SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Pope Francis' funeral is not the end of the rites and rituals surrounding his death. Over the next few days, leaders of the Catholic Church from around the world will gather at the Vatican to mourn and also to prepare for the conclave, the secretive voting process where they will elect the next pope. To tell us more about what happens next is Sylvia Poggioli who covered Rome and the Vatican for NPR for many years and joins us now from Rome. Hi, Sylvia.
SYLVIA POGGIOLI, BYLINE: Hi, Scott.
DETROW: So we had the funeral today. What happens next?
POGGIOLI: Well, it will be followed by nine days of mourning known as Novemdiales. Each day, a different cardinal will lead a public funeral rite. At the same time, the cardinals, both the 135-odd voting-age cardinals and the dozens of over 80-year-olds who are not allowed to enter the conclave to elect the papal successor, they'll all meet in what are called congregations every day for at least one week. These are very important meetings because it's then that many of the cardinals will get to know each other for the first time. Yeah, Francis appointed some 80% of the voting-age cardinals. He selected some from areas of the world where there never had been any cardinals before in history. Some of them are from very far-away places, have visited the Vatican very rarely. And so this is going to be a very important time for all of them to exchange views and to discuss the state of the Catholic Church, what they think should be its future direction, its primary focus, and so forth. It's a time when cardinals assess each other, they start making alliances and they start working on promoting their candidates - or even themselves - as future popes.
DETROW: Yeah. In fact, the last two popes, Francis and Benedict, really did seem to establish themselves as front-runners with speeches and actions they took during this period of time. Can you remind us what both of them did?
POGGIOLI: Well, in 2005, after the death of Pope John Paul II, the dean of the College of Cardinals was Joseph Ratzinger, who had been very close to John Paul for years. Ratzinger gave the homily at the pope's funeral in which he painted a very bleak picture of the Catholic Church in an increasingly secularized world. A refrain of his homily was the words, follow me, the words the risen Christ had said to Peter. It was a phrase that could have been interpreted as Ratzinger's appeal to his fellow cardinals to opt for continuity in their choice of John Paul's successor. In fact, in the conclave, after the ballot in two days, Ratzinger was elected, and he took the name Benedict XVI. But then Benedict resigned in 2013, saying he felt too old to deal with administering the Vatican, which was afflicted by a lot of scandals. In one of those pre-conclave meetings, the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, made a brief speech, known as an intervention, that very much impressed his fellow cardinals. He said that if the church has a self-referential spirit, that interferes with its ability to carry out its mission. And after five ballots in just 24 hours, Bergoglio was elected and became the first pope to take the name Francis. Now, normally, cardinals interventions are secret, but it so happens that Bergoglio gave his notes to another cardinal who, with his permission, later published what apparently became the blueprint for the Francis papacy.
DETROW: There been times where people who go into this period as front-runners undercut themselves or weaken their candidacies in one way or another?
POGGIOLI: Well, there's an old expression which everybody is repeating these days here - he who enters the conclave as a pope leaves it as a cardinal, meaning, often, the so-called favorites are the losers. As usual, there's a lot of speculation on who has the best chance. And there are several so-called papabile - Vatican insiders and cardinals far out in the field.
DETROW: All right. So, given that, Sylvia, I'm not going to ask you to name any specific front-runners, but in terms of the big-picture direction the church might go, any sense which way the cardinals could be leaning here?
POGGIOLI: I think the cardinals have very hard decisions to make. The Francis papacy is one that was, in many ways, revolutionary. And just before dying, he was an increasingly isolated moral voice in a world that seems to be shifting more and more toward nationalism, populism and authoritarianism. It's quite ironic, I think, that the late leader of the Catholic Church had become the messenger of liberal values on the world stage.
DETROW: Right. That is Sylvia Poggioli reporting from Rome. Sylvia, thanks so much.
POGGIOLI: Thank you, Scott.
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DETROW: And when the papal conclave begins, ALL THINGS CONSIDERED will bring you live coverage from the Vatican. I will be with the NPR team broadcasting from St. Peter's Square and waiting for white smoke.
(SOUNDBITE OF DANI CATALA, ET AL.'S "SUBTLE ACT") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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