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location. Hawaii. Hey,

1:07

David, how are you doing right now? Good

1:10

question. I got

1:12

a call at 4am this morning,

1:14

so it's kind of been nonstop since

1:16

then. David Gibson. is

1:18

the guy I call when there's news of

1:20

the Vatican. So when I

1:22

woke up and learned that Pope Francis had

1:24

died, he was the first person

1:26

who came to mind. David

1:30

spent years working at Vatican Radio.

1:33

Now he directs Fordham University's Center

1:36

on Religion and Culture. I

1:39

know it's a busy day for you, but is

1:41

it also an emotional day for you? It

1:43

is, I think. You know, I try

1:46

to look at it very dispassionately, like,

1:48

you know, I'm an analyst and the

1:50

whole thing, but I have to say,

1:52

you know... You converted to Catholicism though,

1:54

right? I did, in fact, and, you

1:56

know, way back when, when John Paul

1:58

II was Pope, and

2:00

this Pope, Jesuit Pope, I

2:02

think he's really... he

2:04

seems to represent the church

2:06

that I... into. He

2:09

was very representative of all the

2:11

great Jesuit priests and pastors that

2:13

I always knew, just very easy

2:15

to approach and very humble and

2:17

thoughtful. And he brought

2:19

that to the papacy. Yeah,

2:25

there's a picture that I've seen going

2:28

around on social media of Pope Francis speaking

2:30

in a church. Maybe he's giving

2:32

a sermon and he's holding hands with a

2:34

young girl. Do

2:36

you have a favorite picture in your mind

2:38

when you remember Francis? Oh,

2:40

you know, there are so many, and

2:43

I should take one. I mean, when he

2:45

hugged that man, we've had the terrible

2:47

deformities, you know, at the general audience years

2:49

ago, and he just embraced

2:51

him and kissed him. When he first, a

2:53

few weeks after becoming Pope, when he

2:55

on Holy Thursday, you know,

2:57

in the foot washing ceremony, when

2:59

the priest recreates Jesus washing the

3:01

feet of his disciples, he

3:03

went to a prison and

3:06

washed the feet of prisoners, including

3:08

women and including Muslims. That,

3:10

you know, really spoke so much

3:12

to me. But, you

3:14

know, all of it, I mean, I was there in

3:16

the square in St. Peter's Square, March 13,

3:18

2013, when he walks out on the

3:20

balcony and you didn't know what to expect.

3:22

Honestly, nobody knew Pope Francis, you know,

3:24

he kind of had this thumbnail bios of

3:26

him, but It was just a moment

3:28

and you wanted to say something. And all

3:30

of a sudden, he just puts up

3:32

his hand he says, Buenos Aires. And

3:35

you sort of knew the

3:37

vibe shift had happened. As

3:39

opposed to saying something in

3:41

Latin or... Yeah, exactly. And

3:44

sort of some kind

3:46

of Caesar like, hell, my

3:48

countrymen, I am your

3:50

pope. Even

3:53

in death, David says, Pope

3:56

Francis seemed determined to make

3:58

a point. He died

4:00

the day after Easter, after

4:02

all, which is the most

4:04

important day of the Christian year. This

4:07

pope, you know, he was able to

4:09

go out on the balcony one last time.

4:11

He was able to go out in

4:13

the Pope Mobile one last time, have people

4:15

see him. In a sense, that's

4:17

why it was such a shock. The

4:23

fact that he was able

4:25

to do that and then died

4:28

a few hours later. This

4:30

is a pope of so many

4:32

dramatic moments. That was

4:34

almost a theologically dramatic moment. Today

4:38

on the show, remembering

4:40

Pope Francis and looking ahead to

4:42

whether the next leader of

4:44

the Catholic Church is prepared for

4:46

the world he left behind. I'm

4:49

Mary Harris. You're listening to

4:51

What Next? Stick around. This

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joinbuilt.com slash whatnext. I

6:43

want to spend the first half of

6:45

our conversation remembering Pope Francis, if we

6:47

can, for people who

6:49

aren't familiar with his story. Can

6:52

you tell it to me a little bit?

