Conclave to elect new pope to start on 7 May, Vatican says
Roman Catholic cardinals will meet in a secret conclave to elect the new leader of the global church from 7 May, the Vatican said on Monday.
The date was decided during a closed-door meeting of cardinals at the Vatican, the first since the funeral of Pope Francis on Saturday, a source said, speaking at the end of the gathering. An official announcement followed.
About 135 cardinals, all under the age of 80 and from across the world, are eligible to take part in the conclave and decide who should be the next leader of the 1.4-billion-member church.
The 16th-century Sistine Chapel, where conclaves are held, was closed to tourists on Monday to allow for preparations for the vote.
The two most recent conclaves, in 2005 and 2013, lasted two days. But the Swedish cardinal Anders Arborelius said on Monday he expected this conclave might take longer, as many of the cardinals appointed by Francis had never met one another before.
Francis had made a priority of appointing cardinals from places that had never had them, such as Myanmar, Haiti, and Rwanda. 'We don't know each other,' Arborelius said.
The earliest the conclave could have begun was 6 May. Starting it a day later means the cardinals will have slightly more time for general discussions ahead of the momentous ballot.
Sign up to Headlines Europe
A digest of the morning's main headlines from the Europe edition emailed direct to you every week day
after newsletter promotion
Francis, the pope since 2013, died aged 88 on 21 April. His funeral on Saturday and a procession through Rome to his burial place at the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore attracted crowds estimated at more than 400,000 people.
The German cardinal Walter Kasper told La Repubblica newspaper that the outpouring of mourners indicated that Catholics wanted the next pope to continue with Francis's reforming style of papacy.
Francis, the first pope from Latin America, largely tried to open up the often staid church to new conversations. He allowed debate on issues such as ordaining women as clergy and outreach to LGBTQ Catholics.
'The People of God voted with their feet,' said Kasper, who is 92 and will not take part in the conclave. 'I am convinced that we must go ahead in the footsteps of Francis.'
However, a bloc of conservative cardinals are expected to push back against this and seek a pope who reasserts traditions and restricts Francis's vision of a more inclusive church.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Spectator
6 hours ago
- Spectator
Imperialism still overshadows our intellectual history
Peter Watson begins his survey of the history of ideas in Britain with the assertion that the national mindset (which at that time was the English mindset) changed significantly after the accession of Elizabeth I. His book – a guide to the nature of British intellectual curiosity since the mid-16th century – begins there, just as England had undergone a liberation from a dominant European authority: the shaking off of the influence of the Roman Catholic church and the advent of the Reformation, and the new opportunities that offered for the people. He describes how a culture based largely on poetry and on the court of Elizabeth then redirected the prevailing intellectual forces of the time. This affected not just literature (Marlowe, Shakespeare and Jonson) but also helped develop an interest in science that grew remarkably throughout the next few centuries. The 'imagination' of Watson's title is not merely the creative artistic imagination, but also that of scientists and inventors and, indeed, of people adept at both. The book is, according to its footnotes, based on secondary sources, so those well read in the history of the intellect in Britain since the Reformation will find much that is familiar. There is the odd surprise, such as one that stems from the book's occasional focus on the British empire and the need felt today to discuss its iniquities. Watson writes that the portion of the British economy based on the slave trade (which must not be conflated with empire) was between 1 per cent and 1.4 per cent. He also writes that for much of the era of slavery the British had a non-racial view of it, since their main experience of the odious trade was of white people being captured by Barbary pirates and held to ransom. While this cannot excuse the barbarism endured by Africans shipped by British (and other) slavers across the Atlantic, it lends some perspective to a question in serious danger of losing any vestige of one. Watson does not come down on one side or the other in the empire debate, eschewing the 'balance sheet' approach taken by historians such as Nigel Biggar and Niall Ferguson; but he devotes too