April 21, 2025 • 12 mins
Pope Francis died early Monday. After nine days of mourning, the process of choosing a new pontiff to lead the Roman Catholic Church will begin. We speak with Dr. Stephen Okey, head of the Doctor of Theology program at St. Leo University near Tampa, to explain what's ahead.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Gordon Bird here Beyond the News. The news is already
several hours old as we record this, and you've probably
heard by this point that Pope Francis died Monday morning
at the age of eighty eight. He had been the
head of the Roman Catholic Church for twelve years. And
there's a period of mourning now and then there will
be a conclave to choose a new pontiff. Doctor Stephen
Ok is the director of Saint Leo University's Doctor of
(00:22):
Theology program, and he joins us to talk about what
is next. Doctor Oki, thank you very much for joining
us on Beyond the News.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
If you could start with the timeline of the process
of mourning for Pope Francis, how long that goes on,
and what's going to be happening during that period.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Sure, so, after the death of the Pope, there's first
a period of mourning that last nine days. It's called
the Novemdi allies and during this period Number one will
have the funeral for Pope Francis, which will likely occur
this weekend.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
It's typically four to six days after the death.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
That is meant to give time for dignitaries as well
as cardinals to arrive in Rome have their own period
of you know, mourning and also to attend the funeral.
And so I think especially it's important as we think about,
you know, what comes next, what's going on, that this
is a time for you know, Catholics worldwide, Christians, all
people of goodwill to pray for the repose that filled
(01:22):
Francis and soul, even before we start looking to what
might come next. Following the nine days of mourning, we'll
have what are called general congregations, and this is a
period of up to about a week where the cardinals
who will be going into conclave together as well as
other cardinals who will not be voting, have an opportunity
(01:43):
to meet and discuss the concerns of the church, what
they think the church needs in the next pope, and
even possibly sometimes they might discuss you know, potential individuals,
although that part can is typically frowned upon, especially if
you're advocating for yourself. The actual conclave will begin by
law somewhere between fifteen and twenty days after the death
(02:07):
of the pope, and so I think for us that'll
mean it'll be either May between May fifth and May tenth,
I think is when the conclave will actually begin.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
So, now a lot of us, a lot of our
listeners have seen the movie Conclave. I obviously took a
lot of dramatic liberties to create conflict and drama, But
in terms of the way the process of choosing a
pope was depicted, how close is that to what really
goes on in a conclave?
Speaker 2 (02:35):
I will confess I haven't actually watched the movie yet,
and so I'm not the best person for this question,
but from what I have read, in terms of the
actual process, a lot of it is pretty accurate. And
so when the actual conclave begins, the cardinals will celebrate
Mass together, but then they will process into the Sistine Chapel.
They will sing and chant the Liturgy of the Saints,
(02:58):
and then he creats ournts as they go. Once they're
in there, you know, they'll have the one of the
cardinals will give a speech and then they'll declare extra
omnase and all the sort of unnecessary people will leave
the chapel.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
And it will be locked with the key.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
So conclave conklave means with the key, and then process wise,
three of the cardinals will be selected kind of by
lot to count votes, and the way that the cardinals
will vote is they have a little like an index
card that says I vote for Supreme Pontiff. They'll write
(03:37):
a name. Those will be submitted. The cardinals will count
to make sure that there's the right number of votes,
and then assuming it's the correct number of votes, they'll
go through. The three cardinals who are doing the counting
will each write down the name. The last one will
say it as they go through each of these cards,
and then when they're done, they'll tally up and see
(03:57):
what the number is, and if the number is a
two thirds majority, then that person will be elected pope.
If not, the ballots will end up doing another ballot.
In either case, the ballots are burned. This is where
we get the famous black smoke or white smoke following
either an unsuccessful ballot or the election of a vote.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Now, by the way, how many cardinals are actually going
to be voting on the new pope.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
My understanding is the current number of cardinals under the
age of eighty is one hundred and thirty five, and
so they have to be under the age of eighty
when the seat becomes vacant, so not by the time
the conclave starts, but anyone who is under eighty as
of today in the College of Cardinals is eligible to vote.
