pope. I Want a pope who's clear. What I mean by that is we've had a lot of confusion. I mean, the one thing we know about, we had an article about this at Crisis called the Pope of Ironies. I think it was Pope Francis would say one thing and do another that often contradicted themselves. Sometimes he'd say in one talk things that contradicted themselves, themselves. He was never very clear about what where he stood on certain things. He would undermine his own statements with actions later. I want a pope was very clear. [00:08:11] He says what he means, he means what he says. You know exactly where he stands on everything. You don't have to divine like you have the Pope explainer say. Oh, what he really means is this. Just say what you mean. I think this is actually Pope Benedict was pretty clear on things. So holy, orthodox, wise, courageous, clear. [00:08:28] Now, let's be honest. [00:08:31] Very, very, very few men in the Church, out of church, in the car, being cardinals, whatever, match all five of those qualifications. I think there's very few men in the world today who can say they're all five of those things. I know I'm not, and I doubt you are either. And so I recognize that what I'm saying is qualifications for a good and a good Pope are almost unreachable, but they are possible because with God, all things are possible. [00:09:05] So they are possible. But we're just talking about what we want in a Pope. And that's what I want. I want a Pope who's holy, orthodox, wise, courageous and clear. That's what I want. [00:09:16] If we get some combination of that, that kind of ticks off a lot of those boxes, but maybe not all of them. Okay, that's going to be better than not than a Pope who doesn't tick off any of them or just maybe one of them. So the more I think a Pope ticks off those five qualifications, I think the better Pope he will be. So those are kind of my qualifications for what makes a good Pope. So that being said, let me talk about who I think might be a good Pope candidates. First of all, just be clear. There are no, like uber trads candidates. There are no men who are like celebrating the Latin Mass every day and things like that. So, I mean, I'm not looking for that. I mean, you know, ideally, one day, maybe they're all. They all have their flaws, just like we do. We shouldn't judge them on some unreasonable scale like, oh, look at what they said back in 2009. That looks a little shady. So they could. They're Going to be a terrible pope. That's ridiculous. They're going to probably have said and done things in the past that might not really live up to our expectations, but that's okay. They could still be a good pope. Another thing I want to mention is I'm only. I've only limited this to candidates who are voting cardinals. Yes, I know it's possible for them to elect someone who's not a cardinal elector, but they're probably not going to. They're almost definitely not going to. They're not going to. They're going to pick one of their own. So maybe you have, you know, Bishop Athanasius Schneider, Bishop Strickland or somebody like that. [00:10:52] Yeah, sure, they might make good popes, but they're not going to get elected. So let's not worry about that. Another thing I want to say, of these seven candidates that I'm mentioning, I'm willing to bet I'd put money down, although you shouldn't bet on papal elections. I would put money down that none of them will actually be elected. I think there's probably a less than 5% chance that any of these seven men that I mentioned will actually be elected. But that just is because the state of the church today, I don't think when it comes to the qualifications that other, that many of the cardinals are looking for, I don't think these are the five qualifications that I mentioned. I don't think those are the ones they're looking at. But we can hope, we can pray that perhaps they will be. So like I said, I'm not saying this is who I think is going to win. This is who I'm saying I want to win the papal election. Who I want to be the next pope. Now, I'm gonna give these seven names. I didn't really put them in any particular order, although my first is. My first one I mentioned is my first choice, but I didn't like necessarily. This isn't necessarily in order of how I want them to be the most. So, okay, the first one is probably, no surprise, Cardinal Robert Seurat. And by the way, it is pronounced Sarah, not Sarah. I've heard some people say Sarah because it looks like Sarah on, you know, on paper for Americans, but it's. It's Sarah. [00:12:04] Cardinal Robert Sarah. He is 79 years