much of the last section of his book to the question, when other intellectual currents in the opening decades of the 21st century might have been more profitably explored, not least the continuing viability of democracy. Earlier on, he gives much space to an analysis of Edward Said, and questions such as whether Jane Austen expressed her antipathy to slavery sufficiently clearly in the novel Mansfield Park. But then some of Watson's own analyses of writers and thinkers are not always easily supported. He is better on the 18th century – dealing well with the Scottish enlightenment (giving a perfectly nuanced account of Adam Smith) and writers such as Burke and Gibbon – than he appears to be on the 19th. He gives Carlyle his due, but cites an article in a learned American journal from 40 years ago to justify his claim that Carlyle's 'reputation took a knock' in 1849 with the publication of his Occasional Discourse on the Negro Question. Watson says readers were offended by the use of the term 'Quashee' to describe a black man. They may well, if so, have been unsettled by the still less palatable title that the Discourse was subsequently given, which was The Nigger Question: it appeared thus in a 1853 pamphlet and in the Centenary Edition of Carlyle's works in 1899. That indicates the Discourse did Carlyle's reputation no lasting harm at the time, whatever it may have done since. In seeking to pack so much into fewer than 500 pages of text, Watson does skate over a few crucial figures. Some of his musings on empire might have been sacrificed to make more space for George Orwell, for example. A chapter in whose title his name appears features just one brief paragraph on him, about Homage to Catalonia, and later there is a page or so on Animal Farm, which says nothing new. Of Orwell's extensive and mould-breaking journalism there is nothing – somewhat surprising in a book about the British imagination when dealing with one of its leading exponents of the past century. Watson emphasises scientific discovery and innovation, and the effect on national life and ideas caused by the Industrial Revolution. These are all essential consequences of our intellectual curiosity, and he is right to conclude that the historic significance of Britain in these fields is immense. He includes league tables of Nobel prizewinners by nation in which Britain shows remarkably well. But these prizes are not the only means by which the contribution to civilisation and progress by a people are measured. There are notable omissions. Although Watson talks about the elitist nature of 'high culture' – such as Eliot and The Waste Land – he does not discuss how far the British imagination, and the British contribution to world civilisation, might have advanced had we taken the education of the masses more seriously earlier. We were, until the Butler Education Act of 1944, appalling at developing our human resources, and have not been much better since. It is surprising that there is no discussion of British music, one of the greatest fruits of the imagination of the past 150 years. And there is no analysis of the role of architecture, which, given its impact and its centrality to many people's idea of themselves as British, surely merited examination. The book shows extensive and intelligent reading, but trying to cram so much information and commentary into one volume has not been a complete success, or resulted in something entirely coherent.
Spectator
6 hours ago
- Spectator
My plan for Prevent
In the autumn of 1940, British cities were being bombed every night by large aeroplanes whose provenance was apparently of some considerable doubt. While the public almost unanimously believed the conflagrations to have been caused by the Luftwaffe, the authorities – right up to the government – refused to speculate. Indeed, when certain members of the public raised their voices and said 'This is all down to Hitler and Goering and the bloody Germans!', they received visits from the police who either prosecuted them for disturbing the peace or put their names on a list of possible extremists. The nights grew darker. The number of towns and cities subjected to these nightly bombardments widened. Very soon everybody in the country knew somebody whose home had been destroyed or who had themselves been killed. The government was forced to take action, and so in November 1940 it came up with what it called its 'Prevent' strategy, which aimed to protect British cities from further destruction. In the introduction to this new policy, civil servants listed possible vectors for these bombing raids and top of the list, by some margin, were the Slovaks. A senior intelligence officer told the public: 'The greatest threat to our nation today is from the Slovaks. We must