6:54

Because he's got a unique biography. He's

6:57

the first pope from South America. Where

6:59

would you start talking about

7:01

what shaped him? Really,

7:03

I think what shaped him

7:05

was his experience in South

7:07

America. You got to remember

7:09

as well, even though he's

7:11

the first pope from outside

7:13

Europe, really, effectively, outside

7:15

the Mediterranean basin, the

7:17

first pope from the Southern

7:19

Hemisphere, first pope from

7:22

Latin America, he is the

7:24

son of Italian immigrants. immigrants

7:26

who fled Mussolini's

7:29

fascist Italy. Hence his

7:31

concern over the rise of this

7:33

nationalist populism that we've seen

7:35

so much. He was a very

7:37

traditional Catholic. He admits he was

7:39

a very kind of rigid, rigorous

7:41

young man. Then he

7:43

joined the Jesuits, the Society of

7:45

Jesus, and he became at

7:47

a very young age. He said,

7:49

I was too young. I didn't know

7:51

what I was doing, maybe 35,

7:54

36. He was named head of all

7:56

of the Jesuits in Argentina and

7:58

Uruguay, that whole province of Jesuits, right

8:00

during the height of the dirty

8:02

war in Argentina when they were disappearing

8:04

people. And two priests were disappeared,

8:06

two people in his who he was

8:08

responsible for. Yes. Well, many more,

8:10

but there were two in particular. There

8:12

was a great controversy. Did he

8:14

do enough to protect them? Did he

8:16

sell them out? They later said

8:18

no, he didn't. And I think that

8:20

was, you know, He was doing

8:22

his best in an impossible situation. And

8:25

he admits he himself made some mistakes.

8:27

He had friends, Catholic and non

8:29

-Catholic, who were disappeared. He hid

8:31

some people. It was a

8:33

terrible, terrible time. That's why I

8:35

think he was so outspoken in what

8:37

he's seen happening in politics around

8:39

the world. Bergoglio's

8:41

stint as head of the

8:43

region's Jesuits ended in the

8:45

90s. Even he admitted he'd

8:47

had too much of an authoritarian streak

8:49

back then. and his time in

8:51

exile changed him. And

8:54

that outsider sensibility

8:56

is, I think, one

8:58

of the keys is not

9:00

the key to understanding who Bergoglio

9:02

Pope Francis was. Even

9:05

he was exiled up to Cordoba

9:07

hours away from Buenos Aires

9:09

for a couple of years. No

9:11

contact whatsoever. His mail was

9:13

checked. He was really persona non

9:15

grata within the whole Jesuit

9:17

society of Jesus, which is extraordinary.

9:19

Yeah, his allies were told not to contact

9:22

him. He was sent

9:24

away. I know. And

9:26

that also, in a way, paved

9:28

the way for him to become

9:30

a bishop and a cardinal. Jesuits

9:32

are forbidden from seeking higher ecclesiastical

9:34

office. You're not supposed to want

9:36

to be a bishop. You're not

9:38

supposed to be a cardinal. But

9:41

because he was on the outs,

9:43

he was chosen to be an

9:45

auxiliary bishop for the cardinal in

9:47

Buenos Aires. who later, as

9:49

he was retiring, he got Vatican

9:51

to appoint Bergoglio his successor. So

9:53

he was really an accidental Pope

9:55

in many ways. And then, you know,

9:58

he goes to Rome in 2005

10:00

after Pope John Paul II dies. He

10:02

finishes second as far as we know.

10:05

It's all supposed to be secret, but

10:07

the Vatican's an Italian village. Everybody talks.

10:09

He finished second in the

10:11

balloting to Joseph Ratzinger, who

10:13

became Benedict XVI. Fast

10:16

forward eight years, Benedict resigns,

10:18

scandals, roiling the Vatican,

10:20

Benedict resigns. He's 76, Bergoglio

10:22

comes back, he's done, nobody's

10:25

gonna, you know, his time was over. The

10:27

thought was that he was too old. Exactly. But

10:30

as a tough Argentine Jesuit,

10:32

the same things that got him

10:34

exiled within the order decades

10:36

before were the reasons a lot

10:38

of the other Cardinals wanted

10:40

to elect him. Oh, they thought,

10:43

as someone said, four years of Bergoglio would

10:45

be enough. Come in four years, clean

10:47

up this mess of the Vatican, then

10:49

you can retire or die or whatever.