Now we're aware of we don't know, I'll say, we
(04:47):
don't know for sure that all of them will make
it to the conclave. So even in the past two
conclaves there were a couple who did not attend for
a variety of reasons.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Now we're aware of how this is perceived from the outside.
How do the cardinals view themselves if you have any
insight as far as the choice they have to make
and how they are perceiving themselves as how they make
this choice, that's.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
A great question, And as someone who is not a cardinal,
it's hard to say with any certainty kind of what's
going through their mind. There's another movie about a conclave
called We Have a Pope, and there's this wonderful scene
when they're doing voting, and it shows kind of the
inner monologues of a bunch of the men in the room,
and many of them are saying something to the effect of,
(05:35):
please don't let it be me. And so I suspect
there's a great number of cardinals who very much do
not want to be the pope, and there have in
the past been cardinals who have essentially said, if you
elect me, I will say no, and so then they don't,
you know, no one votes for them any Further, there's
(05:56):
of course probably some who want it, and there's probably
a great many who are willing to serve as asked.
I think one challenge that we have is, you know,
the sort of closest thing we have in the US
and politics is the presidential election, and in which you have,
you know, candidates who very desperately, profoundly want to be
(06:17):
the president.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
And I don't think that that's the case. Number two.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Uh, there's always this question, and I've been asked this
already today.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
You know who's going to be the next pope? Who
are the big candidates?
Speaker 2 (06:29):
And there's betting sites that have, you know, projections and
things like that, and the truth is, no one really knows.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
And it's really prematured, I think too. I mean, I
know the conclave is coming, but even.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Now it's sort of pree mature to ask, and so
it's very hard to guess, and that there's going to
be more than two possibilities, and you know, we don't
always really know where it's going to go and so
we've had surprises, even in the last three conclaves, you know,
there have been a variety of surprises that people weren't
sort of predicting.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
And then the other thing.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
And this is another way in which I think the
comparison with you know, US politics is helpful is that,
you know, in US politics, we tend to see things
very much in terms of, you know, more liberal candidates,
more conservative candidates. That's kind of our framework. And the
thing is, it's not a very good framework for thinking
about papal elections and papal questions because even someone like
(07:23):
Pope Francis, who is remembered by many as being sort
of quote unquote liberal in certain respects and so you know,
more open to you know, lgbt Q Catholics, for example,
he's also remains what we would say, quote unquote conservative
on issues like abortion, and so he doesn't really fit
very easily into the political categories that we have. And frankly,
(07:48):
neither did Benedict the sixteenth and neither did John Paul
the second. And so when we're thinking about what is
going through the minds of the cardinals, they are not
thinking about this the way that you know, we who
follow us elections would might be thinking about it. They
very much are going to be concerned about, you know,
what is the direction the church is going, what are
(08:09):
the challenges the church faces in terms of sharing the
Gospel and the contemporary world, and what are the you know,
the skills and you know, personal attributes they want to
see in the next successor of Saint Peter. And so,
you know, one of the things that people have highlighted
about Pope Francis in terms of those is he had
(08:30):
a really strong sense of the pope as a pastor,
as a shepherd of the people. This came out, you know,
the day he was elected, and he you know, as
the Bishop of Rome, not just the pope, but the
Bishop of Rome, as the people of the Diocese of
Rome to pray for him as their new bishop. We
see this in the way that he interacts with people
whenever he was out in Saint Peter's square, or when
(08:52):
he went to hospitals, or when he went to prisons
to watch beate. Is this really strong pastoral sensibility, and
he had that whenever he was selecting people to become
bishops or to become cardinals. He would often highlight his
sense of you must be a pastor, you must be
a shepherd for the people, and so that that was him.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
That was a big part of his personality.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
And the question is, you know, are the cardinals who
will gather in a few weeks to find his successor
will they look for someone who is like that?