train our people in how to spot Slovaks and report them to the police whenever they can.' The Germans were also mentioned, further down the list of possible perps, but the wording here was heavily caveated. Yes, some Germans may have been involved, but over all the German population was utterly devoted to peace and regretted the nightly infernos every bit as much as did the people who suffered under them. Our own air force was directed to drop its bombs on Bratislava, Kosice, Poprad and (the consequence of an understandable confusion over the names of the two countries) Maribor. And yet for some mystifying reason, the raids on Britain did not lessen. This seems to me exactly the response of our government(s) and most importantly of Prevent to the threat from Islamic terrorism. Let me be clear: I am not remotely comparing Muslims with Germans or Islam with National Socialism – I am simply saying that, in effect, this is what our government would have done in 1940 if it had been gripped by the same cringing witlessness and outright lying that possesses seemingly all of our authorities today when it comes to terrorist attacks upon the British people. You may be aware of the manifestly stupid quote from the Prevent halfwits that people who believe that 'western culture is under threat from mass migration and a lack of integration by certain ethnic and cultural groups' are cultural nationalists at risk of becoming the kind of extremists who end up murdering people. People who believe the above probably consist of 70 per cent of the British population and, if his latest speeches are anything to go by, include the Prime Minister. And yet this stuff pervades everything Prevent puts out, while at the same time exonerating Islam and in some cases even those Muslims who do become terrorists (because they have suffered, you see). If people who support Brexit or worry about immigration are extremists, you're going to get pretty high figures So, for example, Bolton council's useful 'Prevent' handbook singles out 'right-wing extremists' as being at the forefront of terror attacks in the UK, and these extremists include people who are cultural nationalists: 'Cultural nationalism is ideology characterised by anti-immigration, anti-Islam, anti-Muslim, anti-establishment narratives, often emphasising British/English 'victimhood' and identity under attack from a perceived 'other'.' Islamic terrorism is also mentioned – but, again, heavily caveated. Then there's Prevent's own list of people who were picked up under its guidelines: 45 per cent were related to extreme right-wing radicalisation (230); 23 per cent were linked to Islamist radicalisation (118); the rest were related to other radicalisation concerns, including incels and those at risk of carrying out school shootings. But then I suppose if people who proclaim their support for Brexit or worry a bit about immigration are extremists, you are going to get pretty high arrest figures. If you add into the mix the fact that simply to associate Islam with terrorism you are guilty of Islamophobia, then you can see why we're in the state we're in. Incidentally, when she was Prime Minister, Theresa May, to her credit, drafted a new introduction to the Prevent guidelines which made it clear that the biggest threat to British security was al Qaeda, not Tommy Robinson et al. But that message does not seem to have sunk in with those in Prevent. It seems almost pointless to run through the facts. The truth is that almost every fatal terrorist attack in Britain since 2001 has been perpetrated by Islamists. All bar three. Have these people got a twisted or perverted understanding of Islam, as Prevent insists? I haven't a clue. I am no Quranic expert. I'm just, y'know, taking their word for it. Further, 80 per cent of the Counter Terrorism Policing network's investigations are related to Islamism (2023). Some 75 per cent of MI5's surveillance cases are Islamists. There are around 40,000 potential jihadis being monitored by our security services. There is not the remotest doubt as to the provenance of the gravest terror threats to our country. It's not the shaven-headed nutters with swastika armbands. It is Islamists. Nigel Farage's answer is to sack everyone working in Prevent. That seems a perfectly reasonable suggestion. But I may have a better one. Scrap Prevent entirely and initiate a new network of monitoring and reporting which focuses solely on Islamic terrorism. Junk the sixth-form philosophising over what is meant by the term 'extremist' and locate the problem precisely where it is: somewhere within our Muslim communities, even if we accept that our Muslim communities may not want them there. In short, get real and tell the truth. This kind of approach worked pretty well 85 years ago.
