[Music] There are three things that govern the conclave. The process by which the world will learn who becomes the next pope. Order, isolation, and secrecy. The cardinals are meeting in secrecy, in isolation. Their deliberations are confidential. And so they don't want outside interference or outside currents impacting their deliberations because at stake, authority over a church with 1.4 billion followers worldwide. [Applause] But the church is at a crossroads. And so in this most dramatic moment of flux, the biggest question is about direction. The conclave, we know how that will unfold. But the outcome and the future of the church. That's much more complicated. And I'll show you [Music] why. By all accounts, discussions have already begun on who succeeds Pope Francis. Because the Catholic Church is on the clock, cardinals around the world are already being summoned to Rome for the funeral, but then for the conclave itself. The church is not a democratic institution. It's not a it's not a typical convention or a political process. It's very much the highest echelon of the church hierarchy coming together to pick the head of the church. There are more than 250 men around the world who make up the sacred college of cardinals. Besides the pope himself, these cardinals are the highest ranking members of the Roman Catholic Church and about half are allowed to participate in the vote, effectively deciding as a group who among them shall be the next pope. Now, what's interesting is that technically these cardinals could agree to choose any baptized Roman Catholic man on earth to be the next pope. But for the last 700 800 years, the pope has always been chosen from this group of cardinals. Once they're summoned to Vatican City and the conclave is called, they will all live here in the Casa Santa Martin. And everybody here is bound by secrecy. The cooks, the cleaning staff, and especially the cardinals themselves to protect the sanctity and integrity of what is about to happen. You take an oath. You're excommunicated if you're a cardinal and break the secrecy or if you engage in politicking, campaigning, dealmaking. Now, very nearby, just a few minutes walk away, is St. Peter's Square. This is where followers and faithful will gather during the conclave, waiting for a sign that a successor has been chosen. That decision-making process unfolds every day as cardinals walk from the Casa Santa Marta around the opposite side of St. Peter's Basilica to the cyine chapel. Again, the strict requirement being that no cardinal shall have any contact with the outside world during this critical time. And cardinals are of course forbidden from leaving the conclave until the job is done. The cyine chapel is swept for bugs. You can't take any cell phones in there. No electronic devices. Then the mechanics of what happens next very scripted, very orderly. Up to four times a day, twice in the morning, twice in the evening, cardinals are handed a ballot that looks something like this. In Latin, I elect as supreme pontiff and then a space to write their choice. Each cardinal then in order of seniority walks to an altar to place their folded ballot into a chalice. The votes are counted, the results read, and the objective is to have one candidate with 2/3 of all votes. That's what it takes to elect a pope. If they fall short of that number, the ballots are set on fire with a chemical additive which produces thick black smoke, signaling to the world there is more discussion, more voting to be done. It can go on this way for several days. But eventually there is enough consensus that the ballots can be burned in such a way to produce white smoke. This is the sign the world waits for. Pope Francis was chosen after two days in the conclave. Same with Pope Benedict before him. But everything I've explained so far, this is in a way the easy stuff. It's what happens in those moments between the choreography that truly matters. How the Cardinals actually arrive at their final decision, which requires them to answer one single question. One way to answer this question is to consider the front runners, if such a thing even exists. Any of them could come out as pope. Yeah, you could talk about 15, 20, 25 sort of frontr runners, but it could be anybody. And this is absolutely true. It seems anybody who studies the Vatican will tell you an old saying. He who enters the conclave as pope leaves it as a cardinal. Meaning there are no favorites. And if you enter the conclave as one, proceed with caution. Elections are always so very unpredictable. There are always surprises that happen. You can't campaign. You can't talk about names publicly, but they go for big issues. Do we need someone who's inclusive? Do we need someone who's progressive? Do we need a conservative? Do we need a someone who's going to really, you know, enforce the the boundaries of a kind of fortress Catholicism? What do we need? Yes. And different candidates do meet different needs of the church. Starting with the so-called Asian Francis. We believe that Jesus is alive and he was born in the uh minister. He died and rose from the dead in Asia. If elected, Cardinal Luis Taglay would become the first Southeast Asian and Filipino pope. And geographically this is important because the church's entire center of gravity has been shifting. You have to realize that the college of cardinals used to be this Italian boys club. Okay, they all knew each other. They were all from Rome. They were all from Italy. The church in the last century has become a global church and now there are cardinals from all over the world. Asian cardinals now represent almost a fifth of cardinals who will take part in the conclave. In the Philippines specifically, somewhere around 80% of their population is Roman Catholic. What's more, if Pope Francis was seen on his election as a kind of humble champion of the poor, a socially progressive pope, Taglay is seen very much as an extension of that. He's a hugely charismatic pastoral figure who would represent in a sense a continuity of style with Francis. They believe the church is for the poor and they try to live out that mission through their own example in in their daily lives. Worth pointing out, it was Francis himself who made Taglay a cardinal back in 2019, which makes him part of a very large group. Of the more than 130 cardinals eligible to take part in the conclave, 108 were appointed by Francis, which you might think would tend to lead the church in a very specific direction. But there are other ways to carry his vision forward. Some considered safer than others. Cardinal Perilin is is in a way the ultimate continuity candidate as the secretary of state in the Vatican. He's been effectively Francis's number two, his his chief deputy. Um, he's the guy who's been running things behind the scenes like the chief of staff. Cardinal Petro Peril will be the highest ranking member of the conclave. He's the church's top diplomat as well, having worked in Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, Nicaragua, establishing and in some cases reestablishing ties with countries like Vietnam and China. So certainly a capable operator, but also someone who might temper some of the more progressive positions Francis had taken, like the now famous moment on board a plane. Who am I to judge? That message from Pope Francis in 2013 marked a key moment in his papacy, signaling how he would work to shift the Catholic Church's relationship with the LGBTQ plus community. this notion, who am I to judge? Perilene has tended to take a more cautious approach than Francis on samesex unions, on the role of women in the church. He has been open to dialogue, but not necessarily to drastic change. A couple of years ago in 2023, Perilene gave a a speech that was widely regarded as a kind of um a kind of JP2 or Benedict the 16th manifesto for the church focusing on um restoring some of the traditions of the church. And so uh there there's an increasing sense that he might be lean a little bit more conservative than Pope Francis had. The Francis mantra was much closer to move fast and break things. And uh now it might be time to kind of let let things smooth out a little bit. But now let's consider what a rejection of Francis might look [Music] like. Cardinal Peter Erdo was not a Francis appointee. He is considered an intellectual widely published but with no clear profile in Latin America in Africa in Asia where Catholicism has seen the most growth. Erdo is seen as much more euroentric. I think he would be seen as a very European choice. Um he doesn't have a lot of links uh to the global church and in the global south. Erdo is also more of a traditionalist. For example, critical of Francis's approach to family, arguing that divorced or remarried Catholics shouldn't be allowed to receive holy communion. on immigration. He has said that indiscriminate acceptance of refugees could lead to human trafficking and the undermining of national security. He leans conservative politically, socially, religiously. So his election would send a strong message. Cardinal Erdo of Hungary, who's a very known as a conservative, you can pretty well bet that you're going to go in a more conservative direction. In the end, what the conclave must contend with is a church with very sharp dividing lines. And this is a set of cardinals who don't exist along only one spectrum. You know, some are socially progressive but politically and theologically conservative. How do you pick the one whose responsibility it will be to lead the church for the next 10, 20 years? If the voting goes on for more than two days, you'll know that there are serious divisions and serious debates going on about the future of the church. That is a closed door decision, but we'll know the result most likely in just a few weeks from now. [Music] [Music]