Speaker 1: Already and this is the Daily This is the Dahlias.
Speaker 1: Oh now it makes sense. Good morning, and welcome to
Speaker 1: the Daily Os. It's Wednesday, the twenty third of April.
Speaker 1: I'm Lucy Tassel, I'm Zara Seidler. Pope Francis, the head
Speaker 1: of the Catholic Church, has died at eighty eight of
Speaker 1: a stroke and a heart attack. His death means a
Speaker 1: process called the People Conclave is about to begin, where
Speaker 1: senior church leaders will gather in the Sistine Chapel, sequestered
Speaker 1: from the world, to elect a new Pope. In today's episode,
Speaker 1: we'll explain what we know about this mysterious process, who
Speaker 1: the contenders are, and why this all comes down to
Speaker 1: different colors of smoke. Lucy.
Speaker 2: Earlier this week we learned that Pope Francis had died.
Speaker 2: We understand that he had been unwell for quite a while,
Speaker 2: but that he passed on Monday morning. Can talk to
Speaker 2: me about Pope Francis, and I guess, in the first instance,
Speaker 2: about his legacy.
Speaker 1: Pope Francis will always be known as the first Pope
Speaker 1: from South America. His election was also significant because he
Speaker 1: was taking over from a pope who had retired for
Speaker 1: the first time in six hundred years and only the
Speaker 1: second time in the history of the church. He will
Speaker 1: also be known for his relatively progressive views and his
Speaker 1: care for the disadvantage the discriminated against. An anecdote that
Speaker 1: I think really reflects Pope Francis's legacy is that the
Speaker 1: pope has an official summer residence and he said, I'm
Speaker 1: never going to use it. I won't go on holiday.
Speaker 1: Turn it into a museum so people can come and visit.
Speaker 1: And that's what he did. He never went on holiday
Speaker 1: the entire time, even though he became pope in his
Speaker 1: mid seventies, the entire time that he was there, he
Speaker 1: really felt like he needed to be in service of
Speaker 1: the church and its people. So those are some of
Speaker 1: the things that we know about him and about his legacy.
Speaker 1: Now there's going to be a new pope, someone who
Speaker 1: will go from being someone that maybe only a few
Speaker 1: thousand people know to someone that billions of people around
Speaker 1: the world know the name of, or rather the assumed
Speaker 1: name of. But I'll get to that later.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and obviously the election of a new pope is
Speaker 2: so significant, But I guess before we go into what
Speaker 2: the process is for those who are perhaps less familiar
Speaker 2: with the Catholic Church, can you just explain what the
Speaker 2: role of the pope actually is.
Speaker 1: Catholics believe the pope is God's representative on earth and
Speaker 1: that any official declarations by the pope can't be wrong
Speaker 1: because they come through him from God. The role of
Speaker 1: the pope has existed since the earliest days of the Church,
Speaker 1: and Catholics actually believe the first pope was one of Jesus'
Speaker 1: twelve disciples, Saint Peter. Today, the pope also has a
Speaker 1: formal role as the head of state of Vatican City,
Speaker 1: which is a city state inside the city of Rome,
Speaker 1: the capital of Italy. The Vatican is both a sacred
Speaker 1: site for Catholics and it's also the church's headquarters. It
Speaker 1: has observer status at the United Nations, and its small
Speaker 1: population is mostly people who work for the Church. As
Speaker 1: you would imagine, the pope's responsibilities also involve leading masses,
Speaker 1: which is like the Catholic religious observance, publishing reflections on
Speaker 1: world events and on holidays, and meeting members of the
Speaker 1: church and also world leaders. At the Vatican. For example,
Speaker 1: it's believed that the last person Pope Francis met with
Speaker 1: was US Vice President JD. Vance, who of course converted
Speaker 1: to Catholicism a couple of years ago. Again, we'll touch
Speaker 1: on that later.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, and so these are the responsibilities of the pope.
Speaker 2: But how does someone ascend to the papacy.
Speaker 1: Something I learned while researching this podcast today which is
Speaker 1: very surprising to me, is that technically any baptized Catholic
Speaker 1: man could become the pope.
Speaker 2: Oh interesting.
Speaker 1: They could all go in there to the secret conclave
Speaker 1: and write in JD. Vance if they wanted to. It's
Speaker 1: extremely unlikely. Only cardinals, which is a senior church leader,
Speaker 1: have been named the pope since the fourteenth century. When
Speaker 1: something has existed for as long as the Catholic Church
Speaker 1: has as an institution, you tend to get these kind
Speaker 1: of very long term trends. Yeah, so seven hundred years
Speaker 1: of only cardinals.
