As the cardinals call on the saints to pray for them and to the Holy Spirit to guide them to choose the right man for Pope, earthly and spiritual concerns are bound to clash.
With Francis’ recent health decline, for months rumors were circulating in the Vatican about who is “papabile” and who has got what it takes to lead Catholics into an uncertain future.
The Telegraph reported:
“And this time, the questions asked will be much more than whether someone is papabile because he seems a holy man. For the cardinals, and indeed the entire Catholic Church, will be asking: do we want to continue along the path chosen by Francis, or do we want to change direction?
[…] The constant references to climate change, the finger wagging at politicians over their efforts to cope with the seemingly endless procession of migrants making their way across Europe and the United States, the efforts at friendly relations with China’s Communist regime: why, some asked, has the Pope dabbled in politics rather than focus on the stuff of people’s souls? Don’t we need more attention given to prayer and less to net zero?”
Most Catholics don’t want another episode of Amazon natives bringing a Pachamama idol into a church, lest they have to throw it again into the river Tiber.
“In the run-up to the next conclave, support is already growing in some circles for the election of a conservative cardinal such as Robert Sarah, from Guinea, who has strongly criticized gender ideology and denounced Islamic radicalism.”
Sarah and the American Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke were nominated by conservative Pope Benedict XVI.
“But whether they can muster enough support among the voting members of the College of Cardinals is a moot point. Of the 138 under the age of 80 and so eligible to vote, 110 – a whopping 80 per cent – were appointed by Francis himself. These clerics, he felt, shared his vision of Catholicism.”
Cardinal Robert Sarah arriving at the Vatican this morning
His aura is immense
Cardinal Robert, we are with you!
pic.twitter.com/5XhqWogodR
— Mambo Italiano (@mamboitaliano__) April 22, 2025
“Liberals might find an African pope appealing, but Sarah’s particularly strong views – the same views earning him a groundswell of support on social media this week – may be problematic, as could his advocacy of the traditional Latin Mass, which Pope Francis suppressed. In an interview with The Tablet in 2019, Sarah said: ‘Gender ideology is a Luciferian refusal to receive a sexual nature from God. Thus, some rebel against God and pointlessly mutilate themselves in order to change their sex. But in reality, they do not fundamentally change anything about their structure as a man or a woman. The West refuses to receive, and will accept only what it constructs for itself.’”
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The post In Vatican Rumors and on Social Media, Support for a Conservative as Next Pope Is Surging – But Francis Installed 80% of ‘Progressive’ Cardinals Who Will Vote in the Conclave appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.