10:52

But Bergoglio, Francis, had other

10:54

ideas. Can I go back

10:56

to the time in exile? Because it seems to

10:58

me it changed how he thought about leadership. Like

11:01

he talked about how he wasn't actually

11:03

an arch -conservative, but he had a

11:05

way of leading that was quite authoritarian, and

11:07

he thought that that was part of

11:10

why he was sent away, and he

11:12

reflected on that while he was on

11:14

the outs. He did, in fact, and

11:16

it was his time of internal exile

11:18

and interconversion. It was very, again, he's

11:20

a Jesuit, a very Ignatian moment. It

11:22

was this moment of humiliation, and

11:25

it was something that had to,

11:27

it recast the entire approach, not only

11:29

to the church, but also as

11:31

a pastor. He became so

11:33

committed to the poor going into the

11:35

barrios and the slums around Buenos

11:37

Aires after that, but it really It

11:40

took him down to the studs.

11:42

It just took him down completely.

11:44

He sort of had to rebuild

11:46

his spirituality. He had to rebuild

11:48

his ego. He had to rethink

11:50

who he was as a priest

11:52

and as a churchman. And

11:55

he came out of that without any

11:57

ranker. He just saw it as a

11:59

necessary lesson that he had to learn.

12:02

So when he became Pope, it

12:04

was not a vengeance tour. Yeah,

12:07

a lot has been made of

12:09

kind of the humbleness of Pope

12:11

Francis, the fact that he didn't

12:13

live in the apostolic palace. He

12:15

remained in a more humble apartment.

12:18

And it's interesting because he talked about the decision

12:20

as, I did it for psychiatric reasons. I

12:22

didn't want to live alone. And he was reported

12:24

to have posted a sign on the door

12:26

saying, no whining, which it

12:28

just feels like it's just

12:30

such a different approach. to

12:32

politics than we see today

12:35

when I feel like there's so

12:37

much whining out there? Yeah,

12:39

he was so generous and so

12:41

loving, so inclusive, so charitable

12:43

for the rest of the world.

12:45

But for his own Cardinals, he

12:48

didn't have a lot of patience. He

12:50

didn't have a lot of patience with whining.

12:52

He called one of them Cardinal Muller,

12:54

who was a conservative who complained about him

12:56

after he left the Vatican. He said

12:58

he's a child. you know he just didn't

13:00

have any time for that kind of

13:02

whining he said you're here to serve this

13:04

is why you are called and again

13:06

he also you know part of that simplicity

13:08

you said it's for his own well -being

13:11

he admitted remember that he went to

13:13

see a therapist a psychiatrist at one point

13:15

in his life because he needed that

13:17

and he said sometimes people need that for

13:19

a pope to admit that. is extraordinary. But

13:22

he also said, you know, the the Apostolic

13:24

Palace, the rooms are huge, but the doors

13:27

are small. He needed to

13:29

be around people. He needed that interaction. So

13:31

there he was living in the base

13:33

of the Vatican guest house, where all the

13:35

Cardinals are now going to be gathering

13:37

from around the world before the conclave. And

13:39

he went down to the, you know,

13:41

to the Vatican cafeteria and stood in line

13:43

and got, you know, meals with everybody

13:45

else. I mean, that's That's remarkable, but he

13:47

said one of those great lines. He

13:49

said, we have to be normal. So

13:52

can we talk about some of the

13:54

changes Pope Francis made while he was

13:56

serving? Because you'll correct me

13:58

if I'm wrong. I

14:00

don't feel like there were major changes

14:02

to doctrine. I feel like

14:04

there were changes in tone and approach.

14:07

Is that correct? I

14:09

think that is largely correct.