Speaker 2: What is a cardinal?
Speaker 1: A cardinal is a senior advisor to the pope. The
Speaker 1: pope can appoint them from different places around the world.
Speaker 1: They vote on who becomes the pope. They're part of
Speaker 1: an organization called the College of Cardinals, and so they
Speaker 1: are the ones who vote in a process called the Conclave,
Speaker 1: which gave its name to an Oscar winning movie.
Speaker 2: He's going to say, people might be familiar with the
Speaker 2: name of that process now.
Speaker 1: And that film actually, despite having very dramatic developments, I
Speaker 1: think the process, to my understanding, is depicted fairly accurately,
Speaker 1: which is all these senior advisors from all around the world,
Speaker 1: they gather in the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican and
Speaker 1: they vote until they have decided on who will be
Speaker 1: the next pope. They're not allowed to speak to anyone
Speaker 1: in the outside world while this is happening. It's called
Speaker 1: being in seclusion. And also only cardinals under the age
Speaker 1: of eighty are allowed to vote, I imagine, because it's
Speaker 1: about who will be taking the church into the future.
Speaker 1: That means about half of the current number of cardinals
Speaker 1: are not going to be voting. And they vote until
Speaker 1: they secure a two thirds majority of votes, until one
Speaker 1: candidate does rather, and then something really exciting happens, which
Speaker 1: is they release white smoke into the air to let
Speaker 1: the world know we have chosen a pope. At the
Speaker 1: end of every previous vote that does not result in
Speaker 1: unelected pope, they release black smoke.
Speaker 2: And I learned while I was your post that smoke
Speaker 2: is in part formed by burning the ballots that people
Speaker 2: are voting with or the cardinals are voting with.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the level of seclusion extends even to who voted
Speaker 1: for what and how many people got yeah wow vote.
Speaker 1: We really don't know. That's what's kind of bananas about
Speaker 1: this process in the modern world. It is truly a mystery.
Speaker 1: We only know the basic mechanics. We will never know
Speaker 1: who voted for whom and how many people were contenders
Speaker 1: and then fell away. We can get a rough sense
Speaker 1: of how many rounds of voting they were by how
Speaker 1: many times the black smoke is released, but other than that,
Speaker 1: we have no idea what the discussions were.
Speaker 2: Wow, it's fascinating. And so you're saying, black smoke shoots
Speaker 2: up if they are unsuccessful in choosing a pope. But
Speaker 2: when that two thirds majority is reached and a pope
Speaker 2: is declared, white smoke comes up. Yes, what happens after that?
Speaker 1: And I'll also note if it's cloudy, the white smoke
Speaker 1: can be really hard to spot. Yeah. Interesting in an
Speaker 1: issue in the past.
Speaker 2: Interesting.
Speaker 1: So then the head of the College of Cardinals comes
Speaker 1: out on a balcony. It's Saint Peter's Basilica. Typically thousands
Speaker 1: of people are gathered in the square waiting, or they've
Speaker 1: gathered after seeing the white smoke to say, Okay, we're
Speaker 1: going to go and see the new Pope. The Dean
Speaker 1: of the College of Cardinals comes out onto the balcony
Speaker 1: and says a Latin phrase, hebemus popham, which means we
Speaker 1: have a pope. And then the new Pope comes out
Speaker 1: and says hello, I'm the Pope. Hello to the billions
Speaker 1: of Catholics around the world. My new name is blank.
Speaker 2: Talk to me about that new name part, because again
Speaker 2: I'm not overly familiar with certain parts of Catholicism, and
Speaker 2: so learning all of this has been so fascinating for me.
Speaker 2: Where do popes get their names from.
Speaker 1: They choose it from a name within the church's history
Speaker 1: that they want to guide them as they enter this
Speaker 1: new kind of enormous role. So, for example, Pope Francis
Speaker 1: is named Francis after Saint Francis of Assisi, because he
Speaker 1: said he wanted to emulate his care for the poor
Speaker 1: and the downtrodden in the past. If you take the
Speaker 1: same name as a previous pope, then you add a
Speaker 1: number to your name. So, for example, if the new
Speaker 1: pope takes John, he'll be John the twenty fourth because
Speaker 1: there have been twenty three previous Johns. He might be
Speaker 1: taking that to represent John the Baptist, an important Catholic figure.
