Marco Tosatti
Dear friends and enemies of Stilum Curiae, we offer to your attention this interview which L’Echo of Brussels has published with the author of this blog. Happy reading and please share.
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For 45 years, Marco Tosatti has been reporting on the lights and shadows of the Vatican. Based in Rome, until 2008 he was a Vatican correspondent for the national daily newspaper La Stampa. In the aftermath of Pope Francis’s death, he analyses for L’Echo the scenarios that await a Catholic Church that is in turmoil and greatly disoriented.
What kind of Church does Pope Francis leave behind?
The legacy of the Holy Father is a Catholic community throughout the world and a very confused and fragmented Vatican, with opposing and even irreconcilable visions. His pontificate certainly did not represent a period of unification. In a certain sense, it exacerbated the divisions and doctrinal and political rivalries within the Church.
What in particular are you talking about?
I could mention several important documents that he signed that have sparked very virulent controversy within the Catholic world. The post-synodal apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia of 2016, for example, opened the way to access to the sacraments for divorced people involved in a new attempted marital union. Several cardinals therefore wrote to Francis to express their dubia or formal questions. He never responded.
The same violent reactions followed his 2023 declaration Fiducia Supplicans, in which he called for the blessing of couples considered by the Church to be “in an irregular situation,” especially homosexual couples. The reticence of the African bishops was immediate and very violent…
And yet, he was a pontiff who did everything to promote openness and dialogue throughout the world…
Yes, but even in this case he was accused of having distorted the precepts of the Gospels. I am thinking, for example, of the Abu Dhabi Declaration, co-signed in 2019 with the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmed Al-Tayeb. This declaration paved the way towards religious pluralism. Yet in the Gospels we read that “Christ is the only Savior.” Francis’ impulses and decisions have profoundly destabilized the Church. And now we must deal with the consequences of his pontificate.
Is this why he is often described as a “revolutionary” Pope?
Yes, some admire his “revolutionary” side, others simply accuse him of having been a “heretic.” Personally, I think his pontificate has been punctuated by important declarations of intent in terms of reform, but actual structural changes have been very rare. I am thinking in particular of the place of women in the Church, the fight against sexual abuse and corruption, and the aborted crusade, promised from the very beginning of his pontificate in 2013, to clean up the Vatican finances.
In other words?
This economic reform, strongly desired by Francis, quickly became bogged down. Cardinal George Pell, appointed by the Pope to lead this great “cleanup,” often expressed his displeasure. Indeed, at times he was disowned even by the pontiff himself. Francis is therefore leaving this important task to whoever will be appointed as his successor.
In light of all these divisions, what will be the outcome of the next conclave?
I would very much like to know that myself! Let us remember what the saying is before every papal election: “Whoever enters the conclave as a pope leaves as a cardinal.” In fact, the outcome of this secular election very often contradicts predictions. Perhaps in the next few weeks, during the next vote, a candidate capable of reconciling the progressive and traditionalist souls of the Vatican will prevail. A candidate who is a sort of point of balance and mediation, capable of leading the Church out of the serious doctrinal, spiritual, political and vocational crisis it has been suffering from for several years
Many foreign cardinals have been named as possible successors to Francis…
Yes, and it is important to underline that Francis’s pontificate coincides with a very significant decline in vocations. But the success of a pope is measured precisely by the number of new priests ordained: young people inspired by the charisma and spiritual strength of the pontiff who governs from Rome. Today, most vocations are born in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. We could therefore predict, or even hope for, the election of an African or Asian Pope… It would be a symbol of vital impetus, of the rebirth of the Church. But this is not how choices are made in a conclave.
What logic will prevail in this next election?
A conclave is an eminently political process, influenced by the weight of secret interactions, power games and mysterious balances of power. Francis has created 108 of the 136 cardinal electors. We would therefore imagine the election of a progressive pontiff, capable of following the direction indicated during the last pontificate. But the cardinals created by the Pope often do not know each other. This will make the work of the next “general congregations” more difficult, as well as the identification of the successor to the throne of Peter.
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