Pope Francis has just named twenty new cardinal electors. Another important step in ensuring that the next Pope will be an ‘inclusive progressive’ like Pope Francis, so many say. The reality, however, seems to be quite different.
Of the 110 current cardinal electors named by Pope Francis, almost half (53) have been named in the last three consistories. These were held after the Pope’s colon surgery that caused him to be hospitalized for over ten days; and induced a wave of rumours that he’s terminally ill. Some Vaticanists think the Pope has been trying to secure his legacy during the last few years of his pontificate. Yet this legacy, and the cardinals representing it, are a mixed and contradictory bag. As such, Francis’ cardinals are actually quite representative of his near twelve year pontificate.
However, starting in 2022, the consistories ceased to be recognizably ‘Bergoglian’ in any real ideological sense. They are still typical for Francis in that they (attempt to be) inclusive towards the peripheries, that the number of cardinals from religious orders is higher than under previous pontificates, that typical cardinal sees get skipped and that various appointments (or lack thereof) served to reward friends or spite foes.
But in terms of packing the college with progressive cardinals, the consistory in 2001 under Pope John Paul II did probably a better job at this than any of the consistories held since 2022. This is in sharp contrast to consistories earlier in Francis’ pontificate, specifically the radically liberal consistory of 2016. That year Pope Frances appointed three McCarrick protégés at once (Cupich, Tobin, Farrell), De Kesel (a protégé of Sankt Gallen leader Danneels), Venezuelan liberal Porras Cardozo, Mexican liberal Carlos Aguiar Retes and finally the Spanish moderate conservative, turned moderate liberal, Osoro.
Francis significantly expanded the progressive block after the publication of and backlash to Amoris Laetitia. Since 2022 however, the progressive block of cardinals at best looks replenishing its limited ranks, not expanding them.
This is an especially important issue, because Pope Franis is comparable to Pope Paul VI, in the sense that he upsets traditionalists and endorses progressives, only to then disappoint these progressives. Almost no cardinal is like him, they are either far more progressive and desire a true revolution that breaks with the past and remake the Catholic Church into a liberal protestant church, or they are far more conservative and desire a turn to order and doctrinal clarity. There seem to be some moderates in the middle, but many of them at this point desire more stability, too and they tend to lean more conservative.
As a result, the number of firm conservative cardinals amounts currently around 50 (more than a third of the college) while the number of progressives appears lower than 45 (less than a third).
Diminishing returns
2022 gave us four distinctly modernist cardinal electors, out of the sixteen who were appointed (McElroy, Steiner, Roche and Cantoni) . Yet, shortly after said consistory, four liberal cardinal electors turned 80 (Maradiaga, Ravasi). The same repeated itself in 2023. Out of 18 new cardinal electors there were four clear liberals (Fernandez, Chow, Rossi and Aguiar), yet these appointments were soon followed by various liberals turning 80 including Barreto from Peru, Lacunza from Panama and the previously mentioned Porras Cardozo. Liberal cardinal Guixot died recently, robbing the modernists of his vote, too.
Between the 2023 and 2024 consistories three liberal Latin American cardinals, all appointed by Pope Francis, turned 80. Now Ayuso Guixot also has left the Liberal block without his services. Oswald Gracias, the German friendly moderate progressive from India, turns 80 this month, while moderate conservative, turned progressive, Christoph Schönborn will likewise retire at the end of January 2025. Other (moderately) progressive Francis appointees will turn 80 through 2025, including Nichols from the UK and Osoro, the former Archbishop of Madrid.
Now Francis has once again given us only four or five distinct liberals, out of the twenty new cardinal electors he has chosen to bestow on the Church, including Vesco from Algiers and Castillo from Peru; and one of them, Timothy Radcliffe, is well into his 79th year on this planet.
The last three consistories must have been sources of intense lamentation and despair for the like of James Martin and Cupich. If Francis appointed a larger proportion of LGBT-activist cardinals, men like Marx or De Kesel, then the progressives could have benefited from the extra time granted to Pope Francis to achieve a veto block of over a third of the cardinal electors. If just one of the last three consistories had been like the consistory of 2016 or even 2019, modernists would have reason to celebrate Pope Francis’ longevity.
Instead, Francis has repeatedly passed on making cardinal homosexualists like Scicluna or one of the German Synodal Way bishops, or even Australian James Martin supporter Mark Coleridge.
Mildly orthodox moderates
Beyond the handful of radical progressives that Francis has appointed the last few years, there have been cardinals who have been described as having the ‘Bergoglian spirit’, but this is because they either continued to act as street priest, have a less formal style or (actually) seek out the peripheries, but they completely seem to lack the revolutionary inclinations possessed by prelates like Zuppi or Grech; and in fact, often have orthodox, if not strongly pronounced doctrinal views.
