Speaker 1: From the Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
Speaker 1: It's Monday, February twenty four. All eyes are on Rome,
Speaker 1: where eighty eight year old Pope Francis is critically ill
Speaker 1: with pneumonia. Today we look at the complex legacy of
Speaker 1: Francis born Joge Becoglo in Argentina, and who's positioning to
Speaker 1: replace him as the leader of one and a quarter
Speaker 1: billion Catholics around the world. Looking right now, that smoke
Speaker 1: is now coming out of the chimney. It is oh
Speaker 1: very much.
Speaker 2: Wait, we have a new pope and you can hear
Speaker 2: the cheers from Saint Peter's Square out there.
Speaker 1: Let's listen. In has the protos reactor secretive? Yes, melodramatic, absolutely.
Speaker 1: This is how a new pope is chosen, not by
Speaker 1: a ray of light from heaven, but in a long,
Speaker 1: slow election by secret ballot, surrounded by politicking and lobbying
Speaker 1: for the highest stakes, the guidance of more than one
Speaker 1: point three billion Catholics. Only men may vote the most
Speaker 1: senior cardinals from around the world, who must be under
Speaker 1: eighty to get into the conclave. That's Latin for lockable room.
Speaker 1: The conclave takes place in the Vatican City's Sistine Chapel,
Speaker 1: where Michelangelo's hi Renaissance fresco on the ceiling shows God
Speaker 1: touching the hand of Adam, the sacred and the mundane,
Speaker 1: just like the work of the cardinals below. The latest
Speaker 1: cinematic iagining of all this is in the movie Conclave,
Speaker 1: starring Ray Fines, Stanley Tucci, and Isabella Rossellini, all swishing
Speaker 1: around in robes with no makeup but still managing to
Speaker 1: look glamorous.
Speaker 2: What happened, they say, a heart attack?
Speaker 1: Based on a Robert Harris novel. The movie is appropriately thrilling.
Speaker 3: This is a conclave, alder, it's not a war.
Speaker 4: It is a war, and you have to comment to a.
Speaker 1: Side on screen and in real life. The factions lobby
Speaker 1: for their candidates in the open, but the vote is
Speaker 1: taken in strict secrecy under threat of excommunication. As each
Speaker 1: round of voting concludes, ballots accounted, threaded together and then
Speaker 1: burned in a stove inside the chapel for centuries. Thick
Speaker 1: soot produced by these stoves caked that exquisite work by
Speaker 1: Michelangelo above. Black smoke means the vote is split and
Speaker 1: the cardinals must vote again, repeating the process up to
Speaker 1: four times a day until a victor emerges. White smoke
Speaker 1: means a new pope has been elected by a majority
Speaker 1: of at least two thirds.
Speaker 2: After four rounds of voting. Carnal Jorge Mario Brigoglio was
Speaker 2: selected as the new pope of the Roman Catholic Church,
Speaker 2: succeeding pulp Benedicta sixteenth.
Speaker 1: When he was elevated to the papacy in twenty thirteen,
Speaker 1: Argentinian Cardinal Jorge Begoglio became the first non European pope
Speaker 1: to serve in more than a millennium. He adopted the
Speaker 1: papal name Francis, after Saint Francis of Assisi. To the
Speaker 1: church's progressives, he represented a new era, someone who understood
Speaker 1: the challenging modern lives of its congregation. He had worked
Speaker 1: as a nightclub bouncer. After all, Francis wasn't into lavish accommodation.
Speaker 1: He slept not in the paper palace, but in a
Speaker 1: simple motel style room, and he made the embraceive immigrants
Speaker 1: and refugees a foundation of his papacy. My people are poor,
Speaker 1: he said more than once, and I am one of them,
Speaker 1: an nod to his modest upbringing in the suburbs of
Speaker 1: Buenos Aire's. Still, progressives have been largely disappointed Francis didn't
Speaker 1: push it.
Speaker 3: More.
Speaker 1: To some Catholic traditionalists, Francis went too far when you interview.
Speaker 1: Pope Francis has discussed the possibility of relaxing the discipline
Speaker 1: of priestly celibacy, recommending the church ordine married men to
Speaker 1: service priests.
Speaker 2: Pope Francis met with the Vatican department that he created
Speaker 2: himself nine years ago.
Speaker 1: It is the office of the Auditor.
Speaker 2: General in charge of fighting corruption and keeping tabs on finances.
Speaker 1: Ope Francis says Catholic priests can now bless same sex couples,
Speaker 1: but not for marriage, but no one expects this will
Speaker 1: lead the Pope to reconsider women priests. Francis has said
Speaker 1: that to the war is closed. In the almost twelve
Speaker 1: years since Pope Francis was elected, there have been controversies.
Speaker 4: The claim is explosive that Pope Francis covered up sexual
Speaker 4: abuse in the American.
Speaker 1: Church, and contradictions. Francis acknowledged people have a right to
Speaker 1: be outraged by the Church's response to what he called
Speaker 1: repulsive crimes against children. Popularity, Francis knew is fleeting shortly
Speaker 1: after that white smoke rose into the air in Saint
Speaker 1: Peter's Square. In twenty thirteen, he told an Argentinian radio
Speaker 1: station Jesus also for a certain time was very popular,
Speaker 1: and look how that turned out.
Speaker 4: I think there will be a lot of people that
Speaker 4: remember him as a reformist, someone who is very liberal,
Speaker 4: somebody who took the church in a direction that others
Speaker 4: may not have wished it to go to.