14:11

There were a few changes to

14:13

the death penalty. You've essentially

14:16

forbid the death penalty, which still

14:18

drives some conservatives crazy. The

14:20

church had advocated for the death

14:23

penalty centuries ago. He's saying, no, that

14:25

was wrong. And there are many

14:27

who say, no, the church can't say it's wrong. Otherwise, the

14:29

whole thing falls down like a house of cards. He

14:31

said that's ridiculous. He was quoted

14:33

as talking about, for instance, gay

14:36

priests to journalists. basically

14:39

saying, if a person's gay and they

14:41

seek God and they have goodwill, who am

14:43

I to judge? And I

14:45

feel like who am I to judge

14:47

became his motto in a lot of

14:50

things, not everything, but a lot of

14:52

things. And that's true.

14:54

But I think people misunderstand

14:56

that as if he was

14:58

permissive, that he didn't care. I

15:01

think it's the opposite. He was

15:03

asked about can gay men become priests.

15:05

And by the way, just last year he

15:07

said, explicitly allowed that gay men could

15:09

become priests even though previous popes had said,

15:11

no way, they can't become priests. So

15:13

he did change some things. But

15:15

what he was talking about is that,

15:17

look, if you're gay, if

15:19

you're seeking God, you're living your life in

15:22

the way you should be. If a priest, you're

15:24

celibate, who cares? Who am

15:26

I to judge? Part

15:28

of that gets at one of

15:30

the central changes in this

15:32

papacy. Again, which you said rightly,

15:34

It's more of a tone,

15:36

but it's a big tone. He

15:39

puts sex back in

15:41

its place. The church

15:43

is so associated with issues

15:45

of sex and sexuality. And

15:48

he said, that's crazy. He

15:50

said, why are we so focused on

15:52

sins below the belt? That's his term, not

15:54

mine. That's the way he talked in

15:56

a very colloquial way. We're so focused on

15:58

the sins below the belt. What about

16:00

the landlord who cheats his tenant, the

16:02

boss who you know, cheats his

16:04

workers out of their wages. Or

16:06

the government that demonizes migrants. Exactly.

16:09

Bingo. Exactly. As he said in

16:11

that letter to the bishops, which was

16:13

directed at Donald Trump and J .D.

16:15

Vance, you know, for

16:17

him, the poor, the suffering,

16:19

protecting the earth, protecting life

16:21

in all of its

16:23

forms, justice, economic justice. I

16:26

mean, he was to the left of Bernie

16:28

Sanders in many ways. Bernie Sanders, who he

16:30

invited to the Vatican, by the way. But

16:32

For him, those were the

16:34

things that Jesus talked about. What

16:37

do you make of the fact that the day before

16:39

he died, the Pope

16:41

met with JD Vance,

16:43

who he'd basically

16:45

been beefing with online

16:47

for months. I

16:50

mean, JD Vance converted

16:52

Catholic, really had some

16:54

harsh words for the church in a

16:56

lot of different ways, especially around migration,

16:58

and then he meets with him. And then the

17:01

next day he dies, like how does that

17:03

all come together for you? Well,

17:05

you can't really script it, you know, although

17:07

some would try, but they would get laughed

17:09

out of the writer's room. I

17:11

think, again, both

17:13

men got what they wanted from that. I

17:15

think JD Vance wanted a picture with the

17:17

Pope. Everyone wants a picture of the Pope.

17:19

He wanted to show that, hey, you know,

17:22

I'm still Catholic. I'm still here. Neither

17:24

one was going to apologize for

17:26

their beliefs or change them. I

17:28

think And the Pope's part is

17:30

meeting with JD Vance, a guy

17:33

who had accused the bishops and

17:35

the church of welcoming migrants only

17:37

because they wanted government money, who

17:39

accused the Pope of bad faith

17:41

in his dealings, all of these

17:43

kind of harsh things. The

17:45

Pope said, I don't care about that. You're

17:48

here at the Vatican. You're with your family.

17:50

Come on in. You can have this picture. You

17:52

can see there. I'm going to welcome you. In

17:54

a sense, it was Pope Francis. that

17:56

his legacy was that photo

17:58

saying, no matter what you say

18:01

about me, you're still welcome

18:03

here. And I think that, in

18:05

a sense, him welcoming JD

18:07

Vance was another message. They

18:09

go low, we go high.

