Papal contender Parolin is a soft-spoken, longtime Vatican diplomat

TimesLIVE

05-05-2025

If the catholic cardinals entering the conclave to elect a successor to Pope Francis are looking for a steady administrator to run the church and bring calm after three consecutive papacies that were at times tempestuous, they may look no further than Pietro Parolin.
On nearly every media shortlist of papal contenders, Parolin has been the Vatican's secretary of state for the past 12 years, effectively the number two position in the church. He is also the Vatican's top diplomat. The two roles mean Parolin — a 70-year-old from a small town in Italy's deeply catholic northern Veneto region — is perhaps the candidate best known to the 133 cardinal electors who will enter the Sistine Chapel for the start of the secret conclave on Wednesday.
Cardinals who have visited Rome from around the world on church business have met him and he has visited most of their countries. Two cardinals from two African countries, for example, probably know Parolin just as well or even better than they know each other. Under Francis, who died on April 21, the number of occasions all the world's cardinals could meet together in Rome was limited. 'We have to get to know each other' has been a common refrain to reporters from otherwise tight-lipped cardinals entering and leaving pre-conclave meetings known as 'General Congregations'.
Parolin is seen as a quiet diplomat who is pragmatic more than conservative or progressive. He occasionally had to quietly put out fires caused by the late pope's remarks.
Francis, an Argentine who was the first pope from the Americas, gave media interviews and sometimes spoke off the cuff in public.
'He [Parolin] knows how to take a punch for the number one and for the institution,' said one cleric based abroad who has worked with him and has known him for many years, who asked not to be identified because of the secretive nature of the conclave. One such recent occasion was when the late pope suggested last year that Israel's military campaign in Gaza might amount to genocide.
Parolin agreed to meet then-Israeli ambassador to the Vatican Raphael Schutz, who told him Israel wanted the pope to say more about Israel's right to defend itself. When Francis said Ukraine should have the 'courage of the white flag' to end the war there, the comment drew widespread criticism from allies of Kyiv but was hailed by Russia. Parolin quietly told diplomats the pope meant negotiations, not surrender.