old. He barely made the cut off. If, if Pope Francis had lived for two more months, Colonel Sarah would have been too old to vote in the conclave and so probably wouldn't have been selected himself. Now, his age might be a Good factor for him as far as getting elected. I think, by the way, of the seven candidates I mentioned, he's probably the most likely. [00:12:27] No, I, I take that back. He's more likely than some of the others, but I think one or two of the other ones I mentioned are more likely. [00:12:35] He is very well known. I mean, he's written some beautiful books. You know, he's from Africa, from Guinea. He is a. His parents were converts to Catholicism. You know, he was the secretary for the Congregation of the Evangelization of Peoples under John Paul ii. It was Benedict who named him the Prefect of the Congregation. I'm sorry, take that back. It was Francis who nominated him for the Prefect, Congregation, Divine Worship, a position he held until 2021. [00:13:05] He is, he was made a cardinal by Pope Benek, though, in 2010. [00:13:10] I think, you know, he speaks French, Italian and English fluently. He is, I think he's, he, he comes across at least as a very holy man. A very holy man. I think it would be wonderful if Cardinal Seurat were elected Pope because I think it would just, it would be a fresh. [00:13:31] It would be against the Western European domination of the church. And I include Francis in that, by the way. [00:13:38] I think the fact is the cradle of Catholicism, where Catholicism really grew, which is Western Europe, it's failing miserably today. And America kind of falls into that in some ways. And I think Cardinal Seurat's outlook, he understands the Vatican, he's been there a long time, but his outlook of being an African, being kind of an outsider, it's a different. It's more a recognition of the supernatural. It's more a recognition of the importance of Catholic morality. [00:14:11] Those recognitions, I think, would be very good in the papal office in the papacy. So Cardinal Seurat I would put as my, as my top choice, I think I'm going to do is on each of these, I'm also going to give my guess a percentage chance he would actually be elected. I'm going to put Cardinal Seurat. Let me see if I can keep track of this, but I won't. I don't have a pen with me. I'll put Carlos maybe 2 to 3%, maybe 2 to 3% chance they're not likely, but not, not impossible that he would get elected. [00:14:44] Yes. So like I said, Cardinal Seurat is my top choice. Now, again, not in necessary particular order. My next one is Cardinal Raymond Burke. I think he'd make an excellent Pope. Now, just to get out there right now, I think there's a 0% chance he will be elected Pope. I don't think there's any chance whatsoever. He's too much of a lightning rod. He has no desire. He's not campaigning. He doesn't seem to have any interest in becoming the Pope. And there is politicking involved. Let's be honest. I'm not saying that somebody like a Carlo Syrah is like, pushing, like, make me the Pope. But I am saying he's not afraid of. [00:15:20] He won't back down. He's going to put himself out there as I'm going to be a voice for. I think the next Pope should be, if you pick me. Okay. Whereas I think Cardinal Burke is very much more just like. I want nothing to do with being the next Pope. And so I'm just going to, you know, pray and vote accordingly. Cardinal Burke, I think we're most familiar with. He's 76 years old. Most of these men, I think all of them, except for one, is in their 70s. That I, that I. The seven I mentioned. But Cardinal Burke was also made. Was he made a pope? Yeah, he was made. I'm sorry. He was made cardinal at the exact same consistory as Cardinal Seurat. I did not know that. In November 2010. He obviously has a deep experience as a diocesan bishop in America. He was in Wisconsin, I think it was home. Oh. Which died. Lacrosse. Lacrosse. He was the Bishop of Lacrosse. In 1995. He went to St. Louis and then, though Benedict made him the supreme. The Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signartia. I mispronounced that. Basically the head of the Supreme Court of the Catholic Church. [00:16:23] And so he really. And he was that until 2014. He, of course, is one of the Dubia cardinals who ask questions. Questions to Pope Francis. Pope Francis refused to answer about Amoris Letizia. He has been very strong in his support of traditional Latin Mass, by the way, Cardinal Sarah, also, he's. I don't think he's quite as strong on the traditional Mass as, as Cardinal Burke is, but also a friend of the