18:11

Yeah, exactly well put. And,

18:13

you know, I think JD Vance is

18:15

lucky that the Vatican doesn't have the walls

18:17

that Donald Trump wants to build around

18:19

the United States. We'll

18:24

be right back. after a quick break.

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actually do about what's about to

20:45

happen. So can you just lay

20:47

out for those who haven't been

20:49

watching movies like me? What happens

20:51

now? Look, I have to say,

20:53

you know, it's a bit of life imitates

20:55

art in this case. Conclusion is

20:57

a pretty good movie. You

20:59

know, representationally, both the

21:02

what happens when a pope dies, and

21:05

also the dynamics of the conclave. The

21:07

ending is a little melodramatic, a little over

21:09

the top, probably not going to be

21:11

repeated in the conclaves that's going to take

21:13

place next month. But it is a

21:15

good bit of a primer because, again,

21:17

as in the movie, Pope

21:19

dies, the Camerlengo, in this case

21:22

Irish -born American cardinal, Kevin Farrell,

21:24

goes in, does his baptismal name

21:26

three times. He doesn't call him

21:29

Pope Francis. He says, Jorge, three

21:31

times. It's an old

21:33

tradition, but just to formally confirm

21:35

what the doctors have determined that

21:37

the pope is dead. And

21:39

then they seal the chambers. And

21:41

then all of the cardinals, which they're doing

21:43

right now as we speak, cardinals are gathering

21:46

from around the world. They're

21:48

all coming to Rome. The

21:50

funeral takes place four to

21:52

six days later. Then

21:54

after the pope is buried,

21:56

the funeral, what they have are

21:58

these meetings called the general

22:00

congregations. Is that where people make

22:02

their pitch, like, elect me? They

22:04

don't do it quite like that. They

22:07

don't do it quite like that. You're not

22:09

allowed to. You actually can get excommunicated

22:11

if you do that. If you're seen as

22:13

politicking for it, if you're seen as

22:15

making any deals, you say, oh, if you

22:17

elect me or if you elect that

22:19

guy, we'll make sure that you get this

22:21

fancy archdiocese someplace or this job. That'll

22:23

get you excommunicated. You can't do it. It'll

22:25

also backfire. The Italians say he

22:27

who enters a pope leaves

22:29

a cardinal anybody who enters as

22:31

a favorite ends to be frowned

22:33

upon so you know when they

22:35

go in so they go into

22:37

general congregations which are also closed -door

22:40

secret meetings but they're just held

22:42

in a Vatican audience hall and

22:44

there are 250 cardinals overall only

22:46

135 of them are under the

22:48

age of 80 and thus have

22:50

a right to vote in a

22:52

conclave that's the important thing but

22:54

all 250 get four to six

22:56

minutes to speak. They get up

22:58

and give their own vision of

23:00

what the church needs today now

23:02

that Pope Francis is gone. And

23:05

that basically when they talk about

23:07

what the church needs, they're also

23:09

talking about who can do it.

23:11

But they're making all these speeches

23:13

against the old guys go on

23:16

too long. It gets really boring.

23:18

The real campaigning or the real

23:20

background checks. essentially, go

23:22

on during the murmuratio, as they

23:24

call it, the Latin for

23:26

the murmurings, literally, over

23:28

coffee, over cocktails, over

23:31

meals, when kind of people are talking

23:33

about, oh, what about this guy? And

23:35

they do that for a week, 10

23:37

days, maybe even two weeks, so that when

23:39

they finally go into the Sistine Chapel, you

23:42

know, they kind of get down to

23:44

brass tacks and usually only takes two days

23:46

or three days tops. You

23:49

know, the last time we

23:51

spoke, we talked about how Pope

23:53

Francis was hoping to shape

23:55

what the College of Cardinals looked

23:58

like. Partially to ensure his

24:00

legacy, basically make sure he could

24:02

stay alive and replacing Cardinals

24:04

long enough that no matter what

24:06

happened when he died, the

24:09

church wouldn't take a sudden

24:11

turn, especially to the right.

24:13

Did he succeed in that? I'll

24:16

tell you after the conclave

24:18

elects somebody. Oh, interesting.

