In the midst of a papal transition and ongoing uncertainty about the future direction of the Church, Commonweal contributors and editors have made a flurry of media appearances to provide context and insight about Francis’s legacy and the path ahead. In this spirit, Commonweal contributor Prof. Dan Rober joined WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show to discuss Pope Francis’s love of film, the upcoming conclave, what cardinals might be looking for in a future pope, and Catholicism’s contemporary culture wars.
The most striking difference between this conclave and the last, Rober noted, will be the conclave’s improved diversity and global representation, sometimes called “globalization” in the news media. At the same time, he urged that commentators describe this transformation carefully. “Using the term ‘globalization’ about Francis could be a little misleading in the sense that Francis…would be opposed to the kind of globalization that listeners might be familiar with from somebody like Tom Friedman in The New York Times, which often looks like American culture spreading out to the whole world…. That he regarded as flattening things.” Instead, this conclave will not be dominated by American sensibilities—or American cardinals: “In the papal election coming up, there's going to be no cardinal from Los Angeles or Philadelphia or Detroit, places in the United States that, over the last 100 years, have usually had cardinals,” Rober explained.
Rober and Lehrer also discussed “politics” at papal conclaves—and the limits of political frameworks for thinking about the upcoming election. Of course, “there are politics at conclaves…. There's secular politics. There's church politics. There's personal politics,” Rober explained. At the same time, conclaves are about more than politics, too: “There is an assessment of both, does this person fit the moment, but also does this person model discipleship? The cardinals are usually looking for somebody who models personal holiness on some level…. Again, it’s a process of discernment.”
The full interview, which aired on April 24, can be found here.