Traditional Latin Mass. He, he understands the importance of Cardinal Burke, that is of the, the, the, the liturgy also. He obviously has a very fundamental and strong understanding of canon law. He's fluent in a. Proficient at least in English, Latin, French, Italian. And he does have a little smattering of knowledge of Spanish. I do think knowledge of languages is matters. I wouldn't like not vote for somebody if he wasn't a, you know, have a, a lot of languages behind them. But that, that would be Helpful. I think one of the great things about Cardinal Burke is that he'd be very clear. When I talked about being clear, you know exactly where Cardinal Burke stands. He does not mince words. He does not try to shirk his responsibility as a shepherd of the church to speak the truth. So Cardinal Burke, again, I think it's a 0% chance Cardinal Burke will be elected Pope. But that is another one of my choices. So I have Cardinal Seurat, Cardinal Burke. Okay. Another one nobody ever mentions because I think he also has 0,0% chance is cardinal Mueller, Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Mueller. He of course is the form, the German. I don't think they pick another German because they just had German in Benedict and he's a lot like Benedict. So I think that's one, one reason I think he has zero percent chance. I also think his outspoken nature over the past couple years makes it very unlikely that he would be elected Pope as well. But I think he'd be a great Pope. He was the, he was made a cardinal in 2014. He's 77 years old again, another one, he's in kind of their late 70s. And Pope Francis actually made him the, where is this the head of the CDF. And so in 2014 and so, but then he did not renew. Maybe it was 2000, I'm sorry, I got that wrong. Pope Benedict made him the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith. What Cardinal Fernandez is today, what Pope Benedict was under Pope John Paul II. And then though when his five year term was up in 2017, Pope Francis did not renew it. The truth is Cardinal Mueller has a background that has a few things in his past that he says, things that it's like I'm not so sure about. But if you look at the way he's been the past few years, he has been very strong, one of the most outspoken cardinals against the confusion that's been happening under the Francis pontificate. And so I think he'd be a wonderful Pope because he'd be very clear. He's very, he is orthodox. You know, he just has a lot of, of things going for him. And, and I think, like I said, I think he's gotten better over the years. I really do. Again, I, I think he's, he's 0% chance being because of his outspoken nature against Francis, his the fanniest facts from me, he's from Germany and I mean former head of CDF who is from Germany I don't think is going to be Pope again this soon. [00:19:48] Okay, so we got Sarah Burke Mueller. Here's one of mine, like dark horse candidates. Cardinal Malcolm Rangith. By the way, if I mispronounce any names, I apologize to people. I'm just terrible at names. So Cardinal Malcolm Redjeeth. He is the, he is the, the Metropolitan Archbishop of Colombo, Sri Lanka, and he is 77 years old and he was made a Cardinal in 2012 again by Benedict. I think all these so far have been. Were made cardinals by Benedict. Is that true? No. Cardinal Mueller was actually made a cardinal by Francis in 2014. [00:20:28] So. Ranjith. Okay, I'll just say it. This is the one I kind of rooting for the most. I'm the one I'm pulling for. I mean, it's kind of silly. I, I think, you know, I'm not, I'm not claiming I have no way of, of, of affecting the, the thing, but we can have like, kind of favorites, can't we? And I, I kind of feel like I, Whereas I think Colonel Sara probably be the, the, the best of all these. I, I kind of have this, this real admiration for Conor Ranjith. The more I learn about him, I think he also has a chance. I think it's probably in about the same chances as Cardinal Seurat, like maybe the 3 to 5% range. So a little bit more than Carlos Rob maybe, but probably still unlikely. I look at him, when I look at his background, he strikes me as a bishop in the mold of Pope Benedict. He's very intelligent. He's a scripture scholar. He's fluent in 10 languages. We're talking John Paul II territory now. Italian, German, French, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Spanish, English, Tamil. And I don't know what this language is. Sinhalese. I assume it's one in Sri Lanka. So I mean, this guy, I mean Hebrew, Greek and Latin. I mean, come on, if you got those languages down, let's, let's