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Will they look for someone who is more of a
sort of, you know, theological heavyweight.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
The way Cardinal Ratslinger became the sixteenth was you know,
we don't know, frankly.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
And I'll ask you this to sum it up before
we go. When this process is done, and when a
new pope is chosen, how much does that change the
issues that are facing the church, and that whoever the
new pope is is going to be facing along with
the more than one billion Roman Catholics around the world.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
The great question. It changes some things and it doesn't
change others. And let me explain. So for example, one
of the issues of concern that is really associated with
Pope Francis is concerned about the environment and ecological concerns,
and he releases in twenty fifteen the in cyclical Laudatoci,
which is very much focused on ecology, and some might
(10:23):
see that as sort of a new emphasis. But in
doing so they forget that during his papacy, Benetta sixteenth
was called the Green Pope. He was someone also very
much concerned about this. However, the emphasis was much stronger
under Francis's papacy, and so in that regard a concern
became more pronounced than it had previously, and maybe more
(10:43):
polarized than it had been previously. In other respects, some
of the things that Francis did that are probably new the.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Last several years.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
The focus on the synod on sinidelity and the idea
of the church as a listening body in a way
that includes not just the hierarchy of the church, but
the whole body of the church is something that is
very near, It has been very near and dear to
Francis's heart, but that in many ways does break ground
away from you know, his predecessors as pope. And so
(11:16):
I would say the big one of the big questions
that many people have going into this next conclave is
how will Francis' priorities in terms of sinidelity, in terms
of concerns for dialogue with and listening to the wider
world and seeing how the Holy Spirit is moving in
the wider world. That will be one of the big
(11:37):
questions is whether the next pope is someone who continues
on that concern and that the sonodal path, or someone
who turns a different direction.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Doctor Stevenoki, director of the Doctor of Theology program at
Saint Leo University, just a few miles to the north
of Tampa. Of course, they have satellite campuses and students
in all corners of the country and elsewhere. Doctor Roki,
thank you very much for joining us on beyond the News.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
Thank you very much.
Gordon Bird here Beyond the News. The news is already
several hours old as we record this, and you've probably
heard by this point that Pope Francis died Monday morning
at the age of eighty eight. He had been the
head of the Roman Catholic Church for twelve years. And
there's a period of mourning now and then there will
be a conclave to choose a new pontiff. Doctor Stephen
Ok is the director of Saint Leo University's Doctor of
(00:22):
Theology program, and he joins us to talk about what
is next. Doctor Oki, thank you very much for joining
us on Beyond the News.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
If you could start with the timeline of the process
of mourning for Pope Francis, how long that goes on,
and what's going to be happening during that period.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Sure, so, after the death of the Pope, there's first
a period of mourning that last nine days. It's called
the Novemdi allies and during this period Number one will
have the funeral for Pope Francis, which will likely occur
this weekend.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
It's typically four to six days after the death.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
That is meant to give time for dignitaries as well
as cardinals to arrive in Rome have their own period
of you know, mourning and also to attend the funeral.
And so I think especially it's important as we think about,
you know, what comes next, what's going on, that this
is a time for you know, Catholics worldwide, Christians, all
people of goodwill to pray for the repose that filled
(01:22):
Francis and soul, even before we start looking to what
might come next. Following the nine days of mourning, we'll
have what are called general congregations, and this is a
period of up to about a week where the cardinals
who will be going into conclave together as well as
other cardinals who will not be voting, have an opportunity
(01:43):
to meet and discuss the concerns of the church, what
they think the church needs in the next pope, and
even possibly sometimes they might discuss you know, potential individuals,
although that part can is typically frowned upon, especially if
you're advocating for yourself. The actual conclave will begin by
law somewhere between fifteen and twenty days after the death
(02:07):
of the pope, and so I think for us that'll
mean it'll be either May between May fifth and May tenth,
I think is when the conclave will actually begin.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
So, now a lot of us, a lot of our
listeners have seen the movie Conclave. I obviously took a
lot of dramatic liberties to create conflict and drama, But
in terms of the way the process of choosing a
pope was depicted, how close is that to what really
goes on in a conclave?