24:21

We will only know, depending

24:23

on who walks out on the balcony

24:25

of St. Peter's dressed in white. But

24:28

Francis appointed more than three -quarters

24:30

of the Cardinals eligible to

24:32

vote, right? I know. And he

24:34

was appointed a Cardinal by

24:36

John Paul II, then elevated by

24:38

Benedict XVI. The dynamics of

24:40

a conclave are different than you would

24:42

expect. I mean, for one thing, he didn't

24:44

appoint all of his loyalists or friends.

24:46

He appointed also people who disagree with him

24:48

because he liked that. And all

24:50

the popes kind of tend to do

24:52

that. They like actually a kind of a

24:55

mix, a diversity. It's a way of

24:57

letting off steam so that it doesn't seem

24:59

like they're trying to railroad somebody. And

25:01

also, he's been Pope

25:03

for 12 years. the church

25:06

may need something or the cardinals

25:08

think the church needs something different. Then

25:10

it needed when he was elected twelve

25:12

years ago they are in a different

25:15

place you know the only votes that

25:17

matter are those of the cardinals and

25:19

if they want somebody who's gonna bring

25:21

a little more calm to the church

25:23

is a question of whether you know

25:25

if you elect a safe pair of

25:27

hands. Is that betraying the

25:29

legacy of Pope Francis I don't

25:31

think you can have a safe. Francis.

25:35

That's not how he played it. He

25:37

was a prophetic figure. He took

25:39

risks. And he said that we need

25:41

a church that goes out into

25:43

the streets, takes risks, gets bruised and

25:45

battered. That's what we need to

25:47

see. Are you going to have another

25:50

pope who's willing to take those

25:52

kinds of risks? That's the question, I

25:54

think. Do you think

25:56

Francis will be remembered as a

25:58

successful pope? And I ask that

26:00

mindful of the fact that when

26:02

you read deep, into the remembrances

26:04

of Pope Francis, you

26:06

get to the fact that the

26:08

number of baptisms in the

26:11

church has decreased from 18 million

26:13

in 1998 to 13 .3 million

26:15

in 2022. It seems

26:17

like the church is shrinking. Well,

26:20

in many ways, it depends on your frame.

26:22

If you're talking about the United States, yes,

26:24

although immigration has boosted some

26:27

of that. But those are trend

26:29

lines. that way pre -existed him.

26:31

If you judge Francis' failure

26:33

on that metric, Benedict

26:35

XVI was a failure. Pope

26:37

John Paul II, wonderful saint John

26:39

Paul II, he was a failure

26:41

as well. If you look

26:43

at the global context, the church is still

26:45

growing. 1 .1 billion

26:47

Catholics when he came in,

26:49

1 .4 billion Catholics now. The

26:52

church is growing. Look, the pope

26:54

can only do so much. Most of it

26:57

is demographics. Most of

26:59

it are local conditions, local

27:01

cultures, who believes, who goes

27:03

to church, who wants to, who has

27:05

children. The Pope can only make

27:07

so much of a difference. So it's

27:09

hard to judge him in terms

27:11

of success and failure. I think history

27:13

will be the judge and it'll

27:15

be a long time hence. Pope

27:19

Francis talked about this as

27:21

not an era of change.

27:24

but a change of era. Did

27:26

he successfully navigate that

27:29

change of era? It's

27:31

just too soon to tell. David

27:37

Gibson, I always love having you

27:39

on the show. I'm sorry it's under this circumstance,

27:41

but thanks for coming and telling us some more about

27:43

the Pope. Thank you so much.

27:46

Great to be here. David

27:48

Gibson is the director of

27:50

Fordham University's Center on Religion and

27:52

Culture. And that's

27:54

our show. What Next

27:56

is produced by Paige Osburn,

27:58

Alina Schwartz, Rob Gunther, Anna

28:00

Phillips, Madeline Dusharm, and Ethan

28:02

Oberman. Ben Richmond is the

28:04

senior director of podcast operations here at

28:06

Slate. And I'm Mary Harris. Go

28:09

check me down on Blue Sky, say hello. I'm at

28:11

Mary Harris. Thanks for listening. Catch

28:13

Catch you back here next time.