do it. He, he also is. He's worked with the poor. His, his pastoral experience early on was a poor fisherman. [00:21:47] He is a, a extensive experience in church government. He was, he's been both involved in divine worship and evangelization of peoples. He's just very. He. Actually, this is the one that, you know, I'll bring up that I like. From my understanding, he banned altar girls in his diocese. And so he just has a, a lot of experience, a lot of. In his background that I really like. And I do think if the, some of the Francis appointees are of the. Let's pick somebody from the peripheries. I think he is the best of all the peripheries by meaning somebody who's not from Europe or you know, some, or maybe even America. Obviously that's not a periphery but somebody not from Europe. And that's. I think that's Cardinal Ranjith. I believe I'm pronouncing that correctly. So I, I would put him as the one I'm kind of most pulling for. Again, I think it's not impossible that he could become the Pope. I think it's 3, maybe 3, 3 to 5% chance. [00:22:47] Okay, who else we got? We got, so we've got Sarah Burke, Mueller, Ranjith. The next one is Cardinal Peter Erdo. Again, I hope I'm pronouncing it correctly. He is of course the Cardinal Archbishop of Budapest, Hungary. And he is the, he is, he's probably one of the younger ones here. He's 72 years old. He was made. But here's the funny thing, he's one of the younger ones but he was actually made a cardinal by John Paul II. He's been a Cardinal since 2003 for 22 years. So he was 50 years old when he became a cardinal. Very, he was a very young cardinal. So he's been a cardinal for a very long time. So he's been around. He's very strong in, understand, in defending the faith. He's got, you know, he speaks a lot of languages as well. German, Italian, French, Spanish, English and his native Hungarian. [00:23:38] He's a man of great intellect people. This is something that is well known that he's a well read author, he's a proficient teacher, he's a canonist, he's a scripture scholar. I mean the guy is brilliant. [00:23:51] He seems to have a love of, he is definitely not a traditional Latin mass guy but at the same time his understanding and appreciation in liturgy seems to tend traditional. So I think that would be good. [00:24:05] You know, he, he's, he's politically even though, you know, he, he's kind of in line with Hungary so he's kind of outside that the Western European norm. So I think that's very good. You know, I think in general he, he, he, he's, he's a JP2 kind of kind of person. So if I'd say Ron Jeeth is kind of like in the mold of Benedict, I'd put Erdo in the, in the mold of JP2. He's a little bit, probably a little bit more squishy on some like issues like people being in judge, you know, being I'm sorry everybody going to heaven. He's not Universalist, but he's a little bit more open to things like that. Like JP2 was. [00:24:46] He's maybe, you know, he. He's good. But, you know, I think. I think he'd be a JP2 type of pope who's maybe, you know, might have some things I have issue with. But that's okay. I mean, like I said, none of these guys are perfect, and I'm not either. I would put him. I don't care if I said the percentage, I'd put him at the highest of any of these guys. I think he's the most likely to be elected Pope of anybody listed here. And so I'm a little nervous about that because his name is Peter. So people will be like, oh, last Pope Peter the Roman, or whatever, but, you know, they're being silly. I would put him maybe 5 to 7, 5 to 8% chance of being elected. I mean, I think he's maybe, you know, up to 10% chance. So I think Erdo is. Is the most likely of the ones I'm mentioning here. So we've gone through Sarah Burke Mueller, Ranjith Erdo, and now my next one is Cardinal Willem Ike. And I. I believe that's how you pronounce his last name. I looked it up. E, I, J, K. It's either Ike or A. So I'm not. I'm not quite sure which one it is. He is 71. He's from the Netherlands. He. He was made cardinal in 2012 by Pope Benedict. [00:25:54] I don't know a lot about him, I'll admit it, but his reputation is good. From what I have seen, what I've read, he is a, you know, he's a solid. [00:26:04] He's a solid bishop. And the funny thing is he's from one of the worst local churches. Kind of like Mueller from Germany is one of the worst local churches. German one is. So is the Dutch local church. It's radicalized. People have left, you know, the church in droves in that. In that country. And so the fact is, he is still stood strong. [00:26:28] He's solidly orthodox. He is