Speaker 1: He might be saying, I want to be just like
Speaker 1: John the twenty third. It's any number of reasons which
Speaker 1: will be explained.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it so so interesting and so just on that.
Speaker 2: We are at this point now where there will be
Speaker 2: a new pope and this conclave process will now unfold.
Speaker 2: Do we know who is I don't know. I guess
Speaker 2: a front runner to become the next pope. What do
Speaker 2: we know about that?
Speaker 1: There's a saying I've just learned in the process of
Speaker 1: researching this, which is you enter a conclave a pope,
Speaker 1: but you leave a cardinal, which basically means you can
Speaker 1: enter as a front runner, and then things can go
Speaker 1: completely differently once they're in seclusion and sequestered from the
Speaker 1: rest of the world. But international media has speculated and
Speaker 1: here are three main contenders from what I saw. So
Speaker 1: the first is Cardinal Luis Tugley. He's the former Archbishop
Speaker 1: of Manila. He's widely considered to be the closest to
Speaker 1: Francis in terms of caring about social justice and in
Speaker 1: terms of how they think about leading the church. He's
Speaker 1: sixty seven, and if he's elected, he would be the
Speaker 1: first pope from East Asia. I specify this because there
Speaker 1: are a couple of popes from Syria in the church's
Speaker 1: first thousand years, but not since then it's mainly been European.
Speaker 1: The next one is Cardinal Peter Erdo, who's the Archbishop
Speaker 1: of Budapest. He's a conservative, but he worked effectively with Francis,
Speaker 1: a progressive. He's seventy two, and he has strong connections
Speaker 1: with European and African bishops, so that could mean that
Speaker 1: they joined together to vote him in. It's entirely possible,
Speaker 1: we don't know. And then the third one I wanted
Speaker 1: to raise is Cardinal Pietro Paroline. He was the Pope's
Speaker 1: second in command. He's seventy and he worked for a
Speaker 1: long time as a diplomat for the Church. He negotiated
Speaker 1: a number of key agreements. He also met with US
Speaker 1: Vice President JD. Vance last week, and a Vatican statement
Speaker 1: about that meeting said it included, quote, an exchange of
Speaker 1: opinions about migrants, refugees and prisoners, so could be interesting
Speaker 1: if he is elected to see how he navigates the
Speaker 1: Church's relationship with the world. But as I said before,
Speaker 1: we just don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean, it seems like we're going to have to
Speaker 2: wait and see what happens and wait for that white smoke.
Speaker 2: When does this process actually kick off? Though you said
Speaker 2: it can take a number of days, When does it begin.
Speaker 1: It doesn't actually begin for a couple of weeks, okay,
Speaker 1: So the Vatican is in an official period of mourning,
Speaker 1: then there'll be meetings among the cardinals ahead of the conclave.
Speaker 1: Many of these cardinals are bas at the Vatican, but
Speaker 1: plenty are also coming from all over the world, so
Speaker 1: we have to account for travel time, including for Australia's
Speaker 1: Cardinal Mikhola Beachuk. He's forty four, which makes him the
Speaker 1: youngest member of the College of Cardinals, and he was
Speaker 1: actually only made a cardinal last year by Poete Francis.
Speaker 1: He was born in Ukraine and moved to Australia in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one when he was given a senior position
Speaker 1: in the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church based in Australia. This
Speaker 1: church is a subsidiary of the larger church. The fact
Speaker 1: that he was elected so recently, the fact of his age,
Speaker 1: the fact that he's from a subsidiary branch all mean
Speaker 1: it's unlikely that he becomes the pope, but never say never,
Speaker 1: Never say never. It's unlikely, but it's certainly possible. The
Speaker 1: conclave is a mystery.
Speaker 2: Wow, it really is. Lucy. Thank you so much for
Speaker 2: explaining that. It's such a fascinating topic and has so
Speaker 2: much influence on the rest of the world, and yet
Speaker 2: we know so little about what actually goes on. So
Speaker 2: thank you for shedding a bit of light there, and
Speaker 2: thank you for joining us for another episode of The
Speaker 2: Daily Oas. We'll be back later today with the day's headlines,
Speaker 2: but until then, have a great day.
Speaker 1: My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda
Speaker 1: Bungelung Kalkatin woman from Gadighl Country. The Daily oz acknowledges
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