NBC News
13 hours ago
- NBC News
Views of the U.S. under Trump dip sharply in many allied countries
Views of the U.S. and confidence in its leader to handle world affairs have taken a dive in more than a dozen countries over the last year, according to a poll from the Pew Research Center released Wednesday and conducted over the first few months of President Donald Trump's second term. These declines are most pronounced among residents in neighboring Mexico and Canada, which have been at the center of high-profile spats with the administration, as well as a handful of NATO countries (like Sweden, Poland and the Netherlands) amid it Russia's war with Ukraine. Public sentiment about the U.S. has gone up in a few countries over the last year, most notably in Israel. But most of the two-dozen countries surveyed saw public opinion about the U.S. dip as Trump began his second term. Overall, the poll shows an international community full of increased skepticism of Trump and his "America First" foreign policies, from his administration's antagonistic relationship with traditional close allies to its focus on tariffs to its friendly posture toward right-wing, populist movements that have been amassing more power in Europe. Yet while the results in many countries are negative, Trump's marks are broadly higher now in these nations than they were during the beginning of his first term eight years ago. Fifteen countries have seen significant drops in their opinion of America over the last year. In Mexico, 61% of respondents had a favorable opinion of the U.S. in 2024, but just 29% feel that way now. In Sweden, which joined NATO in 2024 following the Russian invasion of Ukraine two years prior, a 47% favorable rating of the U.S. last year plummeted to just 19% now, with 79% of Swedish respondents viewing America unfavorably. And in Canada, a 54% favorability mark in 2024 dropped 20 points in 2025, to 34%, amid Trump's repeated threats to make the country America's newest state. On the other end of the spectrum, the share of people in Turkey, Nigeria and Israel who rated the U.S. favorably increased significantly over the last year. When it comes to Trump specifically, a majority of respondents in five countries of the 24 surveyed said they have a lot or some confidence in the president to do the right thing when it comes to world affairs: Hungary, India, Israel, Nigeria and Kenya. Majorities in nine of the 10 European countries tested have either not too much or no confidence in Trump at all, with at least three-quarters of respondents saying so in the Netherlands, France, Spain, Germany and Sweden. Men, younger people and those who view their country's right-wing populist parties favorably are more likely to have more confidence in Trump. For example, 51% of Japanese people between the ages of 18 and 34 have confidence in Trump, according to the poll, while 31% of Japanese people 50 years or older say the same. In the United Kingdom, 45% of men say they have confidence in Trump, compared with 28% of women. Respondents across 13 nations registered a double-digit decline in confidence in the U.S. president on world affairs between 2024 and 2025. While 63% in both Sweden and Germany had confidence in then-President Joe Biden last year, just 15% and 18%, respectively, said they have confidence in Trump. The survey also tested how well respondents felt several different personal characteristics described Trump. At least 60% of adults across 21 of the 24 countries surveyed said the word "arrogant" described Trump well. Majorities in 20 countries said he's "a strong leader," while majorities in 21 countries called him "dangerous." Majorities in three countries (Nigeria, India and Kenya) said Trump was "honest," and majorities in five countries (Greece, Japan, Indonesia, Hungary and Kenya) called him "diplomatic." Compared with his first term, the share of people across most of the surveyed countries who see Trump as a strong leader and qualified has increased. There has also been a dramatic increase in the share of adults who believe America's president is "dangerous" in countries where Pew also tested Biden's first year in office. On confidence in Trump to tackle global economic problems, Trump is underwater in every European country surveyed, though Hungarians are effectively split. The survey was mostly conducted before Trump announced global tariffs on April 2. In Mexico, where the survey was conducted following weeks of changing tariff policies on the country, 83% lack confidence in Trump's economic policies. In Canada, which has faced similar targeting from Trump, 74% lack confidence, and 57% said they have no confidence at all. Majorities in three countries — Kenya (56%) and Nigeria and Israel (62% each) — have confidence in Trump to handle "the conflict between Israel and its neighbors." His numbers among the countries tested are the lowest in Turkey, where 7% are confident in his handling of the issue. Though a majority of Israelis expressed confidence in Trump's ability to handle the ongoing war, the poll found that confidence in Trump among right-wing Israelis is nearly four times higher, at 83%, compared with the 21% of left-wing Israelis who have confidence in Trump on the issue. Adults in most other countries said they were not confident in Trump's ability to handle the conflict. On Trump's handling of the Russia-Ukraine war, majorities in nearly all of the European countries surveyed, with the exception of Greece and Hungary, expressed little or no confidence in Trump. (Adults in Greece were split, and a narrow majority of Hungarians had at least some confidence in Trump to handle that conflict.) In France, Germany, Spain and Sweden, about three-quarters of adults said they had little or no confidence in Trump to handle the war. Pew polled 28,333 adults across 24 countries mostly over the phone or in person (Australia was the only country where people were polled online). The survey was in the field for various times across different countries between Jan. 8 and April 26. Polling in every country except Indonesia began after Trump's inauguration, but was either concluded or close to done by Trump's April 2 announcement of sweeping international tariffs.