a devotion to Our Lady. He talks about love for focusing on love for the Eucharist and the Blessed Virgin. [00:26:37] He's actually formerly a physician, which will be interesting in him being able to talk about medical moral issues of the day. I think that would give him a lot of. [00:26:49] A lot of weight when he talks about that. [00:26:53] He's very strong in supporting the church's teachings. He's, you know, he defends humana vitae, for example, Which I know should, all of them should, but especially where he's Netherlands. I mean he's defending humana vitae, so I think he is. He's also very strong about an all celibate, all male priesthood, you know, so I think he's, he's, he's good in a lot of ways. I'm not, you know, he's not perfect. None of these guys are. I think he doesn't have much of a chance. I mean I, I think he's maybe 1 or 2% at most chance of being elected. I just don't think he's well known enough or has enough of a stature within the College of Cardinals to really get elected. So. Okay, so we've got Sahra, Burke, Mueller, Ranjith or Ranjith Erdo Ike, I believe is how you pronounce his last name. And the last one of my seven. I don't think it'd be any surprise of people who follow me on Twitter who this is going to be and that is Cardinal. [00:27:53] I'm not sure I'll pronounce his first name right, but I know how to pronounce his last name. That's Pierre, is Pierre Batista Pizzabala. So Cardinal Pizzabala, of course, the name everybody makes jokes about. I made a joke on X about if he does get elected Pope, he has to take the name John xxii because then everybody, we all could call him Papa John. Papa John Pizzabala. So the, the, and by the way, I got that joke from my daughter. I don't want to try to take credit for it when it was actually my daughter. He is only 60 years old, so he's considerably younger than everybody else. Everybody else I mentioned here was between the ages of like 71. I think it was. Yes, 71 and 79. He's only 60. That alone probably makes it unlikely he'll be elected Pope. I don't think the cardinals want a young Pope, but it always is possible. I put by the way, his percent chance, maybe 3%, 2 to 3%. [00:28:46] And I'll explain why here in a second. He's from Italy, but he's the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem. And so he was made a cardinal just recently in 2023 by Pope Francis. I do think somebody who's made a cardinal by Pope Francis might have a little bit of an edge over one made a cardinal by Benedict or JP2 because of the fact that, you know, all the Francis appointees might stick together. Hey, let's pick one of our own. And of those Cardinal Pizza ballot would be One of the best. And he is, he became known in the church, in the world, I should say, after October 7, when Hamas took the, the hostages. Cardinal Pizzabala offered himself in exchange for the hostages. He told Hamas, take me instead, Take me as a hostage instead of these. Release them, free them, and I'll be your hostage. [00:29:34] You don't say that unless you're courageous. [00:29:36] You just simply don't say things like that unless you're courageous. So he ticks that box. I mean, he ticks the courageous box, no problem. And the fact that he's willing to stand up to Israel checks the courageous box because so few people in the west are. But yet he is, he is willing to do that. So that's another thing that's courageous. To be clear, he's not like anti Israel and pro Islam or pro Hamas. No, he is mostly number one, pro Middle Eastern Christians. That's who he's most trying to defend and protect. But he doesn't take a very simplistic view of the conflict there and say, oh, Israel can do whatever they want, or Hamas was justified in what it was doing. He doesn't, he, he basically tries to navigate that. I think he does a very good job. He, he's willing to stand up to Israel. And by the way, and I'm just going to say it, I think the fact that Israel would hate him as a pope makes me think that he won't become pope because I do think that if you think political, if you think governments do not have some impact on the election of the next pope, I don't know what you've been drinking because that's been the case for over a thousand years. It probably still is the case that there is influence by American governments, by Israeli governments, by other Russian governments, whatever. I think Russian government have less influence because they don't have many cardinals. But I think the Israeli government, I think just because they're so powerful in the west and they influence other countries governments so