Examples include the alleged leftist/progressive José Cobo Cano, the new Archbishop of Madrid, who has strongly defended priestly celibacy, opposed gay marriage, stated that June isn’t ‘Pride Month’, but ‘Sacred Heart Month’, opposed abortion and has generally kept aloof of Spain’s polarized politics. He’s shown himself less weak and more competent in upholding sexual ethics while appointed an orthodox priest to lead the seminary.
The only real leftist thing about him seems to be that he is more focused on, and generally more involved in, social work rather than canon law. In that sense he is less traditional, more ‘progressive’. But not in any way like Grech or Hollerich. Beyond that he is strongly supportive of migrants, but so are so called right-wing Spanish bishops, they just don’t spent as much time on the issue.
Similarly, the ‘peripheries and migrants’ cardinal of Marseilles, Aveline, has actually expressed far more moderate views on migration compared to the radical stance Pope Francis took when visiting Marseilles (to the point that even President Macron mocked him). Furthermore, Aveline has not implemented Traditionis Custodes and even celebrated the Tridentine mass himself after its publication. While being ecumenical with Muslims, he has openly touted Islamic converts in his Archdiocese.
Kikuchi from Japan has been coined as LGBT-friendly, because he contributed a column to a pro-LGBT book by liberal protestant and pro-LGBT pastor Taira. Yet, the column itself referenced Amoris Laetitia, by referencing the catechism on avoiding unjust discrimination. During an interview with EWTN however, he made very clear that such (excessive) pastoral gestures don’t make him progressive in matters of doctrine.
According to Kikuci:
- Unity in diversity includes traditionalists.
- It includes tolerance for LGBT if they don't stand against doctrine. They must remain within those bounds.an be less pastoral and more intolerant in accordance with their culture.
- The synod needs to be about actually properly defining synodality, so we don't have different definitions locally and therefore chaos.
- Different styles adapted to local contexts are possible, but difference on matters of sacraments aren't (response in reference to the Amazon synod and criticism of allowing the ordination of married men per region; it seems Kikuchi didn't like that, either).
- Study should finally clarify, whether female deacons would have to mean ordination of women (Kikuchi doesn't seem to be in favour of that).
Various recent prelates fit into this moderate (conservative) mold, whether it’s Cezar Costa from Brasilia in Brazil who had defended priestly celibacy and endorsed the new Catholic conservative faction in the senate, Rueda Aparicio from Bogota in Colombia, both a supporter of the ordination of women as deacons and a strong defender of priestly celibacy and opponent of the ordination of homosexuals, and Cabrera Herrera from Guayaquil in Ecuador who downplayed Fiducia Supplicans as allowing a general blessing for sinners, while opposing gay marriage, gender ideology and abortion and being described by his priests as having said nothing majorly heterodox.
Nuncios Christophe Pierre and Paul Emil Tscherrig aren’t progressives, either. While Pierre has been rightly criticized for instructing American bishops to cancel Tridentine masses, he seems to simply follow orders from the Vatican. In terms of what he does on his own volition, he faced off against Cupich, McElroy and even Wuerl, opposing their more progressive candidates for promotion, and he has previously opposed civil unions and the promotion of condoms to stop the spread of Aids in Africa. Tscherrig has expressed opposition to the ordination of women as deacons and partaken in the march of life as a nuncio in South Korea.
Even cardinal electors named by Francis earlier in his pontificate, have gone from being unknown or progressive figures to being conservative critics. Sturla from Urugay has openly and strongly rejected Fiducia Supplicans, the same applies to Langlois from Haiti and I Sako from the Chaldean Catholic church.
Most recent new curial prefects also fall into the moderate category.
The South Korean Lazarus You Heung-sik, the new prefect of the dicastery of the Clergy, stands out the most. A teenage convert who managed to persuade his whole family to convert, and a member of the Focolare Movement, he expressed strongly conservative views under Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, rejecting materialism, New Age and attacks on the family, only to make himself sound more moderate and pastoral under Pope Francis. He has remained a clear supporter of priestly celibacy, however, even countersignaling Scicluna when he called for allowing priests to marry, and has said nothing clearly modernist. Heung-sik’s defense of priestly celibacy is a noticeable shift from his predecessor Beniamino Stella and indicated that Pope Francis lost interest in loosening celibacy during his pontificate. The most objectionable thing about the cardinal is that during the synod in 2018 he expressed himself positively regarding the deal with China and the fact that Chinese bishops (one aligned with the communist party) got to attend the synod because of it.
Many of these new cardinals were named bishops, curial secretary or nuncio under the previous Popes. They have no strong connections to the Jesuits. There is little to nothing which make most veteran nuncios, or Asian, African or Middle Eastern bishops, sympathize with James Martin or share Parolin and Roche’s hatred for the Tridentine mass.
