On "Forbes Newsroom," Don Clemmer, a writer and former staffer with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, discussed who are the contenders to become the next Pope.
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00:00I was going to ask, I know everyone kind of goes in a candidate, but those of us on the
00:05outside world do like to speculate. In 2013, did anyone suspect that who we now know as Pope Francis
00:13would become Pope? I have to give credit where it's due. One journalist who covered the Vatican
00:23for many years, John then of Catholic News Service, and his coverage only wrote one candidate
00:31profile, and he had apparently very good sources. I can still remember seeing the headline, which was
00:38a runner-up from last time might get a fresh look or something like that, and his sources were saying,
00:44oh, we might be looking at Bergoglio, and he had posited that they were saying as a backup plan
00:50or something because he was not a media candidate in the sense of the names with the small card
00:55stats next. It turned out he was the first pick of a critical mass of cardinals going into that
01:05election. The real answer to your question is no, he was not on people's radar. It was the exception
01:14that someone had Bergoglio's number. Bergoglio, of course, being Francis's name
01:20before he took the name. The late Pope Francis, yes. The late Pope Francis, just for folks who
01:24haven't been reading as much as you and I have. Let's, okay, and I will hedge this using a quote
01:28that you used in one of your pieces of coverage, which is that there's an Italian saying that he
01:34who enters the conclave a pope exits a cardinal, and that it is a fool's errand for journalists to
01:40speculate who will become pope. So we're framing the conversation, recognizing this might be a foolhardy
01:46game. But in your view, and you've written about this, who do you see as the contenders for the
01:52papacy? I, there's a lot of conventional wisdom that says like the, the, the card, one of the
01:59cardinals from the Philippines who works in the Vatican, Luis Antonio Tagle has all the makings of,
02:06I mean, he's telegenic, this very pastoral of charismatic guy with, who, who was promoted to
02:13various posts by the last three popes. So kind of like just woven into the tradition of it. He,
02:19he is someone whose name comes up a lot. Um, but that's not necessarily, that doesn't necessarily
02:26pretend that he'll come out of the conclave of a pope. He could come out of it a cardinal.
02:30Um, other names that, that, uh, come up include, oh shoot. Uh, well, I mean, there's always the
02:39question, the questions that get tossed around are like, will the papacy ever go back to Italy?
02:43You know, should we be looking at, because they still have more cardinals than any other country?
02:48Um, there's always, uh, this persistent media narrative of, oh, could there be an American
02:55Pope, which, uh, traditionally has been dismissed as like, oh, well, you know, they're not going to
03:01give the papacy to the superpower that has everything else too. Um, although in 2013, the, the Cardinal
03:09Archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Sean O'Malley, uh, apparently was not only a media candidate,
03:15there were people prepared to, uh, to, to, uh, actually vote for him. Uh, another name that comes
03:21up a lot, uh, Cardinal Mario Grech, who heads the, uh, the Vatican's synod office, the synod being
03:27like the project of Francis, uh, pontificate, this push toward encouraging dialogue and listening at
03:36every level of the Catholic church that we actually know what people are thinking and saying, and like,
03:41where the spirit is leading, you know, the, the entire body of Christ, as we would say. Um, so to
03:47be tapped to lead Francis's pet project is like, uh, certainly a vote of confidence. And, you know,
03:53he's, uh, an affable charismatic guy, um, uh, who is, is like a way to not return to Italy, uh,
04:05but also return to Italy. And what I mean by that is we had 400 years of Italian popes,
04:10then we had 35 years of Northern European popes. And with Francis, they went to Latin America,
04:18but it was a guy whose family had immigrated from Italy. So it was like, they got to have it both
04:23ways. And Cardinal Grech would be that too. He's from Malta. Oh, no, no, totally not an Italian
04:28pope. Uh, it's something that's emerged for me since writing that article. It's like, uh, the,
04:34the world scene is very, is very dicey. And, um, I think they'll be talking about that more than
04:40they'll be talking about, you know, internal matters. And that raises an entirely different profile
04:46set of experiences, you know, whether that's diplomatic or somebody who's traveled the world
04:52a lot has the, the linguistical, uh, acumen to, to, you know, uh, engage directly with leaders and
05:02communities all over the world. It's going to be a, it's going to be a tricky time for the church.
05:07I was going to ask you how much a factor geography would play into this upcoming conclave. Much has
05:14been made of Pope Francis being the first pope from Latin America and how much that has done
05:20for the church. And when we talk about some of the Cardinals he has appointed, some writers have been
05:26pointing out the geographic diversity from which he has appointed these Cardinals. They're really
05:30coming from all over. So does that global mindset perhaps shake up the, the considerations of the
05:37conclave? I mean, Europe's percentage of the electors as a, as I believe at a historic low and, um, yes,
05:46you can't deny that 70 plus countries, you know, represented in a, in a voting body, a relatively small
05:53voting body is going to, um, you know, have an outside effect. I think it's a desired effect. It's
05:59the continued, uh, internationalization as they call it, that's happened in the last 60 years of the
06:05church under the last several popes and, um, geography will and won't factor in. Like, I don't
06:14think anybody's going to arbitrarily say like, oh, Francis brought the, you know, the cutting edge
06:20ideas of the church in Latin America to the whole church. We must continue that. I think that's taking
06:26it a little literally. Um, but if somebody fits the profile, geography kind of clicks into place.
06:34Cardinal Bergoglio happened to be from Argentina and represented all of these emerging ideas that,
06:39uh, you know, their time had come, but it wasn't arbitrary. He was seen as the man in a wider sense.