much, I think they would make it so pizza ballot doesn't get elected. But I've looked into him more and the truth is we don't know a lot about his views in the sense that we're not like he's not one who's in fact somebody who's criticizing how he's not courageous. He hasn't spoken out against same sex marriage or whatever or same sex blessing. Well, the fact is he's worried about his people surviving and living and they're not debating same sex blessings in Gaza. I mean, that's not what they're concerned about. So why would he be talking about that as some big deal? And so I do think that, you know, but we don't. But he is a little bit of a unknown. And I. I'll be the first to admit that, that, that I'm not saying I know every single thing, but reading his biography and the way he has been the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, how he lived on his office, I can't help but say that he seems like somebody, a man we need. I'm going to actually emphasize that part. [00:32:03] One of the problems we have in the Catholic church is we don't have masculine men as our leaders. Often not saying there aren't some, but so many of our bishops and even our priests are often effeminate. They're not men like real men. Cardinal Pizzabala comes across to me as a man, as a real man, as a masculine man, as somebody who is robust. He's not effeminate. He's not like, oh, my first thought is, will I offend anybody by saying this? [00:32:34] His first thought is, okay, what's the right thing to do that I admire in him? And so now, yes, he might be wrong on some issues. I don't know. But I think generally speaking, just having that type of person as the pope would be a very good thing for the church, because I think it's one of the biggest problems we've had in the church is we had effeminate men running the church. And yes, I do mean many of them are homosexual, but really, I don't even. Not necessarily homosexual, just effeminate. By the way, I'm not saying feminine. Feminine's a good thing for women to be effeminate is not a good thing for men or women to be. You want men to be masculine, women to be. To be feminine, not effeminate. Too many of our bishops are, and cardinals even, are effeminate. And so I think somebody like a Cardinal Pizzabala could be an excellent pope just for that fact alone that he's not effeminate. He's a real man and he shows it by his courage. Okay, so those are my seven people that men, I think are most. I most would like to be Pope Cardinal Serra, Burke, Mueller, Ranjith, Erdo, Ike, and Pizzabala. Those are the seven men. There are other cardinals that I think probably could end up being decent. There are cardinals that I think would probably be terrible popes. I'm not going to say who they are because I refuse to say they will be a terrible pope for sure. Ultimately, I. We need to accept whoever the Pope is and give him a chance. We need to. Whoever's elected, whoever walks out there on that balcony after they say, baby, let's pop them, we need to give them a chance to be the Pope. Not to immediately say, okay, let's find everything they've done wrong in the past. Let's find everything they're going to do wrong every single moment. No, we need to. We pray for them and we fast for them and we give them a chance. But I will say these seven men are the ones I'm most hoping one of them walks out. I think it's unlikely. Like, if you come. I know my. My math here doesn't work out, but I'd say all the seven of the ones I added combined, I really actually don't think they have more than about 5 to 7% chance of any of them combined being elected. But if one of them walked out, I would be very happy and I would be very hopeful. Somebody else walks out, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. I'll give them a chance. But that. That's kind of my own thoughts on this matter. [00:34:48] Okay, let me look at some of the questions and comments that people made. Okay. Mythological myth says Bishop Baron would make a good Pope. First Pope from America. Okay, that's not going to happen. Like I said, I don't think they're going to pick somebody who's not cardinal elector. I have a very. [00:35:04] I don't even know what the word is. My opinion of Bishop Barron, I think, is just. It's all over the map. I honestly do like him in a lot of ways. I have. I think he does many things very well, and I appreciate him in a lot of ways. I also think he's horrible in a lot of ways and horrible. I just. That's probably too strong. Okay. I'm going to regret that somebody's going to clip that out. But I. I honestly think he's. [00:35:29] His