Early days

 These are of course early days, but I am already suspecting that the College of Cardinals have been rather clever. They have elected a man who shares many of Pope Francis' views —which may well be a good thing — but not Francis' personality which could be, well, arbitrary, to use one word. I could use other words. From what I read, our new Pope Leo is by contrast eirenic, which is just what we need. A reconciler, someone who can pour oil on troubled waters, who will, God willing, right some egregious injustices. As a canon lawyer, I expect he will make sure that the law is obeyed, and not change it to use as a club to beat people he has gone off. As a curial cardinal for a few years, he will know some of the inner workings of the Roman Curia and will be able to sniff out where the bodies are buried. And, God willing, he will root out those abusers who have been hidden in the Vatican and protected. And if I'm allowed to ask for a cherry on the cake, he will continue the late Cardinal Pell's attempts to reform the finances of the Vatican. 

He has spoken against the ordination of women, saying that it would cause more problems than it might solve, and also has given no indication that he favours change on the Church's policy about LGBT matters

It would be nice if he were to repeal Traditiones Custodes, but I doubt he would do anything quite so dramatic. However, I do expect it to become a dead letter, quietly forgotten. It would be sensible to reappoint all the heads of the various dicasteries for now, but I hope that some of them at least will be quietly shuffled off into retirement soon and replaced by others.

Election

Today I have read a lot of articles from the mainstream press predicting the election of one liberal candidate or another, This is, of course, simply an attempt to influence the outcome. I don't imagine that the Sacred College will be taking their cue from the press.

My vote

 Erik Varden

One pope dies, another comes along

 Well, he's gone, God rest his soul. And whatever our feelings might be, it is time now to say with the ancients, De mortuis, nil nisi bonum. As I said in an earlier post, God will be his judge, and mine.

I thought the funeral was impressive for many reasons, not least the fact that the Sistine Choir seems finally to have got its act together; they performed very creditably. The choice of music was good, though some of the new compositions, for those responsories, were a little peculiar; polyphonic verses in sharply different styles. Even the vestments were decent, as was the dignified ceremonial.

Attention has been drawn to the large crowd present. Indeed there was a very large crowd; it seemed to me much larger than the late Pontiff ever drew in his lifetime. Many in the media asserted it was a popular endorsement of his reign, especially by the young, who were there in number. I'm not so sure; it is still Holy Year and the weekend of the funeral was to have been dedicated to the young, many of whom travelled to Rome for that reason, and just happened coincide with the funeral. Cardinal Kasper (yes, he's still going!) commented that the size of the crowd was a clear sign, vox populi, vox Dei, that the entire Church is calling for a continuation of exactly the style of Pope Francis. Well, he's entitled to his opinion, but he might have remembered the even larger crowds at the funeral of Pope St John Paul. Was that also the voice of God calling for more of the same? And, look as I might, I did not see a single banner saying Santo subito this time round. No, I think it was simply that the funeral of a pope is one of those occasions that will naturally draw a crowd; these things are some of the turning points of history, and naturally people want to be there.

Much too has been said of the humility of Pope Francis' simple burial and tomb, in contrast to the magnificence of his predecessors'. I fail to see a significant difference between his tomb and the original tombs of Paul VI, JPII and Pope Benedict, except that Francis is buried in the body of the church and not in a crypt. But one mustn't overdo this or read too much into it.

As for the guests, well really it was an extraordinary turn-out of heads of state and royalty. I gather that the only state that did not send anybody important was Israel: the Israeli newspaper Haaretz pointed out acidly that whereas countries like even Iran and the Gulf states managed to make a good showing, Israel cared little enough only to send its own ambassador who presumably had to be there anyway. We all know about the Trump and Zelenskyy meeting, which will hopefully bear some good result, but I'm sure that a lot of other meetings will have taken place; there can be few occasions when so many of the great and good are together in one place.

And now we await the conclave. Now the world knows far more about how these things happen, thanks to the movie. That should save us having to confront the stranger opinions about what the cardinals get up to. 

I read that some cardinals visited an ice cream parlour a day or so ago, and were bemused that the group of young people they encountered there dropped to their knees and asked the cardinals' blessing. That perhaps is a surer indication of the sort of pontificate they desire than speculation that their mere presence at the funeral could be taken as wanting to continue the policies of the late Holy Father.