They are more inclined to agree with conservative African cardinals, such as Sarah, Arinze and Napier, or orthodox Asian prelates like Zen and Ranjith.
Surprising new orthodox voices
In 2022 and 2023 several firmly orthodox Africans were added including Ameyu and Rugambwa. This year only one new African got added to the college, but Francis compensated for it by adding three Eastern Europeans. He has also appointed more Latin Americans than he normally does (the first Latin American Pope usually isn’t too supportive of most of the bishops from his continent), but they are of a very hit and miss character. Finally, he has significantly increased the percentage of Asian cardinals and it’s here, that he has made his greatest contributions.
Goh from Singapore has strongly defended church doctrine on sexuality, criticized the rather oppressive atmosphere at the Synod on Synodality and advocates for communion in the hand. Da Silva from East Timor has likewise criticized LGBT- influence in his country and attended a conference critical of gender ideology, together with Goh and other conservative cardinals. Another ally of Goh, Sebastian Francis from Malaysia, was made cardinal in 2023. Similar to Goh, he expressed concerns regarding Amoris Laetitia in 2018 and has taken a more critical attitude towards China. Additionally, he has been more willing to call out intolerant Islam than Pope Francis.
Therefore, the last three consistories have in fact created a clear conservative South East Asian block and refreshed/strengthened the ranks of the Eastern European block, while adding a few conservatives or traditionalists from others parts of the world for good measure.
Eastern Europeans
Then there are the conservative prelates into whom people either don’t look enough to know are conservative, or about whom they assume they cannot be conservative because Francis appointed them, or from whom the views get misrepresented by commentators. Two prominent examples are Grzegorz Ryś from Poland and Ladislav Nemet from Serbia. Of Nemet it’s been claimed that he is pro-LGBT and pro women’s ordination, while Ryś has been criticized as an ecumenical pro-new evangelization Polish liberal, out of touch with the majority of conservative bishops from his home-country.
Rys indeed has been actively involved in ecumenics (much like John Paul II) and supportive of the new evangelization (just like Pope Benedict XVI), but he has also completely ignored Traditionis Custodes and celebrated the Tridentine Mass in the past.
On priestly celibacy he stated he agreed with Cardinal Müller. On pastoral care for those who follow fashionable sexual lifestyles contrary to the faith, including polygamy and LGBT- people, he praised the attitude of the African bishops.
Ryś reaffirmed in 2018 that “homosexual acts are always considered sinful” and he was in fact one of the chief authors of a document from the Polish bishops’ that reaffirmed Catholic teaching that, while those with homosexual inclinations must be respected, active homosexuality is morally wrong.
In October 2020, after Poland’s Constitutional Court decreed that eugenic abortion was unconstitutional and a series of violent pro-abortion protests spread across Poland, Ryś affirmed that the Church’s teaching on abortion was infallible during a retreat for university students.
In 2015 he reaffirmed Familiaris Consortio and spoke of pastoral care for the divorced remarried that explicitly did not involve the sacraments, but things like having them partake in charitable activities.
Previously, in 2014, he had affirmed that the traditional ban on communion for the divorced remarried was being preserved, while others forms of pastoral care (such as charitable activities) were possible for those in various de facto unions. He also defended Humanae Vitae as an innovative sex positive document and agreed with the preparatory document for the Synod on the Family that the concept of natural law was confusing in conveying sexual ethics in a modern context. Yet, he continued to uphold the Church ban on birth control and said that following one's conscience meant following God's law, he thought such sexual ethics could be better conveyed based on Revelation, specifically the example of the holy family, than natural law philosophy, and should not be presented as a simple list of commandments, but as part of a higher holistic ideal.
Nemet has not supported female ordination, only women becoming non-ordained deacons. He has emphasized towards Katholische.de that women’s involvement can vary per region, but that Rome must preserve unity on matters such as female deacons. He has explicitly rejected the notion that doctrine or morality can be decentralized.
In response to Fiducia Supplicans, Nemet stated that homosexual relationships cannot be blessed and that this isn’t just the case for Catholicism, but Eastern orthodoxy as well.
While some stated that he seemed to suggest church treatment, or blessings, can evolve based on engagement with the secular sciences, his actual engagement with scientific debates on these issues involved support for a ecumenical conference that used scientific arguments to reject gender ideology. Furthermore, he partook in a meeting with Eastern European protestants and Eastern Orthodox in 2007. One point of agreement that Nemet signed off on was:
7. We are convinced of the destructive nature of such tendencies in human rights interpretation as corrosion of the traditional notion of family, calls to acknowledge “same sex unions”, attempts to legalize drugs, assertions of moral suitability of abortions and euthanasia, “culture of death”, obtrusive propaganda of inter-ethnic and interreligious enmity, violence, laxity, homosexuality and other sins dangerous for both individual and society.