views, the way he deals with certain things and. And like, particularly on religious, like religious differences and on the, you know, universal salvation, things like that. I think he's very poor on, and I think he does a terrible job on that, but I do think he does other things very well. Honestly, if I had to stack up Bishop Baron to the 135 cardinal electors, I would pick Bishop Baron. He would probably make my top 10, maybe top 15 at worst. So overall, I agree he would make a better Pope than most of them. [00:36:03] Okay. Justin. Rad trad dad Michael says Bishop dare we hope Baron, he would be a weak pope. Okay. Carter Rangith would be my first choice. Pizza carnal. Pizza ball. And so I would be great too. I mean, you know, Baron is a lightning rod and I, I appreciate that. Most trads really don't like him. Most conservative Catholics do like him. I fall somewhere in the middle, kind of like I do on a lot of things in this. I'm wishy washy, I'm on the fence, that type of person. No, I'm kind of a cross between a trad and a kind of more conservative. The kind of the conservative type Catholic. I admit that. So I do like Baron in a lot of ways, but I don't know what kind of pope he'd be, to be honest. [00:36:42] Okay. FEMALE Casey. Royals fan from Nebraska says Pope Francis said that abortion is like hiring a hitman. Pope Francis gives an award to an abortionist who used a bike pump to perform baby killings. That. You've just summed it up. You've just summed up. That's the issue. That was always the issue with Pope Francis. It's not that he didn't say things at times that were very good. [00:37:02] He did. And of course that's what the Pope splendors would just trot out every time to say, oh, he's this based orthodox Pope. Well, I could find. The thing with Pope Francis is literally everybody could find something about him, something he said or did that they liked. Everybody from the most traditional Catholic to the most secular atheist who hates the church. All of them could find something Pope Francis did they liked. And the truth is that's not really the way a good Pope would be. A good pope would be loved by some and hated by many, just like our Lord Jesus Christ was. So I, I don't think that was that great. Okay. Trev Williams. Conor. Ranjith would be a surprise pick. I've been seeing the same things. I have the same hunch. I would love it. I, I think he would be very good. I think it'd be a huge improvement. [00:37:48] But yeah. Connor. Ranjith. I see we have a few fanboys of Ranjith. Okay. Oh, we got another one here. Nicholas Fernandez says Ranjith would be the best choice, but it seems highly unlikely. I'm glad we got some, some other fanboys of Ranjith here. I, I still think Sarah would be the best choice of this choice of the seven I said. But Ranjith I think would be a good choice. I also agree behind, like, like I said, all these guys have a small chance of being elected to the, to, to the Pope. And that's just more a state of where we are as a church, like I said, than anything else. It's, it's not that we don't, you know, we have some decent candidates, but ultimately nobody, you know, we're probably not going to get one of these seven. But we pray, we fast and it's okay, like I said, to want certain men to become Pope and to kind of root for them. Ask, Ask God. God never minds when we ask him for questions. Ask him for things, as long as we're willing to say thy will be done at the end of it. So I will ask, lord, please make one of these seven men the next Supreme Pontiff, but your will be done. And also I acknowledge that at time that, that the cardinals might not listen to God's voice on this. I pray that they do, so hopefully they will. Okay, well, that's it for today. I think we're going to have another podcast later this week about the Conclave. I think I'm trying to get Tim Flanders, one Pier five to come on. I think that's, I think we got that scheduled. And we will talk about some more, maybe some other, some how the Conclave is going to happen in other candidates outside of the ones that we just want to become Pope. But I wanted to just talk about them, keep it positive, Keep it on a positive note here. So. Okay. And for those who didn't know, the Conclave is actually starts on May 7, which I believe is next Wednesday. I think it's a week in a day from today. So be praying, be praying your novenas, be praying your prayers, you're doing your penances, everything for a successful Conclave, which means one that listens to the Holy Spirit. Okay, everybody, until next time. God love you. [00:39:49] It.