Speaker 2 (02:35):
I will confess I haven't actually watched the movie yet,
and so I'm not the best person for this question,
but from what I have read, in terms of the
actual process, a lot of it is pretty accurate. And
so when the actual conclave begins, the cardinals will celebrate
Mass together, but then they will process into the Sistine Chapel.
They will sing and chant the Liturgy of the Saints,
(02:58):
and then he creats ournts as they go. Once they're
in there, you know, they'll have the one of the
cardinals will give a speech and then they'll declare extra
omnase and all the sort of unnecessary people will leave
the chapel.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
And it will be locked with the key.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
So conclave conklave means with the key, and then process wise,
three of the cardinals will be selected kind of by
lot to count votes, and the way that the cardinals
will vote is they have a little like an index
card that says I vote for Supreme Pontiff. They'll write
(03:37):
a name. Those will be submitted. The cardinals will count
to make sure that there's the right number of votes,
and then assuming it's the correct number of votes, they'll
go through. The three cardinals who are doing the counting
will each write down the name. The last one will
say it as they go through each of these cards,
and then when they're done, they'll tally up and see
(03:57):
what the number is, and if the number is a
two thirds majority, then that person will be elected pope.
If not, the ballots will end up doing another ballot.
In either case, the ballots are burned. This is where
we get the famous black smoke or white smoke following
either an unsuccessful ballot or the election of a vote.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Now, by the way, how many cardinals are actually going
to be voting on the new pope.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
My understanding is the current number of cardinals under the
age of eighty is one hundred and thirty five, and
so they have to be under the age of eighty
when the seat becomes vacant, so not by the time
the conclave starts, but anyone who is under eighty as
of today in the College of Cardinals is eligible to vote.
Now we're aware of we don't know, I'll say, we
(04:47):
don't know for sure that all of them will make
it to the conclave. So even in the past two
conclaves there were a couple who did not attend for
a variety of reasons.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Now we're aware of how this is perceived from the outside.
How do the cardinals view themselves if you have any
insight as far as the choice they have to make
and how they are perceiving themselves as how they make
this choice, that's.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
A great question, And as someone who is not a cardinal,
it's hard to say with any certainty kind of what's
going through their mind. There's another movie about a conclave
called We Have a Pope, and there's this wonderful scene
when they're doing voting, and it shows kind of the
inner monologues of a bunch of the men in the room,
and many of them are saying something to the effect of,
(05:35):
please don't let it be me. And so I suspect
there's a great number of cardinals who very much do
not want to be the pope, and there have in
the past been cardinals who have essentially said, if you
elect me, I will say no, and so then they don't,
you know, no one votes for them any Further, there's
(05:56):
of course probably some who want it, and there's probably
a great many who are willing to serve as asked.
I think one challenge that we have is, you know,
the sort of closest thing we have in the US
and politics is the presidential election, and in which you have,
you know, candidates who very desperately, profoundly want to be
(06:17):
the president.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
And I don't think that that's the case. Number two.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Uh, there's always this question, and I've been asked this
already today.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
You know who's going to be the next pope? Who
are the big candidates?