Nemet’s ecumenical outreach has rather consistently been in the vein of John Paul II, aimed at points of convergence with the Eastern Orthodox (and conservative Protestants) on sexual ethics, where there is a common ground in rejecting secularism and the sexual revolution. Not the Walter Kasper variety which throws Eastern Catholics under the bus in the name of appeasing Eastern Orthodox hardliners, while actually moving closer towards mainline liberal Protestantism.
Of both Nemet and Rys it can be accurately said that an Eastern European moderate or moderate liberal is still a Western conservative. They reject the German (and Belgian and Grech’s) synodal agenda and follow Pope Benedict XVI and Pope John Paul II in matters of sexual ethics and ecumenics and they don’t care for the hostility against the Tridentine mass of Parolin and Roche. They are supportive of Ukraine and not particularly supportive of strong gestures towards Kyrill and his pro-Putin version of Russian orthodoxy.
Add to this Ukrainian Catholic bishop Bychok who served the diaspore community in Australia, and Eastern Europeans are suddenly doing well during consistories after having been almost consistently ignored before 2023. Bychok is fully in line with the conservative orientation of the Ukrainian rite and even gave great praise to Cardinal Pell after being named cardinal.
Obscure and misunderstood orthodox cardinals
Marengo, who leads the missionary effort in Mongolia and was named a cardinal in 2022, revealed after his appointment that he was very critical of shamanism and pagan practices and thinks the next Pope should preserve tradition.
Bustillo from Corsica, named in 2023, has been a firmer supporter of the Tridentine mass and the FSSP, downplayed Fiducia Supplicans, spoke of homosexual relationships as a perverse situation where humble sinners who ask for a blessing can receive support and even allowed a youth group under his control to visit Assad-controlled Syria during a trip organized by far right group SOS Chrétiens d'Orient.
Chomalí, the new Archbishop of Santiago in Chile is from the old guard of the Pontifical Academy of Life and is a veteran Chilean bishop. The episcopacy in Chile has served as the counterpart to Pope Francis’ Argentinian Catholicism for decades and Chomali unapologetically stands for this conservative Catholic Chilean tradition. He has fiercely opposed abortion, artificial contraception, legal divorce, gay marriage, communion for the divorced remarried and stated that gay people shouldn’t have sex with each other, but live as brothers.
Finally, even Pablo Virgilio David, the president of the bishops’ conference of the Philippines, while rightly criticized for his extremely ‘confused’ interpretation of Judas’ betrayal, is a firm social conservative who is leading the Catholic opposition against the legalization of divorce in the Philippines, has partaken in pro-life and pro-family marches and indicated his disagreement with allowing married men who won’t be abstinent to be ordained priests.
This has not prevented Newwaysministry from describing him as pro-LGBT. The odd thing is, that he is called pro-LGBT based largely on two statements which reveal him to not be pro-LGBT at all, but instead just a very diplomatic conservative.
One claim is that he supported the SOGIE bill, an anti-discrimination law which would outlaw discrimination against LGBT identified people. He would supposedly have called it a Christian imperative to support it. In reality, he referenced the fact that the bishops’ conference had previously stated this (before he became vice-president), but instead he himself encouraged senators to listen to their constituents before making a decision. This was in spite of the fact that voting had already dragged and the bill would die in roughly a month. The conservative senate in the Philippines tend to kill bills from the more liberal lower house by not voting on them.
Telling senators to take their sweet time listening to the people and debate, when they have little time left before the bill lapses, is hardly supportive of the law. Instead, it is encouraging them to kill the bill through inaction, which is exactly what happened.
Another assertion is that he defended the fact that Pope Francis supported civil unions in an article in 2020.
If one actually read the whole article, he downplays/denies that Francis actually supported civil unions, emphasizes that Pope Francis is pastoral towards sinners, while leading them to conversion, that this would be similar to Jesus and would not deny that they were sinners.
The conservative senate has successfully held off civil unions, just as they did with the anti-discrimination bill, and are now doing with divorce, in spite of the Philippines having chosen two rather progressive men, Duterte and Marcos, who supported these initiatives, as presidents in a row. David has clearly helped sustain the status quo.
Conclusion
Pope Francis’ recent appointments give cause for optimism. Not a few bishops who reject the sexual revolution, false ecumenics and modernism have received the red hat. Zen, Burke and Sarah must enjoy receiving new allies. In a way, perhaps, Pope Francis has shown that God is in fact a God of surprises, and that the fact he didn’t die during surgery in 2021 has not become that bone for the modernists they probably expected.
