On "Forbes Newsroom," Don Clemmer, a writer and former staffer with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, discussed Cardinal Robert Sarah.
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00:00uh nonetheless my other age question was going to be on the other end of the spectrum
00:05the right wing favors robert sarah who is 79 so would the conclave look at someone who is 79
00:14right on the edge of being in the conclave as a genuinely strong candidate it would it would be
00:22a question of is does this person fit the profile um so it could be it could be arbitrary and again
00:28again a 79 year old pope could could serve for a decade so i i don't think it's a disqualifier by
00:34itself but they would recognize like he's he's old and and you know oh he seems too old can be a can
00:42be disqualifying if somebody's otherwise kind of looking good um and the other thing i would throw
00:48it is that um going back to the other end of the spectrum is uh if they look to the world situation
00:56and say this is this is getting really choppy they might see the benefit of electing a young
01:03guy with the understanding that they're going to get stability and don't have to come back and engage
01:08in this very delicate process in another five or ten years if they think well no we need we need youth
01:15we need vitality we need continuity that's how that's how the church weathers a chapter as it were
01:21you mentioned in one of your earlier answers that pope francis put forth a number of things that are
01:29still in the oven and could take a long time to emerge fully baked i would argue that one of those
01:35is the are the papal commissions to study the question of whether or not women can be deacons he
01:41commissioned two um groups to study the history and theology so do we know if this uh line of research
01:51will continue uh i mean a new pope could theoretically stop something in its tracks or let it run its
02:00course and just kind of sit on it um beyond the commission on on deacons francis did a great deal
02:09to promote women in the church especially like into the power structure of the vatican you could argue
02:13kind of swiss cheese them through the the the bureaucracy um that will continue and that i think
02:22reflects how uh francis was a big believer in culture chefs like he knew if he took on hot button
02:29issues head-on that it would almost create too much scar tissue for for the church to really deal with
02:35that change um you know he it yeah it's back to the oven metaphor when these things are baked they're the
02:41sort of things that we just kind of look around and say oh yeah that that changed uh of course it
02:47changed and and that's you know why his program of synodality is also one of those things that's
02:53still in the oven that the church engage in continual dialogue and discernment about you know what the
02:59issues are where the holy spirit is leading the church and um you know just what's uh you know where
03:07the spirit's leading us and where it's not i guess would be would be the distinction