Speaker 2 (06:29):
And there's betting sites that have, you know, projections and
things like that, and the truth is, no one really knows.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
And it's really prematured, I think too. I mean, I
know the conclave is coming, but even.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Now it's sort of pree mature to ask, and so
it's very hard to guess, and that there's going to
be more than two possibilities, and you know, we don't
always really know where it's going to go and so
we've had surprises, even in the last three conclaves, you know,
there have been a variety of surprises that people weren't
sort of predicting.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
And then the other thing.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
And this is another way in which I think the
comparison with you know, US politics is helpful is that,
you know, in US politics, we tend to see things
very much in terms of, you know, more liberal candidates,
more conservative candidates. That's kind of our framework. And the
thing is, it's not a very good framework for thinking
about papal elections and papal questions because even someone like
(07:23):
Pope Francis, who is remembered by many as being sort
of quote unquote liberal in certain respects and so you know,
more open to you know, lgbt Q Catholics, for example,
he's also remains what we would say, quote unquote conservative
on issues like abortion, and so he doesn't really fit
very easily into the political categories that we have. And frankly,
(07:48):
neither did Benedict the sixteenth and neither did John Paul
the second. And so when we're thinking about what is
going through the minds of the cardinals, they are not
thinking about this the way that you know, we who
follow us elections would might be thinking about it. They
very much are going to be concerned about, you know,
what is the direction the church is going, what are
(08:09):
the challenges the church faces in terms of sharing the
Gospel and the contemporary world, and what are the you know,
the skills and you know, personal attributes they want to
see in the next successor of Saint Peter. And so,
you know, one of the things that people have highlighted
about Pope Francis in terms of those is he had
(08:30):
a really strong sense of the pope as a pastor,
as a shepherd of the people. This came out, you know,
the day he was elected, and he you know, as
the Bishop of Rome, not just the pope, but the
Bishop of Rome, as the people of the Diocese of
Rome to pray for him as their new bishop. We
see this in the way that he interacts with people
whenever he was out in Saint Peter's square, or when
(08:52):
he went to hospitals, or when he went to prisons
to watch beate. Is this really strong pastoral sensibility, and
he had that whenever he was selecting people to become
bishops or to become cardinals. He would often highlight his
sense of you must be a pastor, you must be
a shepherd for the people, and so that that was him.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
That was a big part of his personality.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
And the question is, you know, are the cardinals who
will gather in a few weeks to find his successor
will they look for someone who is like that?
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Will they look for someone who is more of a
sort of, you know, theological heavyweight.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
The way Cardinal Ratslinger became the sixteenth was you know,
we don't know, frankly.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
And I'll ask you this to sum it up before
we go. When this process is done, and when a
new pope is chosen, how much does that change the
issues that are facing the church, and that whoever the
new pope is is going to be facing along with
the more than one billion Roman Catholics around the world.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
The great question. It changes some things and it doesn't
change others. And let me explain. So for example, one
of the issues of concern that is really associated with
Pope Francis is concerned about the environment and ecological concerns,
and he releases in twenty fifteen the in cyclical Laudatoci,
which is very much focused on ecology, and some might
(10:23):
see that as sort of a new emphasis. But in
doing so they forget that during his papacy, Benetta sixteenth
was called the Green Pope. He was someone also very
much concerned about this. However, the emphasis was much stronger
under Francis's papacy, and so in that regard a concern
became more pronounced than it had previously, and maybe more
(10:43):
polarized than it had been previously. In other respects, some
of the things that Francis did that are probably new the.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Last several years.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
The focus on the synod on sinidelity and the idea
of the church as a listening body in a way
that includes not just the hierarchy of the church, but
the whole body of the church is something that is
very near, It has been very near and dear to
Francis's heart, but that in many ways does break ground
away from you know, his predecessors as pope. And so
(11:16):
I would say the big one of the big questions
that many people have going into this next conclave is
how will Francis' priorities in terms of sinidelity, in terms
of concerns for dialogue with and listening to the wider
world and seeing how the Holy Spirit is moving in
the wider world. That will be one of the big
(11:37):
questions is whether the next pope is someone who continues
on that concern and that the sonodal path, or someone
who turns a different direction.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Doctor Stevenoki, director of the Doctor of Theology program at
Saint Leo University, just a few miles to the north
of Tampa. Of course, they have satellite campuses and students
in all corners of the country and elsewhere. Doctor Roki,
thank you very much for joining us on beyond the News.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
Thank you very much.
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