Speaker 1: Jacqueline Magnet is the Australia's Europe correspondent, and she's had
Speaker 1: her bags packed for days, ready to rush from her
Speaker 1: home in London to Rome.
Speaker 4: On my computer screen at the moment, I actually have
Speaker 4: the hotel booking ready to go, so that I just presend, unfortunately,
Speaker 4: anyone wanting to go to Rome.
Speaker 5: At the moment.
Speaker 4: It is the jubilee here, which is of course a
Speaker 4: year long celebration for the church, and a lot of
Speaker 4: pilgrims are going to Rome at the moment. So accommodation
Speaker 4: is very tight, and so it's very difficult to find
Speaker 4: something that's one affordable and two available.
Speaker 1: From the moment, Francis was admitted to hospital. Thoughts turned
Speaker 1: to how he might be remembered, whether he survived this
Speaker 1: battle with illness or not.
Speaker 4: Will he be considered a man of his time? I'm
Speaker 4: not sure. It's a very extreme position he's had for
Speaker 4: the leader of the Catholic Church, and I think people
Speaker 4: felt that he delved into politics more than he needed to,
Speaker 4: and that he went where the church wouldn't normally go.
Speaker 4: Where we're talking issues of immigration, of the environment, of
Speaker 4: aspects of life that are outside of religious instructions. So
Speaker 4: I think it will be interesting to see how he's remembered,
Speaker 4: isn't it in the next few years, especially when politically
Speaker 4: we've got so much upheaval in the world. And I
Speaker 4: think that could also play a part in the election
Speaker 4: of the new pope, that maybe they do want somebody
Speaker 4: that's not quite so dramatic or is willing to put
Speaker 4: the church in an extreme position. They really want someone
Speaker 4: to take it down the middle road.
Speaker 1: I think yeah. In the recent US election, he was
Speaker 1: critical of both Kamala Harris for herst and on abortion
Speaker 1: and Donald Trump for his stand on immigration, and in
Speaker 1: fact has really slated the president for mass deportations. For
Speaker 1: example of undocumented people from the United States. That's an
Speaker 1: unusual level of political involvement for a pope in our
Speaker 1: modern times. But of course the archetype of the scheming
Speaker 1: pope being very much involved in politics is something from history,
Speaker 1: isn't it.
Speaker 4: Yes, But I think in modern days people are looking
Speaker 4: for religious instruction, not a lecture, and so they're seeking
Speaker 4: guidance rather than a blanket signpost. And so I just
Speaker 4: think in Rome that there really is a sweech or
Speaker 4: mood at the moment to not be following Pope Francis
Speaker 4: with someone in the same vein, and some of the
Speaker 4: people that Pope Francis elected have a more conservative bent
Speaker 4: than what perhaps he may have expected.
Speaker 1: Coming up what a new leader could mean for the church.
Speaker 1: About fourteen days after the death or resignation of a pope,
Speaker 1: a conclave is called okay jack. So who's next?
Speaker 4: Well, there's about a dozen front runners, but I think
Speaker 4: that the main one at the moment. In Italy they're
Speaker 4: called papabilli as well, so all the papabilly are maneuvering
Speaker 4: at the moment. So there's an Italian cardinal and Pietro
Speaker 4: Paroline now he's the Vatican Secretary of State, and so
Speaker 4: he knows all the secrets for some significant amount of time,
Speaker 4: all the skeletons, and there's a reason that he's a
Speaker 4: front runner because he's considered to be a steady hand.
Speaker 1: Pietro Paoline is Pope Francis's chief advisor and he's been
Speaker 1: his mistry advocating for climate change mitigation around the world.
Speaker 3: We have to really to change our way of living,
Speaker 3: and this is the task interested by God to the
Speaker 3: human kind when he created him.
Speaker 4: And it's also the Philippines Cardinal Louis Antonio Tagel, he's
Speaker 4: also fairly moderate.
Speaker 2: Children.
Speaker 4: What do you see in your parents? A gift or
Speaker 4: an atm card?
Speaker 5: Parents?
Speaker 4: Parents, what do you see in your children? A gift
Speaker 4: or a burden?
Speaker 5: Priests and deacons, what do you see in your bishops?
Speaker 4: I'm sorry. We've got Cardinal Peter Urdo from Hungary. Now
Speaker 4: he was a very close friend of Cardinal George pell
Speaker 4: he's very pop pillar amongst all of the cardinals. And
Speaker 4: then you've got people like will the church go and
Speaker 4: elect someone who's from the Congo Fridolin and Bongo is
Speaker 4: somebody who's he's the president of the African and Madagascar Symposium.
Speaker 4: So he has control or authority of a significant area
Speaker 4: of the world. But he's also quite politically outspoken, so
Speaker 4: I don't know whether the cardinals will turn to him.
Speaker 4: I'm not sure he is being named as someone who's
Speaker 4: one of the front runners. And then Robert Sarah of Guinea.
Speaker 4: He's also very conservative.
Speaker 1: Cardinal Sarah has railed against gender ideology, abortion and euphanasia.
Speaker 5: If we pass laws destroy an innocence shaild in the womb,
Speaker 5: or to cut sorts the distance of a def Angeles
Speaker 5: elder person, what are you there to stop men from
Speaker 5: taking the life of someone considered to be an enemy
Speaker 5: or a fat And.
Speaker 4: So if the church was to go swing from the
Speaker 4: left to the right in quite a violent way, he
Speaker 4: might also be a consideration.
Speaker 1: Jacqueline Magne is The Australian's europe correspondent. You can get
Speaker 1: all the lattest from the Vatican and the rest of
Speaker 1: the world right now at the Australian dot com do
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